What I learned...

Here is what I learned that I will apply to my next triathlon.
1. You don't need to get there so early.
2. If you can, find a friend or at least an acquaintance to race with, or that you know will be there. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to pre-race and afterward too.
3. Do rest the week before, but make sure you at least can do the swim distance easily at least one week before race day. (It helps to not get sick)
4. Do more brick workouts, that means biking and running, so you can get used the the transition. Just because you can do each individual leg of the race easily, does not mean you can easily do them all back to back.
5. Especially if the race is longer than a sprint, wear padded bike shorts!
6. If the swim starts in waves, rank yourself one notch lower than you really think, it is better to pass people than get passed. (See: Luke 14:7-11)
7. Bring toilet paper. Photo Credit

But one thing I think everyone should realize that I learned is this: It is worth it!

My First Triathlon!

Okay, So I just got home from my very first triathlon and I thought I would give the details since they are still fresh, and at the end I will share what I learned...
So I went to bed super early last night and set 5 or so alarms just in case. (unless you count drinking a lot of water, then it would be 6 alarms ;) ) I did my pm yoga practice to calm me down and do some stretching and it worked like a charm. I woke up 1 or 2 times in the night with a mix of excitement and my 6th alarms going off early, and when 5:00 came, I was up and ready to go, having laid out all my stuff the night before, and my bike in the car already. I ate some oatmeal with peanut butter and a banana and took off. I way overestimated the time it would take me to get there, in my frazzled and excited state of mind I actually factored in extra time for traffic, just in case. (note: it was 5:30am on a Saturday!) Suffice it to say, I was there in like 15 minutes, got my race packet, they wrote numbers all over me, I stashed my bike in the transition area, and still had 2 hours until the pre-race meeting.

I spent most of the time just wandering around in the cold in flip flops and a swimsuit, fortunately I did bring a hoodie, but my feet were cold. I did some stretching, some a.m. yoga (which made me feel silly in front of everyone) and eventually the time passed and it was 8:00, pre-race meeting. They covered the basics, told us where the course went (like I'd remember, that's why they have signs!) and I headed to the bathroom before the race. Apperently, I wasn't the only one who thought it was a good idea to lose a few ounces of weight before starting because there was no toilet paper, and unfortunately I did not notice until it was too late. This was a dilemma, 20 minutes until race time and I was stuck in a stall. How humiliating. I quickly analyzed my options, and decided I'd have to ask the stall next to me if they could "spare a square". I was just working up the courage when I heard the people in both other stalls loudly complain about a lack of TP in their stalls as well. Now I was doomed! I scanned my surroundings for other options, no toilet seat covers, no tissues, and then... there it was. Divine providence had placed a scrap of paper towel at my feet, and though I knew it was disgusting, I had no choice, that scrap saved me.

After that exciting moment, we all got in line to start the swim according to our 100m swim times. I placed myself with the "average" swimmers, I stood in line among these middle aged women and thought I was in the right skill group, I was wrong. My number was called and jumped into the water and took off. I haven't been swimming hard core for a couple of weeks because of a recent illness, but I thought 2 weeks wouldn't matter, I was wrong. I struggled to make it to the end of the first lap, near paralyzed at the prospect of doing the same thing 7 more times, I tried to keep reminding myself I was a good swimmer and had done a mile a couple weeks ago without too much trouble, 400m was nothing. But I did not believe myself, each time a middle aged lady swam past me I felt more and more humiliated, my only scrap of dignity I could maintain was to not give in to the urge to start doing backstroke, if I could do the whole thing freestyle, even if I was slow, I would feel okay about it. I think about 4 people ended up passing me, which is scary because they pace you 5 seconds apart, and I was with the "average" people.

Every time I caught a glimpse of the remaining laps, my determination faltered a tiny bit, but somehow I made it. I jumped out of the water, and wobbled over to my flip-flops and hoodie, and walked to the transition area, not able to jog. I was worried that I felt so drained but I got to my bike, put on my bike shoes, helmet, and shirt, and was off.

