How one sport can completely become an obsession and take over your life....in a good way :-)/#TrainWithHeart

I have said this before in earlier post about how I finally decided to start my triathlon training this year. If you haven't had a chance to read my post about my decision to start this journey to what I hope will be 140.6, for 10 years I would always watch NBC's coverage of the Kona World Championships. Every year while I was watching all those amazing people suffer and conquer the course I would say to myself, "I am going to start training for that this year" but didn't. So for whatever reason I had this year, whether it was being 40, the great support I have at home that I didn't have the years before or it was time to just do it; I have started this year. And after 3 months of training, it has become part of my DNA.

I have always wanted to be huge too. It is two conflicting goals that I have had in my life. I am 5"8" and have always wanted to be the size of Jay Cutler, Phil Heath or even the GOAT Arnold. I always thought 250 lbs was the weight I wanted to be. I knew what it would take it go from the 165 lb person I was to 250 and I don't mean the weights, food or the time in the gym. I knew it would take chemical enhancement and I was okay with that (or so I thought). About 3 years ago I decided that it was time. So I started the daily routine of eating every 2 hours 7 days a week. Going to the gym and doing absolutely no cardio cause now I am "bulking" LOL. Also went online and got the closes thing to pure chemical enhancements. Now with having those in my system I had to worry about my liver, blood pressure and testosterone production shut down. Oh the things that you have to do to reach your goals in this sport. When I started I weighed 175 and in 6 months I jumped to 210. I was definitely bigger. People that hadn't seen my in years, didn't even recognize me and where amazed. But how healthy was I? After walking up stairs, I was short of breath. My face was always a shade red from the elevated blood pressure. All I thought about was lifting and eating. My Twitter feed was nothing but full of bodybuilders and supplement companies. I snored louder. I just felt like total crap the whole time. Then came the stomach issue. I had to have my Nissin redone because not only had the one I had 12 years ago come undone but my stomach had twisted and was now above my diaphragm and under my lungs. The doctor that did the endoscopy said that people that had the same issues that I had, when they had to go to the emergency room they didn't make it cause the twist in the stomach had constricted the stomach to where no blood was getting to the rest of the stomach. So obviously the gym was put on hold for awhile. And the weight that I had put on started to drop off quickly. I had another habit that was terrible for me. I would kill my lungs at least 15 to 20 times a day and had the most important person in my life (other than my kids) asking me to stop but it is more addictive than heroin. So here comes November 2013. Again on NBC the Kona World Championship is on the TV. And again like the last 10 years there I am on the couch saying to myself "2014 I am going to do Kona in 2 years." Jump ahead to April 2014 and the click.

I don't know where it came from and I don't know why it happened. But I began my training. I stopped killing my lungs cold turkey. I mentally associated that after I worked out even one puff would completely destroy everything I just did in the gym. 4 months later and still not even 1 puff and don't even crave one either. So my journey began. I cleared out a lot of the bodybuilding Twitter feed, I canceled all the email list I was on regarding bodybuilding and replaced all of that with Triathlon athletes, companies and associations. I would find a great group of people that were all doing triathlons not to win but for themselves. The majority of professionals actually interact with their fans on Twitter and Social media. Companies would also interact with their customers. This was all knew to me. Now I am not saying in the bodybuilding world the companies and athletes don't, just that to me more of the pros in the triathlon world would interact with their fans. I would listen to races from all over the world, watch old races on YouTube, read everything I can about what is going on in the triathlon world. I would find a couple of people that would be inspirational to me by following their journey as they trained and competed in triathlons. It was great to see how supportive people in this world is to be so supportive of each other and cheer people that they haven't ever met before.

The training has taken off for me. If I miss a workout just cause of life, I can tell it changes how I feel. I feel like I am going backwards if I miss the workout. I feel amazing after a workout and I have struggles during the workout. I decided to take my workouts to a higher level. Heart Rate training using the MAF training way. Thanks to the innovative and amazing company of Mio Global, I started using their Mio Link. This strapless heart rate monitor was amazing. The Link goes on you wrist like a watch. So there would be no chaffing or uncomfortable chest strap to have to deal with. Being able to see which training zone you are in by a flashing light that corresponds to the heart rate zone you set by their Mio Go App is easy and very convenient. This one thing has taken my training to a level where I believe I will be able to do a full Ironman in 2 years time. So I thank them every chance I get and here I am doing it again. Thank you Mio Global for creating such an amazing helpful product. #TrainWithHeart is their slogan and it is fitting on many different levels.

Triathlon is now part of me and my world. Everyday I think about my training, how the last workout went and how the next one will be. I like, share, + and retweet on a daily basis companies that I support and follow and that have supported me and helped me. Like SOS Rehydrate, Swiftwick Socks, Mio Global, Skratch Labs, Align Footwear and SLSTri just to mention a few.

SOS Rehydrate has really helped me with my hydration during training and just support and motivation. Getting dehydrated is a thing of the past for me thanks to their great product. I will be doing a detailed review of their product in the near future. Also I will be doing a review of Swiftwick Socks and Align Footwear as well.

So I end this humbly and honestly to the people that take time out of their day to read my blogs,to say THANK YOU! I am no English professor, journalist, grammar expert or professional writer. I share this blog with whoever reads this to motivate, help or just entertainment you during your day. It takes putting your ego aside and bringing to the front any insecurities that one might have when they decide to do a blog. So again I can not express enough how appreciative I am of everyone of the hundreds and hundreds of people out that support each other in this Triathlon world.

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.