MURTHA'S TRIATHLON BLOG

Halfway through the off-season Run Training Block

2011-12-01T22:58:00.001-05:00

Hello Everyone!

I hope all of you have had a great week! Also I hope everyone's Thanksgiving holiday was amazing, for those of you who observe that holiday. I was pretty happy with my food intake for this holiday, and did not feel the need to complete two-a-day workouts or anything to get back down to pre-Turkey day weight.

So I will confess. I made it all of a week before my body/mind felt the need to work out again. I know that you SAY you will take a few weeks off... and you SAY that you are going to blow off the whole off season after completing a late-year IM... However, that following Saturday (or Sunday, I will have to go back and look at my training log), an eerie thought crept into my brain.

"(voice in my head)Hey Andy! You know what would be a good idea?"
"No. What would be a good idea? Eating Zaxby's and watching football?"
"Wow. Good call on the Zaxby's, but not that is not what I was thinking."
"OK then, what gives?"
"I feel like running today."
"You what!?!? We just completed a 140.6 mile race not a week ago, and did an easy short recovery jog on Tuesday, and you want to RUN?!?!"
"Yup."
........
"OK then, lemme go find my shoes. We'll knock out 4 miles or so, but let's not get crazy."

Awesomeness is what happened that day. Working out with no agenda. Running just for the hell of it. And then the next day, then the next, and the day after that. A few more days, and then I decided to take some days off. Not because I needed it, not because my legs needed recovery, but solely because I wanted to take the time off. I had a wedding to attend, we had our annual Friends-giving party at the house, I had to get some yard work done so that the entire yard did not look like one big leaf pile. It is the off-season, I can do as I please ;)

Then Thanksgiving week I really got back into the swing of things. Short runs, a long run, tempo runs, intervals, the whole shebang. Got another 4 days in and then took a day off. Then I just finished up today with my next 4 days and tomorrow is gonna be a day off. I will still do something tomorrow (spin class, hot yoga, etc) but no agenda.

The other day, I decided I had enough runs in the last couple of weeks that I was going to make this an official run training block. Look at me, trying to make my own training plan and stuff! The cool thing about it, is that there is no structure! You may think, training block with no structure? How is that possible. Well I have some goals, where I want my long runs to be, interval workouts, tempo goals, but I am not gonna push the envelope and say this needs to be done this day, in this way, at this time, for this effort. Looking at the next two weeks (approximately), I will get in another 12 days of running and 3 off days.

After that, I am gonna taper back just a bit so I can start working in some bike work and I would like to plan to make either January or February a Bike Focused Training Block. Swimming I am gonna start back with next week and just make it two days a week for now, just so that I am doing it. Sure it is my worst discipline, but I feel as if I still have enough room to improve on the bike and the run to focus on that for now. Yes, yes, I am probably in some way just ignoring what really needs to be focused on, the swim, but this is my off-season, and I want to be happy and have fun! If that means skimping on the swim during the winter, then so be it!

Back to running. Last night I went to West Stride and saw Wil. We had a pretty good conversation and he hooked me up with a few pairs of shoes. I want to take a moment out to thank Wil and Genie for everything they have done with regards to West Stride. I remember when that store opened, Genie was my bank customer at the time, and I was really excited for her. The store has done really well over the past few years and made a name for itself in the Atlanta area. I have made sure that I buy my shoes and most of my other running-specific accessories from them. If you live in the Atlanta area, you should definitely go visit them next time you are in need of a new pair of running shoes, apparel, or even want to head out on a group run.

I know that there have been advances in technology and there are a few things that I would like to at least try on, but in the end, I have learned my lesson the hard way. "Don't fix it if it ain't broke!" So these are my TWO new pairs of shoes.

The pair on the left are the Asics GT-2170's (2012 model) and the pair on the right are going to be my winter pair of Asics GT-2160's (2011 model) I began breaking in the 2160's today so I will most likely have a gear report for them in the next few weeks. I don't plan on wearing the 2170's right now, however, since they are the current year model and I know that some people may already own them, I will go ahead and break those in as well and try to get a report out on those by the beginning of the year.

Asics needs to love me ;) My shoe review for them is one of the highest viewed posts on my blog ever, I would probably say top 5 if I go look at this point (saved my place to go look..........). Oh, it is by FAR the MOST VIEWED POST since Blogger began tracking stats a couple years ago. My blog has been around since 2006 and I think they began tracking stats around 2009-2010. And I am going to be posting 2 new shoe reviews for them within about a month! Asics, you need to get on it, I have been a loyal user since your GT-2120's in 2007, and my last shoe review is the MOST VIEWED POST on my blog! Lol :D

For all you racers in the Southern Hemisphere, I am sure you are really amped about the race season being underway. I hope you have some really great races lined up, and I can't wait to hear about them.

I have been getting caught up on blogs this week, but it is slow because I like to read about everyone, rather then focusing on a few people. No worries, I will get to everyone who is on my reading list.

Have a great weekend!

Ford Ironman Florida 2011 Pictures!!!

2011-11-27T20:53:00.001-05:00

Hey Everyone!

I hope all of you had a great Turkey Day, and for those of you who don't celebrate, I hope that you had a great weekend!

I thought I would post my pictures from the event. There are a couple more that I am trying to get a hold of, but until then. This is what I got. Don't laugh too hard at the finisher photos! I mentioned what happened in part 3 of my race report at the finish line.

Mike (left in both pics) and I on Thursday morning right after I arrived and took my stuff upstairs to the condo. Gotta get that open water swim practice in before the big race. Hopefully the water won't be that choppy on race day. There were a number of jellies about 250 yards out and the radio on the way in was saying that there were huge blooms of jellyfish not too far away.

Mike and I on Friday morning for one last swim before race day. Water was not quite as bad on Friday compared to Thursday. Met a couple random participants on the way back to the condo and chatted with them about the race.

Friday afternoon prior to the Blogger meetup with John, Wes, and I. Not a bad looking bunch of guys!

Wes took a couple photos of me sitting outside the main venue, the Boardwalk Beach Resort. Even with my Rev3 visor on, I was squinting so bad an ended up having to take some headache medicine in the afternoon when I got back to the condo. I think some of the WTC folk weren't too happy that I was sporting a competitor's series visor, but there is nothing like some healthy competition to make all the race series better for all athletes.

It's the Blogger meetup for IMFL 2011!!! It was great to meet people that I already followed and followed me, and to meet new bloggers and friends who share in the same activity that I am passionate about. :) From left to right; (front) Matt and Heather. (rear) Kristine, Mandy, Wes, Colleen, Laura, John, ME, and Kristin.

Race morning! Snagged a good picture of me headed into transition to drop off everything, get marked, and prep for the race. Two cups of coffee and some good sleep gets you a smile like that!

After hitting the head for a third time prior to the race, I donned my wetsuit and randomly run into Wes and Dee Dee who are there to watch the swim start, and were there to spectate the entire race.

Heading out of the water into T1. This is the theme of my entire day for my race pictures. Always behind someone or someone is in the way. Lol! Here are another couple photos of me heading out of the water as well. Wetsuit strippers were quick and nimble and I was out of the suit fast. Of course it helps when you volunteered as a wetsuit stripper the year before and know how it goes.

Headed out of T1 and just getting out on the bike. Melissa got the pic of me headed out and got my rear end heading out.

Wes got a pic of me just after the turnaround (left) and then a pic of me headed on the way back in on the bike. The Dermatone definitely helped me from getting burned out on the bike and the run!

Headed out from T2 feeling pretty good, and then Mel got a pic of me at mile marker #1, still feeling OK.

Just after mile marker #3, the wheels were falling off with regards to my legs (at least no leg cramps this race!) and my stomach, but I still somehow kept a smile on my face. Mike caught up to me about a mile down the road.

Mike and I after we met up, finishing the first loop. The turnaround is at the back of the picture, one more lap to go! I was getting a pep talk from Mike's father who I am looking at standing out of the picture. Tri-PTC was posted up just past mile one, which was only a couple hundred yards after the turnaround as well. I got to see April as well on the second lap back in as she was out there cheering people on! She had entered in Beach to Battleship Full the week before and she got 2nd place! Way to go April, and thanks for cheering us on!

Mike and I headed into the finisher's chute.

Andy Murtha, you are an IRONMAN (again)!!!

Post Race Finisher's photos!

There were some other photos, however, these were the best that I have. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do. Have a great rest of your evening and weekend. Look forward to reading more of your stories, as well as composing more of my own.

Ford Ironman Florida, November 5, 2011 (Part 3)

2011-11-13T14:36:00.001-05:00

So here we are, into the last post for this race report. I will do another post after this one of just pictures from the weekend including the race. Let's get this party started.

The Run

After coming off of the bike and out of T2 I felt good. The cramp in my left leg had started to go away, and I had definitely fueled up for the run between the last few miles on the bike and what I took in during T2. I was probably pushing somewhere between a 9:30-10:00/mile pace for close to the first mile. I was feeling pretty good.

And then the wheels started to fall off...

Between the last 30 minutes of the bike where I was cramming down the nutrition I did not evenly space out, the gel and the half PBJ in T2, the fact that I was taking something in every aid station (besides just water) for the first three miles, and that I had not had the amount of electrolytes I needed in the last hour and a half, my stomach and body started to shut down. Between miles 2 and 3, I was in walk/run mode, more walking than running. My stomach was doing back flips, and every time I got into jogging, I felt like I was going to get sick. Add to that my lack of training due to graduate school this last year (doing both of those at the same time = bad idea!) and I was also plain worn out.

Needless to say this is where my mental game went south. I had already compartmentalized the entire day into pieces, and I was doing the same on the run. Out and back two times for the run = 4 segments. However only halfway through the first segment and the darkness started creeping into my brain.

Looking back at all of the races I have ever finished, which are all of them (there was only one I have pulled out of due to injury, but that was before race day) I have never "thought" I would DNF a race. I have done races at all conventional distances. Some were great finishes, and some not so great. However, this was the first time I thought I would not finish. Mentally I was in a BAD place. I have never had anxiety issues in my life, and I have never been clinically depressed, but in the next few miles I think I went through all of these emotions and more. Deep, dark places that your mind normally never wanders and consciously you never want to end up in those places. I could not get my brain to grasp the fact that, despite all I have gone through the past 12 months, that it would be OK if I did not finish.

Most people don't ever get to the start line... A little over 300 million Americans in the US and there will probably only be 61,000 people that will finish an Ironman in the 2012 race season (.02% of the population).

Finally I get past mile marker number 3 with my sorry walk/jog routine and before I hit mile marker #4 I run into Wes and Dee Dee. I smiled for the camera when Dee Dee took her picture, however, I was a hot mess. Wes walked with me for about 100 yards to cheer me up and assess the situation. He told me to get some electrolytes in my body and stay away from everything else but water until my stomach felt better. I had some salt tablets in my Fuelbelt so I took a few when I got to mile marker #4 and stuck with just water until I got to mile marker #7.

In the meantime, I had about 1/2 hour on my buddy mike coming out of T2, and by the time I had passed through mile marker #4 he came up on my right side and exclaimed, "Man, you really look like hell! Wes was not kidding when I saw him." I chuckled for a minute and then explained the situation to him. Mike stated his legs were beginning to feel a bit worn down from the race and that he had no problem run/walking with me for the remainder of the race. I told him that I would oblige.

For some reason this was a big mental break that I needed. I could talk to my buddy now during the race, so I had someone to get my mind off what was going on with me mentally and physically. After about mile 7, my stomach began feeling better. The 2nd leg of my run was a bit faster on average that the first leg on the way out. As we hit the turn around for the 3rd leg to go back out, we saw Melissa and Mike's father cheering us on from one of the restaurants on the course. About that time they decided to head back to the transition site to go pick up our bikes and gear. Special needs was at the turnaround as well, and Mike got out his long sleeve shirt to wear on the second lap.

The weather was nice enough such that I had made a good choice not to wear long sleeves on the run, and only wear arm warmers on the bike. As we headed out for the 2nd loop, it began to get dark. We kept in our run/walk schedules, but we began walking a bit more than we were jogging at times. About mile 10 or so we turned on our headlamps since it had gotten dark. We also had reflective stickers on us so that we would not need any additional lighting to be seen during the race. I had begun taking in some additional nutrition besides water and Gatorade Perform at the aid stations. Some chicken broth here, bananas there, even some flat coke at a few aid stations. I finished my last salt tablet around mile 19 or so.

There were a lot of funny signs out on the run as well. Honey Badger signs were the hot theme this year and they were hilarious. If you don't know what the Honey Badger is, here is a link to YouTube where it all began. There were also the traditional signs, such as "Your Feet must HURT from kicking so much ASS!," "Nude Cheerleaders next mile," "Pain is Temporary, Race results posted online are FOREVER," and my favorite "CHUCK NORRIS..... Not an Ironman."

I ran through the motivational mile twice, and neither time did any of the special messages that anyone wrote down (including the one I wrote to myself) showed up. Kinda sad about that. On the way back, my legs were just really fatigued. The rest of my body felt good and mentally I even wanted to jog more than I was, however, my legs just were not having it. I saw April Burkey at the Tri-PTC tent on the way back in and yelled at her. I heard she had done really well at Beach2Battleship Triathlon the weekend before. Mike was going through the same motions. As we got closer to the finish we saw more and more people and the noise was getting louder and louder. People who had already finished the race and were headed back by us to go home for the night were cheering.

Mike asked me as we got close to the finish line who was gonna finish first. I told him, this was his first Ironman, and he helped me mentally through the run, so he could pass through first. He deserved it. We made the left turn onto Thomas Drive and it was a half mile to go. We picked up the pace a little bit and as we got to the final leg of the finish line and our names were being called out, I motioned Mike forward and he passed over the finish line right before I did, but so close that we got the same finish time.

Run Time - 6:15:56 (14:20/mi pace)
Overall Time - 14:17:51

Hooray! My second Ironman Complete! It was really funny at the finish line because when you go back and look at the pics, I should have either crossed the finish line at the exact same time as Mike, or I should have let him finish 5 seconds or more in front of me because he is kind of in my way for my finish line photos, LOL! The guy from the left has an OK shot of me, I am still kind of behind Mike, and the guy on the right does not even get me because I am all the way behind him. Oh well, lesson learned for the next time I do an Ironman ;)

I went through the finisher chute and got my medal/hat/mylar blanket/water/etc. A girl named Emily helped me out through the finisher chute and I thanked her a few times. I guess there were a few people that did not finish well before me. Although my legs were tired, I felt good overall and so I though that she was being a little overbearing trying to help me with every little thing through the finisher chute. Melissa then took a photo of me with my finisher medal on, and then it was off to grab a slice of pizza and a Coke before grabbing my transition bag with Mike and heading back to the condo. Melissa rushed back to the condo after the finish because the Alabama/LSU football game was on, apparently that was more important than Mike finishing his very first Ironman. Crazy football fans... and Alabama lost anyways!

Mike's father found us on the way back to the condo and told us that he would buy us some dinner from Pineapple Willy's and bring it to us in the condo. That was really nice of him I got in the shower when I got home for about 1/2 hour, watched Alabama lose the football game, and then ate my dinner that Mike's father got for us. I then doubled up on all my clothes fully expecting that I would being to lose body heat during the night. I think I went to bed around 11:30pm or so. After taking a few things out to the car so I would not have to do it in the morning.

The next morning I got up early so that I could eat breakfast, finish packing the car, and get in line for my finisher's jacket. Sure it is $150, but I really regret not getting one the first time around when I finished IMCDA. So this was to make up for it. My hip hurt a bit after standing in line for so long, so it was nice to walk it out after standing in line for the jacket. I then picked up my photo package and we headed back to the condo. We left shortly afterwards to head back home because our checkout time was at 10AM... WTF is up with that????

So I can go off on a tanget for a minute... it really bugs me when I go to an out of town race for the weekend, and all the hotels are booked for the race, and the race is short enough where I am going to head home that afternoon, but I basically have to check out before I head to the race site on race morning. Now yes, I technically left the day after the race, but I had to be out by 10AM!!! I think that for races like that they should just give you a late checkout for the hell of it, and for shorter races, you should get a late checkout so you can shower real quick before you drive all the way back home. So annoying... I think in 2012 if I travel for races I will just stay an extra day so that I don't have to do early checkout.

I think I am gonna put some perspective in my next post with the IM photos just because this post has gotten kinda long. I hope you have enjoyed it! I have enjoyed writing about it!

Ford Ironman Florida, November 5 2011 (Part 2)

2011-11-11T10:32:00.001-05:00

Wha...? Where was I? Oh yea, this thing called Ironman, :D Let's get back to it.

Bike

After getting out of the transition area and heading down the chute, I mounted my bike and headed out on Thomas Dr. Wes and Dee Dee saw me heading out, as well as Melissa who got a couple of photographs of me. BTW, as far as photographs go, I am gonna do a post after this one of race photographs and comments below each one :)

As I headed out on the bike, I kept reminding myself that I needed to take a dose of humility and make sure I did not overdo it on the bike. I am notorious for going out hard on the bike and then falling to pieces on the run because I cramp up or just lose steam. The wind was coming out of the NE, so the ride was going to be most favorable coming back in on the bike except for the last 6 miles finishing the bike. I settled in on the 6 miles out on the coastal highway until we headed north away from the coast. I had taken in a gel and half a PBJ before getting on the bike, so I was not keen on taking anything in for the first few miles other than water. Once we began heading north on Hwy 79 I noticed that the wind had not picked up a lot yet, and so my average on the way out was higher than I expected. People were not lying, this was going to be a draft fest. Better to take a dose of humility and let people pass, than to get clipped with a drafting or blocking penalty.

The only other frustrating thing about races such as this, you get into your "zone" and then there are people in the way. I liken it to going to Six Flags or Disney World/Land. You get there, and you know what you want to do, you know what rides to get on, etc, but for some reason the people around you don't seem to have the same sense of urgency that you do. Unfortunately in an Ironman this is caused by different speeds, different gearing, different road conditions. You will get behind someone where you know that they are kind of in your way, but if you go around them, there is a chance they are just gonna pass you again, or you were almost going the same speed as them. This problem pretty much ended after I got to the halfway point of the race, but before then, it was a minor annoyance. I did pass some people on the way up 79. I think it was more my frustrations than anything, because I was pretty much happy with the speed I was going, I just did not want to have to slow down for anyone.

About 10-15 miles into the course we went up and down one of the only hills on the entire ride, which was a bridge going over a waterway. The ONLY hill. If anyone tells you this course has hills, just laugh at them please :) This is Florida for crying out loud, there are no hills. Once we turned onto 20 East this was our first real taste of the wind that IMFL had to offer, since it was almost a headwind at this point. the elevation was up and down, but there were no hills, just the wind. There was slightly less of a problem with regards to traffic, but I was picking people off. The really good swimmers that were OK at the rest of the race. My back was acting up a bit, but there was no sense to come out of aero, would just make you more miserable, and work harder to get where I was going, which was the next turn. I got to mile marker 20 which was my first scheduled stop for aid. I threw away one of my water bottles, and took one of the 22oz disposable water bottles that they were giving away (Zephyrhills water for those of you who drink that brand). It also fits really well into XLabs Gorilla cages for those of you who have those cages. After I got the water on the fly, I stopped and took a gel, which lasted about 40 seconds and then was back on the bike in aero headed to Hwy 77, the next turn.

Hwy 77 headed South for a few miles before we had to head back East on 388. I eventually hit mile marker 40 here, and stopped for another bottle of water and another gel. After this I went strictly on a gel an hour, and since my average speed was less than 20mph, I was taking one quicker than every 20 miles after that. Once we crossed over Rd2301, this was the part of the ride that I considered hell. The weather was good, still riding fast enough to where my arm warmers were needed, but the road was absolute shit. Cracks and chip seal everywhere, and bumps every bike length. For the next 10 miles it was going to be this, and half of this was also going to be into the wind. I was out of the saddle a good bit during this section. Sure I had a carbon frame to absorb some of the vibrations, but I could only handle so much. Before I got to the turn around and eventually the 60 mile marker to get another bottle of water, I stopped on the side of the road to pee. While not sexy, it saves time because I am not waiting in line at the porta-johns at the formal aid stations waiting to pee. That and I am not fast enough to need to pee while on the bike. Wes And Dee Dee headed out to the turnaround after we all went through T1, so when I got to the turnaround they were both there cheering me on. I had a smile on my face, however I let them know how I felt about that stretch of road I was on.

After the turnaround I tried my best to get back in aero but I just could not do it. I got my water bottle at Marker 60 and I figured that I would keep doing what I was doing until I go to Blue Springs Rd, and get of this crap road. Once I got to Blue Springs Rd. I breathed a sigh of relief that the worst of the road issues were over. The wind was almost at our face again as we were all headed North for a short period of time. After Blue Springs Rd, we made a left back onto Hwy 20 on our way back to the finish. The wind was at our backs at this point which was great. There were periods where I was not pushing too much wattage, and I was north of 20mph consistently. Even though I only averaged 18.5 or so through the middle 1/3 of the course, I think that the crap road section and heading North on Blue Springs, and one other section I will talk about in a moment just held me back from averaging more. There were a few people in this section that I boomeranged with back and forth. I took another piss break before mile 80 so that I would not have to wait in line, took another gel, and then just cruised through mile 80 grabbing a water and headed on.

I forgot to say that I did have other nutrition on the bike. I was hitting up a mix of Heed and Perpetum every 15 minutes from two bottles I had on the bike. There were 600 calories in each bottle, and then I had a gel for every hour plus one more in case, so I was going to be averaging just over 300 calories an hour. Around mile 90 I was going for a salt tablet in my bento box and not only did I miss the salt tablet, but my Ziploc bag will all the remaining salt tablets for the bike fell on the ground as I kept riding. Oh well... stuff happens and I had two salt tablets i was hitting in T2 anyways. I stopped on the side of the road to take one more piss, and then it was a right hand turn onto Steelfield Rd. just for a few miles so we could fit in 112. This was the third area that held down my average for the middle third. I had once again hit it too hard on the bike, but not as bad as I would have normally. Instead of the bad cramping, my legs were just fatigued. I was tired. and so I thought since I was getting closer to finishing the bike leg, I would just slow down on the Steelfield Rd section of the course. I am glad I did because I felt better for the remainder of the ride coming back in.

Once we finally got back onto Front Beach Road, it was the 6 miles of headwind. Definitely slowed down the average of the last 1/3 of my bike. I mean there was no point in fighting it, and also I was about to run a marathon, so why blow your legs trying to go 17mph when you could go 14-15mph and save your legs. It was only 6 miles anyways. Quote of the day happened here. Some guy pulled up next to me and said, "Hey buddy, I have been staring at your ass for the last two hours, I think I know it better than your wife!" I am not married, but I told him thanks nonetheless and he headed on past me to the bike finish. Not to long later I was getting of my trusty steed and headed into T2.

Overall Bike Time - 6:24:07
Average Speed - 17.49mph

T2

Thank goodness that I had a short T2 with regards to running in my bike shoes and picking up my transition bag. I was into the men's changing area quickly and moving along quite nice until I tried to put my left sock on. My left leg kept cramping up. I think this added about a minute thirty to my transition time. While 1:30 did not mean much in the whole scheme of my race, you know, you just don't want to have to spend any longer in transition than you absolutely need to, right?

Another half of a PBJ and another gel, two salt caps and a swig of drink and I was off onto the run course for the last leg of the race.

T2 Overall Time - 5:57

Well this post has gotten really long for the bike, which I guess it should since the bike is usually the longest portion of the race for most people. On that note, I am going to extend it to a part three for the run and finish that I will post this weekend! Have a great weekend y'all!

Ford Ironman Florida, November 5, 2011 (Part 1)

2011-11-09T20:16:00.001-05:00

It's Tuesday night (IMFL 2011 +3 days) and I have had a couple marathon work days, some recovery, cleanup, and reflection. Well, the wetsuit is still in the T1 bag from Saturday (eww). I am gonna wash it tomorrow afternoon. I promise. No I really promise, OK? It was a gift from someone, so I can't treat it like crap.

So, I guess it is time to get down to the real meat of this post, correct? I think what I will cover is the pre-race through T-1 in my first post, and then I will post the bike through the finish on either Wednesday or Thursday. Well get your cup of Joe or your nightcap, depending on what time of day that you are reading this and let's get going!

Pre - Race

Most of the week leading up to the race I had been going to bed early and getting up early. In the past, and not just with long distance triathlons, I will tend to stay in my sleeping habits, and this results in 2-3 hours of sleep before a race. It has nothing to do with being nervous, however, it kind of messes with me in the mornings if I don't get a least 4-5 hours sleep before a race. As I have talked about before, my friend Mike conned me into doing this race the year before, and his wife and parents were in town to watch him compete in his first Ironman. Since I really had no family in town (except for Wes and Dee Dee), I decided to have dinner with them prior to going to bed. We had the traditional pasta meal with salad and garlic toast (yum). I skipped the wine with dinner, which would not have been a problem, actually, I would have fallen asleep faster.

After dinner, I worked on my two blog posts prior to this one, and then got everything ready to go for the next morning. Suit laid out, nutrition bottles, and bike nutrition packed, and got all of my swim stuff together. Rolled out and foam rolled my body before I went to bed as well. I had been doing this every night during the week as well. It helped A LOT. In bed by 10pm. Sweet, just like I had planned. I had set the alarm for 4:15am so that I would have time to wake up and get things going early before the race. For those of you who have not read some of my posts from earlier this year, I have had a curse for about the last 14 months regarding GI issues prior to a race...

I think I woke up one time around 1:30am and went to the bathroom and got some water and was back in bed. 4:15 rolls around and I hit the snooze button, and get 10 minutes more rest. Then I jumped out of bed and got my routine started. First things first, COFFEE and FOOD! On Thursday morning I was fairly regular when shopping down in PCB for food for the weekend, I remembered that I had a fair bit of caffeine which I believe helped things along that morning. Tall cup of coffee, about an apple and a half worth of apple slices with peanut butter, a banana, Greek yogurt, glass of OJ and a Nature Valley fruit and nut bar. Oh and a few good luck gummi bears. Yes, I did that and they were Haibro as well. Afterwards I finished packing up my stuff, brushed my teeth and washed my face, put some Dermatone on my face and neck, and the put my suit on.

After that I was in a holding pattern, packing up a few things that I was not going to need for the rest of the weekend. And then it finally hit me! Number One! Hooray! I was really excited. And then about 20 minutes later, Number Two! Friggin Sweet! I am so glad that I got that 800 pound gorilla off my back from the past 14 months. Around 5:30 Mike, Melissa and I headed towards transition at the Boardwalk Beach Resort to drop off our morning clothes bag, fill up the bikes with our nutrition, pump up the tires, and get to the start line.

I got to talk to a few random athletes near my rack, one of which I helped pump up his tires with the "crack pipe" adapter, and then in turn he let me use his pump for my bike. All of the bustling, everyone in their own head thinking about the day ahead, checking and rechecking their bike setup, the rustling of the plastic bags coming off the seats and the handle bars, long lines at the porta johns, the noise of zippers everywhere from wetsuits being donned. As I was walking to drop off my morning clothes bag and put on my wetsuit, I even heard a couple loud booms. People's tubes exploding from being blown up too much or a pinched tube while it was being inflated. And then the cussing that followed.

I got in line with about an hour to go, and I am glad I did, because it took me 25 minutes to get through the line. Good thing my wetsuit was partway on, kept me warm. Speaking of warm, the weather on race day was GREAT! Sunny skies all day long, and a high of 74, and it really did not start cooling down till about 9:00pm at night. At this point I was separated from Mike and Melissa as Mike had to go and drop off his special needs bags before the race began. I decided to head down to the beach and at least watch the pros begin before my day would. I saw Wes and Dee Dee near the swim corral and talked to them for a few minutes before I headed in with the group. Wes looked so amped to be there, even though he was not participating. It reminded me of the year prior where I was in the same position, and I remember the smile on my face prior to it all beginning.

