After 4 months of training "where am I"/ The supportive community that is Triathletes.

Just wanted to give a little update on where I am both physically and mentally. Also I have been wanting to express my feelings regarding the community of Triathletes and their supportive nature to even people they don't know.

I started this triathlon training 4 months ago. As I have said in a previous post, I have always wanted to do Kona since the past 10 years. If you read http://40yroldgamingtriathlete.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-one-sport-can-completely-become.html it says what my reasoning behind finally starting the training. So I made a training decision last night while spinning away on the bike. Ever since I started my training, I have been doing bike/run blocks. My long rides now is about 2 weeks away from hitting 2 hours then I hit the run which is pushing 30 minutes right now then abs after that. So on (what use to be Friday) my long day I am looking at almost 2 hours and 45 minutes, which I understand is nothing compared to once I build my base enough to take it to the 70.3 to 140.6 training levels. However during the week as I increase my ride and run as I have been if I stay with the same training route, I will be hitting the same 2 hours and 45+ minute workouts 3 times a week. With everything that I have started doing in my spare time ie ( blog, Lionheart Racing Series, iRacing, WOW and LOL) the days are just running out of hours for me to get the needed rest to recover from my training. My Tri training is my #1 priority so with how my training is scheduled now, the other things have to suffer. Most of you who are reading this has probably already come up with the decision that I made last night on the bike. I will be splitting up my training for a Monday, Wednesday and Friday to a Monday, Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday morning routine. You see what I have been doing to increase my seat time and run time is adding 5 minutes to my ride every week each day and doing the 'rule" of no more than 10% each run workout. That has come to a 65 minute bike (including a 5 minute warm-up) with 1.60 mile run then abs on Monday, 75 minute (including a 5 minute warm-up) bike with 1.60 mile run then abs on Wednesday and a 115 minute bike (again with the same warm-up) then 1.60 mile run with abs on Friday this week. So next week I would add 5 minutes to the bike and the 10% to the run. I said to myself that I would be capping my bike to 2 hours cause as I increase resistance on the spin bike (which is like using a bigger gear) the distance would increase each week instead of constantly increasing my time in the seat. But more so I will be competing at the Sprint and maybe Olympic distances next year. The 2 hour ride right now is almost the complete distance for the Olympic distance. Plus what I am sure a lot of you are saying is "Where is the swimming??" LOL Well that is also that will need to be added to this whole training schedule. I will be joining the Y hopefully here soon. When I was out of work for those 3+ months, it set us back so I had to make some sacrifices and joining the Y has been one of them. If however it doesn't seem like I will be able to join this year, I have already been looking into just competing in Duathlons next year until we can fit that into our budget. Little off subject there but now back on track. Going to the new schedule will keep me in the gym for now more than the 2 hour bike on Monday and Wednesday (once adding the 5 minutes each week gets me to 2 hours) and I will be doing my runs on Tuesday and Thursday until I hit 6.2 miles. Then I will finish up on Saturday with the 2 hour bike plus the 6.2 mile run once I get there. This allows me to build the base that I need plus frees up time in the evening for my #1 fan and my kids when I have them plus allows me to cover more of the other activities that I am doing. Which now includes recording and uploading to YouTube videos of my gaming and racing. I feel like because the past couple of weeks I have been feeling like there just isn't enough hours in the day that things have been neglected  ie this blog which I hold almost at the level of how committed I am to my Tri training. Also I have never really said where I am with my run training so now everyone knows. I feel like that is behind compared to the bike plus I am taking it slow and steady so that I hopefully won't get any injuries that could set me back for next year. By my calculations it will take me another 14 weeks or by January to hit the 6 mile mark which is perfect for the 2014 season to start in late February or first of March. With the help of my Mio Link I know that I am staying in my fat burning zone to train the safest best way possible. By training my body to burn fat first then use my carbs next allows me to last longer in a race. I will be letting you guys know how that goes next week. I will be starting to do it this week just cause it is my last week with my kids for the summer and with what is going on with them and me it just works best to go ahead and do it tonight and Thursday and Saturday even though I did my normal block last night. Mentally I am in such a great place when it comes to the training. I am so excited to get started with the swimming part and to compete my first race next year. Other than feeling like there isn't enough time in the week (which I am hoping this new schedule will fix) I am doing great which it has been awhile since I have felt like that. Physically I am still amazed some days at where I have gotten to. I did 21 miles on the bike last Friday my longest distance and time on a bike then went straight to the 1.43 mile run afterward. That might be a lot to most of you but to me it was huge. Also with the help and support of people and companies which I will get to in the next paragraph LOL. I look forward to every day in the week especially the training day which now will be 5 days a week, so I am excited to be able to get my workouts in that I need and not feel like I am losing any time for other things.

