stickers

I finally broke down and got a sticker for my car. I did the Ironman 70.3 Miami race back in October. They had stickers at the expo but I didn't want to jinx myself and buy it before the race. So I returned home and checked at the running stores with no luck. I was doing some shopping on Amazon the other day and found the stickers. When I put the sticker on my car I noticed my reflection. I decided this would make a good picture. I have already signed up for Ironman Florida 70.3 The race is May 15th down at Disney. So I know what I am doing for winter training. I know Marilyn and Hillary have signed up already. Let me know if anyone else has signed up. We will have to plan some group training.

New tattoo 303

No, I didn't really get a tattoo. I did the Jax Tri series#2 sprint triathlon this morning up in Fernandina. They write your race numbers on your arms and legs. They also write your age on the back of your right calf muscle. After the race I was sitting in the car talking to Darcy and she looked over and said,"It looks like they wrote Mom on your arm". I looked at it and said," Well they wrote WOW on the other arm".

After coming home and washing my bike and both pairs of shoes and my helmet. I got cleaned up and Tami and I went to lunch at Zaxby's. Our order number ended up being 303 which was also my race number today.

The Race went well today. The ocean was choppy. The surf wasn't big but the chop made the swim difficult. I thought I did well on the bike leg of the race and I did my normal slow run. I want to get better running. I saw quite a few people I knew today so that is always fun. Looking forward to the next in the series on August 7th.

Ironman Miami 70.3

Registration has closed for the half ironman event in Miami. The race is October 30th and it is already full. A Half Ironman is a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run Do one after the other. I am hoping to finish my race in around 6 hours. Between now and then I will be doing a lot of training. I am going to continue doing the masters swim at the YMCA twice a week and continue working on my running. I am doing the 26.2 with Donna marathon in February and I am still training for that. We have 2 more long runs scheduled. a 23 and a 26 mile run. I will do these training runs in January and then start tapering for the marathon. I am doing the Tour de Cure bike ride in May as part of my bike training. It is amazing how much time and training goes into one of these races. For my marathon I have done about 400 miles worth of running. I will get in at least another 100 miles before the race. I need to work out a schedule for my training that covers 3 swim sessions, 3 bike sessions and, 3 running sessions. Some of these will be brick workouts. A brick is where you do a swim followed by a run or a bike followed by a run. Your legs feel like bricks the first 1/4 mile or so. You need to do a fairly quick transition to get the full benefit of this type of workout. I have a long way to go in my training. I may not be very fast but I know if I train properly I will be able to complete the race

Hammer Head Christmas Party

Last night was the end of the year party for the Hammerheads Triathlon Club. The big thing at the meeting was how much money the club raised for charity, almost $30,000 The club announced the charities they will support for next year. There was a lot of people at the meeting. The club catered in Moe's for dinner. They also had the contest for the members of the years. They called each group up and announce the names and the crowd cheered to pick the winners. I was nominated for newbie of the year and didn't win but I still had fun. I got to talk to several people and just had a nice evening. This is a really good group of people.

1 year running

Last year around this time I decided to start running. A year later I am still pretty slow but I enjoy it. I did the couch to half marathon program with the Galloway group. You run a minute and walk a minute. Having a the Half marathon with Donna gave the training a goal. Sharing a ride to the weekly training with Laura and Elaine made me have to go. There were several mornings when I just didn't want to get up but knowing someone was counting on you is a good motivator. I really have to thank Laura for getting me going. A year later I have done a half marathon(13.1 miles) The Gate River Run (9.3 miles) several 5k races and I have done 3 sprint triathlons and even an olympic distance triathlon. And now Tami and I are training for a full marathon in February. At the beginning of the year I decided to set some training goals Basically they were:

run 500 miles

ride 1500 miles (I had to up the bike miles)

I am doing really good on my goals I have done 440 mile running so far and 1400 miles on the bike. I count a spinning class as riding my bike 15 miles. This has been a really good year for my training. I have done more this year then ever before. I am already starting to plan some goals for next year but I am going to keep them to myself for a little while. I will post them after the beginning of the year but I will give a few hints. 26.2 with Donna in February and I want to do some more triathlons.

