Zosima’s Blog

Well, I am a triathlon addict. I completed the St. Peter’s Rec-Plex Triathlon. I finished 12/43 in my age group and 106/424 overall. Fairly pleased since I had not been working out much. The bike route was very fast and I averaged over 17mph (MapMyTri thought i did 18mph)! My slowest swim so far, but I was being very conservative on the swim. Looking forward to next year… if I can squeeze in the workouts!

I have completed my first century, 100 miles on my bike! The route was split up around lunch, with the option of stopping after 100km. I was not sure if i could continue past lunch, but was very proud to say I did the whole thing. Moreover, I met a nice group of people and I was able to keep up with them for the whole event. I did not do a good job recording start/stop times, but I was told we averaged just under 18mph for the whole trip, not including stops. I am very proud of that, but I will say it is so much easier to ride in a peloton. I had a great time, saw some beautiful country, and met some wonderful people. It was a great experience. You can see the Prairie Dog Century morning route and the afternoon route.

Update 9/24/2008 - Results are posted here and I am recognized as completing my first century here. My official average speed was 13.09mph. I forgot to clock back in before lunch, so it would have been more like 13.85mph. I signed up for the ride the rivers century and I think I can do a lot better by not stopping as long, now that I have more confidence.

My parents came up for a very nice visit on Labor Day weekend. They helped us with some projects around the house, took us to the dog park, took out a kayak, watched me sail, and supported me in my triathlon efforts. My dad’s pictures are up here

Okay, second triathlon, even better results. I won the Clydesdale (200lb+) class for the short course! Results are here, but you have to scroll down a bit to find my class. I was happy to see I would have still trophied in my age-group class with my time. Next year… the long course! I was so inspired that I signed up for another triathlon in October. I am getting addicted. Some pictures available here

So I am officially a triathlete. I finished the Alligator Creek Triathlon. It was a lot of fun. I definetly needed Kathy’s & Carter’s full support, and they were happy to oblige. I am really happy with how I did overall. I am awaiting official results, but from what was posted I was 83/306, with a time of 1:38:05. I actually placed higher in the bike section than the run, which suprised me. I was not suprised that I did very well overall in the swim, but proud nonetheless. I need to find an equilateral triathlon :). You can enjoy the pictures. The official results for my age group are here, and overall results are here.

I have found a cool site called http://www.mapmytri.com that lets me map my workouts. Gotta love the mash-up. You can see my profile on the site. I am looking to integrate a workout RSS feed. Here is my usual bike route:

At the request of Isaac I joined Velog. I added my ride log to the right. Overall training is going well. I swam from the dam to the island on the big lake… over half a mile. It is kind of fun to actually get somewhere while swimming, I am so used to just doing laps (even if the distances I am doing now are dwarfed by what I used to be able to do).

I am training for the upcoming Lake Saint Louis Triathlon. It will be my first triathlon. I expect it to be fun, but worse case it is a good excuse to get in shape. Besides, how many people get to run in a triathlon that passes right by their house?