Tri Dad

As I've intimated here multiple times, the South Riding Tri is my marquee race.  I've run it every year since 2011 and since it's the exact same course, it's made it extremely easy to see my progress.  This year my goal was to continue that trend, and my stretch goal was to drop my time from 1:04:21 to sub-60. This was my first triathlon since my daughter was born, and more importantly, my wife's first triathlon since giving birth.  My mom spent the night with us on the eve of the race for The Girl duty.  Unfortunately, since my wife is still nursing, there's not too much my mother could do. I swear that The Girl has some sort sense whereby she can tell that there is an important even that we would like to be well rested for the next day and will then have a terrible night sleep.  The Girl required constant attention that night and had my wife up for the day a hair after four.  On top of that, she did everything in her power to make sure that I got ...

The South Riding Triathlon is this weekend and I am excited.  I consider this to be my premier race for the year, and my measuring stick for my fitness.  I did my first SR Tri back in 2011 (I would have done it in 2010, but it was the same weekend as my wedding, so my better half managed to talk me out of it) and have done it every year since then.  And every year, I have improved my overall time (last year I was slower on the run and bike than I was the year prior to that, but as mentioned in my previous post, I killed it in the transition, so my overall time was lower). Since the Tri is on Sunday, I've been tapering this last week.  It's been tough since I've felt so good during all my workouts.  I had a 7min/mile 5 mile run, which is the fastest I've done in a long time, and then I rode the bike course and managed to set a personal best.  I was really happy with that since it's an open course and I had to stop/slow down at multiple intersections. ...

This morning, as The Girl woke me up at about 30 minutes before my alarm went off, I had the good idea to take her for a walk around the block while Mom was at swim practice.  I got some coffee at Starbucks and then headed over to the pool to watch Mom.  She wasn't exactly in a talking mood, seeing as she was in the middle of a practice, but the swim coach was a bit more open. He is finishing up college, which immediately made me feel like an old man.  More flatteringly, though, it made me feel like a grizzled vet as I gave him all sorts of triathlon tips and tried to get him to sign up for his first.  Though, I don't think that my pitch to the, ahem, swim coach, of "the swimming part is the least important" really resonated.  I guess I could have phrased that better. As the conversation moved forward, I mentioned how important transitions are, and then furthering the point of Swims Don't Matter, I told him how last year I took over 2 minutes off my T1 time ...

The Girl has been going through a bit of a rough patch in terms of sleeping recently.  She goes to sleep easy enough at around 6:30 or 7 (though she still hates the process in general - and lets us know about it), but she only sleeps for a few hours until she awakes, ready for the new day.  The only problem is that it's actually the same day, and, I'm sorry dear, but that wasn't "going to bed" that was a nap. She doesn't agree with our assessment and will let us know about it.  This past week, upon her first wakeup of the night, it's taken on average about an hour to get her back down.  That includes last night where it only took me 45 minutes to get her back down, as well as earlier in the week when it took two hours. Nothing like hopping in bed at 10pm with an alarm set for 5:50am, only to have your daughter wake up 30 minutes later and not go back down until 11:30.  At least I got 6.5 hours of sleep. Except, she really only went down for 10 minute...

I've still be feeling out my workout schedule with The Girl in the picture.  With the exception of Saturday morning swims, I've been pretty flexible.  My wife has been even more flexible, of course. Normally on Thursdays I go into the "downtown" office.  I leave my house around 6 so I can beat as much traffic as I can, and then I go for a run at the office.  Either on the treadmill in the gym there, or out on the trail, weather permitting.  My wife leaves for work the same time that I do, so my mother-in-law is at our house by 6 on those days. This past Thursday I was conducting a training in the office much closer to my house, which means there was no need to beat traffic.  I told MIL that there was no need get in at 6, and that 7:30 would work just fine.  I figured since things were getting switched up on me, I'd switch up my regular Thursday office run with a trainer ride.  As I mentioned, I know I'm not getting enough time on my bike, so I...

As I got out of the pool this morning for my weekly LetSwim master's program, I thought about two exercise related things.  The first was about how this would be the first week in quite some time I wouldn't swim on Saturday for the Tsunami master's program (the gym at which I swim is doing month-long maintenance to the indoor pool and how I would make up that absence.  The second thing I thought about was how consistently I've been working out.  I checked out my Strava training log and noticed that in the past 18 days, I've exercised on 17 of them.  One big reason for that is The Girl is now big enough to go in the jogging stroller. I'm not following any sort of training plan - I don't think I can make the structure work.  I'm still at the point in having a kid where I just get a workout in whenever I can.  And clearly that's been working pretty well.  Of course, the proof will be in the pudding when I participate in the South Riding Triathlon in j...