Am I this out of shape?

The classic statement of a triathlete who's taken a 3-4 month break from training after realizing his heart is beating really fast. Well at least that's what I thought the problem was.

Been swimming twice a week lately alternating 2500 and 1500 yard swims. Felt preatty strong.

Started this new run method lately. The shuffle. Works preatty freakin good. Trimama has been encouraging me to do it for about a year now. "You run to heavy, your stride is to long and pounding on your knees." She was right. It also helped when I saw the Florida Ironman video. The women's champion, Bella Comeford, is strongest on the run. As long as she can hold somewhat close in the bike, she usually passes the leaders on the run and wins. Of course knowing Trimama was wrong, I watched Bella run...WITH A SHUFFLE! What the &*^%$%^. Once again humbled, but thankful.

I am very grateful for my wife, kids, parents and friends. I got home from the hospital tonight, sat down and played legos with soap and chopper. We made a mean lookin fire station for chopper and urps new Christmas fire trucks. Play time seemed alot richer tonight.

My fast heartbeat turns out to be less about conditioning and more about atrial fibrillation. Was it a good sign that my first thought and second statement to the doctor was "Can I still do Ironman Wisconsin?" She's not sure. I'm on blood thinning medication right now and see the cardiologist on Tuesday. What the fudge. I feel like I'm 29, 38 still seems young and I got heart problems. Oh well. He has His purpose in this too.

Appreciate your prayers. This scared Trimama a little tonight. I did need to reassure her that I'm not dead yet, so she can put the resume away :)

Tac out (but not dead, just out)

I think training sounds ok.

Well finally getting out of the crazy time here at tribal land. I finished our project as you can see over at Trimama's blog and my work project deadline has been completed. I swam 1800 casual today. I think that I am actually starting to look forward to training. I have taken about 3 months off. It's been great. I really beat my body at work and I really needed all of this time off. But the itch is starting. If I wanted to start my 20 month plan for Wildflower, it starts this Monday....Naaaa I am going to wait till after the first of January. Although there is no crime in taking a look at my training schedule over at Beginner Triathlete :)

Tac out

Oh look I'm to busy to post

Holy Cow.

Besides the 50 hr work week, I'm remodeling our bedroom this week. Definetly not enough posting (I'm sure Iron Wil's lacky would agree), but I had a great Thanksgiving weekend. More to follow.

Did I mention I like Apple Macbook's :)



Tac out

Revenge..I'm a nerd?

I'm writing right now from a lawn chair, 12th in line at 11:30pm and will be here for 6 1/2 more hours. I'm pretty sure this is the nerdiest thing I've ever done. Hey can you blame me, I'm getting a 800 dollar HDTV for 375.00. Can't pass this up. I'm hanging out with my nephew, hyper bear, who just digested about 8 pounds of sugar and will clearly be the entertainment for EVERYONE in line for the rest of the evening.

I'm going to argue that the majority of people here have never considered the thought of a tri. The more time I sit here, the more I'm getting this sudden urge to acquire many writing utensils and spatially organize them on a plastic sleeve in my shirt pocket.

Oh well...Watching Space Balls will have never looked better!



Tac out

230.00 cookies..Bumper stickers..and God

These were expensive cookies tonight. I am tending the tribe alone because Trimama and Hypen Girl are at Basketball practice. The house has been without the one culinary wonder that I do contribute, my famous oatmeal cookies. That is changing because today, the Sears man came out and replaced a $7.50 piece for ABOUT 230.00!!

##$%&*#!!!

Alright... got that out.

I probably could have diagnosed the problem, ordered the part and fixed the dumb thing myself. But I probably would have spent two Saturdays figuring everything out. So I paid a blue collar guy like me to fix the problem and the got to spend time with my crumb crunchers tonight making arguably the best cookies in the tri universe!



Trimama is well known in these parts for her disdain of bumper stickers. She thinks that putting your worldview on your bumper is just silly and makes cars look cluttered and ugly. She thinks that bumper stickers tend to limit the definition of the person in the car. She said she would never want any on her car.

Riiiiight....




Then she did and Ironman. :)

Speaking of Tri's I suppose I need to start thinking more about next year. I'm really taking it easy right now, because I want my body to be ready for the rounds of training that I'm planning for next year.

Round 1
Wildflower. This will be my first half-iron. I won't be able to train alot outside for this, so I'm a little nervous. But I'm going with a great group of people so I'm confident I'll be fine. Training for this begins in mid January.

Round 2
After recovery in May I start training for Ironman Wisconsin. AHHH..FREAK OUT. O.k. I'm fine, although I think that will happen often. I really have no confidence in my run. My knees (IT band, Quads) are really bad right now. So thinking about Ironman really makes me wonder how it will be possible. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's a verse I will hold onto tight this next year.

Trimama found that training for Ironman grew her emotionally as well as spiritually. I feel this undeniable pull towards Madison. I know this sounds weird, but I just know that God want me to be there. Not for my own acclaim, but for His. To enjoy and deepen the relationships that He's put in my life and to challenge my own thinking about who and what I am.

