Who Inspires You?

We all have hero's or people that we look up to or admire for one reason or another. Somebody that has caught my eye and inspired me recently is Diana Nyad.

Diana is an endurance swimmer. She has broken and continues to hold several world records for swimming. She attempted to swim from Cuba to Florida last year and failed after being stung by several box jellyfish and Portuguese man-of-wars. They pulled her out of the water after swimming for 29 hours.

 She has not given up her dream and has continued to train for this swim. She is currently standing by and waiting for the right weather conditions for another attempt.

Diana is going to be 63 years old in August.



I love the outlook in this video of her stating "Life sometimes seems unfair, so what are you gonna do?"

Hy-Vee Triathlon Recap

My Hy-Vee Triathlon Adventure.

Exciting coming into town!

Cool back pack received at check in. Part of the race swag!

When I arrived in Des Moines, I immediately hit up the expo and got registered. We had to sit through a 15 minute briefing that really didn't tell me much. Then we completed registration and picked up some cool stuff!

Upon registering we received a backpack, choice of hat or visor, and a nice bike jersey.

I dropped my bike of at the transition area. It was huge! This picture was taken from the entrance, see the little white tent in the back? That's where my bike went. Row 32 of 35! It made for a long way out to the bike course, but the run went out the back side, so I was in a good spot for it.

This is a good shot of the starting area. I won't lie, it was intimidating looking out at the swim buoys and seeing how far we would be swimming. All I can say is thank God for cooling the water down enough for it to be wet suit legal!

The swim went ok. I made it. I was happy to be out of the water!

It really startles you when you touch someone else in the water. It was difficult for me to site the buoys, especially when we headed into the sun and my goggles were fogging.

 I was 944 / 991 in the swim. That's ok because I finished!

Getting ready to roll out on the bike! I was VERY thankful to be out of the water and into my comfort zone.

I was having fun and feeling good on the ride. I probably could have pushed it a little harder in retrospect, but I averaged 18.8 mph after swimming a mile. I can accept that.

Off of the bike and into the run! I maintained a solid pace on the run. I felt like I was consistent and was able to pass several people. I had some cramping issues a couple of times but I made sure that I drank plenty of Gatorade and water at the stops. Luckily it didn't get too bad. I was able to maintain a 7:23 average pace on the run. A little faster than I expected!

Finally finished!

So to wrap things up, my finishing results are as follows:

1500 meter swim 40:14  944 / 991

T1 4:17

40 K bike 1:19:16 565/991

T2 3:23

10K run 45:56 206/991

Overall finish time was 2:53:14   429 / 991

Age group (40-44) 60/96

I am happy with the results. I had predicted that it would take me about 3 hours to finish. The swim was actually 5 minutes faster that I had guessed. 

I don't plan on doing any more triathlons this year. It is way too difficult to get any swimming in around here and that's where I need the most work. The last few weeks of my training I was driving an hour each way to get to a pool. It's really not feasible to continue to do that.

It was a great experience and I am happy to have completed it.

One of best parts of this entire experience was that I had a great support crew of family there to watch and cheer me on. It was a pretty awesome day!

Swimming Anxiety

I am not typically a worrier, in fact I generally use stress as a motivator. I am all about pushing myself and testing my limits but currently, I seem to have a real battle going on in my mind. There are less than 3 weeks until the Hy-Vee Triathlon and my swimming confidence is far from where it should be. It seemed to be getting better, I had a nice couple of swims last week then I sent a video to the coach and he  gave me some pointers to improve my technique. I am going to be honest and tell you that this really 'effed up my swim this morning. I had an extremely difficult time trying to relax, which is a huge part of swimming. When you are running or biking, you don't have to think about much, it's pretty automatic. Being a new swimmer I have to try to think about hand position, body position, arm position throughout the stroke, how and when to kick, when to breath and how to breath without sucking in a gallon of water.It's all pretty damn overwhelming, mostly because I have signed up to swim 1500 meters in a lake in less than 3 weeks.

I am not defeated! 
My plan is to battle those little negative thoughts that keep creeping into my head, you know the ones that say, "will I have to have a boat pull me out?" and "can I stay relaxed and not panic in the water?". There is extra pressure because I will have several family members there to watch and the company I work for is sponsoring the event. How's that going to look if I drown in front of my family or have to get pulled out of the water in front of coworkers? The mind can be cruel.

My plan is to watch a YouTube videos on swimming techniques daily hoping to train my mind what good technique looks like. There are some great Total Immersion videos that teach you the little intricacies of swimming easier and more relaxed. I have written some positive affirmations to help build my confidence and force out the negative thoughts, and I will continue to work on relaxation, confidence, and skills in the few training swims that I have remaining. I know that I can do this, I just have to relax in the water and take my time getting through the swim one stroke at a time.

The start of my swimming affirmations

If you are really bored, this is my swim intervals video that I sent into the coach.

This is what swimming is supposed to look like.

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