A funny thing happened on the way to the first Triathlon

Life.

Plain, kick your ass when you least expect it, wonderfully random life.

Lets recap. Since the last post.

--Son finished Kindergarten
--Daughter dance recital
--Son Gymnastics recital
--11th Aniversary trip. Wonderful weekend on Lake Travis. My wife is cool. I definitely plan on asking her out again sometime.
--Mom broke wrist and ankle both in 1 month (Out of town of course)
--Crazy relatives called to tell me what a vile son I am (and that I was annoying as a child)
--Couple of good vacations
--Good looking day of fishing ruined by kidney stones. Yes, I said Kidney stones (Passed a couple of small ones. Hurt like hell but could have been so much worse)

The point of that egocentric bullet list is to show one more example of how fucking short sighted I was in the beginning of all this. Sadly, the triathlon I wanted to finish, finished without me there. I just didn’t get ready in time.

So what now? The thing is, I usually manage to see these things through.

Being a parent has taught me a couple of things:

1) All the shit that you thought was so important before you had kids, still is. But only in the cute way that you remember your first alcohol induced vomit session. Significant and memorable but not really impactful in the grand scheme of things now.
2) You can never do enough with your kids to make you think that you have done enough. Stop it. You just can't.

So I chose camping weekends over massive training and short little sessions over hour long bricks (where you do two types of training back to back). The word "Chose" is really important here. Everything is a choice. This fact is easy to forget. "Goddammit, I just want to carve 10 fucking minutes out of the day to run". The right answer would be "Then why didn't you". I have realized that like writing, (another activity that I have been neglecting), training can get lonely. I don't do lonely well. It is just more fun to be swept up in the race of the daily madhouse than to spend brain and body power training.

Now that I know this, I can adjust my training around my life. Here's how:

1) Do a fun run every other weekend or so.

This is the best advice I could give anyone wanting to train for anything. Fun runs are to your program what Gatorade is to your training session.

Tons of like minded people in a party mood looking to burn off tons of stress and energy. You feel included and competitive at the same time. The cost? 30 minutes of mild pain and the knowledge that you will almost always improve with each one.

Plus, these things are usually done for charity. I’ve completed two so far:

Houston Young Lawyers 5K: Time was around 29:48 and I finished in the top half. They had a keg a few feet from the finish line.
Astros Race for the Penant: Time was 30:44 (tons of people and some hills) and I finished 78 out 140 in my age group. About 1 minute away from top half.

2) Train small and fast. I’ve started doing “Maintenance miles”. I run around our block, which is about 1.2 miles long. It only takes about ten minutes and I try to do it faster each time. I don’t push till it hurts though. Instead I just burn stress and condition muscles and lungs. I would be willing to bet that I have taken a full minute off of my 5k with these little runs.

Wait, what about triathlon. This is still my ultimate goal but I don’t know which one or when I’ll do it. There is a really cool one in Cypress scheduled for August. I should be ready by then. There are awards for the top three first time finishers. I don’t think I have any chance of winning one of these but it’s nice to know it’s possible. Plus, it’s an open water swim. That sounds really exciting. Also, a trail run through the shady trees. Shit. I’m doing it again. Talking myself into a deadline.

The bottom line is this: There are bigger things going on than Triathlon and training. I refuse to feel guilty about choosing my loved ones over some arbitrary deadline that my ego forced me to set. I’ll get to it when I’m ready and I won’t disrupt the loving people around me to do it. But eventually, I will do it!

A First Real Taste of Pain

Warning: This entry contains bitching, moaning and self loathing…along with the words “fruit flavored snot”. Proceed with caution.

Boxers say that everyone has a plan until you get hit. The same could be said for triathlon.

Up until now, I have been training each event individually. The only event that I have completed a competition distance for is the swim. It is my best event and sadly the least important time-wise. I have been more focused on running and biking.

So yesterday, I decided to do a 1/3 sprint triathlon complete with no stops and quick transitions. That works out to 300yd swim (no reason not to do the full distance here), 5 mile bike and 1 mile run. This is all without stopping and only using any items that I set up before starting the swim. By the end of it, I'd been "hit".

Did some planning and set up. Really pleased as my transition (moving from one event to another) times were only about 2:30. Swim was good and fast. I only needed to do 1 lap of breaststroke (freestyle is much faster and I'm working to do it nonstop). 5 swims ago, I had to stop twice and rest. Total swim time was around the 4:10 mark. Not bad and not particularly taxing.

Moved from the pool to the bike for transition #1 (T1). The prep and planning paid off. I had everything I needed where I needed it. I was on my bike and pedaling before I knew what was going on.

