kenj - motivated triathletes in training - CLOSED

I'm in if you've room for one more.

STORY: I am 31 and live in Olive Branch, MS, just outside of Memphis.  My wife is my main motivation - after being slightly overweight for most of her childhood, she set out to change that and lost roughly 35 lbs.  After watching her run and get in shape, I decided that I had to get off the couch and do something.  She is a better and more determined runner than I am.  I've been piddling with running for a few years with marginal success.  I set goals of longer runs and started training for them, but injury derailed that twice.  I've never been really overweight, but haven't been in great shape either.  I could probably stand to lose 10 lbs or so. 

On a whim, I decided that I wanted to "try a tri" last year.  Swimming has always held me back, so I signed up for the race really early to force myself to learn how to swim.  It kinda worked.  I got through the swim, but was pretty gassed for the rest of the race.  My goal was to not embarrass myself and I did ok.  I was near the back of the pack though.  My training was just based on a schedule I found on the internet with extra swims sprinkled in to improve that phase.  My main impediment is still my swimming - I won't be able to move to longer distances until my swimming improves.

FAMILY STATUS: I am married to Stephanie, who I mentioned earlier is a better runner than I am and may want to get into triathlon as well.  She just gave birth to our first child, Will, 3 weeks ago, so we are both very tired right now.

2012 RACES:  I plan on doing some sprints this year to get more comfortable with swimming and the sport in general.

As I said, I'm basically brand new to the sport.  I really think I would benefit from a program like this.  I'm not great at the bike or run, but really poor at swimming.  I hope to get some encouragement and accountability from a mentor/group.

Welcome to the group!  Its nice that you have the support at home for this!  I do, and I am not sure I would have accomplished what I have without that support!

Ken, I would love to get in your group. I am making a "come back".

STORY : My name is Kirk. I also live in upstate NY and I am 38 years old. IN 2005/2006 I went through a messy divorce and a good friend of mine got me out of the bar and into triathlons. I did two sprints and an olympic. I tried to step up to the HIM distance and I got hurt (bad plantar fasciatis)  and stopped training to the tune of becoming really fat. I am about 6'0 and weigh around 245. I was a college soccer player and continued at a high level for several years after school. I have some injuries that I work around and had major knee and  back surgeries in 1998 and 2000.

FAMILY : I have a great supporting wife and two boys ages 10 and 12. They live two hours away in Central NY and this adds to my challenge as I spend a lot of time with them and their activities. I am in law enforcement and I work a bad shift right now (at night), but that may be changing in the next six weeks (days!).

GOALS : I want to race again, but the most important thing for me is to drop fifty pounds. I know that I can do it.

MENTOR: When I first joined BT in 2006 I was part of a mentor group and it helped me out a ton. I am still friends with some of those people and three of them have since finished an iron distance race. I also am interested in what was successful for others that may have lost weight.

I would love to join this group.  I am also originally from upstate NY and plan to do my first HIM this year at the mussleman.  I have been a runner since highschool and college then got lazy but have been running consistantly for the last decade or so.  I started doing triathlons in 2009 and had some success in the novice group.  I then got pregnant and didnt do much in the 2010 season.  I came back for a few sprints last year and a few half marathons.  I am doing my first marathon in January, have some sprints lined up for early spring and want to cap off my hard work with the Mussleman HIM in July.  I have also lost some weight recently and cant wait to see how my racing is affected. 

I am 39 married to a great guy who is ultra supportive of my goals (as long as the surf isnt up!), and mother of a nearly 2 year old. I am a physical therapist in an outpatient setting so feel free to ask any questions about injuries etc...   I live in Wilmington NC where training this time of year isnt too bad compared to NY.

Thanks,

Paula

Hey Kirk! It would be great to have you part of the group! Maybe we can hook up for some of the local races or a workout sometime!

Hi Paula!  Great to have you part of the group! You will have a blast at Musselman, always a big BT group for both the sprint and the HIM. 

So far, the weather here hasn't been too bad, as Kirk mentioned. 

Mikeylee - 2011-12-20 5:19 AM If there is still space available, I would like to in this group. Details about me to follow.

Plenty of room! Welcome to the group, post your bio when you can!

I'm in again Ken.. Look forward to 2012... I will post a bio for the newbies later..Hope everyone has a great day..

Hi Ken, I would like to be in your mentor group again.

Hey, don't want to miss out.  Learned a lot from the group last year. 

I'm the Iceman, 60, Bloomington Il., 2011 Wisconsin IronMan finisher, doing at least one half IM this year, maybe two plus short courses for training.  Coached by Vision Quest.

I'd like to join!

Name: [email protected]/Roman

Bio: Turning 39 in a week, married & one child. I was pushing 275 when I started working out in July 2010. I'm down to 210 (I'm 6'5" tall) and have run three sprint's in the past year. This year I'm doing 2 Oly, 1 half marathon & a half ironman  @ Havasu in November. I'm looking to hear about training other than my own and keep making progress leading up to my big race in November.

