No more Excuses

I have been super consumed by work and I have taken about two weeks off. I feel well rested physically but mentally....well that is a different story! I am going to miss the El Paso Marathon due to lack of training! I was going to sign up at the last minute but I figure I would just get injured if I tried to push it.

So I did the John Stermer Duathlon! PT Dog Matt and I had a great time! Great race! PT Dog was nursing an injured ankle so he took it easy on the run. The bike was great I never lost sight of him and I think that really helped keep the focus of my burning legs and in the long run I think that I had personal best on the bike. We averaged 21.1 mph, we were moving!

So it looks like Alpine will be next! I will more than likley do race day registration and we will see how it goes. More on work later! I had 80 hour work weeks the last two weeks!

So aside from failing health I have no more excuses I WILL make time to work out! See you all at the races!!

FLIP TURNS

Ok, so I have been swimming since May 2005! I was never a swimmer before and my first day in the swimming pool consisted of swimming one length of the pool (25 yds).....rest......swim another length.....rest......repeat.....call it a work out after 400 yds. Well I have come a long way since then. I did my first open water swim in 2007 at Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3 and today I did my first flip turn in the pool. I was excited, I've always wanted to learn how to do a flip turn and today I got it down, so I did the entire work out with flip turns! I did not realize how much it takes out of you! Anyway, I just wanted to share this with my readers! Train Smart~

On the El Paso Bicycle club

For those of you who will soon visit El Paso, Texas on a weekend let me recommend a bike ride with the El Paso Bicycle Club, a group of friendly people who really welcome non-club members on their rides.

Here is the website: http://www.elpasobicycleclub.com/home.html

On the website you will find a link named "calender" and there you will find a list of rides for the weekends and weekdays. Sometimes it's difficult for me to get a group of friends to go ride with because we're not all on the same schedule and let's face it riding on your own is not the most exciting 2 to 3 hours on the bike. So when my friends are too busy I hook up with the El Paso Bicycle Club. So for whatever reason you should find your self in El Paso check out their website maybe you can catch a ride with them.

Ok, enough promoting. I had a decent training week. Work interfered with a couple of workouts but nothing that really set me back. I need to start picking up my mileage just a tad as I have the El Paso Marathon coming up on March 2, 2008 (only doing the half though). So far the training is going great and the main reason for that is that I'm injury free. Last year about this time I had some problems with my feet. Now that's all healed up and my training has been going smooth and on track.

I am also getting ready for the John Stermer Triathlon or Duathlon, not sure what it is going to be yet since the SWCS calender is not out yet, coming in February! See you all there, I'm out!

Registered for Ironman 70.3 BSLT

Well it is official I am registered for the BSLT 70.3 Ironman. Every time I register for an event it is my official commitment to train and get ready for that event. It seems I can talk about doing an event all I want, but it is not till I get registered that I get into full training mode.

I have several goals for this race:

1. I want to finish first off!

2. Assuming I get through #1 I want to beat my 2007 time of 7:14 (I know it's slow but it was my first one so not too many laughs out there)!

I am not trying to make excuses but I did have a bad showing and my lack of attention to detail to my training and nutrition really showed on race day.

3. Swim under 50 minutes (I am a brick in the water).

4. Lastly I would like to dedicate my efforts to my father-in-law who is suffering from ALS. I am not sure if he will make it to the race yet, but I will video tape it for him if he is not there to see me cross the finish line, hopefully some where around 6:00 hours.

So as the new year comes around I say Cheers, to all you bloggers and loyal followers!

Hunting Vacation

I just got back from Amarillo, Texas. I decided to take a break from it all and go on a little hunting trip with my dad. No work, no workouts, no early morning alarms, no chores, it was great! As long as I can remember my dad has always loved hunting and whenever possible he has always taken my brother and I. So now that I can return the favor I figured it would be a great idea. I got a telephone call from my buddy who lives in McLean, Texas he told me that I was way overdue for a visit and it was then that he invited me over for hunting. I immediately thought of my dad and asked him if he wanted to go and since my dad is retired that took all of two seconds before he replied and said he would go.

We had a great time. Two hours into our hunt we got a beautiful 10 point buck! After that we just enjoyed the outdoors driving around the beautiful panhandle country. My buddy and I just caught up on stuff and told old stories. My dad was great sport he just sat back and enjoyed the company and listened to my buddy and I talk for hours.

