The 2013 Jay Benson triathlon canceled

I received an email from New Mexico online that the Jay Benson triathlon has been canceled. Las Alamos and the Jay Benson triathlon were tied as the oldest continually held triathlons in New Mexico. This year would have been the 41st year for each. That title will be held exclusively by the Las Alamos triathlon.

IMPORTANT!!!! The race director of the Jay Benson will not automatically refund your race entry. They will ONLY be issuing refunds if you show up IN PERSON to Sport Sytems on Montgomery in Albuquerque NM before May 31st!

This was the info I pulled off of the NM online website.

Jay Benson Triathlon Cancelled
Regrettably, due to the Boston Marathon incident and the resulting heightened security at Kirtland AFB, last minute security requirements for civilian entry to the Base have left us no alternative but to cancel the Jay Benson Triathlon.
First and foremost, we would like to thank Kirkland Air Force Base for its longstanding support of the Jay Benson Triathlon. This triathlon would never have been as successful as it has become without the support and help of the Base. We’d like to especially thank the team at the pool. They’ve been great to work with through the years.
We began the permitting process in early November 2012 and, initially, the requirements for participant’s and their friend’s and family’s access to the base remained the same as in years past. We collected names and the last four of the social security numbers and submitted the list in a timely manner as instructed. However, the requirements of the Base over the last two weeks changed several times. We were also told to collect dates of birth from everyone. Many people worked diligently through email and phone calls to obtain the additional information and we resubmitted the list by the required deadline.
The latest requirements were numerous. Unfortunately, there were two requirements that we couldn’t comply with. One was that we now needed full name with middle initial, date of birth, full social security number, drivers license number and state of issue. The Base was going to do full background checks on everyone. We simply could not obtain this information by the deadline imposed. Also, many people were uncomfortable giving us all their personal information. We are a retail store and we are not set up to securely obtain and protect everyone’s personal information.
The other requirement that we didn’t think we could comply with was that we needed to change entry gates and get everyone through the gate between 6 and 7:30AM. Based on previous years experience, we believe we could only get a little over half the cars into the event during the allotted time.
We understand that the Base just wants to secure the Base and keep everyone safe. We worked diligently and complied with all the new requirements over the last six months. Unfortunately, the recent requirements were impossible to achieve.
We are greatly saddened and disappointed in canceling this event. We did everything in our power to save this event and express our deepest apologies to the triathlon community and guests for this unfortunate outcome. Sport Systems wants to extend a special thank you to Angie and the Chasing 3 team for everything they’ve done to save this event. It was an unbelievable effort they’ve put in the last two weeks to save the event. Every effort will be made to continue the Jay Benson tradition at a different venue next year.
Many of you received a $10 gift card from us at the Kickoff Party at Sport Systems. Please keep that as a gift from us.
REFUND OPTIONS:
Beginning Monday, May 6, Sport Systems will be offering refunds in the following manners:
1. You can roll your entry fee into next year’s event (location yet to be determined).*
2. You can have your refund in the form of a store credit. Please consider this option to help offset the significant losses that have occurred.*
3. We can issue you a full refund in the method in which you paid.*
4. You can donate your registration fee to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. You can write it off as a donation on your taxes. Our hope is that the charity doesn’t suffer due to the Base security changes and your donation would be greatly appreciated. This option requires no action. We will assume by a non-response that your registration fees will be automatically considered a donation.
*FOR THE FIRST THREE REFUND OPTIONS, YOU MUST COME INTO SPORT SYSTEMS BEFORE MAY 31st, 2013. Full refund includes one-day USAT licenses, if applicable. Sorry, we are not able to refund annual USAT membership fees. If you paid through nmsportsonline.com, you will still need to come into Sport Systems for the first three refund options. Refunds will not be offered through nmsportsonline.com or your credit card company.
Please help spread the word by telling your fellow triathlete friends and family to confirm all have seen and opened this email.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience canceling the Jay Benson Triathlon has caused. We realize many of our triathletes have been training for this race for months and some are traveling from long distances.
Sincerely,
Duane Kinsley
Sport Systems
Owner

midlife crisis, depression, and brain injuries

The last year and a half I've been burnt with triathlons. I'm no longer obsessed. No longer driven beyond all reason. Now that I look back at all the time spent cycling, running, swimming, racing, and the tens of thousands of dollars I spent on traveling, hotels, equipment, and race entries I realize triathlon was my midlife crisis. In some ways my family and I got off easy compared to other men. My family is still together, thriving actually. There's been no infidelities. Even at the peak of my obsession my wife and kids were still my #1 priority. But in other ways I feel like I'm in a worse place than the other men who had the same life altering temporary retardation. It appears to me like the men who go through a mid life crisis come out of it having learned a lot about themselves. I didn't seem to have gained the same emotional maturity. I feel lost. Depressed. When I look in the mirror I don't recognize myself. When I look in the mirror this is who I expect to see:

