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Showing posts from October 16, 2016

What it takes

Do you have what it takes?  What exactly am I talking about? Self-improvement.  Some of the best feelings in life are when you feel like you improved. And not just any improvement like moving up a level at your job or learning a second language. While both meaningful and valuable, it's the moments in life when you overcome a challenge, typically with a bit of suffering, and you feel like you are really living life to the fullest, while doing something worthwhile with your body. This is why it's commonly said that sports change people. Being an athlete is a title that changes you forever. I believe it's a great thing to be an athlete as it fosters great dedication, commitment, focus and passion to many other areas in life - not related to sports. You can't deny that the satisfaction of proving something to yourself as an athlete, perhaps something that you didn't think was possible, is an invigorating feeling. Because the proving requires hard work, in...

Dodge a race day curveball

As a triathlete, I have to be prepared for any and all race day conditions and scenarios. My sport is not singular but instead, a dynamic mix of three sports - swim, bike, run.  As a coach, I have to be prepared for any and all race day conditions and scenarios to help my athletes overcome race day curve balls. A cancelled swim, a modified bike course, a cancelled, then rescheduled race, non stop rain, freezing cold and windy, extremely hot, two flat tires, GI issues, cramps.....yep, we have dealt with it all by our Trimarni athletes.  A few scenarios come to mind:  2014 IMFL - cancelled swim, cold and windy bike While at the venue, just a short time before the IM Swim start, the swim was cancelled due to swells in the ocean. Karel and I had to think fast and thankfully, our athletes had their cell phones on them as there was a period of time between the cancelled swim and TT bike start that we could re-establish a new game plan. As c...

At-home gym - a great investment!

In the spring, I read  an article from Bethany Rutledge about the perfect pain cave for your budget and it made me so happy. I have always been a gym lover but over the years, I've learned that time management is extremely important as an adult age group triathlete. We could not be more pleased with our at-home gym and how useful it is for our active lifestyle.  A lot of time and money goes into a home-gym but in my opinion, it's a huge time-saver and it's cost effective.  We can workout no matter the weather. We can workout no matter the time of the day.  We can workout when we don't want to commute to the gym. We can workout even when we don't have the energy to workout. We can workout without distractions.  We can workout and suffer in privacy.  I can imagine that there are some pretty nice at-home gyms with some pricey equipment but for us, we needed an at-home gym that was practical for our swim/bike/run lifestyle. Although trainin...

Post Ironman Kona "long" ride

Look...mountains!  It's crazy to think that it was just a week ago when we were swimming with fishes in the ocean, and sweating in the lava fields. This past Saturday, we returned back to our mountains (with arm warmers) and explored a new route on two wheels (on road bikes). I absolutely LOVE cycling this time of the year - the tree leaves are so pretty! Our route was familiar to me as I had rode it at the Purple Patch Fitness (PPF) Greenville camp but it was new to Karel. It's crazy to think that we have lived here in Greenville for 2.5 years and have never done the   Green River Cove loop  together!! I am absolutely in love with this 20-mile loop! The beauty, the switchbacks, the descends, the climbing, the flat roads, the river views, the nice pavement, the quite roads, the mountains...it has everything a cyclist should love when riding on two wheels! Seeing that we will ride this loop at the end of the 80-mile Hincapie Gran Fondo next Saturday...