Most people are not very good at setting fitness goals. They try one thing after another, get distracted and end up frustrated and annoyed that they started yet another thing, but didn't finish it. My buddy Vic wrote a great post on how to finally achieve your fitness goals. You should take 5 minutes to read it all here but the three main points are Set A Deadline Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Use Social Pressure Time. Money. People. The Trifecta ...
70.3 or Bust: Dominating The Miami Rhoto Half-Ironman
Greetings from Milwaukee. Things have been a little chaotic around here. In the last 10 days, I've had terribly unreliable internet connections while moving out of my old house, flying to miami, and flying back to the midwest. Somewhere in between all that, I ran a half-ironman. A HALF-IRONMAN! I'm shocked too. So, apologies for the delay on this, but I've been a little busy. Either way, I"ll shut up with the excuses - on to the story! (Warning: It's a ...
The Upside To Disappointment
Every once in a while, I'll have a race that doesn't go as planned. This race this past weekend was one of those. I woke up late for the race. I didn't have directions to it. My bike got stuck in 2nd gear for half the race. I didn't run a decent pace at all. At the end, I crossed the finish line, looked at the time and shook my head in disgust. I was disappointed. I was disappointed that my time was slower than I wanted it to be. I ...
It’s All Mental
What's your default mindset? For a long time, mine was "can't." I can't do this. I can't do that. I focused on the things I couldn't do. I let people tell me what I couldn't do or I disqualified myself from doing things because I think I fit the criteria to do it. I've talked about that before and it's the whole idea behind my list. I'm don't identify as an idealist or positive thinking self-help advocate, but I think there's a huge value in reworking ...
Chicago Triathlon 2010 [The Race That Wasn’t Meant To Be Timed]
To those of you wondering - Yes, I'm alive and yes, I finished =). The biggest triathlon in the world. Done. One more thing off the Impossible List. Here's the story. The Night Before Saturday evening I headed downtown for the Triathlon Expo. An hour of chaos and a bag full free energy bars, I met up with Mark Lawrence, Nina Yau & Brandon James for our own mini-Chicago blogger meet-up. We had a nice pre-race dinner at a small Peruvian restaurant ...
Tri Indy Results [Embarrassing Stories Edition]
[blackbirdpie url ="http://twitter.com/joelrunyon/status/20065765753"] The twitter message pretty much says it all. I finished and did pretty well, but I’ve been getting asked a lot about the results, so here's the race recap. It’s sort of epic so here are some quick highlights to look forward to: My fastest bike time ever 2 embarrassing stories A variety of semi-amusing photographs Ready? The Race The swim was in the canal in downtown Indianapolis. ...
Last Minute Impossible Plans
It seems I couldn’t get enough of my first triathlon experience so yesterday I signed up for another one…this weekend. I’ll be running obliterating [my new word for finishing triathlons - thanks twitter-verse] the Indy Tri this Sunday downtown. It’s an official USAT event and it's listed as a Sprint triathlon. The distances? All over the place again – 500m swim 11.5 miles 3.1 mile run I’ve got to admit, I’m terribly confused on what qualifies as a ...
How To Buy A Road Bike For $150
I've been meaning to get a real bike. It was one of my goals at the beginning of the month and while I got "a bike" from my brother, I found out that it wasn't an ideal bike for a triathlon. So, for the last few weeks I've been trying to get my hands on a legit bike that rides well and this past Saturday I ended up getting a pretty good one for $150. Here's how I did it: Check out Craigslist I've used craigslist before, but it wasn't until I read "How to ...
People Are Awesome
Note: was going to attach this post at the end of my last one, but as I wrote it, it kept getting longer and longer, so I decided to just make it it’s own post. People are awesome. Seriously. People are way more awesome than we give them credit for. Yes, there are a handful of jerks whose sole existence is to suck the life, dreams & happiness from you because they’re upset about their own unfulfilling existence, but there are way more awesome people ...
Who’s Got 2 Thumbs And Just Did A Triathlon? – Valpo Tri 2010
This guy. After 400m swimming, 12.4 miles biking and 3.2 miles running, I'm alive and I'm proud to say I finished! I'm pumped that I did it, but not so pumped about my time. My goal for the race, was 1 hour 15 minutes. I actually thought that that was a realistic time for what I wanted to do. In reality? I wasn't even CLOSE. As it turns out I made quite a few miscalculations...let me explain... The Race The 20-29 male age division was the first wave to ...