Ironically, it's Thanksgiving week. I am very thankful for all that the triathlon experience has brought into my life. The people, the challenges, the deeper marriage, the coming together as a team of my family, the beauty of nature and seeing His glory in all of it.

Thank you for stopping by!

Tac

I love Apple

I do. I really enjoyed putting together the video of the tattoo outing. I think what I like is that my Mac is so intutive and makes the production so easy. I have one more big project that I hope will be a good video and pictoral presenation of the IMFL experience for the Tri Geek Alliance. It is so fun just putting it all together on my imovie story board.

Oh...and if your wondering...Yes, I did drink the Steve Jobs koolaide and do bow down to his likeness each night before bed.

I'm preatty sure Wildflower will provide lots more material for the future.

Tac out

Thank you Thank you

After my world premier last night of Tri geek Tattoo 1 and 2, I went out on the town with the stars of the show and we 'celebrated' quite late into the evening. Okay, one star of the show, the smokin red hot Trimama.

As my directing debut, I want to thank all the participants involved with this production.

Their is a troubling report, according to Access Hollywood, that Iron Kahuna is claiming he was acting regarding pain from his tattoo.

I'll let you be the judge.

Part One



Part Two (The controversial 'pain acting' segment)



Tac out

I'm a little verklempt...I'll talk amongst myself

Wow, what a week in Florida. I'm amazed at what an awe inspiring experience the whole trip was. I guess this is one of my race reflections from the other side of the course, the spectator side.

I think I was just as stressed as any race that I myself had participated in, and this was Trimama's race. Towing 3 children, placing 2 pets, cleaning and packing along with wondering how Trimama was doing, left me preatty weary. Yet my weariness was replaced by amazement upon arriving in Florida.

I feel like I entered a beautiful dream.

I can't find any other word for it. Oh boy...verklempt....hang on....

I'm not kidding, writing this literally brings tears to my eyes. I think seeing all of these bloggers with whom I've come to know their individual stories, heartaches and struggles and them seeing them take on the Ironman challange, produced an overwhelming joy for them. I really don't know these people, but I think that's what makes this whole blogsphere thing so interesting... I kinda do know them. Most of the bloggers are exactly what you imagined them to be. So cheering them on felt like cheering on an old friend.

I guess I already miss them too. I know that sounds weird, but it's true. It's like having good friends that you only see once in a long while. Well I hear over at Tri Geek Dreams there's talk of some more 'family' reunions. I'm looking forward to those.

I am thankful that God has allowed me to be part of these peoples lives. I'll continue to pray for them as they take on new challenges, both in the dream world of Triathlon and the real one too.

O.K...I'll give you a topic...Wildflower 07...Great race or excuse for Kahuna to see naked coeds...talk amongst yourselves!

Tac out

Enough Said....

My Baby is an Ironman!!!!!

1/4 the way done...

just talked to her at 5:00, she seems good! Wants to see the tribe at the halfway mark..We'll be there

Bright Eyes, Big Smile

Trimama just came out of transition.

I seriously have never seen here looking so good on a race day...ever. The run will have it's moments, but Trimama is going to be an Ironman today!

Tac really excited out

Just passed 100

We met up with Trimama about 2 hours ago at mile 58. She's doing well. Feels strong. She said the winds were really nasty in the morning, but apparently are calming in the afternoon. The Tribe and I cheered hard as she rounded the corner. We also saw robostu on the couse just before she came by.




Late breaking news...Just got off the phone, she passed 100 few minutes go!!! She seems focused.

The run approacheth....

I love stripping Trimama :)))))

Ok. You can view our blogsphere hero's over at www.ironmanlive.com, click on the link for athlete splits in the upper right hand corner.

Here are the race numbers for the Tri Geek Team

Trimama (of course!) 2297
Commodore 758
Nancy Toby 2484
Kahuna 1576
Robo Stu 1327
Tri Daddy 774
Shelly 2384
Boulder?????

I do love stripping trimama. She found me in the peeling area and I think we hugged so hard she lost her breath. Then I stripped her...and hugged her again.

I saw commodore (the voice of ironman guy couldnt believe that was his actual name) and Nancy too.



2300 athletes offically getting their GEEK ON!

Breaking news....I was just about to publish this post and The Trimama called. She's doing great, at mile 27 right now taking her first of 3 planned breaks. She feels good, she saw robo stu and said he was looking good.

Update when we can!

Tac and Tribe OUT

Trimama is ready, Ironwil's lacky is odd

Ok. Just got off the phone with the Trimama. She is totally READY! She had just finished a swim with Kahuna, Robo, Comm and Tridaddy (tarheel). She was freaking out last night because she's never race swam in the ocean before. Sounds like this mornings dip was a huge confidence booster.

Iron Wil's side kick requested to talk to me. Kinda Funny....I swear the second sentence out of his mouth was a not so veiled threat to pull my geek captin status if I did'nt post more. Uh....Yeah..well maybe Mrs. Ironwil's sidekick and I should compare notes on what it's like TO LIVE WITH A SPOUSE WHO IS TRAINING FOR IRONMAN. It tends to be a wee bit busy :)

Which reminds me of something I heard last week when I pulled out the Ipod and dialed up the last Get Your Geek On podcast. I do enjoy the show with the ever gracious Iron wil and some other guy. It's funny... I swear that I heard Iron wil's assistant call out the Taconite Boy about my much exaggerated liking of Kelly Clarkson (thx dear). Iron Wil's lesser half stated that my enjoyment of Ms. Clarkson represents serious man card violations. Again...I kinda this funny...coming from a guy who likes to "fit into his skinny jeans" and "has no domestic construction skills".

