ZenTri 547 - BCS Marathon Relay

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I was honored to be asked by a group of folks to run the last leg of the BCS Marathon relay.  Here are the Spandex Masses at the start line, temps just below freezing.

 My portion ended up being 6.7 miles and started right in the middle of the Johnny Manziel Texas A&M campus.  Here's me with my ultrabeard, getting ready to kick some ass!

Being a triathlete, I'm both easily distracted and like the water.  I quickly discovered a swim meet going on at the Rec Center.  Nationals for high school aged club teams, I think.  No fat old guys in the water, so I'm pretty sure about that.

Ok, back to the race and out in the cold...  I ended up running my portion at a 7:08 pace!  That's really fast for me and was also on top of running 55+ miles for the week.  Looks like ProjectX training is working really well.

The podcast is full of audio from the race, training notes, and the latest triathlon news.  Enjoy and stay safe out there!

ZenTri Shirts are HERE!

My good buddy Rich Roll posted this pic on Instagram, supporting yours truly.  A million thanks to Rich!  And if you want to cruise around looking cool yourself, you can find a huge selection of ZenTri stuff here.

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!