Schmize's Group - FULL (Page 7)

awesome brother...enjoy your beer, you earned it. in fact have a six pack =)

Great job Mikkel. Enjoy your rest and recovery. Hope you return for more races later.

Allright gang - I am back!!!

So after many conversations with myself, my wife and my coach, as well as much sage advice from our mentor Scott, I have signed up to do Longhorn Iron Man 70.3 on October 5th in Austin Texas.

I am on a mission to break 5 hours now, and I am in heavy training already. I have tweaked my schedule quite a bit to make sure there is room for work and family, and so far it's looking like it will work.

I have definitely caught the Tri bug, and can't get rid of it. Now it's become a quest to find balance, because I am committed to making it all work, and break 5 hours in the process.

I had a feeling you weren't going to just drop out all together....welcome back. 5 hours or no 5 hours you've done an amazing thing going from zero to 2 IM's in your first season. you should write a book.......or at least an article ;D

as for me, I have just under 5 weeks until my next sprint so I'm gearing up for lots of bricks, extra yards and in general kicking some . my goal, though not quite as lofty as Mikkel's, is to beat my frist sprint time by 8 mins and finish under 1:20. then I'm on to bigger and better things with an oly on august 24 and an international on nov 9.

Good luck this weekend!!

I saw all those miles you've been logging on the bike.....do you use any kind of special saddle for comfort? I've been thinking about something like the adamo saddle to aleviate the pressure in certain areas. any thoughts?

WOW! very nice times...

almost 23 mph on the bike? I don't know how you ride that fast. that kind of speed seems totaly out of feach for me. granted I had never even ridden a road bike before January of this year but 18 mph is about all I can do for any length of time. how long were you riding before you could maintain that kind of speed?

this is really good stuff. right now I don't have time to ride 100 per week but I am putting in 50+ and have been doing intervals and short time trials on my shorter ride of about 14 miles. I guess patience and persistance will get me there......

on another note I am running farther than I ever have before, put in 6 miles this morning and felt great doing it.

Angelo,

One thing that I have done that helped me boost my speed (at least for Oly distances - I tend to average 23mph+ on fairly flat course without blowing my legs for the run) is to work on the indoor trainer. While the weather is awesome where you live, it can be a really great tool to work on, as you can do interval work that isn't affected by conditions at all. I personally like to train with DVD"s from Chris Carmichael, as I find I push myself mega hard when I follow a specific workout.

great idea, I've been thinking about getting a trainer as almost everyone talks about using one. I may have to decide between a trainer or a new saddle though......might have to go with the saddle because a sore butt will definitaly not make me faster ;P

Completed my first race of the season last Sunday. Really saw some improvement on the bike. i was really happy about that. The swim is where i thought I would be. The lake was shallow and there was a lot of walking, but when i was swimming i was flying. It was pouring rain the entire time, so I suppose that was a factor. I averaged almost 21 mph on 16.5 miles which is like a 2 mph gain from my last race in August. The run was not great. I didn't stop which is always a goal, but only managed a 10:05/mile pace. I'd really like to get in the mid-9's on a sprint. I just don't know if i can mentally get my body to push itself for that period of time.

Overall, I was really happy with the race and placed in the top 1/3 of competitors and 7th out of 18 Clydesdales. Not too shabby.

Thanks for all the support!

AJ

great job dude. 21 mph on the bike is killer!!

Congrats on the times...

I wanted to share something with the group, so please bear with me as there's a bit to cover.

After I did Florida 70.3 I knew that I had it in me to do a 70.3 much faster than I did (5:23), but I also knew that it was not possible for me to continue training the way I had trained for Florida. My work had suffered, my social life had suffered, and most importantly my family had suffered the most. So I was in a conundrum. How would I be able to continue training and improve, but be in integrity with my other responsibilities? I thought long and hard, and finally I sat down with me wife and spoke to her about it. I asked her what concessions she was willing to make, and what was acceptable to her. I told her that I would absolutely quit the sport if it was a matter of our relationship, but I was curious to hear. She gave me some pointers: I would have to be home on the weekends (this is where I did my long rides and runs, and on some days I wouldn't get back home until 2pm). I told her that I could probably swing Sunday's as my day off from training, but I couldn't do both, so she agreed that as long as I was home by 9am on Saturdays, it was all good. Then I made a suggestion myself, which was that I would be home Mon, Wed, Fri at 6:30 so I could tuck the kids in, and she thought that was a great idea. Tuesdays is when I do a brick with my Tri Club, and Thursday is Date Night for her and me.

