Sunday Morning Weekly Recap ...

I hope everyone out there in bloggerville had a wonderful week.  This was the first week of my 20-Week HIM Training and it went extremely well.  Here are my weekly totals:

Swim      4 Workouts     9750 yds        4hrs 25 mins
Bike       4 Workouts     112.5 miles     6hrs 15 mins
Run        4 Workouts     17.51 miles     2hrs 45 mins
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                                   Total Time      13hrs 25mins

• This was also my first week of Master's swim.  It is two sessions a week at 5am on Tues and Thurs.  The coach made a few adjustments to my stroke and within 5 minutes I felt like a swimmer.  Amazing.  I went from struggling to swim a 2:00/100 to easily doing 1:40/100.  If I can keep dragging my butt out of bed at 4:15am for these classes then my swim is going to be so much stronger for my next 70.3 on November 7th.

• Yesterday I went on a group ride out in Coldsprings Texas.  It is about an hour north and I never even knew it existed.  HOLY HILLS BATMAN!  This was my first real attempt at doing hills.  According to my friends Garmin we did over 2000ft of climbing - which is a ton for this flatlander.  We did 56 miles and I got dropped around mile 42 - it was awesome.  I have found a group that are stronger riders than me and they are so going to help me get stronger on the bike. Thanks Mike, Patrick, Tina, Jennifer and Jama for the great ride!  The hills along with the stifling Texas heat and humidity were extremely humbling and I cannot wait to go back to Coldsprings.  Oh, since we have all been talking about snakes lately - I ran over a rattlesnake that was like a foot wide and 5 ft long.  It was ginormous!  I have never seen a rattler that big.  Actually it is the first rattler I have seen in Texas in the 6 years I have lived here - used to see them all the time when I lived in MD and PA.  We have more of a water moccassin and copperhead population in SE TX.

• My current weight is 160lbs.  That means I lost 2 lbs during this weeks training.  When I gain weight it always shows in my stomach.  I had a slight Muffin Top belly going on for the last 6 weeks and it is already gone - just amazing how this sport leans up your body.

• Some rather big news!  I officially registered for Ironman Texas on May 21st, 2011.  It is still open (as of right now) so if you want in you better sign up soon.  The RD left a message on BT.com that is was filling up even quicker than expected.  Even cooler is that some friends (Mike, Patrick, Bobby, Diane, Suzy, and Todd) have also enter.  This is cool because we will have a nice group to do the long boring training with.  My plan is to train my butt off for the IronStar in Novemeber and then begin a 24-Week Full Ironman training program the first week of December.  Unfortunately with the timing of the Ironman I will not be able to do the 50K Texas Trail Run in December or the January Houston Marathon with my wife (will do the half instead).  The reason is that these long runs take multiple days to recover and I cannot afford to lose those training days.

• BUT we will still be doing the Tough Mudder in Austin on the weekend of February 5th, 2011.  Big Daddy Diesel Scott from TriDiesel is coming down to the Lone Star State for the race and we are cordially inviting all our other blogger buddies to join us!  We are thinking this could be a big old blogger meet up. We would all be one team and compete together.  So if you guys are interested check out the Tough Mudder link and let us know!  Over the next few months Scott and I will post more details.

• MOTIVATION - I am watching Any Given Sunday right now and the overall movie is average but in one of the scenes Al Pacino gives a pregame pep talk to his team that always seems to get me fired up.  So if you are looking for a kick in pants to get your workout started watch this clip and then go tear it up:

Now get out there and fight for that inch!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff