The Revelation and "I Can"...

As I sit here and write this blog entry in my nice cool home, I am a little overwhelmed by what is going on outside.  Today is a record setting day of heat here in Houston, TX.  It has really taken a toll on training on me for the whole summer.  I guess I really did not notice it last year, because I was not running, biking, and swimming the distances I am this year.  Of course my training has paid off to where I have achieved several personal records, finished a 1/2 marathon and a 1/2 Ironman.  All of this has really taken a toll on my body.  I somehow think I saw my peak during the Waco Triathlon this year, and I have slowly seen a decline every since.  Of course I was in denial, and this past weekend was rock bottom for me. 

As you may know, I was competing in the Spring Fall Classic at Lake Tawakoni State Park.  I had considered this my homecoming because I had grown up so close to Lake Tawakoni.  I really wanted to represent and have a good finish.  Training before the race was pretty good, until the day before the race.  I was on a routine training bike ride that was only supposed to be 6 miles, but somehow I suffered my first bike crash while taking a turn.  Fortunately the crash did not cause any broken bones or equipment, but the chip seal on the street cut me up pretty good, and I had a few bumps and bruises.  Rachel and my mother were worried about the open wounds getting infected in the lake, and I guess for good reason considering that I was hospitalized last year for a staph infection.  Nothing was going to stop me though.  After meeting Cherise of Big Earth Racing and finding out about the field, I felt I had a date with destiny.  I considered this race to be my best opportunity for a podium finish. My destiny ended up being so much different that I expected.

I started the race really great, and even though I felt some tightness in my right leg and soreness in my elbow; I had the fastest swim split that I have ever had.  The water was surprisingly 83 degrees which felt pretty good considering that North Texas has seen 40+ days of 100+ weather.  My T1 was the fastest that I have ever had, and I knew I was on my way to a record breaking finish.  I hopped onto the bike and started my 25 mile ride in 6th place.  I was still fighting some soreness in my leg, but it was not stopping me from making up the time with the leader.  I had him in my sights, and he was less than a 100 yards away when all of a sudden the soreness in my leg became a strong and localized pain in my hamstring.  It literally felt like knives were stabbing me in the back of may leg.  I never really felt anything snap or pop, but it was all of a sudden and the pain was unbearable.  I knew what I had to do, but I did not want to do it.  Finally about about mile 7, I knew it was inevitable, and I turned around and headed back to transition to turn in my chip.  This was a first for me, but it was a first that I never wanted to have...My First DNF.

I can not even explain how upset I was about this.  I have never had to "quit" before, and I felt that I was letting down my team, Shawn's Anomaly, and all you that have followed my progress.  It was not until I started to receive several messages from all of you that I started to feel better, but one specifically from my friend and Team Shawn teammate, Edward Raudez, that I started to get a revelation.   As the week moved by, and I was limited on my workouts, I started to reflect on where I was and what I have been able to accomplish.  Messages of encouragement continued to come my way from so many people about how proud they were about what I have done.

"The Revelation" has continued, and I started to realize that this journey is about so much more than me getting on a podium or even finishing.  It is about the spirit of "I Can"!  For anyone who have ever completed a marathon, a triathlon, or an Ironman, the story is not about the finish line, but it is about getting to the start line.  It is about the constant hours of training away from your family, the determination to continue training even when you don't want to.  It's about the resilience to overcome the adversity of injuries and mental exhaustion that we will all get from time to time.  All we have do is look around to find inspiration.  For me it came in several ways including this clip from "Finding Nemo":



We all have the spirit of "I Can" inside of us.  For some, we may find it on the course of an Ironman, and for others, supporting Team Shawn through donations to Shawn's Anomaly.  We all have it deep down inside and we all need to tap into it.  When we say "I Can" it benefits so many others that may not be as fortunate as us.  Today during a lesson at Ecclesia Church, the speaker was talking about a conversation he was having with his young 9 year old daughter about the ability to adopt a child.  She said to him, "If you can do it, then why wouldn't you do it?"  That is some great wisdom from a 9 year old.

To my Edgewood & Wills Point Friends...and Beyond!!!

I am very excited about coming home to compete in the Spring Fall Classic at Lake Tawakoni State Park on Sunday.  I signed up for this in March and have anticipated my version of "Homecoming" for sure.  I will be out and around town tonight and tomorrow either running or biking.  If you see me, make sure you honk, wave, or just simply stop me an say "Howdy!"  It will be great to see each and everyone of you.

For those of you that may be following my blog and have never been to Edgewood or Wills Point, feel free to contact me with questions on things to do while you are in the quaint little towns that a few privileged can say we have called home.  Here is just a little bit about my home town.

Edgewood was a great place to grow up.  Although you did not have the luxury of the big city, it was only an hour away.  You were also sheltered by crime and problems that the big city brings.  By the time I left town when had grown to over 1000 people, obtained another red light, and we were very proud of that.  If you have ever watched the TV show "Friday Night Lights", you may understand how much a small town is revolved around their athletics.  Following the Edgewood Bulldogs was just like that.  We are known for being great fans, but we also take pride in our heritage too.