The bike ride was good but very, very slow. I averaged only 15 MPH. The bike pace is the most important as it is where the most time is spent. Thus improving just 1 MPH on your pace can hack off 5 minutes of total time. During the bike, I drank a bottle of Gatorade and ate one of those nasty packets energy goo. It’s basically a packet of fruit flavored snot. It was nasty enough to be a distraction. I drank the Gatorade too quickly because my stomach started to hurt. By the end of the bike, I was bloated, sweaty and tired.

The transition to the run was effortless. Park the bike, finish the Gatorade and start running…for about 200 feet. I had to stop and walk because my head was swimming. After about 30 seconds. Ran again for a little while and stopped again. Ran for the last ½ mile.

Felt pretty good until I looked at my watch. The whole thing took about 38 minutes. Multiply that by 3 and take off 3 minutes for doing the complete swim and you have little over an hour and 40 minutes. This would be good enough for dead last in my age group and almost all others under 60. Wow.

So it was kind of a bitter sweet thing. On the one hand I finished what I set out to do and it’s a good milestone: all sports together and a good chunk of the competition distance. On the other hand, this kicked my ass. I am going to have to train like a madman over the next four weeks just to suck in the competition. It’s a bit deflating.

The other thing I realized is that I’m probably one of the top fifteen swimmers in the competition. This means that I will start early in the swim portion. I am close the top 25 on transition #1 time, so I will probably be one of the first 20 on the bike. So, for the rest of the race, I will be passed (owned) by hundreds of other competitors aged 15 to 75 (Yes, that is 75 human years). Add the fact that I will be in full bodied agony (crying like my daughter when her brother takes her candy) and I’m set up for the humiliation of my adult life.

Again I must ask. Why the hell am I doing this? Am I willing to get totally owned just to compete sooner? If I train longer to have a better first showing in a later race, will I have the motivation to get there? I need to think about this.

Realistic Expectations

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this blog was to chart the changes in expectations that someone might go through when training for a big event. Kind of an excercise in training psychology.

I've been keeping a log of the training that I've completed. More importantly, I've been logging the way my goals have changed. Originally, I wanted to finish in the top ten of my age group. I must have been batshit insane. It took two training sessions to realize that you don't go from out of shape 37 year old who likes beer (Jules calls the stuff I drink motor oil) to a svelt, greased up, ass kicking triathlete in 5 weeks. I find it laughable that I could have seriously thought different. Well now that I've sobered up from the "I'm going to do a triathlon" euphoria I can seriously set some expectations.

1) Complete all legs of the race without stopping/walking.

2) Meet my target times:
--300 swim: 4:30
--15 mile bike: 45:00
--3 mile run: 30:00

These times will be a pretty big stretch for me and just about good for enough for 3 places from last in my age group. Not even remotely competitive.

3) Really fast transitions. This is where you run from the swim to your bike and then from the bike to your run. This is probably the neatest part of the sport because of the planning that is involved. BTW: After 300 yards of swimming you are Paris Hilton stupid. After the 15 mile bike, you are truly dumber than a bag of hair and you'd be lucky to grunt an answer to any question asked of you.

4) Try not to pass out or throw up.

Look at the difference between these expectations.

Before first couple of training sessions:
I'm a shit stomping iron man athlete in training. The only reason I'm not going to win this one is that I don't feel like training every day. In fact I think I'll train a couple of extra days and just blow out the other fat f*ckers in my age group. Serves ‘em right the flabby bitches.

After first couple of training sessions:
I am the most out of shape piece of crap I’ve ever known. I’m going to start a vomiting chain reaction in the pool and ruin the event for everyone. I should just wash down some more twinkies with a black and tan and watch the first 3 episodes of Justified over and over from the sedentary safety of my broken recliner. What the hell was I thinking?

Current: I can do this but I have to be reasonable. What am I trying to prove? If that is what this is about then I need to probably work on why I need to prove anything. No I’m doing it because I am truly and completely out of shape. I’m 37 and I miss being an athlete. This is something I can fit around kids and Julie and my unpredictable-as-hell work schedule. Most importantly it’s something achievable. It just feels lately like there are all these things that we work so hard on that don’t really seem to accomplish anything (midlife crisis much?). Plus the training has turned out to be fun. After realizing that I’m not the Tiger Woods of triathlon (just kidding Jules) I realized that I am improving quickly.

Next post: Initial Training results for your comedic reading enjoyment. Think Rosy O’donnel running the Boston Marathon.

First Triathlon, First Entry

I have decided to try a sprint distance triathlon. Something I have always wanted to do. I plan on using this blog to detail my training, results and experiences as I get ready for the race. I must admit that I have some serious reservations about whether or not I can do this, but I have to decided to at least train for finishing the race.

Next post: Details on the race, personal goals, training plan