Vacation

Just got back from the awesome Christmas vacation to Texas....will update soon..aka tomorrow/whenever i have a chance to take a breath...Happy New Years all

Race Schedule

Just posted a tentative schedule on the right side....if you are going to be racing any of these, please let me know!!!!

Anyone in the Chapel Hill/Raleigh/Durham area that is lookin to train or is on an area team, please let me know. thanks


ps...there is someone driving a silver Nissan Moreno with a 26.2 70.3 and an iTri sticker with a sweet bike rack driving around chapel hill/carrboro....if u blog..let me know :-)

Rainy days and (wh)itchy members

heloooo to those of you not reading this post :-)

I'm sitting at work, breaking our Internet restrictions *note to self don't tell boss about this blog* and decided I'd write a little update.

This week..in which i was expecting nicer, warmer, sunnier weather has turned out to be about as far from that as possible. It is not an exaggeration when i say i haven't seen the sun in over a week. But such is life, and you deal with the rain. hey, that's why I got a trainer!!!!

For those of you that haven't ridden on an indoor trainer...its a whole new ball game. you have to really want to get better/faster/stronger to ride a trainer for more than twenty minutes.

In other news...I brought my drum set up to my apartment. Another distraction, great idea. I haven't played in a really long time, and it showed last night. However, one good think about an empty apartment over the hollidays is that no one is there for hear me, except for the people living below me getting it on, but i think they might be a little preoccupied.

As i sit here bored at the Y, i must remind myself that this job gets me free pool access...probably the one thing holding me to this position. Great perks (pool, spinning classes, treadmill, place to store my stuff if I'm doing some brickage) only get you so far. Its hard getting paid to sit at a desk and get yelled at by members. Nay, spoken to harshly. A YMCA member would NEVER yell at an employee, that isn't one of our core values.

hope the weather is better wherever you are; knowing that the sun still exists is one of the things keeping me going.

piece

Where did you come from, Where did you go

O wow, it has been longer than i intended, but I'm here now, that's all that matters right?

Exams are done, over-and-done-with, finished, in the past.  And trust me, that is for the best.  As it all turns out, NOT my best  performance, not my best semester...but we press on learning from what happened. 

Okay, there is a serious cliche coming.  While talking to my dad about my grades and what they mean and what directions I'm steering myself, he proceeded to plunge into a terrible yet

 effective cliche based around endurance sports.  While my dad doesn't fully understand the sport, or the addiction, he knows that it is something that i value and care about.  Begin the comparison between marathon training and a semester's worth of school work.  There is a long term goal, far off in the distance, barely visible on the horizon.  It is the knowledge that when you cross that finish line, several months away, there is an indescribable feeling, unduplicatable (if thats a word).  Quick analogy to finishing a 5K, a sprint triathlon, the Kona Ironman..whichever you choose.  Anyways, this ends one period of my college career..time to re-establish a working schedule, with school, work, and training. 

 Discipline is the quality I'm hoping to help turn this around.

Enough of the school/rambling, onto whats been going on with my training.

I came home from work on Tuesday with a little notification on my door saying i had missed a delivery.  After getting the box from the office and a small struggle with assembly, i was pleased to find my new favorite training partner:

okay, so bad picture, but my roommates and i went in together and bought a cycleops fluid2 trainer.  Great investment.  I've ridden it three times over the last week, and have really grown to like it.  Keeping a college student's schedule makes weekday bike rides during the winter rather difficult.  Anyways, this looks to be a pivotal part of my winter training.  

I came home for a few days and was able to tag along with a few of my dad's friends for a nice weekend ride.  Thirty miles and some winded old men later, i felt like i had gotten a decent workout in.

Swimming has been going well,  It is definitely the weakest of my disciplines and the area i feel i get the best workout in.  Right now, I'm just working on building strength and establishing an efficient and effective stroke.  

Christmas came early this year in the form of some sweet new 2009 Nimbus's.  Real excited about the shoes.  I've got them loaded into SportTracks, and plan on accurately cataloguing the miles i put on them.

Okay...probably the most random post i could have put together, but this is just a weird time, Christmas break, cold days, and spending too much time sleeping ( :-D ) have led to me turning my brain off.  Looking forward to a warmer week here in Chapel Hill, maybe get in a few rides before it really gets cold.  