I have truly and utterly amazed at the support and help from the triathlon community since undertaking this challenge. I have heard from people that are just like me; beginners, from people who are winning or placing in their age group all the way to pros commenting words of encouragement about what I am doing or going through. Whether it be @RunTriMom in Chicago, @Iron_Mummy in Singapore, @davemirra, @mickydymond, @ben_bostrom (which is still awesome as F$%^!!!), @mburskey, @runhanley, @rudemuscle, @bigdaddyrob5428, and a ton of other ones to companies that have helped me and encouraged me. I got to start with the best and first @MioGlobal. They have been absolutely amazing, supportive and I would not be training the way I am without them. Second but definitely tied for first is @SOSRehydrate for their amazing support and what an amazing product they make. I can't wait to use it again Friday on my long ride and run (be on the look out for a review of their AMAZING product). Align Footwear is a new edition to the Team Jeremy. Having Plantar Fascittis and bad leg alignment their insoles have been absolutely amazing and so benefitail (again another review on the way). @SLSTRI, @PrimeNutria, @Swiftwick Socks, @HTFU (for great clothes), @Tyrsport (which I am hoping will be on Team Jeremy soon), @WattieInk, @Skratchlabs to name just a few. Plus the number of professionals that have either retweeted or Favorited my tweets or blogs.

Again thank you the person that takes the time out of their day just to read this. For the first 2 months, I got 700 views in the first month, another 700 in 3 weeks, then the most amazing thing happened. I got almost 2000 views in just 2 weeks and it is still going strong. I can not say how humble I am by that. I am constantly trying to improve and add things to this blog. Thank you everyone!!!

What I learn from the MIO Link in TRI Training!/Shout out to single training parents!!

So this week has been the first week of having my boys for summer and using my MIO Link. So why do I bring that up you ask? Well let me tell you LOL. This week I got my boys for the 1 of my 4 weeks during the summer. So my typical day now is getting up earlier than normal, making sure they get up, eat breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth, drive them to my folks house (who they stay with while I am at work), drive to work, get down with work, go pick them up, get the back home, cook dinner, feed them, go to the gym, get back, get them in the shower, snack, in bed then get me in bed then repeat LOL. And yes I know that is what the majority of parents, mothers or single mother do on a regular basis if they are working out and handling a family. And it isn't that it is too much for me or that I resent it at all. What I found out I would have never known if I haven't had been using the MIO Link. Now let me explain.

My normal workout all last week was, green zone on the Link on bike, abs and green zone on run. The green zone being determined using the MAF training formula. All week last week it was like this. So I get my boys Friday night after my long ride and run. Have them over the weekend, which means late nights staying up with them and not the best sleep. Come Sunday night to bed early and get up early. Now because I am getting up earlier and do all the things to get them ready in the morning and getting me ready, I don't check my heart rate first thing when I wake up. I had been doing that and getting between 57 and 61. 57 usually the day of my next workout and 61 on the days right after my workout. So this week I am going at it not knowing where I stand. Also with having the boys, I decide that my legs could use a 3 day rest rather than a 2 day rest. So workout on Tuesday instead of Monday. I get in to the gym. Like I have said before same workout from week 4 of Month 2 but increase time in seat by 5 minutes and increase run by 10%. So that means a 45 minute ride after a 5 minute warm-up. On these "shorter" rides I try and stay at 90 rpm the whole ride. Now I want to say again doing this on the Spin Lifecycle GX is different than if I was doing it out on a road bike on the road, cause the Lifecycle DOES NOT have a coast gear. So it is pedaling the whole time at 90 rpm. I don't know who that works out between being able to coast and not being able to. In my mind I am doing a time trial in a race cause they hardly ever stop pedalling. So I get into the groove and see the wonder green light flashing on my MIO Link the whole 45 minutes, I felt great, legs where good, bottom getting more and more use to the seat in saddle. Absolutely perfect. Then on to the abs. Now if you have seen the picture in the post were I showed you my ab exercises you will remember seeing the Corkscrew. Now one thing about this is it can be hard on your back from the lifting and twisting at the same time . I had been doing 23 reps for all of my abs exercises up to that point. So I get to the Corkscrew and I hit 15 and it is like someone is sitting on the bottom of my feet. I can not do hardly any more. I don't understand this at the time. Can 1 exact day put me that far back and have I lost that much in one day extra. Now I know from bodybuilding that this isn't possible. So I split it up into 2 sets of 15. Every other ab exercise no problem what so ever. So on to the run.

