Another Milestone!...For Me Anyway

To night I just completed my first 5 mile run. 5.43 miles to be exact and I did it in 1:41:21. I have to mention that .43 because that last little stretch suuuucked. Legs cramping, no more water having, body wants to go but legs don't work, suckage. But I did it! I gotta figure out how to keep my calves from cramping. Well, another first thanks to the wonderful world of triathlon. My pace average was 18:39/mi. My "normal" pace is around 15 min/mi so considering the distance I'm stoked. After my "long" run I considered something that Sarah just talked about. I need to retire my shoes. I've been running on them for 2 years. Hmmmm I think its time for their soles to ascend to the tri-gods. Maybe I can burn them to aid their journey into that big finish line in the sky.

Okay, 1 Step Back...Just wait till the leap Forward

The Good:
Mrs. TV went swimming with me last night at Bally's. I love seeing all the haters, guys staring, girls glaring. She's beautiful, sexy, smart, and.....mine, for now. At least until she gets her senses together. But I'm going to enjoy it for as long as it lasts (which according to the vows, till death, hers or mine, which ever comes first).

The Bad:
So yesterday was a 1 mile run during my lunch break and a 500 yrd swim after work (which is late). I need to start waking up earlier to work out. Maybe I'll take up my new friend Whitney (from meetup.com - Go Inland Tri Group) and run in the mornings with her. Need to look at T3 (calender) again and work things in.

The Ugly:
So my official weigh in for the Quadrathon Weightloss Challenge is +2 lbs. Yeah, you heard, I gained 2 pounds. Its okay. It give other an opportunity to bask in achievement before I obliterate the standings. [hey, who knew that trash talking to be so much fun]. Look who's talking, back on the high school basketball court, I would have talked down to Kobie. So enjoy your brief glory people and prepare for your demise.

Side Note: We finally got our TV hooked up to cable after a 1.5 year hiatus. Olympics here.we.come.

"I'm baaaack"

[bradey bunch theme] There's a story of T.V and his little lady. Who were bringing up 3 ladies of their own (2 Lab Retrievers, 1 Cat). They're all spoiled...like their mother, the youngest one now hurls (hairballs mostly).

Till one day T.V left with his lady. They traveled up to camp out in a bush.

Okay I'm ending it there because 1) I'm not that clever 2) I forgot how the rest of the song went. ha.

It was a nice 6 hour drive up Hwy 1 to Limekiln State Park. Home of the lime kilns and Limekiln Falls. The drive up was nice and relaxing...for me. Mrs. T.V. however isn't that fond of traveling on the edge of cliffs. The first real hiccup didn't happen until we started setting up the tent. Hmmmm, I wonder which husband forgot the wind shield that goes over the tent (which only has sheer side panels)? As you can see our first night our spot was in the Redwoods. We positioned the tent right behind some bushes and parked the car up close to block as much wind as possible. Yah, things were a little cold since there was nothing keeping the heat in.

Equipment malfunction, for the one that remembered to bring. The camera batter said fully charged when we left the house. Then we get to the site and I snap ONE shot and now the little green battery turned to a little RED battery. I'm not an electronics expert but the flash wasn't even on. So it was like that the whole trip. I never knew how many pictures I had left. Green, then Red, then Yellow, then back to Green. Geez I didn't even eat any of the mushrooms!

We made the trechurous journey to the Limekiln Falls. As you can see all those roots can be tricky and you might trip.

The second night we talked the ranger into letting us switch spots. He said that the spot wasn't for cars. But hey I have a Mitsubishi OZ RALLEY, its supposed to go offroad (not stock, but I didn't need to mention that part). And we landed my dreams spot. One of only two spots that are cut into the cliff overlooking the ocean. We made a make-shift wind guard and sleep in warm peace listening to the crashing looking up at the stars.

In the morning we got up packed up the car and headed back to the trail to check out the actual kilns that the place was named for.

Then it was back on the road to travel the 300+ miles home. We took our time and made a few stops.

