The Breakdown

I got my split times for the triathlon today.

Swim - 7:34 That was a 300 meters. At the peak of my training I was getting times almost a minute faster. I'm not sure why that time fell off, but it is consistent with what I had been doing for the last month or so.

Swim-to-Bike transition - 2:24 This was a lot longer than almost everybody else in the race. I'll have to give this some thought for next time.

Bike - 37:12 I get conflicting information if the bike route was 11.1 miles or 11.5. I am told that my average speed was 17.8 mph. That is around 4 mph faster than what I rode during training here in hilly southern Lancaster County.

Bike-to-Run transition - 0:49 Not bad considering the way one's legs feel right after an aggressive bicycle ride.

Run - 26:31 That was a 5k (3.1 mile) run. That is an average of 8:33/mile, which is a good time for me without swimming and biking immediately beforehand.

Overall, I am very pleased with my first triathlon performance. I have some good areas to target to try to improve for next time.

Overall Time

I just got my overall time for the Triathlon. Starting from the beginning of my swim to the end of my run, my time was one hour fourteen minutes 29.8 seconds. That includes the transistion time between swimming and biking and biking and running. Sometime soon I should get the breakdown for each event and transition. I placed 97th out of 258 competitors. I was only 12th out of 17 men in my age group, though. But I did it!

Contrast this with my write up of my experience in the CrossWay Mile in June of 2007. I have come a long way.

Almost Six Weeks Later

It has been a while since I have written about Travis' injury. Travis is getting around well at this point. He definitely has a different gate. His stump does bother him if he walks on it for particularly long periods of time or when he does things like play ultimate frisbe. Ibuprofin and time off his feet seem to help.

Tomorrow Travis gets his insert for his shoe. The insert will have a toe shape to take up the space where his toe used to be. That will help his remaining toes to know where they are supposed to be.

Still looking for a job. Any takers?

I Actually Did It!

The moment of truth has come and gone. Just about one year ago I decided to get serious about losing weight. I started by just adding jogging to my weightlifting routine. That didn't do much. Then I got serious about my diet. Then things started to happen. At 245 pounds, I got worried about all the impact on my knees and ankles, so I started to alternate riding bicycle and jogging. Before I knew it a few friends convinced me to add swimming to all that and train for a sprinter's triathlon. Yesterday was the big day! At 42 years old and 205 pounds, I competed in my first triathlon. I don't have my times yet. I can tell you that I was successful in not giving up. I swam the 300 yards without a rest, and ran right to the bicycle. Then I rode pretty darn hard for the entire 11.1 mile bike course. Finally I ran the entire 5k (3.1 mile) footrace without walking.

When I get my times, I will post them here.

DUKE!

In the middle of May we finally got a new dog. In July of 2007, I decided to put Cary, our last dog, to sleep after years of medical problems .

Our new dog is Duke. He is half german sheppherd and half poodle. Duke has a wonderful disposition, and is all puppy. Even though he is only 17 weeks old, he weighs about 42 pounds. I don't think he is done growing yet.

I never have as much time as I would like to make my little videos. But as you know, this summer has been even harder than most. Everytime I try to put a video together of Duke, he had already grown rather noticably since the most recent footage. So I would put the project off. Well, posted below is a three minute video of our new little guy.

Father-Daughter Camp Out '08

As you know from the past several blog entries, “busy-ness” has taken on new meaning at our house between injuries, surgeries, accidents, teen employment and social agendas. One fun thing that I did get to do was take Angela to our church’s father-daughter camp out. She is the only one of our three daughters that is still young enough to go.

Even though it rained several times, and was steamy when it wasn’t raining, we all had a great time. This video should give you a decent idea of what it was like. My favorite memory isn’t on the video, though. That was Angela waking me up several times that night to sling her arm over me in our tent and say, “Daddy, I love you so much.”

Two Weeks Later...

Things continue to progress quickly for Travis. His stitches have been removed, and we are pursuing a few different orthodic apparati to help him. I am not sure what the difference is between the apparati, but I know it is too early for one of them. He went to get fitted for one yesterday. The technician told him that the fitting process would be too painful for him at this stage of recovery. The toe is still a bit swollen and quite tender.

Travis no longer wears the surgical boot. That means it is easier for him to sneak up on us now without the "Thump, pat, thump, pat" warning noise that he has been sending. He also does not wear any dressing on the toe, at least not the huge wrap that he had been using. He limps a bit, but has had no orthodic assistance or physical therapy yet. Maybe he will end up without any kind of limp at all. We will have to see.

If I made this video below, which I did not (hence the high quality) I would title it "Travis' Nightmare."