The Road to Wellville

Well, this week has been a wash out for exercising. With the exception of failing miserably at hula hooping and running down the halls at Rogue trying on some new shoes, I got not exercise in. Today I have the most energy I have had all week, but the throat is still a little raw and it has been joined by some awesome congestion. I am in Fort Worth this weekend to help a friend get his new house ready to move into; I am hoping just getting away for a weekend (allergies and just escaping) will be good for me. We shall see.

The training related things that I can write about are that I met with a nutritionist today and that I bought new running shoes. As many of you know, I am not exactly the healthiest of vegetarians and that I have recently been told that I have high blood pressure. So this was a long time coming. I signed up for a 6 session program with her and am eagerly looking forward to working on it. Today's session was spent focusing on my current habits and what I need to start changing. Primarily I need to stop eating processed foods and start eating more fruits and veggies. Giving up my salty snacks will be hard, but I am pretty sure I can increase the fruits and veggies. I'll keep you all posted. For my drive up here I brought a cooler full of fruit and berries. Not too shabby for road trip food.




As for the shoes-my current Brooks Launch are probably getting to within 50 miles or so of being done. So Rogue had tweeted today that if you buy new shoes and say that you love Rogue, you get a free shirt! Figured that this was pretty good timing. Of course they did not have any size 13 Launch in stock and would not be getting any in until late June. Not so sure that would work, so I tried on a few more. Ended up getting a pair of Brooks Racer ST4s. They are a little closer to flats than my Launch, but not true flats. This should be fun to try out! That's about all I got. Until next time, run friendly!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Down and Out

As I was getting ready for bed Sunday night I noticed that my throat was getting a little sore. No worries, I thought...But Monday morning rolled around after some pretty bad sleep and my throat was as raw as could be. Made it to work and was quasi-conscious through the first half of the morning, but by the time staff meeting came about I was starting to fade. Apparently my office was less than stoked with me showing up with whatever it is and sent me home around 11:30.



So, since last night I have been camped out on my couch slowly going insane. Since running and triathlon has essentially become the bulk of my social life, it really is hard just going a few days without doing something. Oh well, I am getting through a bunch of Netflix. Surprisingly, The Proposal is not nearly as bad as you want it to be. Yeah, I just admitted that on here. I really need to get out and go running.

I have realized that I am horrible at putting pictures on my blog, so I am including a lovely picture of my couch. I'll try to be a little more photo friendly going forward. Until next time, couch surf friendly!

I am a litterer!

Yesterday I went out for a little ride and really had no idea of how far I was going to go or how it would go. So, after I crawled out of bed at the crack of 10:30, had a little breakfast I hopped on the bike and headed east. For whatever reason (perhaps it was the 11 hours of sleep) I was feeling good and just kept riding until I came upon Manor. When I pulled into the Dollar General on the outskirts of town, I looked at my watch and it had only been about an hour and 15 minutes to get out there. Once I got home I found out that my route was a little over 21.5 miles. While this might not come off as astounding speed, I was very happy with it. The better part of the first half of that journey was through Austin and involved a fair amount of stop signs and traffic lights. Perhaps I am being a tad optimistic, but I think I was probably averaging over 20mph once I got out on the open roads. (20mph or greater is my arbitrary barometer of what I need to do at a minimum in my races.)

After my last race, I realized that I do not spend near enough time in the big chain ring and then shift way to early on hills and kill all of my speed. This ride I tried to not be afraid of dropping it into the big ring and gain the speed whenever I had a chance. The other real tri geek tidbit of this is that I mixed two bottles of Pure Sport Workout drink. It is an electrolyte powder that also contains protein in it. The initial taste is a tad different than what you expect from a lemon-lime drink, not really sure how to explain it, but it didn't take too long to get used to it. But it certainly seemed to keep me going for the duration of the ride. I took one Hammer Gel in Manor and then one when I got back home. Somehow I managed to make the return trip in just about the same time. Though as I was sitting at the light at Wickersham and Riverside I realized that I was one water bottle light from what I started with. Crap! I littered somewhere along the route. I AM A LITTERER!!!!