 

The muscular weight lifter,

 

or the skinny endurance athlete,

 

Below is who I actually see. This is what I look like now. Fat, bald, unhappy with myself. I mean seriously, how can my lovely wife enjoy being with someone who looks like this? I'm disgusting!

 

In the last couple weeks I've come to realize that my depressed state has nothing to do with me losing interest in triathlon. This depression has been here since I got ran over by a vehicle while cycling back in Sept 2011. I suffered a traumatic brain injury. Once or twice a month I still get depressed for a week or two. During that time the only thing I find that can make me feel half way normal is eating. I cant find the energy to workout or to be sociable. After a week or two I feel normal again but the depression always comes back. I still lose things and get lost. Conversation and connecting with people is hard for me now. It's like there's a flow that everyone can see and follows while communicating, I cant find it, much less follow it. I'm awkward to be around. I say things that don't fit what everyone else is talking about. Consequently I don't associate with others as much as I used to. When I do I've learned to try and keep my mouth shut to avoid the all too common awkward moments that seem to happen every time I open my mouth. Consequently I'm lonely. I'm still frequently depressed. I often times cant remember how to do things I used to be able to, such as my job; which is scary because I work in a prison and peoples lives are in my hands.

Things have improved since the accident. The first 9 months after the accident I didn't want to be around anyone EVER! Not even my wife and kids. Now I want to be around them, I'm just a social buffoon. I was easily angered, constantly depressed, all I could think about was suicide.Although I'm not that bad now I still don't feel like myself. Will I ever go back to the person I was before? I miss that person. So does my friends and family. I have an appointment with my primary doctor on May 8th. I've brought these problems up to him before and he's dismissed them saying, "it takes time for the brain to recover", or, "you might not ever get those things back." I've done some research and have found that there is help for people who suffer from brain injuries. I'm not leaving my doctors office until he refers me to a specialist who can help me, because I'm finally willing to admit that I need help. 

The 2013 Atomic Man duathlon race report

I competed in the Atomic Man Duathlon this morning to make up for being a no show last week at the Spring Fling triathlon. This was my 84th multisport race, and my 20th duathlon.

The Atomic Man duathlon is my favorite race of all time! This was the 8th time I competed in this race, and this year it was a qualifier for the duathlon national championships. Last year there was a couple pro's and an Olympic duathlete who showed for this race. The RD's go all out to make sure everyone has a fantastic time. They had a ton of stuff in the race packet bags from performance t-shirts, chap stick, gels, bars, water bottles, coupons, honey, wet suit bags, & those re-usable shopping bags, and pro photographers throughout the course! They have the most comfortable timing chip straps I've ever seen at a race! They also had more swag than I've ever seen in a non-Iron distance race! Ruby helmets, Ruby sunglasses, gift certificates to tri sports, gift certificates to a local bike shop. they had free coffee (5 gallons worth), gluten free sandwiches, organic meat, organic veggies, organic bread, fruit, many other things.

The race is a run/ bike/ run format. The first run I completed having kept an 8:58 minutes per mile average. The bike is a very difficult and MOUNTAINOUS course, but I still kept a 15.5 mph average, which suprised me since I'm weighing in over 230 right now. The 2nd run I kept a 9:15 minute per mile average. I finished the race 1st place Clydesdale, 18th place overall.

RX all week, and updating my goals

This week was the 1st week in 14 weeks of training at a CrossFit gym that I've been able to do the RX on every workout. Yesterday I was even able to do all the toes to bars, I never had to scale down to knees to elbows, which up until yesterday I had to do after 5 reps of toes to bars. Next step is being able to do a hand stand push up......

Just to keep my goal list updated, I'll post my 3 biggest goals here.
1) I want to get to 198 pounds at %10 body fat.

