Fueled by TWIN POWER!!

5/25/09 was the Capital of Texas Triathlon in downtown Austin. I turned in a personal best time for an Olympic distance of 3:00:39, my goals was around 3:10.00 and my previous personal best was 3:06. Considering I put in far less training than I ever had leading up to a race I am more than excited. It was a fast course though compared to other races I have participated in. Here is the breakdown for the race.
Swim -29:14min for a 1500 meter swim which is slightly less than 1mi (.97miles). the swim was in the river than goes through downtown. 68deg water temp which is wet suit legal. I contribute a faster swim time to my first time wearing a wet suit and a friendly current. The first portion of the swim was against the current for about 600M and with the current for about 900m. This was also not as violent a swim as some in the past. For those of you who have never swam with several hundred people at a time swimming truly can be a full contact sport. I have never broke the 30min mark on the swim.
Bike: 1:18:23 for a 40K bike ride, avg 19mph. Very fast bike course, it was 4 laps of a 6~mile loop up Congress by the Capital. The first 2-3miles was either gradual or not so gradual up hill then about 2-3miles of nice fast downhill. Turns were a little tricky though due to congestion from countless other cyclists all making the same turns at high rates of speed (23-24mph on some). Good bike course for spectators because you can see your friends/family several times throughout the course. Unfortunately we didn't have a cheering section so I just imagined everyone was cheering for me. Only bad thing about a fast bike course is you have a tendency to race too hard which affects the run later on. This is about 4-6min faster than my normal pace
Run: 1:04:52 for a 10K, or 6.4 miles. The run was a 2 loop course of 3.2mi per loop also through downtown. A few moderately challenging hills which always seem to come when you are the most tired. The run course was fairly exposed to the sun. There were a good number of aid stations with plenty of water to cool you off. The nice thing about a 2 lap race is by time you finish the first lap and start the second you have a list of mental landmarks throughout the course to keep you motivated and pushing at the appropriate pace. This is exactly the time I was expecting on the run as I did not prepare as much as I would have liked to. This time is about 8min slower than my previous 10K race time of 56min.

Transitions: My only complaint about the transitions was the large size of the transition area. There was a several hundred yard run into transition from the swim and then again on the way out to transition to the bike. You can not mount your bike until you leave the transition area which leaves you running in you cycling shoes on sand and pavement for far too long which greatly slowed my transition time. That being said I had a 4:22 min transition from the swim to bike (T1) and then a 3:45 min transition from the bike to the run (T2). That was a respectable T1 and about a 30sec slower than I would have liked T2 time.

For race pictures click here http://www.asiorders.com/choose_name.asp?EVENTID=46372&LAST=stoddard&DIVISION==

New Found Respect for Batman

This weekend is the Captial of Texas Triathlon, CapTexTri, in Austin. Patrick, Dallas and Myself are racing and for the first time Patrick and I will be in the same age category. The water temperature is currently 68deg, yes that is cold. I knew it would be a colder swim so I bought my first triathlon wetsuit, an Orca Equip Tri Wetsuit. I put it on for the first time and must say I feel somewhat like a superhero, Batman in particular as the wetsuit is black neoprene. It took about 15min to put on and I even attached pictures for those of you that would like to see me as my superhero persona. I wearing it as I type, sweating like a pig and wondering how I will ever get it back off. So next time you see me if I am dressed all in black annd look like a less buff version of a superhero it is becuase I couldn't take it back off.

Hello Sleep, Oh How I Have Missed You!!!

The twins had their 2month appt this morning and they are doing great. Adam weighs 12.5lb and Mia 10.5lb. They are still underweight for a 4month old which is to be expected. Adam is in the 90the percentile for the preemie scale and Mia is in the 50th percentile for the preemie scale. Basically they have gained weight and are slowly catching up to what they should weight but have a little way to go. Best news of all is they can go longer at night in between feedings. I have been averaging 5hr sleep/day and Milina around 4-5hr/day. It is amazing we are not comatose. Now we will feed them at 11:30pm and then again at 5:30pm which means one of us goes to bed at 10:30 and sleeps until 5:30 and the other goes to bed at 12:30 and sleeps to 6:30. I am not sure how my math skills are since I am still sleep deprived but that is 6-7hr sleep/day, Hallelujah!!!!!
I have also posted some new pictures of the twins. Boy they are happy little babies. Not that they don't cry but only when they are hungry or tired basically. They both have smiles that can melt your heart. They love to go on walks and get to about 4X/week. When we go on walks they look around at everything they can. Mia is especially fond of her father and seems to like male voices over female voices, her mother is the exception of course. When a guy holds her she sill stare intently at their face with this adorable little smirk like she is in a staring contest.