Big week & good fitness

So I just finished one of my biggest weeks, and  definately my biggest weekend of training,  and everything went well.  I am as fit as I ever have been, and feel that I have gained a good deal of speed with my short distance racing  as of late.  My body is recovering fast form workouts and racing and the outlook to the neer future as far as triathlon is looking great.  I am excited to see how this transpires into my sprint race this Sunday, and half Ironman race on the 17th.

Two week summary.

So its been a pretty busy, stressful and draining couple of weeks.  With training in full bore, I raced the Hagg Lake Sprint with tired legs  on July 12th and raced well.  I finished 2nd overall with a 1:05.02  Last week I had an emotional set back and a very busy week, and with the help of Scott, cut my training back to 10.5 hours.  I raced again this last weekend at the Deschutes Dash Olympic and finished 4th overall with a 2:02.30.  This event has the potential to be decent, but they have alot of work to do.  I can tell they were trying but they were in over their heads and it was poorly run which is too bad because its such a great venue.

So anyway, I am back to 20 hours training this week, and then race again on August 3rd and again on the 17th.

Stout, my baby girl, you will be missed!

 

Last night was a very rough night for me and my family.  Our Sweetest little angel, Stout, died at the young age of 8.  This was  totally unexpected,  and devistating to our family.  Stouty was the sweetest and most loving dog I have ever seen. 

Thank you stout for giving us 7 love filled fun years!  I will never be able to fill the void I feel in my heart right now.  I love you and miss you with all of my heart, for the rest of my life!!

 

All of these pictures were taken just on Saturday.  She had a great, fun day playing in the back yard.  She left us just a day later.

I love My Son!

I know that statement is obvious, but every day that I know him he does something more that really grabs my heart.  This week we started swim lessons, well water tots I guess its called.  Anyway this has been so much fun, its only a half an hour, but its just me and him, and he shares the same love of the water that I do.  In the first two days he is already kicking on his tummy and his back, blowing bubbles, and even jumping off from the side of the pool, into my arms of course.  He is also singing his ABC’s now, well he makes up his own lyrics, but he has the sweetest little voice.   Here are some recent pictures of the little man.  We start track workouts next week!

Yeah!

Solid 9 days!  The last 9 days of training have been big.  It feels good to get back into big volume, for a while anyway.  My body seems to be responding and recovering quickly form these big workouts which makes it a whole lot easier to get up and go another day.  My volume drops slightly the next couple weeks, only because I am racing each of the next two weekends.  The sprint triathlon at Hagg lake on the 12th and the Olympic distance at the Deschutes Dash in Bend on the 19th.  It will be interesting to see if I can race fast while training big, as well as how my body responds and recovers to back to back racing weekends. 

Numbers the last 9 days:

27 hours

13000 yards swimming  4 workouts

273 miles bike  5 workouts

55.5 miles run 6 workouts

Congrats to my friend and training partner Jake for crushing it at Lake Stevens.  Setting a new personal best in the half iron distance by over 30 minutes going 4:45.  Nice work man!  Another friend & training partner Jason Kurian also had a great race out there going 4:40 and change.  Strong work fellas!

I was FAT and now I am a pretty damned good triathlete! Can I help you?

  

Many of you that read my blog know that just a few short years ago I was FAT, not just fat but very obese.  I have been cursed with a very slow metabolism and have battled weight issues all my life, until two years ago when I made the decision to finally put away the fat suit for ever.  I made this commitment to myself because I was absolutely disgusted with what I saw in the mirror.  I was tired of not being able to take part in normal summer activities because I was embarrassed of my body, but most of all I knew I was killing myself with the life style that I was leading.   So I made this commitment and have stuck to it and will for the rest of my life.

I have always been uncomfortable talking about the changes I have made, and really still am, mainly because I am embarrassed of what I was.   In fact I have found that I actually harbor feelings of disdain and disgust when I see Fat (oh and by the way I am not going to be politically correct on this issue, it is what it is) people continually making terrible choices, ie. walking out the door from McDonald’s, feeding there children crap, and my favorite; walking through the buffet line at Sweet Tomato’s with 3 plates piled high, cmon its sweet tomatos, its healthy right?  So recently I have been thinking alot about these negative feelings I have for these people.  Stemmed from a conversation I had with a training partner who said to me “I would think you would have sympathy toward overweight people, knowing where you came from”.    “That is why I don’t have sympathy for them” I replied.  “It actually makes me angry seeing these people killing themselves and setting there children up for a life of torment and embarrassment.”  The conversation was left at that, but I could tell he clearly did not understand how I could feel  hostility toward someone I did not know based on body composition and lifestyle.  I have thought about this allot since.  I realize that its not healthy for me to harbor these feelings and I would be better served helping people make better lifestyle decisions.  But lets be serious, can I really make a difference?  “who could I possibly help, and how?”  This is how these thoughts would generally end.  Until this last week I got a call from a good friend of mind who was seeking help and advice on how he can set some goals to lose weight and get into shape.  I told him I would do anything I could to help him, but it was him who needed to make the changes. 

So since that call, I have been replaying those questions in my head, “Can I make a difference, who can I help and how?”  Well the answer is yes, I think I can make a difference, and I can help anyone who asks for it.  So that is why I am putting this on my blog.  I want to help people make healthy changes in their lives.  Maybe the right people will see this and if nothing else get some inspiration to make changes.  But hopefully they will seek my help and advice because  that is truly what I want to do, help.