As I made my way into the corral, the pros, both male and female, were about to begin. I took a look at the water. The wind was out of the Northeast, so the water was like glass. No waves, and it was low tide to boot. Next thing I know, the gun goes off and they pros are at it. Shortly thereafter, the national anthem was sung by a couple people over the PA, and then there were about 5 minutes to go. Now I am in my head, by myself. 365 days ago I was standing just on the other side of the corral looking in, and now I am standing on the inside. Goggles... check. Swimcap on right... check. Visualizing the swim with my toes in the water. And then the gun goes off.

Swim

The first 40 meters or so of the swim was actually wading into the water where it was deep enough to actually begin swimming. It was humorous because after about 50 meters of swimming we hit the sandbar and hand to stand up again and walk another 25 meters or so before it was deep enough to swim again. Ah yes the human washing machine that is the Ironman swim start. I am going to try to keep this section as positive as possible, because there are just some people who seem to be in it to win it during the swim, and so they will swim all over you regardless of your time, or if you pass them at some point down the road.

Around 400 meters into the swim, I put my left hand into the water to pull, and what do I grab but a timing chip. Obviously someone did not put their timing chip under their wetsuit when preparing for the race. For some reason I felt the need to hold onto the chip for the remainder of the first lap so I could hand it in to someone. At least that way they would know whose chip it was. Not to long after this I got my goggles kicked off my face, thank goodness they at least stayed on my head, I had to stop and put them back on. Normally this would not be a problem if I was by myself in salt water with a wetsuit on, however, I had around 2000 of my best friends trying to swim past me. I got them back on and continued. As we got to the first turn bouy, we began to see the jellyfish. Most of them were sitting about 8-10 feet below the surface, although they knew something was going on.

After making the crowded left turn, it was swimming directly into the sun for a couple hundred meters till we turned left again. Still hand the extra timing chip with me, and had already switched hands by that point while I was swimming. Jellyfish were still all around. We finally made the next crowded left turn to head back in to finish the first lap. The jellyfish started to thin out, and I saw a couple schools of fish swim by as I was headed back in. Since the sun had already started coming up over the horizon, I could see deeper that I could on the way out. I even saw a few stingrays on the ocean floor. Around halfway back into the beach my collar on the back of my neck began bothering me so I stopped for a brief second to adjust and then continue on. Eventually I hit the sandbar and then got back to shore to run over the timing mat and back into the water.

I handed off the extra timing chip to a volunteer and quickly told them what happened as I started jogging away from them. Grabbed two cups of water before I got back in. Man fresh spring water never tasted so good when you have been swimming in water for 1.2 miles. As I dove back into the water there were a diagonal line of buoys that were taking us back out to the main buoys for the second lap. If this seems weird it is because they race director did not want us running the couple hundred yards back down the beach to where we started, so we just swam back over to the original line of buoys headed out. It was great because the water was headed away from shore in that same direction, so everyone was getting a quick swim back out where we needed to be.

The second lap had thinned out, which was good, except that there were some horrible sighters, and for some reason, they are all men. Every person that was zig-zagging back and forth was a man. Could not figure that one out. There was a girl that was about 2 meters to my right and we were swimming at the same pace and kept the same distance from each other, and that seemed to also help us swim straight. As we got close to the initial turn buoy again, the jellyfish were still out there. This time though, they had sensed that the crowds had thinned out and started coming closer to the surface to see if they could make a meal out of us. Or at least sting the bejesus out of us. There were a couple that I literally had to dodge as I was swimming, I kinda felt like Neo from the Matrix movies, not only because I was making weird maneuvers, but also because I dodged all the jellyfish that were in my way. I made the final left turn and as I was heading back in, the jellyfish thinned out and eventually disappeared.

I was occasionally looking at my watch and saw my time on the way back in and I did not think I was going to make it in under 1:20:00 so I stepped on the gas and negative split the last 500 meters of the swim. I was pretty impressed that I made it back in that fast, and that I also did not cramp up.

Swim Time - 1:21:16

T1

As I got out of the water I already had my wetsuit down to my hips, my goggles and swim cap were off, and I was jogging up the shore to the wetsuit strippers. Ah ha, now I am on the other end of the stick here. Not stripping, but getting stripped. Since I had figured out the technique of how to properly get stripped the year before, it came off very easily. And then I was back up and off in a hurry to try and get through T1. I got my bag fairly quickly, and then they corralled us into the ball room area, half for girls, half for guys.

I feel that I am going to want to try to get faster on the swim, not only for time, but also to miss the crowd for T1. I spent probably 2-3 minutes just trying to find a place to stand so that I could do what I needed to do and get out of T1. I hit up some Gatorade I put in my bag so I would not have a saltwater mouth after the swim, and I also had half my PBJ. I opted for the arm warmers (good choice) and decided not to wear the gloves or the bike jersey (also good choice).

Once again this year WTC has sucked it up and applied for waivers so that they were allowed to tell AG'ers that they could not put their bike shoes on their bikes in T1, but they could dismount and leave them on their bikes going into T2. That is so dumb. I think it is a liability issue for them. Here is the thing, people are not gonna do it unless they have practiced to do it and know they are not gonna fall over or anything. Add to that you can't really run on pavement with Speedplay cleats. And once again I had one of the worst rack positions, and this is based off the fact that I was running around in my bike shoes. Had I been in a triathlon where I transitioned at my bike and got to have my bike shoes on the bike before heading into T1, then I would have had a pretty good spot.

After grabbing my bike, I was headed out on road for a few hours

T1 Time - 10:36

I am gonna stop here for now, and then have another post (maybe two) for the rest of the race. Just depends on how long the bike, run, and T2 portions of the story are. Till next post,

Ford Ironman Florida 2011, Dedication Speech

2011-11-04T20:28:00.004-05:00

This is dedicated to the past 365 days of my life. The 5am workouts, lunch runs, evening workouts, track workouts with raceMates, time trials, reeking of chlorine every day, saddle sores, beat up legs, and bruised pride. The workouts in the rain, cold, the Georgia summers, snow, and ice. For the two a days and the races that helped lead up to this day.

This is for all of my supporters. My family, friends, and training partners. For those bloggers that believed in me, and still do. This is also dedicated to all the pessimists, realists, and optimists. The people who think I am crazy, stupid, and insane. For all the people who I know AND and don't know that will be screaming their lungs out as I cross the finish line. The people who will be tracking me throughout the day. For all the late nights, social events, and weekends I skipped.

Last of all, this races is dedicated to me. To my commitment, drive, persistence, perseverance, hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

I. AM. IRONMAN.

Ford Ironman Florida 2011, Day 2

2011-11-04T20:21:00.004-05:00

Another successful pre-race day!

I woke up twice last night, once at about 1:30am and once around 3:30am. I freaked out because there lights outside my window and I thought it was the sun coming up. It was not race morning, however, I did not want to sleep in too late. Got up at 6:30am and took a LONG shower, and stretched out. Time for another swim. This morning Mike opted not to swim, but that is his strong suit, so he is not as worried as I am. The water was more calm today than the day before, and I felt more comfortable, which was good. Hopefully by the time I hit the water tomorrow morning I will be very comfortable. Went about 50 yds further out than yesterday, so 500 yds. Met a few random people out in the water and we had a nice chat before swimming back in. Nice chat you say??? Well when you are in a wetsuit + salt water = pretty easy to chat.

Afterwards, I came back upstairs, ate some food real quick, and then Mike and I got geared up for our bike ride. The plan was to ride from the condo to St. Andrews State Park and back, about 10 miles. Mike had his SRAM S60 in the front and disc cover in the back. He got dropped real quick. He was getting blown all over the road. So when we got back, he switched to his stock wheels and we went out for a short 15 minute ride, and he was much more comfortable and able to stay in aero the entire ride. The ride on the way out was awesome because it was a strong tailwind. I think we were pushing 90-100 watts and going almost 21 mph on the bike, but coming back we were probably 250 watts and only going 17 mph. Kinda ridiculous.

Now that the bikes were tuned up and tested, we came back and packed our T1 and T2 bags. From the condo, we headed back down to the race site (which is only a quarter mile away = bi-winning) with the bikes and the bags. I would like to say something at this point. I love our condo that we are staying at, except for the elevators. I don't know how much they are raking in a year in profits, but they need to add one more elevator bank and then speed up the elevators they already have. When we went down to drop everything off, it took us 15 minutes just to get an elevator to go down. If we did not have all the stuff we would have taken the steps down.

Lunchtime! Went to Liza's Kitchen. Great place to eat, good prices, BIG sandwiches and my last beer before the race (you can't say no to $2 Yuenglings!). Gotta get those carbs in. We also took the back route so that Melissa can drive between areas without getting stuck in race day traffic. They are all staking out at Hammerhead Fred's for the run.

Came back to the venue so that I could finally buy some swag for the race. I only spent $60, I was pretty proud of myself. Gotta get that finisher jacket on Sunday morning. Met up with Wes and Dee Dee at the venue, and they told me that they were meeting with a whole bunch of people from the blogger community. I met up with CJ, Mandy, Colleen and Laura, and some other people who are new to me in the blogging community (sorry I forgot your names!!!!) It was kind of like going on a blind date, because we all know each other from the blogging community, but most of us have not met in person. I am glad that we were all able to meet up. I did not get any of their phone numbers to meet up after the race, but if we see each other, great, and if not, I am sure we will hear about the post race festivities on everyone's blogs.

I came back and started working on the Day 1 blog post and got the rest of my stuff ready for the race tomorrow before we started cooking dinner. I also packed because our checkout time is at 10am on Sunday morning = dumb. Melissa is going to try to call during the day tomorrow for an late checkout if that is possible. Mike's parents are in town to watch his Ironman and so they had dinner with us. His parents are pretty cool. Now I am sitting here composing this blog post and thinking about the next 24 hours of my life. It is not the race, but the journey to get here. Think about this like a wonderfully composed sentence with an exclamation point. Tomorrow is the exclamation point. The past year is the entire sentence. I can't believe that is my analogy, as I was horrible with grammar and literature in school.

Ok off to stretch and then head to bed. Till tomorrow...

Ironman Live Tracking Site
Race #973

Ford Ironman Florida 2011, Day 1

2011-11-04T19:52:00.005-05:00

Well,

After logging into my blogger account and seeing that I have had almost 1,000 unique visitors in the last month, and no posts since July 29th, 2011, I thought I better get to posting.

Mike and Melissa came down on Wednesday as they had a bit more free time for the week. Earlier in the week, I decided that I would get in a habit of giving myself a curfew. I have a bad habit of not falling asleep till almost midnight on most nights, so I figured training myself to fall asleep earlier would help, so maybe I can get at least 5+ hours of sleep rather than maybe 3 hours like I normally do. I got to bed late Wednesday night before I left because I forgot to download the new iPhone iOs software and my computer is so old it took forever to get everything done. I think I was in bed by 10:45pm.

I got up at 3:45am and after showering, packing (what was left), breakfast, coffee, and stretching, I was out of the house by 4:45am. It took longer than I thought to get there, but it was good news! Bevan and John from IMTalk kept me company for the first 4 hours of my trip with days 6 and 7 of their Kona Super special. Yes I am a bit behind, but it was good listening nonetheless. Bevan, I was creasing myself about the bathroom thing at the end of the day 7 podcast while I was in the car, I thought I was gonna wreck. Let's just say that I was very regular and theoretically it happened before race time (I think it happened about 6:20am). Hooray! Hopefully, this will bode well for the rest of the trip while I am down here, keep the fingers crossed and pray for me.

I rolled into town around 9:30am and Mike came down to help me bring everything upstairs. It's really funny, I am fairly light on packing every other trip I try to take, but when it comes to long distance triathlon races, I pack like I am going somewhere for a month! We needed to use one of those hotel carts and then I still had to hike the bike up to the hotel room.

After dropping everything in the room, we turned around, grabbed the wetsuits, and went for a swim. Got BEAT up. The wind was really pushing the water and there were actually whitecaps in the bay on the way in, so I should have known I was in for it when I got in the Gulf. We swam for about 10 minutes or so, mostly just to get the fell of ocean swimming more than anything. There had been rumors of jellyfish during the week, and they did not disappoint. Although there were not may out there, we had some close encounters, and that is not what I wanted to deal with on my first day in town, not even here for an hour. Funny story, when we got back to the hotel room, I was cleaning up and I leaned forward and all the sudden I felt like I had a bloody nose out of both nostrils. Nope, it was sea water coming out of my nasal cavity, lol.

Went to the race registration and sat in line for about 20 minutes. Didn't buy anything on Thursday, was so proud of myself. I really want a finisher's jacket this year, I am still pissed I never got one when I finished CDA in 2009. Speaking of which, I am still kinda fumed I never did that race report. I guess I could do that, I still remember that whole week pretty vividly.

For lunch we went to The Back Porch at Pier Park. Pretty good, I had a Yellowfin Tuna sandwich with bacon and lettuce, it was pretty good. Too much food though, it came with two sides and we got a cup of soup with our lunch special. Pint of Blue Moon to wash it all down. For those of you who have been to a Dick's Last Resort, they are putting one in Pier Park in PCB, I think it is slated to be opened in February.

I came back and took about an hour and a half nap. Woke up and had a snack, and then ran 2 miles before hitting up dinner. Went to Spinnaker's last night for dinner. It was pretty good. I came home in my food coma and hit the foam roller and stretched before reading in bed. I think I fell asleep around 10pm.

As far as the day went, I was happy with it. Standard first day for Ironman Week, get your shit together, get a few small workouts in, and then focus on the rest of your day and chill. A year has almost past. It's been a heck of a year.

Till tomorrow,

2011 (42nd) Peachtree Road Race - July 4th, 2011

2011-07-29T14:05:00.002-05:00

4th of July...

A day of remembrance for our nation's independence. A day commemorating the adoption of our nation's independence. And yet this is also a day where many people look to take a day or three out of their busy lives to live a little during the summer. Go anywhere in the USA on this day and you will happen upon fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, political speeches and ceremonies.

However for a few of us, say 60,000, we decide to postpone the days activities and festivities a few more hours by participating in the world's largest 10K.

I have been running off and on in this event since 1994. The last couple of years I have not been around in Atlanta, as I am usually spending time with Patsy and her family for the holiday. This year I was not interested in doing the race because I wanted to just have fun on the 4th. It is interesting to see how you fall into certain decisions based off of how things pan out in life, and furthermore how you look back on that experience. I had made plans out of town for the 4th of July yet again this year, and I was really happy about it. The last two years with graduate school and my job situation not constant, I really have been looking forward to times when I can have 3-4+ days off and NO responsibilities, other than to myself and my well being. About a week and a half prior to the holiday, plans suddenly changed and I was no longer going out of town. I was going to be sitting in Atlanta, while most of the people I would have made plans with were now doing other things.

In search of a solution to this social and mental dilemma, I decided to head back inward to me and see what would make me happy, what I would enjoy doing. Next thing I knew, I had not one, but TWO Peachtree Road Race numbers in my possession. I kinda felt like a scalper. On one side of the cardboard it would have said, "I need a PRR number" and the other side said, "I have PRR numbers." :)

A friend of mine from grad school had a friend who needed a number, so I sold it to her. Training had been picking up in the last month or so, but I had not been doing any speed work for shorter distances, and I just got over a foot injury. What to do? How about just do the race, and ENJOY it. Any of you who have been reading my posts over the last few years know, while in the end I always enjoy my athletic experiences, I don't always enjoy them while they are occurring. I needed to return to my roots, and find why I started doing this in the first place... because I enjoyed it.

Pre - Race

This is about the best pre - race I have ever had! 4th of July was on a Monday this year, so between leaving work early Friday for the weekend and the 4th following the weekend, I tried just to enjoy life and have some fun. Got some workouts in over the weekend and met up with a few friends, nothing too crazy. Woke up at a decent hour Monday morning, as opposed to getting up at O'Dark Thirty. I only live about 3.5 miles away from the start line. Add to that my grad school parking deck is about 1/2 mile away from the start. And my wave did not start till 8:55am. I think at that point the ONLY downside was the temperature quickly rising. Got to the race site with about 30 min to go before my start wave began, and so I stretched out and got to my race corral. By that time, my wave was making its way to the start line. I was taking in all the scenery around me. Families running together, friends catching up with each other, the patriotic costumes, our nation's finest representing the different armed forces. The energy was amazing. The funk I had been in for the past week and a half seemed to melt away. As we approached the start line, the announcer started to fire up our wave, not that we needed much help, we were all pretty pumped already.

The Race

All I was wanting to do was finish at a comfortable pace. The elevation is nearly all downhill for the first three miles until you arrive at the Colonial Homes Hill and Cardiac Hill. I really tried to hold back the crotchety old man issues with this being a race and not a fun run (something to do with the fact that being in the back of this race has lots more of the fun run/walk types :). Everything felt pretty good, legs got a bit tight on the final downhill to mile marker 3, but lengthened my stride and it seemed to help out.

Then I hit what I would like to call "The Wall." This was a combination of a few things, 1)runners taking a break walking up the hills, 2) walkers still walking, and 3) having about 55,000 people ahead of me. I think between miles 3-5 I ran more from side to side across the 7 lanes of Peachtree St. than I did running forward! Saw some of my friends at the Fur Bus hangout (for those of you who don't know, Fur Bus is kinda like a limo transport company where you can get some swanky buses and use to them to transport you to events, and filled with alcohol.). The crowds this year the last mile were great. So much cheering and at 10th St., it was at least 8-10 people deep cheering, as if we were the parade procession through Atlanta.

Time: 55:53

Post Race

After the race I went looking for a couple of my friends at the Alphabet balloons, but could not find them. Turns out they turned to walking about halfway into the race due to the heat and so I actually finished before them. I headed back up into midtown to catch MARTA back up to Buckhead. I saw Mary at her new job (she is a masseuse). I was gonna hit her up for one of the free post race massages that they were giving out, but the problem was that I had finished so late in the morning, that they had already almost packed everything up and took it back into their building. Oh well, it was good to see her anyways :)

As far as looking back on this holiday weekend of mine, things definitely did not turn out as I wanted to, or intended. However, I made the best of it and decided to make up for it by doing something that I enjoyed doing. And I am glad I did. They say in times like these you need to keep yourself preoccupied and busy. I disagree to some extent. While I think you should keep living your life to the best of your ability, you also need to focus on your experiences. Without that combination you may never know who you truly are or what you want out of life. Needless to say no matter what the reason for remembering this particular 4th of July over any other I have or will experience, it will be remembered. I hope all of you had a great and memorable 4th of July.

West Point Lake Triathlon (Olympic) - June 12, 2011

2011-07-29T10:38:00.002-05:00

Hi Everyone!

More than a week later than I promised via my twitter feed, but better late than never! Try to just keep this to the race and I will follow up with some other general shenanigans (including IM training) after Thu (final exam in my Internal Accounting class).

Pre Race

My Roommate Robbie decided he wanted to come and watch a triathlon for the first time, so I decided he could be my tri-sherpa for the weekend. Got everything packed and ready to go by about 9pm, and I was in bed by 10pm. I always have trouble sleeping when I go to bed early, but I know with the hour and a half drive, I was gonna need the sleep. Robbie decided he was going to go out to a show (he saw Lazerbeam Kitty, for any of you who know about that).

I got up at 4am to get some breakfast and get everything loaded into the car. Robbie rolled in at 4:15am and I told him wheels were up in 15 minutes. He quickly changed his clothes and grabbed his book bag and was ready. I was packing the car and filling the cooler. We got out of there around 4:45 am for our Trek down to West Point. Still plenty of time, would probably have time for transition, run warm up and swim warm up. Got about 20 minutes down the road and had the "Oh S!@#" moment. There are some things that you tell yourself, "if I left it at home then I didn't really need it."

A wallet with your ID and money is not one of those things.

Did a quick turn around, however by the time we got back to the house and then back to where i had the not-so-glorious epiphany, another 40 minutes had passed. After a quick mental calculation, I did not know if I was gonna make it in time for transition. I was haulin' down I-85 and at least this time if I was to get pulled over, I had my driver's license on me. Thankfully there were none of Georgia's finest on the roads (too busy at the coffee shop getting ready for Sunday Church traffic I guess) so I got there with a few minutes to spare. Then I realized that the parking lot was about half a mile or more away from the transition area. Robbie was a great help for me and we got there with about 5 minutes to spare. If there was ever a category for fastest transition setup time, I would have had the award for this race. After that I headed over to the swim start and saw Wes and Richard there getting ready to hit it with me. AND....... We're off!

Swim

Let's be brutally honest about this leg. Have not done much swimming this year. Prior to this race I had about a dozen swim workouts in the 6 weeks leading up to this race, and most of those workouts were; WU, 3x500 free, CD, and done. While I am technically covering the distance needed, I was not doing anything longer, I should have been doing AT LEAST 3 swims a week, since that is my weakest sport, and I should have had more variety in my workouts, such as negative splits and intervals. After the race I did speak with Wes regarding the swim. He puts his Garmin in his swim cap for a more accurate reading, and he said that the 1500M alert on his watch hit around the time we got to the last buoy. Also after looking at the swim times of all the participants in our age group, I was very surprised to see that there were not more sub 25 min finishes with the swim than there were (nothing under 27 minutes). Could have been a weak swim field. My hair is longer now, so my cap kept coming off, which kept moving my goggles around. Not necessarily gonna blame that on my poor swim time, but it sure as hell did not help.
Time               37:27
Pace               2:30
AG Place        14/16

T1

Was pretty pleased with my time, I did waste a bit of time with getting a bit of nutrition in before leaving T1 because my sponsor's suit is a 2XU suit that does not have any pockets to hold anything. I had gels in my legs, but I had some Cliff Shot Bloks that I wanted to use in T1 and T2. Had a fairly clean transition.

Time               1:09
AG Place        7/16

Bike

My first quarter mile/half mile was a bit of a rough start, and this was solely due to the fact that I was having a bit of a problem getting my shoes on. I put my shoes on my bike before the race so that I would not have to worry about that in transition. My new bike shoes this year are not really good for walking around in, and furthermore with the Speedplay cleat designed the way it is, trying to walk/jog/run on pavement is not a good idea :) Overall I felt like I had a pretty solid bike. There was not too much elevation on the course, but what elevation there is, I did not perform well on. Chalk that up to training for IMFL, where the only hill is a bridge so there is not really any point of training anywhere hilly. There were a few people that I went back and forth with throughout the bike leg, however, when I finally got to the last couple miles, they were mostly downhill so I kicked it in. Getting the shoes off pre-dismount was soooo much easier with a one strap.

Time              1:17:53 (19.1mph)
AG Place       10/16

T2

A bit slower than I would have liked. I was having a bit of trouble trying to get the rest of the Clif Shot Bloks down, so I did what I could and then just forged on out of T2. Also had an issue with my socks. I know, I know, I should be going sock less for any race Olympic and shorter, but I have not really trained sock less, and so I did not want to ruin my feet, not to mention I was still nursing my foot.

Time              1:56
AG Place       15/16
Run

The theme for me here was "slow and steady survives the race." Overall the run was good. Not too much shade for the race, and it was sunny and HOT. Did get some sunscreen on prior to the race so that when I was on the run I would not get burnt. I did stop and walk a few times when I felt like my foot may not hold out. I have never DNF'ed a race, but I promised myself if there were any serious issues during the run I would quit. I saw Wes, Richard, and April on the run, and they all looked really strong. The net increase in elevation did a bit of a number on me in the last few miles, but I need to keep reminding myself that the race I am training for is Florida, not somewhere in the Colorado Rockies. Good finish and Robbie was there to get some photos of me as I approached the finish line.

Time               1:02:36
AG Place        16/16

Finish!!!

Time               3:00:52
AG Place        16/16

A few seconds slower than Peachtree International Triathlon. I felt better on the run than I did at PIT, but I still did some walking because I did not want to re-injure my foot. The big test was how my foot was gonna feel the days following the event, and it held up great. Hopefully I will be injury free for the rest of the season (fingers crossed). It was great to get out there and just race. I also saw April Burkey out there, she passed by me on the way back in from the dam as I was headed out on the dam. Robbie had a good time watching his first triathlon and although I don't think he wants to attempt a triathlon, I think he will definitely tag along again.

At the time I am finishing up this email, I have 7 weeks till I graduate with my Master's of Professional Accountancy at GSU. I have 11 weeks till I start my new job at Deloitte in Atlanta. And in 18 weeks and 6 days, I will be attempting my second Ironman in Florida. It's been one helluva a year. Both good times and bad have occurred in my personal and triathlon life, and hey that's life. Not that I have a particular clock or countdown for 2011, but I would consider this my halfway point of the season. Things never happen the way we plan, but in most cases, I am pleased where I am at.

Keep it up everyone! We are halfway there.

Leading up to Race Number Two this Season

2011-06-10T14:19:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone,

Well, Sunday I will be racing alongside (more so behind) Wes at the Westpoint Lake Triathlon in LaGrange, GA (map). The past month has been kinda a bear. Sure school has gotten in the way, but we have talked down that path before. The real issue has been my left foot. I finally got out on it for a mile yesterday, and hit it pretty hard (7:33/mi) for the first time out again in a few weeks. I have only run 4 times since last race. After the 1 mile run I hit up the trainer for about 45 minutes. Tonight I am going to try to run again. I am most likely going to run at the gym for a mile after I get out of the pool. I will most likely only do a mile, maybe a mile and a half depending on how it feels.

During lunch I am going to go pick up my race packet at Roswell Bicycles. I have not been to that store in some time. I usually go there only when I am not finding things at my usual bike stores, or if I happen to be in the area.

(Fast forward to Friday....)

Funny how that happens when you get caught up with stuff and then a day goes by. Did some window shopping after picking up my race packet, but did not buy anything. Took my Internal Audit exam last night and I think I did very well on the exam. I should know the results of the exam by tomorrow. The race packet was kinda so so, except for the fact the bag was a reusable shopping bag rather than a mini zip cord backpack. I have about 15 of those now, I don't need anymore, thank you :) The only other really cool thing was the nutrition swag that came in the bag. 2 packets of Hammer Gel (and not Apple Cinnamon again), 1 mini Larabar, Cliff Shot Blocks, and something else. I don't even need to worry about nutrition for the race now :D

Got a swim and a bike tonight. Do all 3 tomorrow (short, high intensity), and then race day Sunday! Looking forward to it! Hope all of you have a great weekend!

Two weeks down (or more likely behind), twenty-two more to go

2011-06-03T08:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday Everyone!

Instead of spending the entire blog talking about what is happening in the tri world today, I am gonna just work on me today (actually something I try to do every day). I am about 50% done reading through all of your blogs and I have about another 4 hours till I have access to all my systems (month end close), I think I can get all this blogging stuff done by then.

So after my last post, I was able to get in a few runs with no pain. All of these runs were 2.5 miles or less. I even had a few days spaced between each run (along with my regular swimming and cycling workouts). The third run that comes up, last Sunday morning, my foot decided to act up again. So it was two weeks off cold turkey with RICE and calf stretching, oh and rolling golf ball on the bottom of my foot. Then run, two days off, repeat, and third time is not a charm. I really need to go on the GA Multisport website to see what their transfer policy is. I really wanna do this race, but a 10K at then end of the race might not be the best thing for me. I have not run on the foot since Sunday, and the pain subsided faster since Sunday than the first round about three weeks ago. I am gonna go on a one mile run this evening on a track and see how it works out. The track also helps because the original injury run and the run this past Sunday I was literally at the turn around point when the pain started and so I had to head back walk/jogging from the furthest point away from my car. Depending on what the transfer policy is, and how my foot feels over the weekend, I will make my decision by Monday.

