Some props, and my sacrifice

In my mini race report of the Duathlon last weekend, I forgot to give props to an athlete who had an outstanding race and held strong in third place the whole event, fending off a trio of legit Seattle athletes who made the trip down to try and blitz our home course.
I was reminded of this when I did 14miles of my 18mile long run today with Jake Barakat. Jake is coming on strong and will continue to be more and more of a threat at the races. Dude is strong (physically and mentally) and ran stride by stride with me for 14miles at an impressive pace. It was great to sweat it out for 90minutes with him today.
Also, its cool to note that Jay, myself, and Jake are all coached by Summit Performance Coaching.
I look forward to getting some good training in with both these athletes as I build for Ironman.

Speaking of training partners, I do most of my long rides with Aaron Jenniges. Big Aaron, I should say BIG Aaron, or BIG AARON is a machine on the bike. He bike commutes 120miles/wk for work, and then gets long rides in on the weekends. Having him around on my long training rides has really helped keep me focused the last part of each long day in the saddle. Aaron is 6'6" & 190 pounds. Watch out for him this year as well. He can swim a sub 21minute 1500m (with no swimming background as a kid), bike with  some of the best, and just today ran a 1:22:08 half marathon (7minute pr). Running is no easy task for a big man like that, so my hats off to him. He has really made an effort to improve his running form and economy this year, and its showing!!
Congrats to all my other friends and training partners who had great races today at Race 4 the Roses. Aaron, Paul Shoen, David Embree, Don Ollila, Alana Kent, AJ Kemp, Sue & Don Moote and others (sorry if I'm leaving anyone out)

I am also happy to say that USA Triathlon officially posted the All American and Honorable Mention honors online. HERE  For the second year in a row I am top 5% of my age group (25-29yr olds) in the Nation and have been named All-American. I am ranked 87th overall (107th place got the last All American honor) out of over 2,000 ranked athletes. I'm in a very competitive age group.

Now its back to the grind this next week with more solid training and recovery. I need to continue to remind myself that I need to be willing to suffer & sacrifice more than my competitors. This does not neccessarily mean training more and harder than everyone, that has proven to NOT guarantee success and will eventually lead to "overtraining". I'm talking about the "no alcohol", eating healthy, getting to bed EARLY, resisting the temptation of chocolate ice cream, not staying out super late, completing all my workouts, completing all my workouts the way coach tells me too, taking care of the body, taking i easy when coach tells me to etc etc etc
I'm competiting with the top amateurs nationwide and worldwide, not just in races, but in all the decision I make throughout the day. My goal is to beat all these guys in the races. But in order to get to that goal I know I need to be willing to beat all these guys in my dicipline, determination, and sacrifice made throughout the day, every day, leading up to June 27th.
Its going to be a long, painful, mentally challenging day at Ironman. And I am preparing myself for that now..

SACRIFICE!!