Busy, Busy, Busy

This is going to be a two-part post. I was trying to condense it as much as possible but just have too many good stories to tell! So I'll break it up for the benefit of my dwindling readership.

Life has been crazy and crazy awesome of late. Lots of racing, a bit of training and working as many odd jobs as I can find in the meantime! My official job title is Mr. Coach Laundry Man Fitness Attendant Instructor Sir. Quite lengthy and descriptive, not to mention catchy eh? I've always been an all-or-nothing type of guy and an unpredictable and flexible schedule has forced me to adapt. I've had to learn how to balance life with training and be much more go with the flow. In a lot of ways it has been very good because I've had to adjust my approach to training and realize that "something is better than nothing." So I try to make sure I get in some good quality workouts during the week and don't sweat it if I miss my 45min easy run or an hour easy spin.

All in all it's been a lot of fun and I'm enjoying life right now. That's probably mainly because of the fact that I've gotten faster and seen improvement in every race I've done so far this fall. Getting faster is fun. Period. I'll try to run through a quick recap.

Bridgeland- This was a sprint race in the Houston area which was my first race back in a while. I ended up 6th which was ok but not great. I felt like I was in a lot better shape then my race showed (Doesn't everyone think that though?) but you have what you have on the day. After Bridgeland my training SUCKED for a couple weeks. I was lazy, slept-in, skipped workouts, ate bon-bons, all the bad stuff a dedicated triathlete isn't supposed to do. I'm sure my wife was sick of me whining about how out of shape I was getting and how I was the worst professional athlete on the planet.

Typical. Me singing at the top of my lungs and my wife glaring at me angrily.

TriFest for MS- This race wasn't originally on my schedule but I got a call from Jess' brother (Also a professional triathlete) a week or so before and Jess and I decided to drive up to Bentonville, Arkansas to give it a try. It was labor day weekend and triathlon is fun so why not make a road trip out of it? Well Scott, the race director, did a stellar job and got us a wonderful homestay just 3 miles from the race site. It was an interesting format with an 800m pool swim in LCM followed by a 27 miles bike on a 7 loop course and then another 700m before finishing off with the typical 10k. My swim was so-so but I crushed the bike. I haven't been able to ride hard in so long because of back pain and it was so nice to put power on the pedals and make myself hurt. I ended up going 1:01 for the 27 mile ride followed by a second swim where I came close to drowning and horrible leg cramps in T3 before shuffling a miserable 10k.
Note: Swimming AFTER a hard bike ride SUCKS!!

On the spur of the moment I decided to jump in a 10k the morning after the race because there was a bit of prize money and... well, who doesn't want a goodie bag like this one?

A lead pack of 4 formed from the get go with me just off the back and
when they rolled through the mile in 5:05 with me at 5:10 I knew top 3 was out of the question.

However I was determined to run hard and even though this >>>>>>   ugly guy was starting to make his presence known. I contemplated dropping out, not sure if the damage to my foot was going to be worth it but when I pr'd my 5 mile and knew I had a shot to pr my 10k I had to keep going! I ended running 34:00 which was a 12 second pr but oh so close to breaking 34. Better luck next time I suppose. In reality, I was quite pleased because it was on a hilly course the day after smashing my legs on the bike and then cramping horribly.

red badge of courage

The weekend in Arkansas gave me a good confidence boost. I think I got myself a bit overtrained doing base work in July and early august along with the lack of intensity resulted in feeling very sluggish and off at Bridgeland. After the Arkansas weekend my suspicions of lurking fitness were confirmed and my faith in my bike ride rejuvenated. So I did what would be expected in such circumstances- I stopped riding my bike for two weeks. Ok, that's not completely true but I only did a couple rides over the next two weeks though one of them was a 75 miler. Again, not ideal training but my swim and run were still going well and I had another big weekend double coming up.

The Basics

This year has brought many changes to my life and whether good or bad change is a stressor that the mind and body must adapt to. I am very fortunate in that my changes are nearly all good but somehow they managed to all happen within a few weeks of each other! My wedding, finishing school moving into a new apartment, and accepting my pro card all happened in quick succession of each other and all of a sudden I found my self living a completely different life than I had a few months ago. I am absolutely happy and content with where my life is right now and knowing that God is working in me and guiding my steps. However, my training and racing was a bit up and down all spring. I struggled with motivation in my training and a lot of fatigue. I had some decent races but others weren't quite what I was hoping for. 