As for my Ironman training, my program is in full swing. Two weeks down, and I am already behind. Reason #1, haven't really been able to run. That's ok, there are 22 weeks remaining before the race. Reason #2 is what really concerns me. School has been a bear this summer so far. Instead of having just a few exams in each class, we have projects, projects, projects. So something is due ALL of the time, EVERY week. There is one class where we don't even have exams. We have an hour long "quiz" each class and then 4 projects throughout the summer. Yes, yes, I put this upon myself, but why in the last semester that the program decided to throw exams out the window was beyond me. Oh well, will have to adapt. Anyways, the point of number two was that I have had to skip some key workouts to study. And as for Memorial Day weekend, well I am just writing that off as a 3 day weekend I needed away from everything.

My solution for this came to me as I was reading Curly Su's most recent post this morning. A number of years ago I had a pretty serious triathlon schedule and I was working two jobs at the time as well. I literally had my schedule planned down to the hour every day. Now that is not to say I followed it 100% of the time, but at times I did make changes and move things around in case I had other obligations to attend to, or just wanted to switch workouts around so I could fit other things into my schedule (personal time, hanging out with friends, etc) as well. So we are gonna head back out on that plan and see how it works out. Nothing set in stone, but unless there is something pressing, the rule will be, "follow the schedule!"

Not too much else is going on right now. Going to tomorrow morning's class session rather than the afternoon because it is going to be beautiful this weekend, and I have been sleeping in again too much lately/going to bed too late at night, so I would rather do the morning session rather than chance sleeping in and then not getting out of class till 5pm. As for the rest of the weekend, it will be comprised of studying, training, and hanging out with a few friends :)

Well let me get on to reading the rest of your blogs while I am rolling the golf ball on my messed up foot :S

You guys/gals have a great weekend!

Filling Up the Tank for Another Journey

2011-05-26T09:10:00.000-05:00

This post was supposed to go up last week, but didn't :) So here it is... Better late that never.

Update: Day 6 of (left) foot injury. Pain is starting to subside a bit, still hurts to wear shoes. Forgot to wear ankle brace last night to keep foot at 90 degree angle. Forgot to bring ice water botttle to work today. At least I remembered to bring my ibuprofen. Will put the bike on the trainer tonight and see how the foot feels on the bike. That does not mean I am gonna get out and do road riding again this weekend, but at least I can log some miles on the trainer in a controlled environment. Will start swimming again later this week as well.

(enter picture of long road here)

Well, I have one race in the books this year. Thank goodness :) Great to get the nervous excitement of the new season worked out of my system by toeing the line and competing. I have another race here in about three weeks, but I am unsure how it is going to play out due to my injury. I may very well need to see if I can transfer the entry to another one of GA Multisports Races (sorry Wes!!!), but I will make a decision at the end of next week.

Tomorrow is a BIG DAY!!! 168 days/24 weeks till IMFL! Holy S#@! Snacks! Too close :D Today I will lock down the training plan I am going to use (I have been wavering between 2-3 plans, I just really need to man up and pull the trigger). Then it is all about execution for the next 24 weeks. I have had a lot to think about since last November. Mike and I headed down to Florida for a three day weekend to volunteer at IMFL, and get signed up for the race in 2011. I had even talked to my old training buddy James, and his plan is to volunteer in 2011 so he can race in 2012. I think he is on some sort of crazy 3 year plan where after 2012 he is gonna try to qualify for Worlds again in 2013.

Anyways, of course Mike and I were riding a mental high when we got back from Panama City. Then reality set back in for me. I had set out on a journey earlier last year in completely changing my career and part of that was going back to school. Not only going back to school, but also a full time program while working full time and finishing within a year. Trying to keep up with a long distance relationship because my girlfriend is realizing her dreams by getting her PhD. All of you juggle similar tasks, and at the same time we are all trying to stay the course on this journey that is triathlon. Although I have been slammed with school this week, I have spent some time late in the evenings before I go to bed, contemplating the next leg of this journey, manifesting itself in the form of an Iron-Distance race.

I have the plan, I have the resources, and more importantly, I have myself (intact). Time to pop in a good road trip track, and head on down the (IM) highway.

www.clevver.com/music/video/14259/rascal-flatts-life-is-a-highway.html

More Pictures from P'tree Int'l Triathlon

2011-05-17T10:44:00.000-05:00

Just thought I would put these up until I am done with my next post. I am also gonna get the pictures from this race as well. I think there are a couple good ones in there.

Dismounting and headed into T2

Could not get my suit off standing up because my left calf was cramping up too bad. FAIL

My feeble attemps to get said wetsuit off standing up, please see above pic for next step at failing to do this :)

Another shot of me running into T2. Yes I wore my bike shoes off the bike. Tar and feather me.

Look I am smiling, and in a bit of pain, but I am smiling :)

Done!!!

2011 Peachtree International Triathlon - May 14th, 2011

2011-05-16T10:00:00.000-05:00

Hope y'all are having a great weekend.

Well, first race of the year is in the books. Santa brought it yesterday. A bit more than I could chew :) However I did say I was gonna finish with a smile, and I did.

I decided I would go down Saturday morning to Peachtree City as I did not want to waste two hours to get my packet. Went out with a couple people to hang out with some friends for the evening. I got in bed by 11:30 and needed to get up at 4:00am. Not a big deal since I have problems going to bed early the night before a race.

Jumped out of bed when the alarm went off and headed for the kitchen. Apple slices, banana, peanut butter, and Greek yogurt with strawberries was what I had for breakfast. Put on my new 2XU suit that Dermantone Labs put together for me! Fits really well and it worked out great during the race.

Threw everything in the car (except the bike pump) and headed down to the race. It was a good thing that i brought both my bike helmet and my aero helmet because Tommy had forgotten his helmet. Went and got my race packet. Yay! Another water bottle, shirt and socks :) Got all the numbers on and got everything in transition. Can I say that I LOVED my rack spot this year? My race number was 48 and I was about 30 yards from the bike exit and re-entry. Sweet!!!! No having to run with my bike all the way through transition. Hung out with Tommy for a few minutes before we needed to get in line at the swim.

Swim

Left a lot to be desired. Need to get more open water swims in this year, and preferably a few more in my wetsuit before it gets too much more hot. Most likely the water conditions will be too warm for West Point Lake Triathlon on June 12th. Felt good for the first half of the swim, and I was sighting really well, which is strange for me, since I sometimes lack in that area. Began to fade though in the latter half of the swim. Think it is a combination of the OWS environment (no stops/turnarounds/interval breaks) and swimming in the wetsuit. Either way, combine that with tired and you get my final swim time. I will say though, there were three times where I upped the intensity and those catch pads on the forearms work really well. I could actually feel as if my arms were anchored better in the water which allowed me to move faster. Traffic got a little heavy at then end of the swim because the super sprint athletes joined up with the rest of us at the end of the swim.

35:04 (1.4mph) - 22/42 in AG

T1

Kind of disoriented after getting out of the water and so I was not running as fast as I would have liked through transition. Lost my swim goggles somewhere in transition, and I just broke them in a few weeks ago :( Oh well, someone else's gain, I will just get some new ones. Thanks Mitchel for the idea of leaving them in my wetsuit sleeve saying they would stay in there ;) Only other issue, which actually drove up my transition time, was the fact that my left calf kept cramping up so I ended up having to sit down to take my wetsuit off.

2:31 - 28/42 in AG

Bike

Did not average as high of a speed as I wanted to, but I was pleased with my performance on the flats and some of the rollers. There were a number of race marshals out there and they got quite a few people on penalties after looking at the final results. I decided since I needed to save some for the run, that if I could not convincingly pass someone and keep moving ahead of them, that I would hang back until I either had an opportunity to move up in the field or not. Using the new bike and aero helmet seemed to work out well. Big snag on the way back in around mile 16-17. Biggest hill (not that there were any that big) on the ride and I go to downshift into the small chainring. Chain comes off. So I have to get off of the bike on the hill and put the chain back on. Took a min and about that time there were a slew of cars that were coming by (open course) that had been trying to get around some of the other riders. By the time it was all said and one I wasted about two minutes with that. Tried punching it on the way back in, since after hitting that hill, it was a net decline in elevation back to transition.

1:17:36 (19.3 mph) - 28/42 in AG

Transition 2

Pretty Standard. Did not try to get off of my bike leaving my bike shoes on it, as I had not practiced that yet this year. However, being so close to the bike re-entry it was not a problem running in the bike shoes in the grass back to my rack position.

1:34 - 22/42 in AG

Run

Not my best run. Took about a mile to get going, and then I kept cramping up throughout the run. I had to do some walking to make the cramps subside. Finally was able to get some fuel in on the latter half of the run and it helped to dissipate the cramps in my legs. Also had a GI issue for the first half of the run, and thank goodness there was a porta-john at the halfway point of the run. Unfortunately since I was in a one piece it was a little harder than normal. Chalk up about 2-3 minutes of time lost due to that. Was able to finish the last two miles fairly strong despite the results of the first two thirds of the race. And like I said, I finished with a smile.

1:03:39 (10:16 pace) - 40/42 in AG

Finish: 3:00:22, 32/42 in AG, 293/438 overall

Tommy did great for his first ever race. He was in the Clydesdale division and ended up getting 4th in his division in his first race. Congratulations to him. I hope he keeps it up.

Would like to thank Kim Bramblett for putting on a great race for the weekend (as usual). And a big thanks to my sponsor Dermatone for all of their support. Everyone who I gave product out to was greatly appreciated, and had lots of questions on where to get it from. And thank you Beth for coming out to cheer me on and take pictures of the event! I will have some more pictures to post for you guys once I get them from her, and also get my pics from the picture company that worked the race.

Race Week - Some Thoughts...

2011-05-12T08:23:00.000-05:00

Hey Everyone!

I feel like a friggin five year old on Christmas week. This is my seventh season competing in triathlons, and if I was to pick the top 5 moments that I have enjoyed over the past six seasons, I would say that this week would have to rank up there as number two or three. I know, weird, right? I would have to say number one would be finishing my first Ironman in 2009, followed up by completing my first triathlon in 2005. And then I guess my excitement about this week would come in at number three. Why?

I feel that I have had a "Renissance Movement" with regards to triathlon. While I have had some fairly structured years (2007 and 2009) and I have had some great memories with friends, family, and the sport, I have been in a tri funk since my Ironman. I guess I am a person who likes to try new things all of the time, and in doing so, I hit what I thought to be the peak of triathlon. I finished an Ironman and thought to myself, "what's next?"

Life also tends to get in the way, but I have learned now that it only gets in the way if you let it. During this off season, I have had an awakening of sorts. I remembered all the good times I have had in this sport, all of the great relationships I have developed, all of the stories I have told and listened to. I am not sweating the small stuff, missing an occasional workout due to school, etc. I am taking more time to enjoy life in general. I cannot believe it has taken me this long to do this! It is such a refreshing feeling, that I am ready and raring to go this year.

I have no idea what is gonna happen on Saturday. I know what I would like to ideally happen, and I know what realistically should happen. But I am not gonna worry about it. I am just gonna get up, like I do every day now... Bust my tail, enjoy it, and be me :)

My Christmas is Saturday, and under the tree is gonna be a glorious 1.5K swim, 42K bike, and a 10K run. And for those of you who might be there and see me cross the finish line, if you see a big smile on my face as I "hit the tape," just think back to this post and you will know why.

Bring it Santa, I am ready ;)

Murtha's Tri - Minicamp! April 23-26, 2011

2011-05-06T07:50:00.000-05:00

Ok, so it definately was not as cool as the title sounded. There was no destination camp (other than driving to where I was training) and I was the only one participating in said mini-camp. But I had a blast nonetheless!

Classes ended on April 21st, and do not start up again till May 3rd. Also I have not had a vacation/staycation/etc since 2009, and I needed to have a few days off. I don't have the Garmin on me right now, but here's the gist on how it went down.

Friday: After work I went for a 5 mile run (a couple laps) around Chastain Park. Good way to start off the weekend, and for some reason the run felt particularly good. Probably something to do with the fact that I did not have to work for the next four days.

Saturday: Met up with Mike at the Silver Comet Trail for a 2 hour ride. This was the first time he had taken his new bike (Trek Speed Concept 7.0) out for a spin. I'll admit, for a bike that I kinda shunned in choosing my Cervelo, it is a pretty nice ride, and I am jealous of the rear bike box. That's ok, I am still really happy with my ride :) The first two miles we were just puttering along to get our legs warmed up. Because of finals that week, I had not been able to get all of my workouts in. I really tried to keep it at MAX HR between 150-160, but I kept trying to be a speed demon and had to keep putting myself in check. I have been focusing more on these Oly-distance races, but here pretty soon I am gonna need to put a lock down on my agression with HRM alerts on my Garmin so that I am not killing it on the bike. I think we did about 35 miles or so on the bike. Went home and then went to the Nook for dinner/drinks in Atlanta. For those of you who are in the ATL area, it is on 14th and Piedmont right across from the park. Patio is wonderful. And if you love tater tots (and I think this group does) you are gonna be wonderfully suprised by the various selections of dishes called "Totchos." Just google them and pull up their menu, you will wanna go ASAP.

Sunday: Got up and did 1900 M total at LA Fitness, 1500M being my main set comprised of 3x500 with the 2nd 500 using a pull bouy. Wears my arms out for the last set, but I do it on purpose because at some point in the longer distance events I will be swimming with tired arms. I finished in under 30 minutes which I am happy with, I just wanna get my time down closer to 25 min for 1500 M. In the afternoon I headed over to Chastain Park and belted out a few laps around the park totalling a bit over 5 miles.

Monday: The first big day of two. I did all three sports on Monday, however, there were no brick workouts. Hit the pool in the morning and belted out 1800 as my main set, comprised of 3 x 600 with the 2nd set using a pull bouy. Again, arms are worn out, but they are getting a workout, so I am fine with that. Run came next early in the afternoon (Atlanta Memorial Park), and then followed it up a few hours later with a Monday night group ride (Atlanta Cycling - Vinings Recovery Ride).

Tuesday: Last Day! Woke up a bit late (last night was Monday Funday at my house, lots of drinking and such). Swim was a straight 1500M swim. It turned out to be somewhere in the 28min and change range. I already had the bike on the car and the shoes in the back and headed over to columns drive to do my brick workout. I was short on time so I only did 15 miles on the bike, and averaged about 20 mph. There was a nasty headwind headed back to the parking lot on every lap, and it felt like I was working twice as hard just to get 18-19mph average on the way back in each lap. Fortuantely because of this I belted out 22-23mph average on the way out each lap, with the tailwind on the way out. After this I quickly racked the bike and put my shoes on and went for a 4 mile run. After adding in a hypothetical 1:20 for each transition, I can project out around a 2:37-2:40 expected time. We shall see if that actually happens :)

Post Brick I had a scheduled massage for an hour. Man, that was just what the doctor ordered. I think I am gonna need to start scheduling those for post race and post high volume blocks of training. Was almost late to the massage, but made it nonetheless. I am convinced if I had not gotten that massage, my legs would had been wrecked for the next few days following. Instead there was only mild soreness on Wednesday, and no soreness after that!

I feel since then that I have absorbed the training really well, and now I just need to keep up the intensity. It was really fun to have some time off of work and school, and just focus on triathlon for a change. I hope I can do it again sometime later this season.

I hope all of your training endavours are going well! Have a good weekend!

Ironman Wedding (Grooms) Cake

2011-05-04T10:45:00.000-05:00

I do have some other posts I am working on right now, however, I wanted to get these pictures up for you to take a gander at and maybe comment on. Mike got married this last weekend to his wonderful wife Melissa and this was his groom's cake at the wedding. He is off for two weeks and it will be on like Donkey Kong for his IMFL training!!! For those of you who don't already know, Mike and I are doing IMFL together this November. Here you go!

I hope he has not jinxed himself! I don't know what the filling was (strawberry or raspberry) but it was delicious!

Respite, Respite!!!

2011-04-24T20:39:00.000-05:00

Where the heck have I been?!?!?

Good question! I just finished my last final exam this past Thursday. And I am happy to announce I did not make anything less than a 91 on any final I took this semester (I actually made a 99 on my Advanced Accounting final). Best case scenario this semester, A+, 2 A's, and a B+. Worst case scenario 3 A's and a B+. Not to shabby I will take it! Especially since the beginning of the semester was less than par with my first couple of exams. As of Friday I have 10 days without classes, and I rewarded myself with a 4 day weekend from work! So I have dubbed this weekend, "Murtha's Mini Camp." I will post updates either beginning tonight or tomorrow. Got in one workout on Saturday (did too little in the workout dept, and too much in the drinking/socializing dept), and two workouts today.

I have less than three weeks left till Peachtree International Triathlon, and I am gonna sign up here for West Point Lake Triathlon in the next week or so. I have nothing dubbed for mid June through September as that is going to be billed as my build phases. My half-iron distance race is not till the first week of October, which will kick off my taper for IMFL.

The bike injury is pretty much healed, I am switching from Neosporin to Mederma on my wounds since they are technically healed, now to get the scarring to go down. I also am trying to complete a 10 pound loss in 30 days. The kicker is that I am not using a scale. I know that sounds silly, but I look at it in a Brett Sutton way (except it is weight loss instead of training). If I just focus on the things that I need to be doing rather than looking at the scale every day, then the results will take care of themselves. And if I don't lose the weight by race time, I will at least have lost some, and I still have much more time to go before I get to IMFL. So no biggie, but it will be a plus if it does happen :)

How have you guys been doing? I have not really had any time to read any blogs or post any race results and stuff that has been going on in the tri world. I also have another big announcement that I will post sometime this week.

Lastly, my birthday was on April 11th. I was working on a post prior to my birthday and it was composed of things that I wanted to accomplish before my birthday next year. It is past my birthday, but these things still apply, so I am going to post them anyways, and then probably have a permalink at the top of my blog to track my progress over the next year. Once again, they would be great to achieve, but if not, no biggie :)

Things I want to accomplish in the next 12 months (or that should be completed within the next 12 months)

-Graduate with my Master's of Professional Accountancy (should happen in August barring any major issues)
-Obtain my CPA certification (Yay! Another round of exams that will be the hardest of my life :)
-Either move to the accounting department at my current firm or move to a public accounting firm.
-Take a real damn vacation! I go back and think about it, and I have not taken a "real vacation" since probably 2007. This means no holiday, family, triathlon weekends, 3/4 day weekend, etc. I mean a whole week somewhere, preferably outside of the country!!!!
-Complete Rev3 Anderson Half
-Complete Ironman Florida and kick the crap out of my IMCDA '09 time (should not be hard since there are no hills!)
-Be in a position to begin hitting top 10 or better in my AG at smaller races, qualify for AG Nationals in 2012, and be in a position to possibly qualify for Kona/Lake Las Vegas in either 2012/13.
-Meet new tri friends and blogging buddies :)
-Have fun and enjoy life!!! The most important one of all :D

I hope all of you enjoyed your Easter weekend regardless of your religious affiliations!

MIA (damn school) and my first bike injury!!!

2011-03-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

Spring has sprung!

Definitely working on this at the 11th hour (literally), however on a beautiful day like this, why would one want to blogging when they could be enjoying the beautiful weather outside? My thoughts exactly!

School really kicked my butt this weekend. I have this new twitter feed for my blog, and on some of my first few tweets, I was referencing AccountingMan 2011 (part 1). That ended on Thursday. I think I got a B on the exam. Not exactly what I was looking for, but there are lots of opportunities to make up for it the rest of this semester. My training was kinda lax this week because of it. I will make up for it this weekend. Part two of AccountingMan 2011 is this coming Tuesday. Yes I should be studying tonight, however, how would I get my blog post in??? Update: I have since had the exam on Tuesday and it sucked. I made a 100 on my project that was due on Thursday, and spent most of the day yesterday inside in class. At least the weather was not nice, so I don't feel too bad!

Publix Georgia Half Marathon!!!

I finished in 1:57:36

More to come on that in an official race report. Roughly 3 min off my PR finish. So not bad considering my entire month of January was botched because of illness.

Prepping for Peachtree International Triathlon (and if you wanna podium at an event.... super sprint).

Got a little under 50 days till my first triathlon of the year. Little behind on my training, but at this point I will be able to finish the race. However, my hopes of making top third for AG Nationals is flying out the window fast. The problem is school. Damn other priorities in life!!! I am excited that it is coming to and end and I will have an advanced degree that I can actually use. Training throughout he summer is gonna be a bit sketchy with school, however I think I will definitely going to get the volume in. It is just not gonna look pretty!

By the way if you are near the Atlanta area and want to get a podium finish potentially for your AG, you should come the weekend of the Peachtree International Triathlon and compete in their other race the Super Sprint. It is shorter than a sprint distance race, and with all of the focus on the Oly Distance this year in conjunction with the SE Regional Champs, I don't think there will be many people bellying up to the line for the Super Sprint, save maybe newbies, and other triathletes that have the same idea as me.

EBay auctions for Christchurch

The auctions from the IMTalk podcast have ended, and I think they broke over $15000 USD to raise money for the victims of Christchurch. They had memorabilia donated by pros, and major race companies donated entries to bid on for the event (a couple of them were the Hood to Coast relay and the Norseman). Thank you to any of you who may have participated in the bidding. And even if you did not win anything, if you still want to donate, any donations made this week to the IMTalk podcast will go to the earthquake victims in New Zealand, rather than their usual goal which is to send Bevin and John to Kona for great coverage of the World Championships.

And that reminds me, after this week, they will be back to their regular donations towards their trip to Kona. They basically show up and do tons of Kona coverage throughout the whole week including the race and get interview with pros and various other folks while they are there. Last year's coverage was amazing, and if you are looking for something fun, different and informative (and not NBC/WTC coverage related) these are the guys to listen to. I get an extra check in April, so I will be sending my first of many donations to help get Bevin and John to Kona so that this year's coverage can be even better than last year!

Did not feel like reporting on them, however, Ironman Singapore 70.3 and Ironman San Juan 70.3. If you want to check out some race results and stuff, check out Slowtwitch or Xtri as Ironman.com seems to have already threaded them out of their news cycle. 70.3 Oceanside is this coming weekend and should be a pretty good turnout for the pro field this year. With the new points series for pros this year, you see more and more pros getting out there trying to scoop up points earlier in the season. Opposed to prior seasons, where a pro/top AG'er had to show up and qualify and then they were off to Kona or Clearwater/Lake Las Vegas (70.3 Champs).

Are any of you Catholic? If so, what did you give up for lent? (for those of you who aren't are you playing the game also?) I decided this year to change my focus for lent back onto myself and my health. So the two things which I have decided to do is to not drink and also to not eat Zaxby's. For those of you who don't know what Zaxby's is, you can Google it. It is a fast casual food chain that specializes in chicken fingers and various other chicken related items. I normally would eat there once a week. A regular chicken finger plate with an extra Zaxby's sauce and an unsweet tea is over 1500 calories (I believe). While I can burn that off no problem, that is not the most healthy thing for me to be eating, especially once a week. As for the alcohol, I think it is good for me to purge and no have any for a while. I don't need it, and who knows, maybe I will finally be a cheap drunk when it is all said and done.

How are you modifying your training for race season beginning and the transition to springtime??? Let me know! And you guys have a great rest of your weekend!

TIMEX SWEEPSTAKES!!! Win free stuff including reimbursed race entries!

2011-03-18T10:57:00.001-05:00

Happy Friday Everyone!

I got a notice about this and I thought, why not post this so everyone I know has a chance to win free stuff!

I like Timex stuff and I actually own a Timex Race Watch/HRM, which I usually use for solo runs and swimming laps in the pool. Plus one of my favorite pros, Keegan Williams is on team Timex so I am all about supporting him in any way I can!

There are only 13 days left to win big in Timex's March Sweepstakes, offering a $1,000 race and training package. The Grand Prize includes all your 2011 race entry fees up to $620, the latest GPS watch and a Headsweats® Race Hat. Five runner-ups will receive Timex's latest heart rate monitor, which has a unique ergonomic fit for comfort and readability. Finalists (30) will received Timex-branded Headsweats® Race Hats.

Here is the link for the contest: http://apps.facebook.com/timexsweeps/contests/101209?wfrefid=455721c6f470

The sweepstakes ends March 31,2011!!! So if you want to win FREE stuff, get on this!!!

My 2011 Race Season is Finally Here!

2011-03-15T21:04:00.002-05:00

Hi Everyone,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! The weather here in Atlanta was great, and evidenced by the numerous people out and about trying to escape the cabin fever that was this past winter. I did just over 10 miles on Saturday for my last long run before the Publix Georgia Half Marathon this coming weekend, and then on Sunday I did a bit over 26 miles on the new bike (Silver Comet Trail). I need to figure out a way to get my RunningAhead Training Log to post to my Facebook page. Anyone know how to do that? I am gonna eventually have my training log on one of the static page links at the top of my blog. Speaking of which.... I guess you guys/gals have seen my new blog static pages that I have started :) Still slower than I would have liked, but that is also due to grad school (stupid grad school!!!!)

The "About Me" page has the ABC's of me listed, so if you want to jump on that bandwagon just click on the link and read (there is also a Fresh Prince of Bel Air reference at the top of the page).

Speaking of the Publix Georgia Half Marathon, Wes giving a lot of smack talk, at least is backing it up by kickin my ass this weekend ;) Here's to your PR buddy! Also my friend Tommy will be in the event as well, as he graciously has taken his sister's race number since she will not be able to participate in the event this year. Kinda want to drive the course again to see where all the elevation changes are. I might do that on Saturday when the traffic is not bad. Actually, now that I am looking at the course map online, I might not need to. I know where all the elevation gains are at.

So I have to take my girlfriend into the shop (most likely tomorrow) for her new ride tune up. Of course all wrench heads will tell you after you get that new bike that after you ride it some, the cables will loosen/tighten, etc and you will need to bring it in one more time to make sure that it gets really dialed in to where it needs to be. Well that happened to me over the weekend. at 1/2 way through the ride, I could no longer go into the large chain ring. Not only that, but when I stopped and physically moved it up to the new chain ring, it moved itself back down as to say, "nope, have fun with this one all the way home." As for the rear cassette, I am having shifting issues through the middle of the cassette, which should just be an adjustment issue. The other problem is about 4 miles from home, I see that the reverse bolt that holds everything together up front (crank arms, bottom bracket, chainrings, etc) is about to come completely out. Also I screwed it in, but not tight enough because that is the one where you need to use a torque wrench, and I don't have a torque wrench. No good. Otherwise the ride was nice :)

The only other thing that I wanted to bring up was a USAT provision that I thought was a rule. Kinda peeved about it. Here is the skinny!

There was a race I participated in last season (I will have to go back and check my notes) where I was trying to put in some fast times, especially in transition, so I decided that I would go back to the old school clipping your shoes onto your bike and setting that up for a fast T1. I got there early and got everything set up, and left to use the restroom. I heard my number getting called over the loudspeaker, and I went to my transition rack with a USAT referee there. He stated that AG'ers were not allowed to have their shoes clipped in during T1. I politely told him that I have actually read the rules and I do not remember this being listed anywhere. He replied that this was the rule and if I did not comply I would be penalized for it. At this point we have about 20 min till transition closes, and even though there was time, I was kinda pissed. I have now done this about 6 times and I have never had that problem before. So I fixed everything and then went on with my race. For the rest of the season I repeated this process so as not to get in trouble.

