a new twist

In October my wife & I had our 3rd child in a little over 4 years. Consequently the time I have been able to spend swimming, cycling, & running has decreased dramatically. Last year my average training time was around 15-19 hrs a week. Now it has dropped to 10. I had until recently been telling people, "my glory years of triathlon are over. I don't have the time to train like I used to, so I'll train when I can & be content with being a back of the pack triathlete."

Like most triathletes I'd developed an addiction for the long distance triathlons. I'd trained exclusively for 70.3 & Ironman distance races for 5 years. Although I trained a ton each week in the longer races I finished with relatively slow times. The gains from my training were few & slow in coming.

Now that I'm forced to train less, I have tried making up for it by doing more intense & harder training. Lots of threshold, speed, & hill interval training. Well, it appears I have accidentally found my niche. After only 5 weeks of sprint training my speeds have increased dramatically. The gains I'm getting training for the shorter & faster triathlons are coming quickly. Quicker than I've ever had happen before! I have quickly come to LOVE the feel of going fast! Apparently this is exactly the kind of triathlon training my body is made for. Although my weight has been relatively the same the last few weeks (210), my pants are fitting loser around the waist. I was a bit baffled by this. Where was the extra weight? This morning my wife did a double take & told me my quads & calves were huge! I looked in the mirror, and sure enough they have gotten substantially bigger. It's amazing to me to see these kinds of body & speed changes after only 5 weeks!

Needless to say I'm very excited! I can't wait to race my first sprint triathlon to see if I really have developed as much speed as I feel I have. I won't have to wait long. I have the Polar Bear triathlon on Dec 5th & the Jingle Bell triathlon Dec 6th. Until then I'll be happily lost in training because it appears I have fallen in love with triathlon training all over again.

Wish me luck, & thanks for tuning in.

cycling friendly roads

You may have seen the notice in the paper over the weekend regarding the NM41 corridor study and Public Comment meeting scheduled for Nov 17 in Galisteo.

I asking you all to ask that you consider taking a moment to fire off a quick email if you cannot attend the meeting to ask that this project include bike-friendly shoulders as a minimum improvement for safety and multi-modal transportation in general and support of direct economic development resulting from revenue generated by the Santa Fe Century which uses this route from Galisteo to Lamy.

contact emails are
dawn@dpenningtonassociates.com
Karyn.Lujan@state.nm.us

There is some additional information on the project location, scope, proposals, etc at
http://nmshtd.state.nm.us/main.asp?secid=16696

Thanks for getting INVOLVED in asking for safer roads!

The Polar Bear & The Jingle Bell triathlons

I just sent in my registration for the Jingle Bell triathlon & the Polar Bear triathlon. These 2 races are the first 2 of the 2010 season. I got an email a couple weeks ago that the date of the Polar Bear has been moved to the 5th of Dec. So now these 2 races are on back to back mornings. 2 races in 2 days! Could anything be more fun?

This will be the 6th consecutive year I'll be racing the Polar Bear triathlon. Although I'm weighing in at 215 & the excess weight would normally slow me down, I've been training for short and FAST races, so my speeds have been increasing. Even though I'm over weight I believe I have a great chance of beating my course PR of 1 hr 47 minutes set last year. The Polar Bear is on a Saturday and my times at the Polar Bear triathlon have been:

2004 1:54
2005 1:58
2006 (course changed this year) 1:30
2007 1:49
2008 1:47

Like I said the Polar is on Sat & the Jingle Bell is on Sunday morning so I'll be fatigued for the Jingle Bell triathlon. Last year was the first year I completed the Jingle Bell triathlon, I had a break out performance of 1 hr 27 minutes so I seriously doubt I'll set a new one.

I'm really looking foreward to that weekend. Should be great fun!

Thanks for tuning in!

a new season

The Silverman 70.3 triathlon was going to be my last race of the year, I had to bail out of the Silverman. My wife simply wasn't healed up enough from the C section. Now the 2009 season is officially over. I ended up having a decent season. I took 7th place in my division in the Halfman National Championships. I PR'd a 70.3 distance race with a 5 hr 30 min time. & I took 2nd place in the Clydesdale open division in the South West Challenge series.

Although I'm weighing in 17 pounds higher than was my goal for this time was, I'm still super excited about the upcoming 2010 season. Although I'm weighing in 17 pounds higher than was my goal, I'm getting faster. I'm only training for sprints this year so I haven't been going long much. I've been doing more speed work than I ever have in the past.

Back at the beginning of the 2008 season I was weighing in the low 200's & felt I could get below 200 & stay there for the whole season. Based off of how I felt I decided to race the season as an Age Grouper. I ended up taking 1st place 30-34 AG in the SW series, but was very disheartened & frustrated because I was only able to stay below that magical weight of 200 for a little over a month.

This year again I have decided to race as an age grouper. This year I know the chances of me getting below, much less staying below 200 pounds is slim to none. My goal unlike 2008 is to race as an AG & enjoy the competition of the age group I'm now in. Oh, by the way, I age up this month. I'm now 34 & where my birth date lands puts me in the 35-39 ag.

The 35-39 ag is no joke. That age group is easily the fastest age group out there. So my work is cut out for me. But I have something a lot of the faster 35-39 year olds don't have: the willingness & suport to do 16 or more races in the South West this year.

Wish me luck for the 2010 season I'm going to need it!