WHERE YOU BEEN

WHERE YOU BEEN ?  

Its been a long time since I wrote on here, but with 51 days left to IMFL I thought it would be cool to start it back up again.  The catch everyone up on me in a flash, here are the main points. 

1.  I am still doing IMFL and look forward to the day when I don't have to worry about how I am going to squeeze a workout in or how on earth I am going to have the energy to do tomorrow's workout after today's sufferfest.  

2.  Life gets you and takes you for a ride regardless of what you plan.  My training until the second half of July had been spotting.  When I say spotting, I mean 6-8 hours of training a week.  The plus side of this is time I should have been training I did the following :  

CAMPING

Spring Camping Trip 

Completed my 4th Half Ironman (Ironman Texas 70.3 in Galveston) 

The swim

Always give serious looks for the camera

Check out the joker who photobomb'd me !!

Helped my son complete his first triathlon 

Keeping the serious look for the cameras going

Tried my hand at assistant coaching for my son's baseball team

Always fierce! 

Spent 7 Saturdays in June at outdoor swim meets for 6 hours each meet.  (My daugther's first year and my son's second)

Even more fierce !!

Participated in a ride along with my former work associate, who is now a police officer 

You have the right to remain silent... 

Took the family to Galveston for a mini-vacation 

The youngest really got into the beach culture

Did some geocaching

They compete for who will find the cache first

And last but not least......GOT A PUPPY !!

Lucy Belle

I worried for awhile about the training I missed, but looking back on it I wouldn't change the way I spent my time.  I might not get my desired time I wanted to get at IMFL, but thats alright. 

So with the fun stuff done, July began the work and training is in full swing.  12 plus hours of training a week and the over next six weeks that will be increasing each week until its go time!!  I have a wondering thought every now and then that makes me real nervous about completing IMFL, but it goes away and I just keep trying to get all the training in that I can stand.  

More blogs to come.....I owe my police officer buddy one on my ride along, so that will be up in a few days.  I got to see a different side of Austin that I had never seen before.  

Silly Sunday #5 (Delayed)

Kinda Late Silly Sunday #5 

 

 

Since 30 Rock ended this past week after 7 seasons on NBC, I thought I would share the top ten lines according to me.  If you didn't watch 30 Rock, this might not be as funny to you...but then again you must not appreciate funny if you weren't watching 30 Rock. 

 

 

Top Ten Lines  

 

 

10.  'Science is my most favorite subject, especially the Old Testament' – Kenneth

 

9.  'A book hasn't caused me this much trouble since Where's Waldo went to that barber pole factory' – Tracy 

 

8.  'Affirmative action was designed to keep women and minorities in competition with each other to distract us while white dudes inject AIDS into our chicken nuggets' – Tracy

 

7.  'Good God, Lemon, your breath! When did you find time to eat a diaper you found on the beach?' – Jack

 

6.  'I like when a woman has ambition. It's like seeing a dog wearing clothes' – Jack

 

5.  'Factories provide three things this country desperately needs: jobs, pride, and material for Bruce Springsteen songs' – Jack 

  

4.  Liz : Why are you wearing a Tux?  Jack: It's after six, what am I, a farmer? 

 

3.  "I felt scared, confused like a dog in a sidecar after it comes off the motorcycle" - Tracy

 

2.  "We are an immigrant nation. The first generation works its fingers to the bone and makes things. The second generation goes to college and innovates new ideas. The third generation … snowboards and takes improv classes." - Jack

 

1.  Don't eat other people's french fries, pigeon. Have some self-respect! Don't you know you can fly?!"- Tracy

 

 

On the training side, things picked up this week and it felt nice to get some good workouts in.

 

Training Totals

 

Swimming : 1 Hour, 11 Minutes

Bike: 4 Hours, 40 Minutes

Run: 3 Hours, 39 Mintues

  

Why not to buy a roof rack for your bikes

To those who thought they were having a bad day.....

 

Notice the roof and the window are also damaged....

 

Couldn't imagine the pain I would be in if I did this...

 

Silly Sunday #4

Silly Sunday #4

 

For this Silly Sunday I would like to introduce you to my little friend, Garmin.  

 

 

 

 

Training got put on hold yet again with a cold I had that wouldn't go away over the past two weeks.  Thankfully I was able to get back to it this past week and my plan called for a recovery week that made it easy to ease back in.  