Recently I heard on the IMTalk podcast that john was talking about fast transitions and that a person had emailed in from the states that USAT does not allow AG'ers to put on shoes on their bikes for T1. This got the blood boiling again, and so I actually went and read the rules yesterday. Went through every damn page. Guess what was NOT there! ANY RULE PREVENTING AG'ers PUTTING SHOES ON THEIR BIKE FOR T1! So I go onto the Facebook page of USATriathlon yesterday, and ask this question. Their response...

"Hi Andy: this actually has never been a rule. In USAT-sanctioned events (unless the RD files for an exemption) you are allowed to attach your shoes to your bike if you wish."

I have asked a number of triathletes in the past, and there is an increasing number that say they have encountered this at races. So either there are a lot more RD's filing exemptions, or the RD's are not wanting the risk of injury to an average AG'er trying to execute a mount and ride with their shoes on their bike. So they just tell them they are not allowed to do it. That is my guess. And please note that I am not knocking the USAT, I just think that if there is OR is not a policy in place, that the officials need to adhere to that policy and if there are exemptions filed, then they need to have make that known in the race packet, pre-race meeting, and/or announcements before the race while people are in transition. That's all I want, adherence and transparency.

USAT has gotten back to me before I finished this post and told me that the Commissioner of Officials will allow people to inquire about specific races to see if that race has any exemptions filed for it. I thought that was very helpful to know! Thanks USAT (more specifically whomever is in charge of their Facebook page)!!!

Have a good week, I will speak to y'all on Friday!

The (Belated) Friday Review... March 11, 2011

2011-03-12T14:13:00.002-05:00

I hope all of you are having a great weekend so far!

I was busy as hell yesterday! Hence the post today. Also is was my first schedule day off from training in over 10 days, so that was pretty cool as well. I think my legs really needed it. Also I am liking doing the post right now because I am outside on the porch doing this in the shade when it is sunny and 65 degrees with a light breeze. Friggin beautiful right after putting in a 2K swim at LA Fitness. After I finish this post, drill through the new issue of Triathlete Magazine, it will be time to put in a 9-10 mile slow run. My last long run before the Publix Georgia Half Marathon next Sunday! Here are some race numbers that you can use to check some results after the race

My Number: 8668
Wes' Number: 10229

If any of you locals are going to be participating in the race, please post your number in the comments section so that we know you are racing, and so we can all track each other's progress to the first of many successful finishes this year!

So.... What in the heck happened this week??? I first had to go back and look at last week's post to make sure that I did not dupe anything.

- Keegan posted his race report for IMNZ (in two parts), so if you are interested in that just click on the link.

- Triathlete Magazine got some pics from Kona after the Tsunami hit Hawaii yesterday morning. Albeit I am sure the pier already looks different because it is cleaned up from the race, however, the pics make it look completely different. Also they took some photos where they shot for this year's swimsuit edition, and most of that was underwater as well. Here is the link to the slide show.

- Sally Meyerhoff (From Everyman Triathlon): You may have heard of her if you are more into the running part of our sport. She was a 2 time Arizona State Big School cross country champion, won the PF Chang's Rock n Roll Marathon in January and took first place at the 2011 XTERRA Trail Run World Championship Half Marathon recently. This week she was on a bike ride and ran a stop sign. Truck hit her. She was killed instantly. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of this great athlete.

- 2nd Annual Abu Dhabi Triathlon: This is a 3K/200K/20K event and has drawn a pro crowd second only to Kona (that I am aware of :) only in its second year. This year's hot and windy course laid a smack down on the pros over the unique distances of this event. Here are the results of the race:

Top 5 men finishers
1. Frederik Van Lierde (BEL) 6:43:14
2. Marino Vanhoenacker (BEL) 6:43:31
3. Dirk Bockel (LUX) 6:43:42
4. Raynard Tissink (RSA) 6:43:47
5. Sylvain Sudrie (FRA) 6:45:49

Top 5 women finishers
1. Julie Dibens (GBR) 7:14:23
2. Caroline Steffen (SUI) 7:19:45
3. Catriona Morrison (GBR) 7:31:12
4. Rachel Joyce (GBR) 7:32:09
5. Angela Naeth (CAN) 7:32:34

If you want more results or information about this race, click here.

- EBay auction targeting the triathlon community for the Christchurch New Zealand earthquake relief: Bevin and John from the IMTalk podcast (click on the link if you have not heard of them before, they are great!!!) put together some KICK ASS auctions where all the proceeds will go to the victims of Christchurch Earthquake. They are on EBay, and you can see the items by clicking on the picture below. As of last night, John said that for some reason EBay took down the auctions (maybe EBay thought it was fraudulent or something, but they are working to get these auctions back up and running. They will expire sometime this week. Some of the items include...

Chrissie Wellington’s Record Breaking Shoes from Ironman Arizona
Craig Alexander’s race suit along with a #1 Race number (bike) from the 2010 World Championships
Bevan Docherty’s Jacket from the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and a Beijing Olympics singlet
NZ champion women’s package
Sam Warriner’s Helmet Rudy Project Helmet from Ironman NZ last weekend
Andrea Hewitt’s ITU race kit
Gina Crawford’s race kit from her win at Ironman Wisconsin

And much, much more!!!

PLEASE KEEP CHECKING BACK WITH THE LINK TILL THEY GET THE AUCTIONS BACK UP! IF YOU ARE ON FACEBOOK JUST "LIKE" IMTALK AND YOU WILL GET A STATUS ON THEIR PAGE AS TO WHEN THE AUCTIONS WILL BE BACK UP.

As for my training and such, I am finishing up week 4 of my Olympic-Distance specific tri training. I have been eyeballing the Westpoint Lake Triathlon in mid June. that is about a month apart from Peachtree International Triathlon. That block of training will ramp up the distance a bit while still keeping the intensity that I want for oly-distance events. After that I don't have anything planned until the fall, where I will have gotten my mileage up to Half Iron/Iron Distance levels. Mid August - Mid September will be my biggest block of training because not only will be right around the time I peak my training, but I also will be done with graduate school in August. This will allow me some more time for training.

I hope all of you have a great rest of your weekend. Now off to do some Triathlete Magazine reading for half and hour and then it is time to bang out some more miles! C-ya!

Asics GT 2150 Shoe Review!!!

2011-03-10T14:57:00.000-05:00

(Please note I was not paid, the shoes were not given to me and I did not receive any other form of compensation for this product. This just happens to be the brand of shoes that I have been using the last few years.)

Now that we have the disclaimers out of the way.... :D

I can't wait to get this pair more dirty!!! Too white!!!

This is the next evolution for 2010 in the Asics GT 21XX series. A little background (quickly)... I wore New Balance through high school and college and they worked great. And then, I tried to "fix the wheel, that was not broken." Big Mistake!!! I then proceeded to go through 3 brands before I got to Asics, and I started with the GT-2130's. They were great! I have since stuck with them every year, and I always purchase them through a local running shoe store called Weststride. When I worked for the bank Genie (the owner) and her husband Todd were bank customers of mine. Great people! If you work/live in the Atlanta area you should definitely check them out.

As far as an official stance on the shoe and its properties, this is what Asics has to say about them.

"One of the world's most popular running shoes just keeps getting better. Providing excellent stability, the ASICS GT-2150 road-running shoes work to keep feet comfortable mile after mile, be it training or ticking off another marathon. Lightweight, flexible synthetic textile and polyester mesh uppers offer maximum breathability and comfort. Wicking polyester linings absorb excess moisture and dry fast. ComforDry™ footbeds provide additional cushioning and manage moisture for a cool, dry comfort. Personalized Heel Fit (PHF®) memory-foam-lined collars mold to each foot for amazing comfort. Solyte® 55 midsoles use medium-density proprietary material to enhance cushioning and stability. Proprietary Solyte midsoles are also exceptionally lightweight with excellent rebound for easy running. Forefoot and hindfoot GEL® silicone-based cushioning inserts absorb excess shock in all directions for great stability. Impact Guidance System (IGS®) helps slow pronation for an optimal gait and natural foot movement from heel strike through toe-off. DuoMax® dual-density medial posts provide pronation control for moderate overpronators. Space Trusstic® system delivers stability and arch support while maintaining appropriate flex. High-performance blown rubber outsoles provide superb traction and feel. DuraSponge® forefoot outsole material provides cushioning and traction while AHAR® abrasion-resistant heels enhance durability at the heelstrike area. 3M Scotchlite® reflective accents enhance visibility in low light. GT-2150 road-running shoes proudly carry the Seal of Acceptance from the American Podiatric Medical Association."

These shoes favor runners that have a pronation range from neutral-over to severe pronation. I am more of a neutral runner, but the comfort and width (especially in the toebox area) are great. I usually need shoes that are wider through the middle of the foot, and that support a slightly higher arch than normal. The Asics GT-21XX series definitely fits the bill with my needs and I will continue to buy/use them as long as this series keeps doing what it is doing right, and does not drastically change anything. The GT-2160's have come out for 2011, but I am the kind of guy who is always looking for deals and has no problems buying remaining inventory from last year's line if they are on sale/clearance. And for those of you who like to put more than 300-500 miles on a shoe, I still have my GT-2130's to hang out in and I am still using my GT-2140's occasionally to run/play in (I feel like they still have a few miles left in them). I think this will be the first year in a number of years where I will go through a minimum of two pairs in a year, so depending on inventories at the shoe store, I may get the new 2160's.

If you are interested I would check with your local running shoe store to see if they have any in stock for sale/clearance (2010 model) or go online. And most importantly...

MAKE SURE THE SHOE YOU CHOOSE FITS YOU!!!

Don't go randomly out buying a brand and wonder why your feet, legs, back, etc, hurt. Or why you always seem to get blisters after you have put hundreds of miles on a shoe that should be well broken in. I am sure there are other reasons I am missing as well. Get fitted for your running shoes, and your body/feet will thank you!

(NOTE: Asics, if you are reading, I am gonna need some new shoes in about 3-4 months, I wouldn't mind having a new pair of GT-2160's in red ;)

Thanks for reading the review! Now... What is your favorite running shoe?

The Friday Review!!! March 4th, 2011

2011-03-04T14:01:00.000-05:00

Good Morning Everyone! Happy Friday!

I hope everyone had a good week this week! I think the weather was nice for most of us, and with spring rearing its two heads (lovely weather and allergy season for all of you that suffer), I think the 2011 triathlon season is in order :) I was up late last night on the phone, so I skipped my swim workout this morning (again), but never fear! I put everything in the car so when I head home, I can stop by LA Fitness and get some laps in before the weekend. Now onto some good (and unfortunately bad) stuff that has/is going on this week.

Brazil Critical Mass Incident (news from Everyman Triathlon)

We will start with the bad news first. Last weekend, there was a critical mass ride going on in Brazil this past weekend. Apparently there was a motorist in a WV that had been following the group for a number of minutes and wanted to pass through the cycling group that was going in the same direction as him. The driver got more and more irate as he could not pass the hundreds of riders filling up the street. Finally he decided to run a red light and DRIVE THROUGH THE ENTIRE CRITICAL MASS GROUP!

25 people were injured, 30 bikes were totalled. More than 11 of those people went to the hospital, and two were seriously injured. The driver of the car sped off and fled the scene. He did not return home, and furthermore abandoned his car. I don't know if he turned himself in, or if someone found him, but the police apprehended him the middle of the week. Here are the links of what transpired via video.

Brazil Critical Mass Incident
(you will have to sign in as a user for this video it has been flagged with footage that may be considered inappropriate for some viewers)

Ironman New Zealand/Earthquake/Scammers/!

Kind of like Jimmy Buffett's famous line, "It's five o'clock somewhere," It is always summer somewhere in the world. And it seems to be coming towards the end of the tri season in the southern hemisphere (kind of our September in the Northern Hemisphere). Ironman New Zealand is race number 2 of 4 down under (not counting Brazil because it is much closer to the Equator) and there are some big names showing up for the event. Cameron Brown will be attempting to WIN THIS EVENT FOR THE 10th TIME. I mean, he has already won the damn thing 9 times, I don't know if I would show up if I was trying to compete ;) "What Cameron is competing again this year, well damn it, I guess I am not winning..." Under the new points system that the WTC instituted for 2011 and going forward, some pros are lined up at the event trying to get a head start on the 2011 season. While Macca and Rinny need to just show up and participate in an Iron-distance event this year, the rest of the pro field has their work cut our for them. I attempted to get a pro-athlete list before the race (which begins at 12:00pm EST TODAY!!!) I will have some sort of results posted for you guys over the weekend.

Most of you by now have heard about the horrific earthquake that occurred on February 22nd in Christchurch, New Zealand. Some of these survivors of the event are participating in this weekend's Ironman in about an hour and a half. After going through months of training and prepping for this race, their lives have been upturned with something that is beyond their control to handle. However, they are coping, picking up the pieces, moving forward, and finding a way to compete in the event this weekend. The WTC will be issuing special race numbers to them for the event, and hopefully there will be some extra cheering from the crowds when they complete the race this year.

GO KEEGAN!!!
Race Coverage for Ironman New Zealand

Where to donate to assist the people of Christchurch

Tri Season Beginning in GA! (news via Georgia Triathlete)

SEE ME 2011 has come and gone and now our first triathlon in GA of the season (outdoors) in Savannah. I am so happy about this. For those of you who read and don't compete, you can maybe liken this to college football fans. They pretty much mourn not being able to do anything from mid January through August, and then are so excited when fall comes. Same goes here. I think the race is kinda pricey myself, but I am sure there will be a field there nonetheless.

New Bike!

So I have kinda been holding out on you guys and gals. Well, Wes knew, but I was trying to keep it quiet till the first race of the season. Then my training buddy had to go out and get a Trek 7.0 Speed Concept. So I could not keep it quiet any longer. Yes I did honestly get my parts for my bike (pictures are in my older posts) and those are going on the Roadie on Sunday. However, this year will be my 7th season in the sport, so I decided to treat myself. Here she is!

Ain't she a beaut?

I still need to name her... any ideas???

Training and Misc (e.g. What in the heck I have been up to!)

I am about 25% of the way done with my static pages for my blog. I just read the fine print on how I am gonna get this Charity fundraiser thing to work. I think it will be a bit tricky, however I think I can pull it off. I am proud of myself, I have worked out every day this week without fail, and when I hit up my swim this afternoon, 5 days in a row! Plus I have riding plans with some of my friends over the weekend, including during the rain. Gotta do it! Only other thing that is planned is the Sham Rock Fest in Atlanta for St. Patrick's Day on Saturday. Oh and Studying. Advanced accounting is such a bear right now.

Bib # 8668

Probably butchering this phrase, but it looks like a numerical palindrome :) 15 days and change. I am ready. To finish that is. I just want to be able to cover the distance running. I don't care what my time is, although I would love to finish sub two hours. We shall see.

I hope all of you have a great weekend!

Bike Parts, Closed Pools and Charities!

2011-03-02T14:11:00.000-05:00

Good Morning Everyone!

I hope your week is going well so far. Once again my software I need to do my job is down, so I am stuck here twiddling my thumbs once again, and I figured I would bang out a blog post. I have caught up on most of y'alls blog posts through Monday or so, and it is good to see you all doing so well :) I still need to update my blog roll by getting rid of some bloggers that no longer blog, reach out one more time to the people that have taken their blogs private (i.e. read about them for 3-4 years straight and then they leave me on the side walk going private :(, and finally making sure all the new blogging buddies I have are on my blog roll.

I still have not done the final touches to my blog redesign (permanent link pages for things like scheduling, blog roll, other pages, etc.), and I have something special in store I hope you will help me to participate in for various charities. All you will have to do is come visit and click when you are done, and you will help me to donate to various triathlon charities such as Challenged Triathlete Foundation and Triabetes. Note you won't even have to donate money to help me!!! Well if you want to donate I can tell you where to send the money :) I will do my best to get that all done by Sunday!

So I got all my bike parts in last night, and my buddy Kevin, who used to cycle for the Georgia Tech Cycling Team, is going to help me Sunday morning putting the new components on the bike, and then we will go out for a ride on one of the Roswell Loops. It will be good to get out there again. I also have schedule to get out there EARLY Saturday morning with my friend Maria and do some riding with her for an hour or so. She is training for something in August (she needs to be able to ride 75 miles), I guess I could google stalk which event she is doing, but I am sure she will tell me this weekend. Other than that I need to get some key long runs in and quit missing my swim sessions. There are only twenty - some days left till Publix Georgia Half Marathon. The goal of that race is to FINISH, and to finish running the entire event. No walking (OK walking while taking water at aid stations is fine :). There are a lot of people I know doing this and we are all "gaming" each other to see who is gonna finish faster. I just need to focus on me. And if they kick my ass, then I will shake their hand and say, "maybe next year..."

LA Fitness pools are one of the reasons I have missed swim workouts (well, mostly because I have been lazy). This morning I had a scheduled swim and so I went to the Sandy Springs location. Something was wrong with the pool. No worries, I have enough time to drive to the Atlantic Station location and use that pool. Get there and a sign is posted that the pump for the pool and the hot tub was broken. Epic Fail. I decided to head over to the Buckhead location (which was on the way home, where I was going) to ask when they were going to complete the pool at that location. Now this was on February and made it in some local publications. I walked in and asked when their ETA to finish the pool was, and the girl looked at me like I had a third eye. She told me there was no plan for a pool, and then I told her about the PR release from LA Fitness and also what did she think the construction at the back of the building was for??? Geez. I might as well put in my 60 days and join some other group/club. I just don't want to miss out on weight rooms and other things that LA Fitness provides.

Looking forward to Friday and the weekend! Got a lot of stuff happening. Will call around to a few other LA Fitness locations to make sure that I am not driving around in vain like I was this morning. Hopefully by Sunday I will have the rest of the site changes up, as well as the charity thing set up for you guys to begin participating in! Have a good rest of the week.

2011 Southeastern Multisport Expo!!! February 26th, 1:30-7:30p

2011-02-25T16:36:00.000-05:00

"Two posts in a day??? Don't you have anything better to do?"

I wish! Things got backed up at work, and I forgot to post this for everyone that is within driving distance of Atlanta. I am in no way associated with this, I just think it is really cool and I wanted people to know about it.

2011 Southeastern Multisport Expo

I am just gonna copy and paste a few things from their site, that way I am not butchering anything :)

Hold the date for the southeast's largest endurance and multisport event! SEE-ME 2011, presented by Classic Subaru of Atlanta, is unlike any other expo you’ve ever been to – it’s all here to help you learn, explore and discover what you need to compete in endurance and multisport events. The day is designed to help you, no matter if you are a newbie or an experienced athlete, learn, explore and discover what it takes to get to the starting line.

New for 2011 is the SEE-ME Fit Zone, sponsored by All3Sports! You won't want to miss the separate area just off the main exhibition floor where you can see demonstrations and ask questions from service providers who specialize in getting you "fit" for the season ahead. No, we're not talking about personal trainers and dietitians...although that's important too. The SEE-ME Fit Zone will be for all kinds of "fittings" such as: wetsuits fitting, sports bra fitting, speciality shoe fitting, spin bike fitting, road/tri bike fitting, and much more! Ask the Fit Zone experts and get fit early before the training season kicks into full swing

Once again, a highlight of SEE-ME is the raffle of gear and services items graciously donated by local and regional multisport organizations. You can purchase raffle tickets during the expo event up until the raffle at 6:00 pm. Raffle winners MUST be present to win!

Another highlight to the annual event is the awarding of the Henry C. Forrest "Person of Courage" recipient. SEE-ME is proud to reward someones efforts that you might not otherwise know about because he/she would rather go un-noticed. What better way to recognize someones notable accomplishments than at the multisport kick-off event for the Southeast? Nominate someone for the 2011 award at this link. The Getting2Tri Foundation is this year's sponsor of the Person of Courage award.

DIRECTIONS/LOCATION: Concourse Athletic Club, 8 Concourse Parkway, Atlanta, GA 30328, (770) 698-2000

The Friday Review!!! February 25th, 2011

2011-02-25T15:45:00.001-05:00

Happy Friday Everyone!!!

Results from Rev3 Costa Rica

Here is where you can get all of the results from the Rev3 Costa Rica Race!

Leonardo Chacon (Men's) coming in a time of 1:53:25
Kelly Williamson (Women's) coming in at a time of 2:10:35

Some of my favorites I follow
Matt Reed - 8th (Pro) finished in 2:02.23, I don't know what his average run pace is, but he was 12/13 in the men's field with a run pace of 6:08/mi. Also there were only 3 men in the pro field that exceeded a 6:00/mi pace.
Kate Major - 2nd (Pro) finished in 2:12.42. Looks like it was a case of Kelly being better on the swim and the run just enough to out race Kate with her small advantage on the bike.

I hope to see both of my favorites in the other Rev3 Events this year. It was kind of interesting to see the pro field in the Olympic distance race this year, but I am attributing that to the fact this was more of a warm up race for the season.

The next Rev3 Series race is in Knoxville on May 15th, 2011 (Olympic and Half Iron distance). I completed the inaugural race last year at it was awesome! It is also a great alternative to the Ironman 5150/70.3 events! I know some of you are anti-Ironman sanctioned events, while others are just looking for a great alternative race series and this is a bandwagon you should definitely be on (Shameless free plug :).

Let's see... what else happened this week? Oh yes, the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand! There is a podcast that some of you might listen to, IM Talk, and if you don't you should definitely check them out. They are also on Facebook if you want to friend them as well. They talk about everything, and you get a greater world picture on triathlon since it is coming from a non-US perspective. Bevin and John, the podcasts' creators are doing well although they have sustained property damage to their homes. Here is a link if you would like to donate to the people of Christchurch for this disaster (Multiple sites listed here).

Lastly, before I go on about myself for a few minutes, I thought one of the bigger news events this week was Macca announcing to leave Ironman for awhile to focus on the 2012 London Olympics and the Australian Olympic Team. Good for him. He knows what he wants, and he is gonna leave IM to go and to it. Congratulations. I only did a quick skim over a few articles, and I don't remember whether or not he said he would be open to coming back after the Olympics. I will still enjoy his racing, whatever format he is racing in.

Ok. So this week I missed a couple workouts because of my Final Exam, but other than that I did OK. I finally got my road bike fitted on Tuesday, and the most drastic change was that he moved my seat height up about 2.5 inches, he moved my seat forward about a centimeter, and he flipped my headset upside down to give me a more aggressive profile. He also suggested I get a new set of drop bars (smaller) that will fit the new group set I purchased last week. I am still waiting for that to come in as of today, however Monday was a Federal Holiday so no post running on Monday. Bill at All3Sports was very helpful, although they were a bit short handed, they had a lot of employees down at the Rev3 Costa Rica race (they are a major sponsor for the event). Other than that I have class tomorrow morning for 4 hours, then the Southeast Multisport Expo (that runs from 1:30-7:30p for all of you who live in the Atlanta area). After that I have a couples shower to go to with my roommate, the couple are really good friends of ours, and the groom to be is one of my fraternity brothers. Outside of studying, I once again will take full advantage of this beautiful early spring weekend to swim, bike, and run closer to my goals this year. I think I have about 23 days till the Publix Half Marathon, and I have about 78 days till the Peachtree International Triathlon.

Have a great weekend!

No Prinicipal Richards, its ok! I have a "Hall Pass!"

2011-02-23T12:39:00.000-05:00

Sooo, I was gonna tell a real quick story about the skinny on what transpired this past weekend (and I wanted to somehow get the new "Hall Pass" movie into my title as well :).

Friday I was supposed to get my bike fitting for my road bike. That got cancelled because All3Sports was gonna have a number of their employees down in Costa Rica for the Rev3 Tri Olympic and Half Rev races this past weekend. So there went that for the weekend. Then my buddy Mitchel who works for LifeTime Fitness told me that he had scheduled a metabolic test and a VO2 Max test for 1pm on Saturday. He tells me this Friday afternoon, and then proceeds to give me a laundry list of things I can/can not do between Friday evening and Saturday @ 1pm. One of these things was that I was not allowed to work out.

I get a "Hall Pass!"

The Friday evening not working out kinda pissed me off because I slept in Friday morning and was planning on doing a brick in the evening to make up for it. So there goes two workouts. Then I had two workouts planned for Saturday, one being in the morning, and he then tells me that I cannot do the morning workout either. Oh and I have to go to bed early, and I cannot drink the night before either, and I have to have my last meal by 9pm and can only have a small snack for breakfast.

Saturday morning comes and around 10am I get a text from Mitchel. I had already made other plans for the morning and was currently out and about, and he says, "Just found out that the equipment is not working, so I have to cancel the tests, sorry bud." Well crap!

I did get my rest of the workouts in though through the weekend, and I did find time to go out on Satuday night, and I also tackled some studying for a final exam I have this coming Thursday night (Federal Tax Accounting).

In other news, my road bike parts should be here sometime this week. I purchased them last thu from a guy in Washington State, and he shipped them out Friday. It was an ebay auction, however, he ended it early since I made him an offer rather than bidding on the item. I got a 2010 Shimano 105 groupset, and then he threw in some Mavic Kysium's for an additional $175, plus the tubes and tires. Total out the door with all of that was $520. Pretty good considering the average retail price of that 2010 groupset alone is around $650-700.

Here are some pics. I did have a pic of the wheels, but I lost it, so I will get that to you when I receive the items in the mail.

I will have a post on my rescheduled bike fit and other things in the Friday review, since I am now going to go into hiding until after my exam on Thursday night! Have a great week!

Murtha's Triathlon Blog Listed in Top 50 Athlete Inspirational Blogs!

2011-02-21T13:26:00.000-05:00

Don't even ask me how this happened! But I will accept it nonetheless.

So I don't know if you guys do this with your blogs (be it wordpress, blogger, etc), but I will go one every couple of days and check my stats to see how much traffic I get, where it is coming from, and if anyone else is linking to my blog. I think it was this past Friday I was looking first thing in the morning, and I saw this website/blog that my blog was linked through, Sports Psyche. The site/blog is dedicated to the study and communication of sports psychology to the masses, they also have other resources on their site if you are interested in this field of study.

They have a post from February 8th, entitled "Top 50 Inspiring Blogs by Athletes." I clicked on the link and it has 50 blogs from both pros and amateur athletes that they feel can inspire others. I go through the first three sports, basketball, football and baseball. There were some pretty big names in there. My next thought is, what does this have to do with me? I keep scrolling down, where I hit the Running/Triathlete section, and who do you suppose is listed at Number 29? That would be yours truly! Also, one of my blogging buddies, Rachel, was featured as well coming in at Number 28. Here is her blog if you are interested in checking it out. I know this is probably not some high ranking sports psychologist that is world renowned or anything, and this list is far from Triathlete Magazine or Sports Illustrated Top ## Athlete blogs of all time, but I thought it was still pretty cool!

Take a gander at the post here.

Hope all of you had a great weekend!

The Friday Review... February 18th, 2011

2011-02-20T18:21:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday Everyone!

I hope all of you have had a great week this week. I know for a lot of you the weather has been really nice and I have also seen the number of people out and about biking/running quadruple I think. People had a rough case of cabin fever and needed to get the hell out of the house! Got a few news items I saw this week, which I thought were important, so I will pass those along first and then get on with what the hell was going on with me :)

First off I wanted to put in my two cents about Lance Armstrong's second retirement (dubbed "Retirement 2.0."). I think this is a great thing for Lance, and hopefully he will be more decisive than Brett Farve is/was in leaving his sport. Oh I am sorry, I meant coming back. Oh hell, I don't know what Brett is doing... I think that he just flips a coin about two weeks before the season starts ;) Regardless of his innocence/guilt regarding the doping allegations, I think him coming back just stirred the pot again. There will always be people who put him on that. After looking at the year after year training regimen that he went through, I would hate to think that some, if not all of his major wins were due to performance enhancing drugs. Also there were so many proactive things he did for pushing forward testing to fight the doping scandals.

