Only 21 more weeks until the Ironman Coeur d’Alene and I am getting more excited as the days go by.

Let’s rewind a bit and head back to where this all started. About 3 years ago in February 2007 my wife said I was looking fat. Now, to be honest I was looking pretty chubby at the time and I was thinking the same thing about myself but for some reason something finally snapped inside. At that moment I decided that I would do what I always had wanted to do and to race in a triathlon. That night I signed up for the TimpTriClub Triathlon which was a little more than three weeks away and set out to get ready for the race. My training wasn’t anything special and three weeks later I proceeded to finish what would start now become one of the loves of my life, Triathlons. I have since raced in over 25 triathlons and more than 30 running races and have lost most of the fat that my wife quipped about that one special night …  and I am so glad she did say something.

Let me get this out of the way if you didn’t already know it. I love triathlons! I love everything about them, the training, the anticipation, the traveling, the competition both personal and with others, the feeling you get after finishing one. I just love everything that has to do about triathlons. After leaving football  I needed something to compete in and motivate me and triathlon has taken it’s rightful place.

Even though I have done a bunch of triathlons over the last 3 years, including a couple Half-Ironmans, I have yet to conquer the biggest of them all, the full Ironman triathlon. 2.4 miles of full-contact swimming, 112 miles of biking and 26.2 miles of running to top it all off … in the same day! The Ironman is the  Everest of the endurance sports world. After watching the 2009 Ironman World Championship I hastily decided and registered, just like 3 years before, for the Ironman Coeur d’Alene (In Idaho) on June 27th 2010.

Fast-forward now to the present and I am 3 weeks into my official training schedule. Things are going well as I decided after much research to follow the 24 week  training plan from Multisports.com and also available from the book  Start to Finish Ironman Training 24 Weeks to an Endurance Triathlon by Paul Huddle and Roch Frey. One thing I have realized is that Ironman training takes a lot of time and requires a lot of help and understanding from family, friends and neighbors. Slow days require about 2 hours of training and heavier days can get up to 4+ hours worth of training. It is time consuming but my family and I believe it is worth it.

So if you see me running or biking on the streets make sure to honk. If you feel like I have checked out and haven’t seen me for a while now you know where I am at. If you really need me you could probably find me running or riding around Spanish Fork  somewhere.

The only failure in life is the failure to try,  right now is the time to achieve your goals and become great.

So, this is the question everyone wants to know and I am going to find out; How fast can you lose 15 pounds? After being a total slacker with training for the last 7 months,  I have finally decided it is time to get back into a consistent training schedule and kicking butt. Lately, I find myself on a consistent basis playing with my fat rolls and being totally disgusted with myself. I no longer enjoy looking at myself in the mirror and my kids love to put thier finger in my belly button and watch it disappear. This madness has got to stop.

You might think I am joking but I am being totally serious. Since the Spudman Triathlon on July 25th, 2008  I have not ran more than 4 times a month. This is pretty sad … and dangerous considering the fact I raced in a half ironman, a  marathon and 2 sprint triathlons during those seven months. Not to mention being totally embarrassed considering my finishing times in each.

I now weigh 185 pounds, which is not bad considering it is my normal weight, but it  is 17 pounds heavier than I was on July 25th,2008. I want to get back down to 170 pounds as soon as possible for training purposes and I am going to find out how long it takes to lose all those extra pounds I picked up from Taco Bell, KFC, McDonald’s & Burger King. If I can lose the weight quickly I might just write a blog post every so often telling everybody what I am doing to lose the blubber. To lose the weight I will be training consistently and watching my diet,  sometimes. I will not be using any Super Duper weight loss pills or magical elixir formulas. 

So tell me what you guys think, how fast do you think I can lose the excess blubber hanging around my belly and butt?  Comment to this post and the person that comes the closest will win a FREE bakers dozen from Krispy Kreme Donuts! Seriously!

I woke up early on Saturday and drove to Scofield for the 2008 Scofield Triathlon. I had heard it was an awesome race so I pretty excited to see what everyone was raving about.

The swim started off perfect. Not too many racers which means I only got kicked in the head a couple of times and the water was amazing. I felt good throughout the mile swim even though I hadn’t swam laps in a month or so. The swim was a double loop around the buoys and I did my first lap (half mile) in just under 14 minutes. The second lap took about 15 minutes to finish so I ended up with around 29 minutes for the mile swim. I was pretty stoked because 29 minutes is a PR for me. I averaged 1:40 per 100 meters which is not too shabby for a mile swim.