2) When I was a kid my Dad's max bench press PR was 265. I remember being so impressed. I thought he was amazing! My new and exciting goal is to beat his bench press PR. When I'm ready to beat it I'm going to take my babies to the gym to watch me just like my Dad did with me.

3) be able to do a handstand push up.

P.S. Mona, thank you for the encouragement. I'm very grateful.

Jeremy, benchmark at RX

A few days ago I stopped dieting and started eating enough to maintain my weight. Apparently more calories was EXACTLY what my body was needing. Today before CrossFit started I did some push ups and pull ups. I do this daily since those are 2 of the  things I'm weakest at. I was able to crank out a lot more pull ups and push ups than I've ever been able to do, a lot more! Once class started we did the workout called "Jeremy" which is reps of 21-15- then 9 of overhead squats and burpees. Jeremy is a  a CrossFit benchmark workout, and up until today I had never been able to do the RX (recommended weight)of a benchmark workout. Today I did the RX for the 1st time! I was very stoked! I was really close to busting out in a happy white boy dance!

The extremist

I am by nature an extremist. OCD to the max. In many ways that benefits me, in many it doesn't. When it comes to dieting it doesn't. I end up pushing myself to hard to lose weight. From years of triathlon training and dieting I've figured out that my body responds best to losing no more than one and a half pounds a week. If I try to lose more than that I end up overly hungry and I fall off the wagon. I've also learned that Every 4-6 weeks I need to increase my calories to a maintenance level for a week or two. If I diet for longer than 4-6 weeks I end up getting overly hungry and/or burned out with dieting and I fall off the wagon. I've been dieting constantly since January, which was too long. Last week I fell off the wagon, and I've gained a few pounds back, I'm currently 235. Thankfully I realized what I was doing wrong. For the next 2 weeks I'll be eating more calories to let my body realize it's not starving, that there isn't a world wide food shortage, and that in a couple weeks it'll be OK to drop some more weight.

Most boring blog in the world?

Back when I started this blog I was new to multisport. Back then my blog was exciting for me to write about because I'd always had pathetic endurance and speed. When I played football in high school I finished the runs in practice in last place. Guys who outweighed me by 50+ pounds could outrun me. In the army I had to run in the slowest group. If I was going to build enough speed and endurance to finish a triathlon or duathlon iť was going to be a HUGE transformation. I became obsessed. I trained an average of twenty-two hours a week. And iť showed. Back then I had so much I could blog about everyday. New places I trained. New workouts. What types of training seemed to work, what diets helped, equipment, which races I wanted to try, etc.

The last couple years triathlons and duathlons has started to bore me. I still enjoy to cycling and running occasionally but not nearly as much as I used to. Most shocking to me is that I'm tired of racing. On Sunday my stomach was upset, so I didn't race a triathlon I had signed up and paid for. Back in my hard core multisport days nothing would have stopped me from racing. Back then I'd have showed up and raced even if I was projectile vomiting blood!

For the last 14 weeks I've been attending CrossFit 5 days a week. I'm average at it. I've made average improvements, average strength gains, and average weight loss doing CrossFit. There just doesn't seem to be anything all that exciting to blog about now. Being average is boring, most people are average. Now that my fitness focus has changed my blog may be the most boring blog in the world.

Celebrate at the Spring Fling triathlon

It took me a few days to recover from the shock of realizing I had only lost 11 pounds during my 9 week weight loss competition rather than the 29 pounds I thought I had lost. Eventually I realized 11 pounds is still something to be happy about. Unfortunately it's all to easy for me to lose track of the little things when I'm working 70-90 hours a week and seriously sleep deprived. Add into the equation the memory problems I've been having from the traumatic brain injury I sustained in September 2011 when I got ran over by a vehicle while cycling, these brain farts seem to happen a lot.

Once I got over the disappointment I realized 11 pounds is still something to be happy about. I've decided to celebrate by registering for the Spring Fling triathlon held in Rio Rancho New Mexico this Sunday. This will be my first triathlon in 6 months. This has been the longest I've gone without competing in a triathlon since I first started competing in multisport in 2004. The Spring Fling triathlon is a sprint triathlon, the distances are 400yd swim, 18k bike, and 5k. This will be my 4th consecutive year competing in the Spring Fling triathlon, it will be my 65th triathlon and 84th multisport race all time.

The link for this race is: http://www.trisportcoaching.com/races/springfling2013.html