7 weeks into the training for 2016 and things are starting to come together. I've finally begun swimming after not getting into water since racing Ironman in October. That has been a challenge but I know it will come around. I feel like I'm re-learning how to swim every year about this time when I begin swimming. I also know racing shorter distances my commitment to improving quickly is more important. I can't afford to be gapped by 90 seconds in a sprint triathlon to guys who can ride and run fast. My biking is WAY ahead of where I was last year based on power numbers from similar workouts. My wife Jen uses and sells Advocare products (mostly Spark) and I decided to give some of them a trial this season to see if they help with my power. I'm 20-30 watts higher right now on the same workouts I was doing a year ago. My best average for watts in a sprint distance has been 289 and I'll be surprised if I'm not able to get over 300 this year based on what I've been doing in workouts. I'm biking much less than I did last year when I was training for a June Ironman. I'm running much more. The last 3 weeks my run mileage has been 50, 55, and 60. This week is a down week running mileage wise but a higher bike week. I've only been biking between 100-140 miles a week (about 5-7 hours). This week will be 200 or more. Each week I've been getting in 2 quality run and bike sessions. The challenge is spacing them out along with my strength training sessions that tend to leave me tired where I can be recovered enough to get quality each time. Those 2 runs and 2 rides are my most important workouts of the week each week along with my long run that is currently at 13 miles. I won't go over 15 until August when I switch my focus back to the Ironman distance.
The iHope Foundation Corporate campaign has gone exceptionally well. My goal was 25 business sponsorships this year. We are currently at 14. The level of support they have given the foundation has been so incredible. Combined they have provided over $11,500.00. To date in the 3 years since the iHope Foundation was created we have awarded 12 students an iPad and a $1,000.00 scholarship. One of my long term goals is to set this foundation up to be around long after I'm done racing. My goal is to have an endowment of $100,000 which would annually provide about $5,000.00 in aid to students in the form of technology and scholarship money. The endowment is nearly half way there and we have money saved to provide students in the near future with iPads. I'm hoping I can race fast enough to help bring that level up. To learn more about the iHope Foundation or help fund a future iPad for a low-income student in our community that displays outstanding character and work traits you can click the links on my home page.
This year I'm coaching 8 athletes. I'm excited about the progress they are making. It's a challenge to balance my family, job, coaching high school basketball, my own training, and the training of others but it's also very rewarding and motivating to watch their progress! I can tell the ones who stay consistent with meeting goals each week are making progress quickly. There's a good reminder and my advice for this post...stay the course...set short term goals along the way to bigger ones...and always DREAM BIG!!