My wife and I took a trip to Idaho a month and a half ago to see her sister and it was a great time of refreshing for us. I like to say that we came back mentally refreshed and physically exhausted! We did a lot of hiking up mountains in the snow on top of some running and swimming but we had a blast. That time was just what I needed to refocus and look at what God is calling me to do in life and in sport. My goal for this fall is to "get back to the basics." I love cliche's and that's about a cliche saying as it gets. 

I tend to think too much in my training and so I'm swimming with a master's group now. I just show up and do what they tell me when they tell me to do it. Simple and it's fun. I'm running and biking with people and trying to listen to my body. I love the sport of triathlon, it's fun and I think sometimes I forget that in the midst of "getting the work done." So now I'm having fun and that same philosophy is what's guided my race planning for the fall.

Essentially I'm going to stick to local races but one's that will still have a competitive field and other pro athletes from the state and region. It's a lot more fun trying to pr while fighting for a podium spot then to do it while your 5-10 minutes down from the front of the race. I've done a lot of the big, national level races and I they are a lot of fun but I've done that scene and for this fall and I want to travel to places that are close and see people I know. With that being said my lineup for the fall is going to look something like this-

August 5th- Bridgeland Sprint (Cypress, Tx)

September 15th- Rose City Triathlon (Tyler, TX)

September 16th- TriFecta (Possum Kingdom, TX)

September 30- Houston Triathlon (Figure it out...)

October 21- Tri-Tyler HALF 

I personally know some of the race organizers for these races and they put on excellent, quality, fun races. I really love what Steve Farris, who puts on Rose City and Tri-Tyler, is doing with his races and am excited to come support his half iron race in Tyler. It's going to be fun and I'm really looking forward to this fall. Hope to see you at one of these events!!

Back from My Leave of Absence

So apparently I'm really, really bad at blogging. Three months since my last update is completely unacceptable, I know. I'm sure the sparse readership I had has now completely left for more active and interesting blogs. In spite of the very real possibility that no one reads this post I shall do my best to give a brief glimpse into where I stand in life and training.

COLLEGIATENATIONALSKemahSWImLessonsDALLASITUidahoJCC6monthanniversaryWORKANDTRAINrunningcamp.EATANDSLEEP


Yep, that pretty much sums it up. I had a decent race at Nationals and a good swim at Kemah. Then a DNF in my first ITU race in Dallas after I got lapped out on the bike. MAN those guys can swim! I had a little break after that and went on an amazing trip to Idaho with my wife to see her sister. That place is so beautiful and the weather was amazing. We went hiking almost every day and saw a grizzly bear on one of our runs! We came back physically exhausted and mentally refreshed.

Since then we've been back at the grind and I've been training pretty solid. I started swimming with the master's group here which has been a lot of fun and very refreshing. On top of that I've been coaching a running camp for high schoolers this summer. We meet four times a week for 2 hours to run and do drills, stretching, core, etc. The goal is to prepare the kids for cross country season and help keep them running through the summer. It has been a lot of fun and I'm learning that my passion truly is coaching, teaching and developing young talent! I'm loving every minute of it.

Next up- The fall racing season will begin soon and I'll provide some updates about my schedule in a few days.

"Not every difficult and dangerous thing is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to success in achieving the object of our effort."       -Epictetus 

A Lot

There's been a lot of ground covered since my initial post at the beginning of the year. A lot of flip turns, chamois butter and sugary sports drinks. All that goes into the process of gaining fitness and preparing for racing. My ramp up has been a little slower this year with a little more focus on base/strength/endurance in the early season. It will be a long year so we haven't wanted to jump into high intensity too quick.

A few weeks ago I had a great opportunity to participate in a pro/elite age grouper training camp in Denver, Colorado hosted by USAT 2010 Coach of the Year, Melissa Mantak. It was a great opportunity to train "like a pro" for a whole week. All we did was eat, sleep, train and repeat. It's amazing how much training you can do when all your focused on between workouts is getting ready for the next one! We had a really good group of people there including Ryan Borger, Jordan Jones, Mark Hillers, Brandon Nied, Steven Garza, Alex Hooke, Beth Shutt and myself. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun and walked away with a lot more fitness than I came into the camp with. I want to say a BIG thank you to Melissa for opening her home up to us athletes. She donated her entire week to coaching us in the pool, videotaping us, driving SAG, teaching and talking with us and I'm very grateful and thankful for the insight I gained from her.

I had one week after camp to recover before racing the South Midwest Region Collegiate Qualifier in Dallas, Tx. I was very excited to get out there and race since it's been over 6 months since I completed a triathlon! My wife, Jessica, and I drove up the night before and crashed at my parents house along with the rest of the UT Tyler Multisport Club. Jess was racing for her school, St. Mary's University to qualify as an individual slot.

