A Swimmer Coming to A Pool Near You...

Tonight was a swim lesson for me.  I have been averaging about 4 nights a week at the pool lately.  Which is more than the last 7 years of all my total time in the pool if I added them all together.  So I am a little green and rusty around the edges when it comes to swimming.

Coach Lyndsi was great as usual.  Showing me ways to get from one end of the pool the other.  We worked on my kicking in the water, balancing my core and butt to force myself higher in the water to allow for a better swim and ended with me finally working on my arms and how they need to be when I get going in motion.  I still got a long ways to go when it comes to putting it all together in one flawless motion.  But with her help I know I can get there.  We will meet again on the last Wednesday of this month for sure and probably one or two more times in the coming weeks.  And by the way it is only 25 meters in length and it is killing me.  I got a long ways to go before I think about swimming 1.4 miles at any one time that is for sure.  But that is for me to worry about next year.  This year I need to focus on swimming 300 meters first in the pool and then in the open water.  And Coach Lyndsi is seeing some improvements with me from the first time we met to now.  I learned a few new things that I need to practice with when I am in the pool again this weekend.

Weekend is going to be packed out for me.  Friday I will either bike or run a few miles.  Saturday is the 20 miler.  Sunday is the Social Run that I kind of need to be there since I am hosting it for the RAW Nation but once that is over than it is off for a bike ride and probably the pool later on that afternoon.  I will probably end up missing a little of the Super Bowl but who knows.  Right now I just want to get a bike and swim in first on Sunday but I have to wait until my services are no longer needed for the Social Run.

And BTW ever since I started swimming and swallowing the pool water I cannot seem to get that taste out of my head when I am drinking my bottle water.  Strange.  In my head I know but it kind of freaks me out to taste the water and immediately think it is pool water that I am drinking.

2014 will be the year about Stan.  I am going to focus on what I want for a change.  No more volunteering to help others all the time, no more feeling like I should be somewhere that I do not want to be because I couldn't say no and most importantly it is about time that I thought of myself a little more.  I usually allow myself to do what others want because that is just the person that I am.  But this year I will not be rude by any chance but there will be a little more selfishness in my decisions.  I need to remember this phrase "I love me some me".  Okay that might be a little too cocky even for me to say. But I am goal oriented and this is my goal for these next couple of years or more.  To get myself ready for a 2015 Ironman 70.3.

Pushing Myself Harder Than I Ever Have Before

As I am sitting here listening to some music I am planning out my rest of the week.  This weekend is going to be huge.  Got a 20 miler on Saturday and on Sunday I am hosting a Super Bowl Fun Run for RAW but after that I am riding the rest of the bike.  Not sure for how long but I can't wait to hop on and take her out for a spin.  Probably will ride from Grapevine to Keller on the back roads and then back.  Doubt I will head over to White Rock this weekend.  Tomorrow is more important for me as I take the next step in my swimming with a private lesson from Coach Lyndsi.  She is amazing and I know she can get me going shortly.  Nothing might be solved tomorrow night but I am at least hoping the start of something good will at least start tomorrow.  Thursday probably will just swim again with Friday being either a run or a bike session.  So this week is full with a lot of training.  This also keeps me not only busy but it keeps my mind focused.  And I need that in my life.

So for this year I am going to push myself harder than I ever have before.  I am going to be focused on getting my game on and doing a few sprints triathlons before starting to think about the 70.3 in 2015.  I am thinking about where to go for that and right now Knoxville interests me.  I would love to swim in the same water where the Vols Navy park their boats for UT games.  Good Ol Rocky Top.  Of course going outside the country for one would be awesome too.  Still got a long ways before I have to worry where in 2015 I will be doing the 70.3 but it will also be here before I know it and they will sell out quickly so I am going to have to pick one and then train like a bat out of hell to get ready for it.

But for now lets not think about swimming over a mile just yet until I can master the 300 meters first.