Cheers! 

Hi Ken, I would like to join your group if you still have room...

My name is Steve. I'm 49 and live in Morgan Hill, CA, which is about 60 miles south of San Francisco. My road to triathlons began almost exactly three years ago when I took up running. At the time, I was seriously out of shape and weighed 216 lbs.  After about 9 months of running, I had lost 40 lbs. In May 2010 I had nose and throat surgery to clear up a long, ongoing battle with sleep apnea. I ran my first 10K in November, 2010. In 2011, I ran two half-marathons, three 10ks, a duathlon, three sprint triathlons, and two international triathlons.

Running and triathlons have changed my life. I feel like I'm 25 years old again -- although I'm looking forward to turning 50 in May, 2012 so I can move up to the 50-54 age group division! I love the challenge of training and competing, and enjoy meeting other athletes with similar values and ambitions.

I'm training about 10-12 hours a week right now -- mostly working on endurance, strength, and swim technique. My first triathlon of 2012 will be the Stanford "Treeathlon" (a sprint triathlon) in late February. I'm also planning on doing a duathlon in March, an international tri in April, a sprint tri in May, and another international tri in June. I'll probably take a short break in June, then build up for some additional tri's later in the summer and fall.

I'm really fortunate to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. The weather here is great all year for training. Near my house, there are miles and miles of wide-open running and biking trails/routes. I swim at our town's outdoor aquatics center, which is usually uncrowded. There's also a lake about 100 yards downhill from my house. So I have no excuses for not improving my swimming! Actually, swimming is my weakness -- I just started swimming a year ago. But I'm steadily improving, and am planning on getting some coaching help in January.

I'd like to drop my weight to under 170 lbs by the time the season starts (I'm at 175 right now). Ideally, I'd like to be at 165, but it's been tough dropping those last extra lbs!

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to working with a mentor group -- this will be my first one. I'm also thinking of joining a triathlon club. So far, all of my training has been solo. I know there's plenty for me to learn and improve on. But the main thing is that I stay active and continue to have fun!

Nice job with the weight loss! I would be very interested to hear how you went about it.

Congratulations on the weight loss and welcome to the group!  That looks like a great schedule for 2012! 

Welcome to the group Steve!!  Congratulations to you on the weight loss as well!  I spend a fair amount of time in Southern CA, Temecula is the name of the city.  About 60 miles northeast of San Diego on 15, you are right about how nice it is to have the ability to train outside year round!

We are a long ways from filling up, but I wanted to mention a couple of things that make the group function a little better in my experience. 

First, use the training logs here.  Even if you have a coach and only post basic summaries, it helps the others comment on your training if we can see what you have been doing (or not doing ).

The other thing is to make sure we can get to your logs.  You can do it one of 2 ways, the first if you prefer to keep your logs private, you can set it so that friends only can see them and then you can add us all as friends.  The other way is to just have them open.  If you aren't sure how to do this, let me know and I can assist.

Finally, use the inspire feature.  I will start to inspire you guys from time to time to either congratulate you for good work or give you a nudge if you are getting behind.  But it is also nice to get an inspire from time to time from the other folks in the group.

Once the group is complete,  I will build a little chart that has links to everyone else that you can put on your logs for a quick way to get to each others workout logs.

And, we don't have to wait till the group is full to start the discussions, so if there is something particular that you want to talk about, let it fly!

Hi gang,

I'm a newbie triathlete, having raced in my first tri, a sprint, last August. 

I'm 43, married, with two children ages 5 and 8.  I got started in this sport with weight loss and fitness as my goal.  I'm 5'-6", started at 199 in July of 2010, am down to 175 currently, but would like to drop another 25-30 lbs. to get to my goal weight.

I'm signed up for the Iron Girl race again in August, but am looking for a few other races to add to my schedule. 

Now that it's the off-season, I've been taking an advanced adult swimming class that has been really great for working on my technique.  I've also been taking a boot camp class 2x a week for general fitness.  I'd like to add a day of bike training and continue to work on my running.  I recently purchased a trainer on ebay for my bike, but have used it only once.  (I'll need some butt-kicking here.)

I was in Ken's mentor group last season and got a lot out of it.  It's great hearing about everyone's experiences and getting feedback on your own.  I look forward to another great year.

Hi all,

Name Robert,I live in S. Carolina and am married with two kids 22 and 16.Just got interested in doing a tri,because of all my work and no play.Signed up for a Oly in April in South Beach Florida.Looking for a mtn. bike(so I can do some trail riding)Swimming is about to start and my running has been a few 5,8,10 k's.Just wanna do something phyiscal and fun,looking forward to some help and friendship.More Bio later.

Welcome to the group Robert!  I can relate to the all work and no play part!

Thanks Vivian!  Glad to hear about the swim classes!  I am taking them too, great improvement already!  We'll get yopu working on the bike! I promise!