Strength training

After the Sully Super Sprint triathlon I was sore, much more than I should have been. I realized I need to implement some strength training. Today was my 1st day & my boy decided to join in also. Here's a video of him lifting with me.

Holloman air force base duathlon 2011 registration form

After a week of daily phone calls I have finally got my hands on a 2011 Holloman duathlon registration form! It was password encrypted so I decided to just post it here on my blog for anyone o print off for their own use.

The 2011 Sully Super Sprint triathlon race report

Today I raced in one of my all time favorite triathlons, the Sully Super Sprint Triathlon in Alpine Texas. It's an extremely difficult 3 mile run, a 15 mile bike, & a 360 yard swim. Some of my favorite fellow competitors showed up, Rob Lovett, John Gordea, & Bobby Gonzales. I think I end up have more fun visiting with them than I do racing!

Bobby Gonzales absolutely crushed everyone at this race- no surprise there. He finished in 1st place overall with an astonishing time of 63 minutes.

A guy I've raced with for a couple years by the name of Brooks came up to me, shook my hand & told me I'd been his golden carrot. He told me we race in the same age group & one of his goals has been to beat me. He said that he can usually run faster than me but that I always bike well enough to finish the race ahead of him. Apparently he is now my golden carrot because he didn't just beat me, he mopped the floor with my butt!!! I'll have to check the official finishing times tomorrow, but I think he finished 3rd place overall male & came in somewhere around 5 minutes ahead of me!!! This guy got fast! He'll be a force to be reckoned with!

A guy by the name of Rob Lovett raced today, he is now in his 2nd year of racing triathlons. We've had some amazing neck & neck finishes. Last month he beat me soundly at the Presidents day duathlon. He had finished almost 4 minutes ahead of me on the run & then put even more time on me on the bike. Today I was able to finish the run 20 seconds behind him. I was able to make up a good 12 seconds in the transition to the bike & passed him about half a mile from the bike start. I had a lead on him of about 50 meters at the halfway point, but that didn't last long, he passed me just a few minutes later & he was able to get about 100 meters ahead of me by the end of the bike. I made up a lot of time in the 2nd transition, he was no more than 20 yards ahead of me when he entered the water. I knew last time we had raced that I was a much faster swimmer, but that was 10 months ago. I knew if his swimming had improved at all from our last race it would be doubtful if I could catch him because of the very short swim. This races swim is only 360 yards. Somehow I was able to bridge the gap & pass him on the 4th lap & was able to put a 30 second lead on him by the finish.

I finished 5th place overall male with a time of 77 minutes 10 seconds, which was a little over 3 minutes slower than I was able to do at this race last year.

I really love this race. It's held in one the the most beautiful towns I've ever seen. For such a small triathlon the race directors go all out. There are volunteers at every turn & corner of the race so an athlete never has to worry about getting off course or lost. The awards ceremony is always held quickly, the shirts are top notch performance tees, the race packet has a few goodies in it like Honey Milk post workout drinks, & the medals are top notch, there's free food post race, & there's free post race massages!

a more traditional aproach to triathlon training

I apoligize for not posting more triathlon related material lately, my oldest son Cody has started wrestling and is practicing 4 days a week and is dancing 1 day a week. My daughter is also doing dance. With all the new activities my babies are now doing I was struggling to find time to blog. By the way, I've started a blog about my son wrestling, it's http://juniorwrestler.blogspot.com/ I've mostly posted videos and pictures so far. I'm sure proud of him. He's doing AMAZING for being only 3 years old. Check it out.

The last couple months of training has been going great. I've been concentrating on building my base fitness and dropping my off season weight since January. So far I've dropped 29 pounds & only have 20 pounds more to lose to be at my ultimate race weight of 185! So far this year anytime I felt tired or unmotivated I took the day off of training. This is an approach I've never attempted before. I'd always been told I should have an off season, then a season of slowly building endurance and base fitness, then have some hard training at the end of the year. I knew this was the way triathlon training was supposed to be done, but I never did it. My approach has always been to train hard all season long. My approach to training never worked out for a long productive season. I'd start off training really hard in the early winter when everyone else was ramping down their training. I would log at least 550 bike miles and 100 run miles a month with lots of speed work all winter long. Every year without fail I'd be really fast until the summer, then I'd start to feel ran down and fatigued. I never allowed myself rest and recovery, much less an off season so when I felt ran down I'd chalk it up to weakness and force myself to train even harder. Eventually my body couldn't handle the amount & intensity of my training anymore so I'd get burned out and I'd stop training, start eating more, I'd gain back all the weight I'd lost, and I'd end up having a poor performance at my years end my A race.

Every year that was what I did. This year I'm learning from my mistakes & breaking the pattern. This year I'm starting off easy, ramping up my training slowly. I'm feeling confident in my new training methods & am hoping this more traditional approach to training will help me achieve my seasons ultimate goal of a sub 13 hour Ironman in November, and succeed at my 2nd most important goal of beating my best friend Jimmy at my tune up race, The Elephantman half Iron in September.

