Kindness of Friends

  So my tweaked out arm might be something pulled or strained and it might be an Oskar related injury. Oh well. No swimming for me today. Better to play it safe and swim again in a few more days. Today ended up being "only" 6 miles. Don't get me wrong it was a great run but I am a little disappointed that I haven't gotten to swim lately.
  I just found out that a fellow running friend of mine who is retiring from her Triathlon training said she has a transition bag to give me. I am so stoked. Barb, I will bake you the best peanut butter cookies you have ever eaten. Thank you so much. I am very grateful to all of my friends who are helping me along my path. Thank you in advance Barb. Mark and Amy, you guys can expect some cookies as well. Another running friend of mine seems to be coming over to the dark side. Brad if you need a swim, bike, or run buddy I am totally there.

   Workout for today:
                             Bike Ride.....21.65 miles.....in 1:26.  It was a lovely day but a tad bit windy. The wind was blowing 11 mph gusting to 18 mph.  Riding out was uphill with a tailwind and the trip home was downhill with a gusty headwind. I was debating on getting a swim in but alas a pinched nerve in my arm from sleeping funny will force me to push my swim until tomorrow. 
  Oskar and I a joined this week by the fantastic Lucy. So two crazy dogs at the dog park is quite entertaining. Lucy has a tennis ball addiction whereas Oskar prefers the Frisbee. They both start by chasing the ball and Lucy is a smidge faster, and smarter, and manages to win the race. As they run back to me I toss the Frisbee for Oskar. It takes a little coordination and timing but once you get into a rhythm it works pretty well. Oskar ends up running twice as much but he has to or else he acts like a crazy wild beast.
  So tomorrow is run/swim/core, not necessarily in that order though.

Transition Training

  Sunday was a fantastic training day with my FRIEND Amy. She has also been my running coach at one point so she gets the double moniker of friend and coach. We met at O Henry middle school parking lot with all of my triathlon gear. I had my bicycle, cycling shoes, running shoes, helmet, goggles, towel and sunglasses. We set up everything as if it were a real race. I folded up my towel into a changing mat and organized everything to be the most efficient. The helmet was upside down and unclasped with the sunglasses in it and shoes were untied and unclamped.  We simulated transition zones, swim exit, bike in and out, running out, and finish. My new mantra for transitions is "Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast." This means I can't try and rush the transition or I will end up wasting more time.  Amy gave me lots of tips and information on race day preparation. I feel a lot more comfortable now with what I have learned. Thank You again Amy.
  In local Oskar news he is currently watching It's Me or the dog. He is extremely interested in the bad behaviors of other dogs. I think I need to turn off the TV because Oskar is getting too many ideas. Off to the dog park.

Friday and Saturday

  My Friday started off with riding the "Dam Loop" with Mark and Keith. It was a 34 mile out and back route. We started around 360/Lost Creek and rode Bee Caves and 620 until we got to Mansfield Dam turned around and came back. Mark is an excellent cyclist and I had to push myself to catch up with him.. It took us a little over 2 hours and then I was exhausted.  It was a ride of firsts. It was the first time I did that route, fist time to go over 40 mph, first time to ride that distance. I am starting to feel more confident about my cycling.

This is Mark. If you see him on the road please don't run him over. His wife would not appreciate it. Plus, he let me borrow aero bars for my bike. More on that later.

    Saturday started with a 7 am run with Rogue. 10 tough miles in the humidity was plenty for me today. I read somewhere that humid days are hard to run in because the water molecules in the air bond with the oxygen molecules making it harder to breathe. This seems to match up with what I feel when I run through such soupy conditions.
   Tomorrow is my transition training with Amy and then my long swim. I am very very very excited!

I am including a picture of Oskar and Lucy enjoying the mud at the park today.They had quite a day.

Big Swim@ Big Stacy

  Arms...too...sore...to lift. ugh. So I swam at Big Stacy this morning. The weather was was sunny but windy. The temperature was around 55 degrees when I got into the pool but the wind was blowing 14 mph gusting to 25mph. So the part right before you get into the pool and right after you get out of the pool wasn't very nice. The workout went like this: 200 warm up, pull 800, 200 cool down. Since I'm using Big Stacy math that adds up to 1.15 miles. Not bad for a medium swim day. Next swim is my long swim on Sunday or I might pair it up on Saturday with my long run. Oh and Oskar chewed up my last pair of goggles so I went to Lane 4 swim shop and bought these. I love them. So a special thank you goes out to Oskar for forcing me to buy new goggles.
   I got home and did a ton of core work with the swiss ball and some weights. If you toss in 3X20 tire flips, 3X10 pull ups and 3X10 push ups, you come up with a very tired and sore guy with a big smile on his face. Oskar also got in a couple of hours at the dog park with Lucy and Emily. Great Day here in Austin, TX.
  Tomorrow is my long ride with Mark. I am really looking forward to it.