Settlement began in the 1840's along the Dallas to Shreveport road. The first site was two miles SE of the present-day town and was named Barren Ridge. The area's first cemetery was located at this site as well as the Barren Ridge post office, which opened in 1850 and closed in 1857.

The Texas and Pacific Railroad was completed during the 1870's and a woodcutting center referred to as Stevens Switch found itself located between Canton's and Wills Point's bitter conflict in their struggle to be the Van Zandt County Seat. In 1878 after Canton won the dispute, the Canton residents built a shipping depot on the Texas and Pacific tracks 9 miles north of the county seat and called the site Edgewood, as it was situated on the edge of the East Texas Timberline.

Edgewood was platted, a post office granted and the old Star Route (presently known as State Highway 859) connected Edgewood and Canton. By 1881, Edgewood had a hotel and blacksmith and was firmly established as a T&P stop. The new railroad town attracted new settlers from Mississippi and by 1895 the wooden shanties began disappearing and were replaced by brick buildings. The population had soared to 650. A community church was built and Edgewood boasted all the essentials for a successful town.

Edgewood established itself as a cotton trader's paradise with the population flourishing from 1900-1920 at which time cotton prices fell to just pennies and the Great Depression hit in full force by 1929. After the depression, tomatoes were the big cash crop with Edgewood being referred to as the "Tomato Capitol of East Texas".

World War II brought all this to a sudden halt with families being torn apart due to the war effort. The economy withered and remained stale until the Northeast Gas Field was discovered in 1960.

With the opening of this rich gas field, farmers became ranchers, new homes were built, and a new school plant soon opened with integration in full swing.

The Heritage Park is an architectural museum of 21 authentically restored and furnished c. 1900 buildings representing the development of rural East Texas and is located on 16 lots in downtown Edgewood. The museum is a non-profit owned and operated by Edgewood Historical Society whose mission is to preserve the cultural and architectural heritage of the area. With an outstanding staff of volunteers, Heritage Park offers museum services to thousands seeking such a site to celebrate their rural heritage. 

More than a dozen historical structures, along with such displays as animal-powered farm equipment and a syrup mill, preserve the history of the area. Included are cabins from the 1800’s, blacksmith shop, country store, barber shop, schoolhouse, and a museum of tools, clothing, and other pioneer items. Docents in period dress often demonstrate pioneer skills.  One of the greatest times to visit Edgewood other than any First Monday or this weekend is during the Edgewood Heritage Festival which is held on the second Saturday of November.  It is definitely worth the trip.

Edgewood made me into the man I am today.  It showed me the true spirit of being a "good neighbor", it educated me in right from wrong, it showed me to take pride in my name, and ultimately it gave me a place to always call home regardless of where I live.  I have not lived there in nearly 20 years, but still to this day, I can be greeted by name at the local businesses by a friendly face or a wave on the road.  It will be great to come home to compete in the Spring Fall Classic, and I hope to see some of you there too. 

The Big Insane Challenge!!!

This week has been filled with great beginnings and dreams.  Training has been going on like normal for me, but the heat is somewhat overbearing.  Texas, along with pretty much the rest of the US, has seen record temperatures and drought.  Everything that is supposed to be plush and green has dried up and turned brown. There are water rations all over the state and lakes have dried up so much that some of the triathlons have had to cancel their swims.  It has been very hard to keep motivated to train for sure, but it is times like this that I have to go back to why I started this journey in the first place.  To become healthy, and make a difference in modern medicine and the life of another family and child like Shawn.

I received an email from Tara and Ellen that the Shawn's Anomaly Research Fund website went live this week which was really exciting news for me.  They have been hard at work behind the scenes to set everything up, and I can't thank them enough for their hard work.  Check out the new Shawn's Anomaly Fundraising Website.  There is a lot you can do there besides donating.  You are now able to set up your own personal fundraising page for anything.  All of the donations are tax deductible and go to the ultimate goal of $25,000 to start the research.  After raising only $120.00 in a little less than a year, I have realized that I need more help from other athletes and advocates. I ask that you consider becoming a part of the fundraising effort either as a donor or an advocate fundraiser.  On top of the reward of knowing you are helping out millions of families and children, we will also be offering other perks for the athletes and advocates.  Of course, my mind has been racing on other things we can do for fundraising and that is where the idea of the "Big Insane Challenge" came from.