Sea Lions

One of the many lookouts on Hwy 1

[Sorry but there should be more pix, but Blogger won't let me load them now and it's already been too long since I've posted]

June - A Month in Review

Here's is what June looked like for me. As you can see...no yellow, that means no running. I know, I know. It was an extremely slow training month for me. Only made time on the weekends.


Time to rectify the situation, Friday I went in for a 3 mile run at the gym. On the tread mil set to an incline = 2. Legs felt good, but my cardio has definitely slipped a little. I'll be working on it though. I have a 16 mile ride planned for this weekend with TriChef.

Masonry

I know this is a late post but hey, that's when I finish my day. After a long day at the office and an even longer day in class, I went into the gym for a brick workout at 10pm. I knew that the long day was going to affect my workout but I need to get the miles in if I'm going to be ready for the Olympic (which, after doing the Bonelli Sprint I'm reconsidering the Oly...maybe Santa Cruz?).

Uneventful, but I knew it would be. Started with a 5 min walk, then did 2 miles in 30:25 (~15:13 min/miles). Then it was a quick dip in the pool for 1000 yrds in 22 min (~2:12 per 100 yrds). The run wasn't a bad time but I didn't feel that I could have gone for that extra mile. The swim started bad. Couldn't get into a rhythm until 600 yrds into it. Then it started to feel good. But as I was getting into the groove, two young'ins (whipersnapers) jumped into the lanes. One in my lane and another in the next lane over. Not that I'm a lane hog or anything (and god forbid if I'm as bad as "flipper") but they were friends, so why didn't they share the empty lane? I finished up my swim and offered some free advise to one of them. "Hey try to keep your left arm from coming up so high out of the water, it'll save you some energy." This is the response I get "What the F#($@ do you know about it!" If there is one thing that I can appreciate is when someone is trying to help me out. If there are any coaches that want to coach me for free...by all means, bring it on. Kids...can't swim with'em...can't kill'em. Why am I saying that? Mrs. TriVortex and I are only going to be 27 in a couple of weeks. We have the same birthday. And before you ask...Yes, Month, Day, & Year! When we met, it was so weird that I made her show me ID. Anywho, I'm starting to feel old. I'm the old guy in class that's not going back to school. I never left, just a few classes here, a few classes there. Geez, its really turning into, not quite a 10 year plan, but pretty darn close. I'm getting off topic, I shrugged my shoulders, turned by back, and walked away. I could hear them call me a P#$$@ (a woman's Poom Poom). I ignored it and went to the lockers and left. Hey I don't need to go to jail for ripping apart a minor do I?

PS. I still need a name for my bike. See the previous post.

I'm A Visual Type of Guy

Here are my training distances for 2006:

Here is how 2007 is shapping up:

Spring Break...NOT!

It's spring break and I have one week of "relaxation." And by relaxation I mean I still have to work full time and the TRI Express Series #1 is coming up in about 3 weeks. So lets do the math, minus 1 week for tapper, and we have 2 weeks left. 2 weeks coming off of Finals where I didn't much of anything athletic. Ok, ok, (I can hear Iron Wil in the back of my head [is it just me or does it sound really bad that a future psychologist is hearing voices in his head] N-E-Wayz, she tells me to keep positive) so I'll try to spread the Tri Karma. Lets see...oh, my wife says that all this week she'll be joining me in the gym since she's off of school too.

So I get to watch my sexy wife bounce up and down on the elliptical. I mean, back to TRI's...[I'd like to try....] PG, PG, PG, maybe PG-13. Hey she's MY wife I can think what I want, RRRRXRXRXRXRXXXXXX, that's better. Now lets see my training buddy....

TADA!!!!

I know, I know, I get it all the time...HOW? Well, I may be new to triathlon but I have skillz or like they said back in the days, I can chop game. But I digress.