And I am back in the game

It is one week ago since I last really ran due to my shins.  I did try the treadmill last week but that only lasted a half mile before my shins started to hurt.  So I had my physical last Wednesday and when I talked to my doctor about it she told I could continue with my running as long as I did a few exercises before I really did my long runs.  Well today I ran for the first time in that one week.  I did intervals today just because it has been a while since I last ran and because my muscles were not there not to run at full speed just yet.  Well today the run went good not great but good.  The main thing is that I had no back or shin pains today after my 7 mile run.  It was slower than an old person crossing the grocery store lanes while you are wanting for them to finally find the side of the road so you can continue driving.  But it was almost pain free. The only pains I had were the usually pains from the muscles that haven't been used in a while.

After the run I went on to LA Fitness to continue my ugly looking swim session.  I swam 200 meters and actually swam each 50 meters at my top speed.  And needless to say that after just 150 meters my body was done but I wasn't.  I told myself that it is only two more swims and I would be finally done for the day.  Hit the hot tub after the swim and finally got home tired as all heck.

I need to keep myself focused on not drowning before my private lesson on Wednesday.  I am hoping between that lesson and the one at the end of the month that I will be able to start looking like an actual swimmer.

It is official. I am now fitted.

Well today at high noon I arrived at the Tri Shop ready to get biking.  Well fitted for a bike that is.  Heck I was still having to peddle like I was actually riding a bike.  And let me say that riding the still bike was showing me that man I am endurance challenged on the bike as well.  I rode it like a champion and then realized that while I felt like I rode for hours it was only a few minutes.  Oh this is going to be just great.  I mean I have yet to put the wheels to the road and I was already ready for a nap.  I am going to have to start working on the spin classes at LA Fitness along with riding with the DFW Tri Club soon to get that endurance up to at least average real soon.  No need think I will be the next Lance Armstrong anytime soon.  I will just start by putting goals in like making it to the end of the street, then to the next stop sign and finally maybe a mile or two.  With goals like that even I can meet them and exceed.  If you learn only one thing from me learn this.  Set your goals low and then you can always achieve them.

Now I need to actually get the bike.  I am going to call all my tri-friends and see what they would recommend.  They have experience in this and those people are always the best people to ask about advice.  I also need to remind myself to check my back seat to see if it actually folds down.  Become it is obvious that my mind is too busy with other things to remember to check something so simple.

Needless to say I did not swim or run today.  I will start back running tomorrow and hope that my shins will be better with these four days off.  It killed me that is for sure.  To see no clouds, great weather and perfect running conditions and I had to tell myself no.  Not today.  Today is a rest day to ensure your health down the road.

On a side note.  When you go to a restaurant and see no cars around yet they are open do you go inside to eat.  No seriously I would like to know because I saw that today and just kept on driving.  I mean it was 2 pm granted by shouldn't there have been at least a couple of cars there.  I know the other places around this one restaurant had cars in their spaces.  Made me wonder.

One a second side note.  A question that popped into my head and yes I am under the influence of brilliance.  But if you could go back in time and change one thing about your path what would you change.  Today I was thinking if only my shoulder wasn't so badly broken due to my running into a fence that didn't move although I sure as hell did.  But then I was thinking that if I could have changed that yes my shoulder would not be the way it is today.  But would I be here in Dallas, would I have attended or even know what a Fellowship Church was, would I have been able to be with great people, did my marathons, half-marathons or even now training for a triathlon.  Would I have dated someone like Diane and be rejected by here, would I have been volunteering in graphics and now not serving there.  Would I have been able to work for a great company that I am working for now and meeting such awesome co-workers.  None of these things would have been worth giving up just to have two perfectly healthy shoulders.  While it was not fun going through I would not have changed me charging for a ball only to slam into a fence and totally destroy a shoulder that one doctor said was the worst break he had ever seen.  But then that is what a perfectionist does.  They do it perfectly right.  So why would I break my shoulder half-ass when I can do it right and completely tear it a part.

Reaching New Heights

I am reaching new levels of distance in my swimming.  Now granted it is not straight swimming just yet.  Still getting my endurance for swimming up but it is coming a little at a time.  Each outing I am seeing improvements in my distances in the pool.  Today I swam 400 meters and it just about killed me.  I know that out of the three sports that make up an triathlon swimming is the most demanding of all the body parts that you have.  Running and Biking will focusing all most exclusively on the legs but swimming is everything.  And right now I swam 350 on Friday and it killed me but I came back on Saturday and swam 400 meters.  I am still only swimming with the snorkel right now but I am hoping within a private lesson or two to have the ability to swim both without a snorkel and without taking as many breaks and finally with no breaks.