Okay, so "Big Insane Challenge" may not be the best and ultimate name of what I am considering, but it is definitely big and some will probably will confirm my insanity for even considering it.  It is still in the preliminary and planning stages, but I am pretty committed to doing it, and I even had some interest from some of the other Team Shawn members who want to do it will me.  Are you ready for it?  Okay here it goes!!!  I am planning an athletic expedition and challenge to do 2 ironman distance events from Dallas To Texas Children's Hospital in Houston for a total of nearly 300 miles of swimming, biking, and running over a 2 day period.  It will be a large undertaking consisting of route planning, medical staff organization, food planning, overnight stay planning, etc., but with help, I know that the impossible can become possible.  Final planning on when it will be done is still in the works, but my assumption is that the expedition will be sometime next year after the heat of summer in late September or October pending that we don't have another drought that dries up all of the potential lakes we would be swimming in.

So what do you think?  Are you interested?  Would you consider coming an unprecedented expedition like this?  We are going to need not only athletes, but volunteers, sponsors, RV owners, Sag Wagons, etc.  Think about it and contact me if you have any great ideas on how to make it happen or want to sign on for the "Big Insane Challenge."

Bridgeland Triathlon & Bruno Mars

A little over a week ago I was in the zone while running. You know that feeling that you get when you feel the rest of the world is just a blur around you, and all you hear is your feet hitting the trail and your breathing. Some may call it a "runner's high", but whatever it is, it is the best feeling in the world. I wish I would have felt something during that time though, because I apparently twisted my ankle on a root while I was running. My body blocked out the pain, and I just kept running. 


It was not till later that night that I started to feel the sprain and noticed a significant amount of swelling. At first I thought it was my typical soreness from working out really hard, but after 24 hours of constant pain, I knew that I had injured myself. This was truly my first really injury since I started this journey over a year ago. 


It made me really upset not because it hurt so much, but because I knew I was going to be limited from working out. I did not want to fall back on my training, but it gets very easy when you have to take a break...


Have you ever heard that song by Bruno Mars, "Lazy Day"? It is quite contagious if you are not careful:



This song will have you singing and humming all day long, and before you know it, you were lazy all day long.  Injury breeds laziness in my case.  I sat up because I could not run, bike, or swim and before you knew it, the weekend was here and I had not even attempted to train one time.  I made the excuse that I was injured, but there was much more to it than that.  I was just a little burned out and lazy.  It is time like this that I need a little motivation from my friends and supporters, and I pretty much was able to get it from some of my teammates at the Bridgeland Triathlon.

Sunday morning was here, and I knew that I was not going to be competing in the Bridgeland this year even though it marked the one year anniversary of me crossing a finish line ever in a triathlon.  You always remember your first.  All I can remember from day was how I was so exhausted from the swim, but the cowbells, the cowbells kept me going.  It was so cool.  This time I wanted to see what it was like from a spectators angle, and it was great.

If you have never witnessed a triathlon even as a spectator, I totally recommend that your first experience should be at a sprint triathlon.  They are much shorter and most of the time, you can watch pretty much every leg of the race at the same time if you put yourself in a strategic position.  For the elite athletes, it generally takes about 1 hour to complete the course, so you are not stuck out in the sun all day long waiting for the winner to cross the finish line like you would be in an Ironman event that can generally take all day long.  Of course the Bridgeland Triathlon put on my OnUrMark Productions is arguably the best sprint triathlon in Houston.  Aaron Palaian and the rest of the crew really know how to put on a event.  If you have considered doing a triathlon and just did not know which one should be your first, I highly recommend that you consider the Bridgeland, Houston Triathlon, or the Kemah Triathlon.  They are all hosted by OnUrMark through out the year.  The next race is the Houston Triathlon on Sept 25th.  I will actually be competing in the international distance portion of that race, but they will also be hosting a sprint triathlon as well.

As a spectator, I wanted to show my support to some of the FSR team and Team Shawn's Anomaly racers. Edward Raudez and Garrett Oakley.  This was the first really opportunity to see the team in action, so I was super excited.  Unfortunately, Edward had to drop out at the last minute because of an emergency, but Garrett was still competing, so it gave me a great opportunity to watch and cheer him on.  Garrett and I both got the bug last year at Bridgeland for the first time.  Since then we have both seen a great improvement in out fitness levels and race results.  This was a perfect chance for Garret to see how far he came along from last years race, and he did not disappoint.  Here are his results:

Overall 219
Age Group (25-29 Men's)  27th Place

Swim 9:15.0  (18th)
T1 2:22.4 (62th)
Bike 37:34.2 Avg Speed 23.2 (29th)
T2 1:43.0 (59th)
Run 29:02.3 (33rd)

Total: 1:19:57.0 (27th Place)

Previous Bridgeland Finish 1:34:27.4 ( 0:15:30.0 faster)

Congrats Garrett!!!  You have made Team Shawn's Anomaly proud. 

Ultimately, the Bridgeland Triathlon was perfect for me.  It has got me motivated to get back into training and get ready for the Spring Fall Classic in Wills Point, TX.  I really want to make a good showing since it is where I grew up and it is an inaugural race.  It should be fun!  Maybe I will see some of my old high school friends there.  If you plan on coming, please let me know.  I would love to see you.