ZenTri Podcast 546 - Tawnee Prazak, Project X, and 5K racing tips.

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Tawnee Prazak of Endurance Planet joins in for a talk about how she became the host of the popular podcast.  We chat about her background, work, and what she's working on next.  It was a great talk!

After that, we jump into the Training Log.  I take you to Canyon Lake, Texas, where the hill work training begins for the Rocky Raccoon 100.

The terrain is a lot like Southern California.  I did a few runs on the steepest stuff around.  I shot the above pic while looking up a small valley. Nice!

Before the ride home, I challenged Kai to run up one of the hills I ran.  Parents, this is a great tip to help keep your kids quiet in the back seat. :)

It might be hard to tell from the angle, but the bottom of the last phone pole starts higher than the top of the first!  It was like running up a boat ramp.

Back on the homestead, the ZenTri family ran a local 1 mile/5K.  I got second overall in the 5K, while Kai won the entire 1 mile race.  Probably because of his insane hill work.

(How to make your sponsors happy)

Kai was quick to point out that he beat me since he got first and I got second.  Whatever!  

The podcast is full of great training tips for hill training, 5K racing, and much more.  Make sure to give @TawneePrazak a shout on Twitter if you enjoyed her interview!

ZenTri 545 - Vinnie Tortorich, Multitasking, and UberFly

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I am always excited to have Vinnie Tortorich back on the show.  This time, he's talking about the audio version of his best selling book.  And after I peel him away from ZenTriNurse, I go for a big butterfly swim.

The goal was to cross Lake Bryan swimming butterfly the whole way.  Kai is helping support, riding in the front of my buddy Jessie's kayak.

It was COLD!  Water temp was 64 and the air temp was low 50's and overcast.  I had hoped to go without a wetsuit, but no way in conditions like that.  Fly in a wetsuit is actually harder, so it's all good.  I swam in my DeSoto T1 wetsuit, which is a two-piece wetsuit that allows tons more shoulder movement than the competition.  There is basically no way that I could have done butterfly for that long in a regular wetsuit. Thanks, DeSoto!

To make it an official "double crossing" I got all the way up on dry land when he hit the other side.  With 1.2 miles down, I was feeling fine, so I decided to try to swim back fly as well.

This is when my die-hard crew decided that he had more important things to do.  Most notably - eat crackers.

Looks like Kai figured I had everything under control, so now it's nap time.

In the end, I lived.  2.4 miles of butterly across Lake Bryan and back!  It was a ton of fun and something I'll remember for the rest of my life.  Kai was so motivated, he said he wants to try to swim freestyle across the lake next summer.

In the Training Log section of the show, I also talk about multitasking vs. task switching.  Most of the material comes from this site and this audio book.  Check it out and enjoy!

ZenTri 544 - Interview with English Channel Butterflier Sylvain Estadeau and the Austin 70.3

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The greatest thing about being an endurance athlete is you frequently meet people that blow your mind. On today's show, I talk with Sylvain Estadeau, who swam BUTTERFLY across the English Channel in less than 17 hours.

We chat about how he trained for it, dealt with the cold, what he ate, and much more.  I really enjoyed talking to him because I also like swimming butterfly.  He is very inspiring!

In the Training Log segment, we skip over to Decker Lake to do Emily's first half Ironman; the Austin 70.3.  Along with some great audio from the race, I snapped some pictures below...

Athletes have to ride a bus from T2 to T1 before the race, so we got to start our day with a trippy ride on the groove train.

It rained a lot while we waited for "go-time", but Emily braved the conditions and hermetically sealed herself into a wetsuit given to us by TriBoomer.  She was happy and ready to rock!

The rain caused a lot of mud around the bike start.  There is also a problem with "goat head" thorns causing flat tires, so common practice is to carry your bike from T1 a hundred feet or so to the pavement.  Emily's laughing because I just yelled, "You didn't train for THIS part of the triathlon, did you?!"

She went on to cruise through the bike and then run the entire 13.1 miles without walking (except at aid stations).  I was very impressed.  I only got about 100 yards into the run of my first 70.3 before I had to start the death march.  This is a good sign!

The finish is inside a big rodeo arena, which is cool.  Makes for a nice place to hang out away from the Sun while you try to recover from the race.   

And finally, I found something that I'll never forget.  As you probably know, Texans love Texas.  They put the Texas flag on everything.  If it's in, around, near, or about Texas, it usually says so.  For example, my belt buckle from the RR100 has the Star of Texas on top of the Texas state outline, and the word Texas on it, too.  But never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd see a hat that says "Texas" on it three times, all in different fonts.

Oddly enough, it comes from New York.  (Probably made in China)

Alright, that's a wrap!  Hope you enjoy the show. There's lots more fun stuff inside.  Dig in!