March 16th Sprint Tri is a pool based swim.  So I am hoping to be able to do that one when that date comes.  Now after that the swims are open swims.  And that is something a little more scary for me at the current moment.  Open water means just as it sounds.  You are swimming with the fish, you are swimming away from the beach and dry land area and the further you swim the deeper the water gets as well.  So when those races come along I better have my swimming down or hope to be swimming new to a life guard.  But fear will always be there for me.  It is what can keep you going to overcome it or it can be what you use to quit altogether.  And for this I will use my fear to keep me focused on being that swimmer who can swim not only in the open waters but up to a mile or two and a half.  But lets focus on the 1.4 miles or whatever it is for the 70.3 Ironman.  I highly doubt I will be doing the elite ironman in my lifetime.  No matter how many them I may watch.

Now tomorrow I will be fitted for a bike.  Will not buy one tomorrow but will at least know what size bike I will need to be looking for when I do decide to buy one soon.

I literally cannot wait to start riding the bike and to start training for the open road.  I also cannot wait to hit the LA Fitness' Spinning Classes as well to help me build my strength and endurance in this sport as well.

The main thing I need to not forget is to stay focus on my running.  I cannot afford to get so catch up in swimming and biking that I let me running slide back to lower miles.  Because I am still wanting to  run my usual three or so half marathons this year and I still want to run at least one more marathon after I do the Cowtown at the end of February.

Now I just need to find a tri-girl to go after because we will have our activities in triathlons to start with in a relationship.  And I know she will be a far better athlete than me.  I am just an average guy who tries to reach for the stars.  While she will be someone who is in the stars trying to reach elite status.  I can handle that.

Swimming Weekend

I am fighting something that most runners will get from time to time.  It usually comes to runners when they try to expand their goals faster than their bodies can handle it.  And for me it is the shins.  I have had a couple of my last runs ruined by my shins hurting ever so slightly but noticeable on my runs.  So I decided after last Wednesday's run to take a few days off.  Wouldn't you know it that the last couple of days of have fantastic.  The sky clear of clouds and the weather right where you would want it for any run.  And here I am walking outside just saying to myself.  Damnit.  Why couldn't it be dark, cloudy and raining over these days that I am taking off.  But nooooo it has to be awesome outside.  So I am using this time to focus on my swimming instead.  I swam tonight and actually got in 350 meters tonight.  By far my longest I have ever swam at one moment in time.  And the distance of 300 is key for me right now as that is the swim distance for the sprint triathlon that I am wanting to do as early as March 16th.

My goal is to learn how to swim.  My goal is to make swimming not a weak spot of the three events in a triathlon but rather one of my strong points.  My goal is to keep trying and focusing on improving myself in all aspects of my game.  I know I can run.  Not great but good enough that I do not need to worry about that aspect in the triathlon.  I know I can ride a bike.  How good and for how long well that is something I need to find out for sure.  And that I will find out soon as I hope to have a bike by the end of January.

I will just need to focus myself on these goals in simple steps.  I am not a patience person so to focus on simple steps will not be easy.  I always feel like I can learn things quickly and should be a pro in anything I put my mind too in a few days.  I learn quickly and I am a hands on learner not a book learner.  So when I am in the pool I am learning hands on so I will always feel like I should get this down quickly.  Well that isn't happening just yet.  But patience is something I probably need to learn and this might be the trick to force me to learn it.

When do I breath

Tonight I was trying yet again to breath as I swim.  While I am getting better with the snorkel I am literally like a fish out of water without it.  I mean it looks like I have no clue which direction to turn my head as I am moving my arms to get air.  Then it will also appear that I am turning my head both directions because apparently I seem to think that I shouldn't be force to only get air from one side of my body over the other.  So I am in need of some serious training.  I am probably going to get with Coach Lyndsi and get her to help me some more.  I am seriously taking the serious about getting better with the swim.  Now I wish I would have liked swimming when I was young so this wouldn't be an issue now.  But that is in the past and the present is the only thing I can control and fix.  So today is the day for me to learn to love swimming no matter what lies ahead of me.

