Long Time No See

Well, I am alive and well. I know it has been a long time since I posted last, but I have been recharging the batteries and getting ready to gear up for the remainder of the season. I used the week and a half following Steelhead to recover and get in a few solid days of cycling before I left the country for 8 days. The day before our vacation, I did an uphill time trial here in Lexington which was put on by the local tri team here (Bluegrass Tri Club). It was a lot of fun (or at least as much fun as you can have during hard efforts) and a solid last workout before vacation. I drove to Corbin after that bike ride, packed my bags, and was ready to roll Thursday morning. We left Corbin around 5 am and made it to Knoxville for our flight with plenty of extra time. We flew to Charlotte, and then to Punta Cana, Dominican Rupublic. We arrived sometime in the late afternoon and we used the rest of the day to check out our resort and find a nice place to eat. We only had to narrow it down to 1 place of the 14 restaurants that were on our resorts property, ha. We went to bed early since we only got 3 - 4 hours of sleep the night before and were ready to hit the beach.

Here's a pic from our first day on the beach.
Just a shot of the water from our seats. Nice a clear.

We mostly hung out the rest of the day and went out to eat at a different place (which I regret) that evening. Here is a pic from dinner.

Unfortunately, I got something from the food and was sick for the next 2 days. I never threw up but you can use your imagination what I was dealing with. I lost roughly 3 - 4 pounds in 24 hours. All I did was drink water/Powerade, rest, and make frequent visits to the potty.

But, that was the worst part. I still managed to hang out on the beach those days because I didn't feel terrible, just not normal/good. The rest of the food was pretty amazing. We had room service from 7 am - 11pm so we usually ordered a fruit tray after our afternoon run. Fresh papaya and mangos are amazing. The breakfast was always good with omelettes but their version of oatmeal was a little strange (or at least for my taste).

Once I was recovered, I tried to take my rental bike out for a spin, but the chain was broken. Oh well, guess I was going to have to stick to running for the remainder of the vacation.

Adam and I found some pretty baller hats. We did not purchase them because it would have been a safety hazard for us both due to the ladies, ha.

Since we had all of the entertainment we would ever want right on our resort property, we stayed put most nights. This night I tried my luck with some roulette. I lost money really fast that night. I may have lasted 3 minutes. The next night I went back and played for almost 45 minutes and managed to lose zero dollars, but I did not make any as well.

We got to swim with dolphins, sharks, and manta rays while we were there which was pretty cool. Here the sharks are only inches below my feet.

We had a great time and here was a family pic from the last night.

We got back late on a Friday and I was ready to get back to the serious training. Only problem was the fact that I hadn't swam/biked in over a week. My first few rides were a little rough, but I didn't feel as terrible as I thought I would in the water. It is now Saturday morning and I'm about to head out for another bike ride.

Tri for Sight is on the 5th of September, the 10k for 10k in London, KY is the 11th of September (along with UK's first home football game and the first weekend of NFL football, holler) and then I have the Augusta 70.3 race on the 26th of September. With my vacation, I'm mentally and physically rested and ready to hit it hard leading up to Clearwater 70.3.

Until next time...

T-Bird

Pic of the Podium

So I definitely snagged this pic from James Cotter's blog. Thanks bro. Nice race.

And as you can probably tell, we were definitely not ready for the picture. I believe the announcer has asked us something so everyone turned around except for me. Guess I missed out.

Tony

Steelhead 70.3 RR

Well, my last race in the month of July has come and gone and I am extremely pleased with the effort/result. Now its time for a little rest and recovery during the month of August before I start my training block for Augusta and Clearwater.

Thursday, my brother and I left town and headed for St. Joseph, MI to compete in the Steelhead 70.3 race on Saturday. We got up there in the late afternoon and went for a little lake swim. It was extremely windy and the lake conditions looked more like an ocean when we swam. We only hoped the weather wouldn't be like that for the race. After the swim, we walked around downtown, found some good food and ice cream, and called it a night. Friday we woke up, got our pre race workouts over with and hit downtown again for some more food. Afterwards, we drove to a blueberry farm and picked up 10 pounds of blueberries and the best blueberry scone I had ever eaten. We headed to pick up our packets and made it back to our home stay's house before 4:30. After a little cat nap, we went to dinner and called it a night.

Saturday morning came and it was extremely nice knowing that the transition area was only about .5 mile from our home stay's house. The second we walked out the door, it started to spit rain and it only got progressively harder. I racked my bike in transition, and attempted to stay dry for a while. My brother and I decided to run our bags back to the house since we had a little time to kill, and the house was in the direction of the swim start. I walked down to the beach from the house, and swam to the swim start for a good warm up.

At 7 am we were off. I had a great start and may or may not have been the first person to the first buoy. After a little jockeying for position, I got a great rhythm and swam as fast as I could. About halfway through the swim, I had a swimmer come by me so I sat on his feet for a few hundred yards. We closed the gap to the group in front of us and we actually went by the group. I ended up leading that 2nd pack out of the water which was unusual for me. I was 4th out of the water but the pack was made up of about 10 guys, so I was probably the 8th person or so out of T1. After 2 guys took off in the first 5 miles or so, I settled into pace and just tried to keep those guys in sight. Around mile 20 - 25, Michael Lovato, Zach Ruble, and another guy flew by me. Once again, I put my head down and attempted to keep them close. I did a decent job until about mile 40. Daniel Bretscher and myself ended up almost riding the whole course together (legally). He did beat me back to T2 by 15 seconds or so, but he was still in sight. I had a great transition, but thanks to the rain, my shoes were completely soaked. The rain had only stopped a few minutes earlier, but the sun was already poking its head out. I tried to do what I did at Kansas and just take my time on the run. I was not catching anyone in the first hundred meters so I needed to pace myself. Around mile 1 I ran by Bretscher and Ruble was just up the road. I passed him at mile 3 and another pro around mile 4. At the 5 mile mark I had a spectator tell me I was in 5th position. I had no idea what place I was in, but 5th place was the last place to get prize money so I needed to stay where I was at. Ryan Bates, who was spectating, yelled at me and told me Lovato was just up the road. I was on a mission to catch him. I ran the next 4 miles at 5:45 pace when I covered the first 6 miles in just under 6:00 pace. I passed Lovato around mile 10 or so and tried to pick up the pace from there. I held onto 4th place and crossed the finish line in a time of 3:58:17.

This was my best finish in an Ironman event, my first time receiving a paycheck from an Ironman event, and I also qualified for the World Championship race in Clearwater.

Thanks again to Ann who let both my brother and I crash at her house for the weekend.