April

With less than two months to go before my first event in Salt Lake I decided going into April that I really needed to pick it up with my workouts and start increasing my efforts in order to get in shape. April was a good month for me and I feel like I was able to take some big steps of progression. I was able to get in over 50 miles of run training, doubled my swim, increased the bike by a little too, and incorporated weight lifting into the mix also. Lucky for me I have no social life cause otherwise all this would be affecting it. On a typical workout day I spend around three hours training, which feels really good to know that I'm actually doing something again. With any other sport like baseball, football, or anything you easily spend that much time training so I felt like I wasn't doing enough when I would go run for 30 minutes and be done, but now that I've got a good base and can do some serious training sessions I just feel good again.
Yesterday I ran the farthest I ever have at any one time, running 9.4 miles. I did it at an 8:39 min/mile pace taking me 1:21:30 and felt really good, lately though I've had this pain when I run on the inside of my left ankle, while running yesterday it would sometimes hurt but wasn't that bad....I should have iced it but didn't so it hurts pretty bad today and is kinda swollen. Really though I'm not too worried about it as it doesn't seem that serious.
I'm excited for the races I have that are coming up and hope I'll be able to do well in them. I'm not too worried about the sprint because I know I'm already in shape for it and that it will just be a matter of working out the kinks and nerves of never doing a tri before. The whole not having a bike issue has got me a bit nervous I'm really not sure how I will deal with that yet, and I still need to find a wetsuit to swim in....which I've never done before, I don't know how it will affect my stroke. All in all though I feel better about it all now than I did before April.

Fear

I've decided that I've going to be doing the Portland Marathon this year and because of that I'm started running on a more frequent basis, but the last couple of runs I have noticed a little pain in my left ankle. I really don't think this is anything to be too worried about as the pain comes and goes and in never that intense, just to be safe though I took the day off and have only stretched the ankle and haven't really put any stress on it, tomorrow I'll try it out for 6 miles and see how it goes. Like I said I'm not really that concerned about it but it makes me think and leads me to my biggest athletic fear, what if I actually get injured while working out and it sets me back weeks? I really don't have that kind of time to recover and rebuild. I guess there really isn't anything I can do if it happens but it's definitely one of my fears. Another fear is that I will come down with some kind of sickness at some point with only weeks or worse days before an event. That would basically have the same effect as an injury.
Then there is the ever present "super-virus" fear. First let me explain what the super-virus is. Genetically Doug (my brother) seems to be plagued and I managed to catch it in a foreign country. Basically its when you get diarrhea for no apparent reason at all. Laugh or gag all you want but this is a legitimate fear. If this were to happen in the middle of a race what do I do? Odds are it won't happen but odds are that planes won't crash either but it happens. One such experience happened to me yesterday in fact (not a plane crash). I had about half a mile left on a 6 mile run and was feeling pretty good when all of the sudden my stomach starting turning for no apparent reason. With 50 yards to go it was as if someone hit the emergency release button and I was serious trouble and now pain. It took all I had left in me to luckily make it to the restrooms that were located at the park I had ran from, but what if this would have happened about a mile earlier....not pretty. So you can see why this is an actual fear for me.
Well I guess if something happens whether torn something or something less sanitary I'll just have to deal with it when it happens....life's kind of that way.

Just some quick stats

After all I'm a baseball fan so here are some of my running stats
Miles ran:
February 20.4
March 30.0
April 25.3
Total 75.7
I bought a pair of running shoes March 11th and they cost me $92, so they have really cost me $1.81 per mile. Unfortunately I haven't done as good of a job with my swimming and biking stats but they basically would reflect the same thing, increasing monthly. I expect my running total for April to be at least 40 miles.

Still Here

So its been quite a while since my last entry but that doesn't mean that I haven't been working out and training for triathlons. In fact I've been doing some pretty decent workouts and I really feel like I'm making some progress. Today I actually signed up for two triathlons: the Stansbury Park Sprint Tri and the Burley Idaho Annual Spudman, which is an Olympic size race. The Stansbury Park is on May 23rd and consists of a 750 meter swim in open water in a man-made lake, 20 kilometer bike ride, and then a 5 kilometer run. This will be my first time at an actual race type triathlon and just thinking about it makes me kind of nervous, but I'm really looking forward to it. Some challenges I have to face besides actually doing the race are, what I will use for a bike, and what I will use as gear for the event ie: wetsuit, ect.
The Spudman is the last Saturday in July and consists of a 1500 meter downstream swim in a river, 24.9 mile bike, and a 6.2 mile run to kill you off at the end. By July I hope to be in really good shape and kind of have a decent idea as to what I'm doing.
I haven't really decided yet but I think I'd really like to do the Portland Marathon this year too, I just have to see if I can fit training for it and the actual race into my schedule. But those are my plans so far, the two tri's are a go already.

