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FIRE!

Ok,

Week two is now over and I have hardly done anything this week. Yes this is disappointing and no this is not discouraging me at all. Life has been hectic and I know that in order to properly train for an Ironman you need to be able to commit the time energy and have the drive to do it. I am getting there.

I have stopped listening to the 4 podcasts about triathlons. It was too much, for a while it was psyching me up and getting me all ready for training and racing. Two of those podcasts deal with Ironman specifically. I sat and listening and tried to soak in as much advice as I possibly could and learn from them. But it was not working, now mind you these area great people and have great shows but it was not doing it for me anymore and I know why.

When it comes to triathletes you will not meet anyone nicer. By far we are the friendliest most understanding and motivated people around. WE TRY TO PERFECT 3 SPORTS FOR CHRIMINY SAKES! But! In this massive humble nature there is a cockiness, there is a feeling of, “I do three sports and I do them well”. There is a side of a triathlete that does look at everyone and says “you are lazy, I am better then you”. Now this is just pure ego and is a very small percentage of that person, but it is there and if it is not there then that triathlete is not a competing triathlete they are just there to stay healthy and have fun. I want to be a competing triathlete!

Anyone who knows me knows I want everyone to do a triathlon and that I will help anyone and everyone I can to start running, biking or swimming. So much so that as of late I have killed my cockiness. I have killed that part of me that strives and takes pride in my abilities as a triathlete. I have over humbled myself. I realized I brainwashed myself through the podcasts I was listening too. It was not their fault but I was getting bombarded by nothing but humbleness from these triathletes on their podcasts and this is to be expected, the cockiness only comes out and is spoken when its race day the rest of the time it is a small fire that motivates.

When listening to these podcasts and several other people talk about how hard Ironman races are and how humbling they are, that you don’t race an Ironman you survive it. I started to give in. My fire started to die, I started to beleave that I would not make my time goals.

I call BULLSHIT!

I did not sign up to just survive doing something, to just make it though and be happy with that accomplishment. Its like saying its an honor just to be nominated! I HATE THOSE PEOPLE, yeah its great to get to the top but YOU KNOW YOU WANTED THE WIN. That’s like playing not to lose, GUESS WHAT YOU USUALLY LOSE WHEN YOU DO THAT!

I have time goals; I expect that when I step into that water on September 30^th that I will be done with the race within the next 12 hours. To some of you this means nothing to others this seems insane, ill add to it. I actually expect to finish before 11 hours, 12 hours is my ill try this again time. If I do not finish under 12 hours I am going back to Olympic distances.

This is what motivates me, not I want to survive, no, I WANT TO GO TO KONA! If after this race I finish under 12 hours my next goal will be to qualify for KONA which is the world championship for Ironman, this is the race many of you know this is the race in Hawaii. To get there I have to finish in the top of my age group at another Ironman, and that Ironman will be Ironman New Zealand or Ironman Australia! This is the rekindling of my cockiness, my motivation, my fire! Let’s see how hot this burns!

Bob

TRIATHLETE

Tired

It’s raining on a Saturday.

Its raining and its northwest rain, I didn’t train today, I know if I was a hardcore nose to the ground triathlete I would have done something else. I’m ok with letting it slide.

I’m tired, bone dead tired and I don’t know why. It might be the weather, it might be that I’m tired of living in a basement. It might be a combination of things, who knows.

That’s it for now

Bob

After Day 1

It has been a busy past couple of days, it always seems to be a busy past couple of days.

Friday, cross training day, I have decided that my cross training will consist of Golfing! Dave and I played a round in the wonderful weather. Good second round of the season. Then we proceeded to sit out on his steps in DC and drink lots of Guinness.

Saturday. I went on a two hour ride. Got to see how out of shape I am and at the same time see how terrible my peddle stroke is. I did some drills during the ride and peddled along for a while.

Sunday, I did a little cross training and played some golf with my dad. Then had Easter dinner with the family, very stereotypical Easter but fun. I headed back home and went for a 6 mile run. Nice and easy with a light rain falling. Made it great because it was 70 degrees outside and the rain kept me cool, and we all know how much I like running in the rain J almost as much as I like dancing on the ceiling!

Monday, went to work and sat for 12 hours then went straight to the pool and swam about 3000 yards. It felt great to get back in the water and remember how to swim again. All the little drills and gills are starting to come back to me.

Today I am not sure what I am supposed to do I forgot to look at the calendar before leaving for the day. I figure ill probably go run and maybe lift at the Y. The Google calendar should be up soon!

All in all things are looking and feeling good, a little more out of shape then I would like to be but that is easily overcome.

Some thoughts about training for an Ironman and expectations on race day to come on the next post!

Ironman Bob

IT IS REAL!

This week is T-0 to training and T-24 to race day! I am very excited. Today I am going on my first planed workout, a 30-50 mile bike ride down the W&OD trail. It will be a simple easy ride with lots of drills to help get my peddle stroke down.

