It's Becoming an Addiction

It felt better the second time. My hobby of triathlons is becoming an addiction I think and Saturday's race in downtown Orlando solidified it for me. The race itself was slightly longer than my first one back in June and my training for it was even longer.

The OUC Downtown Orlando Triathlon consisted of a .25-mile swim in Lake Underhill, then 11.5-mile bike ride and finished with a 3.7-mile run from the Lake Underhill to Wall Street plaza in the heart of downtown. I smashed my goal time by five minutes to 1:15:22.

The swim segment is still my strongest of the three disciplines (shocking I know) but this swim was much different than the first race. The main reason was that it was an open water start as opposed to a sprint from the beach. I kept getting kicked and hit for the first half of the swim but when I got away from the pack I really kicked it into high gear. I was the 8th person in my grouping to get out of the water which I thought was really good.

The best way to cut your time in a triathlon is to tighten up your transitions which I did very well. I cut my transition times by 2 1/2 minutes this time around. The biggest reason for my time improvement from the first race was knowing iPods are prohibited. I din't have to waste time putting it on and then taking it off.

The bike course was more tactical compared to Clermont's scenic ride around the lake. This was city biking with 90-degree turns along the way. I did have to yell at one participant as she didn't know the meaning of pass on the left. She just kept peddling her little beach comber while I screamed, "LEFT!!!!"

It was during the run that I started to feel the temperature. The wind that was in my face during the bike was absent as I turned on to Robinson Street for the long run to downtown.

Looking back, the only thing I would've changed would have been to increase the pace of my run earlier. During the home stretch I had way too much left in the tank. I had a kick that felt like I was at the NFL Combine timing my 40.

In the end I placed 11th out of 42 for my age division and 121 out of 505 overall. I felt great after the race and now want to find another to enter. I am making a goal to enter and finish a half Ironman next year. I already have done the swim and run distances of 1.25 & 13.1 miles respectively. All I need to do now is see how I would do with those and a 56-mile bike thrown in. Who's with me?

Out of Commision

Well for the last 10 days I have been nursing some injuries. You see the morning of Independence Day I went for a workout and had an accident during the bike portion. I'm getting better now but the three stitches are still in and the road rash is still visible.

Needless to say it kept me from entering my second triathlon last weekend as well as limited my exercise.

To answer the question of what happened it's simple. I should have pulled off on the side of the trail and not try to clear out someone's text messages while riding. In the quickest of moments I had veered into the side rail of the wooden bridge I was crossing and was thrown off the bicycle. I never hit my head (which thankfully was protected with my helmet) but suffered a deep wound in my left elbow. Yes the same elbow I needed stitches in two years ago when crossing the street.

The ER visit only took 3 hours and Cathy took care of me the next three days. Since then I have found new ways of coping with everyday life using my right hand a majority of the time.

I'm scheduled to have the stitches removed in the next few days and hopefully will be back to training. Since the accident I have gone on a 20-mile bike ride and didn't seem to suffer any flashbacks when crossing the bridge.

So there's the reason why saran wrap has been at the top of my blog for way too long.

Still a Loser

As some of you may have seen on my Facebook status the other week I've officially lost 50 pounds over the last two years. It feels great and I would like to shed about 5 more pounds to reach my goal weight of 170. The Body Mass Index charts say that a man of my height and age should be around 167 but I think 170 will be just right for me.

So now that I've been running and swimming to help with the weight loss I also borrowed a friends bike to get some miles cycling. Then one day it hit me. Why don't I enter a triathlon and see how I'd do. So I'm entering the Central Florida Triathlon Series in Clermont next month. It's a sprint style triathlon where the segments are shorter.

The race will consist of a 1/4-mile swim, 8-mile bike and a 3-mile run. A couple of weeks ago I did a test run with mileage a little longer than the race to see if I could complete it and how I would do in the transitions.

Well I didn't die. In fact, it was pretty cool. I think I'm going to like triathlons because of the different elements. I like running but the long distances can be a little boring at times. When competing in the triathlon there's more strategy involved which I like.

So here I am 50 pounds lighter (the equivalent of the two dumbbells I'm holding in the picture) and gaining more confidence. As a side note, now when I walk around with the dumbbells it's amazing that I used to do that every day. I'll let you know how the race goes.

And BTW I always give credit where credit is due. Cathy shot the portrait of me so thank you honey.