Now I was in my element. I was not even deterred by the huge hill that lay before me because I passed almost everyone in sight. It was incredibly satisfying to fly past so many people, I did not even realize that biking was as much of a forte as it was. I cruised up the hill, for a few miles and was regaining all of the confidence that I had left in the pool. It was particularly exciting to pass one of those people with the 3-4 thousand dollar bikes. Right near the top of the hill, another guy managed to pass me, and as he did, he said: "Man, you're flying on that thing!" Oh, that did it, my confidence and adrenaline went into over drive, I couldn't let this guy be the only one to pass me, so I began chasing him down a big hill, but he was quick! So I crouched down and relished in the sound of the wind passing as I torpedoed down this hill at 30-40 mph. I lost a little momentum on a sharp turn, but did not let up, even thought the guy in the blue shirt that passed me was nearly out of site. I kept going, another stretch of downhill, and then it was time to pay for all the fun I'd had with a very long, very steep climb. It was seemingly endless! Each time you thought you could see the top, you would get there and just see another stretch of uphill, but this turned out to be a great blessing, because I ended up passing about 5 or more people on this stretch, including Mr. Blue Shirt. My legs burned each time I pushed down on the pedal, and somewhere in the back of my mind a piece of advice I'd heard or read started to warn me: "Don't give it your all on the bike, because it will make the run incredibly difficult". I tried to reassure myself I was not giving it my all, just my most. Besides, it was now my goal to not let anyone else pass me, now that I had regained my lead over blue shirt. And when I finally reached the top of the hill, I but into high gear and let loose. There were 3 people in front of me that I could see, and I could tell I was closing in on them. I overtook the first one and crouched down into a more aerodynamic position, chasing the remaining two. I slowed slightly at an intersection and the guy I just passed breezed by me. Now it was on. I put my heart and soul into overtaking all three of them, and at about 100 yards to go until T2, I did just that. It was so close that when I dismounted the guy that had passed me was right behind and ran past me to his bike spot. But I did not care, I had won the bike leg of the race! Walking afterward was difficult though.

I made it to my little spot and changed shoes much faster than I had in T1, and tried jogging a little bit. Wow. They are not kidding when they say T2 is the hardest transition. And of course, the run leg began with a nice stretch of uphill running, on grass... I passed people I saw walking and desperately wanted to join them, but just like my determination to stick with freestyle in the swim leg, I tried my best to not start walking, no matter how slow I ran. There was a guy about two feet in front of me that I set my pace with, if he could do it, I could. I just hoped he didn't stop to walk because I needed the motivation I got from following him. The uphill did not end after the grass, and continued up and up through some neighborhood in Kearns. The guy I had been following had a ridiculous watch that would beep every mile, and when it went off the first time, he announced "one mile!" and I just about died. "You mean I have two more to go?!" I almost started walking right there, but did not give in, I could see a water station and knew it must be the halfway point, I only walked to drink my water and then kept running, knowing that the downhill had to start soon, even though I was beginning to think that the whole running course was something akin to M.C. Escher's painting of the never ending staircase!

Then I saw the spires of the Olympic Oval, which I knew housed the finish line, and the descent began! A couple of people got bursts of speed and ran past me, but it was all I could do to keep running, I smiled at ever spectator I saw and made small talk as I ran by at a pace of what may have been only 3mph, until I made it into the building and onto the the track, only 100m to go! My original intent was to sprint the last bit, but that did not work out so well, I managed to pick it up to a normal running pace at least with about 15m to go, and then I crossed the finish line.

Oh, what relief! What fun to hear the people you never met cheering for you as you ran through. I celebrated by eating a banana and drinking some chocolate milk, and I soon learned that was all my body could handle at that point. A few minutes later (ironically) my Sister, brother-in-law, and nephew showed up, and took pictures and gave me a balloon. :)

The final results... 83rd Place, (woot!) which is out of about 300 people I think... And I finished in 1:28:38, which made me happy since my goal was to beat 1:30:00. The realization of what just happened didn't hit me until I was driving home and a wave of satisfaction came over me, now I really am a triathlete!

(Just ignore my weird face on this picture)

Sick and Tired....

So I've had this theory for some time now that the reason I want to eat a bunch of junk food when I am sick is that I think it will make me feel better. (at least temporarily, because it will inevitably end up making me feel worse) But now that I am better from a sickness I had last week, I have discovered what I believe is the true reason, when I am sick, I am not exercising. I always want to eat less junk food when I am exercising regularly, especially because I can tell how much sugar, etc. slows me down after I eat it, and it is never a good feeling to be slow.

In other news, only 3 more days until my first Triathlon, I am so excited. In order to prepare I am having an entirely healthy week, nothing bad for me. I think that is a doable thing for anyone, to be healthy for one week, and chances are, you will feel so much better that you will want to go for two weeks, and so on. So I say try it for a week, healthy is a great feeling.

