Dance Like Nobody is Watching!

So my 2011 Triathlon training is well underway, with 2 solid weeks under my belt. I wanted to start this post off by saying that I am stoked to be back training healthy and injury free! At this time last year, I was pretty much restricted to swimming and water jogging as I had developed stress fractures in both my fibulae from running too frequently on the pavement around SF :( Then, after finally healing, I had a terrible bike crash at my first race back after my injury in June when the race director decided to pour piles of baking flour onto the bike course to mark the corners!?! Seriously. I crashed hard on a corner, as I was leading the race, and the flour had not yet been dispersed by other racers. I injured both my hands, dislocating my left thumb, and had around $4500 dollars in damage to my Specialized S-Works Transition Time Trial Bike. BBOOOOOOO!!!!! I was able to do a few late season races on my road bike (and even did a half ironman on a borrowed bike - big thanks to Jason Britton), with some ok results, but was not fully trained and did not have my "A" game equipement. Onto 2011 :) Injury free and have all my equipment up and running.... I started my year off with some dancing at an annual party called MASS. This circuit party is super popular here, and dancing is alway's a great workout if the DJ is rocking the decks! This party was just excellent and I left totally spent! A great start to training. I was able to get in 9 hours the first week of January, then finished off a solid 12 hours the second week. I am just focusing on slowly easing into the year. I have incorporated a number of new training modalities (TRX, trampoline, Body Pump) in an effort to gain more strength and fitness to improve my run and overall performance. So far, so good.... My first race is in 2 weeks. YIKES, but exciting. I am doing the Arts and Sciences 5km run. I think my fitness is pretty good right now, and I am definitely aiming for a sub 20 minute performance. However, you can never really predict how your body is going to react, and my number one goal is going to be to have fun, and to give my 100% effort physically and mentally on the day. I was asked by TRX to be part of a photo shoot in late November, which was a great opportunity, and one which I didn't want to pass up. I have posted a photo below. You can see me in the far back corner. Unfortunately, after 6 hours of photo shooting, this was the only photo I appeared in :( For some reason the young girl who was the photo shoot director apparently didn't like me very much, and was VERY disorganized. A pretty disappointing experience, but you don't know until you try :)

Looking forward to the next few weeks will see a bit more training volume added to the schedule, and much of the same - swim , bike, run, trx, body pump, and some trampoline. Good Times!

Happy, healthy, safe training to all.

See you at the races!!

Stephen