Getting there...kinda

Well it kind of feels like I'm starting to get to where I want to. I had some really good swims the last couple of days and my running times have actually dropped too. However the bike is really taking second to the other training, I hate riding stationary bikes and that's really my only option. All in all though I think I'm doing okay considering I have no idea how to properly train for one of these things.
Since spring break has started I've been able to focus a little bit more on training and its been good, I also went out and bought some food so that I could eat a little better. In all honesty I would say that the biggest challenge that I face right now for keeping me from competing in a triathlon would have to be that I don't actually have a bike to either train on or compete on.

I need to eat better

I decided to take Friday off from everything even though it was suppose to be my bike day; there's just something about biking in a 20 x 20 room all by myself that is just not that exciting for me. Yesterday I ran just over 3.5 miles and did it at about an 8 min/mile pace. The run felt really good and everything felt pretty loose. I was also running with someone so it was a lot easier to push myself. I've found I'm a pretty competitive person and I really need someone with the same goals as me to train with out here.
Today I went for a run too but it was brutal. I had planned on doing a 6 mile run and felt great going out. Before the run I did some sets of push-ups and abs, but still felt good when I left the house. The first 2 miles of the run felt really good, I was holding around a 8.5 pace and was really loose and doing fine. From mile 2 to 3 I started getting tired and knew that I was in trouble because this run I do is fairly flat and easy for the first half and then I have to climb 2 long steep hills and down another steep one on the second half. At three mile I hit the first hill and it totally killed me. About 200 yards after the hill I was hardly even moving, taking baby steps and breathing really hard, my legs seriously felt like lead. I was also getting really really hot with my black cold gear Under-armor sleeves on, it was almost 60 out there today. So I walked until I caught my breath and then took my sleeves off and started running with them in my hand, however this was really annoying so I stopped again and hid them in somebodies bushes. I made it maybe another mile before I was dying again, just before I was about to go up the second big hill so I stopped again. About that time I decided the run wasn't worth it and took a short cut home that cut off a good .75 mile from my run and totally avoided the hill.
I actually ended running a 9:05 pace (averaged out that is) and managed to run that last mile or so back to my truck pretty hard, but what happened out there today?
Well I think it has a lot to do with my eating habits. Lots of days I'll only eat one meal around 2:00 and that's it. On other days I'll eat noting but cereal and PB & J sandwiches. If I'm going to get serious about doing triathlons or even just getting in decent shape I need to eat better more balanced varied meals, I need to get some kind of eating routine and stick to it. On that note a good sleeping pattern probably wouldn't hurt either.

its been a while

We dad mid-terms last week at UVU and it really affected my workout schedule as well as my blog writing. I did manage to go running one day and get a swim in too. This week though I've been doing pretty good. Sunday I ran just short of 4.5 miles at a 8:30 pace. Monday I swam 2000 meters mixing between kick and freestyle in about 45 minutes. Tuesday I biked for 30 straight minutes at a pretty good pace but I have no idea how far I went cause it was a stationary bike in a gym....very boring. Wednesday I ran 5.9 miles in 50 minutes, just faster than a 8:30 pace. Today I plan on getting another swim in, hopefully a little more than 2000 meters but its hard because there is no one to push me or anything and its really boring.
I went ahead and got some new shoes from nike. I got the nike free everyday shoes, I found them to be really comfortable for being brand new shoes though I did get a pretty nasty blister on the inside of one of my arches. Yesterday's run felt pretty good and I didn't really realize how tired I was until I got home and sat down and just fell asleep. During the run I was full of energy but totally dead afterward, that's what I get for taking a week off. Today I woke up and could hardly walk! My left knee is killing me, its very tender and feels like someone smashed it with a football helmet. I'm hoping that it will heal fast and won't affect me during my next run which won't be for a couple more days.
Back to my running shoes, they are really ugly but I like em. They are white with gray trim and then the whole back is a fluorescent yellow. It kind of hurts your eyes to look at them but as long as I run fast and blur it all together maybe people won't notice. But really running shoes don't have to look nice....they're running shoes.