Boot Camp Work-Out #1

Here it is: the first boot camp style work-out I'm posting on this blog in its entirety. This is one we've done before, so give it a go today. This is one you can do anywhere, and you don't need any equipment! Here are the 8 exercises to do:

1. Burpees (everyone's favorite!)
2. Push-Ups
3. Squat Jumps
4. Crab Dips (don't forget to bend your elbows)
5. Single-Leg Hip Raises
6. Fire Hydrants (do assigned reps per each leg)
7. Coffins (straight-leg sit-ups with arms crossed)
8. Leg Lifts

And here are the instructions/assigned reps:

Do 10 reps of each exercise, and follow that with 30 seconds of either Mountain Climbers, Jumping Jacks,  or High Knees.
Start back up at the first exercise, this time doing 9 reps of each exercise, and then the 30 seconds of Mountain Climbers, Jumping Jacks, or High Knees.
Repeat the same thing with 8 reps, 7 reps, 6 reps, all the way down to one rep of each, each time doing 30 seconds of Mountain Climbers, Jumping Jacks, or High Knees after exercise #8.

Just for clarification, you don't need to do the Mountain Climbers, Jumping Jacks, or High Knees after every exercise... do them after every set: do all the exercises, and then do the 30 seconds before starting over.

There's more to come, but enjoy this one!!!

Provo and Echo: That's how you do it... and "What was that?"

Again, I'm a little late writing about my last two races.  It's been a busy summer, what with working, training, racing, and everything else.  I feel like I've probably said that before.  But with that, here it is:

I competed in the Provo Tri on Saturday, June 23rd.  I told you it was a little late to write about this, so I think this race can easily be summed up with two pictures:

Second out of the water!

1st place in my age group (6th overall)!!!

Three weeks later, on July 14th, I competed in my next race: the Echo Tri in--of course--Echo Reservoir at Coalville, UT.  This race didn't turn out quite so well, but it didn't start out quite so well, either. 

Driving up to Echo Reservoir, everything seemed fine.  Once we got there, though, we were told that our campsite, which we reserved through the race organizer's website, was not close to the race start or transition area (the website gave me the impression that it would be, and there were a lot of open campsites close by).  We drove up to where the campsites were, talked with the camp host, and were able to change our site to one close to where we wanted to be.

Once we had set up camp, we decided to walk around, check out the water and transition area.  The lake was very low; I overheard someone saying that water levels had dropped 35 feet in the previous five days!  That meant a very long, steep, rocky run between getting out of the water and getting into transition.  One of the other athletes who was walking around near us found a few shards of glass on the beach.  That was scary!  Luckily, the race organizers had decided to set up a "shoe transition" area just by the water line.  Instead of driving in to Park City (only about 15 miles away), I decided I would use my Altras.

There was also supposed to be a race "walk-through" by the race directors.  That never happened, and because I waited around so long for that, dinner ended up being quite late.  The weather forecast had been showing rain all week long, and I didn't feel like racing in rain.  Needless to say, I was feeling very nervous about this race, and it was still the night before.

When I finally got to sleep, I didn't rest the best, either.  I have become accustomed to weird dreams the night before a race.  Usually, those dreams revolve around forgetting something: running shoes, bike helmet, wetsuit, etc.  The weirdest dream I remember was one where I forgot my bike, so I had to ride a horse.  This time, however, the dream revolved around the weather.  In my dream, which repeated itself two or three times, lightning struck the water and killed everyone who was in the lake.  This scared me, and I almost withdrew from the race because of it.

Due to a number of the things from the evening before and the night, I then woke up late.  The race started at 7:00, and I didn't wake up until 6:00.  Luckily, we were right next to transition, but I still felt rushed.  Each person was assigned a transition spot, and mine was a great spot.  However, I was late setting everything up, and my breakfast ended up being a pack and a half of Clif Shot Bloks.  That makes for a good energy boost half an hour before race start, but it doesn't make for a very good breakfast.

