Alejandro Alvarez & Family

Houston Town Lake Olympic Tri

2012-09-29T22:01:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow I am doing my last Olumpic Tri of the year (and 2nd ever). I am a bit anxious, but not as much as last time. I am hoping to improve in all areas, as one should. As always, the one thing I am nervous about is the run, as it is the last and (for me) hardest.

I just read there are 1,800 athletes participating. I hope most are for the Sprint, because I feel confident about the swim, but if there are a lot of people, that might affect the outcome.

Well, gotta go. My goal is 3:00:00, or less. Individual goals as follows:

Swim: 33min (did 34:36 last time)
T1: 5 min ( the #$* Transition area is super far away)
Bike: 1:19 min (@ 19 MPH)
T2: 3 min
Run: 60 min

Week 15/18 - Olympic Triathlon Training

2012-09-26T18:37:00.001-05:00

This is the 1st week of taper before Town Lake. I did not get a chance to do the long workouts on the weekend because I had the (coolest) camping trip with Ramon (Cub Scouts). Nonetheless, the week was not too slow, and I guess that is what I needed. I have been training following the 1/2 IM plan, but the next race is the Olympic distance.

Totals this week:

Swim: 2,000 yds
Bike: 45 miles
Run: 132 min (aprox. 12.6 miles).

Week 14/18 - Olympic Triathlon Training

2012-09-16T20:29:00.000-05:00

Extremele good "fondos" this week. During the week I had to take two days off (Austin and Friday), but more than made up for on the weekend. Feel ready for the Olympic, and why not, for the 1/2 IM (swim and bike at least)

Totals this week:

Swim: 3,800 yds
Bike: 127.5 miles
Run: 225 min (aprox. 23-34miles).

12 Year-Old Trail-Running Phenom

2012-09-11T15:19:00.004-05:00

Amazing Story.

http://www.outsideonline.com/blog/outdoor-adventure/12-year-old-trail-running-phenom-wins-xterra-21k.html

Week 11/18 - Olympic Triathlon Training

2012-08-26T19:46:00.000-05:00

This was a slow week because I had to taper and rest for today's Olyumpic Tri. Having said that, today's effort (more on that later) was probably the hardest in a long long time.

Totals this week:

Swim: 5,150 yds
Bike: 70 miles
Run: 166 min (aprox. 16-17 miles).

Clearlake International Tri reflections and real results

2012-08-26T14:21:00.003-05:00

Well, Clearlake is done and I gotta say that I had an amazing time. It was a great race and during I decided that I want to go for the 1/2 IM. More on that later. First, some reflections

Swim

As a strategy, I have decided that I will always start on the back right of the group. I do not want to get caught int the kicking and pushing of the pack. I followed this strategy yesterday and it worked great. During the entire swim I felt very comfortable, good and I was actually passing people. I ended up coming out 16 in my age group (39 people) and 52 out of 110 in my overall group (all 39 and under). Like I said, I felt really good and my pace was actually better than planned.

Bike

The bike started off with problems. First, my right shoe would not clip. Then, 2-3 minutes into the ride, I broke my left shifter. This means that I rode with the small spoke (plato) all the race. Like Tommy (Guardia) said, I probably looked like a Monkey at a fair: pedaling and pedaling. But, anyway, I did not let this syche me out and I rode as fast as I can. My legs tired more, I guess, but I decided that I had enough cushion in my planned time run since I had estimated 70 min there. All in all, my bike time was 3:40 min more than planned, which sux, but still pretty good.

Run

I knew going into the run my legs were tired, and I would probably walk a lot. BUT, I had decided I would do my best to stay under 3h20m overall. Eventually this did not happen, as I allowed myself the time because of the bike problems. I ran the entire first loop, with no walking, but had to start walking more and more in the other loops. I am not sure how much I walked, but it was at least 10-15 minutes of the overall time. I ended up doing better than planned, at 1h06m

After all was said and done, I beat my estimated/planned time by 40 seconds, which is very comforting given the bike issue. I am very pumped up to break the 3 hour mark in the Memorial Herman Olympic tri in 5 weeks, and to do that I need to concentrate to improve the run to break the 10min/mile pace, and just do my previously planned 18.6 mph in the bike. If I can do both, and just maintain my swim, it is very possible.

