play time

A couple weeks ago I decided I'd take a month off of triathlon training and racing. I've been taking advantage of the extra time with my kids. Yesterday my wife and I drove the babies to the Albuquerque Sunport and watched planes take off and land. I gave about a thousand rides to the kids on my shoulders, they held their arms out and made airplane noises pretending they were flying. This morning the boys were running around the house with stuffed animals on their shoulders making plane noises. They told me they were giving rides to their kids like I did for them yesterday. That touched my heart.  

Today I taught my boys how to build a fort out of blankets and the living room furniture. Then we played Avengers for an hour. You can see my son holding his stuffed Captain America in the pictures.

Earlier this year I registered for the Santa Fe triathlon, the Damitman triathlon, and the Elephantman triathlon, those were supposed to be my priority races this year. I wont be competing in them, I've gained a ton of weight this year, weight gain and triathlon do not mix. I'd rather be a no show than show up slow, over weight, and an embarrassment to myself. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out a way to stop the weight gain and start some losing soon.

Now that I weigh over 200 pounds again I changed the name of my blog back to Cody the Clydesdale. That sucked. I'm hoping to be able to change it back to Cody the former Clydesdale again soon.

Ever notice how the heavier you are the less capable you are of tolerating the heat? Man, I'm miserable in this heat right now!

Mesa Valley triathlon 2012 race report

Sunday April 1st 2012 the Mesa Valley triathlon was held in Las Cruces NM. It's a fast and fun course. The race director is Mark Mico of Tri Sport Coaching. He puts on the best races in the South West. The courses are always well marked, the results are posted very quickly, and the age group awards are top notch wooden plaques.
The Mesa Valley triathlon was my 79th multi sport race, and my 62nd triathlon.

I've never struggled with my eating the morning of a race before. Race mornings I've always ate perfectly, being totally focused on the race at hand. The morning of the Mesa Valley triathlon 2012 was the first time I'd ever binge ate before a triathlon. While warming up for the race my belly was uncomfortably full. I was afraid having ate as much as I did I'd struggle with stomach cramps during the race, but thankfully once the race started my body seemed to have no problems at all. I've been struggling with my eating disorder horribly in the past month, I haven't struggled this much in a couple years. I'm not sure what the reason has been. Somethings going on and if I don't figure it out I'm going to be back into the 290 pound range in no time.

I finished the triathlon in 1 hour 10 minutes 45 seconds taking 25th place out of 152 triathletes overall, and 2nd place in my age group of 14. I broke my previous Mesa Valley triathlon PR of 1 hour 23 minutes 10 seconds by 13 minutes! Considering I didn't train much in the off season, had gained 11 pounds in late March, separated my shoulder in a bike wreck last week, was unable to raise my right arm above shoulder height without a lot of pain, and was racing with about 10 pounds of extra food in my stomach I was very happy with my results.

I think God was watching out for me race morning. I was struggling with my addiction. My addiction has proven time and time again to be more powerful than my strongest will power and more cunning than my best laid out plan, and when it made it's unwelcome appearance in the worst possible time God stepped in on my behalf. My eating disorder may be to much for me to bear, but it's nothing for God to handle. That morning it was as if He was saying to me, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

"I'm listening God, I really am."

My next race will be the Spring Fling triathlon in Rio Rancho NM on April 22nd 2012. It will be my 3rd race of the South West Challenge Series. I currently have 19 points and am in 1st place in the 35-39 age group division.

off season and P90-X

I've had the P90-X DVD's for a couple years and have never used them, my training schedule was to just too full with all the swimming, biking, and running. After a week of nan off season I've decided to give P90-X a try. I'm 1 week into it and am enjoying it so far, it's kicking my butt! During my workouts my muscles are shaking and I'm hitting muscle failure quickly. I usually wake up a little sore in my legs and so sore in my upper body that it's a struggle to even brush my teeth! I suspect that I'll get very quick gains from doing the P90-X routine because the workouts are so foreign to my body. Anytime someone switches their workouts around it shocks the body and it makes for great results. The no-bulk strength training and the plyometric aspects of the p90-X will help my triathlon racing later in the season.

triathlon off season

I told myself this year I was going to take a proper off season. I've made that decision every year and have never once been able to stop myself from training through the off season. At most I'm able to take a couple weeks off, and then my OCD takes over and I'm back at it as hard as ever.

I took an entire week off and am now half a week into my off season strength training program and I'm already miserable. I want to be out running and biking!

This morning I found a motivational quote:
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or gazelle - when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

This quote motivated me so much I put my run shoes on and was half way out the door before I came to my senses. I realize to meet my Iron distance dreams of going sub 13 hours next year I have to start the training program well rested both physically and mentally. I have to prepare myself for a stellar training program or I'll fail. Part of next seasons training program starts now in my off season.

I'll be atempting to break my dream time of 13 hours at the Redman full Iron on Sept 22nd 2012.
"If you ever get a second chance in life for something, you've got to go all the way."
- Lance Armstrong