I feel that his comeback from retirement and wanting to bridge that with the Livestrong organization did not pan out like some people felt it was going to, or at least where I thought it was going to go. I am sure there were some events where proceeds and donations made there way into the Livestrong program, however, from a PR and outsider's standpoint I felt that Livestrong would be labeled on everything he touched. I heard all this hype about how a lot of his comeback was going to help promote Livestrong, and then when I watched him throughout the year I did not see much of Livestrong shown, other than his Livestrong bike he rode during his races. I did not think that he was gonna be able to pull off another Tour de France win, however, in the same note, he loves his sport so much that I can see how hard it is for him to get away. Kudos to you Lance, I hope that you enjoy your retirement! Also come back and do a tri or two for fun ;)

As for me, the front end of the week went really well for me training wise, and then the wheels fell off at the end of the week. I will get to that in another post, probably tomorrow (Monday, as it is Sunday and I am still working on the Friday Review). School seems to be much harder and taxing (no accounting pun intended) and when I got to Thursday I started wearing down. An average day for me without training is 6:30a - 11:00p, and that schedule includes working and studying. Add in training and I am going 5:00a - midnight. My Fridays I have made to have an easier schedule or have that my day off so that I can sleep in a bit, and not take a worn down body into the weekend where I need to ramp up my training due to more free time. I will make the adjustments. Oh and nap time is definitely coming back! I like to take naps, but I am the kind of guy who, if he has the option to, will try to push through and just make it to the end of the night. Naps are going to have to come back into the equation if I am to make it through August.

I am gonna cut this one short as I once again ran this post too far past Friday ;P I got some other stuff that I wanna talk about tomorrow anyways. I hope that all of you had a great training weekend, and enjoyed the weather (for those of you who had great early spring weather this weekend). I am out!

The meaning of Ironman vs. the Ironman brand (Part 2: From a Pro's Perspective)

2011-02-15T11:03:00.001-05:00

Hey Everyone!

I got a bit inspired this morning from one of our local pro triathletes here in Atlanta, so I wanted to get this on the blog today! April Gellatly-Burkey resides in Atlanta and has been a pro for a number of years now, while also coaching on some of the local triathlon teams, private training sessions, and consulting with local news media on all things triathlon. I have been to a few of her open swim sessions with Tri-PTC, and have seen her at the Southeastern Multi-sport Expo, as well as a few other places. She is a great person, and a great representation of our sport. Here is a photo of her from Rev3 Cedar Point.

In December 2010 I posted a blog titled: "What's your Opinion? The meaning of Ironman vs. the Ironman brand" (click on the link to read)

Today April was inspired by a blogger talking about "Fighting the Good Fight" and is trying to apply it to her endeavours of furthering her career in triathlon both on the WTC circuit as well as other national triathlon circuits. All coming from the perspective of a pro-triathlete. I think you will like both her post and the post that inspired her. I like it when people think with the glass half full :)

AprilGellatly.com: We Must Never Stop Dreaming

Paul Coelho's Blog: The Good Fight

Enjoy!!!

The Belated Review...

2011-02-14T23:37:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Sorry I missed Friday. My girlfriend was in town for the weekend, and I got distracted, since it was our early Valentine's Day weekend. I did some scouting for new gear for this season, but I came home empty handed. No worries though, as I am sure I will probably find some money to spend that I don't have this year (yay capitalism, yay materialism, yay deficit spending!).

Yeah workouts kinda did not happen since it was Valentine's Day weekend. That does not happen too often nowadays that we are so far apart, and also since it was "spend time with your main squeeze holiday." But I am ok with that. As far as training is concerned, I have a 13 week training block leading up to the Peachtree International Triathlon on May 14th, 2011. Between now and then I have the Publix Half Marathon in Atlanta (March 20th, about 5 weeks away). After that then I have a 24 week training block till I hit Ironman Florida. Everything is getting planned out quite nicely. I am only doing a two week taper in my 13 week plan, so I have two extra build up weeks to help with the transition to the Ironman block of training. At some point I will be completing either IM Augusta 70.3, Halfmax, or the new Half Rev3 in Anderson SC. All of them happen the last week of September/First week of October, so that will be perfect to lead into tapering for IMFL.

I am also working on tweaking with tapering, because I have been doing some new research and studying the training habits of a coach in Australia who has trained up swimmers, triathletes, runners, etc and put a lot of them on Olympic teams and some of them into Ironman World Championships. Basically he craps all over periodization and tapering (not to get rid of tapering, you just don't need as much as you think you do). I also got to listen to an hour and a half interview with him, and I totally drank the Kool-aid. Why??? Because it made total sense. We have been trained (in the age grouper macro view) to look at swim bike and run separately, and not to train for triathlons. Sadly enough this guy has not written any books or training manuals, and short of paying money to fly to Australia and train with him in person, I will just have to soak up any articles/training logs/interviews that he has done and try to tailor more of my training towards his style. Do I think I will become the next best athlete? Hell no! But I think he is onto something and anything I try is bound to improve my performance by some standard, so why not employ his methods.

Just some food for thought. Swam today, total workout 1700M. I am going to wait another week or two and then complete a swim test. At that point I will begin timing my workouts. Tomorrow is bike at 5:45am at LA Fitness, and then I will work, go to class, and about 9:15pm I will get out and then head over to the gym to get in 4-5 miles of running. Good times :) Hope all of you had a great weekend, and I hope that all of you were wished a Happy Valentine's Day by someone who thinks you are special (friend, family, significant other, pet, etc).

Listening to the body...

2011-02-08T15:18:00.001-05:00

So I have a history of not listening to my body. This has led to numerous injuries some including ITB Syndrome, Plantar Fasciitis, Osgood's Schlatter, and more. With respect to this year it has been trying to stage a revolt on the scale of Egypt with President Mubarak. I was sick for the better part of the month with a sinus infection I could not shake, I had food poisoning, and this past week my ITB band and my calves have been kind of messed up from running (precursors to former leg injuries I do not wish to repeat), and the doctor told me I am overweight and need to lose weight. It I am usually never sick and the only time I have had sustained injuries is when I did something stupid with respect to training. Weight has been due to my lazy ass ONCE AGAIN this off season combined with my food intake. Crap, crap and more crap.

Those of you who are linked to me on facebook saw my post this morning about how Bloomberg News reported McDonald's January same store sales were up 5.3% beating estimates. I commented on I ate so many times at McDonald's in January (more than I think I ever have in my life), that I probably helped them beat analysts estimates (a funny business joke, but not funny when it comes to nutrition).

I think I came to this epiphany last night when I was running my Chastain Extended Loop. as I approached about 1 mile on the run, my calves really started to hurt. I was running uphill at the time, so I thought nothing of it. As I crested the hill to go down hill for the next half mile, my calves were locking up. I had to eventually quit when I hit this particular intersection that would let me cut back to my car. I walked/jogged back to my car in considerable pain. I also had problems driving home in my car, because i have a stick shift. I went home and stretched and put on the compression calf sleeves. sleeves helped some. Today I am going to stretch and roll the calves out before I go on the run to see what happens. I wonder if it was the 2nd day soreness from Saturday's run. I know that I did not run very long on Saturday, but I am still recovering my mileage from my lost January, where I was pretty much beginning anyways.

I am behind the 8 ball for the Half Marathon, but I am going to take it in stride. If I can complete a Half Ironman with virtually no training, then getting the training that I am going to get over the next 6 full weeks will be a huge step up from that. Also the half mary is not an A race for me, it was just something for me to work up to so I know I would be ahead of the curve when it came to my Ironman training. If I was putting in good mileage for the half mary towards the end of March, I would be in good shape coming up to the summer and for Ironman.

I've got a training plan for February. I have been sticking to it, even if the workouts were not on the exact days that I am used to. I am working on a nutrition plan, and hope to have that finalized in the next couple of weeks. In the next two weeks or so I will decide how I want to tackle the main part of my season, and how to break it down with regards to building up my base, tackling a few races I have put in my season, AND Ironman specific training. I have also been toying with the idea of joining a group or getting "informal" coaching. I say informal coaching because I cannot afford to have the coaching I want to have (i.e. $100+ a month for personalized service).

On that note I have been bike shopping again... More like bike Internet shopping. Things I cannot afford :( But I am going to try really hard to upgrade parts to my bike this year. Main items on the list include (and will finish off this bike permanently), new wheel set, new group set, and new handlebars/aero clip-ons. I would also like to get a bike fit for all of this. I have a coupon for all3sports to get fit on the bike, but I want to wait until I get all the parts (except maybe the wheels) so that when I get fitted, everything will be ready to go. I am going to go ahead and take measurements this weekend so I have something to take into the bike shop, even though they are going to measure me again and tool around with the bike. I did get my ISM saddle, and I have not yet put it on the bike, but I am excited that I got it.

I kinda feel like the purchase list is going to get longer this year. Most everything I own that is triathlon related was purchased (with the exception of clothing) in 2005. Helmet, Bike Shoes, Bike and 90% of components, etc. Why did I have to choose such an expensive sport??? I mean a drug habit would be cheaper than all of this ;) That is a running joke (no pun intended) I use quite frequently, some people laugh, some don't. I guess if I joined a club of some sort I could get some discounts, but it is going to take more than that to help me out :) I am not asking for a full ride sponsorship or a brand new bike to be purchased for me (although that would be nice), but somethings gotta give. If I convert this to a real world experience (because triathlon is a hobby, not the real world, unless you are a pro, hope I don't offend) it would be like having to repair your transmission, your car insurance is due and you found out that you owe taxes to the state AND federal government.

The other issue is getting hassled by bike shops. They never want to install parts that you purchased yourself, they only want to install parts that you purchased through them. Something about liability or some crap. Hey, if I buy some parts of the Net or through another 3rd party and I give them to you, and one or all of the parts are actual crap, then that is my damn fault for buying them. I am PAYING for you to install the parts I purchased. You are still making money by charging me labor for the install, why are you trying to screw me for not wanting to pay double for parts at your shop when I can get them for 50% off somewhere else??? Sorry I will get off of my bike box.

Speaking of which, if you live in the Atlanta area and need a full size hard case bike box with wheels and a handle for pulling while you are traveling, I will rent you mine for $25.00. I paid $450 for mine plus shipping to my house and I have only used it once, and I have rented it to a friend one time. Otherwise it just sits around collecting dust until my next traveling event or I have to move a body :)

This week I am getting the swim and bike back into my workouts, but still mostly run focused. So that this point for the next few weeks (and because school is still crazy) I will have a couple swims and a couple of bike rides/spin classes a week to get back into the swing of things. By the end of February I will have gotten my feet week and some miles under my bike and I will kick it up a notch in March. April will be a great month because I have three weeks off from school, and then I will be MIA socially May-2nd week of August because of Grad school + training. Then I will be done with school and can peak in August and September with my training, taper October, and BAM! Race day will be upon me!

So I have gotten way off track on this post.... where was I? Oh yes listening to my body! Well I just need to spend more time listening to it and less time in my head ignoring it and telling my body what I think it should do regardless of its state.

Have any of you forgotten to listen to your body? What happened?

Have a great week!

2010 Ironman Augusta 70.3 Race Report - Part 3 (Conclusion and thoughts...)

2011-02-05T14:18:00.001-05:00

Hello Everyone,

     It's Saturday, just got out of a Federal Tax Accounting Class, and I needed something to do while my lunch was settling before I can get in my afternoon workout. Missed the morning 8am run with the West Stride Support Group. Sorry Lee! Was out at Ormsby's and Waffle House too late last night. I was planning on being late to class this morning anyways because of the run, so I did not feel guilty getting up late, waiting for Planet Smoothie to open at 9am and then go to class. So I decided I would complete the last part of this race report, put some thoughts and feelings behind how I felt about the event and my completion of it to tie everything together.

     First off, I think that my attitude and priority towards this race was all out of whack! I think you may have gathered that from part 1 of this race report. I signed up for this race in May and did not do enough training for it. I kinda feel like 2008 and 2010 were lost years with respect to training and racing. In 2007 I had a huge racing season (not that I was actually good, just a lot of races) and then I guess I was burnt out when I hit 2008. In 2009 I did IMCDA, so there was the motivation there. There were a couple times during the season where I slacked off and I admit that, both for being burnt out and trying to keep a relationship in check. 2010 I think was the same result as 2008, though it was due to training really hard for one race rather than multiple races. There were also other major things that happened in my personal and business life in 2008 and 2010 that had significant impacts on my training and competing in triathlons in general. In 2011 I am trying to remedy that situation by one, getting back into a year where I am fully training and participating in the sport and two, actually not having another "off" year going into 2012.

     Second, and this is more of a humor related intermission for this post (but still topical to it), I really need to start taking some sort of laxative around 5pm the night before the race. I mean come on! I stopped 4 times on the run???? Not to mention I did not go at all BEFORE or during any other portion of the race. And not only that, it was like 2 days worth of food! Not cool! And the fact that I wasted somewhere between 25-30 minutes waiting in line for a porta-john and using them. I mean, I think I added a 4th discipline to the sport that day so we could call it a quadrathlon. Swim, Bike, Run, and poop.

     Third, I really need to work on my run. Not necessarily the time, but the running off the bike. In most, if not all of my long distance races (HIM + distance events), every time I come off the bike I have to walk at some point due to cramping or leg fatigue (notice I did not say body fatigue, usually when I stop I feel fine, just my legs are trashed). One of my tri-resolutions for the year is to do lots more bricks, and not all of them are going to be 2-3 hours in the saddle and then 15-30 minutes of running. My buddy James that I did CDA with and also trained with, his original discipline was duathlons, and he has a few key workouts, similar to bricks, that I am going to employ so that when it comes time to race in another HIM or IM distance race, I am not gonna have trashed legs/cramping all the time. That's not to say that I won't ever get a cramp again, or that I won't ever walk again, I just know there is a large area of improvement for me in that area.

    Lastly, I think something that will stop the huge roller coaster effect from year to year when I participate in this sport is to have fun and remember not to be so serious about this sport all the time. Sure you have to have discipline to train, you have to plan out your workouts, you have to schedule your events in advance, etc. But once that is all over with, we should all be able to cut loose and have a little fun with this sport. If we forget to do that, then we go down a path where it is not fun anymore, and we decide to cast it by the wayside like some toy we got for last Christmas knowing there is a new present wrapped under the tree right now for this Christmas.

Hope you all have a great, safe training weekend. Don't know who all of you are rooting for in the Superbowl, but I hope that Pittsburgh gets their butts kicked! :)

The Friday Review for 02/04/2011...

2011-02-04T15:56:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday Everyone!

I hope that everyone had about as good of a week as I had. Well except for Tuesday. I pretty much bombed my Advanced Accounting exam (scores to be posted by Tuesday). Even with cutting out the training for more study time, it did not help. Should have gone and worked out anyways.

Other than that I got in some good runs this week. I also found an extension to my Chastain Park loop, which extends it another three quarters of a mile. The only downer (or great thing if you are into S&M) if that it adds a LOT of elevation to the run. I guess it is not so much a bad thing, but if I want a flat run, that is not going to cut it for me.

I have begun using the running ahead training log on Facebook to generically track my workouts. While it takes in all kinds of great data, I have some spreadsheets I created a long time ago for IM training that are event better. But it takes time for me to do that, and I like just entering the data and having it spat back out at me with what I am looking for.

I will get in my second run of the week tonight, and then my third run tomorrow with the West Stride Support group at 8am. They are involved with the Publix Georgia Marathon/Half Marathon and will also be doing some of the pace groups for the event. I signed up for the group for the past two years, and I figured why not, I love the company and I like all the fun stuff they put together for runners in the Atlanta area. Sunday will be a 2 a day workout, I will get a run and swim in and then take Monday off from running. 4 days in a week is not bad.

I also purchased a new saddle for my good ol' Allez today. Probably the biggest upgrade of recent memory for this trust steed. I got the ISM Adamo Road saddle from All3Sports. Cashed in my gift certificates from Christmas so I ended up getting a $100 off for the saddle. Pretty good stuff. I was wavering between the ISM and the Fizik Airone Tri2 saddle, however, there was only a $10 difference (my choice was $10 more) and the fact that there has been a lot of research done lately about cycling and issues with sexual organs in both men and women. Triathlete Magazine's February issue ("In the Hot Seat," p. 91) has an article about this, and I am really glad I read this before I made my purchase. Don't get me wrong, I think that Fizik is a great saddle company, however, I need to keep "my boys" in top shape, and if purchasing a saddle that is shaped like a tuning fork is going to do that for me, then hells yes I am going to purchase an Adamo saddle.

Last but not least, I was browsing the triathlon/running blogosphere and I found out that Jess got featured in a popular running blog that deals with Mothers who Run. The author of the blog has also written a book and has a few followers. Here is the blog (post featuring Jess)...

Run like a Mother

Well that is about all I have today! I will get you my follow up to my race report soon enough.

BTW what are you guys doing this weekend in general? What about for training?

Murtha...

My Orbea - Or more like what my Orbea would be if I had money :)

2011-02-04T10:43:00.000-05:00

So one of my friends Dee Dee posted on her Facebook page the other day, a bike that she outfitted through Orbea. It lets you customize certain features and then not only tells you how much it will cost, but it will allow to you share it with friends and purchase it if you wish. She went all out and her price tag ended up being just under $11,000. I was a bit more modest just because I wanted to see how much one would cost if I was to go out and buy one right now. Just for funsies.

Here is Dee Dee's link.

Here is my link.

You should go try it as well! Always fun to do even if you are not in the market, or if you are just doing some window shopping like myself ;)

2010 Ironman Augusta 70.3 - Part 2 (The Race - or moreover, how not to train/race)

2011-02-03T15:48:00.000-05:00

It Begins...

Swim Leg

I am suddenly awoken from my trance by the loud bang of the referee's race gun. As I came back to reality, my body had done what it has been always trained to do. The current was fairly strong. My last half I completed (I was also a bit slower then than I am now) was in about 48-49 minutes in the ocean, so you would get a little help on the way in, but none on the way out. This was all one way downstream. I did attempt to sight, and my sight line was in closer to shore as to stay away from other swimmers, and the fact that we were getting out on the same side as we got in on, so there was no point in swimming all the way out to the buoys. Swim was 1.2 miles or just over 2100 yards (6 in one, half dozen in the other). Kinda forgot to do some extra kicking the last couple hundred meters to get the blood flowing back into the legs. I want to say that my best form was during the middle third of the swim, when I got all my race jitters out from the first third and settled into the race. The last third I began getting fatigued and got back into my old swim (bad) habits which slowed my time.

Swim Time : 31:24.00
Swim Avg/100: 1:30

Transition 1

Legs felt like two stumps and I was tired. Remember that almost no training thing I did most of the year. Yeah it was coming back to me and I had not even gotten on the bike yet. Oh well, this was just about finishing the race. I told Mike while yes I would love to beat my time from 5 years ago, I just wanted to finish. I jogged through transition to my rack position. Of course (as is always the case) my rack position sucks, the tri-gods have cursed me with horrible rack position for the rest of my life for some reason. Took my time getting everything on (still lightly raining) and I was trying to dry anything off that was soaking wet. Ran with my bike past the porta-johns..... Nothing. Although I did pee in my wetsuit prior to the gun going off. Man it feels great, especially when the water is cold.

Transition 1 Time: 6:55

Bike Leg

After getting a good look of the bike course the night before on YouTube (thanks to whomever loaded that!) The elevation profile was not as bas as advertised on the Augusta course part of the site. One thing I do distinctly remember is how crappy the roads got as soon as we hit South Carolina. See Augusta splits between GA and SC and 90 percent of the course (if not more) was in SC. Once we got off of the main roads that were heavily traveled, the roads got a bit better, but not much. It began raining again about halfway through the ride. I only got water at the 2nd aid station, as I already made sure I had everything I needed on the bike before the ride. I am gonna re-think that strategy this coming year, since the aid stations at most 1/2 iron distance events are evenly spread through the course and have everything I usually want, the exception being the brands that I consume. On the back half of the course, there were some pretty technical turns and some pretty steep downhills, so I made sure to keep my speed down just to be safe. I did not want to incur some horrible bike injury due to inclement weather. After looking back at Mike's speed as well, I am assuming that he did the same thing. My back was beginning to ache a bit as I got to the last 10K of the bike, so I was out of aero for the remainder of the ride. I was in and out of aero a lot on the second half of the ride, but I am used to that since I am in group rides and even some of the solo rides I do in Atlanta get pretty technical, so I find myself out of aero more than the average person. As I got close to the finish I had to pee again, which was good because I knew I hydrated well during the bike despite the wet weather.

Bike Time: 3:06:52
Bike Avg Speed: 17.98 mph

Transition 2

Light rain, but the clouds began to look like they were clearing up. Hmm... "I wonder if it is going to heat up and get really humid if the sun comes out...?" Once again because the bike to run transition was not the same as the swim to bike transition, my rack position still sucked. It is like they put me in the one corner out of 4 that has no entrance or exit. Changed into run gear and once again took my time, and it was wet, but there was nothing I could do about that. As I was heading out of T2 I went ahead and went pee at the porta-johns, but nothing. This was going to be the bane of my existence during the run.

Transition 2 Time: 6:00

Run Leg

The main problem I have in my longer races is that I have issues running off the bike. I am going to fix that this year, as I have a few things on my tri-list that I want to improve about my races. It is not that I am not going as fast as I wanna go, it is that I cramp up and my legs are too fatigued. This is from not doing enough brick training so I get used to the bike/run transition. I got about a mile down the road before I cramped up and had to walk. Someone in the crowd yelled for me to pick it up, it was just the first mile, and then he kinda calmed down he he saw me limping in pain from the cramps.

The run course is a two loop course with multiple back and forth areas, which is cool for spectators, so that they could stay on the same block area and just walk back and forth between streets to see their racers. Celine had gotten to the race site just in time for me for the run. I saw her as I was passing through the 2nd mile, trying to look my best even though I felt like crap and my legs hurt. Just before I saw her I was actually walking again (for the second time). After I had passed I was kind of in a groove and then it hit me...... Thank goodness mile marker 3 was coming up, and there are porta-johns at each mile marker. What had been eluding me all day since I woke up had finally come back to haunt me. There were two people in line in front of me and I thought I was gonna die. Also I was somewhat in the back third of the pack for the day in general, so there had been close to 2000 people that had passed by this way two times before I got there. I lost about 5 minutes waiting for my turn, then took another couple in the porta-john. Phew! I am sooo glad that was over.

Since I got about 7 minutes of rest out of that so my legs felt fresh enough to go another mile or so before I was going to have to walk. I was alternating between water and Gatorade at every aid station, I had my endurolytes in my tri jersey pocket, and I was taking in a gel about every 40 minutes. It started to get warm outside because of the sun, and this also began to make it humid as well. Began sweating even more. I got to mile 6 on the backside of the run course where we were about to do our second loop when... Oh no not again! Twice??? Well I did have quite a bit to eat over the weekend, but come on, I thought the first time was bad enough. There was only one person in front of me this time, so I only waited 2-3 minutes and then I was in there for another couple minutes before I emerged to begin the second loop of the course.    Now we are up to a 11-12 minute delay in finishing because of bowel issues. Never fear! I pushed on (no pun intended)!

Going into the second loop I felt much lighter, however the fatigue and cramping had set into my legs. I was basically alternating between walking and jogging every quarter mile. The sun at this point had been out for a good 30-45 minutes, parts of the pavement were steaming. I was grabbing sponges at every water station and pouring some additional water down my backside to cool off and to wash off from the prior two visits. On the second loop I stopped not once, not twice, but three times more for the porta-johns (the third time was just to pee, I was two miles away from the finish and I could not hold it)!!!! I mean I must have been backed up for a couple days, because every time I went throughout the run was serious. I ended up wasting another 15 minutes in those three visits for a total of 26-27 minutes waiting and using the restroom on the run. I would normally never talk about bathroom breaks affecting my time during the race because I seldom go and when I do it is usually on myself, unless I have to go #2.

Run Time:     3:02:53
Run Pace:     13:58

The Finish!!!

I saw Celine a couple more times on the run and I believe that I did see Melissa once or twice on the run. The sun was out in full force when I was crossing the finish line and the weather was great! I was jogging the last mile of the course and i tried really hard not to walk. My jog while crossing the finish line was pitiful. I have not bought any pictures from the race, but when you look at them online, all of them are horrible, most of them are of me walking and the one at the finish line you can tell I am doing some kind of turkey trot because my stride is next to non-existent. Celine was there to greet me at the end of the race and a few minutes later I saw Mike and Melissa. Melissa had already checked them out of their hotel, so whenever Mike got cleaned up he would be ready to go. We both got some pizza, water, and beer, and then hung out for a few minutes before parting ways.

Final Time:                               6:54:02
Time Spent in Porta-Johns:       26-27 minutes
PR in minutes from last HIM:    31:48

My PR would have been almost an hour if I had not had sooo many stops! Oh well, that is how the cookie crumbles. Post race report to come soon!

Murtha...

2010 Ironman Augusta 70.3 Race Report - Part 1 (Prelude)

2011-02-02T21:15:00.000-05:00

Let's face it guys and gals,

     This 2010 has been pretty much a busted up season for me. I know I have re-edited my 2010 race schedule, but if you would have seen the "projected" 2010 race schedule at the beginning of the year, There were double the races, including new ones I wanted to try, "B" races that were training feeders in to my "A" races, and just some others for fun. Well... Life doesn't always pan out the way you want (why not?).

     The race I completed prior to IM Augusta 70.3 was TRI - PTC Sprint Triathlon. That was my 6th year competing in the event, and I make a point to doing that race every year because it was the first race I ever completed. Going from the Chattanooga Riverfront Tri to PTC I got in about a dozen workouts total. Not a very productive summer tri-wise. But hey, I am in good enough shape to wake up on any random day and do a sprint tri. Doesn't mean I should be doing that though, bad idea. After PTC (late August) I only got in about 10 workouts or so before Augusta (late September). I thought to myself, "hey I have done an Ironman, and I did a half 5 years ago, so what if I have slacked on my training? I paid for this damn thing, even if I DNF, I am doing it."

     One of my good friends Celine has family that lives just outside Augusta, and she said that she would come along and be my tri-sherpa for the weekend as well as let us crash at her family's home. Celine used to date a triathlete who is currently attempting to go pro, so I was a piece of cake to handle compared to him (although she would have to wait longer on me). We decided to drive up on Friday afternoon. I took a half day so I could get everything together and then went to pick up Celine after she got off work. I think we finally got to Augusta around 10pm or so after driving from Atlanta. I went ahead and unpacked a few things since I had to drop off my bike on Saturday, etc. We stayed up and watched some TV, she made me one of her famous Bloody Mary's and then it was off to bed.

     Woke up the Saturday morning and had breakfast and Screwdrivers :) then got everything in the car to go register for the event. We got down to the hotel (race site) around 11:00 or so, and we called Mike and Melissa, who were already in line. They said there were hardly and registration volunteers and only one line, which was about an hour long. Celine and I decided to go ahead and get some lunch while we were in downtown Augusta and let the lines dissipate before we headed in. We found this great little restaurant at the corner of the street directly down from the hotel, about three blocks away. Lunch was good (is that a pint of beer at Andy's table?)