Hope everyone is officially geared up for the Holidays, they are closing in fast.

Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.

Brian Tracy

T

O the weather outside is frightful....

No really, it is freaking cold!!  I ran today for a little exam study break, and it was 37* when i left my apartment and probably 34* when i got back.  The weather is attempting to become my biggest opponent in my training schedule.  During my ride yesterday, cold air temps and a 15-20 mph wind in your face do not make a great combination.  But woe is me...

I have now (unwisely) trained six days in a row, after taking nearly a month off.  My legs have been feeling great, and good cool downs have saved me from any soreness.  That all changed today on the return journey of my out and back 6 mile run.  I wasn't pushing myself, pacing at about 7:45-8:00 and my legs were feeling good.  As i began the return journey, i started feeling a lil prickling in both of my Achilles tendons.  Nothing serious, i just noticed it.  After i got home and had showered and stretched, i noticed that they were sore, the only part of my body that was sore.  It wasn't a muscular sore, but more of a tender-sore.  Anyways, rest day tomorrow, I'm going to swim the next three or for training sessions, shifting around my plan, in an attempt to lower some impact and see if i can't avoid the forming of a problem.

Anyways, 

training has been going well, my legs seem to be actually rested and ready to go for the first time in a while.  Currently attempting to talk my roommates into splitting a indoor trainer with me so that i can bike during the week (not a huge fan of cycling at night, in aeros).

that is all...time to get back to Organic  Chem  :-\

First day of the rest of my life

Hokay..SO:

I think i'll start with a little bit of background information. I have never been a competitive endurance athlete. The shirts that say "my sport is your sports punishment" in reference to cross country, were made for me. I ran for two reasons 1) I had a coach yelling at me or 2) I was trying to lose weight/stay in shape during off seasons. I grew up a baseball and basketball player, but some time in High School i realized that my future was not going to be on ESPN. When i came to college, i determined i needed some sort of motivation to stay in shape, so i started playing ultimate frisbee on our club team. For those of you that don't know, college ultimate is INTENSE
Well, after a year of midnight practices in the rain/sleet/snow, i decided that Ultimate wasn't the best thing for my education. Begin sophomore year: need new goal to stay in shape. I had seen the Team Hoyt video a few years back, and the idea of an Ironman AMAZED me. After some thought, and the fact that i was now living with two cycling junkies (one of which biked across the country this past summer) , the idea of a triathlon begin to form in my mind. Three months later, i did my first sprint: the Take Flight Sprint Triathlon in Huntersville, NC. This was a great experience for me. Swimming was obviously my weakest discipline, so this short swim was very beneficial. I survived the pool swim, and averaged 1.5 mph faster than i had intended on the hilly bike course. Problem? I didn't think so, i felt great! Well, all of me except for my lower back. About a mile into the run, my back began to scream at me, continuing to be a constant PITA for the remainder of the race, adding ~4 minutes to my projected/goal run split. All in all, i crossed the finish line, and was hooked on the sport of triathlon.

I took a few days off, seeing as my back was killing me, and began a general training routine shortly thereafter. Looking at the upcoming schedule, i realized i hadn't planned very well. I picked the last race of the season, meaning i couldn't get another fix of tri-crack for about five months. Decided to take a few weeks off, let a broken toe heal properly, and that brings me to today. I began training again on Monday 12/1. The target for now is a two sprints in early/mid march, a half marathon at the end of March, and an Olympic distance triathlon in the middle of April. In my head, I would like to do olympic-distances all this coming season, possibly doing a HIM in the later part of the year. If all goes to plan, I will be registering for a US Ironman sometime next summer, and be purchasing finisher gear a year later.

Well, that's all for now, very surface level stuff. Time to go study for exams (O Joy).

Monday->24 Swim 48 Bike
Tuesday-->28 Swim
Wednesday-->32 Run
Thursday--> 38 Swim
Friday (Today)-->80 min Bike

First Entry

This is just a first entry-post for anyone who stumbles across here. I created an account in order to attempt to keep a journal of my training, and also to be able to comment on various tri-related blogs. Thanks for all the support in advance