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.

Seven tips to fix bad swimming

This is a great article about how to fix bad swimming habits. I identified several of my own bad habits that I'm going to try working on the next time I'm in the pool.

In need of a new diet plan

When I started this whole triathlon thing I weighed just over 265 pounds. I realize that trying to pull that much weight through water, pedal it on a bike or carry it over a 5K run was going to be hard. So I've been trying to lose the weight, or at least transfer fat to muscle.

I dropped to about 255 in about a month, but over the last few weeks I've started to add back on weight so that I'm back up to 260. I realize that I've added in some muscle, but I can still feel the fat.

I realize that over the next few weeks I won't be able to cut much weight, with vacation and Holidays coming up. But I don't want to gain any, either.

One thing I love is meat. Growing up as a farm kid, it's in my blood. This is an interesting video about how to eat meat "responsibly". Save for the eroneous comments about hormones and antibiotics--we all know there aren't antibiotics in meat and there are exponentially more estrogen precursors in a salad than a steak--his ideas are pretty good.

Following in family footsteps?

"World Champion Cadel Evans has been named the 2009 Australian Cyclist of the Year and received his third Sir Hubert Opperman 'Oppy' medal." The award goes to the most outstanding rider from all disciplines each season who is considered to be The Australian Cyclist of the Year.

No, the award isn't named after me. It's named after Hubert Ferdinand Opperman, an Australian who held more than 100 distance cycling records. Oppy rode a bicycle from the age of eight until his wife Mavys, fearing for his health and safety, finally forced him off the road in 1994 on his 90th birthday. When he died of a heart attack, at the age of 91, he was on his exercise bike.

One of the greatest cyclists the world has ever seen, Oppy's lifetime achievements spanned horizons far wider than his sporting fame. He became a Menzies and Holt government minister, and was also Australia's first high Commissioner to Malta. Add to that his role as a long serving councillor for the Association of the Blind, patron of the Sportsmen's Association of Australia, and a Victorian president of the Prior of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. A letter writer extraordinaire, Oppy was the sender of serious and humorous Oppygrams.

I'm guessing he's not a relative, at least not close. But hopefully some of his cycling genese run with mine.