     There was about a 20-25 minute wait just to make it to the registration table when we got there. Celine took this as an opportunity to get a massage from one of the sports massage people while I stood in line and waited. Once I finally got all of my registration stuff, I headed through the shopping area to see if there was anything that I could get w/ respect to this race. I found a hoodie that I really liked, and then I got a cowbell for Celine to cheer me on. Good purchases. After that we drove down to the transition area to drop off my bike and get a look at the swim exit and then head back to the house.

     I was originally planning on driving the bike course to see what it was like, but someone had been nice enough the prior year to drive the bike course with a camera and then post the videos. I plowed through those videos while Celine cooked dinner. Her sister prepared a whole dinner for us, all of it was delicious! Drinks for dinner, watched some TV and then went to bed for the evening.

     Sunday Morning! Race Day! We got up early (me first). I always take a quick shower on race morning. Don't know why, since I am going to get sweaty and dirty during the day, but it makes me feel better in the morning. Ate my usual breakfast items and got in some water and a bottle of Cytocarb/Accelerade. Wasn't able to use the restroom, but I figured there would be plenty of porta-johns to take care of business when I got to the race site. Celine's brother-in-law left his truck at the house for the weekend, so Celine drove his truck, since she cannot drive my car (stick-shift). She dropped me off and wished me good luck, as she was headed back home to go sleep in. The night before she asked me what my proposed times were for each leg of the race so she knew where to be on race day.

After dropping of my gear in transition, it started to rain slightly. I found Mike and Melissa at the transition site after finishing up my stuff. Melissa decided to get in a good walk back up to the hotel and swim start, since it was only a mile and change away, and she had nothing to do for the next hour. As Mike and I were about to get on the bus, I took a look at the porta-johns.... nothing. Mike and I got on the bus, it took about 5-10 minutes to get to the swim start. I kinda had a nasty blister from a couple days before that I should not have messed with, and did anyways. It felt like not matter where I walked, I was stepping on some pebble exactly at my exposed blister. Mike and I soaked the whole experience in. This was his first half, my second, albeit my first was 5 years before. We chatted some more and decided we would get in one more bathroom break before we donned our wetsuits and headed to our respective corrals. I went in an peed...... but nothing (I hope you have gotten the idea of where this is going...). Got the suits on, and it started to lightly rain again.   We got into our respective corrals.

     It was cloudy and rainy, but it was becoming more light out. The singing of the national anthem was the last point where I was in tune with my surroundings. The silence of being alone in your head, even with the thousands of people around you, the race director barking orders, the 90's music blasting (thank god they have moved up decades, I have never been much of an 80's person). I began reflecting on my experiences over the 6 seasons I have participated in triathlon. The ups, the downs, the highs, and the lows. Long training hours, meeting new tri-friends, going to places I have never been before, taking my body to limits it has never been before. Now I am jumping off the dock into the water. The current is decent, they let some water out of the damn earlier that morning to get the flow up. Strong enough where I had to swim backwards a bit to stay behind the start line. The silence in my head drowning out everything........Then...

(to be continued)

Its Coming.... (Part 1 of 3 will hit today!!!)

2011-02-02T12:26:00.000-05:00

Just as I posted at the end of 2010, I have some catching up that I need to do on my blog. I know that in the blogging world there is no real thing as catching up. The past is the past and if you have not blogged about it, then it is old news. But this blog is also for me and my memories and I think it will benefit not only me to reflect and read upon, but for people's reading enjoyment as well as some good info in general to have.

Can you see that I am not trying to give away too much?

Part 1 will be loaded by tonight!!!

Murtha...

Finally a nice weekend to train outside!

2011-01-31T14:42:00.000-05:00

I hope all of you had a great weekend!

I did get that Friday run in at Chastain Park so I made up for a day I lost. Saturday I kinda skipped my workout, but I was out of town for the weekend, I made an excuse :) Sunday I broke in my new Asics GT-2150's in Raleigh on the Westside near NC State's campus. It was a perfect day for running, and so was Saturday, I am kinda pissed I skipped that one. It got up to around 60 degrees by the time I ran (high of the day was 68 degrees). Slight breeze, not too many people out and about yet, really good run. I will post some sort of shoe report when I get a few more miles under my belt with these shoes, however, so far so good.

Weather is supposed to be warmer on average this week than the past few weeks, but more cruddy weather till this weekend (subject to change - please?) It makes me kinda with that I could get this weather the last 3 weeks of October so that I will be prepared weather-wise for IMFL.

I got to finally read one of my triathlete magazine issues over the weekend. I got through most of it, and I finally gave up on trying to read the December and November issues because I just don't have the time to catch up. Maybe some other time perhaps, but not any time soon. I was really interested in three articles, I hope maybe some of you like these as well. First was the crossfit article. One of my blogging buddies, Sarah has been doing crossift now for a period of time, and she loves it. I also tried out boot camp which is based off of cross-fit, and it is pretty intense. Keeps me interested, just don't have the extra money to do it.

The second article was about being "that guy" at the master's swim class. You know, the guy who does everything wrong? Actually some of the stuff were stereotypical examples of people being A-holes, I was just more concerned about not making rookie mistakes. I am searching for a Master's swim class. I have not found one yet because I am searching for convenience with regards to how close it is to my house and job. If anyone has some good ideas in the Atlanta area please let me know.

The final article that I enjoyed was the article about training in sickness and in health. I have had some minor health issues since the beginning of the year (non-stop) which has never happened to be before in my life (that I can remember). Having some good common sense ideas on how to tackle your training issues with regard to sickness helps me out a bunch and also helps to tweak my training schedule so I don't prolong or worsen my illness.

That's all I got for now. Probably won't hear from me till at least Wed/Thu because of grad school this week. Hope you guys enjoy your Monday. Have a great start to your week!

Murtha...

The Friday Review...

2011-01-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone,

    Hope all of your training and everything else going on in your life is great. I have decided that I am going to make my Fridays the end of my blogging and training weeks. I thought this a good idea for two reasons. One, my day off usually is Friday for many reasons, and two, I treat my Saturday's and Sunday's like the beginning of my work week, so I figured having Friday as a review/last day of the week would work out well.

     I ran Sun/Mon/Tue and it was friggin cold every night, and it rained on Tuesday night, so that is another one in the IM bank for me. IM Florida was damn cold this past year, and while things may change for this coming year's event, I want to have every miserable training experience imaginable so that when race day comes, I am either prepared or pleasently suprised. Wedesday night I opted not to workout in favor of cramming for my exam on Thu night. I got a bit of food poisoning from Willy's Wed night so I stayed at home pretty much all day Thursday except to take my exam, and then went straight home. I talked to one of my classmates this morning, and she told me that class was really hard after the exam. I don't know if that is a product of having your brain fried with an exam and then more class or just the material was hard, however, not something to look forward to.

     I plan on running after work today to try and make up for wed/thu. I know you cannot make up days, however, I can work out on my day off to make up for a missed workout during my training week. About 8 weeks and change till the Publix Georgia Half Marthon, and Wes is already talking smack about whipping my butt on the course. He actually may very well do so, but I will accept his challenge nonetheless. It's on like Donkey Kong!!!

     I will be up in Raleigh this weekend and I am taking the running shoes with me. The weather is supposed to be great, and I don't wanna miss out on that. Weather has been too crappy lately, although I have been a good sport and participated in it anyways. I need to break in my new pair of shoes I got for Christmas, ASICS GT-2150. I will have some sort of shoe review after I use them for a week or two.

Get out there and have a good time this weekend, whatever you do!

Murtha...

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

2011-01-24T14:29:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone! Happy Monday.

I hope that everyone is enjoying their new year. I know I have, for the most part. The holidays were great and I got to see all of my family at the same time for the first time in 3 and a half years. Gets a bit harder when you are spread out all over the US. Just after New Year's I came down with a really bad case of sinusitis, and it is still holding on just a bit, even after taking Levaquin for a week straight. Ever since I had my acute episode in college, it seems it hits me once a year, and it is getting harder and harder to shake each time. That coupled with the Snowpocalypse in Atlanta two weeks ago, and my training took a serious punch to the gut.

Fortunately my "A" race is in November so I am not too worried about that, however, I am participating in the Publix Georiga Half Marathon at the end of March, so I need to get up to speed with that. Otherwise besides getting back into training, I have just been working and schooling. I graduate in August, and then I have to take the CPA exam. Woohoo! More money to shell out and testing!

Doctor also said I have gained quite a bit of weight. Great, so now I am a fat ass. Hopefully my training will help me to alleviate that. Most of my training before the holidays and this past week has been run focused due to the immediate half marathon coming up.

Family definitely came through for the holidays though. Patsy got me a new Xterra Wetsuit, parents got me the new Asics GT-2150's, and the family got me about $150 in All3Sports gift certificates that are burning a hole in my pocket. Need to do some upgrades to my bike.....

Lots of running coming up this week, need to get my 2011 schedule on the site and do some other various upgrades to the site. Technology changes so fast and if you don't keep up then your blog ends up without all the cool new blog gadgets that one NEEDS ;) However, posting does take precedence.

Hope all of you have a great week in general and with your training. Keep it up!

Murtha...

What's your Opinion? The meaning of Ironman vs. the Ironman brand

2010-12-03T11:21:00.000-05:00

Good Morning!

So I have missed some workouts this week, and I am sure I will miss a few more between now and next Thursday. Reason? I have two finals next week, Tuesday and Thursday, and I had some quizzes and a paper due last night as well. Starting next Friday (for me) is winter break, and that lasts until January 4th. I should be able to really ramp it up during those three and a half weeks. Always trying to be the glass is half full type of guy :) Not much else to talk about in my life (tri life as well), so let's move onto the topic I really wanted to talk about!

On Wednesday this week, Bloomberg's "Taking Stock" show hosted the CEO of the World Triathlon Corporation, Ben Fertic. Ben was on to not only talk about the sport of triathlon and its strong long term growth, but the World Triathlon Corporation's brands. These include Ironman, Ironman 70.3, and the 5150 triathlon series. In short summary, this interview was really great and informative, and Ben was also to give us a backdrop about how triathlon formed (for those of us who don't know) and also how the Ironman really got ramped up from 15 crazy guys racing to the hallowed world championship event that it is today.

The part of the interview that really hit me was the branding of these events. We all talk about Ironman, whether you have done one, you are going to do one, or just throw it around in casual conversation with your tri (or non tri) buddies. I guess what is really obvious, Ironman as a brand, is also really elusive. Although Ironman is not technically a monopoly in the Ironman market (Beach 2 Battleship, Rev3 Long Course, Silverman, etc), the long (or ultra long) triathlon distance is akin to monopolistic competition. I guess the best analogy is Microsoft. Sure there are other OS software systems (Apple's Mac OS, Unix, Linux, etc), but Microsoft dominates the market by a very large margin, hence monopolistic competition.

Another way to look at this issue. What do you call a short sleeved 2 or 3 button cotton shirt with a collar? (No I am not gonna hit enter 500 times and make you forward this to 10 friends to find out the answer). Polo shirt. While everyone makes this type of shirt, the phrase "Polo Shirt" has successfully been in our vernacular for years. Another one.... Tissue that you blow your nose with? Kleenex! You don't ask for a tissue, OK I guess a few people do, but most people I know ask for a Kleenex.

So bringing this back to triathlon. I have been thinking of getting a new tattoo. My first tattoo is my fraternity letters and my badge number from the chapter I was initiated at. This is located on my right shoulder blade, and was crudely done on purpose because I wanted to make it look natural and like it was hand done, not with some fancy font template. My fraternity is really important to me, and I am still really involved over ten and a half years after I was initiated.

On a side note, for those of you who say you "were" in a Greek organization, you signed up and took an oath to be a member for like, so quit saying when you "were" in a fraternity/sorority. And go back and say hey to the new guys/girls that are there now, or whichever university is closest to you, they will appreciate it.

Back on Track.... Triathlon has been really important in my life as well. I have finished my 6th full season (since 2005) and I don't plan on stopping. I also completed my first Ironman in 2009. At that point I felt that was important point in my life (re: triathlon) and wanted to mark it with something memorable. I thought I would get a "m-dot" tattoo on my left shoulder blade to mark the completion with my Ironman. Just like my first tattoo, I have sat on the issue for a really long time to make sure it was I really wanted. Yes I know there is technology to remove tattoos now, but for all intensive purposes it is permanent.

After listening to this interview, I now don't think I want to get one. It would be similar to getting a Delta tattoo because I love to fly delta, or a Zaxby's tattoo because I really love their chicken finger plate. Instead I think I would get a tattoo similar to one of those car stickers that just says "140.6" or 70.3" (half iron distance). I want to mark and commemorate the event that was completing a triathlon of that distance, however I don't want that necessarily to be related to a brand.

The problem is that Ironman has become synonymous with long distance triathlon. If one is trying to describe a ultra long or long distance course to a newbie triathlete or someone who does not know what triathlon is then you will almost always reference "iron distance" or "half iron distance" race. Or if you are having trouble explaining the race, you might throw up your hands and say it is an "Ironman" or "Half Ironman."

On the other hand, the Ironman brand is a great brand. Expensive as it may be, I have never had a complaint regarding a race when I have completed an Ironman or Ironman 70.3 3event. Ok I did just think of one... And WTC I hope you are taking notes :) There was nowhere in the race info packet about having reflective material on your running gear, and then on Friday evening (race was on Sunday) they say this in the meeting. Thank goodness there was a Sports Authority nearby. I grabbed the next to the last pack of reflective stickers and the cashier made a point of saying that happened to be a popular item that day. I cannot say the same thing for other races that I have completed. The Peachtree City Tri Club puts on a world class show just south of Atlanta, but MANY of the other race companies leave MUCH to be desired.

That being said, I think that the WTC needs to be careful. Like Microsoft, straying away from what the public really wants, at the price they want it at, can create great unrest and fierce competition. Hence events such as Beach2Battleship, Rev3 Long Course, Silverman, Great Floridian, etc... I think though there is going to have to be someone with a vision like the WTC to create a competitive brand that can compete with the WTC. Also I think this will drive better quality races out of the WTC and the competing firms, as well as keep the prices down.

Other than inflation increases, I don't think that WTC can raise its prices too much higher or it will have a great amount of falloff from the general age group athletes. Many of these Iron-Distance events can be at least $100-200 cheaper than the Ironman Branded races. I have heard that Silverman is a top notch event, it is close to my parents in Nevada, and it is $200 cheaper if I pay early. With my service fee through Active.com, I paid $603.75 for Ironman Florida 2011, $575 of which was the actual entry fee. When I think about what I receive over the 4 day weekend when I am there, I can directly attribute about $200 of that to what I can see and experience, and the other $375 I don't really see or I am not aware of (obviously some of this portion is for staff salaries, website maintenance, building rent for HQ, renting police for the bike course, etc...).

However, with all of the volunteers that participate, I wonder how much they could drive their costs down if they better managed the volunteer process. I volunteered at Ironman Florida '10, and while I had a great time and WILL volunteer again, I was less than impressed with the management of the Volunteer process. Volunteers not knowing what to do, where to go, too many volunteers in some areas and not enough in other areas. I think if they spent a small amount of human investment in better training and organization of the volunteers, then they would yield much better results on pre race/race/post race events. That and they could afford to allocate resources to more important areas thus saving both human and investment capital. They could then pass this as savings back to the age groupers that sign up in long lines to compete in their events. If you look at the competitors to Ironman, there is a $200 or more price discrepancy. Maybe then again, Ironman is the Louis Vuitton of ultra long triathlons, and events such as Silverman are the Target of ultra long triathlons (not a knock on Silverman, I love Target and I love Silverman).

This is also not a knock on the WTC or the Ironman brand, just my thoughts on the topic. I will say though, as a free market economist, if someone comes up with as good as or better brand than the WTC for cheaper, then I will be the first in line. However, I am still waiting... and so is the tattoo.

Have a great weekend! Train hard, train smart,

Murtha...

Taking the Thanksgiving holiday in stride

2010-11-29T13:39:00.000-05:00

First off, I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving holiday.

I see Thanksgiving (from a triathlon perspective) as the beginning of a season where there is lots of partying, eating, staying up late night, couch surfing, tons of football (for you football fanatics), traveling, family/friend/significant other obligations... In short, lots of stuff to distract you from your off season training. As for my training, I definitely missed some workouts over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, but I don't really mind. I know that this is going to happen throughout this holiday season, so I am just going to do my best to stay the course and if I miss or need to move a workout here and there due to some sort of holiday season shenanigans, then so be it. No need to stress out about missing a work out here or there for an event that is almost a year away. :)

I feel that taking this attitude takes away most of the stress of training during this time of year, and lets you focus on the more important things in life.

Back to a normal week this week. Tonight I have my short run of the week, and then tomorrow it is a 2x day of swimming and cycling. I am trying to get back into the spin class gig, but since I don't have a LAFitness right next to me anymore, I have lost the motivation to go. Same goes for swimming as well, since that is also the place where I do my laps at.

I also want to get some strength training in this winter. This will help with my weight management, as well as overall interval training. That's pretty much it for today, short and sweet. Will have more for all of you later this week!

Murtha...

10,000 unique viewers, and other news!

2010-11-23T16:55:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone!

     I hope that everyone is having a great Turkey week! Mine started on Friday evening when I began preparing for our annual "Friendsgiving", which my roommates and I were hosting this year. Between the setup, breakdown and cleanup (on Sunday) and the actual event on Saturday night, there was not much training to be had. Ergo, no training at all. Oh and there was the alcohol. Holy crap can my crew ( of 55 pepole) drink some alcohol. That goes for me as well. Although I did not have an official hangover on Sunday, I did feel a bit off, and we still have a keg to finish (people brought way too much alcohol anyways), so I have been downing about 4 pints a night. Not that healthy, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Thankfully my roommates are helping me, so we are taking out about a 12 pack a night on the keg. When I get home tonight I will be getting back on the horse and running, in the rain. Yup. Memories of CDA will come back to haunt me... just kidding, I can use the motivation of how I bested the course in the crappy wind, rain, and cold to get me through a measly 40 minutes around the park.

     So I am really excited that about two weeks ago, I hit 10,000 unique views to my blog! Yeah, it took me 4 and a half years to get there, but it has been a journey. I have met many new friends in the blogosphere as well as in person. Some have come and gone, moving on to other things in their lives. But I have had great experiences with all of them, and all of you who are still here with me. I need to do another semi-annual review of all the blogs I follow, as a few people have fallen off the radar, and I have a few new people to add!

     I will also be adding my posts on a regular basis to Facebook as well, so for you who are linked to me via facebook, you will be able to see my new posts in you live feed on your home page. I am going to get this RSS thing figured out as well, so I am not actually having to go to 50 different sites everyday to read people's blogs, I will have those 50 different sites push the content to me instead :) I am also officially commenting on BeginnerTriathlete.com now so you may see me in the threads from time to time.

I have gotten the calendar together for 2011, I just have not decided on which races (except IMFL) that I will be competing in. I also have my training calendar template figured out for the next 12 months, and I have through new year's already planned out. Should be exciting. I hope all of you have a delightful Thanksgiving holiday, whatever your plans.

Train hard, train smart, race excellent,

Murtha...

The end of one season, and looking to the beginning of the next...

2010-11-10T11:38:00.000-05:00

Good Morning Everyone!

     The first thing I did this morning was go to my blog, and noticed that the last post that I put up was on May 12th, 2010. Wow, what happened to all those asiprations of going to back to the old days of blogging, reporting, and changing? Life, I supppose, is the easiest and most accurate answer. Between losing my job Memorial Day weekend and coming to where I am now in my career, beginning an accelerated graduate school program in accounting so I can take the CPA next year, girlfriend moving away and doing the long distance thing, triathlon definately took a back seat. This was somewhat disheartening since I was committed to get back into the sport, give to the sport, do some charitable activites while I was at it, and tell my story just like I have always had. It got so bad that I have now successfully completed a sprint, olympic, and now half iron distance event without any training. I don't think I am going to try to catch up on any blog posts, except I may do the race reports for Chattanooga, Peachtree City, and Augusta, just so that I have them logged on my blog for my records.

     However, there is always a new day, and a reason to begin anew. The year is fast coming to and end, and one looks to the future to see what is in store for them. I have a "golden ticket" for Ironman Florida next year via volunteering with my friend Mike this year. This was also my first time really spectating at an event as well as volunteering as a wetsuit stripper. For those of you who have been on this side of the fence (outside looking in), as well as triathletes that have sat on the sidelines for one reason or another, I have a complete new respect for this perspective. I just plod along in my races, maybe have had a few GI issues and cramping, but no problems with my equipment, no injuries, no potential death. I witnessed all of this and more while spectating the event this past Saturday. I saw the full range of emotions that occur during this race, and then thinking myself of when and where I was when those emotions overcame me while racing.

     I spent the weekend (when I got home) sleeping and reflecting on my triathlon career. I mean, I am not making any money off of it, but it is the longest standing activity that I have undertaken (and plan to continue). Longer than any job I have had, relationship I have been in, and has been about a 1/5th of my life. It has been my drug, my therapy, my escape, my joy, my sorrow, in essence, the sport has in one way or another embodied me. Few other people and things have affected me in this way, and I am thankful for all of them. I mean taking the two weeks up to November 6th, I was actually sleeping in the evenings so that I could pull all nighters for grad school to complete 2 exams, 1 final exam, a paper, and a project, and then head straight to Panama City on 3 hours of sleep so that I could be at a mandatory meeting for volunteers. Yet.............. that damn stupid grin reared up and showed itself on my hotel room balcony Friday night and followed me through the rest of the weekend. All of you know this grin. It's unexplainable, yet makes complete sense when it comes out from hiding. This is why I am here, and this is why I love doing what I do.

     Looking forward to 2011 brings me lots of opportunities. Graduating with a Master's Degree, hopefully having a job in accounting, taking the CPA exam, potentially living in a new city and state, and what I would like to accomplish as a triathlete. For a change I have begun winter base training/maintenance, something I have never done before. I am also rekindling some old tri-friendships that I have let go astray, as well as foster new ones. I hope all of you have had a great 2010 (and season), and I hope that all of your dreams, aspirations and visions for 2011 come to light!

Murtha...

Rev3 Knoxville 2010 Race Report - May 9, 2010

2010-05-12T19:34:00.003-05:00

It was a good weekend. A really good weekend :) Other than the fact I broke a cardinal sin of competing in triathlons, which I will get to later.

I got off work a bit early on Friday and headed home to chill out and pack for the evening. Patsy was going out for the night with her girlfriends, and I knew this would mean I was going to be driving on Sat morning, which was expected. This was my weekend, let her go have fun on Friday night and she can sleep in the car. Woke up about 15 min before my alarm went off, and took a long shower, finished packing, woke Patsy up and ran a couple of errands while she was getting ready. We left fairly early in the morning because I wanted to make the group practice swim. Mike and Melissa were along in tow, they were taking their own car because they had to be back in Atlanta as soon as the race was over for Mike. We arrived into Knoxville just before 11:00am. I chatted with Wes on the way up there, he was just behind me a few miles in his car, and Sarah's family lives in Knoxville, so she was already hanging out at the Expo (she went up Friday night). After failing to be able to check in early (Mike and Melissa had the same problem), we decided to head down to the expo to check things out, and then head down to the dock to go for a practice swim.

Wes and I are famous!!! Slowtwitch.com posted some pre race event photos for Rev3 Knoxville on their site, and we both made it on there! It is hard to see us at the pic on the left, as we are already in the water and if you look between every one's legs you can see us. After the OWS, Sarah left to go visit her grandfather at the hospital, and then Wes, Patsy, Mike, Melissa and I all met up at Calhoun's on the River for some lunch. After lunch, we all went back to our hotels to check in (Wes went to the Expo since he was staying with a friend) and then headed to the Expo to retrieve our packets and check our bikes in for the afternoon. I forgot my USAT card in the hotel room, not once, but twice! :) Luckily I have a patient girlfriend. I kind of feel like the Expo area was not as cool as it could have been, because the vendors were all stacked on top of one another, considering that there were areas of the "lawn" that were void of any tents, etc... Other than that, the big screen showing you finish the race with your stats, and the finish chute were really cool!

After hanging out at the hotel for an hour or so, Mike and I met back up to drive the bike course and check it out. I will say that I think future years at this event will see better sections of the bike course than we did, since there was some construction in the first few miles of the bike (and at the end, since it was an out and back course). One sizable hill, and you had to go up it on both sides. Actually with the number of turns I was glad that I had a regular road bike with clip ons rather than a tri bike. I felt like I had much better handling on the bike course. After the drive on the bike course, we headed back to our respective hotels, and then got ready for Dinner. We ate at Oodles Uncorked in the Market square, downtown Knoxville. I have not had a pasta dinner before a tri in so long. The food was great! I got a spinach/walnut/fruit salad, and then chicken afredo for the main course. After this we all headed back to the hotel and I got all my race day stuff together, packed my transition bag, repacked my wetsuit, and read some more of Superfreakeconomics before I headed to bed around 11pm.

I woke up around 3:30am and fell right back asleep. The alarm went off at 5:15am and I hopped out of bed to immediately eat my blueberry muffin and other nutrition, went to the bathroom (only once this race, weird), and took a quick shower. I don't know why I take a shower before races, I just hate the way I feel after I wake up in the morning without a shower. Race morning temps were around 50, and I did not bring any long sleeve anything to keep me warm before the race. Let's just say it was an incentive to get the wetsuit on earlier than normal before the start of the race.

It was pretty cold! I was looking forward to getting in the water, which was somewhere between 66-68 degrees. The race directors were not allowing anyone to swim prior to the race (since swimming in the river early would have affected people actually participating in the race). The pros went off around 7:45am. Wes and Sarah went off around 8:00am, and then Mike and I went off around 8:10-8:15am. Jump into the water, "warm" the suit up ;) and then the gun went off.

Swim

I felt really good during the swim. There was kind of some bumping after the first few hundred yards of the swim, which was weird, because there weren't even 100 of us in my AG that went off. There were lots of things to sight, so I don't think I was too off course for the majority of the race! We were in the sunlight for the first quarter mile or so, and then on the turnaround it was much easier. They said that the river flow would help, I don't think it did, although the wetsuit certainly helped :) That was the fastest Olympic Swim time I have ever posted. My last oly distance swim was around 35 min, and it was without a wetsuit. I think the combination of training and the wetsuit really helped.

Swim Time : 25:10.16, Div 21/36, Overall 163/
T1: 3:52.00

For some reason I was out of it going through T1. I felt great during the swim, but I lightly jogged through T1 and didn't even go between the bike racks, I ran around them to my rack position (Sorry James, I know you are going to yell at me!). I decided that although my goal was to finish in less than three hours, I am not gonna bust it in transition. Earlier in the day I took my cleats off my bike and left them on the ground to run in. I also wore socks. I still don't have all the neat attachment features for my garmin so I took it from my hand (was in my swim cap), and put it on my wrist for the bike. I sprinted with my bike out of transition and I guess I was the only one at that time, because the announcer yelled my name twice as I got on the bike :)

Bike

I started out in a higher cadence and tried to get my heart rate where I wanted it to be before getting too far down the road. We headed west and then meandered through UT's campus. I never got to see the Phi Psi house, but I am sure it looks great. Around mile marker #4 I was going up (literally up) Cumberland to make a right over the Henley Rd. Bridge, when Bjorn Andersson flies right by me. Now let's be fair and say that they started around 7:45am, and I began around 8:10am, and they swim faster than I do. I was surprised that Bjorn had a big lead on everyone, and since this was an Olympic Distance race, I figured that over 6.2 miles he could close the deal.

