See Half of the USA...in 20 Hours..Highly Recommended

My son, his dog Lucy and I drove from Fort Lauderdale to Irving only stopping for gas, coffee, power bars and Pringles.

Lucy at beginning of trip.

Somewhere as the sun sets.



Wow, not looking forward to doing that again. Although we had a great time, it was a very very long drive. I have never been to Mississippi or Alabama so that was pretty cool. Both pretty wiped out from the trip but Lucy was full of energy!

Lucy towards the end of the trip.

Tuesday Night Swim Practice

Sorry, Can't Go to the Christmas Party, I Have Swim Practice!

I chuckled to myself on the way to swim practice Tuesday evening. "Aren't I a little too old for this?" I asked myself. But once there I really enjoyed it. We practice at the Greenhill School pool every Tuesday night. It's a very nice pool as you can see in the picture. We actually were able to put in 1450 yards - could have gone the whole mile (1650 yards) but truthfully I was a little tired by then.

Workout

It's a 25 yard pool. I'm not exactly sure if this is correct for the workout - pretty sure I'm forgetting something but here it is:

• Warm up: 25 each x's right arm only, left arm only, catch up drill, swim normally
• A few 100s with 30 seconds rest between
• A couple of 200s with 30 seconds rest between
• 1 increasing speed 100
• 1 decreasing speed 100
• A couple more 100s
• 50 yard kick
• Cool down 200

Luckily my shoulder didn't kick in until the end of the workout. I expected that it would start acting up a bit.

Tomorrow I'm catching an early flight to Fort Lauderdale to see my son and also my new bike. We will be driving back to Irving on Saturday.

Thank you everyone who have answered my donation requests. I really appreciate you!
Laura

Day 20 - New Ride

I received an incredible text from my son yesterday "Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas" and a pic of this bike:

I was absolutely stunned and so very grateful! This completes my tri ensemble (except a few minor articles). Can't wait to get it - should be before the first of the year. I've never ridden a bike like this so should be a few interesting days/weeks getting used to it. What a wonderful gift! It definitely makes me want to work harder towards my goal.

Day 13 - Shoe Clinic and then Running

Although I'm posting today (11/24), this happened on 11/17 (last Saturday).
So the TNT tri and marathon groups met at Luke's Locker in Dallas at 0800 for a shoe clinic.

It was really informative and helped me a lot to understand all the differences in running shoes. The staff was great and several of us got new shoes based upon the recommendation of the staff based upon our pronation (or lack of) and other factors (not exactly sure other than experience and preference). I bought the Asics Gel Nimbus 14. They are great -  I feel like I'm walking/running on air. These are the first Asics I've had and probably won't be the last. But time will tell.

And yes they are exactly like this. I did receive a lot of ribbing from my team mates once out on the track. I picked up a couple pair of Thorlos cushioned socks. Love these.

After about an hour or so at Luke's the tri group assembled outside and proceeded over to the practice track at SMU. It's a short walk as you can see on the map. Luke's is a couple of stores down from Le Madeleine.

So far so good. It was a sunny and cool morning, my feet felt great, it was fun hanging with people of like interests...then we arrived at the track and things went down hill for me pretty quickly. Coach wanted to see us run so told us to go around the track once. I made it (barely), 400 meters non-stop was somewhat miraculous for me. I was determined not to stop. Then he told us to go around a few times more. This time, my legs and ankles rebelled so I had to walk/jog but eventually made it around 4 more times. My team mates were lapping me on the track - very embarrassing but I kept telling myself "hey, I'm out here,...and I'll smoke them when we swim." Hopefully I'll redeem myself when we swim, we'll see. Coach told me to slow down as I went around one time. I thought that was pretty funny.

Since it's the holidays, we probably won't start in earnest until Jan 1 but after my day at the track, I have started already. Teddy (my apricot Standard Poodle) and I have started back up with the C25K app and have done pretty good except today. I just didn't have it, everything hurt on me. I came home and took some Advil - seemed to help.

