Bucolic and Heterogeneous

Somebody left me a comment on Daily Mile about my run being bucolic. I learned a new word that day. If you are like me and didn't know the meaning, Merriam-Webster states that it is an adjective "relating to or typical of rural life". I noted in my Daily Mile post that I had seen pigs, chickens, goats, sheep, and cows. With that being said...it was quite the bucolic run.

Today's post will be a bit heterogeneous. It's always important to learn new things!

You can be anything you want to be, if only you believe with sufficient conviction and act in accordance with your faith; for whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.

Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.

Look for the opportunity in everything.

When you choose to keep moving toward a glimmer of hope, focusing on any minute possibility of success-rather than focusing on the obstacles in the way-you succeed simply in the trying.

I have had a tough time with the life balance lately. Training for the Hy-Vee Tri took a lot of planning and commitment, but it also caused me to put off a few things at work. Since the tri I have been working quite a bit more; it's a good thing I love my job and the people that I work with. The thing that I have found out about myself though, is that I have to have a fitness goal, or at least a plan of some type. I parted with my coach after the triathlon and have been taking it pretty easy for the last couple of weeks. In fact, I didn't run a single mile this last week. I have become very good friends with the snooze button on my alarm. I still think about running and enjoy running, but actually doing it hasn't really been happening.

Corrin and I went to the Chiefs vs. Vikings game today to cheer on the beloved purple!

Beautiful day at the game!

Unfortunately our cheering didn't help and the Vikings are now 0-4. We had a great time though! On the drive home, I made up my mind that I would write up a running schedule for myself. I have my eye on a couple of different runs, but nothing concrete. My goal is to simply get some time on the road, build some mileage and have fun with it. The real test will be Monday morning when the alarm goes off. I know right now that it's going to be a real battle to see who wins. I will have all of my clothes laid out and ready to go tonight. With a little luck and a lotta will power I will be back on the road tomorrow morning. This really is some of the best running weather and it would be a shame to miss out on any more of it.

Wandering Sunday

Beautiful Day

Cows in the mist.

Starting the morning run. (Notice the freshly mowed lawn!)

Miniature horses

The traffic is light today...and every other day.

Sunday Run

Took a nice Sunday drive in the Asics today. I had a new route in mind that I figured would take close to 2 hours to complete. I cruised through some nice rolling hills this morning, none of them real massive but as you can see, they just never stop around here.

Surprisingly, I realized after I was done that this was the longest distance that I have run since April. Now that I am falling back in love with running, it's time to see if I can spend some more quality time with her. :-)

Being able to check out the elevation profile after a run is pretty cool if you ask me!

Sights on today's run included:

• Miniature horses (they ran with me)
• Cows (they ran from me)
• Amish family walking down the road to church
• goat
• flock of sheep
• field of mums
• pig
• Chickens
• 8 vehicles in 13.1 miles

Running out here can be an adventure, I will try to take the camera with me next time.

I do have my next race in mind. I am looking at the Fall Fell Trail Race in Olathe Kansas on October 16th, or maybe, (probably not though) the Lake Perry 50K on October 22. This would be my first attempt on the 50K distance. We'll see how it all pans out with the short training window, it may be biting off a little more than I can chew, but that wouldn't be anything new for me.

My First Triathlon

So now this is where my running journey has taken me. After finishing four marathons I needed something new. Running 5 days a week according to a strict schedule just wasn't cutting it anymore. Enter the triathlon.

As I stated in a previous posting I am signed up for the Hy-Vee Triathlon in Des Moines on September 4th. I stumbled across the Crossroads Triathlon in the mean time and thought it would be a perfect way to break the ice and see what it's all about. Crossroads is a great beginners tri, it is a 200 meter swim, 8 mile bike, and 2.1 mile run. I knew the bike and run would go well, it's the swim that I was worried about...and rightly so.

The triathlon is located about an hour away and started at 7am. We were up and going at 4am, on the road by 5, and we arrived at the park by 6. I picked up my race packet, took my bike to the transition area and got everything set up.

My transition set up. Feel free to critique.

Ok, I made my first mistake when I registered for the race. They asked for an approximate time on the swim and I must have put in a pretty fast time because they had me starting SECOND! It is a pool swim where the fastest swimmers go first, they started us all off one at a time every 10 seconds. It is a 50 meter pool so we swam down and back twice. Sounds pretty easy right? Well let me tell you...when it's your first triathlon and you are the SECOND person in the water, not knowing what the hell you are doing...it's not so easy.

The calm before the storm...GULP!

 Nerves and anxiety got the better of me and I was struggling before I ever got to the end of the first 50 meters. People were passing me like crazy, I even stopped at the wall to let a couple of swimmers go by me. My anxiety elevated with every lap, I just wanted to be done! I finally finished the last lap mostly with a breast stroke so that I could breathe. I was 2nd to start and from what I could tell, I was 14th out of the water. That 200 meters was about the toughest swim of my life and I was never so excited to hop out of the pool and make for the transition area!

Blazing through the first transition.

The transition went smoothly, I wasn't rushed and everything came together just fine, I was on the bike and into my element fairly quickly. Once on the bike I was able to calm down and take control of things. I focused on keeping a high cadence and keeping things moving at a decent pace. The second mistake I made with this triathlon is that I forgot my water bottles. What?! Yes, I had everything set out except for the water bottle I was taking. I was trying to be smart and had it in the freezer. Lucky for me, it was a short bike and I had a bottle of Gatorade that fit into my bottle cage. I passed 3-4 people on the bike but had 2 pass me, not a big deal because I knew I would be strong on the run. Surprisingly the bike portion was over pretty quickly (maybe because it was only 8 miles). 

Finishing up the bike portion.

I transitioned to the run without any problems. The nice part of the transitions is that I found that I don't have to wear socks with the Newtons, this kept me from having to fight with putting socks on my wet feet. Once I started the run my legs were a little wonky but not bad. I think I was just running with my pedaling cadence (which is not a bad thing). During the run I tried to keep a smooth even effort. I was able to pick off 3-4 more people over the 2.1 miles. 

Start of the run.

Cruising downhill.

Finishing strong.

This was the first year that they had chip timing at this event and something went wrong. We waited for quite some time to see results and when they started reading them off they realized that it wasn't right. So the only time I can go by for now is the time I saw on the clock minus my 10 second start delay, which would give me about a 47:10 finish.

EDITED: RESULTS ARE IN!

I finished 1st in my age group and 16th overall. I am pretty psyched about this I just need some improvements in my swimming. You can check out the results here.

I definitely felt strong on the bike and the run but the swim about killed me. To give you an even better idea of how the swim went, my wife was embarrassed for me! That's ok, I really can laugh about it. This just means that I need some more swim training before September. 

My triathlon hobby is certainly not over. I am thankful that I was able to get in a good practice tri before my the big show in September. In spite of the swim, it was a great day!

The End