Emotional Week



We love Grandpa!



This week had a lot of ups and downs. By the time Sunday rolled around, I was exhausted. Without trying to get too personal on this blog, Wednesday night my dad went into the hospital for chest pains, the next day we find out he needs a 5 bypass surgery! I never even heard of 5. I've heard of quadruple bypass surgery, so I guess this was worse than that...It hit our family pretty hard and it was pretty hard to come to terms with. Apparently, Coronary Artery Disease runs in my family now -because my grandpa had it too. To make a long story short, he had the surgery Friday morning and it was a complete success and he is recovering very well and fast. The power of prayer is amazing. We had dozens of churches and literally thousands of people praying for him. He is a very loved man and it wasn't time for him to go! My dad is a big reason why I got into sports. He put me into soccer and baseball at 5 years old and I just stuck with it until I eventually switched to endurance sports in high school. I always gave it my all and most of it was to just try and impress him. He's my hero and I'm so glad he pulled through this gnarly surgery.

Hammering on the trainer

As far as training goes, the week had it's ups and downs. Tuesday I had a great 16X200 meter track workout. But is wasn't just the work I put in that helped me --Brian Scott (worlds qualifier) a local stud triathlete ran with me and we pretty much talked the whole workout about training, nutrition, gear, etc.  I learned so much from him and appreciated the help. I need it! Wednesday I was on the trainer and the rest of the week was a blur. By the time Friday night came I had to make a decision on whether or not I was going to race this little TCSD sprint triathlon race. I was emotionally drained, but now that my dad was doing well - I figured putting myself in pain would be a good distraction from reality. My buddy Ryan was already planning on going down, so it made my decision that much easier.

Ryan and the bikes!

I woke up at 4:30am and headed down to meet up with him. He just got a new Cervelo and was going to borrow some Zipp wheels, so he was stoked to race! The race was down at Fiesta Island and included a 700 meter swim, 13 mile bike and 4 mile run. It was a beach mass start and as usual I got smacked around in first, but eventually found some clear water and sited WAY better to the buoys this time. My open water swim practice has done wonders for me in just a short 3 weeks. I didn't really get into a rhythm until we made the turn around and I started passing people. With about 300 meters to go, I see Ryan and his pink swim cap swimming right by me. We swam together for the next 200 meters or so until he left me. I thought I had a pretty decent swim, but I probably came out in 30-40th place way back...

700 meter Swim: 14:11 (1:51 pace)

T1: 1:12 (my fastest yet!)


The bike was 5 laps around fiesta island, which is flat and fast. I still don't rubber band my shoes to my pedals and I paid for it here. After the race I discovered that my cleat is wearing out and part of the rubber was hanging over my shoes, which made it very difficult to clip in. So I'm wobbling all over the place trying to get clipped in after transition and I see Ryan go by me wobbling to get in his shoes too. Rookies!! I finally get in and take off. I started passing quite a bit of people, but after the first lap I had no idea where I stood so I just kept hammering. I started cramping up a bit (didn't take in any salt...stupid) so I would just get out of the saddle and try and work it out once or twice a lap. I got passed by Ryan's friend (and dad to the eventual winner) so I let him go by and then I eventually passed him back up with 2 laps to go. The bike felt decent but I didn't like how short it was. It felt like I couldn't get into a rhythm. Despite that I had the fastest bike split on the day.
13 mile bike: 32:25 (24.1 mph)
T2: :52

As I left transition someone yelled at me that I was 4th coming off of the bike. Sweet! The plan for the run was to just leave it all out there. I had no idea how it would go, but if I blew up, I blew up. My feet were super numb coming out of transition and I felt something in my shoe. It felt like some rocks or mud because the transition area was in a dirt/mud area. Great...I decided to just rough it out and kept trying to jiggle the rocks out from underneath my feet. I settled into my pace pretty flawlessly. The run course was 2 loops of 2 miles. I passed 2nd and 3rd place within the first 1/2 mile. Then I saw some guy run out of the bathroom and wondered if that was 1st place. I passed him pretty quickly and had no idea if I just took the lead, so I just hammered. My first 2 mile split was 11:14 (5:37 pace) and they said I was in 2nd so I picked up my pace even more. Because of the loops you really couldn't see that far in front of you, so I had no idea where this guy was. I really wasn't feeling any fatigue or cramping so I just laid it out for the last mile and ended up splitting 10:11 (5:05 pace) for the fastest split on the day. When results came out I was stoked to see that I ran faster than I originally thought.
Run: 4 mile run 21:25 (5:21 pace)
2nd place overall 1:10:09

You can see my finish video here although it's kinda crappy quality.

Kicking it in at the Cougar Challenge (last year)

The guy that won was an 18 year old kid that just got back from the Duathlon World Championships. He had the full on national jersey and everything, so I didn't mind losing to him. He beat me by almost exactly one minute and almost all of it in transitions and the swim...Need to get better! As soon as I finished I pulled off my shoe cause by now those rocks were killing me...come to find out, since this was a "Halloween" themed race, some of the TCSD volunteers put candy in every one's shoes during the bike leg. So I ended up with some sweet tarts (including the package) in my shoe  pretty funny. Apparently in their April Fools race they hide every one's shoes...so this was the better of the two I guess!

By the time Sunday rolled around, I was exhausted. I even passed out on the way home from my brother and sister in laws house. I rarely have Amy drive, but I was done. A long week and I'm glad it's over. My dad is doing well, my family is healthy and my fitness has now gone to a new level. Life is good.

Saturday it looks like I'll be jumping into the Cougar Challenge 8k. I don't get as sore from these races like I used to, so I figured it will be a good "tune up" race for Soma in a few weeks. Last year I ran high 27's, so this year I'm hoping to go sub 26 or maybe low 26...We'll see, should be interesting.