Luckily, I was able to get my bike upright and readjusted to finish my ride home. I ended up pushing back my long swim until tomorrow and my interval run until Friday to give myself some much needed recovery and rest time today. At this point, I'm glad it is over with and just thankful it wasn't worse. I wish I could say there was a lesson learned or I was doing something wrong that could be corrected. The truth is, although the trail was wet in spots, I had been riding for over 10 miles with no problems. I was not turning, nor was I riding too fast or recklessly. I just happened to hit an extra slippery portion of trail and my front tire slipped right out from under me.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
It Is Not A Matter Of If, But When
After talking with many cyclists that I know and with how many miles I have been putting on my bicycle, I knew it was just a matter of time. Yesterday I managed to wipe out while out on a bicycle ride. Thankfully I was not seriously injured, although it did scare me quite a bit. It wasn't until I woke up this morning that I realized all of the affects of the fall. A scraped left knee was accompanied by a sprained wrist, a severely bruised right elbow (that managed to push my right shifter/break out of position), bruised upper right arm, and bruised sternum (which is the most painful part).
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
The Most Unpredicatble Part Of Racing
I know this is a post that I have to write, but I really don't want to. For anyone who may not have caught my Facebook posts on Sunday, the triathlon that I was going to compete in was cancelled due to dangerous weather conditions (namely lightening and high winds). As if that wasn't enough, the initial race delay did not come until we were lining up at the George Wyth Lake boat ramp ready to head into the water. A little less then 3 hours, and several updates, later they finally called it and sent all of the athletes home.
Even with a couple of days to process, I still am not quite sure how to put in words the way I am feeling. Disappointed and devastated just don't seem to cut it. I have been preparing for this race for months. Day after day, grinding out my training runs, putting miles on my bicycle and racking up laps in the pool, all leading up to this day. I had spent countless hours preparing mentally and going through every scenario that I could think of. I showed up on race day at 6:00 am, 2 hours before my swim wave start time, just to make sure I was ready to go. Somehow, in all of that preparation, even as they called for the first delay, it never crossed my mind that there was a chance this race might not happen.
Obviously, nobody can control mother nature and I will give kudos to those who were putting on the Accel Triathlon as they did everything in there power to put on what appeared to be an excellent triathlon. They were very well organized and did great with communication throughout the delays. In fact, my heart goes out to all of the organizers, volunteers, as well as all of the other athletes, especially those like me who were attempting their first triathlon.
I did power through a workout Sunday evening as well as a run on Monday morning in hopes that I would work out some of the emotion that I was feeling. After not finding solace in those, I made the call to take today off entirely to feel sorry for myself with the plan that tomorrow morning I will wake up refreshed and ready to get back after it.
Now I realize, I probably sound silly to many of you reading this and to an extent, I agree with you. I mean, it is just a race after all. Besides, I'm signed up for several more this year. However, training for and competing in races has become a large part of my life. I put all of my energy and a lot of time into planning and preparing for these races. It has become much more then a hobby or a means to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle, it is part of who I am.
Enough of that, I need to end on a positive note. I'm a big fan of the moving "Silver Linings Playbook" for several reasons, but the overall message is a good one. Even when things seem like they couldn't get worse, you need to look for the silver lining in everything. The silver lining was easy to find this weekend, as it was a chance to see many friends and family that I don't often get to see. Sometimes when I get caught up in life I forget how lucky I am to be surrounded by so many great people. The best part is that all of them are genuinely excited to see me, no matter how long it has been and we seem to be able to talk with each other like we never missed a beat.
Lastly, I will mention that my next race is the BIX 7 on July 30. It is a 7 mile road race in Davenport that is known for starting with a large (for Iowa) hill as well as being run in the hottest and most humid part of the summer.
Even with a couple of days to process, I still am not quite sure how to put in words the way I am feeling. Disappointed and devastated just don't seem to cut it. I have been preparing for this race for months. Day after day, grinding out my training runs, putting miles on my bicycle and racking up laps in the pool, all leading up to this day. I had spent countless hours preparing mentally and going through every scenario that I could think of. I showed up on race day at 6:00 am, 2 hours before my swim wave start time, just to make sure I was ready to go. Somehow, in all of that preparation, even as they called for the first delay, it never crossed my mind that there was a chance this race might not happen.
Obviously, nobody can control mother nature and I will give kudos to those who were putting on the Accel Triathlon as they did everything in there power to put on what appeared to be an excellent triathlon. They were very well organized and did great with communication throughout the delays. In fact, my heart goes out to all of the organizers, volunteers, as well as all of the other athletes, especially those like me who were attempting their first triathlon.