Clearlake International Pictures

2012-08-26T10:19:00.003-05:00

Some pics from yesterday. Race review to come.

T-14 hours

2012-08-24T16:54:00.002-05:00

So, this thing is tomorrow. I am all packed up and ready to go to my Abdiel's house (Abdiel, thanks for the offer, that extra 30 min of sleep will be priceless). I am going over a lot of details in my head, I guess that means that I am taking this a lot more seriously than previously thought.

I will try to post a couple of more pics before the race, and after. To the few (1-2) who read this, thanks! I will give it my best, but always thinking this is my "dry run" for the Sept. 30th. with 5 weeks to improve, train and set 2nd time goals.

Week 10/18 - Olympic Triathlon Training

2012-08-19T22:23:00.001-05:00

This was the Taper week for Clearlake. It did not feel like it, although the distances probably reflect it. I decided to go do the bike route Friday morning, and it was frickin' hot. I could barey (really!) finish the 45 min walk afterwards. The bike felt great, though, and I did 40 miles, and not the 28 mile course. Friday got me thinking about the 1/2 IM, and we'll have to see. I got nervous about doing the 2 Olympic distance races in the next 6 weeks. But I know I'll be fine, I just want to do a good time

This week I decided not to do the 25 mile bike (2nd one), as my legs are tired and I need to concentrate on running in the next couple of days of taper.

Swim: 4,500 yds
Bike: 65 miles
Run: 135 minutes (approx. 14-15 miles), plus 45 min walk

Just to get them out in the open now, these are my goals for Clearlake:

Swim - 37 min

T1 - 4 min

Bike - 90 min (at around 18.6 mph, and it is 28 miles and not 25 miles)

T2 - 3 min

Run - 70 min

Total: 3 h 24 min

I think if I push it I can do 3 h 12 min (pushing the bike to 19mph and the run to 60 min, and cutting T1 to 3 min). This would be equivalent to 3 h 3 min in the REAL Olympic.

Our son's progress

2012-08-13T15:40:00.002-05:00

Today Em and I met with Dr. Harris and Maureen to review the progess of my son, Tomas, after 6 months of therapy. Even though we see him everyday and know he had impoved amazingly, the results of the evaluation were nothing short of PHENOMENAL.

There is so much information that it is amazing. We don't want to share too much, so here it goes, in a nutshell.

Wechsler Intelligence Scale

Verbal IQ : went from 61 to 81

Performance IQ: went from 5o to 100 (WOW)

Processing Speed: from 60 to 73

Full Scale IQ: WENT FROM 35 TO 86..

Remember, anything under 75 is considered a form of Mental Retardation. Anything between 90-110 is considered Normal. So Tomas is 4 points away from NORMAL. Pardon my french, but isnt' that fucking awesome?????????

Language

Reception / Understanding: went from a level of a 35 month old to the level of a 42 month old (7 month improvement). They said this was normal for 6 months.

Expression : went from the level of a 23 month old to the level of a 40 month old (17 months). AWESOME improvement.

There is a lot of data they collect, analyze and then Tomas has totally surpassed their expectations, and they are amazed, excited and enthusiastic about his improvement and chances.

Emily and I are very thankful for all the work Dr. Harris and his team had done with Tomas. And want to encourage everybody (for the few readers of this blog, please share if you wish) to treat Austim. Let's create more awareness. It is totally treatable with love, sacrifice and determination. We owe it to our kids.

God bless. Today is a good good day.

Week 9/18 - Olympic Triathlon Training

2012-08-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

By far the most grueling week of training ever for me. But so cool to be able to train whenever I want and totally get to be in the shape I am getting to be in and seriously consider doing a 1/2 IM in November. I seriously am.

This week I could not the last 1,000 yd swim because I wanted to be with my kids, but the rest was done:

Swim: 4,750 yds
Bike: 98 miles
Run: 140 minutes (approx. 15 miles)

Taper starts now for Clearlake.