The sprawl

Here's a video of my son learning the sprawl. He really seems to love wrestling.

The Patriots coach told me the SFJW won't have enough kids his age to have a pre-k division so he'd like me to put him in the kindergarten division. The coach said he'd be wrestling kids no more than 4 pounds away from Cody, & Cody weighs 37 pounds. I can't imagine there'd be a ton of 4 & 5 year olds who weigh less than 40 pounds, but regardless, I'm afraid of wrestling kids 2 years older than he is. If he had more experience I'd be more comfortable with it. But since he's only had 2 practices I have to admit

takedowns

Here's a video of my boy practing takedowns for the 1st time.

Essential life skills

Tonight my children & I were practicing some skills essential to a successful life, push ups & pull ups.

wrestling warm up

my son warming up for his 1st wrestling practice with the Santa Fe Patriots!

taking the back

Here my son is trying to break bad habits. I taught him the basic jiu jitsu
positions. Here is is trying to keep in the rear mount, in jiu jitsu that's a good thing, in wrestling that's not a good thing.

learning to wrestle!

1st full contact wrestling

Here my son is experiencing his first full contact wrestling.

my boy the wrestler!

Cody James did amazing his 1st day of wrestling with the Santa Fe Patriots! He paid attention the entire time, took directions well & wrestled hard the entire practice even against a boy who had 25 pounds & 1.5 years on him. After watching him even his Mommy is excited about him wrestling at only 3 years of age.

If there's enough 3 & 4 year olds who register he'll have his 1st tournament here in Santa Fe next Saturday. If there aren't enough three & four year olds they'll want to have him wrestle against 5 & 6 year old kids as close in weight as they can find to him, which is 37 pounds. I hate to be the frightened parent here, but if there aren't enough kids in his division I won't let him compete yet, I don't want him to get hurt his first week into wrestling & become discouraged. It would be different if he was experienced. If he had a few months of practicing I may feel differently, I feel wrestling kids that much loder than him with absolutely no experience would be asking to much & be dangerous for him.

From here on out he'll be practicing 4 days a week year round. Think about it, by the time he's wrestling as a senior in high school he'll have 14 years experience!!

Childrens wrestling!

I've been dreaming about getting my oldest son into wrestling since he was born but I assumed wrestling teams didn't allow kids on their team until they are close to mid school age. I'd heard the Santa Fe Patriots had one of the best wrestling programs in the state and because I'm slightly OCD I contacted them under the assumption I'd be told he could start in 5 years or so. I found out the program here in Santa Fe starts their kids out at 3. I'm stoked, my boy is 3.5! I could have had him start wrestling tomorrow night, but I desperately want to be there for his 1st practice & I work tomorrow night. So his 1st day of wrestling will be on Monday!!!! Man am I excited! I'll keep you posted on how it goes!!!

Scooter girl

Today was the 2nd day I took my kids to a skate park. Today we tried the skate park in Santa Fe. We were there for over 3 hours when we got rained out & they still didn't want to go home. 3 hours of hard physical activity is going to make for a fantastic nap!

My 5 year old daughter felt much more confident on her scooter trying new tricks & going down bigger ramps. She seems to have mastered the leg pump when going up and down a wall or bowl. Here's a quick video of her.

Ripping it up 2

Getting braver! He gets going so fast his hoodie gets blown off.

Rippin it up

I took my kids to the skate park today. Out of all our babies my middle son is our most tentative, but today he started doing things that was scaring me! I don't know what got into him!

calories burned during Ironman triathlon

On November 2011 I competed in Ironman Arizona. I weighed 182 pounds and burned 6,842 calories. Apparently Ironman distance triathlons are a great way to burn calories!

fearless

Out of all 3 of my babies, my daughter is my most fearless. Here she is spinning on a merry-go-round. She spins so fast that she makes kids older than her freak out and want to get off. I love that little dare-girl.

The SW challenge series points keeper

Since I did my 1st triathlon in 2004 I've been competing in the SW Challenge series. It's the largest & oldest series in the world. Tonight I found the message on the web page where I usually find the series points standings:

For the past 11 years I have thoroughly enjoyed keeping the points for SW Challenge Series. Being the "pointskeeper" has provided me with a way to contribute to my passion (endurance sports) and meet a lot of great people. Thus it saddens me to announce that I have decided not to continue keeping the points for the Series. With the recent addition of many new races and the huge increases in participation at most of the races, the task of keeping the points has become almost overwhelming. However, the additional workload wasn't the deciding factor; the main reason is that I feel the series has outgrown my ability to accurately keep the points using my manual methods.

I plan to continue this yahoo group as an endurance sports information source. I will be sending out a message soon to explain other plans for the group.

The good news is that the Series is continuing and further Series information will be available on http://www.southwestchallengeseries.com/

John LeRoy

Anyone know what's going to happen to the series? Will there just be a new points keeper or is there more serious changes coming?

Just a reminder, the Jay Benson registration opens this morning, March 1st 2011. This event always sells out so if you're wanting to race it you better sign up soon!