School's Out!

What an exciting day, yesterday was my last day of school, so to celebrate I went and picked up my bike from the shop where it was getting tuned-up and assembled. Then I rode it triumphantly around town! Now, this was my first real experience riding a road bike, and with clipless pedals even, but you should all be proud of that I did not even crash or fall over once. Thank you, thank you. I also went bowling with some friends that night that are leaving for the summer, it was a fun day for sure. So, now that school is out today begins my efforts to stay busy and make this summer more meaningful than any that have come before. I thought more about things I want to do, among them are: learn Spanish better, play piano better, learn guitar, and GO CAMPING LOTS! I really like camping, hiking, all that outdoorsy stuff, and I really felt like I didn't go enough last year, so look out mountains, here I come. I know I had better set up some kind of schedule though, to allot time for each of those things, or at least a couple of them.

My first order of business for today though, is to go buy some shorts. To a normal person, this wouldn't seem like a very difficult task, but for me it is. If you don't know me, I am quite tall, about 6'6", and a lot of this height is in my legs, so what would look like "man-pri's" on others, are the kind of shorts I need, anything else just ends up looking like short-shorts. And we certainly can't have that. I heard a rumor that American Eagle shorts are longer than normal, so I may have to check out there, we shall see.

So, that's the news lately, I'll keep posting on how all of this turns out, (not just the shorts) and I wish you luck on having a fun and exciting summer as well.

Nip boredom in the bud!

So, today I finished all of my school work for the rest of the semester. No more tests, assignments, nothing. After tomorrow, I will have way more free time than I have had for a while now. I will still have my job, but with no classes and no homework, I realized that there is a major potential for ending up with too much time on my hands.

It is a fundamental principle of time management that you should decide what you need to accomplish in any given day so that even if you don't do anything else, you will feel like that day was a success. Since September, triathlon training has been that task. If I spend a couple hours running or swimming or breaking a previous personal best, I consider that day to be successful. And that motivates me to work on it, because I hate the feeling of laying down at night realizing that I did not do anything that day that I considered productive.

Surely, much more of my free time this summer will be spent training in the sunshine, for a change. But as nice as that will be, I know that between training and my part-time job, I will still have lots of time to fill. So I take an approach similar to what I do for new years resolutions, define specific tasks or projects with specific deadlines. Conveniently, these will likely stem from my new years resolutions this year. Besides racing in an Olympic distance triathlon, I wanted to start my own business this year, which I have felt too busy to work on with school taking up so much of my time. I also want to read more, I'd say a book a week if I was confident that I would follow-through, but unfortunately I am not. Therefore, I will try to get through 2 a month, and see where it goes from there. Time spent learning, in my opinion is time well spent.

Another project I have been involved with as of late is "remodeling" my parents BIG backyard. My brother-in-law and brothers have been working on it for several weeks now and are making great progress. This project will also take some time. Which I am fine with, that is another activity that makes my day productive.

My point today is simple: establish a list of a few specific things you want to accomplish, and focus on reaching those goals. If you cannot see how a specific activity contributes to your success, then don't do it until you have already done enough to make you feel good about your day. The more you follow this pattern, the less time you will spend doing the things that just take up time, and the better you will feel.

Note: It is just as helpful to identify your personal time wasters so as to avoid them, as it is to identify the activities that are worth your time. For me those things are TV, video games, and Facebook. I hardly ever watch TV, (it helps to not even have one) I've played video games probably... 3 or 4 times in the last year? And Facebook... Well, lets just say I'm working on that one.

My Own Dream...

Wow, I was really philosophical last post... So today I decided to make a more personal application and talk about me! That is the idea of a blog right? Hmm...

Anyways, about 10 years ago, I was sitting on the couch on a Saturday watching TV, a relatively common activity for me at the time, and as usual, nothing was on because it was Saturday, and we didn't have cable so I could watch Shawshank Redemption re-runs on TBS, I was stuck between watching one of the same old infomercials I had already seen 100 times like the Bowflex one or the Jack LaLane Power Juicer. (Two of my favorites) But somehow, I got to flipping through the 7 channels we had and I came across footage of the "Escape from Alcatraz" Triathlon. I was quite awestruck, watching this swarm of people swim through freezing water with sharks possibly in there, and running through sand... These people in my mind were the physical elite. Second only perhaps to Olympians. I enjoyed watching it, and was amazed to see a 13 year old finish the race. I was about that age at the time, and I couldn't believe some one my age finished that with all of those adults. And somewhere deep inside of me, something happened.