Two Day Entry

  Sooooo yesterday was a full workout day. It started off with some speed work in the swimming pool. Big Stacy was a little crowded. At one point three German swimmers in their 20's joined a lane that already had 2 guys in it. They were swimming pretty quick. I was doing 50m (66m) sprints and I was barely faster than their "normal" pace. So the workout was 200 warm up, 8x50 sprints, followed by a 200 cool down. Then it was
 "auf wiedersehen" for me.  I got home after taking Oskar to the park and jumped on the trainer for about 30 minutes to spin. That workout was 10 minute warm up followed by 10 minutes of alternating one legged spins, followed by 5 minute all out sprint and finishing with a 5 minute cool down. A core workout with the swiss ball and 60 tire flips 30 pushups and 24 pullups with the rope and I was done. Wow that sounds like a lot more when I write it down.
  That was yesterday. Today was a fast 5 mile run around Town Lake with Emily. Yep, that's all. Nothing too crazy I know. We debated at the beginning of the run of doing a moderate 7 mile run but opted for the fast 5 mile version. It was the kind of run that when you finish you may or may not throw up. Who knows?
  I am very thrilled that this Friday I get to ride with my friend Mark and his buddy Keith. Which reminds me that I better confirm his email. Mark if you are reading this I will be at your house at 11 on Friday morning. Also some very special "training" with my coach and friend Amy this Sunday. All in all it's a great week here.

Bike/Run

   It would seem that I'm a day late on posting this but oh well. So yesterday was a double workout day. I started off with a 20 mile ride through downtown Austin, Scenic, Pecos, Shoal Creek, North Loop, Speedway, Capital and then home. It's nice to get out on the road and off the trainer. Although I will admit that the trainer has definitely helped my pedal stroke and power. With the same gear combination and and effort I am averaging about 3-4 mph more than I am on the trainer. So that's good news.
  After the Dog Park with Oskar and my friends French Bulldog (Gus) I met up with my first ever running partner, Aimee, and I found Paul out on the trail as well and he joined us for a 5 mile loop around Town Lake. Aimee and I ran our first marathon as an unofficial team back in 2008. It was a tough hilly race and we promised to run together the whole way but at the end it was every person for themselves. She beat me by about a minute I think. My favorite part of that day was at the end. Aimee had waited for me at the finish line and when I got there she gave me a big hug and when she did her hamstrings seized up and she collapsed to the ground. Poor Aimee, they brought over a wheelchair to move her out of the way and I can remember her saying "I'm Fine, I'm Fine."
  Now off to Dog Parks and swimming pools.

Rain Out Switch Up

  So I wake up at 5 am this morning for my 10 mile run with Rogue. Everything is going fine, I'm eating my Oatmeal, drinking my coffee, and playing with Oskar when I get a text message from my friend Melissa who is supposed to meet me for our group run. She writes that she is backing out because it's going to rain and just wanted to let me know. I reply with, "I think I'm gonna go for it since I'm already up." Before I walk out the door I pull up the weather radar on the computer and see dark a redish orangish line of ferocity from Oklahoma to Mexico about to cross right over Austin. I was asleep in bed 5 minutes later.
  Congrats to the runners who braved the weather but the silver lining of multi-sport training is that there is always another discipline to turn to if conditions aren't right.  Do not get me wrong I LOVE running in the rain. It can be a slightly spiritual experience but I draw the line at raging thunderstorms. One of my most favorite runs was while in New York I did a 4 mile loop across the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges in a blustery rainstorm and nobody was out in it but me.
  So long story short is I spun my wheel on the trainer for an hour and I will run my 10 miles tomorrow.

Goodluck to my friend Tony running the LA marathon tomorrow.

Long Swim Day

  1.3 miles at Big Stacy was fantastic.I did it ladder style. 100-200-300-400-300-200-100. The weather was great today. It's fortunate that I got my long swim in before the weather here in Austin gets less than ideal.  I was able to maintain a pretty solid pace and keep my form strong throughout the whole workout. All in all a fine fine day and a fine fine swim.
  Oskar on the other hand was quite another story. For some reason he was full crazy energy today. We started out at Pease Park and after he headbutted my mouth (swollen lip) he decided to steal sandwiches from a couple of very patient girls having a picnic. Uggh. We left shortly thereafter and headed for Red Bud Isle. Oskar's regular dog park pals were there and he was finally able to relieve all his pent up energy. Yeah right.