Once everything was set up, I pulled on my wetsuit and headed down the lake for the start.  This is when I realized that I had left my bike pump in the car and had never fully inflated my bike tires, and I didn't have time to fix that now.  Instead of riding on 120 psi, I would be riding on 75-80 psi. 

It seemed that everything that could go wrong was going wrong, so I shouldn't have been surprised when we waited around in the water for an extra 10 or 15 minutes before a late race start.  Once we started going, I still didn't feel ready to go.  I decided today would be a race that I would be happy with just finishing.  The swim went rather well, but I can do rather well in the swim without really trying too hard.  At the Provo Tri, I had a great swim; today's wasn't anywhere close.  I got out of the water, pulled on my Altras, and made the long, hard trek up to transition and my bike.

The bike was about the same... it turned out well, but wasn't great.  The first half, I felt very slow and week.  About two miles before the turn-around, a group of 5 racers passed me, and I watched them drafting off each other until we turned around and after.  Drafting on the bike is illegal in triathlon, so this made me mad!  I never caught back up to them, but the second half of my bike was much better!

Once I got back to transition, I pulled my Altras back on and took off on the run.  I was feeling great by now!  My run pace was a blistering pace for me, and I thought I might actually break my race split personal best.  And then I got to the turn-around for the run.  I had put in a great 5K (3.1 miles), and only had that much left to go, and I could keep this pace for the rest.  That was until I actually turned around and hit the proverbial wall.  My run pace dropped by almost 2 minutes per mile, and my run split ended up being one of my slowest. But I finished!  I was happy and still alive; my dream had not come true.  In fact, the weather held out and was perfect through the whole race!

So there it was, race 5 of 8 this season was in the books.  It wasn't the best, but it was over.  I didn't place, and--in fact--I'm not even sure what my time was.  According to my pledge, I donated $25 to Special Olympics Utah for Provo and $10 for Echo.  And now I had a six-week race break before my next.  I have been training hard and getting ready for this next one, and now I have just over two weeks.  I'll be heading up to Heyburn, ID, for my second go at VikingMan.  It looks like it's going to be a great event; two of my brothers-in-law (Dave and Jared) might do this race, too, as well as Dave's girlfriend, Janette.   This was a fun but hard one last year, and I'm looking forward to the same this year!  And then it's Yuba in September and PumpkinMan in October.  This has been a fun season so far, and I'm glad it's not over yet!

3 weeks late (SG Tri)...and right on time (Daybreak)

So, I've been needing to write about my experience at St. George, but--between work, family, work, training for the next race, and working some more--life has been crazy, and here it is three weeks and one race later.  Needless to say, my wrap-up of St. George is going to have to be shorter than I had planned. 

The SG Tri was on Saturday, May 19th.  We showed up in St. George the Friday afternoon before the race and went immediately to check-in.  Because of when I signed up for the race, I ended up getting a free run hat!  That's pretty cool of the race directors, and might have almost taken away the bitterness for them cancelling my favorite race. Anyway, we ended up eating dinner at Iggy's Sports Grill (because Olive Garden had, like, a 15 day wait...), and then we went back to where we were staying.  Rachel has some friends who live in Hurricane (right next to St. George, and closer to the race venue), and we were going to stay with them.  But they ended up putting us up in their parents' house, as their parents were out of town that weekend.  It was extremely nice to have a real bed!

Saturday morning came early. I had been nursing a minor case of plantar fasciitis, so I had some ibuprofen along with my oatmeal and banana breakfast, and then we headed over to the race.

It was a perfect morning: temperatures (air and water) were great, winds felt non-existent, and I ran into a lot of people I have met over the years of racing.  And then it was time to race.  My new wetsuit was great, except that I didn't realize how high the neck was until I could feel the chaffing half way through the swim.  I made a mental note to put more anti-chafe balm on my neck for the next race.  It was an easy out-and-back swim, and then on to the bike.  I felt nice and strong on the bike, even up the nice, long hill we had to climb (on the flip-side, it felt great to FLY down that hill on the way back). 