I did power through a workout Sunday evening as well as a run on Monday morning in hopes that I would work out some of the emotion that I was feeling. After not finding solace in those, I made the call to take today off entirely to feel sorry for myself with the plan that tomorrow morning I will wake up refreshed and ready to get back after it.
Now I realize, I probably sound silly to many of you reading this and to an extent, I agree with you. I mean, it is just a race after all. Besides, I'm signed up for several more this year. However, training for and competing in races has become a large part of my life. I put all of my energy and a lot of time into planning and preparing for these races. It has become much more then a hobby or a means to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle, it is part of who I am.
Enough of that, I need to end on a positive note. I'm a big fan of the moving "Silver Linings Playbook" for several reasons, but the overall message is a good one. Even when things seem like they couldn't get worse, you need to look for the silver lining in everything. The silver lining was easy to find this weekend, as it was a chance to see many friends and family that I don't often get to see. Sometimes when I get caught up in life I forget how lucky I am to be surrounded by so many great people. The best part is that all of them are genuinely excited to see me, no matter how long it has been and we seem to be able to talk with each other like we never missed a beat.
Lastly, I will mention that my next race is the BIX 7 on July 30. It is a 7 mile road race in Davenport that is known for starting with a large (for Iowa) hill as well as being run in the hottest and most humid part of the summer.
Friday, July 8, 2016
Changed Plans And Unexpected PR
I was quite disappointed when I got pulled into a last minute meeting on Wednesday that kept me from attending the group run over lunch. I'm hoping to try again in a couple of weeks.
That being said, not attending the group run meant that I had to do my tempo run later that evening. It was very hot and humid and I had just finished eating a large pork chop dinner at the Dallas County Fair Grounds, courtesy of my brother-in-law, Mike, so I didn't expect much out of the run. As it turns out, I ended up having a great run. I didn't notice until logging into Garmin Connect the next day that I had broken my previous 5K PR by 34 seconds (30:54 to 30:20).
That being said, not attending the group run meant that I had to do my tempo run later that evening. It was very hot and humid and I had just finished eating a large pork chop dinner at the Dallas County Fair Grounds, courtesy of my brother-in-law, Mike, so I didn't expect much out of the run. As it turns out, I ended up having a great run. I didn't notice until logging into Garmin Connect the next day that I had broken my previous 5K PR by 34 seconds (30:54 to 30:20).
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| 40 Minute Tempo Run |
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Stepping Out Of My Comfort Zone
So tomorrow I'm going to try something new. There is a running club at work that meets every Wednesday over lunch to run a few miles together. I have thought about joining them for quite awhile but tomorrow I'm going to actually do it.
In the past 2+ years of running, I can count on 1 hand the number of times that I have run with anyone else (excluding races). This year I have been trying to find a running partner or 2 to help with motivation in my training, but I have had little success finding anyone who is interested.
When I stumbled onto the Pioneer running club I was very excited, but have held back from joining until now. It is partly because it hasn't fit in too well with my planned training schedule, but also because I have been nervous to put myself out there. Running to me has been a very personal journey, and I guess I'm nervous about embarassing myself by being too slow or not being accepted.
Well, whatever it is, I'm giving it at least 1 shot tomorrow. Here we go!
In the past 2+ years of running, I can count on 1 hand the number of times that I have run with anyone else (excluding races). This year I have been trying to find a running partner or 2 to help with motivation in my training, but I have had little success finding anyone who is interested.
When I stumbled onto the Pioneer running club I was very excited, but have held back from joining until now. It is partly because it hasn't fit in too well with my planned training schedule, but also because I have been nervous to put myself out there. Running to me has been a very personal journey, and I guess I'm nervous about embarassing myself by being too slow or not being accepted.
Well, whatever it is, I'm giving it at least 1 shot tomorrow. Here we go!
Friday, July 1, 2016
Mid-Year Progress
As I looked at my calendar this morning I couldn't believe my eyes, we are already half way through 2016! For me it has been a fantastic year so far in so many different ways, but my dedication to training has been the biggest. With that, I decided to run some progress summary reports on Garmin Connect to reflect on how far I have come this year.
If you don't want to look through the images below, here is a brief summary:
Running-
Activities: 96
Miles: 374.3
Cycling-
Activities: 78
Miles: 1,051.46
Swimming-
Activities: 54
Miles: 27.66 (or 48,681.6 Yards/about 975 laps in the pool)
Weight Loss-
Starting Weight: 286.4 lbs
Current Weight: 239.4 lbs
Weight Loss: 47 lbs
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| Mid-year running progress for 2016 |
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| Mid-year cycling progress for 2016 |
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| Mid-year swimming progress for 2016 |
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| Mid-year weight loss progress for 2016 |
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