This is were if I didn't have the MIO Link I would have had no idea what my body was doing. The last workout on Friday I got to be able to up the pace for a bit and still keep it in the green zone. So I set the speed to what I did on Friday and got started. About 5 minutes into the run, I caught out of the corner of my eye what I thought was red flashing instead of green . So I looked down and that was right FLASHING LIGHT RED! I just thought to myself, there is no way. this is the exact same pace as I did Friday after a ride that was double the time that I just did. Now it was at a slower pace than what I did today but that shouldn't make a huge difference. So quieted my breathing till it went back to green which only took a half a minute. But 15 seconds later there it was again RED RED RED. So I slowed it down and stayed green the rest of the way. However instead of completely enjoying the rest of the run, all I was doing was thinking about "What is going on here" What has changed from last week to this week. My kids!! Now I am not saying Kids will slow down your progress LOL, but what I am saying is that the new added stress of daily chores taking care of them has increase my stress level and has hindered my ability to recover as well as when they aren't with me. Now I would take having this time with me over them not having me for sure. But getting to the title, my run felt the exact same as it did on Friday to me. But if I didn't have my MIO Link I would have never know that I went out of my Aerobic zone and into my Anaerobic Zone. The whole goal of the Aerobic(Green Zone) is to train the body to use fat first before using stored energy. So the whole time I am in the Green Zone I think to myself "Burn Fat Burn Fat show me that 6 pack" LOL. So thank you MIO Link and MAF training to allow me to take my training to another level of knowledge and being able to listen to my body!

So with that I salute the training parents, single parents who have to do their daily chores of child raising, work and still train and recover. HUGE HATS OFF TO YOU!!!

702 Views in One Month! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT!!!/Product Reviews/Interviews

I am absolutely speechless and that takes a lot for me to be speechless lol. I started this blog a couple of years ago for a job that I had at the time and just posted 1 time. So after I started taking my triathlon training seriously, my iRacing seriously, Competitive Gaming Training I decided to start adding to this blog. However it was after reading Stephaine Johnson's RunTriMom and IronMummy's blogs that I decided to take this plunge. I don't stay on top of it everyday like I planned on doing. But even if it is just a couple of sentences I am going to post everyday. There will be tweaks and changes to the blog as I fine tune how I want it setup. But I just wanted to take this time and say THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! Please subscribe if you would like to get more my posts sent to your email.

I am also really going to try and see about doing more Product Reviews on here. I am trying to see if there is a way of creating different pages for different topics ie. an iRacing Page, Product Review page etc. I will be starting out by doing reviews of products that I have already purchased, however I hope as this blog grows even more that companies will see a benefit of me doing reviews for them. I will posting reviews of Triathlon Products, iRacing, Gaming, App all kinds of stuff that apply to what I am interested in.

I am also hoping as this blog grows to be able to send out email questionnaires to celebrities and very influential people in the industries that we are interested in just so we can get some idea of what is going on with the people that we take time out of our day to follow on Social Media.

Again THANK YOU SO MUCH for you taking your time out of your day and reading the ramblings of this man LOL.

Longest ride yet with Mio Link/Thank you to these people/Planet of the Ape Podcast

So I am sitting here on the couch thinking to myself, how do I cover this whole weekend in my blog since I didn't do it one day at a time. I decided that I would cover each thing that happen this weekend with its own post. So the first one will be about my training on Friday night.

It was my long ride of the week and also the longest so far of my training 75 minutes plus 5 miles (still making up for not being able to run). I strapped on my Mio Link, had my Gatorade + Prime Nutrition EAA Watermelon all mixed up in my bottle and completely forgot to take the X2 Performance. So I will have to wait for next Friday to take it with my next long ride. Got on the bike at Pivotal after making sure everything was set up, plugged in my training zones into the Mio GO app so that I would stay in Zone 2 for the whole ride. And off I started pedaling keeping my cadence between 80 and 85 rpm. One thing that some people might not think about is sitting on a very skinny seat for almost 2 hrs and not having a lot of natural padding lol. I have built up the tolerance of riding in the saddle to about 45 mind now without any kind of discomfort. But at about 45 to 50 minutes it begins.  So I had another issue with sitting on a skinny seat that I finally found out a fix for. Not to get to detailed let's just say sitting on a bike seat for awhile can make a certain male specific area go numb lol. Now by going from a seated position to the aero tuck position has fixed that interesting issue. And from what I also found out was that it can help with the saddle soreness of long rides. Stayed in the target zone, took nice swigs of the Gatorade + EAA every 10 mins to stay hydrated and just got into a rhythm while listening to Pandora. Once I hit the last 2 miles of the +5 miles, I was struggling for sure. I don't know if the X2 Performance might have helped or not. It wasn't an energy thing, it was small little cramps in the back of my legs and just being so uncomfortable in the rear area from sitting for that long.  But rides like these is what pushes our body to go further and further each time. 19.2 miles was the farthest I have gone so far and felt so proud and excited for going that far. Starting Monday I am going back to riding then going straight to the treadmill for a run. I am amazed to say this but I can't wait to get back to running. Again I am taking that very slow to not get injured and I will incorporating the motion of slower is faster training. So I will be using the Heart Rate Training by Dr. Philip Maffetone. It is used to develop the Aerobic system first before working on the Anaerobic system.