 

Totals for the Week

 

Swim : 1 hour, 5 minutes

Bike: 2 hours

Running : 1 hour, 40 minutes  

 

 



Silly Sunday #3

Silly Sunday #3

 

 

For this weeks installment, here is the Portlandia skit that had me laughing and saying "what in the world is this ?" all at the same time.  I shared it with my office and now everyone in our department has a bird in their office.....

 

 



Bike Training

How to Turn Your Laundry Room into a Bike Training Center

As most know, triathlons consist of swimming, biking, and running.  This keeps things interesting and also requires you to do multiple types of workouts through out the week.  My current schedule includes 2 swims workouts, 3 bike workouts, and 3 run workouts.   

Balancing family, work, and training is a constant struggle, so anything that allows you to be more efficient with your time is beneficial.  To save some time on my bike workouts, I use a CompuTrainer and my laundry room.  This basically is bike trainer with a computer on it that allows you to program how much resistance is applied to the rear wheel and this determines the intensity of your workout.  This allows me to save time because I am not driving somewhere to ride my bike three times a week.  I just walk to our laundry room/bike training center and start peddling. 

Laundry Room / Bike Training Center

Birdseye View

As you can see the trainer holds the rear wheel stationary and you engage a the resistance device against rear tire and this determines the intensity of the work out based upon watts.  I also have a fan set up to blow against the rear tire since the resistance can build up and cause the tire to warp.  At $50 a pop for a new tire, the fan helps the tire last a little longer by reducing the heat on the tire.  The little yellow box on the handle bars is what controls the resistance.  You can push the plus or minus buttons to increase or decrease the resistance as you are working out. 

The in-the-wall ironing board makes for a nice computer/fan holder.  Glad the previous owners had that installed. 

I also use a web based program called Trainer Road that allows me to create custom workouts and then communicates with the CompuTrainer to adjust the wattage at the specified time.  (ie 150 watts for 10 mins, then 200 watts for 5 mins, etc)  The software also allows me to capture my heartrate, cadence, and distance from my Garmin devices for each workout.  These stay on my bike whether I ride on the trainer or on the road, so this is very nice.  CompuTrainer requires the use of additional equipment to get this data, so Trainer Road makes it much easier and doesn't require anything else to be plugged in or set up on the bike. 

You might be wondering how do you not go stir crazy while sitting on the bike for hours on end.  Well that's the third part of my little set up, Netflix Streaming.  TV series that I didn't catch while they were on TV are great for helping the time pass by.  I got through Firefly, Breaking Bad, and Sons of Anarchy so far.  If you have any suggestions for more, leave a comment below and I will check it out.

Starting up the workout..

Check out that focus..this is how 2/3 of my bike workout are completed.

 Once my bike workout is complete, I shutdown the computer and turn off the CompTrainer and grab a glass of chocolate milk.   I always use the laundry room for my two bike workouts during the week since they are usually run an hour or little more than that.  My long ride on Saturday's are at least two hours and this becomes more of a challenge to stay indoors.  Cold, rainy or the need to ride in non-daylight hours make it easier to stay in, but it takes a lot of focus to get it done.  The longest ride I have done is 3 hours and that was no fun at all.  

The CompuTrainer does provide a better quality workout than riding on the road since you aren't slowing down for traffic lights and you can have a very precise workout thats hard to duplicate while riding on the road.  Not to mention you eliminate the car vs. bike danger, which I have heard one to many of over the past year..  However, I am looking forward to when the weather and our schedule allows me the time to get back on the road.  There is nothing like an early morning bike on country roads..I can't remember the last time on rode on the road.  

Anyways, so there is the glimpse into how I get my bike workouts in during the week and how I am preparing for one third of Ironman Florida. 



Silly Sunday #2

Silly Sunday #2 

 

Second installment of silly Sunday for your enjoyment....Last week was the dream of the 90's, this week its the dream of a different 90's...Try 1890's. 

 

 

 

 

Training was non-existent this week...picked up cold that is still hanging around and learned that no good deed goes unpunished.  Lets just say that trying to help my previous employer out over 8 months ago has been a mistake I shall not repeat again.  My reward is that I get to spend a day away from my current employer doing a deposition on behalf of my previous employer.

 

Also skipped the Houston Half Marathon for the first time in seven years :(   See reasons above for my poor excuses.