I Asked Myself 3 Questions...

Last year at this time, I was only thinking about heading to Ironman. Everything revolved around Ironman. Right now though, I am having a hard time focusing on a sprint triathlon, and this has me confused.

Maybe it is normal to go through an "Ironman funk". Maybe I am a one timer, I am not sure. All I know is that even though I want to S/B/R, I am having a hard time training, or more like a hard time getting excited about training. I really thought that last weekend would jump start me!

The Memphis in May triathlon was last weekend. Normally I do the Olympic race, I have for 4 of the last 5 years. It is a great race and normally it is the one race to do around Memphis. Everyone is there, and it is a good measure of where you stand in the tri community here in Memphis IMO. I choose not to race, partly because my wife was doing her first sprint race and I wanted to be there to support her and make it here weekend since she has been to many of my races waiting at the finish line! And the other part was that I just could not get excited about training.

Is it normal after a 140.6 to have the mindset of not be able to get excited about a 3.1 mile run?

I really expected me to get back into "it" after MIM and being around the atmosphere and seeing my bride do so well in her first race but I am still fizzling. So I had to ask myself some questions to find out what's up!

Question 1: Do I still want to race?Answer: Yeah I do. I like racing, I love racing. I still have visions of me crossing the finish line, and I still want to get my second 140.6 under my belt!

Question 2: Is it a weight issue?Answer: I know I have put on weight, but it is muscle. I have been working with a trainer for the last 14 weeks. I know I gained 3 pounds of lean muscle and my bidt fat is at 14%. My core is stronger than ever, so it is not a question of being in shape.

Question 3: Why don't you sign up for a race? That is motivation right?
Answer: Yeah, I'm right. That is what I always tell people also. Sign up for a race, pay the money and then you will do it! So I am committing to doing the Mighty Mite Sprint Triathlon in July.

Maybe this is just a down year for me, a year for me to just be, and then to come back strong in 2015! I don't know. I know Goosepond HIM is definitely not a definite race anymore. More to come on this I am sure, but right now I need to get registered for Mighty Mite and go back and see what my old times are and see if I can beat that. I have no doubt in my mind that I can cover the distances now, because I have been training, but man, is it tough to get out there.

So tell me all you Ironman finishers, did you have a "funk" afterwards? And if so, how do you shake it??

I was Assessed...

As I told you guys in my last post, I have started working out with a trainer twice a week. It is something I have always wanted to do, so I finally pulled the trigger and signed up. I let her know what I wanted to accomplish and that I wanted the exercises we do to benefit my triathlons, and she said she could come up with a plan which is always exciting! However, with the start of any plan, you need to be able to have a starting point, a place of measurement for lack of a better term, a way to tell how much progress you have made throughout the workouts, so we started with the dreaded health assessment.

 Remember, I have basically been fat and happy through November and December, so I was not looking forward to this.

 THE ASSESSMENT

 It started with blood pressure. Yawn, boring, then we went to measure my bicep strength. Now we are all friends and I can be honest on here right? Well my bicep strength ranged in the poor ranking. "James, your bicep strength is considered when measure against other makes your age" Quote. I decided to tell myself that luckily triathlons do not require a lot of bicep strength to make me feel better but it was still embarrassing to hit anything in the poor category, so there goes my arm wrestling career. Next up, flexibility.

Oh great!

 Flexible is not a word used to describe me, in any way. So I was not looking forward to doing the Sit & Reach assessment at all. So what it is basically is that you sit on the floor, legs forward and see if you can reach past your toes. I was hoping to make it to my toes honestly, however, I was genuinelly surprise that I scored a 10.5, which places me int he fair category! Yeah , not bad, even went past my toes, and then I could still get up and walk around! Next up was Body Composition.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhh

This is the one I have been dreading. I know I have gained some pounds and I really wanted to skip this instead of hearing someone say "you weighed in at XXXlbs and have XXX% body fat" because then I would hear the unsaid whispered barbs "you really did a 140.6? what did you do waddle all the way to the finish line? more like aluminum man than Ironman!" Now I know that my trainer would in no way ever think those words, but I did. So here are my body composition numbers: Remember I did Redman at 183 lbs

Body Weight: 196 lbs 
Lean Body Mass: 166 lbs 
Fat Mass: 30 lbs 
Body Fat percentage: 15.3%

Yessssssssssssssssss! I was thrilled and shocked. I am only .2 away form the low category! I wasn't happy about the 13 lbs I have picked up, but I was relieved that was all. I was actually expecting to be in the 25% BF category, so this was good news. This was news that made me want to eat right and jump into my training. As a matter of fact, I was so excited that I just had to do the Dougie, so I jumped on my bike...

Next post will be more about Monster rope workouts, my love/hate relationship.