Day 9 - Running

I got up this morning at 0530 and did my day 2 C25k run on the treadmill. I got 1.5 miles in of a little faster plodding than in the past so felt pretty good. I have one of the C25K apps on my phone which is great. I listen to music or a book (at the moment listening to The Racketier) and when it's time to run vs walk, the voice comes through the book and says "start running."

Later, over coffee, I received an email from Eric (asst coach) that gave the group schedule for training. This Saturday, we have a run clinic (0800) at Luke's Locker and then with our new shoes on (after being evaluated) we meet at the track at SMU. Should be lots of fun (not really - just trying to stay positive here).

Then starting next week, we swim on Tuesday evenings and bike (spin class) on Thursday evenings.
Really looking forward to this experience and hanging out with the great people on the team.

I'm off all next week so will be biking and hitting the pool more. Then T-giving. Yeah!

Day 7 - Swim Gear

Accelerometers, magnetometers and patent-pending proprietary algorithms...huh?

Along with the running, biking gear I need to get, I also need (probably) new swimming stuff. I have two Speedos which will work for a while but apparently, I may need some other equipment such as:

- wet suit for open water swims here in March! brrrr

- resistance training stuff (probably something I drag behind me while training in the pool) - maybe a bucket of sand? :)

But what I really want, and I imagine most swimmers will agree is something to keep myself from getting so bored on long training days such as some snifty water proof headphones and an audio device. Maybe the waterproof SwimP3 player?




Speaking of accelerometers...I guess I need this performance monitor as well. How in the world did I ever know anything "back in the day" of competitive swimming without this:

"Analyze your performance on the device with pace times, distance (meters/yards/laps), stroke count, stroke rate, distance-per-stroke and calories burned across all four major strokes."

In my case, "stroke" might be a health event rather than a way to move through water. :)

I have fins, cap, kickboard so am prepared in that sense.
By the way, if you are digging the flower cap, you too can have one of these from Vermont Country Store (where else?) It would be kind of cool to wear one at an event but you really need to be very very good to pull that off.

So I guess this coming week, I'll head to the pool to try some laps without all the gadgetry and flower cap to see if I sink or swim.

Day 6 - Inspirational Athletes

No excuses! Look at these amazing people:

Day 5 - North Texas TNT Kick Off

Yesterday (11/10) was the kick off for the North Texas Team in Training (TNT) chapter. These are the guys that I'm training with to raise funds for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). This was held at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie.

There were several interesting vendors (endurance sports), lots of great speakers and afterward I was able to meet my coaches and some of my tri team members. It looks like I'm on the Dallas team although I can train in Fort Worth if I want to.

Next steps...

I set up my fund raising website.
Made a pretty good infographic that shows what LLS and TNT do and how the money is used:

Day 4 - First Group Ride!

I'm having to catch up on my posts with this new blog so sorry for the dates confusion. The group ride happened last Sat (11/3). What a great time. My buddy Super Dave does a group ride at Richardson Bike Mart (RBM) every Sat morning and he volunteered to go with me in the beginner group. Nice guy!

I was able to load my bike in the back of my Yukon and off I went to meet up at RBM. When I got there and unloaded, I checked the tire pressure, got on the bike and rode around a bit and then waited for my group to be called.

I met my group, lead by Rhonda of RBM. She went over the rules of the road for bikes (gee, I forgot about all the hand/arm signals - well all but one) and off we went...or so I thought. The guy behind me tells me I have a flat. Really?

So, I'm ushered into the shop and one new tube and about 5 minutes later we're off. It was a great ride - no wind - for a beginner except the hills were killer. Yes, there are hills here in the metroplex.

Anyway, the ride was 13 miles at between 10 - 14 mph and I managed to stay on top of my bike.

If anyone wants to start riding, I highly recommend RBM (shout out)!

Day 2

First Meet Up
I attended the meet up/sign up information session for Team in Training (TNT) at the Central Market in Dallas on Lovers Ln. What a nice group of people. I think there were maybe around nine attendees - I'm not sure since I was on the front row (over-achiever that I am). However when the marathon coach asked who was there for the triathlons I believe there were three of us raising our hands.

