Coming out of hibernation

This past week has been a week of change, I set my morning workout schedule so that I get most of my workouts done before I go to work except for my big bike rides which I do on the weekends. I set out my nutrition program so that I know what to buy for the upcoming weeks and what dinners I will be cooking so I can:

A, save money

B, have decent food to eat

C, have the fuel I need to train at my best

Also the weather has been changing. On Monday and Tuesday it was cold and grey for most of the day making it hard to want to workout in the evenings and get up early in the morning. But on Wednesday that all changed.

I was tired and exhausted at work and could not wait to leave, 530 rolled around and out the door I ran, to my surprise I ran into warm weather and sunshine. I drove home as fast as I could put dinner in the oven and went for a run.

It was the best run I have had in a long time, I only ran 3 miles but it was a turning point I could feel it, it was the thing I needed to get my mind to click over to training mode, to keep myself from cheating by skipping workouts and eating fast food 4 days a week.

I almost feel like a bear coming out of hibernation, I do live in the basement and it’s basically a cave, as the weather has warmed up I have awaken with a massive hunger for triathlons.

On a side not I will not be buying a new bike this year, I just cannot justify spending 2500 on the tri bike I really want, or 1500 on a road bike that I sort of like. Instead I will compromise. I will spend 500-1000 on my wonderful Cannondale girlfriend. I heard that girls like accessories and boy howdy will she be getting some! Stockings, earrings, stiletto…. O wait I mean new handle bars, new wheels and if I can find them cheap online some power cranks!

Well that’s it for today, its still Friday morning and I am planning on a 50 mile ride after going to the triathlon store and blowing some of my birthday money on new toys!

Bob

The Joy of Swimming at the Y

I swim at the YMCA, it has an indoor pool and is great because the pool opens at 530 in the morning. This lets me get up early and get a swim workout done before the pull of distractions starts for the day. The only problem with this is that I have to get up at 5 in the morning and for some reason I have a hard time telling myself and getting myself to fall asleep before midnight.

For the past couple of days I have been able to pull it off. I have been getting to bed by about 10pm and getting up at 5 wide and awake. I get to the pool and get my swim in.

I went this past weekend, I started my swim and the life guard came over and put up signs in front of the lanes saying, lessons, blue lane, green lane, circle swim. There were 4 of us that had started our normal lap swim when we were informed by the guard that the other lanes would be closed and that we would have to share the circle lane. This is not that big of a deal in fact I prefer it helps semi simulate open water swim and swimming near people.

After about 20 min of circling around other people I took a small break and notice that there are 4 full size men swimming in 1 lane and 5 other lanes are completely empty with no one standing on the deck. I got into an empty lane and began to swim, when I got to the end of the pool the guard informed me that the lane was closed for lessons. I looked around perplexed and asked what lessons. I was then told that if I did not get into the circle lane I would be asked to leave.

Obviously I had run into a napoleon, some 17 year old kid getting off on telling someone what to do. Me being the good cattle that I am I got back in the circle lane and finished my workout.

5 min before I left the pool after an hour in it people showed up for the lessons.

O well I still got my workout in and that’s all that matters!

Bob

T-3 Weeks

T-3 weeks

THREE WEEKS. Three weeks away from actually training. It is my birthday today I turned 24, getting to the last spot on the young age group. Next year I will be in the 25-30 age group and I will feel old.

I was asked this year if I feel any different, and I gave it some thought this time and yes, yes I do feel older and different. So much has happened over the past 6 months and I have come to many realizations. I do feel older, when I turned 21 I didn’t feel any different but now that I am working and all of my friends are out of school. I have come to the realization that I am now an adult. When I was in school I still felt like a kid and did not feel like I could do whatever I wanted, I still felt shackled. I am not saying that I did not like school just that is how I felt. Something is different now, will update more later.

I am prepping a list of gear that I need to get, another list of gear I would like to get, and a final list of gear that is just freaking AWSOME but is just frosting on the cake when it comes to gear.

Spirits are high as I finalize my training schedule and figure out my sleeping habits, finding the best time to train in the morning so that I am not exhausted when I go to work. It’s still freezing (literally) in the D.C. area but I hope in a couple of weeks it will be nice bright and sunny and I can just head out o n my bike

More later

Bob

T-4 weeks

T-4 weeks

It is 4 weeks before I am 24 weeks away from doing my first Ironman distance triathlon. For those of you who do not know what that is ill explain. It is a triathlon (swim, bike, and run) that is the longest and considered hardest of all the distances of triathlon,

There are 4 races in triathlons:

Sprint 400 yard swim 13 mile bike 3 mile run

Olympic 1 mile swim 30 mile bike 5 mile run

Half Ironman 1.5 mile swim 65 mile bike 13 mile run

Ironman 2.4 mile swim 112 mile bike 26.4 mile run

These distances can very somewhat but these are the typical distances for these races.

The times to complete these very as well, I will base these times off of the average person who has sort of trained for a race.

Sprint 1 hour 10 min

Olympic 4 Hours

Half Ironman 7 Hours

Ironman 13 hours

Now these times are hard to nail down and this is more of a gauge to show you how long it will take the person to complete them and how much effort is required to train for one of them.

If you are interested in getting started in this sport I suggest you go do a sprint see how much you like it then move up from there. I have done 8 sprint races and 4 Olympic distances over my 5 years of triathloning.

Anyways if you have any questions about triathlons email me or give me a call, my email is

ironmanbob@gmail.com