Upcoming Triathlete from Traverse City, MI

Cliffs at the bottom.

It took a lot for me to get here, but I finally gathered the strength to do what I have always wanted to do, a triathlon.

It started last summer talking with a couple friends about a triathlon, I committed to doing a Sprint in September 2009. December 04, 2008 rounded the corner and I weighed in at 6'1" 282.5lbs. Over the past 7 months I have worked very hard at eating healthy and working out 5-6 times a week. Today, I am around 203bs, and this is the first time i have been this weight since high school. I am 24 years old.

March came around and it was time to register for our September Triathlon, joking around we said lets do a Olympic instead of a sprint, and the joke turned into reality. Two friends and myself are registered for the Nautica Malibu Olympic Triathlon, September 12th, 2009. I have never done a triathlon in my life, in fact, I never really liked anything of physical activity except for playing football. Especially running.

I figured I needed to prep myself for the Sept Tri, so I planned to do a sprint tri in July, well, the over achiever I am decided a sprint wasn't enough, so I bumped it up to a Olympic July 12th in Northern lower Michigan. I have become extremely active and am loving the physical exercise that I am doing now. in fact I can not get enough of it.

In April, I did my first ever 5k event, placed 23rd at 22:46, I was a little disappointed, but it felt great. I would've liked to get under 21minutes. Anyways, after a quick reality check, i reminded myself I am not just training for solely running, but I am training for a triathlon, so I am happy with my first ever 5k finish.

Memorial weekend was the Bayshore 10k, I finished 96th/1300ish at 44:32. Again I was a little disappointed, as I wanted to be in at under 42 minutes. but i did reach my top 100 goal, again I am happy with the results considering where I started from. I think I would've finished closer to my time had my back rib not flared up (something I have been going to PT for).

I have taken a solid month and half off of swimming due to weak rotator cuff. I have been active with physical therapy for two months strengthening my back muscles and posture to help out with my swimming. I have been open water swimming with wetsuit in West bay. The swimming has been good, as I have watched the 'total immersion' method many times and it seems to be working for me. I need a lot more swimming, I hope to find some people to train with after my first tri.

I love cycling, unfortunately, it was hard to do on my GT Outpost. I purchased a Trek 2.3 plus all the goodies needed, about 10 days before my first Tri, lol. It has been awesome, the difference on my 40k cycle has been cut to 1:09:xx(tapered effort) versus the 1:2x I was use to on the outpost. 

 

I am not use to this tapering right now... I find it hard to taper after GO GO GO the last 7 months.

Thanks for the read, I'll post more of my work outs and diets later.

Cliff Notes:

24yr old turned his life around and is doing three olympic triathlons this year, threw in a couple runs and a cycling event. training 5-6 days a week.

Inter-Rockin Olympic, July 12th
R.A.T. Metric Century, July 19th
Traverse City Olympic, Aug 23rd
Nautica Malibu Olympic, Sept 12th

Edited by lodac 2009-07-07 4:40 PM