Day 203: Making the Commitment

How do you commit to something that you barely have time for? You make the time. The sacrifice. The hard work. It all depends on how bad you want something. For Ben Hoffman, recent winner of St. George Ironman, it is something that has become a part of him. Maybe “like an addiction.” This is the same feeling I have, and when another morning passes by and I chose to stay in bed and sleep, I have withdrawals. I am mentally down. Mr. Hoffman talks bout community and how everyone helps each other to pursue their goals. I have a feeling we are ready for the next step. We need a community!

“I have an incredible group of athletes that push me toward the
realization of my goals as I simultaneously help them pursue their own.” -Ben Hoffman

Day 200: Happy Days!

Calli- My mom told me that boredom isn’t bad (in reference to Day 199′s quote). She said that when you are bored you can learn a lot about yourself. What you think about when you are bored is like an insight into what you really want out of life. And from that you can set your goals. I think this is true. These last 200 days have been a challenge. A lot has also changed in my life. I started working, Jose and I are one month away from the big day, and through out it all I have been trying to stay on track with Let’s TRI. No I didn’t the whole time. There were weeks that I didn’t train. During those weeks, I thought about training. This is what I really want. So I push on! Here’s to the secrets that boredom can uncover.

Jose – Being 200 days into training, has given me a better insight of what I really want for my life. It’s not only about training, or being a triathlete. It is about perseverance, commitment, discipline and the will of doing something better for your life. Independently of where I end up being in 4 months after our triathlon debut, I now know how to aspire to be a better version of me everyday. Excuses are always going to be there for when you need one or more than one, but excuses are just the obstacles that stand between you and success. After 200 days of training harder than I ever did, with some ups and downs of course, I can’t wait to see how this is going to turn out for my life when I jump into Lake Erie to finally test what I can achieve when my mind is set to a goal. For now, may the training days come harder every time!

“Listen to yourself when you are bored. Your dreams will be revealed to you.” -Calli

Day 199: Coach hard at Work!

Calli- Great morning! Yes it’s true we got to the gym 30 minutes past 5 (5 am is the goal) but we still got everything done that we wanted. We did our weights and then went for a nice swim. I got a little bored because I need to set some goals for myself to work towards. It’s not enough to just get in the water and think at the last minute what to do. So…goals are on the horizon!

Jose- At the end of the day I can tell how hard I worked out this morning. Pecks and legs are sore and I’m sure that means that tomorrow there will be more. Back to strength training is always a good thing though, especially when your body is getting stuck in progress. The swim afterwards was okay, however, my arms were killing me, my legs refused to kick effectively which increased the drag like 100% and at the end I swam almost half than Calli. Still we did exactly what we were looking for… so keep them coming!

“If you find yourself getting bored, it’s because you don’t know where you’re going.” -Calli Brennan

Day 198: Not Strong Enough!

Calli- What a killer run today. It was disappointing to feel that pain in my knee again. I can’t say that I am surprised. It has been a week since I ran. If I skip one week I digress a month. This is where it counts…I need to never skip another week in my whole life. This means shoes and watch come on my vacations with me. I hope you guys have a fun day!

Jose- Killer run I repeat. Since I’m working hard on speed I decided to go to the treadmill instead of going out like Calli. Sticking as usual to the 180 bpm, I change the pace several times going from 6.6 min/km to 4 min/km making sure that I was exhausted on high speeds before going down to an easy one. I set the treadmill for 40 minutes, to find out later that 30 minutes were more than enough. That week of minimum activity stole like 3 gallons of air that I needed to finish. I’m sure though that very soon I will be on track again! Keep them coming!

“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.” – Win Borden

Day 197: Wipe that smirk off your face! Get back in the Pool!

Calli- Today Jose and I got to the gym at 5:30am. We were
shooting for 5, but maybe tomorrow. We were very happy to start swimming so
early. I was especially happy to be training next to the love of my life again.
All feels right with the world. I couldn’t be happier. As we were swimming in
our wetsuits I thought back to December and how worried we were that we hadn’t
practiced with wet suits yet. Now, we have our wetsuits and we are testing them
out in the water. This goes to show that if you set goals for yourself 
accomplish them, one at a time. And yes, it takes time. Now we are focusing on
getting some bikes. I am so confident that we will achieve that goal. Happy fun
time everyone.

Jose- With the start of the second phase we are planning on starting longer, better and more organized workouts. Today we did a 500 meters warm up and the main set was supposed to have 4 drills, 50 mts catch-up, 50 mts backstroke, 50 mts finger drag and 50 mts backstroke, probably something more in the middle and then a cool down. The problem was that my backstroke is not that good (or not good at all) and Calli had to help me a lot to fix the form. I need to work on that, but now that I know that freestyle is not an issue anymore then I can dedicate more time to work on the other strokes that I’m sure (and Calli keeps also assuring) that will help me on my development and improvement as a swimmer. Long Run tomorrow… keep the workouts coming!

“Take the time to set goals for yourself, and then watch the time it takes
to see you reach them.” -Calli Brennan