My life is nothing but exciting, so here are a few updates since my last post (almost three months ago):
1. I did an open water swim on June 14th:
James River Splash, which was part of an event called "The James River Games" that featured such events as the Xterra Triathlon East Coast Championship, an off road 10k, mountain biking and wake boarding. I finished 10th overall, 4th in the men and 1st in my age group. Not bad for no real training....with Dara Torres making the Olympics, perhaps I should shoot for a come back in time for 2012? Maybe Open water swimming?? I think that I might tri and start maybe some masters swimming?
The same day I flew to Atlanta for BPH's graduation from Chef School. Pretty cool, I cannot wait till he opens his own place, so I can get all the free beer I need, err I mean eat some really great food.
2. My competitions also included a triathlon - the second annual
I Love the Tavern Triathlon. I did this same event last year in the lead up to the Musselman Half Iron, in which I was training quite a bit. My training this year was ok until the ING Georgia Marathon (i.e. I ran just enough to finish a marathon), after which I really did not do too much - a few swims here and there, a few sessions on the bike trainer at home and some running, not more than 5 miles at a pop. In any event, I went about 4 minutes and 30 seconds faster (even though my T1 and T2 were much slower). Perhaps I've discovered a new training method? I am pretty sure that my about 4 minute improvement on the bike is to blame, but I would like to think that it was my heroic beer drinking that did it.With that said - the P2C is great - a huge improvement over my last bike - very smooth and pretty comfortable.
I finished 1st in my age group on the swim, which is always fun. Everyone (basically) had a better T1 than me - I do not have a water bottle attachment for the bike yet or anything to put my tubes and co2 in, so I was spent time stuffing all of that stuff into my tri top. Folks were passing me on the bike, but not as many as usual, so I was pretty pleased with my time and the bike. My run was ok, i passed a few people, I was passed by a few people - i need to run more basically. My attitude was pretty great after improving over last year, so was pretty pumped to find additional races this summer, but the baby training might get in the way.
3. I attended something called
Boot Camp for New Dads, which is a training class for Dads to be in which "Veterans" bring their kid to introduce the "Rookies" (me) to what life is like with a newborn. You can hold an infant, see a diaper change (actually change one if you REALLY want), and learn coping strategies for when the child will not stop crying. An interesting class - one of the kids was seven months old and (i kid you not) was 30 pounds. I think that perhaps the parents must be force feeding that kid, because he was H-U-G-E. A few good tips were picked up and I got a new T-shirt, so it was three hours well spent.