Bike, Run, then core and weights

  As per the title this has been a full day so far. I started off on the trainer for 45 minutes. I kept the rpm's at about 90 and worked up a pretty good sweat. I also got to finish watching Moon. It's a pretty good sci-fi thriller with Sam Rockwell and the voice of Kevin Spacey. I recommend it.  After that I jumped off the bike, put on some running shorts (not quite ready to run in my triathlon shorts just yet), shoes, ipod, keys, Oskar, doggie bag (should've grabbed two) and header out for a 4 mile run. It was Oskar's longest run yet and he did really really well. Actually he did really well after mile 2 and then he settled down. We got back to the house for some core workouts on a swiss ball. Well I did, Oskar ate and took a nap. 3x20 tire flips and about 30 rope pull ups later I was finished.
  Whew. Oskar and I are beat. Nap time.

New Week

  So on a beautiful Monday why do I find myself on my trainer watching a movie, spinning out, instead of cranking out the mileage on the streets? I have to ween myself off the trainer and get out on the road. So clearly I cycled on the trainer today for about 45 minutes. I also did some tire flips. Oh and I finally bought a climbing rope to workout with in the backyard. The rope exercise is like this: Tie rope around tallest branch, climb up rope, climb down rope, and repeat. This is actually really hard.
  Tomorrow brings a swim and a run. Yipeee!

Dog Park and Swim

  Yay SWIMMING!!! So Oskar and I managed to dog park it for an hour. Only an hour because he is conserving his energy for the kite festival tomorrow. There will be thousands of small children for him to knock over. Hurray!
  Then we went down to open Big Stacy at noon for a 1200 swim (2112 meters). It has been a beautiful a full day so far. Must nap soon though. Tomorrow morning is a long bike ride before the festival. Oh and don't forget to spring forward at 2 am.
Long Run: CHECK
Dog Park: CHECK
Long Swim: CHECK

Long Run

  It is 9:50 am. I have had 2 breakfasts and have run 10 miles so far. It took me 1:26 so I averaged 8:36 minutes per mile. It was a good run. Now that I am running again with Rogue it is so great to see my old running friends out on the trail. Jenn, Lorrie, Paul, Joe, T, Yaz, LP, Tony, She Chris, Riff Raff (always too many to list), and whomever else I missed, make it worth getting only 5 hours of sleep to get up before dawn to go for a run.
  Now it's time for Oskar and I to terrorize the Dog Park and if there is time I will sneak in my long swim.
Thanks Ya'll Oh and my new favorite running song is:

Ran outta Time

So today was supposed to be a long swim day. Instead it ended up being 20 miles on the trainer. So I biked today and tomorrow I will combine Long Run/Swim. My work life got in the way of Triathlon life. I am very thankful for my friend letting me borrow his bike trainer or I would not be this far along in my cycling.

Fast Run with friends is Awesome

  Spent a couple of hours at the dog park with Oskar before my run today.  The run was a fast 4 miles with a couple of good friends who are speedsters. My buddy Billy likes to jump over every park bench, rock, log, embankment, small child, you name it he leaps over it as he runs. It's hilarious. My good friend Jonathon can beat me at a sprint race no doubt about it and he looks like Luke Wilson from The Royal Tenenbaums (The Criterion Collection)enbaums as he runs. He has the same big nasty beard, dark glasses, scraggly hair and head band. Needless to say it was quite a Motley Crew out at Town Lake today.

Swim Day Fun Day

  I used yesterday as my recovery day so no workout of any kind was accomplished. However today was a good one.  The weather was upper 70's lower 80's and not a cloud in the sky. I went to the Old Big Lady (as my friend Lana calls it) for my speed workout in the pool. As per usual I did an easy 200 warm up. The workout was 8x100 at a moderate pace resting for 30 seconds in between. By the end of each 100 I was definitely breathing hard. 200 cool down then I was finished.
   Good Old Oskar got in about an hour at the dog park before we put the canoe in. We got in at Red Bud Isle and paddled up to the Mopac bridge took a break and paddled back. We covered 2 1/2 miles in 2 hours. After that I decided it was enough for the day so I pushed the strength/core workout until tomorrow. Needless to say this is one tired dude with one tired puppy dog.
Thanks for reading!!