And then came the run.  As always, the run is my hardest event, but this time, I knew it was slower than usual. Probably because of my foot "issue."  I was still able to finish strong and hold off some stiff competition at the end.  And what's even better, my foot felt better after the run than it did all week long.  That in and of itself was a victory for me. 

Overall, it was a great race! I finished 7th in my age group, which means another $10 goes from my bank account to Special Olympics Utah.  And since we were so close to Vegas, we finished that drive to spend the rest of the weekend with my family and have a great recovery meal at the Hofbrauhaus! 

Next up was Daybreak.  This one was just this last weekend, the 9th of June.  That Saturday morning came early, too.  We were up before the sun to make sure everything was ready and there on time.  We got up to Daybreak a little after 6:00 a.m., which is when transition opened.  I have done this race before, but transition was set up on the opposite side of the lake from previous years, so we had a little bit of a hard time finding it.  But we finally found it, picked up my timing chip and swim cap, got body marked (they were using some pretty cool rubber stamps), and got my transition set up.

After a few words from the race director and a USA Triathlon referee, we made the walk to the swim start.  This one was a point-to-point swim, basically meaning we swam a partial length of the lake.  They were also doing an accelerated time trial start, meaning they sent one person off every 5 seconds.  That was a little different for an open water swim, but it was fun.  I was the about the 14th or 15th person to start, and I immediately started passing people.  Rachel said she was quite surprised with how quickly I took off; I ended up being the 4th or 5th person out of the water.  It was interesting, also, looking for red siting buoys against the green and brown background of the shore (I'm slightly red/green colorblind), but I guess I can't complain too much, seeing as how I had the fastest swim in my age group and the 9th fastest swim overall.

I felt very strong on the bike again at this race. There were some long, steady climbs that really taxed my legs, but there were also some great, fast downhills.  My max speed on this course was 46 mph.  There were also a couple of guys that I kept battling it out with on the bike.  They would pass me on a downhill, and then I would fly past them on the uphill.  On the final uphill, I got a good enough jump on them that they didn't catch me again until after the last downhill and just before the finish, about 5 miles later.  I still finished the bike just before one of them.  It turned out, Rachel had befriended his wife just before the start of the race, and so I had a chance to have a great, if short, talk with him after the race (I couldn't hang with him during the run).

And then there was the run again. If I could run as well as I can swim, I might have a chance of racing in the elite category.  As I mentioned, I wasn't able to hang with my biker buddy during the run.  I tried, but I'm just not as strong on the run.  It ended up being a long run, too.  It was billed as a 6.2 miler, but upon some research spurred on by my time (slower than at SG), it seems the run was actually a little over 6.5 miles.  I want to take my bike up there and clock it with my odometer.  Despite the extra distance, I still finished strong. My fast swim and decent bike allowed me to still take a 3rd place age group finish (18th overall, out of 101 men).  That means I earned a podium spot!  My first of the season!  And that means Special Olympics Utah gets $25 from this race!!!

It has been a great start to the season!  My next race is in two weeks: Provo Tri.  It's another Olympic distance, and I will be going for another podium spot!  I'm also going to be aiming for a PR in the run.  Let's see what I can do.  

How are you enjoying your summer?

Two more days...

...until race #2 in this 2012 benefit season!  I am getting very excited.  I cleaned and lubed my bike this morning.  I also finally mounted my speedometer so I can better gauge how I'm doing.  I added a pair of Yanks ("tie-less" shoe laces) to my Altra Instinct running shoes.  Now I just have to wash my tri suit and get everything packed, and then I am ready to go!

This race is down in St. George, UT, which is about a 4-hour drive from my place.  We are planning on leaving tomorrow around noon.  My wife has some friends who live very close to the race venue, and we will be staying with them Friday night.  I have maps printed off so we know where we're going, and all that fun stuff.