Tonight after work was a little stop to grab a bite to eat with my wife and down the yellow brick road to the gym. I swear that treadmill lies to me. It gives me false hope. It said I did 1.5 miles in 21:40 min. Which breaks down to 14:26 per mile. But when I go to Bonelli to work out, its like, lets double the time for the same distance. Maybe someone can help me? For this run loop I do at the park it is 1.8 miles and according to calcs, there is 222 feet of climbing. Is that much considering the short distance? I have no idea, due to geographical dangers, I do all my night (the only time I have to workout) workouts at the gym. Someone please give me a clue. I know I need to get out more, but the only chance I have is on the weekend. So this weekend I'm planning a bike at Bonelli. We'll be meeting at the carpool across the freeway around 9AM. If anyone is interested just let me know. The loop is about 8 miles and I "want" to do two loops. I know that some of the people might not do the second but I'm going to try. So to anyone else that wants to go, thats 9AM at Bonelli Park in San Dimas, CA for a 16 mile bike that circles Puddingstone Lake (and an air strip) twice.

Saturday Mornings

Did you know that if you wake up early on Saturday morning that you have the whole day to do whatever you want? Its like having an extended weekend. I just thought I'd put it out there for those that like to sleep in till 12pm (me). For the last 3 weeks I've been waking up early to meet up with friends to go and work out. 2 runs at Bonelli Park, 1 swim at Balleys pool. Feels good to have the rest of the day to do whatever.

This morning was one of the runs at Bonelli. There is this loop that a friend (Adam) showed me and according to the route plotter on www.beginnertriathlete.com, its 1.87 miles with 222 feet of climbing. Since I don't have Garmin or anything, this is my tool. Map out my route and take my watch/stopwatch/hr monitor (Mio, on sale for $50) and I plug in the numbers and get my pace. So my cousin and I went on a run (again using that word loosely) in the morning. I need to go to the beach or someplace where there are flats so I can gauge how I'm doing vs. what the treadmill is telling me. One of those fact or fiction things, or from my Experimental Psych class final: Ecological Validity - tests done in a lab vs. the real world. Ya, that's right...Psych Major. Anywho, besides the 1 mile swim a couple of days ago, I haven't ran in about a week and a half. And thanks Wes for your "encouraging" comments. I know I have to run, but like most things worth while, its hard. Just ask Iron Wil how learning how to swim went. If she can learn to swim (a possibly life threatening activity), I can run enough to be comfortable. And as the pounds come off it's getting easier. One more loop and I'm going to need another new belt. Haven't weighed myself in a while. The last time the scale tipped at 215 and after seeing that, I've mentally blocked that my gym even has a scale.

Nutrition: since I never really mention it. And that's because I don't eat healthy. The closest I got was this morning. After the run, I came home and had 2 ham sandwiches (light on the mayo) and 16 oz of Crystal Light (surprisingly tasty). And that is the most nutritious meal I've eaten.

Epically Awesome Epiphany

Thanksgiving, you're here you're there, you're nowhere...except my midsection. I took a few days off of training for the holidays. I started feeling so anxious so on Sunday I went into the gym. Now to fully appreciate what I'm about to tell you, lets just keep in mind that at my first TRI I ran a 16 minute mile. On Sunday, AFTER a 15 mile bike, I ran a 12.30 min. mile!!! Wooo Hoooo!!!! And the best part was that I felt great afterwards. My legs were fresh and could have gone another mile or two. People, keep in mind that I'm still over 200 lbs. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, "Clydesdale"). But I refuse to register for that category.

Is this what being is shape is like? It’s been so long I forgot.I just realized that I didn't start with a background, you know, the before and after thing. It’s more of a before, long middle, and now thing. It all began, once upon a body...you know the drill. Back in high school I was on the Swim & Water Polo teams. My junior and senior years went a little like this: Zero Period swim work out, full day of classes (what option did I have), 7 Period Swim training (weights/resistance bands), after school Swim Practice with the team, drive (or Carpool with my dad) 1.5 hours home (maybe eat) and head over to the martial arts studio where I had to get my workout in for that before the even class got in that I eventually started teaching. So my day in a nutshell was: work out, class, work out, work out, drive, work out, home (eat,homework,sleep), rinse and repeat.
(Me @ West Covina Mall for a 2 Day Demo, back in the late 90s)