ZenTri Podcast 243 - IronBaby 2013

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This episode is the crown jewel of the ZenTri podcast.  I record before, during, and after the IronBaby; ZenTri's annual self-supported Iron-distance triathlon.  

We started out with a 2.4 mile swim in "Lake Ironbaby".  It's a 25 meter community pool with no lane ropes, no lane lines, and even no markings on the walls.  It's like swimming in a white abyss; more challenging than you'd think!  155 lengths gets you 2.4 miles.  Six swimmers in that thing created a nice amount of open-water chop, making it quite a trip.  A good swim for sure.  

A quick check of the water with the Suunto Ambit2 before we started showed it to be chilling at around 68 to 69 degrees.  That called for wetsuits.  I thought it would be tough to do turns in one, but it wasn't at all.

A quick review of the racers and distances: Phil and I did the full swim, bike, and run. Matt, April, and Stacy did the half-distance.  Gary had IM Florida coming up soon, so he did the full swim, bike, and then ran a short while after he finished the bike to see how his legs felt.  

Alright, back to the race!  We all finished swimming around the same time and headed back to my house just two miles away to start the bike.

It's tradition to mark your lap count on the driveway with kids sidewalk chalk. It keeps you from forgetting which of the four bike laps or nine (yes, NINE) run laps you are on.

Athletes are required to self-support, so the easiest thing to do is put whatever you think you'll need in your own cooler for quick access.  Here's mine.

You can see small bottles of BeetIt beet juice in there.  They are kick-ass shots of liquid VO2 Max.  Love it!

I rocked a 12:35 finishing time, then gathered myself together enough to snap this blurry picture of Phil crossing the finish line.  Go, Phil!

I definitely wanted to go faster, but my stomach wasn't having it that day.  Gary, on the other hand, was setting a blistering pace on the bike and run.  If he went all the way, he would have smoked us!

Speaking of stomachs, I want to give a shout out to Freebirds Burritos.  They are the coolest burrito shop you could imagine and they brought lots of food for us and our families.  Here's a shot of the inside of their store on Rock Prairie Road for an idea of how crazy these folks are.

Amrita also sent a ton of their bars for us to use and hand out.  I should have eaten more of these on the bike instead of that gel stuff that made me queasy!  I'll remember that next time.  They taste incredible.

We had all this great stuff set up under a giant Specialized tent loaned to us by our local bike shop, Aggieland Cycles.  And then under that tent, we had a keg of ale sponsored by New Republic Brewery!  Talk about awesome!  Maybe I'll post more pics of that once we throw the HOA off our trail.  :)

Emily had a banner made up that hung from the tent.  We looked totally pro! Nobody is going to confuse us with Ironman, but I think Emily just found the edge of my comfort level.  I don't need any letters delivered by certified mail, if you know what I mean.  

While I was putting this post together, I stumbled across the picture of Kai and I podcasting together in 2005.  This wasn't too long after IronBaby #1.  

I really love that picture.  There is so much history going on in one shot!  

That wraps up the blog post, but there is TONS more in the podcast.  Make sure you check it out.  And a huge thank you goes out to everybody involved.  The IronBaby is a living symbol of what people can do when sufficiently motivated.  Keep. It. Up.

9th Annual Ironbaby is Sunday!

The Ironbaby is a self-supported iron-distance triathlon I've been doing every year since 2004. (Link to page here) While I do the full distance, others are invited to come do as much or little of it as they want. The two other full-distance finishers are @Triboomer (2011) and @Mchristian (2012), and we might add another to this list in 2013 - @KingOfPain.

I started doing this because my son was born prematurely and I was sent home to basically do nothing... for two months! I decided to show how hard I would work to save his life if given the chance, so I went out and did the hardest thing I knew - A solo Ironman. I had never done one before and it was definitely the toughest thing I've ever done in my life.

The next year, it struck me that this would be a great event to do annually. So I did it again and gave it a name - The Ironbaby.

The following year, I started promoting March of Dimes as the charity since they help with kid's hospitals. And then friends also started joining in! As the swim, bike, or run happens, other people can jump in and do however much as they want. It is now a giant endurance sports party!

A few years ago, we added Suunto, Freebirds and Aggieland Cycles as sponsors. And then New Republic Brewery joined in last year. This year, we now include Brazos Running Company.

So come by and join in on the fun! Who can pass up free beer and burritos while watching others suffer? If you donate to the March of Dimes, send me an email with how much you gave so I can keep track. Maps and more about the course can be found here on the Ironbaby's permanent page.

So you can get an inside look at how a self-supported Ironman comes together, I've included a live viewer into the planning document below. Keep your eyes on it and you will see items expand or get checked off over the next few days.