My First Tri

This morning I completed my first triathlon.  It was a lot of fun.  Matt Nix told me about this race, and he and Denise met us there this morning.  It was an off-road sprint triathlon, so the biking portion was mountain biking and considerably slower than riding on roads.  It was at Joe Pool Lake in Grand Prairie, which is about an hour from our house.  We decided to leave Lila with Aunt Janina and take Wyatt down the night before and stay in a hotel nearby.  The idea was that we'd get more sleep by not having to get up so early since we wanted to be at the park by 5:30.  Well that didn't really work because Wyatt basically kept us up all night.  So with about two hours of sleep, we headed out from the hotel around 5am.

I started getting my bike and transition gear ready by the headlights of the car since it was pitch dark.

There was a little bit of light when I actually went down to rack my bike and setup my transition area.

Okay, here we go.  Thirty seconds to swim start.

And I'm off.  I'm the rightmost guy, basically in the center of the picture.

Wyatt is pointing me out to Denise. "Look, there's Daddy in the water."  He really loves poining lately.

Emerging from the swim.  I lost 15 pounds training for this race, but there's still plenty of gut to make me wince at this picture.

Through the first transition and riding out on the bike.

Coming back into the transition area at the end of the bike.  The bike was the longest component at about 1 hour 16 minutes for me to do the 20km (about 12 and half miles.)  There were a lot of places with pretty deep sand and a lot of fields where the grass wasn't cut very short.  So it seemed longer than 12 miles.  Thankfully, it was pretty flat.
My fans were as tired as I was by the end of the race.  Colette took some great pictures of Wyatt at the race.  Watch for them to show up on her blog.  ameybc.blogspot.com

Crossing the finish line at a little over two hours.  The clock says 2:09, but that was the time from the start of the first wave of swimmers, and I was in the second wave.  My official time was 2:03:34.

Me with my biggest fan.

Matt and I after the race.  We were covered in dirt from the dust on the trail mixed with our sweat.

Exhibit A.

So we went for another swim.

I had a great time, so I'm looking forward to picking out my next race.

Second 5km race

I ran in the McKinney Historical Run yesterday and finished in 30 minutes and 0.44 seconds. Yes that's zero point 44 seconds. So just a little bit more of a push at the end and I would have been 29 minutes and something. I was still very happy with my time. I had been a little stuffed up, and my time was a little over 33 minutes in the race about 2 months ago. The goal for the next run will be somewhere under 30 minutes.

The 5k runs have been part of my training for the off-road triathlon, which is next weekend. I hope I'm ready.

Brief Fitness Update

I'm about 8 weeks into my training and I've made some big gains.

                         First result       Most Recent
                         (mid May)       (mid July)       Change
Weight                224                 214                10 pounds
1 mile run           10:36           8:05           2 min 31 sec
2 mile run           21:01           17:59           3 min 2 sec
3 mile run           31:59           29:19           2 min 40 sec
4 mile run           46:48          39:44           7 min 4 sec


My goals by the end of July:
1. Weight below 212
2. One mile below 8 minutes
3. Three mile below 29 minutes
4. Five mile below 50 minutes

I'm now officially registered for the Prairie Trail Off Road Sprint Triathlon and the McKinney Historical Run 5k. Those race dates should keep me motivated.

Fitness

Pushing Wyatt in the Dadfest 5k.

Pulling Lila in the bike trailer.

The title of my blog is "What's Ben into now?" because, as Colette will tell you, I frequently change hobbies. Some stick around (Guitar Hero), some fizzle because the equipment is expensive (astronomy), and some I just get tired of (too many to name).

My latest thing is fitness. I've had goals many times to run or lose weight. But those, like so many people's new year's resolutions, last about a week. But when a friend asked me if I wanted to do an off-road sprint triathlon in August, I was a little bit interested. Suddenly, I had a goal--not make a complete fool of myself. Well, this has been quite motivational.

Since that invitation about three weeks ago I have :

1. Acquired a bike trailer so I can pull Lila on my bike

2. Acquired a jogging stroller so I can push Lila or Wyatt while running

3. Made a couple of bike upgrades.

4. Run about 17 miles, biked about 39 miles, and ridden the stationary bike about 34 miles

5. Lost about 5 pounds

The particular triathlon I'm thinking about for August is a 400 meter swim, 12.5 mile off-road cycling, and 3.1 mile run. Colette thinks I'm insane. Three weeks ago my goals for the triathlon were to A) finish and B) not die. Now these goals might seem like a low bar, but I was pretty out of shape. After a couple weeks of running and cycling, I think I am prepared to add a third goal: C) not finish dead last.

I figured I needed a few baby steps, so I decided to run in a 5k. That event was this morning. I pushed Wyatt in the jogging stroller and finished 317 out of over 600 people with a not-so-impressive time of 33:02. I didn't really know what to expect in terms of time because I have never run that far pushing the stroller. I thought maybe I'd be a bit faster because of the extra excitement of the event, but the time wasn't really a faster pace than when I run in the mornings. The event was "Dad Fest" which is a fundraiser/awareness-raiser for prostate cancer.

Above are just a couple pictures. There was some fun stuff for Lila to do at the Dadfest event, so I'm sure Colette will post some pictures of the kiddos on her blog.