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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Vancouver

I have to take a break talking about training to talk about Vancouver. I am currently up in Canada to attend a board meeting. I got to Vancouver yesterday afternoon and I was worried that my high expectations of this place wouldn't live up to the first time i visited here.

I was here in 2004 for an ACCEDI conference and traveled with Matt Pack, Becky Lee and Tracy Sherman and we had a blast at the conference and I won an award at that conference so I thought my memories may had made Vancouver better than it actually was...BUT...this place is so amazing. The views are incredible, the downtown is great with many restaurants and shops and there is so much to do outside for recreation and sightseeing. I can't say enough about this place, it should be on everyone's "must visit" locations at least once in their lives. I am traveling down to Bellingham , WA tomorrow for the rest of the week for the board meeting and am very excited to see that town as well. I have read many things about it and it sounds incredible as well.

BTW...I am still training up here. I swam today in the hotel pool and will be running the streets of Vancouver tomorrow.

Still training

I have had some heavy traveling lately with the NRA (restaurant NRA, not guns) in Chicago and now I am in Vancouver, Canada so the training has been a little sporadic. The hotel conditions in Chicago were atrocious so I didn't really get to train much there which was fine since I was on my feet all day long for 4 days working a trade show booth. Being on my feet, along with my dress shoes hurting so bad made my ankles, calves and knees hurt so bad that I had to take a few days off even when i got back home.

I finally got to run in the past week and the first run felt great even though my time wasn't great and the bike still feels strong. I got new slick tires and a computer for my mountain bike so I finally get to ride a real bike instead of the stationary bike at my gym. As i stated before, swimming still sucks. My second run after Chicago was Sunday afternoon at 5pm and it was a STRUGGLE to finish but the good news was that my time was only 30 seconds slower than my previous run that felt great so that was actually encouraging to me that it could feel THAT bad and still be a decent time.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Swimming Sucks

As some of you know, in high school I was a lifeguard for 4 years at a local lake and swimming pool and lived in the water all summer long. You would think that i would know how to swim right? WRONG! The one thing that I am learning quickly is that the swimming I learned to do to become (and stay) a lifeguard is nothing compared to trying and swimming lap after lap.

Technique is so crucial to make yourself bouyant and effortless when it comes to swimming distances and my technique must just SUCK. I feel like a drowning whale most of the time. I know part of it is just my being out of shape and over time I will get better from the cardio standpoint but i think i am going to try and find a swimming coach to help me work on my technique a little. Even though my technique sucks and it's a beeotch to swim more than 50 yards without taking a little rest, I still love being in the water and i feel pretty comfortable in the water.

Till next time, swim on friends!

Monday, May 12, 2008

Tri Training

As soon as we got back from Nashville I knew it was time to get serious about triathlon training. I found a great website (www.beginnertriathlete.com) with some great training plans as well as forums that are very active and supportive. Its been 2 weeks of training and I am loving it. I love the fact that I am doing more than "just running". My running has already improved to a 2:30 jog/1:00 walk and being on the stationary bike feels great. The swimming was always the hard part and I am still struggling with that.

It's full speed ahead and hopefully the weight will start falling off. My first tri is going to be here in Champaign August 2nd with the park district mini-tri. I will keep up my training log here and on beginnertriathlete.com throughout the entire process.

Rock on folks!

Nashville 5k finished

Jeanne and I went down to Nashville for some business and to run the I Run for the Party Cinco de Mayo 5k. We had a great time driving around looking at all of the changes that have taken place in Murfreesboro since we moved away in 2006. The new mall in Murfreesboro and the new area in Smyrna are amazing. We also got to visit with all of our friends, having lunch with Mel (sans Matt :-( unfortunately), and spending Friday night with Michael and Dawn made us really miss the area.

Saturday morning we drove around the area looking at new construction houses just for shits and giggles. The housing market is still amazingly affordable and we look forward to our eventual return to the area after Jeanne is done with her Ph.D. Finally at 3pm we headed toward Nashville and music row for our 5k. It was pretty busy when we arrived and we just hung out waiting for the race to start at 5:00. I had forgotten my wireless headphone transmitter and realized it with a small panic attack right before the race but my AMAZING wife had an extra pair of earbuds that I was able to use and ended up being my lifesaver.

The race went off just after 5:00pm and the weather was amazing. The sun was out shining brightly and the temperature was perfect around 70 degrees. This would end up being the high point of the day. We lined up mid-pack for the race and shortly after the starting line, jeanne left me in the dust. I made the mistake of trying to keep up with the pack and ended up running too quick of a pace and for too long. I wanted to stay with a 1:30 jog/1:00 walk pace throughout and ended up running hard for 5 minutes straight to keep up with the pack. By the time we hit 1.5 miles we came back around to pass by our van. My legs were hurting from being out of shape and I was miserable. The only thing that kept me from stopping and getting in the van was the good music i had picked out and was enjoying on my ipod. Around the 2 mile area my legs started feeling better and i was doing around a 1 min jog/1 min walk but the walk was hurting my legs more than the jog but my lungs were just not going to allow me to continue jogging nonstop. At the 2 1/2 mile marker we came upon a pretty big hill and my music had ended (due to a miscalculation on time) The hill was a beeotch and I was cussing Jeanne's name pretty bad in my head for dragging my fat ass here for this race. I ended up pushing through and finished around 40 min. Not very good but better than my training times had been and i felt pretty good after it was over. I kept reminding myself that I had just started to workout and deserved the slow time and it would only get better.

We will be back there next year and I plan to blow my time away.