Weekly Ramblings - 1/10/2011

Week-In-Review:
Looking back at the past week we had the inspection for our house and everything checked out well so now it is just a waiting game until our closing date!  This weekend involved some packing of things we do not use very often to get the house picked up and ready for renters at some point.  We also managed to sell a massage chair I had won since it sat around most of the time not being used.  I was quite happy to clean it out of the living room!

A funny story from the inspection: When I got there my Realtor who is also my sister-in-law was there and had been talking to the home owner and getting the scoop on the neighborhood and people.  Somewhere in the conversation he said something about "Jeff being a runner or doing triathlons"  She was a bit taken aback by this and said "Yeah, how did you know that"  Well apparently his wife googled me and must have found the blog!  I thought it was super funny being that I work in IT, and could see myself doing it as well as my sister-in-law wanting to do the same thing.

I am glad she found the blog, another hit!  This did spark up a conversation with another person in real estate this week.  We were discussing about people not having their facebook accounts locked down, and how some Realtors or clients are now leveraging social media when going through negotiations.  If it was that easy to find me, and being that buying/selling/renting a home is often a highly emotional time.  A simple status update of "Just put an offer in on our dream home" could result in a seller finding it, and saying nope these people want the house bad, we are not going to move our price.  Just one way to leverage technology in our world!

Along the lines of additional hits for the blog, let me just say things have been hopping around here.  Last month accounts for nearly 25% of my total hits!  Glad to see more traffic, currently the highest hit count is on the Wahoo Fitness review!  Why did I not think about using this when my 310xt battery crapped out on one of my rides?

Edit: I forgot to add this in the first posting.  Friday morning I did my first ever spin class with some people from work.  Holy heck, I could have sworn the instructor was trying to kill me.  I asked them to save me a seat, well they saved me the bike right in the front row directly in front of the instructor!  What great friends!  Now spin is much different than I was anticipating.  I was not read for in and out of the saddle, bar position 1, 2, and 3.  This was a lot of movement for me, but boy oh boy was it a workout.  It was not terribly warm, but we started doing a climb set.  Starting on resistance of 5 and standing it went up in resistance over time until it was all I could do to get my body weight to push the pedal down. 

I sweat a lot, although recently I have not been nearly as bad as a few years ago, but I drink a lot of water and sweat a lot when I work out.  My bike had a puddle, no better yet, a pool of water.  I could have probably swam laps in it.  I think I was the only person with that much under me.  I am in good shape right now, sure not my peak, but still in good shape, how did other people appear to be doing this so easily?!?

Friday afternoon, I got out of work a bit early and decided to go for a run.  It was snowing, not terribly hard at the start, but enough that the sidewalks were starting to cover.  I set off with the intent of doing around 8 miles or so.  As I started running, I had 2 8oz bottles of Infinit along with for nutrition/hydration.  I have never quite gotten my formula dialed in, but knew I needed to take something with so I would not crash hard that night.  I am glad I did, but as cold as it was, they started to freeze on me!  Slushy Infinit in Fruit Punch... it was pretty tasty!  That being said, as the run progressed, I felt better and better, legs moving freely, snow getting a bit deeper, but not too deep to run in yet.  I ended up pushing out just over 10 miles, feeling amazing around 9 minute miles. 

I have had issues with GU for nutrition in the past, finding that Hammer Gel is easier on my stomach, but still not the right answer, and thus went for Infinit.  It has been by far the best for me, but still not perfect.  Which leads me to the next point.... Trakkers newest team sponsor! First Endurance!  I have never used their products before, so I hope they can be the remedy I need.  If the Ultragen is half as good as everyone claims it to be, I am anxious to start using their products.  While nutrition has not been huge for my shorter distances, as I look to build to longer events, it becomes vital... look for a post in the future about fueling your body. 

So Welcome to First Endurance, it is great to be on a partner team with you, looking forward to trying some new products and providing feedback to all the users in blogland.

Moving Forward:
I finally got my copy of Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide and have started reading a bit into it.  My thoughts are to do one more week in a prep phase, and then jump to a mid level Olympic plan for Knoxville, and then transition to a HIM plan for Cedar Point.

I am not currently registered for any events in 2011, but plan on getting signed up this week!  This is the year to increase distance and hopefully keep getting faster at the shorter distances. Tentative race schedule:

May 15 - Rev3 Olympic Knoxville
June 5 - New Brighton Sprint
June 11/12 - MS150
June 26 - Waconia Triathlon (Possibly)
July 23 - Warrior Dash - Minnesota
September 11 - Rev3 Half Cedar Point

I may also throw in a race in August, there is a nice 1/3 IM not too far from home that could be a good tune-up/gauge for Cedar Point.

Looking forward to meeting some of my Trakkers Team at the Rev 3 Events!

Also don't forgot to check out DCRainmakers Giveaway