Fresh15

Now that triathlon season is getting closer, I opened up with a run race at the Fresh15 in Tyler again this year. I haven't been running a whole lot to due to a little knee issue that I let settle down from last year and we have been making progress with that and I've been able to run/bike with no problems. This is one of the premier run races held in East Texas and if the production in 2014 wasn't big enough, 2015 was huge, with a larger prize purse, more Kenyans and elite runners, and added vendors.

We had a great pre-race dinner at KE Bushman's in Bullard with loads of delicious pasta and the guest speaker was world-famous Ultra-runner Scott Jurek to deliver motivational speech. 

I went into this race without any expectations since I haven't been running much, but of course I wanted to do well.  I'm lined up in back of the elite start.  

I went out at a controlled effort, if I started pushing too hard I couldn't defintely feel it. Most of the race I was in "no man's land" meaning I was always by myself.  At the 3 mile mark I started putting in surges around the turns to distance myself to whoever (Seth) might be coming up from behind me and not looking back - to give any hint of being be scare of suffering. I started with 20 second hard right foot turnovers, then around 4 or 5 miles, I increased it to 40 hard right foot turnovers, by mile 6 or 7 I was up to 50 hard turnovers at the turns.  Going up 8 mile hill on Dueling Oaks road I received some motivation from Mike Buenaventura and Dan Willson, I'm not sure how to explain their enthusiasiam, you would have thought they were inebriated with as much as yelling they were doing, but that was just two guys high on life.

My splits were fairly even, considering the hilliness of the course. I felt plenty strong going up and down the hills, I just had no leg speed to back it up and was two minutes slower this year,  which isn't bad since I just started running regularly a couple of weeks ago, spending most of the winter working on my bike strength.  

Fit City of Tyler was nice enough to donate $$$ to the fastest runners in Tyler, turns out Seth and I claimed 2nd and 3rd. Not bad for a couple of triathletes. Not featured is a young gun fresh out of college from UT Tyler, Nick Huff.  

A few of the guys I've been coaching and helping out did well. I've been working with Leslie Stelpflug with her on her swim to transform her into a triple threat triathlete, she was 12th overall Elite in the women's field, Oluwaseun Oshaleke "Emmanuel" was 12th in the 0-19 age group with a time of 25:10, in his first 5K! He's just 14!!! Only been training a couple of weeks. He says he's going to work hard over the summer and get into the money next year. He's an all around athlete, that is in Hubbard track, football, and soccer.  Stephen Dinger, finished the 5k in 27:22 on a hilly course and was 6th place 30-34, in preps for IMTX 70.3. Rylan was 53rd in 0-19 age group in 38:48 and I was very happy with his attitude out there.  

Thank you to Megan Riaz, Trent Brookshire, and all the amazing volunteers who made this possible despite the cold weather we had all week. Thank you to Jesus, my Wife & Rylan, Extremus, Cobb Mobb, Cobb Cycling, and my Coach Jeremy from Mind Right Multisport.  

I'm not exactly sure what is lined up next for me but the key races this year are the Legend Tri Half Ironman in Kansas and Challenge Half Ironman in Knoxville. Thanks for reading.  

It's all about the Bike

Last month in January it was all about the bike, at least from the training perspective.  I've been on my bike six days a week.. In addition to the cycling, I've also been strength training and watching the size of my legs grow. 

Since November, about once each month I've been particpating in the Tyler Bicycle Club 4-Pedals  Enduro Series for mountain biking, currently we have 4 main trails in and around Tyler - this particular photo was captured at Tyler State Park. After each event,  my mountain biking handling has been  better. Now that it's getting closer to triathlon season, it's time to start putting more time on the tri bike.  

Going into this year I took off our standard 53T chain ring on my Cobb 165 cranks and added the 54T Rotor Oval Q-Ring. We are big proponent of the short cranks and Q-Rings, Mr.  John Cobb helped me adjust my front deraileur for the larger ring.  The Cobb cranks currently are all black and much nicer looking now. 

 This has been typical set-up for the past month, due to the cold weather.  I haven't been on the road in over a month, just on the computrainer and Cobb Cycling spin classes. Our spin classes are a great way to get strength/cadence quality in with a large group of people of all different levels of abilities.

 While riding on the trainer six days a week, saddle comfort is a must! I currently have chosen to ride the  Plus 2, which includes the compatibility for the rear hydration system that attaches underneath the saddle.