Well Wil, you gotta work with the hand your delt ;)

Wow this is totally amazing. All of this years focus has been towards this Saturday. The Tri Geek Alliance is going to be just fine, and I can't wait to hug everyone of them after they cross that finish line!

Tac out

OOOO...I'm so in trouble

Idle hands are the devil's workshop. Not that I have that much time on my hands. Now that I'm taking a month off from all training, I have more time for marketing my company, spending more time with the kids on homework, supporting Mrs. Taconite (Trimama) for IMFL and driving...I mean selling this-



I wish I could say this is my off season toy, but it's not. My good friend, I'll call 'Bones' has moved himself, wife and six kids to Hong Kong to take a international corporate position (did I mention the cars fast?). He needed to sell his Mitsuibishi Evolution, but didn't do it before he left. I volunteered to help him sell it since it's tough to give a test drive when the cars in Minnesota and your in Asia (did I mention it has 260 horsepower, all wheel drive, sport suspension and goes 0-80 in less time then Trimama can scream at me to slow down? No?...Well its true.)



I've NEEDED to take the car out several...ahhh, many times to make sure I can properly understand and fully demonstrate all it's features to prospective buyers. I'm finding the usual response from passengers (or victims) is a sudden grip of the race seats followed by uncontrolled giggling. It must be the combination of speed and near death experience that leaves people with a sudden desire to laugh danger in the face. :)

As I alluded to earlier, Trimama is not so impressed with this mechanical wonder(did I mention I've done hair pin turns at 50?). I think tonight she pulled out the big guns by stating "What if you hit someone in that thing...you know you'd go to jail for awhile". O.K. I may be the blue collar Taconite Boy, but I'm not so dense that I don't get THAT hint.

Keep Tac boy out of prison, buy this car!

Tac Out

Oh sure...I'm here for ya Trimama

Typical fall day. Blue bird skies, mellow breeze and a small passing early fall thunderstorm. The trimama is embarking on one of her epic rides in preparation for IMFL. I'll let her give you the 'training' report if she wants, but in case some details of her day are neglected, I have the equalizer..... MY OWN BLOG!!!

Taconite Boy had three jobs going at once, one new employee to interview, two estimates to finish and a huge entertainment center to distress and age with lacquers. So, a typical day for boy wonder here.

Ring Ring

Tac boy "Hello?"

Trimama "(breathlessly) Hi, where are you?"

'Where are you' is phrase Tac Boy knows too well. She doesn't really care where I am, just if I'm available for rearranging my schedule to do something.

Tac Boy "South Minneapolis, why?"

Trimama "Well do you know how I could bike home from Egan?"

Of course I knew that this meant can you pick me up from Egan because it's going to rain? Like I'm going to stop my major business projects to drive half way across the metro to pick her up. Yeah...I'll just tell her she can wait out the rain storm and finish here ride because I don't have time for this!

Tac Boy "Where do you want me to pick you up?"

Well at least I take a stand when she puts on John Denver at home.

For the record, I did bring Trimama back through torrential rain just in time for the sun to come out for the last half of her ride. I may be entering my off season, but right now I'm all about seeing her get across that finish line in Florida :)

Tac out? Boy wonder out? Crushed rock out....
I'm gonna need to work on a sign out

First Taste of Iron

Well here I go, posting for the first time as taconite boy apparently no longer as trihubby (although trimama says I'm always her hubby ;) Good day to post, I just signed up, paid the bill and am heading towards Ironman Wisconsin in 2007! I guess the last several years have been preparing me for this. It was only 20 months ago that I noticed trimama working out a lot more in preparation for her first triathlon. Around that time I was listening to one of my favorite radio shows and the host was plugging(or mocking) his friends site called Trigeek Dreams. I liked this guy, a middle of the pack busy dad of four who loved the challenge of triathlon. With further encouragement (or harrasment) from the wife I signed up for my first tri later that month. Wait a second, how did I get from dipping into the water of the tri world to doing an IRONMAN! I have no idea, but I'm sure it will become more clear over the next year.

What's Taconite? Good question, I'm glad you asked. Taconite is a the rock pebbles that are mined from the Iron range in northern Minnesota. In fact the upper portion of the state is called the 'Iron Range'. The Taconite that is mined from the range contains about 35% Iron. The process by which the iron is extracted requires the taconite rocks to be pulverized and mixed with other chemicals. Since mining is a blue collar job, and I own and operate a blue collar business the similarities work for me! The unique challenges of pulverzing my body in training and mixing my life up with all of the other athletes in this crazy sport after hard days at work are either crazy or God inspired....or Both. I know I have good support from both my family and my faith, so bring in the pulverzing truck and lets get going!