Wanted to throw in a little story  about my little ( not so little anymore ) girl Eva. She entered a kids triathlon this weekend, and with the pressure of dad reminding her that she has never lost a triathlon (she had the fastest Ironkids time in the nation last year for 7 year olds) for 2 years straight, she was ready to tow the line and race! 

Following in the footsteps of Sharpless and Kim Hager’s daughter, Eva swims competitively for C.O.P.S. and puts in 6 days a week training, at 7, so the swim was a breeze and she past about 7 people in the pool with a 2:00/100m avg. 

She them mounted her bike, after a loooooong transition (hasn’t learned how to put shoes on with wet feet yet) and put in a conservative 14.5 mph on the bike. 

After a very quick transition, and unlike her father who can’t run to save his life, she ran the mile in 7:05! Not only did she blow by every competitor out there, but it also humbled me who barely ran 7’s in an Olympic tri a week earlier! 

She won the 7-8 girls and boys division, and finished 6th overall and 1st overall female! 

It was great to see her and all the other kids out there learning the sport we all on Timex love so much! 

Check the blog in 2016 and I am sure you will have plenty to read from Eva. 

The family and I drove out to Texarkana, TX for the 4 States Triathlon. They call it the 4 States Triathlon because it is held in the top east corner of the Texas/Arkansas border, and since Oklahoma and Louisiana are close enough ( we drive far in the South) you get our version of the 4 corners!

This race is always well run, they give prize money every year, and it was also the SouthMidWest Triathlon Sprint Championship! I decided to give it a go. With it being a championship race and prize money, you never know who shows up for a race like this, so I was prepared just to go hard and see what happens.

Swim was good and I came out of the water in 3^rd without having to push to hard with my Blueseventy Helix wetsuit. On a side note, I like non wetsuit swims because being a good swimmer I have more of an advantage, but at the same time swimming 1:10 100’s without kicking isn’t to bad either! I caught the 1-2^nd place athletes in transition and was off on the bike.

An athlete and myself cranked up the pace and we established a gap quickly on the flat and smooth course. It always helps having somebody close in a sprint to help in keeping the pace up when it starts to hurt. We got back to transition together and covered the 13 miles in 30.31 on a course that had 2 u-turns! That is about all I had speed wise, and was happy.

I knew the athlete with me is a better runner than I, but right from the start I was able to run with him. That was until he decided to discharge his breakfast a couple of times, and then just took off after about a mile. I was running hard, and with about .5 miles to go, I was being chased down. I tried to sprint, but these old legs don’t go like they used to and got out leaned at the line! I had a good run, but will never match guys running in the 16’s for 3 miles.

My redemption for the day, besides winning $150 bucks, was during awards when I brought my 5 year old to the podium. The 1^st and 2^nd place guys were 21 and 17, closer to my daughter age than mine!

Oh well, at least I represented the 35-39 age range!

The family and I drove out to Texarkana, TX for the 4 States Triathlon. They call it the 4 States Triathlon because it is held in the top east corner of the Texas/Arkansas border, and since Oklahoma and Louisiana are close enough ( we drive far in the South) you get our version of the 4 corners!

This race is always well run, they give prize money every year, and it was also the SouthMidWest Triathlon Sprint Championship! I decided to give it a go. With it being a championship race and prize money, you never know who shows up for a race like this, so I was prepared just to go hard and see what happens.

Swim was good and I came out of the water in 3^rd without having to push to hard with my Blueseventy Helix wetsuit. On a side note, I like non wetsuit swims because being a good swimmer I have more of an advantage, but at the same time swimming 1:10 100’s without kicking isn’t to bad either! I caught the 1-2^nd place athletes in transition and was off on the bike.

An athlete and myself cranked up the pace and we established a gap quickly on the flat and smooth course. It always helps having somebody close in a sprint to help in keeping the pace up when it starts to hurt. We got back to transition together and covered the 13 miles in 30.31 on a course that had 2 u-turns! That is about all I had speed wise, and was happy.

I knew the athlete with me is a better runner than I, but right from the start I was able to run with him. That was until he decided to discharge his breakfast a couple of times, and then just took off after about a mile. I was running hard, and with about .5 miles to go, I was being chased down. I tried to sprint, but these old legs don’t go like they used to and got out leaned at the line! I had a good run, but will never match guys running in the 16’s for 3 miles.

My redemption for the day, besides winning $150 bucks, was during awards when I brought my 5 year old to the podium. The 1^st and 2^nd place guys were 21 and 17, closer to my daughter age than mine!

Oh well, at least I represented the 35-39 age range!

I was recently asked to give a training and nutrition seminar for Hunt Oil in Dallas, TX. (http://www.huntoil.com/) I was first amazed how nice the office was, and yes I grumbled about the price of gas, but I also realized that they really look after their employees (did I say how nice their office was?) and when I learned what they were doing, I was very excited to participate.

Hunt Oil put together a MS150 cycling team, open to all their employees, purchased cycling outfits, held seminars and free lunches for participants, and even sponsored a rest stop at the race! 

My seminar revolved more around nutrition. I have to give out thanks to POWERBAR for allowing me to sound like a nutritionist! We went over calorie, sodium, and electrolyte intake and stressed how important it is to replenish what you lose if you are going to ride 150 miles! If you follow this link http://www.powerbar.com/NutritionResource/ToolsArticles/ you will have all the information you need to become a better athlete and perform better! We did some group rides and the team was ready on race morning.

Congratulations to all the Hunt Oil MS150 team members for having 2 good days on the bike and thanks to the company for supporting an active lifestyle for their employees.

Now if we can work on this $4.00 a gallon thing…. 

I first want to say how grateful and honored it is to be on Team Timex! Not only is the support from sponsors incredible, but the athletes on the team are incredibly talented and motivating. Between seeing your teammates do exceptionally well in races, and the aura that surrounds you when you show up in a Team Timex outfit, makes you want to train hard and perform well!

Being I hate cold weather and water(yes, 55 degree air temp is cold to me, I live in Texas) I really don’t get racing until late spring. I decided to race the 25^th Annual Corpus Christi Triathlon. I looked at the past results, and thought I could do well in the race and get a win for the team.

I line up for the swim, really don’t recognize anybody(then again when people are in wetsuits, caps and goggles, you can’t recognize anybody anyways) gun goes off, and I storm off into the bay with my Blueseventy Helix suit (http://www.blueseventy.com/). I am a pretty good swimmer(not Bruce “beecho” Genari ability) and I finish the 1000m swim in 3^rd place about 30 seconds behind the leader.

I jump on my new Trek TTX (http://www.trekbikes.com/) and cycling being my strength, I took off in pursuit of the leader. Now my race plan is usually to stomp the first 5-6 miles of the bike to catch whoever is ahead or put distance into the chasers. I knew right away I was in trouble when I was riding 24 MPH into a stiff headwind, and the lead motorcycle didn’t get any bigger! At the turnaround I was 1:30 down and couldn’t believe they guy put almost a minute into me! Rode back strong (I love tailwinds) and set off on the run.

Now running is my weakest event, so I usually try and hang on for dear life here.1st place was history, so I concentrated on keeping second. Well, I was slowly being run down, so with about a half mile to go, I slowed my pace, tried to catch my breath, and planned on running on the shoulder of the guy chasing and turn it into a sprint. I think the guy saw me doing that, so he countered and sprinted by me! He got a gap and maintained it to the finish.

3^rd overall, beat the course record, but lost to two pros (first place guy who destroyed us was 2^nd overall in the military championships)who also set course records and I have ZERO leg speed now that I am Ironman training!