My first ever triathlon was the Ironman 70.3 Austin in 2016. I remember it was simply a challenge to myself. I had run several 5k’s and 10k’s the years before, but I was never really in to “Cardio” as we call it in the fire station, there was always a lot of pumping iron and nothing more. Between the lack of cardiovascular training, and my over indulgence in beer I had ballooned up to 230lbs. Although this may not sound bad for someone that is 6’1” I assume you I was massive.

The spring of 2016 three of my fellow firefighters had signed up for an ran the Ironman 70.3 in Galveston. Two of the guys that ran that race were examples of fitness, but the third was not. He was not in near as bad a shape as I, but I thought to myself “Well if he can do it, there’s no reason I can’t.” So i went out and purchased a Fuji Sportif and started “Training” for the 70.3 in Austin that I had just signed up for. My training schedule was haphazardly to say the least with a few 30+ mile rides and a 4 or 5 mile run at whatever pace I could manage here and there with no swimming that I can recall. Race weekend came and I went out to Austin scared to death of the dreaded DNF in the first hour because I could not finish the swim. The fog that year cancelled the swim to my relief, but nonetheless my performance was less than stellar in my eyes at almost 7 hours. I was bitten by the bug though and signed up for the 70.3 in Galveston the next year, this time with more focus on swimming but still nothing really serious. I finished but not well at almost 8 hours. It was then that I thought that if I wanted to get serious I should get a coach.

I found my coach Kathy Hudson on the Ironman site and made contact with her. She was the one that turned me on to TriDot. I followed the program religiously and cut over an hour off of my time from Galveston to 70.3 Buffalo Spring in Lubbock in June. One of the things that I found so astounding was that this improvement was achieved with less than 10 hours a week. All of the other plans I had looked in to indicated no less than 10 hours a week which I just had not capability to commit to with my work and family commitments. To me those results spoke for themselves and I was dedicated to TriDot to handle my training plan and help me continue to improve. I have had some races that did not go well, but every time it was a lack of commitment to the training on my part, and never a failure in the plan set forth by TriDot.

Since that first race with TriDot I have run 4 more Half Iron distance races and several shorter distances. Most recently I ran 70.3 Oceanside in California and was again blown away by the TriDot system. I finished within 4 minutes of my predicted RaceX finish time. Now more so than I ever have I Trust in the process to help me continue to improve and eventually lead me to Kona one day with any luck!