I sure as heck didn't know it at the time, I would never have thought that I could do what those people on TV did. It would be like the average American thinking they could one day compete with Michael Phelps. So I didn't even allow myself to realize that I had a desire to be like the people I saw on TV, until last September. I was swimming (more like splashing, actually) at the gym with my Brother-in-law, when some how the subject of Triathlon came up. That's when we set the goal to do it, we would be triathletes. He changed his mind a day or two later, but I couldn't go back on it, I had finally allowed myself to believe it was possible, and the idea consumed my thoughts for weeks. I looked up all I could online about the sport, the different distances, and local races. Since it was September, the season was pretty much over, but I resolved stronger than I had before to train through the winter and that in the year 2010 I would be a triathlete.

That has been my dream since then, I am already signed up for my first triathlon on April 24th! I am so excited, I have worked hard. I went from feeling dead after a 5k to running more than 13 miles in mountainous terrain. Swimming was the hardest though. Running does not involve a great deal of technique, but swimming is a different story. After months (literally) of working on my technique and endurance, I could still not swim 2 laps, but once I got the technique basically down, I tried to go one more lap each time, now I can go a mile.

I'm not trying to toot my own horn, I am trying to express the possibility of achieving what you (like me) may have once deemed impossible.

Living the Dream...

The concept of pursuing your dreams has been turned into a cliche, most often uttered by the cynical individuals (including ourselves at times) in our lives who would have us believe that dreams are worthless, and it is a waste of time to fantasize about them. I believe that many people do not pursue certain goals, or "dreams" because of fear, fear that they would try and fail. This fear of failure is crippling, it tricks us into believing that by not trying best, we will never prove that our best is not good enough. Most people would do almost anything to avoid failing, including...fail. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take", and so by not trying, you are failing.

I had a wise teacher once who said that "Most people would rather have the possibility of success in the future, than pursue it in the present" It hit me hard because I realized that I was one of those people. I would love to fantasize how successful a certain idea or endeavor could be, but I would never do anything to bring those fantasies closer to reality.
The only cure for this is action. Choose a dream, make a goal, and make that goal your priority. Chances are, you will have a team of naysayers telling you that whatever you are trying cannot be done (people are good at discouraging each other) But do not listen. Just work on that goal, and accomplish it. Tell somebody else about it, especially some one you know will be encouraging. If you fail the first time, all that means is that you are still on the road to success, and you are better off, having learned what not to do. This post is getting long, but I want to end with a quote from a man that I respect very much, named M. Russell Ballard,

"...Maybe some of you get weary of listening to the principle of setting goals. But let me tell you something about goal setting. I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don't set goals in our life and learn how to master the technique of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principle of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in [his] life."

Everybody's Free

The first day of the rest of my life...

So, I am a bit ashamed to say this, but much of my life has been kind of boring. I recently cracked open my journal from my middle school years... The entries went something like this:
"School. Work. Video Games. Sleep." or "Today I woke up and went to school, then work, and watched TV until bedtime." Those are the most embarrassing entries, and I wish there were a lot less of them...

I want to clarify: I was not a complete couch potato all of my youth. But I certainly could have done more. The closer I got to my mission, the more I did. I enjoyed hiking and camping more, I would ride my bike quite frequently, and followed the "Couch to 5k" training plan, and succeeded. (Nowadays, running 3 miles is hardly an activity that I would even make mention of.) One of the best things I did was go on a trip with my Mom to Israel when I was a Senior in High School. But these fun and exciting events were few and far between. I didn't even have that many friends from Elementary School's end through High School. I did not participate in Sports, (if I could help it) not even as a spectator... I was mostly just working and going to school.
But then came my mission, the 2 years that changed everything for the better. And now that I have been home for almost a year, I continue to work hard to make sure that my life never gets as boring as it was all those years ago... From now on, (and since my mission, honestly) I am determined to have my life be boring no more! Because lets face it, you are only young once, and I am determined not to be one of the young on whom youth is wasted.

Obviously, that is the purpose of this blog, to inspire others (of all ages - young and young at heart) to get off the couch and and have some fun, try new things, and make their lives better. Also, I will keep track or the fun, new, and interesting things that I learn, see, and do. I'm also secretly hoping that by keeping a blog, it will some how psychologically motivate me to keep life interesting. P.S. Just FYI, I'm on the right.

So come, let's take a journey...