While January has been about the bike in training, in life there is so much more going on - such as Calley and I are planning to find a house and with our baby due in July! We are both excited about both of these. I've also started coaching a small handful of athletes by request and will be glad to help you as well. I'm excited for what the year 2015 brings!

Back from Holidays

It's back to the grind now and get this holiday weight off now that Thanksgiving and Christmas is over and were flipping pages to another new year. Jeremy,  from Mind Right Multisport, currently has me on a huge bike focus this month.  

This Christmas was a remarkable one! Calley and I slowed down the Christmas rush and spent one weekend at the Claiborne House B&B,  in the antique and historic town of Jefferson, Texas. We had 5 cent coffee that night at the General Store after a piano led dinner at a seafood restaurant. 

Christmas comes faster and faster each year and this was the first time I got to spend with Calley's side of the family on Christmas Eve and we play a game of "Wheel of MisFortune" at her mom's Christmas night and we spent Christmas Day at my Pa's house in Timpson, Texas. This was also our first time to spend Christmas as a married couple.  

 

Carlos and I have been really good friends since 2002, when I first attended East Texas Baptist University. We haven't seen each other in a few years but have always stayed in touch occasionally. He moved to Tyler last year and we were able to hang out for the first time in several years. 

 All these years riding a bike and it didn't harm the boys, at least since I have been riding Cobb saddles! A couple of months ago we found out Calley was pregant and she is now out of her first trimester, we will find out the sex of this baby in just a few weeks! In our first sonogram we found the heartbeat is 160 beats a minute and 1-9/16" long.  We are so excited!

 Here is a to a great 2015! I'm excited about this New Year!

The What Off-Season Blog

                                

Calley and I found out that God is planning to bless us with a new addition to our family next July! She is almost 8 weeks in.  We are super excited and can't wait for this moment as we announced to our family and friends over the Thanksgiving break. Thanks to Brian Phillips, a Fresh team road racer, I have a my cycling stroller lined up ready to carry the little one around.  

Off-Season/Winter time is a good time to do something a little bit different, while still maintaining some fitness as you engage in holiday meals and cheat on your nutrition fueling, most days of the week.  With that, I also worked on a building a budget friendly mountain bike, my buddy and co-worker  at Cobb Cycling, Seth, helped me put the 29er full suspension together. It turns out I can run through trails faster than I can bike right now However, being a little slow from my fellow racers on the mtb doesn't stop me from enjoying my riding.  Check out my little jump on the higher ramp at the UT Tyler Trails.

Thanksgiving was great! I have a lot to be thankful for in my life and it would take another blog or two, to list out everything. God has blessed me with everything in life to beto be thankful for. We celebrated hard with all the traditional fixin's on both my side of the family and Calley's side, which her side included two dinners, one by Dallas and the other at her mom's, you can't beat that. There's not much need to say, like most people,  I carry a few extra pounds around this time of year. 

 My Pa, who is tough as nails in his mid 90's helped me go out and pick pecans after our hearty lunch. . He just recently gotten over a bad fall, where he banged his head on concrete, that required stitching. Pa was real helpful, though, he likes to point out all the pecans I missed right by feet. I actually enjoyed it, it's always great to spend some quality time with Pa.

After Thanksgiving, Rylan and I went to expend our turkey consumption,  we rode bikes around UT Tyler. I did bribe him with Marble Slab ice cream if he went and rode with me. It worked out well, I got a kick out of him ordering his ice cream as he went to town on ordering and eating, also, it was fun crusing around with him.

2014 Season was a bit of a somewhat roller coaster with some ups and a lot of downs, performance wise on race day. It's hard to pinpoint an exact cause of why, though. Instead of worrying about all of that, I've turned over the reigns to Jeremy Brown, from Mind Right Multisport, after watching his coaching from a distance this past year, where all I have to do is execute the training and racing. I've had a knee issue since January, this year, it's been tender and sore, but not really effecting my training/racing, not getting better or worse, however, I would like to get that better soon, so I don't have any running to do until maybe January right now.  I'm planning a short season through the first week of June, next year, and will spend the rest of the year with my new baby and Wife and go from there. I'm going into 2015, looking to bring the fun back into the sport, with high goals and an open mind.

Oilman Texas 70.3

Seeking redemption from Austin, I most certainly was. I got there Saturday about 11:00 a.m. and did my bike and run prep a little cool but not too bad. I was by myself this trip so thinking of getting into the lake without a wetsuit because I need someone to zip me up, was a little daunting. I also didn't want to bother anyone, so jumped in, I swam. Good thing it was a short swim, it wasn't too bad but I was getting cold within 10 minutes. I swam several meters passed that big orange bouy in the photo and swam back. The water was refreshing but on the chilly side. The rest of the afternoon I took a nap and rested in in the hotel. 