There is one little part to this race that is kind of a bummer, though. Apparently part of the bike course that was supposed to be paved this week never got paved, and the race directors have decided just to cut that portion of the bike leg.  It's for the best, and for the safety of the participants, but it also drops the bike leg from 25 miles to 20 miles.  No big deal, though... maybe my legs will be stronger on the run, which is my weakest of the three, anyway.  Also, I still get to use my new goggles, wet suit, tri suit, compression calf sleeves (maybe), and bike computer (the aforementioned speedometer) all for the first time! And we're also planning on heading down to Las Vegas after the race to visit family for the rest of the weekend!  This should be a great race, and--as always--I'm hoping for at least a top-three age group finish, which will help out Special Olympics Utah a little bit more!

Weekend Warrior #1 Wrap-Up

Well, my first attempt at Weekend Warrior is in the books, and I think it was a great success! I may have had a smaller turn-out than I hoped for, but it was bigger than I expected.  Luckily, I planned for what I hoped for, so I wasn't short-handed with supplies.  Nine people showed up!!! And we had fun... well, at least I did.  The other nine people worked hard.

We started warming-up just running a little through the park, tossing in some high knees and butt-kickers.  We then did a push-ups/squats set, where everybody did 20 of each, then 15 of each, followed by 10 of each, and then finished with 5 of each.  And then we got into the proverbial meat and potatoes of the work-out.

I set up 8 cones in a row, about 3 feet apart.  With small, fast steps, the campers ran in and out of the cones, first forward, then backward.  Then they jumped over the cones, doing squat jumps up and over.  Then it was back to running in and out of the cones.  This time--since the cones were lined up east to west--they started running through the cones facing south (leading with their right side), and then the boot campers ran facing north (leading with their left side).  Finally, they jumped over the cones again, but this time they jumped on only one leg!  The kicker with this one is that they were not allowed to touch my cones!!!  If someone touched one of the cones, they did 3 Burpees (look it up on youtube).  If they knocked over one of my cones, it was 5 Burpees.  There were also some push-ups and squats in there again for everyone, but the fun part was the Burpees! (I just like the name Burpees, and so I keep saying it in work-outs and typing it in blog posts...)

After this set was over, I split the group up into two teams, one team of four and one team of five.  While one team ran what I call Double-8's, the other team played Ultimate Tag (again, my own name for this "game").  When the one team was done with Ultimate Tag, the teams switched and did the other activity.  What are Double-8's and Ultimate Tag?  Well, come to the next Weekend Warrior Boot Camp, and maybe you'll find out!

At the end, we had time for one more activity.  I asked people afterward what they're favorite part of the boot camp was, and almost everybody (if not everybody) said this last activity.  We ran what's called an "Endless Relay" race.  This time, I chose three team captains and then let those captains choose their teams.  We had three teams, and so we ran until there was a first place, a second place, and a third place.  It worked out perfectly, because everybody earned a podium spot!  And they earned their chance to relax and stretch out, drink some Gatorade and... see if they won anything in my drawing!

That's right, at the last minute, I pulled together some great give-away prizes for anyone who donated a minimum of $5 to Special Olympics Utah!  Everybody who came also donated, so not only did I raise $45 for Special Olympics Utah today, but everybody was entered into the drawing.  There were four prizes, so their chances were very good.  One person won a Blender Bottle, two people won a coupon for 50% OFF an hour massage, and one person won a FREE half hour massage!  Everybody who donated also received a card good for $5 off a full-hour massage. 

I plan to do this again, but I'm not sure when.  I will announce it here as well as creating an event on facebook, so look for my page: www.facebook.com/swiftri

I will have some of these same great prizes at the next one, so come, help a great cause, meet some new friends, get a good work-out, and have some fun!!!

Also, a huge thank you to everyone who came!!! It wouldn't have been so successful without you!

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!"