Many of people that I would like the thank for motivation and inspiration!

Stephanie Stephens Johnson is such an inspiration and motivated person. Mother of 2 who is also training for Triathlons, Marathons, and UltraRunning. Find her blog under her tag on all social media RunTriMom! Glad to call her a social media friend.

Tammy Hassenpflug is another great woman that shows amazing strength and will to compete in Triathlons and brings motivation to many people.

Dave Mirra is another one that most people know already from BMX competition,  XGames, Global Rally Cross and Rally Racing. He has been training and racing triathlons as his new sport to take on. Following his Twitter and Instagram accounts have been keeping me motivated. And it doesn't hurt that he liked a couple of pics that I posted on Instagram lol.

Rowena De Belligny (I hope I got that right) and Mio Global together!! She is also a mother and Mio Global brand ambassador ( which one day I hope I get that title) and a top age grouper in the Pacific Asian triathlon races. Such a great blog to follow like RunTriMom's. Rowena's blog is ironmummy.com. Please look at her blog too.

And now something completely off topic. My brother @savagegm and his best friend @aberandall have started a podcast about The Planet of the Apes whole lineup of movies, books, comics, and TV show. You can find them at
http://goapepodcast.blogspot.com/2014/06/episode-0-dawn-of-podcast.html?m=1 listen in if you liked or still like anything that has to do with Planet of the Apes both old and new alike.

Well thank you so much for taking the time and reading this again. I will be posting other blogs with what else happened this weekend and of course stay up to date from now on so this doesn't happen again lol. It is a learning process.

Getting stopped twice @ gym cause of my Mio Link/ X2 Performance does it work?/ Prime Nutrition Recovery/RunTriMom

UYesterday's workout was a short 25 minute plus the usually 5 miles that I have added to make up for not being able to run. So I didn't get any blue the first workout with the Link cause I had my zones set on Running Zones. So after figuring out mathematically my max HR (I know I should do a true test but I am still learning), I decided to add sprints for the 25 min part. So I did 2 minute 30 second sprints at 95 cadence then 5 min "rest" at 80 cadence at half the resistance as the sprints. One thing that was very interesting was when I was bent over in the aero tuck position the Link would be showing that I was in my target zone but if I kept the speed the same and sat up with my arms straight on the bars it would go to the red. That was very interesting. It was great being able to just catch out of the corner of eye the light blinking letting me know what zone I was in. I was stopped by 2 people at the gym asking me about the Link cause they have heard it but never seen one in person. They loved it and said they would be picking one up. Women if you are reading this and want to get started in HR training, PICK one up. No chaffing under the chest region.  I am friends on Facebook, follow on Twitter, Instagram, and her Blog Stephanie Johnson (@runtrimom), she is such a motivational person. I told her about the Link and how it doesn't rub the sensitive area on women and she sounded like she jumped all over it. So good to spread the word of a great company to people. Today ride will be 75 minutes plus 5 miles and will be at the lower zone so I will see blue today lol. I will start on Monday tracking my resting HR by putting the Link on as soon as I wake up.

It has been a little hard to judge if X2 performance is working or not. I definitely feel like I have more energy while I am working out but they have been short workouts. Today's long ride should give me I very good idea how it works. There are two good things that I know for sure. I am more focused during training and it doesn't not keep me awake with the natural caffeine.  Can't wait to try it again tonight. I have 1 left from the samples that were sent to me. On their website it did say that some people have to build up taking it to feel it's full effect.

I can't say enough about the great people at Pine Nutrition.  Even though their products and their backgrounds are for the fitness/bodybuilding area.  You can use them for endurance training. Since I have been mixing their EAA with my Gatorade during rides, then taking their Glutamine with Gatorade, I have felt hardly any DOMS the day after. Since today will be the longest ride that I have done Saturday will be a huge test. But I have faith in their products. Go to their website www.primenutrition.com and check out what they have for you.

Again thank you so much for reading this, it means a lot for you to take the time out of your day and look at this.