Well now im officially on the way to doing my first triathlon and it will be the last weekend of April. The triathlon is the Riverwood Golf & Athletic Club Triathlon which is a sprint triathlon. This means it is a 300yd swim, 20K bike ride, and a 5K run. Im fairly confident in everything but the swim. I havent done much swimming lately which could mean trouble for the triathlon but im feeling pretty strong for the other two disciplines.

It cannot be said that im not making a concerted effort to mix up my Livestrong Challenge ride training. You may have noticed that swimming is now incorporated into my workouts, now you know why.

Well I’m three months into the year and while im getting back into shape I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be by this point. Hence, I’m going to be changing up my workout structure starting this week. Nope not an April fool’s joke.

There are two problems I’m currently dealing with, the first is that im missing too many days working out. I’ve got to start forcing myself to get out of bed in the mornings. I was able to today and get into the gym and do 17 miles on the bike.

The other issue im having is that Im not getting enough weight workouts into my training. Before I was doing my weights on run days and I’d keep running into time issues that would keep me from doing the weights. Now I’m going to spread my weight workouts over each day so that they should no longer take as much time since they are split up over many days instead of centered on two. I’ll keep you up to date on how things workout.

• Mondays - 45 Minutes Swimming + Soccer Game
• Tuesdays - 45 Minutes Cycling + Chest Workout
• Wednesdays - 45 Minutes Running + Shoulder Workout
• Thursdays - 45 Minutes Swimming (or Cycling) + Leg Workout
• Fridays - 45 Minutes Running + Arm Workouts
• Saturday/Sunday - One Day Off and One Day Long Bike Ride (Minimum two hours)

This past weekend I completed the third home poker fundraising tournament in support of my Livestrong Challenge ride.  This tournament had the lowest turnout so far with only nine participants but thankfully was the most profitable for the foundation.  The lower turnout was due to a lack of planning on my part leaving the notice for this months tournament to a few days notice.  As you can tell from the frequencey of posts lately this has been a busy few weeks and everything seems to be sneaking up on me.

This tounament raised $150 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation and puts me within $30 of the $500 requirement to support my Austin Livestrong Challenge ride.  This was more than any previous one due to the winner pledging his earnings for the night to the foundation and second place donated a portion of his as well.  Due to their being nine participants the payout scale was two people this time.  It was a great and unexpected gesture on both their parts and greatly appreciated.  If the current rate of fundraising continues the poker tournaments alone will allow me to participate in the Philadelphia Livestrong Challenge ride as well as Austin.

It looks like the Hewlitt Packard Corporation is again teaming up with the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  Some of you may know about the Livestrong PC that has been out for the past couple years.   A portion of all sales of this PC go to the LAF.

This year HP and the LAF have announced the 25,000 Strong Campaign.  The goal is to collect 25,000 pictures that show each person living strong.  For each picture HP will donate $1 to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  The goal is to raise $25,000 for the foundation.  So please take a moment and to upload a photo and support this effort: The 25,000 Strong Campaign.

Ive been riding the stationary bike for the past few months getting in some “foundation” miles for my Livestrong Challenge training.  I have looked to find the benefits of stationary cycling to see if my theory that at least being on the bike helps and found that Spinning classes are more highly recommended.  Of course, getting on the stationary bike is better than not being in any kind of saddle at all.

Spinning classes are more highly recommended because the pace is much faster than on a stationary bike.  This is due to having an instructor to push you further in your training.  Also the bikes used in spinning classes more closely resemble actual road/mountain bikes than a stationary bike does which gets you used to positioning and improving technique as you pedal.  Finally outdoors is a varied environment and the variation found in the spinning classes is a closer facsimile of what you would experience outdoors.

So Ill be trying one of these spinning classes to see how that all works and maybe you should as well.  If nothing else it is a new way of spending time in the gym and the more variation you can get into the routine the easier it is to stay motivated and not be bored indoors.