Invertir en el Deporte en Panama

2012-08-11T16:25:00.001-05:00

Hoy escuche algo que me parecio fantastico. Gran Bretana, despues de las Olimpiadas de

Atlanta (1996) donde solo hicieron 1 medalla de oro, crearon una Loteria especial donde los

fondos iban hacia crear Atletas que los representaran en las futuras olimpiadas. Aqui los

resultados:

1996 - 15 Total (1 Oro), Rank#36

2000 - 28 Total (11 Oro), Rank#10

2004 - 30 Total (9 Oro), Rank#10

2008 - 47 Total (19 Oro), Rank#4

2012 - 54 Total (25 Oro), Rank#3 (a la fecha, faltan 2 dias)

Sera que en Panama hagamos algo asi, SIN CHANCHULLO?

Week 8/18 - Olympic Triathlon Training

2012-08-08T20:21:00.001-05:00

This was a Recovery week, specially given the fact that I went to Austin for 4 days. However, I did take my bike and rode 25 miles in the nice Austin hills (thanks to Victor Vasquez for the hospitality)

As always, my totals this week were

Swim: 2,750yds
Bike: 61 miles
Run: 85 minutes (approx. 8-9 miles)

The next two weeks will be tough. I am NOT doing a Taper for the 1st Olympic Tri, but going all out. The week of I will take it slow.

Free/Borrow E-Books

2012-08-08T17:43:00.003-05:00

Ran into this article at cnnfn.com.

Free E-Books

http://hundredzeros.com

Borrow E-Books

http://hundredzeros.com
Booklending.com

Week 7/18 - Olympic Triathlon Training

2012-07-30T21:42:00.000-05:00

Tough week, but very rewarding. By far the most training I have done in a week. The last few months have been awesome training, and I can feel the improvement. I need to improve my speed, but that will come.

This week I did ALL of my workouts, much better than last week. No road biking, but did all of the planned stuff at the gym. And increased speedwork for run, which was noticeably harder.

Anyway, my totals this week were

Swim: 5,000yds
Bike: 82 miles
Run: 110 minutes (approx. 11 miles)

All in all, it was more than twice the swim, twice the bike and 40% more running that last week.

Clearlake Olympic Triathlon is in 4 weeks. I am planning a 3:45 time, based on 38 minute swim (slow pace), 3 min T1, 120 min bike (28.6 miles @ 4 min/mi, slow), 3min T2 and 60 min run... 3:30 would be a stretch goal.. but still on my radar..

Cruzando Panama (sin carro)

2012-07-22T16:37:00.003-05:00

Semana a semana le he estado metiendo tiempo a esto de entrenar para triatlones, y en este blog mantenido un record de lo que he ido haciendo. Ahora que ya llevo 1/3 de las semanas de entrenamiento, tenia la curiosidad de ver cuanto sumaba todo.

Nadada: 15.75 kilometros

Bicicleta: 521 kilometros

Corrida: 76.8 kilometros

Segun lo que pude medir en Google Map (y esto es aproximado), de frontera a frontera en Panama hay aproximadamente 640 a 650 km. O sea que ya casi me cruzo Panama. jaja..

Week 6/18 - Olympic Triathlon Training

2012-07-22T16:21:00.001-05:00

This week totally sucked. I missed a bunch of workouts, and went from 44/45 as of last Sunday to 49/54 as of today. That means I only did 5 workouts this week.

Anyway, my totals this week were

Swim: 2,000m
Bike: 40 miles
Run: 70 minutes (approx. 7.5 miles)

I decided I will not try to "get" this workouts back. Instead, today I signed up to an Olympic race in 5 weeks, so I best get back on track. Yeah!

New Shadow Creek Pictures

2012-07-17T21:55:00.003-05:00

It's been a good week (Work Permit stuff)...

2012-07-17T11:47:00.000-05:00

It has been a good week as far as getting some progress on the work permit shit is concerned. Yesterday we received a note for an appointment on the 25th of July for the biometrics (fingerprinting, etc). Today, Judy called me that she received a not for the Interview, for August 13th.

I am not sure how long after that I will be able to work, but I hope it is no more than 1 month. Will keep you posted.

Week 5/18 - Olymplic Triathlon Training

2012-07-16T16:10:00.000-05:00

Week 5 was Race Week. Shadow Creek was yesterday (see many other posts). I had to play around, more than usual anyway, with the training days.

