Hell Yeah!

I did my last long run before the tri-shark classic tonight. It was a really great run for me. I did 6 miles in 64 minutes, which works out to around 10:47/mi. The weather was perfect, cool and overcast. I was running a new route that turned out to be flat, smooth, and very fast. I did it without an ipod since I've killed my last shuffle and can't replace it for a bit.

I'm very proud of myself for getting to this point. My running has really improved recently, and it happened during some life events that would cause many athletes to stop training. If things go well I expect to complete tri-shark's 5k in 27:30 or less. If things go really well, 8 minute miles are a possibility.

As a side note, lately I've been running with a hat to keep the sweat out of my eyes. It works to some extent, however at some point during long or hard runs the hat becomes saturated and drips, which is probably worse. My solution so far has been to turn the hat backwards when this occurs, which because of the workouts involved when this is required, has made this new quirk of mine a bit of a victory dance. The hat was on backwards tonight...

Open Water

Just a few weeks left until Tri-Shark... Today I'm happy to report that I survived my first open water swim. It was an interesting experience.

Some random observations:

• Dirty water + foggy goggles = Where the hell am I going.
  
• The wetsuit made the 65ish degree water pretty nice. I was surprised.
  
• The wetsuit provided alot of buoyancy. I could literally stop and float.
• I had some breathing problems because I wasn't exhaling until my face was out of the water, which didn't leave me much time for getting a new breath.
• Wow am I dirty now. I have sand in places sand should never be, and I'm still slippery from body glide.
  

50%

Yesterday I reached another significant weight loss milestone.

When I started getting my life back under control in 2007, my weight was somewhere over 380 pounds. Yesterday morning I weighed 189 pounds, which means I've lost over half of my total body weight. I'm quite literally half the man I used to be. :)

I still have plenty of weight to lose, and the pounds get harder and slower as I approach my ideal weight. I'm very happy to be where I am though, and have begun shifting my focus from being smaller to being faster at all three sports, eating right, eating enough, and letting the weight loss stuff work itself out on it's own.

The Road to Chicago

So it's official. Tomorrow I'll be mailing in my race change form and changing my entry into the Chicago Triathlon from Sprint to International distance.

My training plan is laid out already, and I start training for Chicago on June 7th. I'm looking forward to the challenge and can't wait to put everything I have into it.

Tri-the-Illini Triathlon 1:14:31.10

Overall the weather was great. It was about 60 degrees out, and the wind was very calm.

AG 17/25
Overall 153/301

Swim 300m
Rank 18
Time 7:26.95
Rate 2:48/100m

The swim went well but I hit some congestion in the last lane. The swim was in a 50m pool at the UofI ARC. It was really cool to swim in a full size pool.

T1
Rank 10
Time 2:10:00

It was a long haul from the pool to T1, and I took it really slow after the whole foot injury from last week.

Bike
Rank 6
Time 33:50.65
Speed 19.51 mph

The bike went very well. I pushed very hard and set a new average speed record for myself.

T2
Rank 22
Time 2:30:10

T2 sucked. I was the first bike back on my rack and as I racked my bike the rack fell over. I stood it back up and tried again, but it fell over again. Very frustrating, but completely out of my control.

Run
Rank 24
Time 28:33.40
Pace 9:13/mi

The run was good. Everything about it was nice and it just right. We ran through the quad, which was a very odd as it wasn't at all closed and there were students about doing their normal thing.

Total Time 1:14:31.10

Overall, my time was good. There isn't much I would have done differently. I'm very MOP in everything but the run, and I knew that going into this.

Next up..Tri-Shark!

Quote for Tomorrow

“There are bad times, but thats okay, just look for the love in it, don't burn the day away.”

-Dave Matthews

Racing Tomorrow

It's pretty much the 11th hour here, I'm racing tomorrow, and I'm trying to get myself in the right mental state to do so. I'm not there at all. My mind is everywhere but where it needs to be.

So, this will serve as a public record of me issuing a HTFU to my brain...

Music for the car tomorrow:

Run Fast Guys!

Since I won't be there, I wanted to take a moment to say "Good Luck" to Rob, CJ, and Ritter at Lake Run tomorrow.