Announcing...

Weekend Warrior: Spring Series!!!

What is Weekend Warrior?  It is a fun and FREE fitness boot camp to benefit Special Olympics Utah! Anyone is welcome to join in the fun! Come get a fun work-out, meet new friends, and help a great cause!

Spring is finally here (though it almost feels like winter never came), so let's get outdoors.  The first of hopefully many in this Spring Series will be held Saturday, April 7th at the Orem City Center Park, located in Orem (obviously) on Center Street, between State Street and 400 East.  Adequate parking is located on the north end of the park.

Check-in will start at 10:30 a.m. under the south pavilion, and I will start the boot camp no later than 11:00 a.m.  This will be an hour long boot camp, so come prepared (bring water; dress appropriately).

The best part about it?  That it's FREE!  But even better, is that it is in conjunction with my effort to raise funds and awareness for Special Olympics Utah.  Again, it is free, and nobody will be turned away from attending, but I do ask that participants make a minimum $5 donation to Special Olympics Utah.  Just use the link to the right! Bring your donation receipt (please, black out any personal/financial information) to check-in.

Again, Weekend Warrior: Spring Series #1:

Date: Saturday, April 7th

Time: 10:30 a.m. (check-in) with boot camp starting no later than 11:00 a.m.

Place:  City Center Park, approximately 385 E. Center Street, Orem, Utah

Cost: FREE, but please make at least a $5 donation to Special Olympics Utah (link found right here on my blog)

Reason: To have fun, meet new friends, get a good work-out, and to benefit:

*This is not an official Special Olympics Utah event.

*This event is not put on by, sanctioned by, sponsored by, or affiliated with Special Olympics Utah, or Special Olympics.

*All donations will be made directly to Special Olympics Utah; I will not see a penny of any donation.

Please come... and bring your friends!!!

A smashing success

One down, seven to go! Saturday was my first race of the season, the Elevate Indoor Triathlon.  It was awesome, and I did great!  I was also pretty exhausted afterward, but that's to be expected. Here are some pictures from the race, as well as a run-down about how I performed compared to the goals I had set for myself:

 Swim Goal: 20 minutes @ 1200 psi

Swim Performance: 20 minutes @ 1300 psi 

(and I probably could have done 1400)

 Bike Goal: 25 miles in 1 hour and 20 minutes

Bike Performance: 26 miles in 1 hour, 15 minutes, and 33 seconds

 Run Goal: 10K (6.2 miles) in 45 minutes

Run Performance: 10K in 44 minutes and 21 seconds

That's right; I did my first sub-45 minute 10K!!!  I'm pretty excited about that!  I'm also pretty excited about how I did on the rest of the race, too.  I kind of took my time in transition, which slowed my over-all race time a little bit, but my goal for the race was under two and a half hours.  My final time was 2 hours, 20 minutes, and 23 seconds! I am very happy with this time, but also know that I want to work on getting faster, especially on the bike.  My next race is the St. George Tri in two months (May 19th), and this one is outside where the conditions won't be quite so perfect. However, I feel like I'm at a good place to start and can only get faster from here!

Oh, and take a look at this last picture: 

Check out how fast my legs seem to be going!!!

Special thanks to the guys at Elevate, Greg (Triathlon coach) and Rich (owner), for letting me do this!  While everyone else did a Sprint distance, I did an Olympic distance, which is twice as long as a Sprint.  And because I went last (so I wouldn't hog a pool spot, CompuTrainer, or treadmill), they were there longer than usual for one of these races.  This was an awesome race, and these guys are awesome for letting me do this! Thanks!!!

It's finally time!

Race season is finally here!  My first race is this Saturday, March 17th!  This is the Indoor Tri at Elevate in Orem.  I will be doing twice the distance/time as everyone else: 20 minutes in the endless pool, 25 miles on the CompuTrainer (bike), and 6.2 miles on the treadmill.  Because of this, I am going very last, and so my tentative start time is 10:30 a.m.