I went to the masters this year with my buddy Dave. I have lots of stories and will regale you with my experience probably on my rambling page in the next couple of days.

Google calendar is up and running and it allows you to share your calendar with people. I will be uploading my calendar from outlook into googles and then those of you who are interested can look and see, o this week bob is super busy with training and such. It looks like this little blog is coming together more and more.

Other exciting news, Christopher Moore the writer of Lamb which if you know me I have told you to read. Just came out with a new book and it is spectacular it’s called, A dirty job, its about an unsuspecting person who accidentally becomes one of deaths lackeys!

I also just finished Steven King’s first book in the dark tower series. Now I am not a big fantasy fan and I am sure you are thinking King, O, Horror, but you are wrong. This was a very well written book and actually had very little fantasy but more of a post apocalyptic age. Ill have more on it in the next couple of days up on my book review page.

That’s it for now you should start seeing more and more posts as now I am really starting to train!

GREAT!!!

Ok I know this is not Ironman related but I saw the coolest thing in the world today. This will sound kind of stupid at first but go check it out and it is great.

A bunch of high school kids got together and put together a lightsaber sword fight.

With real lightsabers they rendered in the special effects and got the sounds down perfect. I know I know I bet the fight is lame. No actually it’s good and has a cool ending to it as well. The movie is about 5 min long and you need to check it out the link is below DO IT!!

http://videosift.com/story.php?id=630

Running in Lightning

Today I got off work and was tired as hell so what ever to do? Go for a run of course, as I drove home I looked into the pink sky filled with puffy white clouds and thought about how great it would be to get out on the road. Then I looked behind me and noticed the distinct black clouds of a thunderstorm approaching and as if on cue saw lighting flash down from the looming beast. The smile grew on my face as I hurried to beat the storm home.

I LOVE TO RUN IN THUNDERSTORMS! About 2 min before a thunderstorm hits there is this moment of complete silence, the air feels different as if it is just waiting for something. The quintessential calm before the storm. I love this feeling the anticipation all the wonderful colors the line that breaks the sky between serenity and pure chaos. I got goose bumps while I was running today as I approached the darkness and saw the lightning getting closer and closer.

The great thing about the east is that the rain from the thunderstorms is warm. It’s not the cold miserable rain like in Seattle, no this rain is different for some reason. It’s like taking a shower right before the hot water heater runs out.

I ran today through the thunderstorm and cleared my head. The water cleared the cobwebs from my brain and the lighting strikes get my adrenaline going and reminded me of all the exciting things I had been missing while I sat behind my desk.

That’s it,

Check out the other pages that I have, they should be getting posts every couple of days. Would you guys like me to post on this page and say when I have updated or anything like that? Would anyone want to get an email anytime I update the site?

Give me some feed back, dieing for the attention

The joy of summer coming.

It has been very cold here in the D.C. BUT this last weekend it got warm, it got really warm into the 80’s. What is even nicer is that I get half days at work because of how our hours workout. So this Friday in the wonderful and spectacular weather I went down to my local triathlon shop and shot the shit with the owner for a while.

I went in to spend my birthday money and get my birthday present from my dad. My triathlon gear has been in the “work with what you got” stages ever sense I got into this sport. I have no complaints it makes me work harder and train harder because I know I don’t have the gear to fall back on. It also makes it all that much more special when you pass someone who has spent more money on one piece of equipment then you have on your entire setup. Well this birthday that was all going to change.

I am finally riding my bike with road bike specific shoes and clips instead of mountain bike clips, I also was finally able to replace my 8 year old helmet that had more cracks and dings in it then any helmet should (I like to hit my head on the ground). I have only gotten to ride once with my new equipment and it is spectacular!

While I was at Trienergy talking to the owner and buying my new toys we started talking about bikes and overhauling. I told him how I decided to just overhaul my bike instead of buying a new one this year. I had made a comment about getting fitted and he told me that they do them in house, that a general fit is 40 bucks and the big computrainer fancy fit was 75. I immediately went home and got my bike and brought it back. I put my look peddles on and placed my bike in the regular trainer and started riding.

He wet around and measured several things and took angles and all that fancy stuff that a bike fitter should do, we went over my bike and for the most part it is a good bike (as I had already known but was good to get a second opinion) he moved my seat around and was going to raise my handle bars until he realized that my Cannondale R400 was so old that you could not swap the stem out!

He also noticed that I am still riding on a steel front fork which if you don’t know gives you absolutely no shock absorption. The change he was going to make to the front end was minor and was only for comfort on long long rides. After the fitting he helped me price out the overhaul I will be doing to my bike

New carbon front fork

New long horn handle bars

New aero bars

New stem

New breaks

New shifters

Rewire the entire bike

All in all about 350-500 dollars worth of work, that I will be doing around July, on a bike I spent 300 dollars for originally. In fact I have spent more money taking apart and shipping my baby across the country then I did to originally buy it.

Things are looking up as the nice weather rolls in, now the biggest hurdle is finding the time to play golf and train. Life is so rough!

Bobby