A back and a bike tire

Less than a week to go until my first tri and I've had to deal with the first obstacles of actually seeing my goal to the end.

First I was riding my bike on Saturday when I heard a POP. Not exactly the kind of sound you want to hear. I immediately thought it was a popped tire, but realized that my tire was still full of air, but my rim wasn't spinning true. My neighbor, a bike expert, took a look and realized that I broke a spoke. So 20 bucks later and my bike is now better than new.

Second, on Monday my back decided to "twinge" when I got out of my car at work Monday morning. I've had a long standing experience with back spasms dating way back to an incident in a silo with a silo unloader. Now my back decides to spasm about once a year, and usually at the worst times. This time it's going through spasms, but they aren't bad and usually go away after stretching. I should be okay by Sunday, but it's just another bump in the road.

It's sort of like life - just when you really can see your dreams and goals in sight a challenge comes along that forces you to refocus. I guess that which challenges us just makes us stronger.

Or as a good friend of mine would say, "No Place But Up!"

13 Days and Counting

My first triathlon is only 13 days away, on September 26 in Whitewater. I've been working on a 16-week training program that really helped me get ready (or at least I think it will). I'm able to swim the 500 meters in about 15 minutes, which is quite an improvement from when I started. And I can do the bike (about 14 miles) in an hour and the run (3.1 miles) in about 30 minutes.

My goal is to get 'r done in less than 2 hours, and I'd like not to come in last. So we'll see what happens.

More to come . . .

Twitter TIme Trial

Lance Armstrong and Chris Lieto (2nd place in Ironman Championship last year) competed in a TTT - Twitter Time Trial today on the Big Island of Hawaii. Lance won the 14-mile race by 15 seconds. It's said that Lance will do the Ironman championships next year - that would be fun to watch.

Here's the picture of Lance's final time.

Where have you gone, Joe Triathlete?

Well, I'm back. It's been two months since I wrote my last post. Since then I have been training, but not full time. I took about three weeks off over the Holidays to go with my family to Disney, enjoy Christmas and enjoy New Years.

So how am I doing? I'm still struggling with swimming, but I can at least go the required distance. It just takes twice as long as I need it to. I can swim 10 laps in 20 minutes - needs to take me 10. So I'm going to have a couple of lessons and see if that helps.

My running is fine - I can do the three miles without a problem. I haven't biked since November, mostly because we've had snow on the ground and we haven't had many mornings above 15 degrees. Once it wamrs up in a couple of weeks I'll start again. I'm not too worried about it.

One thing I have realized is how hard it is to train in the winter. Cold weather sucks. I really hate having to put on three layers of clothes just to go out for a run. It takes motivation just to get out of bed in the morning, and takes even more motivation when it's dark and cold. So I don't think I'll do a spring triathlon again. I'd much rather workout during warmer weather.

Still not sure I'll be able to make the triathlon I want to do at the end of April. It all depends on the swim. If not, I'll definately do the one in September. But we'll wait and see.

So I'm up and blogging again. Give me a shout out if there's anything you want me to talk about.