Race morning brought temperatures into the low 40's as everyone was making their way and getting set up into transition. I didn't know what other people were going to do but I laid out gloves and arm warmers just in case it was chilly getting out of the water. The air temperature was so cold even with wetsuits it was actually warmer to wait for the start in the water.   

Once the swim started, it was a fast dash out front then I get reeled back in, a hard right and it was game on. I didn't except the chop to be that bad, but it was. It was fun battling the waves coming at you in all sorts of angles. The Life Guards had their work cut out, as I heard several whistles being blown to rescue swimmers who didn't quite make it through.  I'm glad this was not an Ironman branded race, the swim would have been called off for being too cold and having too much chop. I had a decent swim time in 34+, considering the amount of chop their was. I had worked with Jeremy Brown from MindRight Multisport the week to get some crossover I had going on straightened out, so it was a straight swim for me this week and it's amazing how sighting was much easier. 

                                         

I had the fastest transition with an in and out from swim to bike in 49 seconds. I skipped right over my gloves and arm warmers, the sun was out by now and I didn't feel like I needed them. The whole bike regarding the temperature I was comfortable. I was really moving the first half off the bike hitting just over 24 mph average for the first hour, then we had some strong winds on the back half and my average pulling my overall average down to 22.8 mph overall but I was still passing people (left) and right, except for Philip Shama hammering it out doing the relay. He became my cycling buddy for a little while out there on the second half as we were taking legal pulls but eventually I fell off from him.

I got off to a great start on my run and controlling myself from going too fast or so I thought at the time. I had no idea Lars Finagar was in the race until I saw him way out in front of me, but unfortunately for him he was DQ'd for not wearing his helmet before the race when he was on his bike. This meant I had the "official" lead and had no idea. 

The run course was 3 loops with a couple of out and backs so it kind of easy to keep track of where you were with a few guys. There were two guys I mainly had my eyes on - Pablo Gomez in the 20 year old age group and Pat Doughtery who was in mine. Pablo was running well but I had estimated at some of the out and backs I had a 4 minute lead on him that would shrink to about a minute by the time it was over. Pat, was running well but I was holding a good lead over him for most of the race. Starting out on the run it was great to see all the people from Tyler who came down to cheer for everyone, especially Jeffrey Mayhall who took all these pictures. 

My back was really tight by mile 3-4 and I had to stop once  each lap and let my back loosen up and that seemed to help a lot, however, with about 4 miles to go my legs ran out of steam and that was that. Pat caught me with just under a mile to go and I couldn't respond to his speed. 

Due to Lars being disqualified I moved up to "officially" 2nd overall but "technically" 3rd overall. He's a great athlete and you can't just count him out when he just whooped on all of us. Pat moved up to 2nd overall and so that moved me up to 1st in the 30-34 age group. My time came out to be 4:33. 

That's a wrap on the 2014 season that had a lot of ups and downs, fun and hard training days, exciting trips and adventures. Thank you to God, for all the talent and drive that it takes and thank you for all the support to my Beautiful Wife Calley, Team Extremus, Cobb Mobb & Cobb Cycling, The Tyler Bike Club and Fresh Race Team!

Austin 70.3

My Wife, Calley and I made the trip down to Austin 70.3 and had a great time together.. We had a fanstastic little house stay with a nice guy, named Joseph. His house was absolutely spotless and comfortable. That night we relaxed by watching a Criminal Minds marathon. 

I almost had to skip this race. A couple of weeks before I was biking out to the weekly Tuesday night pain train when I got in traffic at a stop and go stand still and unclipped a little late and when I stepped on the pavement my cleat slip and my right knee went at an awkward angle. I hobbled off the road, shook it off a few minutes, and kept riding.  I was ok, somewhat, until a few days later I was teaching Rylan how to do run drills and the explosiveness of these run drills didn't go so well for my knee.  I tried to get through the next couple of days but it wasn't working out. I took 3 days off and did absolutly nothing but ice and epsom salt my knee which seemed to help a lot, by Monday it was go time again. I started my taper earlier than I had planned on but it seemed to be helping me out leading up to Austin.  

It was a long wait while each wave went off. I was super relaxed and having fun! As seen here with some of our Cobb Mobbers, Joe, Crystal, and Rachel. 