The first transition was pretty slow because I couldn’t get my biking gloves on. I really need to work on my transitions. The bike started out great except about 3 miles into the course some guy drove up next to me and told me I was going the wrong way. I ended up going about 5.5 miles off course and decided to just try to convert it into 25 miles instead of biting the bullet and going 31 miles because of the mistake. Also, my leg was cramping up so I didn’t want to go the extra mileage. After telling a race judge I turned my bike around at almost the right point and actually ended up going a little bit longer than I needed to. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to place so I wasn’t too worried. The rest of the bike went great and I ended up with a 1:17 split time.

The run started pretty bad as it usually does. The worst part was the first 200 meters which had a crazy incline. My legs already felt like jello so it just made them feel even worse. The weird thing is that not only did they feel like jello but also big heavy stumps at the same time. It took about 2 miles for my legs to feel normal but after that I felt good. The last half of the 10k felt great even though I wasn’t going to fast. The funny thing is I always question in my head why I run these triathlons during the run portions. It always seems to hurt the most during the run so I just try to forget the pain and think about how good it will feel when it’s all over. I can only imagine how much it will hurt when I do my first full Ironman.

The last .2 miles of the 6.2 were probably the longest I have ever run. I swear it was an extra mile. I saw a lady biffed it hard right in front of me with only .1 miles to go. Her body just completely gave out and she landed pretty hard on the pavement. Thankfully there was a lot of people there to help her including some encouragement from us racers.

It felt so good to finally be done. I finished with an official time of 2:52:33 which is a PR for me. It would have been better if I hadn’t gone the wrong way on the bike but I was satisfied with my performance. I found out later that If I would of ran the sprint distance I would have ended up 2nd overall in my age group for sure with a good chance at taking first. Oh well, maybe next time I will be smart run the shorter distance. I also got to see my good friend Mike Merrell at the race which was a nice surprise. It was his first tri and he did awesome! I highly recommend the Scofield Triathlon for anyone that wants to race it.

It seems that for some reason all the triathlons this year are getting harder. Maybe it is because I have only done 2 so far this year and that they are a lot longer than the sprint tri’s I did last year but Saturday was no exception. The St. George tri was top 3 hardest I have ever done.

Top 3 hardest so far

1) California Ironman 70.3 – March 2008
2) Xterra Mountain Sport – August 2007
3) 2008 St. George Olympic Triathlon – May 2008

It was pretty windy in the morning but I did not expect it to affect the race that much. I had never had a windy triathlon before so I didn’t know what to expect.

SWIM: The swim started off like normal: freezing waters, fighting for a spot and getting knocked around in the mean time. Once I finally got into a rhythm I had to turn on the buoy and bam!, we had to start swimming against the waves. Holy cow was that tough. We had 2 to 3 foot waves that we had to swim into and it didn’t get any easier the rest of the swim. I think I drank at least a gallon of the water and thats no joke. Everytime I would come up for a breath I would get a mouthful of water. It seemed like a never ending swim. I actually thought one of the buoys had blown away because I could never get to it. I ended up about 6 – 8 minutes off what I should of got on the swim. I found out later that after we finished they canceled the swim for the people that did the sprint tri because the waves were just too big.

BIKE: The bike was like the swim. We had to fight against the crazy wind about 3/4 of the ride. At times I was tilted sideways just to keep me from being thrown off the bike. One time the wind was so bad that I was going 12 miles an hour on a downhill that I would normally go about 30 miles an hour. Even though the wind was tough I felt pretty strong most of the way. The hill wasn’t that bad at all especially compared to the hill at the California Ironman. I started feeling real good at about mile 13 and came up with a decent time considering.

RUN: I was not a happy camper during the run. For those of you that don’t know about the St George triathlon, what makes it “special” is that the run is basically in sand dunes most of the way with a big hill that you have to basically climb (2 times in the Olympic distance). With the wind, the sand dunes, my burning calves and a poor attitude I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. The first 3 miles was brutal but I finally pulled out of it after that. The last 3 miles was definitely not a “breeze” but it was somewhat enjoyable.

I ended up finishing with a total time of 3:18:24. Who knows how much better I would have done if wasn’t sick. I figured that everyone was about ±10% slower overall because of the wind so my adjusted time would have been 2:58:04 which beat my goal of under 3 hours. Too bad it doesn’t count.

Dave also ran his first Olympic triathlon with a time of 3:30:51 and adjusted time of 3:09:01 which is pretty darn awesome. Tammy, the kids and my mom where also there to cheer us on. Thanks you guys, It really does help us when you are there to slap our butts and tell us, “Good Job!” We love you for it!

All in all it was a good day. No one died, Dave and I both finished and the St. George Triathlon lived up to it’s history of being one of the best if not the best triathlon to do in the state of Utah. Good job Brogg, you Rock!