Anyways onto my bike ride :) I was doing pretty well up through mile 7, and then the first sizable hill of two came up. I decided that since I had not done enough bike/run bricks yet this year I would save my legs and use the granny gear some. I got over the hill, and had to have the hands on the brakes on the way back down since there were so many turns. Oh and did I mention that most of the road on the first and last third of the oly bike course, not that good! Another thing, the whole damn bike leg it seemed as if there was a headwind, no matter which direction you were headed. Then again, it was really windy all weekend long. They have my bike times separated by 3 different areas where they had timers and I was not really happy with the last leg, I think that was where the final serious hill of the race was before heading back into downtown Knoxville. I also think that the hill was steeper and longer, as I used my granny gear for a longer period of time on the way back up the backside of the hill. I think the hill on the way back was steeper and a longer distance. Back over the hill and down again to the bridge, and then doubling back through campus I arrived at transition. People were screaming at all of us, which was good.

Bike Time : 1:34:12, 16.47mph, Div 22/36, Overall 173/

T2: 2:11.47

Run

By the time I was headed out of T2, the announcer had stated that Matty Reed had won the men's pro event.... wait huh? Borjn couldn't hold up the lead he had coming off the bike. Matt is a beast! It looks like he ran on average a minute per mile faster than Bjorn on the run to take it. Anyways... on to my run :)

Remember earlier I told you about that cardinal rule of racing I broke, well here is how it started. Every year when the season really gets going around April/May, I begin going sock less with both cycling and running, mostly in sprint/oly distance races. Well I was a bit late in breaking in the sock less so I really began doing it the week of the race. I figured how bad could it be? How about blister 2 inches long by 1/2 an inch wide on my right arch, one of those that has to scab up and takes a week or more to heal. How did that affect my run you ask? Well despite what my mind wanted to do from Fri-Sun (race day), my body told my foot to walk on the outer edge. That put a lot of stress on my foot all weekend long and it did not bode well for my run. I basically ran in pain the entire 6.2 miles. I walked 5 times for about 45sec-1min each time. The good thing about all this is somehow I completed the race averaging a 9:23/mi pace. When I finished I was limping around for the rest of the day. The bottom/outside of my foot hurt like hell, as well as the tendon that runs from the bottom of my foot, up under and around the back of my ankle to my calf (peroneal tendon), and I stressed it pretty bad. However, I finished!!! Hooray!!! First race of the year in the books. I also finished in (just) under three hours, which was my primary goal.

Run Time: 1:00:20, 9:23/mi 25/36, 184/

Final Time: 2:59:42.39

Post race was great! A finisher shirt on top of the shirt that they already gave me (instead of a water bottle, thank goodness, I have about two weeks worth in my home), and a boxed lunch, some Mix1 (Tangerine Flavor) and Deer Park Water (because ya know, it tastes like real water oughta ;) After we watched Mike finish, Melissa and he ran back to their hotel and checked out to head to Atlanta for their other engagements. Patsy and I headed back to the hotel because our checkout was at 12pm. Once we checked out, I hobbled back down to transition and picked up my stuff and brought it back to the car to load on top. We stayed until around 2pm, and decided to head back home (Sorry Wes and Sarah!) We were exhausted and we both had to work the next day. I had trouble staying awake in the car but that was nothing a little Coca Cola and music could not cure.

Rev3 Tri series is a great event and well managed. I think there were some little things that needed to be corrected, but it did not detract from the overall greatness of this race and the series. I think also that the interaction you get with the pro field is great. I think I said "hi" to Matt Reed and Chris Leito about 4 times each not realizing who they were at the time (they look different in person). I stood in line next to Natscha Badmann at the porta johns before the swim on race morning. I mean, you go to some of these races, Ironman Events, etc, and you see these athletes far off in press conferences, or corralled off in a small area pre race. That was not the case for this race, and I loved it. The fact that I was walking around in the presence of pros just as if they were age-groupers was a great experience.

I still don't know what pro got in the bad bike accident on the course, but I hope he is ok. He was making a left turn coming back in town and swung too wide, slammed right into a car stopped at a stop light. He was taken to the hospital I was told, hurt pretty bad! Also would like to give a shout out to Michelle Ford, hope you had a great race, and to Drew Marlar, part of team Dynamo Multisport, who got 1st in his AG in the Half Iron distance event, and 4th overall. I could be wrong, but I think team Dynamo in the Half Iron event (men's) placed 2nd, 4th, and 9th overall (there were more, but that was the top 10). I also saw a few people from the Atlanta Tri Club as well, I hope you guys did well!

Day 3 post race my foot is feeling better, I think I will be able to try it out (lightly) beginning on Sunday. Right now it is trainer and swimming only. I will make sure the rest of the pics are posted on facebook for those of you who are my friends there! Hope all of you had a great weekend training/racing, and enjoy the rest of your week!

Hump Day has come and gone... and power in numbers

2010-05-06T09:06:00.002-05:00

Too busy to actually get this post out on Wednesday, so what's another day?

I have gotten in the workouts I have needed this week, just fewer than normal (my idea of a taper for a "B" race). Runs have been ok, Tuesday's swim was hella good for me, and last night's bike ride was a beast. I have been pretty dedicated to the Wed Night Atlanta Cycling ride since I began group rides this year. Last night there were three really nasty accidents within the first 9 miles of the ride. The first two crashes there were multiple riders that went down, but everyone was able to get up and keep going. This slowed down the pace a bit. After we got near the Brookhaven area near the golf course, there was a third wreck where a single rider caught a rut and went down. broke his handle bars, right arm was all messed up, and he thinks he bruised a few ribs. I was in the back of the group (as usual :) and I had to slide to a stop. I have not slid to a stop since I was a teenager with a mountain bike. Almost hit the guy as well. It took him a good 4-5 minutes to get up, and then we got out our tools to fix what we could of his remaining handle bars so he could at least ride back home.

By that time we were so far behind we cut out this three mile loop and rejoined the "B" group (there is not really an official B group, just the large group that falls off from the front about halfway through the ride). Last week my average speed for the 25 mile ride was 17.1. This week doing the 22 mile ride and rejoining with the "B" group I finished averaging 18.3!!!! Please note that although the beginning of the ride was slower than normal, and I probably got a bit of rest in that 5-6 I stayed behind in the wreck, that is a huge improvement. And one reason why.... the group.

There is something about riding in a group that keeps you going, and going faster. I usually always get dropped before the golf course, so I never have a chance to hold on, but cutting off those three miles and staying with the group for the remainder of the ride had my average go up more than an mile per hour. I was in the back of the group the entire time I was with one, but i hung with them nonetheless. One of the "A" group guys saw me after the ride, and said that he had seen that face before, the one that says "I don't know if I wanna throw up, pass out, pitch a fit, have a heart attack, etc." I told him, yup that is what I was feeling and he laughed. If I would have stayed "dropped" and did that three mile loop, I would have been solo and and no incentive other than my own determination to keep going. I would have finished, however, I can guarantee you that I would have not come close to 18.3 mph. It is so much easier to back off when you are by yourself.

It got me thinking last night. While triathlon is such an individual sport, there are so many benefits to training in groups it is ridiculous. There will always be some training items in your week where you will be solo, but you NEED to incorporate some group training as well. Masters swim, group rides, group track workouts or group runs. And get a good mix of people in there with you! Don't just beg your boy/girlfriend to go out to appease you (unless they are faster than you!) Get people of all abilities, and you will all push each other. Definitely make sure that there are people better than you in your group that you can push yourself towards and learn from.

Whether that is joining a team, or the more economical method I employ (hitting up group rides and runs for free), just do it! The gains and benefits are just to great to ignore. Improving your performance while gaining new friends and experiences is wonderful. Hell just go out with you and a buddy and challenge each other when you are out swimming, biking, or running. When my friend James lived in Atlanta we would do that to each other on the bike, please realize when I was pulling he was probably coasting behind me, but nevertheless I was doing the work! And when he pulled, well lets just say I was hanging on to his slipstream for dear life!!! Thanks coach Blaylock!

I have a few more small runs lined up and one more swim tomorrow morning, along with the group swim on Saturday morning in Knoxville. When I got home last night, I got the tri clothes cleaned, made sure that the speed laces on my shoes were to my liking by running up and down the hallway of my bldg a few times. I cleaned my bike (ie wiping excess grease off and cleaning the wheels, taking off a profile design sticker that is fraying and falling off). If nothing else my '05 Specialized Allez will look good this weekend even if I don't ;)

Tonight after I get back from swing dance class, I need to get in a run, and then clean my wetsuit and wipe down my bike rack that has been sitting on the back porch collecting pollen. Put that on top of the car before I got to bed... I am going to get one of those $4 car wash and hand dry deals up the street from me, so it is clean before I put the rack on.

Finally, I was thinking of waiting for this before the team actually announced it, but I wanted to get a head start just in case I needed to make my friends and blogger buddies aware.....

EvoTri 2010: Making the Team!

I entered into the mix again! I have been following these wonderful, great, energetic people since the team's inception, and even before that (when the original group was known as team raceAthlete). It has been a wonderful experience to watch these guys grow and perform as a team for this many years, as well as to inspire so many people. I really want to be part of this team and contribute what I have so that the mission of team EvoTri endures. A few of you guys had already figured it out from me eluding to my race season later on in the year, since I would be required to attend 2010 WIBA and Rev3 Cedar Point. Stay tuned! In previous years they have allowed the blogging population and the entrant's friends vote for who they wanted on the team, we shall see how they pick this year.

Will probably be my last blog post before the race, unless I have something important or enlightening to say before Sunday. I am also about a third of the way getting my IronMan race report from 2009 on my blog. While the post itself is not too important, I just want to get it on the site so I have a record of it. I am kind of ashamed I did not get it on the site right after the race, since my training levels dropped off and had plenty of free time.

Have a good rest of your week! Train hard!

Race Week!

2010-05-04T13:55:00.000-05:00

Hooray for race week!

I just re-upped my membership to USAT for 2010. I guess that means I better be in at least 4 events this year. Rev3 sent out their race packet info yesterday, and I have already poured through it. I am planning on getting there early enough to do the group swim at 10am on Saturday morning (hopefully I will see Sarah!), then going to meet up with Mike and his fiance around 12pm. Do one of the afternoon athlete meetings, pick up my race packet, drive the course, rack my bike, then screw around for the rest of the evening and enjoy being out of Atlanta for a change. Hopefully I will get to see a bit of Wes as well outside of racing, but if not, I will be at the finish line waiting for him and Sarah! Wes and Sarah are doing the half, while Mike and I are doing the Olympic distance.

The nerves and excitement of the first race of the year always get to me. Not that I am nervous, I just have all this energy I need to direct somewhere. I cannot believe it is already May. I will sign up for the VA Highlands SummerFest 5K with Patsy next weekend when I get paid, and then it will be crunch time to sign up for some of the rest of my races for the remainder of the year. Some of them now are selling out due to popularity, and it gets kinda frustrating for people trying to make ends meet, and pay for race fees without putting them on credit cards and the like. Ironman was an exception, and I will never regret that, but some of these local races..... :) Maybe I just need to find some new ones that are under the radar!

As for the 5K I am happy that I get to coach Patsy through her first 5K that she is going to run in. She has done some before, but they were more just for participaing in, and she walked the entire course. I told her that I would be running her pace throughout the entire event. This is her race, not mine :)

Weekend workouts went great! My favorite was the OWS at Lake Allatoona on Saturday morning. Wes turned me onto it (it is orgainzed by the Concourse Tri Club in Atlanta). I think there were around 20+ people that showed up and there was support (people in kayaks) and they were very focused on the buddy system, which I thought was pretty cool. I did just under a mile (probably around 1500M) in just under 29 minutes... I am sure my wetsuit had something to do with that... now if I can just get it off in less than 7 minutes I will beat my only other olympic tri swim time when I did not wear a wetsuit. Oh and did I mention that 3/4 of the swim in Knoxville is downstream? Sweet.

I think I have may put down West Pointe on the schedule, but I might X that and then juggle my schedule around for the rest of the season. I just have a lot of stuff going on right now outside of triathlon, and it is making things diffucult (don't people realize that triathlon is a priority, jusk kidding :). Either that or I will just scale back and find a sprint that weekend rather than doing another olympic before Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon.

Got the speed laces on my Asics GT-2140's and I have run in my shoes barefoot, a little bit... I am going to get a few more barefoot runs in my shoes before the weekend so my feet are ready for the no socks on bike+no socks on run = janked up feet!!!!! Probably practice taking off my wetsuit a few times, or make sure there is some COPIOUS amounts of lube on my ankles before the race.

Have any of you guys suffered from pre-race jitters on your first race of the season? Let me know!

Weekend Shenanigans and Athens Twilight Criterium

2010-04-29T11:19:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone!

I hope that everyone was able to enjoy a weekend of training as well as any other fun things you might have been able to accomplish over those two glorious days (wait, there is something other than training to do on the weekends???).

The weekend started Friday evening with Patsy and I heading to a dual birthday party hosted by our friend. We got there after everyone arrived from dinner. This portion of the evening was to be the pre-party event before everyone headed to the highlands in Atlanta. I told myself that I had to be at Mike's condo by 8am to pick him up and take us to lake Allatoona for our first OWS of the year. Ha - side note - first tri of the year is in 12 days and I am trying to do my first OWS two weeks before the event. Oh well who needs sighting anyways :) ? Back to the story... We somehow got out of there by 12-12:30am when they finally caught their cabs. People think I am lame and just don't understand why someone like me would want to wake up at 7am on a Saturday morning to go swim ;)

Fast forward to the morning and it is storming... I was kinda pissed. I will swim in the rain until the cows come home. But lightning? Heck no! So Mike and I changed our plans and we hit up LA Fitness for an hour under his guidance (he is the better swimmer, swam in high school). He wore me out, and then dropped me off, telling me he would be back to pick me up around 1pm so we could go to Athens.

Ahhh.... Athens. Home of my Alma Mater. We got there arond 2:30pm and checked into the hotel. We had missed all the morning qualifying runs, but the main events began around 5:45pm, with the men's race beginning around 8:45-9:00p, so we were not too worried. This just means an excuse to walk around downtown Athens and drink/eat bad food. Also one of my fraternity brothers, Jay Lowe, and his band, Argus, were playing at Tasty World so we stopped by there for about half an hour to watch the band play before leaving and meeting up for dinner. Dinner was at Doc Chey's. Man that Siracha sauce is damn hot, but I love it! The women't pro event was in its final laps as we finished dinner, so we then hit up one of the beer gardens outside to watch the finish of the race, and then get some primo standing room for the men's event.

The men's pro event started a few minutes late, and the rain was beginning to pick up (for those of you who heard about tornadoes and such passing through Mississippi and Alabama on Friday night/Saturday morning, that hit Athens on Saturday night. Definately rain, and some lightning, but the race must go on! This is a 1km course in downtown Athens, and the field must complete 80 laps. I don't know how many laps into the race the referee quit cutting people who were lapped, but by about 25 laps in, half the men's field had been cut out of the race! It kept raining on and off (pretty heavily I might add) and so it was back and forth between the tent and the fence separating us from people riding 25mph+ on their bikes. As the race got closer to the finish, we moved across the course and down to about 30-40 feet from the finish line. The funny thing is that from my perception, the lead riders (6 in the lead group, had about 40 seconds on the pack by the end of the race) went faster on the bell lap than they did on the final lap. Or maybe that was because 4 out of the 6 riders whizzed by my face (literally, 8-12 inches away). All in all, good times. Sunday was a rest day.

Rev3 is not an "A" race for me, so while I will tone down the training volume next week, there will really be no taper for this coming race, more of modifying my training so that there is a rest day or two before the event. The week after will be a light week and then right back into training. Patsy and I may do the VA Highlands 5K on June 5th, and then I have the Peachtree Road Race on the 4th of July (10K). Still have not signed up for the Chattahooche Waterfront Tri yet, but that is on my radar for July as well. I really want to see how I do in Rev3, because I would like to qualify for Age Group Nationals at Myrtle Beach if I can. After that it is Good Old Peachtree City Triathlon in August (an annual mandatory event since that was the first triathlon I have ever done), and then we shall see how the rest of the year pans out.... I am trying to get something together that will hopefully make the rest of this year and years to come pretty exciting!!!! Will know soon (within the next month).

Anyways, this post spans two days (I was too lazy to finish yesterday), so I am going to close saying have a good rest of the week and I will find something else tri-related to blog about soon enough :)

Murtha...

F#@&ing Bike Gremlins :)

2010-04-23T11:09:00.000-05:00

You didn't know about bike gremlins???

Are you serious???

And you always wondered why in the hell things with your bike all seem to happen around the same time. The bike gremlin, as shown below, is a small creature that roams our lands in search of dedicated cyclists and triathletes who are serious about their cycling. Once they find one, they blend into our natural surroudings and wait for an opportune moment to strike. This usually results in flat tires, improperly functioning shifting, wheel spokes snapping, front and or rear derialleurs not working properly, bottom bracket creaking, etc...

There you go! Damned Gremlins! If you see one of these buggers, make sure you take it out!

So this week's workout schedule is getting filled out fairly well. I have hit all but one workout this week. As for the gremlins I posted about, It all started last week with a flat, and then another flat on Wed night before the Atlanta Cycling ride. It was the front wheel, and as I took it off, I saw that the puncture/rip on the tube was at the stem again. I looked at the rim, and I realized that the rim tape around the valve stem hole had worn down so much there was metal visible. I took the wheel into the shop and they put on new rim tape, and also showed me a neat trick. You take an old tube, cut a small square piece, and then poke a hole big enough for the valve stem. put the piece of tube around the valve stem, and BAM! you have extra protection for you tube around the base of the valve stem. You learn something new every day. Second, I have had problems with shifting and the rear derailleur for the past two weeks. Shifting has been horrible. I know it has something to do with adjusting those screws in the back, but I still have not tinkered with the gearing enough (yet) to be comfortable with it.

And then there was the Buckhead Bellyache last night. Oh yes I was going to go back to back 20+ mile nights during my training (for some of you laughing right now, that is a lot for me based on my training volume at this time). I was going up a hill about 3 miles and change into the ride and... SNAP! Spoke on the front wheel broke off the hub. Damned bike gremlins! I got about 6.5 miles out of the whole deal after I slowly rode back to the Cathedral. I then decided I might as well do a brick workout and go over to Atlanta Memorial Park. I did one lap. I completely forgot to bring my watch and/or Garmin for the ride, so I just looked at my cellphone when I left my car and when I got back. About 14 min for the 1.8mi loop. Did not pay attention to how long the short ride took, considering that I had to go slow on the way back.

Going to take the bike today during lunch and get it fixed. Got a run tonight, and then an open water swim tomorrow morning before I head up to Athens for the Twilight Crit. One of my fraternity brothers, Mark Babcock, is racing in the pro event tomorrow evening, so if you are going to be there, please cheer him on! Sunday I will get in a run (and a ride if I can get my bike back before then, my shop is closed on Sundays).

Just under 16 days until race day! I don't expect to have a good finishing time. I don't even think I am going to sub-3 hour the event. But you know what? I am damn excited for this season to be here, and I am damn excited for my first race of the year! You guys work hard, party harder, and train like crazy! Be safe, and have a good weekend!

"What's that coming down the track...?"

2010-04-08T10:52:00.000-05:00

No,

I am not going to finish this with the rest of a UGA fight song. I was more referring to the fact that I was going to my blog today to click on all my friends links to read thier blogs. I then saw my countdown clocks (one that needs to be updated - the running one) and the other is telling me that I have 4 weeks and two days left until Rev3 Knoxville.

This will be my first tri event of the year, and I am very excitied about it! I am not expecting too much from this race, since my training this year has been at best, erratic. I just want to get out there again and race! The best part is that I am going to have some of my friends there with me racing! Mike is doing the Olympic Distance with me, and then Wes and Sarah are doing the Half-Iron distance even the same day. Furthermore, Patsy and Melissa are coming along as the cheering section for Mike and I, and then I think that we will stay for Wes and Sarah to finish (no I have not told the rest of our group that, but I would hate for their not to be a cheering section for them as well!!!)

I have been getting more consistent about working out, but I have gotten sick 3 times in the last two months, all of them sinus issues. They really set me back. I can technically work out with them, but my swimming suffers because of the pressure, and some nights when I get home from work I feel like absolute crap. Two nights ago I got home and felt like I could barely make dinner, much less go for a run, and last night I came home with the worst headache, as if I was developing a case of sinusitus again. I need to get over this ASAP!!!! (Is there a doctor in the house???)

My birthday is this weekend. I am officially in the Men's 30-34 AG now. Technically by way of USAT that was January first, however, my first race of the year is not until after my birthday. I think I am going from the 4th or 5th hardest AG up to the 3rd hardest AG. So much for my long term plan of being awsome before I got into a harder AG ;) My girlfriend planned an entire evening for me on Sat night, and then I will spend Sunday hungover on my birthday watching the Masters on my couch :) But not before I get some workouts in prior to the debauched evening that will occur on Satuday night. Do I feel older? Hell no! But I am beginning to notice that I don't bounce back as quick as I used to when I get injured or sick. Oh well, I will keep enjoying life and forget about the age factor. It does not affect my outlook on life :)

The following weekend is the Sweetwater420 Fest 5K. The awsome thing about that is it starts around 11am, rather than 7:30-8:00a like most races. While it will be hotter than normal due to the time of day, there will be beer at the finish line, and that makes me happy. I have done a few interval runs around Atlanta Memorial Park (1.8mi loop) and I have been running those in the 13:30 range, which is about 7:30/mi pace. I think I am going to head over to Chastain Park in the next few days (2.56 mi loop) and see if I can hold that pace over that distance. Methinks no (unless I want to throw up afterwards, which is an option).

I successfully signed up for the Peachtree Road Race (World Largest 10K and host to this years US Men's 10K national championships) after the ING Georgia Marathon & Half Marathon. I may have already told you guys that. The ING is dropping Atlanta as one of the many marathons it sponsors. Word on the street is that the new executive that they hired in charge of these events is not an avid runner like his predecessor. Anyways, after Peachtree I don't have another road race until August which is a 5K and then September (US 10K Classic).

Need to renew my USAT membership, it expires in May of this year. Not that they need any more of my money :) Just kidding, they are a great organization, I just wish that I could have a couple year's worth of entry fees back since I did fewer than 4 races in those years. I do like how they show you your overall ranking once you have completed enough races for the year. Not that I am going to come out on top, but I love stats and I like to see how I stand up to the field at the end of the year.

I hope everyone else's training is going well, and I will be trying to catch up with all of you guys and gals, as well as trying to update some more of my blog.

ING Georgia Half Marathon Race Report, March 21, 2010

2010-03-22T12:05:00.000-05:00

Good Afternoon!

Snowflakes again this morning in Georgia. It was too warm for them to stick or even make it on the ground, but still, crazy nonetheless. And it is supposed to be in the 70's again by Wednesday. It is that time of year, where if you want to have a different kind of weather in Georgia, you need just wait a day or two (you might get your wish).

Saturday was in the upper 60's, may have even touched 70 degrees. Then I wake up Sunday morning to cloudy, possibly rainy conditions and low to mid 50's. Lee came over to the apartment as she was running in the race (Half Mary) and Patsy took us to the race and dropped us off. We headed over to the West Stride tent and dropped off our gear. I said hey to Genie (West Stride's owner) and wished her luck on her race (Half Mary). Will fill you in on how some of team West Stride did later. I had to use the restroom and it was getting very close to race time. Last year I tried to hold it and I ended up waiting 4-5 minutes to use a porta-john @ mile 2. Granted last year I completed the full marathon, but I still did not want to stop in the first few miles of the race. I told Lee to go ahead and get into the start corrals and not to wait on me. I was going to be slower than her anyways, and I did not want a repeat of last year. The "gun" had gone off before I was done and I jogged up to the corral gates and merged with the group. Although it was not sunny outside for the race, it did not really get light outside until around mile 2.

After we got started I stayed with the herd, but tried to make sure my pace was around 9 min/mile. My main goal was to break two hours due to my lack of training lately, with my secondary goal shooting to get close to my PR time of 1:53. I saw Darcey and Rhonda around mile 2 and slowed down with them for just a minute to chat and wish them well on their half marathon efforts, and then I was off again! The up and down elevation (mostly up) began between mile 2 and 3, and I tried to maintain good form and stay as efficient as possible while working the hills. It was great to see so many people out on the streets watching us run and cheer for us. Between miles 5 and 6 we got out of elevation change for about half a mile so I put it on cruise control to check my time and pace. I was sitting just under 9 min/mile average, and I knew that I wanted to push it in the second half of the race, so I did not try to blow it out on the first half. I also wanted to try and push it in the last 3-4 miles to not only make sure I got under two hours, but to shoot for getting near my PR.

As we got through miles 6 and 7 we flattened out again in elevation and even had a slight downhill most of the way through mile 9 (minus one small hill). I took this as the time to push it since there would not be any elevation issues and the crowds had long since thinned out. I was putting in some quater mile splits under 8 min/mile pace. Looking back at the race, I should have held back until around mile 10 to push it since there were a few small rollers in the midtown area after mile 9 that really took it out of me, and pushed me to possibly not finishing in under two hours. At this point I was taking water and gatorade at every aid station (about 2 miles between each one) and I was throwing the excess water on me. Yes it was in the low to mid 50's but I was overheating and and the humidity was not helping at all (it drizzled a few times during the race as well, which felt great). Once I got to around mile 11, I was beginning to slow down a bit, and I realized I was gonna have to maintain pace as close to 9 min/mile as possible to make sure I came in under 2 hours. I attempted to pick up the pace again and found a few "rabbits" to chase, keeping me in the game mentally.   One last incline before mile 12 and then I was home free. I struggled to get up the incline while maintaining pace, but I got up there. Now headed down the home stretch I was looking at my watch every 15 seconds while trying to find someone to "latch" on to. Crossed the finish line with 26 seconds to spare :)

Total Time: 1:59:32
Avg Pace:        8:59/mi
Overall Pl:    2924/10481 (top 30%)
Sex Pl:         1971/4618    (top 50%)
Div Pl:           296/676      (top 50%)

I was happy with my time and performace! Genie got 3rd place in the women's division for the half, and Wil (her manager) got 7th place in the men's division for the half! Congratulations to them! Thanks Ashleigh and anyone else out there who volunteered, and congratulations to Lee, Darcey, Rhonda and anyone else who either completed the half or full marathon yesterday!

Now onto my tri season.... :)

Lovely weekend, wasn't it?

2010-02-23T12:32:00.000-05:00

Well,

I was so glad I was able to get out and get some workouts completed outside! The weather was great this weekend. Saturday I got a 70 min run in (~7.1 miles). I left around 10:30am. I really need to go walk outside of my building before I go bike or run, because by mile 2 I had already taken my jacket off and ran with it the other 5 miles. It got really warm (there was little wind). Sunday I got out in Roswell on the river and rode for almost an hour. I still have a bit of saddle sore. And just like after running on a treadmill most of the winter, riding outside was definately an eye opener. What??? That incline seems really hard. Did I really just have to downshift for that?

On a related note, I will need to take my bike in this week to get the rear derailleur repaired, as the shifting on the rear cassette is kind of messed up. I missed my swim workout this weekend and paid for it this morning when I had my swim workout. I thought it to be a good idea after warming up to begin my swim workout with nothing but swimming with the pull bouy for a bit. While it is great to build upper body strength, my arms were fried by the time I stopped to continue regular freestyle intervals. Fried. As in, thank god my arms are resting on the desk while I type this.

