Stuck in the Middle - May Challenge (Page 24)

Hey you all!  I get in here to read pretty much daily . . . but speaking of work . . . have been sooooo busy lately - just hard to find the time to work and train right now - muchless post much . . . sorry!  Not sure how you all do it!

As far as jobs, I work for a small engineering company that designs and builds custom machines - mainly for pharmaceutical companies.  I am a programmer of sorts - I layout the wiring schematics for the machine's controls and then write code to automate them . . . projects can extend on for quite some time . . . and of course my current project is looking to finish up almost perfectly with my A race   Just keeps me dang busy until then . . . and that's only about a month away . . . part of the reason I really needed to get involved in this challenge!  Happy to say it is working

GREAT JOB on the training you all!  Central Team is kicking some a$$!  Let's keep it up

Ohhhhh and GOOD LUCK BARB!!!!  Can't wait to hear about your race! 

Anyone else have a race this weekend?

Renee

Have a GREAT weekend middlers!  Barb, have a blast and go fast!  Scott, enjoy the Cross Timbers.  That looks like a really cool route. 

Everybody, have a good one.  I'm headed to Memphis to smoke ribs on the banks of the Mississippi.  It's BBQ Fest time!  See you folks later!

Happy Friday, Middlers!  I took advantage of the great weather today with a brick.  Legs are little tired now but in a good way.

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend!  Bill, eat a rack of ribs for me!  Barb, have a fab race!  (You love cold water, you love cold water, you love cold water, you love the bike, you love the bike, you love the bike)

Happy Friday Central!! Have a great weekend and good luck to everyone who's racing.

I design sensor products that measure exciting things like temperature and flow in industrial plants. I like my job(I love my job, I love my job, I love my job), but I thought I'd be building giant robots or something cool for NASA by now. :-) I do mostly embedded firmware type stuff.

The weather looks good here this weekend. I've got no excuses. I might try an open water swim with my new wetsuit. I'm expecting great things out of that suit.

Hi middlers!

I got back to Omaha safe and sound today! woo hoo!

how to describe my job...........hmmmm

I work for a company that has a website that sells stuff and I'm responsible for making sure that it's easy for customers to use - so I do a lot of the functional design and work with designers and IT to execute the changes

right now we are in the midst of a major site redesign -

exciting stuff, isn't it!

Did a tempo run after work today then the weekly yard work.  Finally got below 9 min mile; 1st time!  Rest day tomorrow then mtb race Sunday morning.

Barb, I know you are already gone, but may karma bring you good luck! 

congrats on the run! 

I'm beat - I just did the longest run ever in my whole entire life this morning!

I'm definitely going to need to revise my run goals - I'll work out what it should be and update the spreadsheet

ps

there are updated links to the spreadsheets in the May Challenge thread! 

LOVE that feeling the first time you break an new pace "milestone"  CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Ok

I upped my goals - they have been reflected in the spreadsheet

run from 5 to 8

bike from 7 to 9.5

for now I'm leaving the swim as is until I see whether or not I can work something out with a gym here

DON'T LET THE RACE BEAT YOU   ----  You're better than that!

I know the feeling though.   Nothing seems to work right.  All you want to do is quit!   Been there before a couple of times on a couple different races.

Hang tough, Keep your great spirit up and all will be great.   You have a great incentive to really BEAT the beast on your next race!

I'm so sorry guys. I just now updated my spreadsheet for last week. I hope I'm not too late. Saturday nights and all....

My wetsuit was delivered yesterday and I'm going to the pool this afternoon to try it out. It's not too bad to get into (once I figured out which way is front! I guess the zipper goes in the back?) but it will take some practice getting out of it in a hurry. Our tri club will be starting OWS next week so I guess I'd better see how this thing works in the water. Sure feels weird when it's on. Not particularly looking forward to the temperatures in the lake. I got a sleeveless wetsuit with long legs so I could maybe wear it a little longer during the season. But right now, I'm going to freeze no matter how much coverage I have.

