David Gillen's Group - FULL (Page 23)

LOL! Oh Boy... You've really let the cat out of the bag now Ken! 

Thanks for the invite, I am planning on doing Too Hot to Handle that AM, but depending on "things" that might change.

1-2 ManyRaces Street,  Overtrain Ville, TX

Your rankings of 21/54 AG and 104/390 finishers plus a lot of DNFs are AWESOME.  Great job.  How were the conditions?   Was the water rough at all?  It looked to me that the swim times were a little slow! 

Good job of overcoming some problems in T1.  A 52 min 10K is very impressive for your first OLY, especially after as strong as bike as you had.   21.5 mph just like you predicted.  Way to hit your goal! 

Sorry about your date.  I actually thought my wife stood me up on our first date.  We actually had meet at a concert and decided to go out but lived about 2 hours apart.  We agreed to meet in the middle at a mall in the food court and would decide what to do.  I actually got there a little early and sat down in the food court.  About an hour went by and I thought I got stood up.  This was before cell phone were big so I decided to leave.  When I was walking out she was waiting by the door and had been for an hour also.  The big directory was between us and we could not see each other.  We ended up eating Pizza at Sbarro in the mall and renting a movie (I am so romantic).  Good think I don' have to live up to my past now.

I just looked at the results from my race yesterday and had I raced Clydesdale (which I am eligable to do) I would have been 1st out of 29.  Dang it.

Sorry, buddy.  But you still had a great race and met your goals!  You're too fast to be competing with the Clydesdales anyway.  You would've been sand-bagging!  J/K.

Now, you're going to have to decide how to enter Prarieman!

BTW, let us know when your RR is done.  I'm anxious to hear what you thought about the dam! 

Sorry about the date, Pene.  It's his loss though.  

I'm not sure I have much advice on dating as I sucked at it myself.  I will tell you one thing though and that is to try not to overdue the triathlon/training/racing talk.  Since Ken brought up his first date, let me tell you about mine with Sarah:

I was living in San Jose, CA and her in Dallas.  We both were in Austin for New Years 2001, and we hung out and talked at a party and with my sister.  (Sarah and my sister, Cyndee, were friends in college).  Nothing happened then, but after we both went back home Sarah admitted to Cyndee that she was interested in me.   Well Cyndee obviously relayed this information me to me via a secret decoder note in study hall.   So, I was very excited as I had always that Sarah was cute.  But, here am I in CA, and she's in Dallas.  I can't exactly call her up and ask "Can I fly to Dallas and date you?"  Since I knew she ran off and on, I had the brilliant idea to ask her to run a half-marathon with me in Austin.   She agreed despite having never run a race before!  We had a nice dinner date the night before the race where apparently all I talked about was "race-race-race-blah-blah-blah"!  She obviously didn't mind it too much, b/c we ran the whole race together the next day and finished right at 2 hrs!  We hit if off pretty good and started dating long distance after that.  As fate would have it, my startup in San Jose got liquidated about 3 months after the race, and after a little time off and few fun trips, I found a job near Dallas.  And the rest, as they say, is history!

The dam is not going to be fun at Praireman.  I was on it at about 9:30 yesterday and it was warm.  I image it will be closer to 11:30 for Praireman and with no shade it is going to Suck. 

I actually normally race clyde but had heard that they don't rank you by your AG on USA Triathlon if you race Clyde so I decided against it since I want to see how I rank and figure I won't place anyways.  Do you know if this is true or not?  If it is not true I am going clyde at Praireman unless I can get below 200lbs which I would like to do, just don't know if it is possible.

Please vent on! That's why we're here! I'm sorry about the mower and washer problems. I hate it when household maintenance/repairs get in the way of life and/or training! So, I can sympathize!

When you start to put in longer hours like you have, as bike training especially can mandate, time management and prioritization become so much more important. From what I've read you seem to be doing a pretty good job of this, by riding on the trainer so you can watch your kids, etc. You situation is unique in that you're a single mom of 3 active kids while also having a thriving career. Thus, you're already good at time management; there might not just be enough of it to manage!

As your mentor, I certainly don't want to tell you to put off your athletic goals, but I want to make it clear that no one will fault you for prioritizing your kids, career, and life in general over triathlon. It is just a sport after all. Family and your career should always come first. Remember the lifelong perspective. IMs will continue to exist in 2009, 2010, etc. And who says to have to be an Ironman, anyway. They have a powerful draw, but to me a successful triathlete is defined by their enjoyment of the sport, not by some tattoo on your leg!

Anyway, please do "tend to your life" and let me know if you want to restructure your training plan. I'm here to help in any way I can!

It sounds like you do an amazing job solving problems to me. You are going to be just fine. You'll come out even stronger.  Getting the kids involved sounds like the way to go if possible, my son ran a half with me once, but my daughter hasn't taken up any of my offers yet. It would be really cool to have it a family affair. Bob Dylan said it best: Keep On Keepin' On.....(You have to sing it like Bob would or maybe like a Gilmore Girl)

David, I have a question. I did the BT sprint training plan which has run out with the sprint in Rockwall about 6 weeks away. I looked through the other plans on BT and came away with the Oly plan as being the closest to what I was doing for the sprint, with some exceptions. I was going to pickout like the middle six weeks of that plan and use it to get to the Rockwall sprint. Do you think that is good idea, or should I try and find a sprint plan that fits. I am really not good at making up my own plan of attack, I need someone much smarter than me to lay it out for me....Thanks.