Oh well, as I dragged my guilt ridden butt into my house I realized that I still had a fair amount of energy. I had thought about making this a brick workout, but was not really thinking I would feel as good after the bike. So I grabbed my fuel belt and two water bottles and headed out. As I took off I decided that I would try to run down to the hike and bike trail and do the four mile loop and head back. It is about a mile and a half down to the trail so it would be a 7 mile run. My surprising amount of energy managed to stick around until I crossed the river at I-35 and reality started to catch up with me. By the time I left the trail and started heading back to my place, reality decided to really put me in my place. It felt like the end of a race just to get back to my place.

Alas I made it home. After a short stint in the pool to soak, I started to feel back to normal. I did try to wave to the other runners on the trail, but apparently an overly sweaty dude decked out in Lycra is even more frightening than just a typical waving runner. Oh well, I still tried and I will continue to do so. So - run friendly!

The Rookie Tri

The first race of the season is under my belt. It wasn't the best race I have ever raced, but it was my first top ten in my age group! The Rookie Tri is a sub-sprint distance race and is the first of the five races that make up the Texas Tri Series.

Padre, a friend from my training group, picked me up insanely early and we headed down to New Braunfels together. We got there just as the parking lot was opening an got a great spot near the front. As we unloaded the our bikes it tried to rain a few times but nothing too bad. After we had our transitions areas setup, we had about and hour and a half before race time. So we sat in his Forerunner for about an hour before going for a brief mile long warmup run. After that, it was time to head to the start.

I dipped my toe in the water and felt that it was actually pretty warm, so I felt comfortable not diving in for a warmup swim and settled for just swinging my arms around to loosen up. Perhaps this was a mistake; I don't know. My swim wave was the second one to go off. After swimming all winter, my swim has become very strong so I was looking to devour this 300 meter swim. The gun went off and I took off hard trying to get in the mix of the lead pack and then just draft my way to the finish line. Apparently I was not the only person to have this idea. After about 100 meters, the pack was still incredibly dense and there was no stride not draft to find. I was out of breathe and couldn't seem to catch it no matter what I tried. I started to panic. After a few attempts at taking a stroke I realized I wasn't going to be able to just shake it off. So I struggled to make it out to the outside of the swimming "lane" and started to side stroke. I was still paniced and could not settle down. Somehow I managed to make the turn around the buoy and finally started to calm down. I decided I would try to get back to freestyle and see if I could bring it in. Outside of going horrifically offcourse, I managed to bring it in fine. After the race I was amazed to see that I did the swim in 7:02 or somethig like that. It felt like 20 minutes.

Transitions always suck for me and this was no different. Nothing bad happened, but just like all aspects of my life; smooth is not something I do. OK, I'm on a bike.

At the suggestion of my coach, Panther, I set out to go as hard as I could on the bike. Of course, my ineptitude in transition is only surpassed by my cycling capability. But off I went. Typically I get passed left and right but this day I only got passed by a few folks. Nothing exciting or eventful happened other than realizing that I am not fast going up hills; something to work on. Finally in right around 35 minutes I came up on the dismount line of the 11.2 mile bike ride. I unclipped without falling (which did go through my mind) and strayed trotting to transition.

Now this transition was by no means speedy, but for me it went pretty well for me. Grabbed some water at the gate and headed out to run.

Running is by far my strongest event, but for whatever reason, I was not feeling quick at all heading out. I had forgotten to look at my watch when I started the run so I didn't really have any idea what my pace was like, but I kept coming up on people and passing them. Finally we made the final turn to go run around the lake for the finish. I gave it all I had and managed to cross the finish line in just under 58 minutes. The run had taken me 12:39 which was good for the 3rd fastest in my age group.

After my poor swim I still managed to come in 9th in my age group. All in all I am very happy with the race. Hopefully I learned a little from the swim and can avoid having anymore panic attacks. Until the next time, run friendly! -Tanner

Another Running Departure

For those of you that know me well, you know that I am a very political person. But, I try very hard to not bring politics into this blog as it really is a very divisive topic and this blog is really supposed to serve as a reminder of the things that bring us closer together - not further us apart. While political in nature, this article really seems to fit with that attitude.

So when I read this article, it echoes a lot of what my thoughts and feelings are right now with politics and the world in general. At the end of the day we almost all want the same things; a feeling of security that tomorrow the sun will rise again and for that to happen to our neighbor.

As I have said before, and will continue to do so; when you see another runner out there on the trail, give a smile and a wave. Even say hi. At least you know you have something in common with them. In the mean time, run friendly! -T