Stress Relief

Exercise is my stress relief. Its my outlet. I used to play a lot of video games but found that they instead caused more stress in anxiety. With triathlon training if I'm having a bad day I can take it out on the water, pedals, or pavement.

Day 2

Bike

I just got on the trainer for about 30 minutes. I was more interested in seeing what zones I could hit and how long I could maintain each effort. Its been a long time since I've gotten on the bike. Felt good though. It helped melt away some of the stress I had been carrying through the day. I was even able to solve some work problems afterwards because it cleared my head.

Being Flexible

Well I never said this was going to be easy. Going to start from day 1 again but I'm starting to feel like I've mentally regained my mental commitment to testing my physical limits.

One of the things I've learned about becoming a parent is you often learn to be more flexible. You're no longer just compromising with your significant other but you're compromising with another person who you can't even reason with.

When things don't go your way and there's nothing you could have done about it, its important to acknowledge that fact and just move on as quickly as possible. Remaining flexible in life is, to me, what Bruce Lee was describing in his "Be like water" analogy:

Day 1

Swim

I'm just taking things one at a time. I know personally that my swim is the weakest so that's the part that I have to spend the most time as I get back into race shape.

I swam for a little over 15 minutes, just doing drills to work on my form. I felt surprisingly good. I guess it has to do with me spending most of my swims in the open water. The pool just seems like a piece of cake now.

Open Letter to Endorphin Fitness Ironman Team

All,

I can't begin to describe how immensely proud I am for all of you. For most of this past year I watched as you constantly pushed your physical and mental boundaries with your training and commitment.

All of your EF teammates here in Richmond watched and cheered you on as you took on Coeur d'Alene Ironman. It was great entertainment for me while I was up with the baby! I was excited as I saw your stories of perseverance and accomplishment. I know for some of you the race did not go exactly as you anticipated but you made it through your training and to the start line and that's pretty amazing to me.

I hope all of you get your well deserved rest. I can't wait to see all of you to hear your stories and get out there training again soon. You all are a true inspiration!

Sincerely,
- Ryan

A Little Out of Tri Shape

I'll admit it. Keeping up with workouts with a baby is hard. I thought that I would be able to maintain my regiment but have quickly fallen out of that. And now after two weeks of sporadic activity I've gotten out of tri shape. I need to get back on course! So I'll be starting another exercise streak (I said it was hard, not impossible). This time though, the emphasis will be on the at least 10 minutes of activity everyday more than anything else. I just need to build up a consistent routine again.

Mentally wise, I need to remind myself I'm not where I used to be and I think that was holding me back. I've had the mentality that I could compete at the age group level and when I couldn't get the workouts required for those goals in I just wouldn't do them. So now my goal is just to finish a sprint triathlon. After that, I'll reevaluate where my fitness is and raise my expectations accordingly.

Finally I'm going to sign up for a race, the 3Sports Sprint Triathlon. I'm a firm believer that you need to have a goal on the calendar to work towards to in order to achieve optimal fitness.

Morning Run

This was my wake up call. I was surprised how hard it was. I did get into a groove after a mile and a half but I feared that if I kept pushing it I would be spent for the rest of the week.

Strength Workout

I just did one set of everything. Some of the exercises involved quite a bit of balance and I'm starting to realize that is a weak area in my strength fitness.

New Mantras

Well that ended quickly. I had gotten up my most recent exercise streak up to 10+ days but with family in town to visit the little man that just went out the window.

I think we've fully acclimated to having a child, at least as best as we can be. In fact, my wife actually started triathlon training too! I better watch out, I was with her during her entire labor and if she endured all that I'm sure she'll be kicking my butt in no time.

I've decided that I'm going to live by two new mantras; basically they are new phrases for me to live by. The first one, No Excuses is actually inspired by a teammate of mine. In one of his posts, Grayson gives an amazing race report describing what its like to compete for first place. The part that struck me the most though and inspired this first mantra was the following:

But many other triathletes out there felt the need to tell me why they were not on the top step today. And I could have responded informing them that I raced with a concussion, that just a few months ago I was out for six weeks with a gnarly sprained ankle. Or that my body was rejecting all fluids today and I puked all over myself multiple times in this race. Or I could tell them how I just got done with my final exams on Tuesday to finish with Dean’s List for the semester. I could tell them all my setbacks over the months and years. But that would not accomplish anything. Because its not what we face that makes us the athletes who we are, its how we respond.

Its crazy that we're considered teammates even though we might have trained together once. That's what Team Endorphin Fitness is all about. His race report and personal perspective are so inspiring I"m going to include a link to it one more time.

The second mantra I've decided to use Keep on Trucking. This has been inspired by the fact that while I'm making the personal commitment not to make anymore excuses, I've also got to keep on moving forward when things don't go my way. There were several workouts that this week where I just felt dead tired. I wanted to stick with my commitment not to make excuses but I wanted to also ensure that I did something to finish strong mentally and physically.

What about everyone else? Do you have some personal mantras that you use on a daily basis?

Past Week's Training

5/31/11 Hard bike in the morning and strength class at night
6/1/11 River swim in the evening
6/2/11 Sprint run workout in the afternoon followed by strength class