My new age division, this year, was quite big we were separated in two large waves. My swim was 33:04, not exactly fish-like. I got off too good start but must have been been crossing over way too much right arm and I kept veering left, especially at the start.   

I went off carrying my bike out of transition, it was a long run too, carrying this heavy thing due to all the stickers that were near the course. Tons of people were out on the course fixing flats, myself included. I was letting it rip out on the bike course. It featured mostly rolling hills where I could get fast doing downhill and use the momentum to carry me up and down the next one, the roads were very rough though. I was set to hit between 2:15-2:20 at half way if I kept the pace up. At mile 29 though, it became harder to pedal and eventually, flat. Well, this time instead of dropping out I changed my own tubular for the first time (Thanks Seth!). It took me longer than I thought it did with my 2:38 bike split. I found getting back on the bike and getting going again was the hardest part, the last 5-10 miles was very windy and I was struggling, honestly.  

The Run....well right from the start I started experiencing some really bad stomach issues. My legs felt fine but everytime I tried to push the effort my stomach distress increased sharply. It was a bad deal. There was lot of slow jogging and walking for me out there, not to mention it was getting hot. My Sub 11 min run splits were not going to get me the age group win today. 

The drive home was fantastic! I through up a couple of times a long the way but we got through it and made the best of it! Luckily, my Wife was with me to get us home. Thanks again to my Wife, who cheered on everyone out there all day, and also to the Tyler group that came to support everyone, the Cobb Mobb team, and Extremus. I'm thankful to God for keeping me safe out there and that I was able to recover fast from it.

Spirit of Hope 5K

The 5,000 meter run brings a whole new pain level compared to that of your longer distance races. Pain, so intense and you may spill guts at any moment or suddenly can't lift your legs. That was basically my experience towards the second half of the 5k. 

Believe it or not I was actually excited to race this and nervous at the same time. I watched the Prefontaine movie with my Wife and boy, Rylan the night before as he has a cross country meet the next day also. Driving too the race I could feel the pressure running through my veins. Man, I've sure missed racing the 5k road race. 

This was the first 5K run that I've done in about 4 years or so. I didn't know for sure what I was able to do. I just knew I was fit going into it and I've been running good intervals for the half-marathon/half iron distance. I knew that Tomas, a runner from Longview just ran a 16:40 a month ago and that it was going to take a sub 16:30 to win it. 

My parents and me before I started my warmups. 

Chatting with Jimmie Jones. Believe it or not, about 15 years ago me and him would be fighting it out for whatever  place we were running for at the time.

I executed my plan just like I was planning to do. The course record for this was only 18 minutes, however Tomas, was here. Trying to run just below 18 minuteswas out of the question. It was a recovery week for me as I was in between training blocks, I didn't want to run any harder than I needed to. 

We take off and it starts out basically with three of us. This kid in blue takes out, he has nice running shoes so I figured I better get caught up to him in case he's a young speedster. Leaving the high school campus Tomas pulls ahead and I get right behind him. We hit the first mile in a cruisy 5:15. We slowed down quite a bit after the first mile.   I stay directly behind him before we turned into the residential area just after 1.5 miles in. At that point, I attacked and ran fast him around him so he wouldn't have a chance to respond and go with me. My two mile split was 5:17. I glanced behind me to see how far he was and  he was still right there, in stricking distance. I took no chances and kept pressing the pace up a false flat out of the residential area back up to main street surging the turns to keep adding distance between myself and him.  

Getting close to getting out of the residential and back on to Main street. 

 Turning onto Main Street my arms became heavy with fatigue and my turnover felt like it was slowing down. I also didn't know if I was going to be able to keep that pizza down from the night before. I came to third mile in 5:18, keeping fairly consistent splits, even though the effort had sky rocketed compared to the beginning.

On Main Street in my hometown heading back to Carthage High School you can see Tomas close behind. 

I came a way as the 2014 Spirt of Hope 5K Champion in my hometown and put my stamp on the course record of 16:29.2 at least for now distancing myself by 31 seconds on the second half of the race from Tomas. This race has the potential to be a must-do race in East Texas.

Finish!

I thank God for the allowing me to compete and win! Thanks to all the wonderful sponsors and volunteers who made this race possible for it's 4th annual and my supportive Wife, Parents, the Cobb Mobb, and Extremus teams.  It's going to be a tough 3 more weeks of training but I'm excited to compete in the Austin 70.3 and the Oilman Texas Half Ironman coming up within a month.