My Cowtown Marathon will be interesting.  Since I decided to start focusing on my tri events I have allowed myself to get a little over extended on my activities.  I am still focusing on the Cowtown but I am in no way putting myself under any pressure.  I want to see if I can run two marathons with a two or three month period of time.  This will help me to decide where I stand with my running.  Can I keep myself motivated for such long distances over long periods of time.  Because if I am going to focus on a 2015 70.3 Ironman I need to know I can do it.  So I will do my best to get through it but I will be more interested in how I feel both during the event and after.  This will be a huge test for me.  I need to improve my mental approach to my running.  I need to also start my mental toughness for not only the run now but to push that into my swimming and biking as well.  I cannot be a Ironman if I still live with a 10k mentality.  I will get nowhere with that approach.

Tomorrow I am running in the morning and maybe just maybe a swim in the evening.

"Pushing Myself Harder Than I Have Ever Push Myself Before"

KT is great

Okay.  So I ran Saturday with KT on my back and I was amazed.  My running coach was so right about that little tape it actually does take away the pain.  I may not know how it works but who cares it works.

Now today after work and before my running meeting I decided to run without the KT tape and WOW what a difference.  I not only needed the KT tape today on my back but I also needed it on my calves.  The pain or tightness that I was feeling was enough for me to realize that a Monday run wasn't the time or spot for me to be superman.  The weekend long run yes.  Monday no.  So I cut my run a little bit shorter than I would have liked but in the end it was probably the best for me.

No swimming for me today.  Just too much going on today so I just couldn't get it fitted in to my schedule.  Tomorrow I am hoping to get some in that night.  I will head off to LA Fitness and as much as I hate doing it I will probably run the treadmill and then finish it off with a swim.  I am still not getting how this can be so tough for me to do.  Why is breathing and swimming so hard for me to get.  I mean come on I can breath and walk, I can breath and run and I can breath and sleep.  So again what in the world is so tough for me.  But I will get it I know.  I am just not patience with learning new things.  It comes so easy for me to learn new things in life.

Swimming Weekend

Holy Cow this is so frustrating for me.  I have always been a on hands learner.  Once I do it a couple of times I am good to go.  With everything in my life I am a quicker learner because I learn quicker while doing rather than reading about it.  So for me this weekend is both a learning process and a process of patience.  And patience is not one of my strong points in my life.  I did see a little progress today, Sunday.  But it was very little and it is killing me.  I see the other guy swimming like it is nothing.  My coach makes it look so easy as well.  Just breath out of your nose when your face is in the water and then breath in with your mouth when it is out of the water.  Simple.  Well not so fast.  I am getting the breathing out of my nose part.  But I am mostly getting water and not air when I turn my head to breath back in.  Water that can't be good.  And I am drinking so much water I believe that they may need to refill the pool everything I leave.  I am envisioning myself being a decent swimmer shortly.  Now I just need to know what shortly really means.  Is it by the end of this month, next or when?  I am not someone who likes to be kept in the dark about anything.  And I want control of everything I do.  I need to be in control for sure.  So this is really killing me because I know that I have control but it isn't really under my control in the end.  It will be patience, practice and lots of listening and learning to get this down to where I am doing it correctly and for a good distance too.

Well that is pretty much how my weekend went.  Got in soon running, got in lots of water time and even officially signed up for the DFW Tri Club as well.  I am now both an member of DFW Tri and LA Fitness.  I really am enjoying the pool there and the fact that so far I have been able to get a lane by myself which helps me a lot.

