"Love for Sport"

Well as we enter the Holidays, I can feel my athletes starting to stir about next years race schedule. Each year sign ups get further and further away from race day! Before you know it we'll be signing up for races for our future age group! AND they'll sell out! Crazy... "I want to be a triathlete", what a common thing these days. Just as much as "I want to do an IM!" Wow. What ever happened to flying by the seat of your pants?  In the 80's and 90's it was last minute raceday sign up, no race limit caps, and everyone borrowed a bike from the friendly neighbor!  Got my first Panasonic 2000 in 1986, what a beauty. Sunshine cycles in Clemson, SC... Can remember the excitement and joy of riding fast on a skinny wheel bike! Decided to ride toward Anderson (on the Highway of Course) and felt great the whole way, 20 miles! Thought I was a stud. Turned around to head back to Clem and discovered what a tailwind was.. it took me 2 hours to get home :)... Learned to swim at Fike Gym, would swim 20-25 mins straight every time...same hard effort :)  This strange fella always swum beside me and would hang on the wall every couple minutes! Can't he swim I thought?? Hence, a year later, I learned what an interval training was :)... That summer I decided to follow my older brother's lead and enter a TRIATHLON... had to drive 6 hours to get there, Chattanooga Tenn.,  what a blast! Wish I had a picture of my outfit. Brother's friend forgot his bike helmet so he wore a motorcycle helmet for the 40K!  Wish I had a picture of that one too :).  Back then Flotation devices were allowed!...I do have a picture of my brother coming out of the water beside a guy wearing an Orange Neck Life jacket! Remember those? This picture was a keeper! We accomplished two triathlons the summer of 86'.  Ate our share of Jackson Brother's Potato salad that summer!  Needless to say we had gotten the tri bug. It was back to school for me, but brother road to the beach that next spring with friends while I was away.. soooo... I wanted to do what brother did!  We decided to ride to North Myrtle on Nov. 12th, same day as a tropical storm was stirring strong westerly winds. I had forgotten my previous wind lesson obviously, and it was just the 2 of us, not 14 like the spring ride. Result: figured out that drafting is not a Nascar term only... Another hard lesson..  We made it past Darlington race track, only to stop at Burger King for reevaluation and fuel...what did I eat?  All the potato salad off that salad bar...(BTW, I had read the book, Eat To Win by Dr. Hauss if you're wondering about the Pot.Salad).... I felt a little off after that needless to say. Somehow we returned... to the highway, of course. Potatoes kick in through McBee, but Mike wasn't speaking. I Got in a carb zone over the straight hills of the sandhills and rode for a good hour with my head down... ASSUMING by brother was with me?? Nope. Stopped  and looked over the miles of straight hills and waited with no sign of him. Worried, I reluctantly headed BACKWARDS (away from our destination) and found him 5 miles back... Laying up on an old peach stand eyes closed about to fall asleep. Oh yeah, cell phones weren't around in the late 80's BTW.  Can't remember my motivational speech but somehow we got him up... Vaguely remember something about trail mix.. Anyway. somehow we made it through Florence via Quinby and came out on 503? Whatever that major Highway is with no shoulder ... We made the smartest decision of the day and thumbed our way in to the back of a pickup for the next 20 miles. Unfortunately we got dropped in Mullins with about 30 miles to go!  To conclude we made it at sunset, surprised our folks who were down there and at least impressed someone with our bright idea of 180-20=160 ride for the day... To finish it off we had no clothes for the weekend so my mom let me borrow her aqua shirt  & shorts outfit to get me thru the weekend's festivities!
       So to sum all this up, this blog certainly came out of nowhere as I'm sitting here at 1:00am laying out carefully planned training schedules for my TRi-Yon Team!  I am grateful that I learned through experimenting on myself so that others (those who have power meters, garmins, and aero helmets :)) can efficiently...  "Become that triathlete and/or Ironman!" .

But Remember! IT CAN BE DONE...by the seat of your pants and with sheer love for your brother!


My kids always ask for a true story from Daddy at the breakfast table!  I think I now have tomorrow's story! Can't wait...  All The Best!  Coach  www.triyonperformance.com