Race morning was a 5:15am wake up which doesn't feel to bad when you're used to getting up at 4:30 a lot of mornings to swim. Check-in, body marking, transition set-up, warm-up, yada, yada, yada. Same stuff before every race. Soon we were in the water waiting to go. This race was a "Spolympic" as I liked to call it. 1000m swim, 19mi bike, 5 mi run. There were around 120 guys packed into a pretty small area at the start and when the gun went off there was a lot of the normal thrashing, kicking, grabbing, swimming on top of people, etc. that goes on. I really struggle with open water starts for some reason and have a hard time settling into a rhythm and finding my stroke when I go out hard. I missed the first pack but found a couple guys to draft off of and exited the water only about 40sec down from Ben Hall from Louisiana Tech who was one of the top contenders. Looking back on my time and how I felt in the water confirmed to me that I really need to get in open water and practice going hard and using my wetsuit.

I had a quick T2 and was 4th or 5th onto the bike, and moved into 2nd place within the first mile. Ben Hall was only 20sec up the road and I knew he is a strong biker so I pushed hard the first 5 miles to try and get close to him. I got to within about 8sec but then we hit a turn around and after seeing me he punched it and started to open up a gap. I made the mistake of tightening my shoe strap at the same time and he was gone. The bike was completely flat. We did 2 loops across a damn and back. We had some cross wind but not too terrible. I was trying to push as hard as possible but wasn't able to get my HR very high. My back started tightening up the second half like it seems to always do. When Scott Wilkinson from A&M came by me with 4 miles to go I realized I had been pushing a really low cadence which I think may have attributed to my back. I used Scott to pace off of the last part of the bike and we came into and out of T2 nearly together.

Starting the run Scott was about 2 seconds ahead of me and Ben Hall was a minute down the road. Scott took off and I decided to try and build my run and not gun it from the start- bad decision. Scott kept pulling away until he caught Ben at mile 2. I caught Ben at mile 3 and Scott was about 20sec up the road. He hadn't pulled away anymore since the 1.5 mile mark and I thought I might be able to catch him if I pushed too hard. However, for whatever reason be it lack of mental strength or just not enough intensity in training yet I didn't. Instead I settled where I was, in a comfortable rhythm and let myself run across the line in second. Mark Primeaux from LSU and Keith Kotar of Oklahoma State where running fast behind me but I had a big lead on them and knew they wouldn't catch me. I ended up "winning" the race because Scott had some academic issues that kept him out of the collegiate competition but it was a hollow victory. Overall I was very, very pleased with how the race played out and my fitness level. It's now time to start moving into some higher intensity work which will give me those top end gears I need to really push the pace and make myself hurt.

My wife did great in her race taking 2nd overall female and nabbing her spot for Nationals! I'm also super proud of the UT Tyler guys. We took 4th male team out of 10 teams which is huge for our little squad! They're a fun group of guys and I love being able to meet up with them and help our squad do well.

Collegiate Nationals is 2 weeks away and then the season will really start to get going. I'm excited about this year and progress I've made already.

All Aboard

Along with my "big jump" to the world of professional racing comes a lot of responsibility and extra work. By "work," I don't just mean the physical kind (though that is definitely a BIG part of it), but also all the little things that must be done. Things like eating right, stretching, resting, taking care of equipment, administrative work and yes- MORE TRAINING. All of these things take time and time is money. Athletes typically have more time than they do money and this is were I believe sponsors come in. In exchange for the use of their product to help the athlete perform better and more cost efficiently, the athlete is giving the sponsor product exposure and the use of his time. With that in mind I have beenable to bring aboard a couple small sponsors for the 2012 season. These are company's that I have used before, researched and believe in. I am proud of the brands I get to represent this year and am grateful for the support they are giving me. Below is a quick highlight of the three companies I have so far

Fluid will be helping me with my nutrition for this year. They have 2 great performance and recovery products. I spent a lot of time researching different nutrition companies because I wanted to be confident in what I was putting in my body. One of the biggest things I like is that their recovery drink is lactose free but does not include soy. They use whey protein isolate which does not contain lactose. My wife is extremely lactose intolerant and I avoid it as much as possible because it improves my allergies and congestion when I don't consume dairy. It is hard to find any recovery product that doesn't have some dairy in it and we are a 99% dairy free household and I'm excited that Fluid will fit right in! There drinks taste great but aren't too sweet and don't leave that syrupy gunk in your mouth. I'm really looking forward to using a product I like and that works this year for my training and recovery!