It was nice to put away the swimming gear, bike gear, and running shoes away for a while. I have to say it was a break well needed and with Christmas coming I have to say I don't think that I will be training this up coming week either. I have included a picture of the hunting trip.

To all those who follow along, God bless! Have a Merry Christmas and I will see you all after the holidays.

Weekly Training Report and Getting Tagged!

I am in the middle of still trying to figure this blogging thing out, then out of the blue I get Tagged by Cody the Clydesdale. I have provided below 5 interesting things about me and then it turns out I have to tag five other people I don't know five people yet, so if I tagged you sorry, didn't mean to scare you but chances are is that I follow your blogs!



1. I played College Baseball at El Paso Community College and Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas. While attending Sul Ross State I hit the weights and got up to about 215 lbs. Now I weigh 185 lbs (Much nicer on the knees).


2. My college roommate and I were traveling home to El Paso, TX from Alpine, TX for the weekend. Then our car broke down between Marfa, Texas and Valentine, Texas. Why we did the following is beyond me but we did it. I now have this on my list of incredible feats of strength and stupidity! We pushed my car (at the time a small Chevy S-10), for 16 long miles until we got to Valentine, Texas. We spent the night and waited for our rescue team (our parents) to show the next morning to pick us up!


3. I have a thing for reality shows. I am currently hooked on "The Hills" from MTV. I am 30 years old and I am still watching MTV, worse yet teenage reality shows at that! It is my guilty pleasure. I don't feel so bad because my wife (also 30) watches it with me.


4. I have a re-occurring nightmare that haunts me to this day. In my dream it is the first day of school. I attend all of my classes, and I tell myself, "I think I have the schedule memorized". It is then that I throw away my schedule. The dream elapses to the end of the semester and then it is time for the FINAL EXAMS! It is then that I realize that I haven't gone to a particular class since the first day of school. Then when I show up to take the test, everyone is looking at me like, "who the hell is the new guy"! I think this dream haunts me because I have a fear of being late. I am always running about 10 to 15 minutes early for an event or meeting, etc!.


5. I was in Italy in 2005 with my wife for 15 days. We toured Rome, Venice, Sangimignano, Florence, Pisa, and the region of Tuscany. I know that this last one might not be that interesting but I thought it was awesome so I had to write about.

NOW I will attempt to tag five people hope they don't freak out.....by saying who the hell is this guy....(blame Cody)!

Tripharmbunny, clydeologist, athenadiaries, swtrigal, and the dread pirate.



TRAINING


Ok, I've been sluggish in the mornings and in my last report I was having problems getting the training motor up and running. Well the first thing I did was try my buddies swim work outs and let me tell you what they have really kick started my morning swim workouts that pretty much consisted of 1000 to 1500 yards of freestyle, boring right? Well the new work out incorporates warm-ups, sprints, stroke technique drills, and longer yardage! I need all the help I can get in the swim. My goal this year is to do better at the BSLT Ironman 70.3. Last year my swim time was 50:07, I am a very SLOW swimmer.



My running is coming along well. Last year about this time I had a bad case of Plantar Fasciitis. This year I am slowly increasing my miles, last year I think the problem was that I was running everyday, when I was never an "everyday runner" and I was piling on the miles.


My cycling is coming along. I still need to utilize my trainer more often and I need to get some longer rides in on the weekend. My homework for this week is to add more training time to my cycling.

Why is it so hard to train through the holidays?

For the last two years I have always faced the same issues during the months of December, January, and February. The first issue is dealing with the winter months. I usually do my swims in the morning, which means I wake up at 5:00 am. But when the bed is so warm and it is so cold outside it really makes it hard to get out of bed. On the days that I do get out of bed I get a descent workout. Now my second issue is time management, of course during the winter months the days are shorter. I usually ride in the evenings during the summer months, but by the time I get out of work during the winter it is already dark and cold. So do I toughen up? Well I thought I would smarten up and buy an indoor trainer. I did and I have to say I am not using it as much as I thought I would be using it.


So I fight morning laziness and the evening clock for the days during the winter months, making it very difficult to have a successful off-season. I am going to try something new though, I intend to spice up my training by trying out some new workouts that my buddy from Dallas sent me. I hope that peaks my interest and gets me out of bed a whole lot easier. Well I am just checking in to let you all know what I am battling every day. More to come....let see if this little spark can ignite my training into overdrive!