Jon's Jibber-jabber

Yesterday was exactly one month from my first full iron distance race.  This occurred to me while swimming with my team during the evening.  Where has the time gone?  I have done my training plan, yet I don't feel like I've been doing this for 16+ weeks.  I am sure the long winter with cold temps well into April did not help but it feels like we skipped over spring and went straight into summer. As I look ahead to my final training push before race taper, mentally I cannot wrap my head around how fast this event has come up.  When I signed up last September (before embarking on a 7 day Disney cruise), Challenge AC seemed so far away.   I had all the time in the world to prepare.  Now, it seems like I am scrambling to ensure that I get those final sessions in before I have to start to pull back.  Mathematically, I can see that I have put in a large amount of training miles.   I have logged hundreds of running miles, thousands of biking miles...

Being relatively new to triathlon (in my second season of competition), I have taken up the habit of listening.  My wife would tell you this is not one of my best qualities but I'm not talking about domestic listening here.  I mean that I have been talking to others and reading other points of view to pick up tips about the sport.  Absorbing knowledge like a sponge has helped me become a smarter triathlete, if not a better one. One of the things that I frequently observe is the tendency for many who compete in triathlon to identify themselves with an individual sport.  Often, triathletes will say they are a cyclist or a runner or a swimmer primarily.  Many, indeed, have migrated to triathlon from competition in one of the three sports.  As you would have it, I came to triathlon by way of running.  For my first few triathlons, I remember myself talking about running and my previous road races.   Some say that runners have an advantage as th...

A few weeks ago I purchased a set of Zerolite Comp Clinchers by Vuelta to replace my stock AlexRims on my road bike.  I only use my road bike for short rides or when I am going to be in heavy traffic.  My 2011 aluminum Fuji isn't suited to go fast or simulate race conditions but it works well for recreational and training purposes.  I wanted to try something a little deeper and with better hubs than stock.  Vuelta Zerolites have popped up in searches several times as I was going through the online bike component sector. First, I will start with look.  The Zerolites are not to shabby in the appeal department.  They are designed pretty well.  The lettering seems to be solid on the wheels even through some wet rides.  The spokes are also black, giving the wheels a matte look when riding.   They look very similar to other wheels in the 30mm range. Aerodynamics are a non-issue as it's obvious that these aren't going to give you the adv...

This past Saturday I started my race season with the Kinetic Half Iron distance triathlon presented by Setup Events.   I had scheduled this triathlon about midway through my training for Challenge Atlantic City as a "check in" to see which elements were working and which areas would need focus for the rest of training.  I am glad that I scheduled this race, since it gave me a good sense of my strengths and weaknesses.  It also provided the opportunity to practice some of my tactics in a race situation that is at least a long course event.  This was my first Setup Events managed race.  Setup Events runs a few triathlon series (the Virginia Tri Series, Maryland Tri Series, North Carolina Tri Seris, and others) and also manages the famous Beach to Battleship Triathlon, which is on my bucket-list of triathlons.  I have heard good things about them from others in the area and those observations held true for this race.  The  team did a good job with a ...