So with this in place, I began thinking what my goals would be. I knew that doing a sub 5 hour HIM was a big one, but I sensed that there was an opportunity to try something out here...and then it dawned on me. I want to qualify for the HIM World Championships in Clearwater in 2009!

Now I know I could do that if I trained the way I trained for Florida, but the collateral damage would also be huge, and that's not why I wanted to qualify. Essentially I want to find out if it's possible to be a competitive athlete, and qualify for the World Championships WITHOUT compromising my integrity to my family, my work OR my training...now that is interesting to me. I have met a lot of athletes who have gotten divorces, lost interest in their jobs because the sport has taken over, but what if I could prove that there's a way to be super competitive, and still have it all be intact? That would be pretty inspiring if you ask me.

So I told my wife that that was the goal, and she was in! I told her that if she at any point felt that I was compromising our relationship, or my relationship to the kids to tell me. And I continue telling her that she and the kids are way more important than my sport. Then I went to my employees and told them the same. One of them (my right hand man) flipped out and thought it was the greatest thing of all time. Finally I went to my coach and told her, and she loved it too.

And then the fun stuff started happening. I was at a birthday party last weekend with the kids, and ended up speaking to a woman from Power Bar. I told her about my Triathlon goals, and she said "you should be sponsored by us", naturally I accepted, so working on that now. Then I sat down with the guy who owns the company my coach works for (he's also my swim coach, and was named USAT coach of the year 2007), and asked him if he would sponsor me, and he said yes. Told me he wanted me to race in their Triathletix suit, which I told him I would be honored to do. He coaches a lot of athletes who end up with divorces, and I told him that I would love to show him that it's possible to have it all, so he could show his athletes that, and he loved that.

I have a list of other sponsors I am beginning to go to, and will keep you posted as it moves along. Right now I have three races planned for the coming months, the first one coming up in a month which is an Olympic...

Hope everyone is out there kicking butt, and making sure your families and work still get the best of you.

I know I've said it before but....you're my hero ;P. a power bar sponsership is so cool, talk about being in the right place at the right time. good luck, it sounds to me like you've got the right plan in place.

Thanks for all the kind words. I look forward to keeping you all informed as I progress!

And everyone keep up the training!

thought I'd keep everyone up to date. I am doing my second sprint race this week on friday the 4th at the Tradewinds Tri in Miami Fl. very excited and more than a little nervous.....did I train enough, am I in as good shape as I was in my last race, will something go wrong etc.....that sort of thing. at the same time I'm pretty confident in my ability and am looking to cut 10 minutes off my previous time. this week I'm only training enough to keep limber so that I'll be 100% for the race. after that I'm only taking 2 days off then diving right into an 8 week training plan to get ready for my OLY in august. it's a very agressive plan that will have me training 2-3 times a day 6 days a week!

hope you all are doing well in training and in life and I'll let you know when the race report is completed.

Good luck tomorrow Angleo. You put the time in and now it's time to make it count. You'll do great.

Wanted to let you know that my RR is up for my first Olmpic race. I really like the distance, it gives a swimmer a fighting chance. Here it is!

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp...

Go Angelo!!! Have fun, and can't wait to read your race report...

well it's done! it's been a long day already that started at 3am....

the race went better than I could have expected. it will all be in the race report- once I get it done I'll let you all know- but for now just let me say that I beat my previous race time by 26 minutes, cut my swim time in half and increased my speed on the bike by over 5 mph!!! tons of great competition there so I didn't place too well, about middle of the pack, but I've said all along that I'm racing against myself, for myself.

hope everyone's training is still kickin...

Angelo

My race report is done for you all to view.....my computer skills are lacking so I'm not sure how to put a link in this message....I guess just click the race link below

Angelo