This should be a fun afternoon! Hope everyone is having good weather. I'm headed out for a 90 minute bike this morning. Whoo-hoo!!

Renee and I just got back from a nice long ride!

It was a perfect day for it

Racing. 

RunningJayHawk had a tough race... I had one today too.  I'm in some of the best shape of my life... 5'11" @ 180 @ 12.5% bodyfat.... I came in 11th out of 12 racers in my 40-49 AG in today's 16 mile mtb race.   Am so disgusted this afternoon, post race.  I feel so inadequate.  Oh well, I did my best. 

The worst news:  our "homeowner", the kitty that lets us live here, was diagnosed with terminal cancer on Friday.  We've only had her 3 years and she is the most non-obtrusive, "wouldn't know she lives here" type cat (my kind of cat!).  There is a few pics of her in my album.  Vet said maybe a few weeks...

Will exchange tomorrrow's swim/bike with Tuesday's rest day.  I need a day off.  Pushed it way too hard on Saturday.

Sigh, whatever.

I'm so sorry to hear about kitty!  

I would defer to some of the excellent advice that has been given to Barb -

and, a couple of additional thoughts 

so - although you didn't do as well in the age group as you would have liked, you are in the BEST shape of your life - that is Awesome!  How did you do compared to previous races?  If its better than you have done before - well in my mind it's a victory!

I know that is easier said than done! we are proud of you!!! 

So sorry to hear about your Kitty.  Always hard to deal with things like losing a great pet.  Keep her comfortable, and enjoy the time left.

Bummer about the race, but like Lastcall said.... you're in the best shape of your life.   Still is hard to accept when you're in that good a shape and you don't place where you want to, but.... You're part of a VERY elite group!   Not everyone can say they are a triathlete!   and you ARE a triathlete.   I think their are only a couple hundred thousand of us, so that's pretty elite!

Keep up the good work...

Thanks for the encouragement UTtri and LastCall.  Seems like when you try your hardest, you expect good results and I was really disappointed yesterday afternoon.  Since I moved to Sport class last year (2 laps), I've been coming in the bottom 1/4th of the racers, which is normal.  Sport class, from Beginner class (1 lap - 45 minutes or so) is a serious wake-up call!  Maybe there were just a lot of really good racers in my AG yesterday.  I prefer triathlon over mtb any day.  MTB you come out of the gate like a rabbit and stay darn near anaerobic for almost 2 hours.  It is tough, that is for sure.   I didn't cramp yesterday, I did my best and I finished the race - that is all I can ask of myself.

I have a sprint tri on Monday, Memorial Day.  Looking forward to that!  Thanks again, Middies!

Hi All -- week 2 results are up:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=113273&posts=12#M1410255

You're in first place, but only just...!

Wooo Hooooo!

Central Rocks!!!

Sal, it's looking like you are in really great shape to be able to choose your own avatar for the month of June! 

Way to go Central!! There was a lot of good workouts in the teams logs this weekend. I had my first road bike ride of the year. It felt great.

I'm going to try to catch up on my swim and bike goals this week. We're going up to see my folks and go fishing for Memorial Day. Hopefully there will be time for a couple of runs.

Have a great week!

I just checked out your blog for more details on your race. I feel for you. There's nothing worse than your gears jumping around. Especially your easy gears that you actually need when you're climbing. It really frustrating.

My bike was giving me some problems this winter on the trainer, so I thought had to figure out how to adjust the derailer. It was intimidating at first, I didn't want to screw it up and have to bring it into a mechanic. It ended up being a little tweak on the adjuster on the cable. Here's a good website for pretty much any bike questions, but specifically how to adjust a derailer.

http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

Scot

Hey Middlers

The east coast hipsters seem to have some crazy idea that they are 'closing in on first place'

I think we need to make sure that it doesn't happen!