Who doesn't love crazy cycling socks? Well I certainly do and have since I started in this sport! That's why I am super excited to be working with SockGuy this year and can't wait to model some of their awesome designs! Putting in all those lonely miles on the road I'm always looking for ways to make things interesting and a pair of crazy socks are the perfect way to make things funky! Hopefully those trying to hold my wheel will be so distracted looking at my socks they can't concentrate and get dropped. SockGuy doesn't sacrifice quality either. These socks are comfy and don't wear out.

Ok so feet are definitely important when you use them to train all day. I've got some good socks on my feet now and I'm really, really happy to be able to back that up with some good arch support in the form of Superfeet. A big thanks to Robbie Wade for helping out our team, IconeOne Multisport, with these so we can all wear them. I've been using Superfeet for about 4 years now and they really make a difference in helping my stride mechanics and preventing me from getting injured. I'm a "neutral" runner and previously thought this meant that all I needed was a non-supportive, cushioned shoe. That's simply not true. I get re-occurring shinsplint problems and my feet get a lot more sore and tight without the use of Superfeet. Not only that but I can tell my power transfer is much better on the bike with them and when running they help my foot roll more quickly across the arch and into my toe off.

Of course my coach and team IconOne Multisport is backing me again this year. I am where I am today because of my coach, Shelly. She gives me all the hard workouts that suck so much and make me so much faster.

So that's the line up for this year so far. I'm very grateful for these opportunities I have and am proud to represent these brands. I still need a lot of help with clothing, shoes, helmet, sunglasses, wheels, race entries, plane tickets and hotels so if you or anyone you know is interested in working with me please feel free to contact me at- thetrilife@gmail.com

The Big Jump

2011 saw a lot of changes for and I made a lot of improvement. I never had a really, really big breakthrough race like I was hoping for but I had some solid, consistent performances. I never had a really bad race and I never had one that was really good. But that was my goal for the year- to race consistently. And I did that, all my Olympic distance races were within about 3min of each other. I was in really good form late in the season and eager to throw down a very quick race at the Toyota US Open but a flat tire derailed that attempt. Nonetheless, it was a good year and one that leaves me even hungrier for this year.

All that being said, in May last year at the Capitol of Texas Triathlon I placed 3rd overall amateur which qualified me to take my pro card should I choose to do so. Last year was too early and I chose to stay amateur for the rest of the year. However, after much reflection and talking with my coach I have decided to make the big jump and turn pro in 2012. A lot of people wait until they achieve a top 5 at Collegiate or Age Group Nationals and I haven't done that but I feel that, for me, what is going to motivate me to keep working hard is to make that jump. I learned a lot last year about training, consistency and just putting in the work. Moving to San Antonio last May has enabled me to work with my coach, Shelly O'Brien, full-time and that has helped me immensely.

I know that this year I will be at the complete bottom of the totem pole but... who cares? If I'm getting faster (and my goal is to get faster) then there is nothing like throwing yourself to the wolves and trying to survive. I'm the fittest I've ever been this time of year and immensely excited. Being a professional triathlete is something I've dreamed of for many years and now I finally am one! I'm not making any money yet and sponsors certainly aren't knocking at my door but I'll start at the bottom and work my way up. The way I see it is- I'm almost 23, I have a good 15-20 years of racing in front of me and if I can continue to improve that whole time who knows where I'll be at age 40? There's no time like the present so I'm going to take the opportunities I have and give it my best effort!

The Good Life

Over the last couple months I've really come to appreciate how blessed I am and how much I have to be thankful for. I'm looking forward to a lot of new beginnings this year and all the "newness" leads me to conclude that "life is good." So I've compiled a list of some of the things that constitute the reason I'm livin' "the good life."

-I serve a sovereign, almighty God who watches over His children and provides for them even when they don't deserve it.

-I just got married to the most wonderful girl in the world and one that is perfectly matched for me. (And hopefully I for her)

-I have a great family that supports me no matter what.

-I'm surrounded by good friends here in San Antonio.

-I have a great coach, Shelly O'Brien, that is helping me move forward and continue to progress in the sport of triathlon.

-I saw a lot of improvement in my racing in 2011 and look forward to an even bigger jump in 2012

-I'm happy, healthy, wealthy enough and pretty foolish.

-I love San Antonio and all the great training and racing opportunities I have here.

-I'm done with school!

So here's to 2011- a great year, and to 2012- I'm expecting even better! I have no idea where God is taking me this next year or what is in store for me but I'm looking forward to the unknown with eager anticipation.