Jax Tri series #2

Today was the second of the series of sprint triathlons. It was my 3rd triathlon and I wanted to break 1:30 for the race. I managed to set a new personal best time of 1:21:51 I had a good swim and I averaged 19.2 on the bike ride and then I ran a 36:55 for the 5k portion. My best time for a 5k is only 33:58 in the Run for the pies So I am really happy with my run time for this triathlon. The race had a new course which was nicer then the first one. Traffic played a part on the bike ride. There were many cars on the course. I passed several of them and had an interesting time going through one of the round-about's when a pickup truck stopped in front of me. I was already on the breaks trying to figure out what he was doing. It was never close but I was prepared to either stop or go around this truck. The run was on a sidewalk that was shaded and it made for an interesting time people had to be careful passing as there wasn't a lot of room and runners were going in both directions. I even ran past some people out for a walk that had no idea about the race going on. They sure looked surprised. I am getting better running and can do it for longer periods of time now. I am still not very fast but I am improving my endurance. The race consisted of a 1/4 mile ocean swim, 10 mile bike ride, 3.1 mile run.

248  1:21:51.6   304  Emory McLaughlin                     Jacksonville, FL                                           Clyde   16     M 173   10:20.9  217   1:51     31:15.7 19.2  158   1:30     36:55.6 12:18  290                            

Big training day

Yesterday I went to the training with the Striders group. We rode for 1:20 and covered 20 miles, then we ran for 30 minutes I covered almost 3 miles. After that I did the ALS ride with the Hammerheads. It was a 23 mile ride for charity. The first ride went well except for the head wind. On the way back on of the girls had a flat tire so we stopped to help her change it. The mosquitos were so bad we couldn't get the thing changed quick enough. We got back under way and finished the ride. On the run it was starting to get hot. I had to take some walk breaks. After running I put my bike stuff back on, Helmet, and shoes and went to join the Hammerheads. Just as we were getting started one of the girls had a flat tire. I was helping her fix it and we turned around and the group had left us. We got it changed and 3 of us rode together. The wind had picked up a little more plus I was tired from the earlier activity. I considered turning back but stuck with it. It was a nice ride and the course was different then I had been on before so it was interesting. At the finish they had lunch waiting for us. I had a very good pulled pork sandwich and some pasta salad. Then I got to talk to some people in the club. It made for a very nice morning. And I was home before noon. So I rode my bike 43 miles and ran for 3 miles. It was a very good training day

Hammer Jammer #2

Today the Hammerheads put on the Hammer Jammer triathlon training. I did this with my training group from the Florida Striders.  We got there early and set up all our gear like we would on race day. Then we walked over to the ocean. We swam South for 10 minutes and turned around and swam back. The current was with us and I made it back in a little over 7 minutes. The ocean was much nicer today. I was about waist deep when I was through the surf. Still need to practice swimming in the ocean but today was much nicer then during the BFast Triathlon a few weeks ago. I ran up the beach to the transition area put on my shoes, helmet and glasses and rode for 30 minutes South on A1A. I turned around and rode back to the transition area. The ride was nice the temperature was not bad and there were a few clouds so the ride was comfortable.  The Tour de Cure was going on today so we did the return trip with some of those guys and girls. It was nice seeing so many people out riding. I covered 18 miles on the bike today. After dropping my bike off at the transition and changing shoes it was off to run. We ran North on A1A which is shaded. I ran all the way to the turn around point 20 minutes and then took a 1 minute walk break and started running again. I took a few walk breaks on the return trip. I covered 4.4 miles on the run today so I was happy with that. I felt good after the run. I was happy with how well I did, I am getting stronger.  It still impresses my how fast most of these people are. 

I checked the addresses of my turn around points on the bike and the run to determine my distances. Then I came home and put the addresses into google maps and looked up the driving directions to get the distances.  I am still getting used to my aero bars I put on my bike and need to make some adjustments but I like these and they are pretty comfy. My next triathlon is in 3 weeks so lots of training to do.