Including the race distances, I did all the workouts required of my so far (so 44 out of 45). My totals this week were:

Swimming: 3,500m
Cycling: 51 miles
Running: 75 min (about 8 miles)

Shadow Creek Results

2012-07-15T21:24:00.000-05:00

Preliminary results are in. I gotta say I am a bit disappointed, as I did not do as well as I wanted to on the swim and the run. BUT, the good thing is that I did a bit better than expected on the bike and the transitions, AND that I actually felt the swim and the run being harder (wonder if they were because those were the same two things that I pushed a bit more than needed on Saturday)

Anyway, comparted to Tejas, I improved on everything except the run. Here are the pace comparisons (remember, all distances were different)

Tejas Pace Shadow Creek Pace
Swim (min/M) 0:34:19   0:33:45
T1 0:02:18   0:01:39
Bike (MPH) 18.7 20.1
T2 0:01:50   0:01:38
Run (min/M) 0:09:50   0:09:56

One good takeaway from this is that I can improve more on the Run. And I need to. I think with more concentration on that area I can hit 0:09:30 soon. Probably not for the 6 miles of the Olympic, but for sure for the next Sprint (maybe I'll sign up for one in August).

Finally, when compared with the "standard" Sprint, which is something I like to do, the time would have been 1:27:09. Thi is more than a 3 minute improvement over Tejas.

Shadow Creek Sprint Tri... DONE!!

2012-07-15T11:10:00.001-05:00

So, this is done! It started harder than I thought. I was not enjoying the swim that much, but I remembered what the goal was and some tips I read online, and got through it. Fortunately the space was very open, so i did not have any of the kicking and splashing that usually happens, so it was just another opern water swim.

The transition to the bike was good. I took it slow, decided not to overdo it. We'll see the time, but I think it will be around the 2:00 mark. The bike itself was awesome, felt really good the whole time. Started slower, to warm up the legs, and that was a good strategy for me. The only misshap was that I dropped my water bottle at mile 4.... and never saw it again. Good thing I had already taken 2 sips, but the next 12 miles were dry.

To the run: it felt harder at start, but I did not let up. It turns out I was probably running faster than what I thought at the moment, but we'll see that in the results.

Overall, I believe I did at least the 1:32 I had as a goal, if not better. I will post official results as soon as I get them, and as before, compare to the 750m/12.1mi/3.12mi "standard" Sprint Tri. In the meantime, here are some pics.

Ready for tomorrow.

2012-07-14T19:12:00.003-05:00

Shadow Creek, here I come.

Como es esto posible??

2012-07-14T18:14:00.002-05:00

Como MIERDA no se van a pronunciar?

Camacho: Gobierno no se pronunciará sobre renuncia de ministro Papadimitriu

IRENE HERNÁNDEZ G.

DE LA PRENSA

irene.hernandez@prensa.com

English version

LA PRENSA/Archivo

Luis Eduardo Camacho, secretario de Comunicación del Estado.

El secretario de comunicación del Estado, Luis Eduardo Camacho, dijo este sábado, 14 de julio, que el Gobierno no se pronunciará sobre la renuncia del ministro de la Presidencia, Demetrio Papadimitriu, que revelada por el diario La Estrella, ayer, viernes.

"El gobierno se pronunciará cuando hay cosas que comunicar; no hay nada en este momento sobre lo que tengamos que pronunciarnos, contestó Camacho, en una entrevista vía telefónica.

Tras el anuncio de la dimisión del ministro de la Presidencia, Demetrio Papadimitriu, se corrieron fuertes rumores acerca de la renuncia de otros miembros del Gabinete, incluso de la viceministra de la Presidencia, María Fábrega.

Estas versiones no han sido ni corroboradas ni desmentidas por el Gobierno.

Tejas Triathlon revisited (and now corrected

2012-07-14T15:34:00.001-05:00

Today I was calculating what time I should do tomorrow at Shadow Creek, which got me thinking what time I would have done at Tejas if it had been the "Standard" distance (750/20K/5K). So, here it is.

Based on the fact that Tejas was (600/19.28/4.82), and my paces (see other post for these), my projected time for a "Standard' distance would have been...

1:30:44

Well, did not break the 1:30:00 mark, but certainly an improvement over the 1:42:+ I did in Sherman in 2008. AND, something to look forward to tomorrow.