Next Steps
I believe one of the presenters said that TNT is the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's largest fund-raising effort. If I am mistaken about this, I will retract this statement. But what this means is that I will be given tools to help in my fund-raising efforts with one of them being a personal website where people can contribute for my goal. I'll be sure and post that link when I get it. The St. Anthony tri will require me to raise $3500. Only 25% of what I raise will be overhead for the organization. The rest goes to

• Patient financial aids
• Research
• Patient and community services
• Advocacy
• Educational outreach

November
November will be the month when all the participants for the North Texas Chapter get together for a big kickoff - I think it's the 10th and then the following Saturday Nov 17 we start training. I'll post the workouts when I learn more.

Day 3

Holy Cow - What Ever Happened to Riding a One Speed Bike in Shorts and Flip Flops?

My wonderful son Sean was in town over the weekend and Monday/Tuesday of this past week - just in from Austin for the Livestrong annual event (I'm sure there's an official name for it - he'll let me know). He's really into bike racing and now triathlons. He's my inspiration for sure. Anyway we made a pact that he would suffer through me dragging him to all the aquarium shops in the metroplex and I would suffer through him dragging me to all the bike/tri shops here. We had a great time. What I learned from going with him to the bike/tri shops was that I'm going to need a lot of stuff! A lot of expensive stuff starting with a new (or better bike).

I currently have a lovely Townie (image) but it is a nice cruise mobile - not a road bike for a triathlon. But this is what I'll be training on until after the first of the year when I anticipate getting my new bike. I'm going on my first group ride this Saturday (11/3) so hopefully "Old Paint" will do just fine.

My Needs over My Wants - for now...
I want a lot of stuff for this endeavor but the budget won't allow this so I'm starting with the needs. I need some bike shorts, a flat kit, and something to carry a water bottle. But first of all, I need a tire pump. I ordered it from amazon.com and received it yesterday. It's a Blackburn Air Tower 1 and has very poor user experience. The directions on the limited instruction card (and on the pump nozel) were very hard for me to understand but I finally figured it out. So the tires are inflated (properly? that remains a mystery).

Before the ride this weekend I must purchase shorts, flat kit and bottle holder.

Day 1

Brain Good? Check! Body Good? Nope!
It's been about a year since I last posted something here. Can't say I've been too busy, can't say I've had nothing to say. No excuses. School is still going well. I'm actually getting close to the dissertation phase of my doctorate but that's another subject for another post. This past year I have taken stock of my life, accomplishments, etc and can say that it's been a good year except for one thing, my fitness factor is a big "0", nada, nunca, zilch. My brain is good (some might question this statement), but the rest of my body,...well... not so much.

A Decision Has Been Reached
So I have a made a big decision, huge decision really. I want to (should I say "am going to") complete a triathlon before I reach my 60th birthday. That gives me about ...gulp...a year from this December. Now, to be honest, I have done a few of these before but about 20 years ago so am not new to the concept or pain. However the unknown for me is training for a triathlon with an older body and much less fit body than before. I'm treating this experience as something totally new.

This isn't a spur of the moment decision, I've been requesting literature from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program for the last couple of years but didn't act. This year is different. I will be going to the information session this Saturday to learn more about what they do, what I will need to do, etc. My end goal of this adventure is the St. Anthony's tri in April 2013.

Taking Control
As I have been writing this, I've been trying to find some clever pictures of couch potatoes, book worms, fattening food and wine glasses to add to this post. None of them have really resonated with me. I think this is because this journey is about taking control of my life, not what I have allowed to take control of me in the past, therefore, I will not ponder the past - only the future - and it looks interesting.

Consider this installment 1 of the chronicles of my journey. There will be no before/after pics (unless the after pic looks awesome!). But hopefully lots of training tips, milestones, successes, and very few setbacks. Hopefully my journey will inspire others. Just putting this all in writing makes it real now.