Friday is the first day

I am collecting all the information I need to join the Tri DFW Club and this Friday will be my first time to meet some of the people in the group.  It will also be the first time in years that I will be in the pool to actually swim.  Oh what the heck am I saying it might also be the first time I have been in the pool period.  I have lived by pools for a lot of years only to probably average about one trip a year to the pool.  So for me to be going to the pool this early in the year is AMAZING.  I will by the end of the month have a chance to be at the pool more times that all my pool going added together while I have lived in Texas.  But I am excited this time about it because this Friday will also mark the start of a new challenge for me and one I never thought I could have done due to my shoulder.  So bring on the water.  I am about to become a swimmer after all.  This will be great for my parents because now I will actually want to hang out by the pool in the summer more than I have in the past.  So bring on the pool parties.  But I probably shouldn't drink and swim just yet.  Still a light weight in the drinking department.  I would hate to get lost in the pool if I drank too much.

As you can tell not much to write about tonight.  I could have mentioned my horrible run but I decided to focus on the positive thoughts tonight and for me that is ironically swimming.  

"Pushing Myself Harder Than I Ever Have Before"

Pushing Myself Harder Than I Ever Have Before

To start the year off I needed to review my past year along with taking into account what I would like to accomplish this year.  I needed to see what areas I would like to build upon and which areas I needed to either improve or get rid of from my life.  Like my running for example.  I know I can do a lot of distances between 1 and 13.1 miles.  I completed my first marathon and even though it wasn't great it did at least show me that I can go beyond what limitations I may have put upon myself before I started the year 2013 much less how I would like to improve on my running going into 2014.  Then there are areas like social anxiety, general anxiety and my depression that I would like to not only see improvement on for the coming year but I would love to see all of these things to exit my life once and for all.  So with that in mind I decided back in November to take a deeper look into where I wanted to go in the coming year.  Not one of these let's make a quick decision on New Year's Eve at 11:58 with only two minutes to go to make up something that I wanted to improve but never put any thought into.  This year I took this step very seriously and with great thought.

So here is what I would like to improve on, add to my life or change about my life going into the current year.

Join DFW Tri Club and start training for my first tri. Might be a small one for 2014 but I would be focusing on 2015 for an bigger tri race for sure. Of course apart of this goal will also involve me to learn how to swim with a bad shoulder and that one other little thing. Finding a bike.

Run at least 2 marathons this year. First of those two is in two months. So after that it would probably be the BCS one in College Station or I will find one before the year is over.

Try to get entered into the Marine Corp Marathon. Just luck of the draw for this one. It sells out quickly every year.

Get my weight down to 140 again. I gained weight for the marathon but now I need to focus on getting it back to an manageable weight.

Get more involved in my church for men's and single's ministry. I may not be volunteering a lot, if any at all, but I still need to be involved in other ways regardless.

Try to learn one thing a week. Could be simple like how to cook salmon on the grill, to how to improve my knowledge in business, to something weird like math formulas. As long as it is new to me.

Train my mind to stay focused on my running goals.

Get a grip on my General Anxiety and Social Anxiety in my life and to be there for anyone else who might struggle with this as well.

Get closer to God.

And finally to find a person or two in my life that would think that these goals are beyond my reach. I have one already in my life but if I can add another person or two that would only motivate me all the more to prove them wrong.

2014 is all about going beyond what I have ever done before in my life. To prove to myself that I can do the impossible. And heck if I can prove others wrong along the way more the merrier for me.

These are my goals for this year.  

In two days I will reach one of the happiest days of my life even if that happiness was short lived.  That would be the day that Diane said yes to me when I asked her out.  Even if I knew one year ago that Diane would want me out of her life in only two short months I believe I would still have asked her out last year.  Even with knowing the pain that I felt once it was over.  I am just not as good with handling this as women are.  Women I believe can just break it off and then continue on with their life like nothing happened.  Or they will treat the relationship as a business transaction.  Once it doesn't benefit them then the merger is over.  I am working on building myself to be able to handle things like this for sure.  But still come Tuesday I will be thinking of that day just for a few moments because it was special.  And after all it is not like you get to be with a perfect person, in my mind she was totally perfect, for any length of time.

But again this year is the first year I have ever added an slogan to my year.  But this year a slogan has been established.

"This is the year that I will push myself harder than I have ever pushed myself before."

Let the year start and let the training begin.  Because this year I am taking seriously my training in swimming and biking.  I am actually looking forward to training for the swimming.  Ironic that after all these years of living usually about 100 yards or less to an pool that I just never went and now I am excited about swimming in these things called pools.