Bike Day

  This is going to be a very short boring post. I rode my bike today. Thank you.



Oh. For 1 hour.


On the trainer.

rainy day.

Swim, Run and Blog Maintenance

So the countdown timer that I had at the bottom of the blog was no bueno and was messing up the page. All fixed now. I just got rid of it.

Yesterday was my long swim day. Again I did a 1 mile swim (actually 1.3 hehe). I did it by swimming a ladder. Basically you swim 100, 200, 300, 400, 300 200, 100 and finish. I was resting 30 seconds in between.

Today marked my return to training with Rogue Running. I signed up for their Long Run program for the next 5 or 6 months. I get to run with them every saturday morning and choose whatever distance route they have available. Today I did 10 miles with my friend Peter. I was a little worried about the pace for the first few miles since he is faster than me but I felt strong all the way through till the end. I ended up speeding up my pace by about a minute for the last 2 miles to finish with a time of about 1:31. Thank you Peter for running with me. It's going to be great running with that program again.

Speed Day

  Today was a speed workout at the track. Luckily I live about a half mile from Yellow Jacket Track in east Austin so the warm up is included in the run over. Another beautiful day in Austin TX. The workout was 2 miles with 100 yard sprints for each lap. So 100 all out sprint followed by 300 yards recovery. There was another dude there doing almost the same workout and for a second I almost switched it up so we wouldn't be sprinting at the same time. Since he was a smidge faster than I was I it worked out well. I just ran as hard as I could trying to catch up to him. I ran until I almost puked. A sign of a good workout if you ask me.
  After the track Oskar, Billy, Aura (Billy's Dog) took the canoe back to the red bud. Awesome day on Town Lake.
  Came back home and did my strength/core workout followed by 3X20 tire flips.
Good Day!!!

Bike Day

  Today was a hard workout on the trainer. It started with a 10 minute warm up, then 20 minutes of spin ups. These were done at 105 rpm for 2 minutes followed by 90 rpm recovery for 2 minutes. After that it was a tough 4 minute climb quickly followed by a 1 minute sprint. I did a 5 minute spin out to cool off then I was done.I pushed my strength/core workout till tomorrow so my body can fully recover.
  Today was a three hour dog park day for Oskar at Red Bud. He did awesome. He is starting to play with  me more as he is getting comfortable around other dogs. After numerous swims to fetch the ball we decided to give my friend Billy's canoe a try. It was an amazing success. He swam out to the canoe and I grabbed him by the scruff and hoisted the little guy up. We paddled out around the island for about 30 minutes. He would jump out when it was shallow enough and then get back in when we took off. He's pretty amazing!

Busy Busy

   Wow what a fast day so far.  After a late start out the door this morning, Oskar and I hit the ground running. We went to Red Bud Island Dog Park. Oskar loves this place. The people there seem to be friendlier there as well. Did about an hour and a half there to  wear out the little beast. I am so proud of my little guy because it was the first time he swam. He has been in the water several times but this time he swam out and fetched a ball. I was positively beaming.
  We cruised out of there and headed to Big Stacy so I could swim. It was a quick 30 minute swim of 200 warm up, pull 2X400 and 200 cool down. I learned something very interesting about that pool today. Apparently  it is not 25 yards but it is 33 meters. I haven't independently verified this but according to my math when I swam my mile I actually swam 1.3 miles. My workouts were better than I thought. Ignorance is bliss and I kind of wish I was still in the dark about this but oh well.
  Oskar and I sped away from Big Stacy to head back to Town Lake for a fast 4 mile run. It still catches me off guard when I combine workouts by how hard the second half is but I better get used to it. Well since I had parked at the dog park entrance naturally I couldn't leave without Oskar getting his two-a-day. 30 minutes later we both were exhausted and came home.
  Time for work!

-Bike And Strength Day

  Heading to the last UT home basketball game so I gotta type quick.
   I was supposed to swim but as soon as I got to the pool the closed up for inclement weather. No matter I will swim tomorrow. So I rushed home to clock about 40 minutes on the trainer doing one legged spins for 10 minutes followed by 1 minute spinups at 105 rpm followed by 2 minute recovery at 90 rpm for 15 minutes. If you toss in a 10 minute warm up and 5 minute cool down it adds up to 40.
  I decided to combine my strength and core workouts so it's basically, squats, pushups, planks, swiss ball stuff, tire flips, dumbell presses and what not for about 40 minutes. All in all a pretty good day.
  Gotta run to make tip off. HOOK EM!!!!