My favorite running shoe store is sponsoring a 10K on March 6th and one of my blogger peeps is nagging me about doing it (succombing to the peer pressure!). I now agree that it would be a good idea just to test myself and see where I am at (10K distance), before my half marathon on March 21st. I also need to get some new running shoes. I saw the price for the Asics GT 2150 (2010 model) and I about yelled in the store (City Sports). I think I might go online to see how much the GT 2140's are, or call Genie and find out if she has any left in stock from 2009. I think I am to the point now in my run workouts to actually begin putting intervals back in. Once the weather gets nicer, I will be able to focus on doing track workouts at the gym (or at a local high school), and then the rest of my workouts outside.

I see I am going to have to devote more time to cycling after my humbling ride on Saturday. I need to map out a strategy for that. I think I will need to find some time on Saturday or Sunday to put in a hill workout until it stays light enough outside in the evenings to complete during the week. Thankfully now that I work near the Sandy Springs ride, Roswell Ride, and not too far away from the Vinings ride, I will have lots of optionss in the afternoon (as long as I bring my bike along).

On the weight loss front, I am down almost 7 pounds (on average) from when I started mid January. I will say though, now that I am burning on average over 1000 calories a day, I am hungry ALL THE TIME! I am eating pretty well, but I am having to eat smaller meals more often to stave off the hunger. I have a stash of food in one of my drawers at work just in case. Big improvements back into my diet are dairy and fruits (veggies have always kinda been there), and I am doing physillum husk fiber daily as well as some antioxidant pills (acai).

Begun updating the site (other than the makeover in January), I updated my blogging buddies, and I have added two countdown timers for tris and road races. Got some more to update. Hopefully will post tomorrow with some mid week stuff as well as some news and SE events/ongoings!

Train hard! Work hard! Party Harder!

Catching up!

2010-02-08T14:16:00.000-05:00

Wow!

You being to get motivated and things happen and then next thing you know is that almost two weeks have gone by and you have not posted a dang thing! Oh well. Here is my attempt at catching up.

I was not able to make it to the Friday evening event and mixer because I got off of work late and there was not way I was making it from the North side of Atlanta to Peachtree City by 7pm (and stopping @ my house). I can barely make it there from my house in Atlanta on a weekend. So I got up Saturday morning and got my swim gear ready and made it down to the 1pm swim clinic. There were about 30+ people there, most of which were from the south side of Atlanta and/or on the Peachtree City Tri Club. I met Anne, one of the members/officers of the Peachtree City Tri Club, and she got me set up, and it was into the pool for an 800M warmup. Wait an 800M warmup??? Please remember that swimming is not my strong point in triathlons and I was never on a swim team, and I have never been formally coached. My idea of a warmup is a couple laps down and back in the pool. "Enough with the bitching already Andy!!!" About that time Desiree Ficker and April Gellatly showed up (just coming from the previous bike clinic they were also hosting). They ran the rest of the swim clinic. There were so many of us there, while we were doing drills they would assist and give people tips on ways to improve their swim stroke. I was able to speak with Desiree for a few minutes, and she helpee me with a big problem I was having with my swim stroke... It is still going to take some more practice to get rid of that bad habit completely, but I am working at it every swim workout. After the practice was over, I went and spoke with both girls for a few minutes, thanked them both for coming out to help us, and then thanked Anne for hosting the event. Next year I will make sure I get into work early/leave early so I have time for the event. They had a pro male athlete last year (Chris Leito maybe???) and I completely missed that event. Kudos to whoever in the organization is able to get these big names out here.

In the training department, I am really ramping up my workouts/week, as well as getting all three disciplines involved again. I am still shorting myself on the bike, but I am going to sit down and fix my flat rear tire that has been like that for a week now, and get that sucker hooked up to the trainer for some workouts this week. Running is getting better. My best workout for the week was a 50 min tempo run (on the dreadmill) where I began @ 5.5mph and negative split every quarter mile up to 1.25 miles, and then kept going every half mile after that till I was done (increase was .1mph, maxed out @ 6.7mph by the time 50 min was up)... by the time I was done, I was doing close to a 9:00/mi pace at the end of my run. I decided against doing track workouts and instead focusing on negative split tempo workouts until the ING half has come and gone. While track workouts also help in making you a faster runner, I am still logging early season base mileage (I know I am behind).

I need to decide in the next couple of weeks if I am going to do The Chattahooche Waterfront Tri or not, because it is going to determine whether or not one of my "A" races will be Rev3 Knoxville or the Chattahooche Waterfront Tri. For those of you who live in the SE USAT District, the Chattahooche Waterfront Tri is the Regional Championship for qualifiying towards the AG Nationals in Tuscaloosa this year. This means unlike some other regular qualifiers where only the top 10% get into AG Nationals, the top 33% in each AG qualify at the Regional Championship. This would be a huge PR for me if I could qualify in my AG especially since I have moved up to the 30-34M group (I think I went from the 5th hardest AG to the 3rd hardest AG). This would also be a huge PR for me at the olympic distance as well. The last Oly I did was in 2008 (West Pointe Tri - Hosted by GA Multisport Productions), and I did not train properly for the event and finished just under three hours. I looked at the times, and I think realistically I can come close, so why not at least try and see what happens.

Tomorrow I am going to try and get my weekly stats up on the site. Wed I will post more and try to have a bit of news up on the site as well. Have fun, be safe, and train hard!

TRI PTC Hosts Pro Triathletes Desiree Ficker & April Gellatly Fri Jan 29, 2010!!!

2010-01-27T14:03:00.001-05:00

Peachtree City Tri's - January Update

Pro Triathletes Desiree Ficker and April Gellatly host Triathlon Clinics!

DETAILS BELOW!

Join the TRI PTC Club as we host two of Triathlons best women triathletes for a weekend filled with information, training and fun! Desiree Ficker http://www.desireeficker.com/ and April Gellatly http://www.aprilgellatly.com/ have agreed to spend the weekend answering your training questions and training side by side with you for the weekend of January 29th - 30th. Come join us to kick off the 2010 season in style!

WEEKEND DETAILS!

Friday - January 29th:

Dolce Atlanta Peachtree
201 Aberdeen Pkwy, Peachtree City, GA 30269, 770-487-2666

7pm - Meeting in Auditorium - Keynote Speaker, USAT Professional Triathlete (2nd Place IM World Championships, Multiple 70.3 Winner) and Accomplished Runner (2:39:30 Marathon PR) - Desiree Ficker.

8pm - Informal Meet and Greet/Cash Bar
Free to TRI PTC Club Members/$20 for Non-Members

Saturday - January 30th:
Various Locations

Run and T2 Clinic
Riley Field - Wisdom Rd, Peachtree City, GA 30269, http://www.peachtree-city.org/index.aspx?NID=312
9:30am
Free to TRI PTC Club Members/$20 for Non-Members
Bring your running shoes, drinks, dry clothes and all items needed to practice your transition!

Bike Clinic
World Gym - 1300 Commerce Dr, Peachtree City, GA 30269, 770-631-8004
11:30am
Free to TRI PTC Club Members or World Gym Fayette Members/$20 for Non-Members
Bring your water bottle and dry clothes - this class will be on spin bikes.
Please drop off your bike and trainer in the back lot and park in the front lot.
Get there early to ensure your spot - only 35 bikes available!

Swim Clinic
World Gym Fayette - 1964 Highway 54, Fayetteville, GA 30214, 770-487-4273
2pm
Free to TRI PTC Club Members or World Gym Fayette Members/$20 for Non-Members
Bring your swim suit, goggles, pool toys and towel!

It is $25.00 to renew your TRI PTC Club Membership. Applications will be available at all of the clinics or you can register on-line via active.com - http://www.active.com/triathlon-membership/peachtree-city-ga/tri-peachtree-city-triathlon-club-2008

It is $75.00 for all new TRI PTC Club Memberships, which include a club racing jersey (a $65.00 value).

It is $50 for the weekend if you are a non-club member and want to attend all of the clinics.

Registration is open for each clinic 30 minutes prior to each clinic.

Please email Anne @ adchrzanowski@gmail.com for any questions regarding the weekend activities!

The TRI PTC Club will have jerseys, shirts, hats and some limited supply jackets available for purchase. These are first come, first serve!

Cross Training Injury!!!

2010-01-26T12:47:00.000-05:00

Good Afternoon!

    So only 7 days into my 2010 training and s#!^ happens! I was out on Saturday with a whole bunch of friends playing flag football. Well I don't like to do anything half-assed, so I decide that I am going to try and play like Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson and be some awsome wide receiver. Well that resulted in a bruised tailbone (which is almost healed as of today), sore neck, huge knot on the back of my head (resulting from a 35-40yd pass I caught in the air and then landed on my back, and my head smacking against the ground so hard other players heard it), and last but certainly not least, a bruised/fractured rib on my right side. That occured on a play where I dove out for a ball, did not get it and then landed with my right arm under my right side.

     Have any of you ever had a bruised/fractured rib before??? This is my first time and I am not happy about it. I did some research last night on WebMD and found that it generally takes 6-8 weeks to heal and all you can really do is take pain meds and don't try to be too active............... wait what?!?!!?! I was going to get on the trainer Sat after the game, but as I was inflating my tires.... hiiisssssssss.... I forgot about the physics of rubber when exposed to freezing temperatures for long durations. As I removed the pump valve from the tires, it separated the stem from the tube and all the air decided to come out. At that point I was done for Saturday. Sunday did not do much because of the pain, yesterday either. This morning I ran 3 miles on the dreadmill and I basically tolerated the pain. I have not tried to ride a bike since this happened, and my range of motion is limited with my right arm so no swimming for now (Not to mention more resistance in the water).

     I did not get around to editing the site this weekend, so it will have to wait until next weekend. I am kinda pissed I already missed a few days, but I am dealing with it. Take this thing one day at a time (for 6-8 weeks :)

     I am thinking of changing my schedule just a bit. It turns out quite a few of my friends might do the My First Tri/My Next Tri at Lake Lanier in June. I don't want to complete that event because I want to compete with them, I just think it would be fun to do an event with lots of people I know. I think the race with the most people I knew had to only be 3-4 people and a race in the Atlanta area. This could potentially push 10 people, and not to mention everyone else that is going to come if we have that many people show up.

     As for everything else, i am just working and studying for the GMAT. I am going to try and get my graduate school application finished by this weekend. Talk to you soon!

You know you are out of shape when...

2010-01-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

Good Afternoon!

     I was very suprised at my ability to get up early most days this week and workout. There have been a few days where I slept in that extra hour and change and went to the gym in the evening. Man was that a mistake. I put in two small pool workouts, however, with running, I did not even try to get on a treadmill on Wed (there were 12 people waiting in line and there must be about 25 treadmills at our gym) and Thu I just happened to get out of the pool and dried off at the right time to catch the one sole treadmill available. Of course we are in the full swing of "New Year's Resolution" members, and it makes for a horrible experience for the rest of us. Please do not get me wrong, I would love for everyone to have some sort of fitness goal AND see it through. HOWEVER, year after year I watch as the first 6-8 weeks of the year show me nothing but horribly crowded gyms. And then between mid-February and March, it just clears up, and you can finally again have little to no wait for a cardio or weight machine Mon-Wed.

     If you are going to do it, see it through!!! I want you to meet all of your goals, but if you are not going to even going to make it through eight weeks, then don't waste the money or time. Sorry, for some of you may feel that is a polarized view on this, but I feel strongly about it and find it to be one of my pet peeves. (Off the soapbox)

     So for some of you, there is a running backgroud that exists. Others have a cycling background, and for ther rest of you, swimming. I think the true test of fitness for people that are of the first two discliplines, jump in the pool! My fitness background stems from running. I could not run for months and get out there and complete a 5K or 10K. I would not be breaking any world records, but I could do it. On the flipside, I do know how to swim, but put me in a pool when I have not been in one in almost 7 months... I am outta shape!!! Maybe this is something we can have a debate on, but I think out of the three sports, swimming is by far the hardest sport to master and one that you have to be in top shape to do reasonably well in. I thought I was gonna die in the pool on Wednesday!!! Kinda comical actually.

    This weekend is going to be busy. Patsy and I are meeting some friends tonight at a new trendy pizza place that opened in Midtown (Atlanta) tonight. The guy (Mike) is doing Rev3 in Knoxville with my friend James and myself this May. Sat is early bike ride (if the weather holds up) and then flag football @ 12:30p. Afternoon run afterwards, and then early run Sunday because I am in a poker tournament that begins @ 1:45p. My plan is to add swimming and cycling back in a little each week while also adding to the distance in each workout! Sounds like a good plan to me.

     Just over two months until ING Georgia (half) Marathon. I think I should be ready for it. I am a bit behind in my training, but I would rather train up a mile or two short on mileage for the event rather than go all out and risk an injury. I am confident I will be ready to go. I am officially signed up for Rev3 now. So that is good, and I am looking at the next 3-4 tris and road races to see when I need to sign up for them. You guys all have a good weekend! I will be catching up on blog reading and trying to finish up my blog editing.

The "Week - end" Report

2010-01-17T17:59:00.002-05:00

Good Afternoon All!

I hope everyone had a great week this week! My "year" started on Saturday by going to the gym in the evening and running for 30 minutes. I wanted this to be base training, and although I am not strictly focusing on heart rate, I am paying close attention and allowing it to govern how fast/far I go. As for anyone who has been off training for any discipline (for any reason), it is hard to get back into the "groove." But when you do, it feels great! My mental attitude the past two days has been amazing, regardless of what has been going on. Even looking at personal issues such as my weight, etc, is not a big deal anymore, because I know there is a process that is going to lead me to something better (great things, hopefully). I will go so far as to borrow a word from Joseph's Blog, resolve. I think by having some sort of resolve in one's life creates the opportunity to bring everything else into balance. In just a few short days, I am seeing things in a new, refreshed manner, and a clarity that has not been there for quite some time.

I spent some time getting my training notes and my training log back in order this weekend. I am using a Microsoft Excel worbook I created for my Ironman in 2009. It got abandoned after a month or so, but I kept it nonetheless. I dusted the cobwebs off of the workbook this weekend, added some more information, formulas, and a few tables for end of week/end of month results. While I am sure it is not as complete as some of the training websites and other, more advanced logs, It works for me now :) I can always borrow new material to add to my log as I go along.

Well, my totals for the end of the week are not that great, but at least there is something to report!

Swim:     0 meters
Bike:      0 miles
Run:       5.5 miles

I will get something up on the sidebar of my blog here pretty quick with weekly/monthly/annual totals. That way you all can hold me accountable ;) This week I am attempting to get at least a couple of swim and bike workouts in with my runs. I am also focusing on stretching more (I am usually pretty lax in that department) because I feel I am way too inflexible. I have some yoga class passes from my birthday last year I need to cash in, I think I am going to schedule those in the next 30 days or so. I know Yoga is actually an art and a discipline in its own right, but for my purposes, I am going to log it under stretching, since that it what I am going for, to improve my overall flexibility. Another area that has seriously fallen by the wayside is strength training. I can contribute one of the most fit times in my life to strength training (the other is to my 2007 triathlon season).

For now though, I have signed up for the ING Georgia Half Marathon and the Rev 3 Triathlon in Knoxville, TN. I am also going to be signing up for the Atlanta Track Club, as they have some pretty sweet member benefits and they sponsor some of the road races that I would like to participate in this year.

I hope that everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend! I'll be on blogging sometime this week!

Man Blogging can be a pain in the ass sometimes ;)

2010-01-02T14:58:00.002-05:00

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year!

I decided today after playing some Wii Golf (I would play actual golf but it is 34 degrees outside!), I would get on the computer and take a look at my blog, and see about giving it a new look, looking at links that need to be updated/removed/added, etc.

I was very sad to see that I am going to have to get rid of about 14 links of people who no longer have active blogs or they have gone private! A few of the people that have gone private I still speak with and we are now facebook friends, so it won't be hard to get put back on those lists. For the rest of them, ttyl! I hope to hear from you again! It's kinda sad, really, that there are some people that I read their life stories and share mine with them. It is like a friend you kept in touch with for years, and then one day you quit talking to them. After awhile you try to contact them, but their phone number does not work, email address has been canceled and they are just gone.

Thankfully there are just as many people who are still around and kicking in the tri-blogging world! A few people even have their race schedules up and I am doing some of the same races as them! Exciting!

I think I am going to spend another half-hour or so today working on planning out my site redesign (listen to me like I am actually going to do web design) and what is/isn't going to be on there. I feel like this is going to be a Blog 2.0 revolution for myself! Happy New Year to all of you!!! Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Back to the grind officially next week.

The end of one chapter, the beginning of another (ringing in a new year, new decade, and most importantly new age group!).

2009-12-31T15:41:00.004-05:00

Happy New Year's Eve!

I hope that everyone's 2009 was everything they hoped and more. Mine was and was not, for a variety of reasons. Thankfully there was much more good than bad, and that always leads to good things! I have been sitting here all day cleaning, watching football, playing the girlfriend's Wii, and thinking about 2009, and what 2010 might bring.

It's funny, I still get my weekly Site Meter updates, and I see that people do come by and visit, yet I have had nothing new to offer all of you. There was soo much that went on this year, that blogging (and at the end of the year triathlons) simply fell off the map. I put so much time, effort, money, etc, from June 22nd, 2008 - June 21st, 2009, that I got burned out. I did complete the Peachtree City Triathlon again... Kudos to Josh Nickell, he did great! I finished, which is all that really mattered. I planned to do one more race in Gainesville in September, but I injured my ankle about two days before the race. (Kudos to James!! Finished 2nd overall in Masters and 1st in his AG.)

I also miss all of you! Blogging, texting, chatting, participating in races with you, reading your blogs! There was a reason I got all of this started, and I hate to see all of it go to waste.

After that, I pretty much sat on my ass and gained weight (184lbs, about 20 above where I want my race weight to be and 14 from where I usually want to be), let the air slowly seep out of my bike tires, and I just checked the brake lines as of this post to make sure that they weren't rusted (my bike sits outside). Running shoes have been used a handful of times, thankfully all of those were runs. I did buy new speedos finally since my old ones were falling apart, however, the new ones have been used maybe three times. Not to mention that I just went from the 4th or 5th hardest age group to the 3rd, and it only gets worse until I am 50 yrs old!

So as I end this year and this decade, here are a few things that I would like to see (from a triathlon perspective) from 2010!

General Goals
1) Minimum of 5 Triathlons this year (1 half, 2 Olys, 2 Sprints)
2) Minimum of 1 Bike Race/Tour this year (at least a 50 miler)
3) Minimum of 6 Road Races this year (1 marathon, 1 half -mary, 2 10K's, and 2 5k's)
4) Get a team together formally in the Atlanta area, or bring everyone onto an existing team! (I have been talking about this for about 6 months now, and I know enough people to add a big chunk to an existing team, or completely start a new one with about 12 ppl minimum)
5)Blogging - More of it! I might even test some of these products that people are emailing me about, since they are going to send it to me for free, and I can test it for you guys! I will also figure out a way to UPGRADE my blog... I have fallen off the tech bandwagon in the past few years, but i think I can pick it back up!
6)Sign up for IMFL.... How will I do this??? You basically have to take vacation and volunteer! That and I don't want to have to go through the whole flying mess again.
7)Shoot for about 700 hours of actual training this year (does not include stretching/weights/cross training/yoga/etc) in primary activities.

More Specific Goals
1) Finish Marathon in sub 4 hrs (last marathon time was 4:20:18)
2) Finish Half Mary in sub 1 hrs 50 min (last half mary time was 1:53:18)
3) Finish Sprint Tri in sub 1 hr 15 min (PR: 1:16:49)
4) Finish Oly Tri in sub sub 2 hr 45 min (PR 2:56:05)
5) Finish Half Iron in sub 6 hrs (PR 7:25:55, did not train properly for race)
6) Finish 10K in sub 48 min (PR was around 48:46)
7) Finish 5K in sub 21 min (Dont remember what my best time ever was)

Races that I want to participate in/complete this year
Triathlons
1) Rev 3 Triathlon - Knoxville, TN (May 9, 2010) Oly
2) West Point Lake Triathlon - LaGrange, GA (June 13, 2010) Oly
3) Tri the Parks - Mistletoe State Park, Appling, GA (July 24th, 2010) Sprint
4) Peachtree City Sprint Triathlon (August 21st, 2010) Sprint
5) IM August 70.3 - Augusta, GA (September 26, 2010) Half - IM

Road Races
1) ING Georgia Half Marathon - Atlanta, GA (March 21, 2010) Half Mary
2) Sweetwater 420 Fest 5K - Atlanta, GA (April 17th, 2010) 5K
3) Peachtree Road Race - Atlanta, GA (July 4, 2010)
4) Atlanta's Finest 5K - Atlanta, GA (August 8, 2010) 5K
5) US 10K Classic - Smyrna, GA (September 6th, 2010) 10K
6) Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon - Chickamauga, GA (November 13, 2010) Marathon

Cycling Races/Tours
1) Jittery Joe's Fall Century Classic - Athens, GA (October, 2009) - Century Ride

I may have a few others that I slide in there (Christmas 5K race, a sprint tri in April, you know.... some extras), but I will let those be a suprise.

Well now I am off. Dinner calls, and then it is a party to ring in the New Year! I hope all of your are safe this evening! Happy New Year!

~Murtha...

Gearing up for my 2nd stress test (hopefully doing better than the banks)!

2009-04-17T20:05:00.002-05:00

Well actually my bank (Regions Bank) is posting a suprise profit for the 1st quarter! So I think they are handling the stress test well. Now sponsor me damnit!

So I have the ING Georgia Marathon in the books. 26.2 miles in 4 hours and 20 minutes (~9:55/mi).

I have been swimming most of my workouts at 2.4 miles, (around 85 laps in my gym pool). I just need the water to warm up a bit more so that I can get out in lake Allatoona and log some miles in the lake. I was out there last weekend for half an hour (I think the water temp was 50 degrees) and I did swallow half the lake... have to get back into the habit of watching out for wakes when boats pass by!

Now the bike.... the problem is that this is the area I am lagging in, and I will spend the most time during the race in this event (I am looking to do this in about 7 hours or less, trying to be conservative). Soooo....... to solve this problem I have entered into a century ride with a friend on May 3rd in North Alabama. I am kinda excited actually, except for the small mountain (i did not want to insult anyone who is in the area to call it a hill) that you have to climb both ways (it is an out and back course). Oh well.... Make the event harder than the Ironman so the IM is a breeze.

Still have my checklist to check off. My bonus is not going to be as big as I thought (I am disputing it because the numbers tell me that my branch knocked the numbers off the charts, and the incentive division says we lost money??? WTF?) so I am really going to have to hunker down to pay for all this in cash..... I also paid my taxes in cash this year too, which I think is better than putting it on a credit card, but you know... you pay for one thing, which stops you from paying for something else. Supply and demand... I need more supply of dollars!!!

Weather is going to be beautiful on Saturday, so I am going to try and get 5 plus hours in of riding tomorrow. Sun it might rain, but I can always run inside as well as swim. Hope all of you will have a great weekend!

Murtha...

Tying it all together

2009-04-07T17:35:00.003-05:00

Well, there are 70 some days and change left before the "big dance" (as I like to call it). Up to this point I have a couple things left to do on my checklist as far as logistics go (and a few are big ticket items).

Bike Box/Travel Case, basically money issue
Money for shipping the bike on the flight
Last night's hotel room in Spokane before I leave back to Atlanta
Rental car for last day in Spokane
(And then the miscellaneous items... food, lots of IM memoribilia and clothing, etc)

I have enough money to knock out items 2, 3, and 4. I am very happy that at this point the only thing I originally charged in this endavour (which I have since paid off) was my Ironman Entry fee.

BTW I did complete the ING Georgia Marathon on March 29th, 2009 (My father's birthday and my training partner James as well). I will probably post some kind of race report in the next few days, but it won't be too serious, as I will probably have to go back to the race map to evoke a few memories of the actual race. I have put every other race report on here, so why stop now???

A new blogger emailed me the other night and asked me to check out her site, and I was sooo excited! We all need to welcome her to the community!

Valerie Triathlon

Her first triathlon is in May. I love it when people find their way to the triathlon life. I almost kind of feel like a missionary sometimes. I have gotten a few friends into it, and even more just interested in the sport, if not to compete.

I am way behind on my bike miles, but James and I are focusing on the bike for the next month (beginning last week) culminating in what might end up being my first century ride the beginning of May. Here is the link for the Century ride, so if any of you in the southeast need to get one of these under your belt early in the season, and you have enough miles in, this might be a good choice for you. I need it, even if I am a bit behind on my mileage. I have now swam 2.4 miles multiple times (albeit in a pool), and I have officially run a marathon in with my long runs. Why not cap off training with a century ride?

Cheaha Challenge Century Ride

Next few weeks are going to be challenging at work (while affecting my training schedule), this week being the worst. Scott, one of my employees is going back to school, as he never finished his undergraduate degree. His last day was today. One of my other employees, is on vacation. Because of the position they are both in, it has and will put an enormous amount of stress on my training and work this week, and after next week, tail off just a bit until I can find someone to replace Scott. But we endure, which is what makes us great!

I hope all of your training efforts are going great... I need to catch up on your blogs as well. Keep it up!

Murtha...

Trying something new...

2009-03-12T18:21:00.003-05:00

How about bringing life back to your favorite sport?
How about reinvigorating your senses to what you enjoy?
How about just trying something different (and new)?

Wednesday was that day for me. Just as I tried sushi for the first time last year and LOVED it, this was to be the same experience, yet not so much food related (and sodium infused)!

Tuesday I worked both jobs, so I took the day off as my one day off for the week. Yesterday I had to help Patsy with car stuff right after work when I remembered that she had scheduled us to go to YOGA. So yes, I have been kind of apprehensive about going, and I have found some excuses for not going. But I also know that it is good for you. This particular firm, which I will post their link at the bottom and give them a shout out, Atlanta Hot Yoga, is awsome! It was bikram yoga I believe, and the session was 1.5 hours.

We got there and I got in the newbie line (which was only me) to get registered and get my name in the computer in case I sign up for any additional classes. After which I then went with Patsy into the Yoga room, which was 105 degrees with humidity. Kind of like Atlanta in August for those of you who get to visit us down there in the South.

Without delving into the details, THIS IS AWSOME!!! I had been walking like an old decrepit man for two days after my weekend workouts and Mon/Tuesday's workouts were suffering because of it. I felt like a new man afterwards. Went through about 40 oz of water as well during the class. I felt so good I went and did 7.5 miles right after work on the treadmill at the gym and kept the pace above 7.0 mph for most of the time.

Working both jobs tonight, but got the swim in. Starting tomorrow is double duty for the next three days, with respect to training, regardless of the weather. It is supposed to rain this weekend. But I can not stop training. If it rains at CDA I will have no choice. But then again, if I go out training in the "elements" it would not be the first time. : )

Flight is booked. Hotel from Jun 17th-20th in spokane is booked, and then Hotel on Sat and Sunday is booked (James booked it, I just have to pay him for his half). Just need hotel for one more day, a rental car for a day or two, and bike case. I am not sweating the small stuff, as my b day is coming up soon and I am asking for gift cards/certificates from

All 3 Sports (my favorite place!)

Unfortunately, I also have my tax bill to mail out by April 15th, and I have to pay for my car tags! Only in Georgia does it seem we pay this stupid ad valorem tax, and the $25 emission testing fee to boot! I mean my car just turned 4 (and under 70K miles) and I seriously doubt that it will fail the emissions test. Especially considering I had a 1988 buick skylark limited with 125K plus miles on it that passed emissions every year until it died.

The money thing will come. It better, or Uncle Visa will be helping me out!

That's all for now folks, I will keep you posted with more details later.