My goal for this is to finish in less than two and a half hours.  I have 20 minutes in the pool, and I'm hoping to get the run done in 45 minutes or less.  That means I have to do the bike in an hour and 20 minutes, which leaves 5 minutes for transitions.  That's the breakdown of how I will reach my goal.

Luckily, conditions will be perfect: no bad weather, no choppy water.  The really tough thing about this race is that it's a mental game.  I will be racing for two and a half hours, covering all this mileage, but going nowhere!  I have done the shorter distance of this race a few times, and it is always harder mentally than it is physically.  I have to assume this longer race will be the same, only magnified.

But I have to finish!  This is for Special Olympics Utah!  As long as I finish, there's my first $10 donation to SOUT!  Who's with me?  Make a pledge, check out my fundraising page, and come cheer me on this Saturday morning!  10:30 a.m. at Elevate (147 W. 400 N., Orem, UT... right behind SBR Sports).  It should be a fun time; I hope to see somebody (or somebodies) there!

Thirty-Threes: A Boot Camp birthday celebration

So, my birthday was a couple days ago, and it was good.  I went out to a great lunch with my wonderful wife, and mainly just enjoyed the day with her.  I also ran my boot camp, and we did a fun birthday celebration work-out.  Here are the exercises we did:

Squat Thrusts
Sit-Ups
Bridge Burners
Mountain Climbers
Push-Ups
Full Curl
Ins-N-Outs
Squats (w/ Forward Shoulder Raise)
Reverse Fly
Tricep Kick-back
Burpee

And here is how I had them do it.  First, I had them run a certain distance (it was a little different for each class, depending on the room we were in; for our purposes here, let's call it a quarter mile).  Then, it was into the exercises done as follows:

10 reps of each
1/4 mile run
8 reps of each
1/4 mile run
6 reps of each
1/4 mile run
4 reps of each
1/4 mile run
3 reps of each
1/4 mile run
2 reps of each
1/4 mile run

The trick is to get the whole work-out done as fast as possible.

So, how does this celebrate my birthday?  Well, count up all the reps for each exercise. If you do the whole work-out, you will do 33 reps of each exercise.  And how old did I turn on my birthday?

That's right!  See how that works?  It's a great work-out! Everybody loved it.  The fastest finishing time was about 28 minutes, but the run in that class was closer to 1/6th of a mile... a little shorter than in this outline. 

How fast can you do it?

E-mail me at swiftri@live.com if you have any questions on how to do any of the exercises.

Thirty-Three

33 years ago today; that is the day I was born.  Yes, I am turning 33 years old today, and I am not embarrassed to share that.  This is a birthday I have been excited for.  As I scoured the internet for significance of the number 33, I came across some interesting facts.  One fact is that one "blog" I came across explaining the significance of this number was just a complete copy and paste of Wikipedia. I don't want to be that lame, so if you want to know all of that, you know where to find it.  A couple of the things that I did find interesting is that 33 is considered a power number, and one of the "Master numbers."  I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds cool! The number 33 also "symbolizes truth" and "has the meaning that good will always triumph over evil."

For these new-found reasons, and for my own reasons, 33 is just a cool number.  I don't know exactly why, but it's cool.  It's the number I wore on the high school men's volleyball team.  "33" is also a song by the Smashing Pumpkins (one of the facts you'll see on Wikipedia) and has been tied with "1979" for my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song since I heard both of these songs.  For many people, 29 is the "eternal birthday;" once they turn 29, they "turn 29" on every birthday after that.  For me, it will be 33.  

The most exciting thing for me is that I will be wearing number 33 at each and every race I compete in this year.  In triathlon, there are body markings for the competitors.  Typically, an age grouper is marked with their race number on one calf and age on the other. This is partially so that other age groupers can see who their competition is.  Though I may be at the top end of what many people consider the most competitive age group in triathlon (Men's 30-34), and I will have to try to fend off those "youngsters" coming up from the lower age groups, I am excited to wear #33--a master power number--at each and every race this year! Luckily, 33 is also considered "the fastest number on planet earth!"