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Is anyone else tired of racing yet this year? No? GOOD! Me neither! I'm definitely ready to take my bike and wetsuit over to Boulder, Colorado, for the Ironman 70.3 Boulder!
Here are my goals for the race:
Continue reading "Just one week and counting before Ironman 70.3 Boulder " »
The 2012 Fiat 500 is one of the most fun cars you can buy today. It comes with a 101 horsepower engine and it can also be had with or without a roof as the 500c.
Perhaps just as importantly the Fiat 500 Cinquecento is the first new Fiat to come to American shores after decades of new Fiats in Europe. Fiat's purchase of Chrysler has given the Italian automaker an American dealer network making it possible for Fiat to bring the very tiny 500 to America.
The Mazda 2 is also all about fun with a splash of utility in the mix. It shares a platform with the new Ford Fiesta but the engine and transmission are different as well as the styling. Both the Fiat 500 an the Mazda 2 are priced about the same and both can be had with an automatic and manual transmission.
But which one is more fun when you are on a budget? Check out the video from our sister blog TFLcar.com below to find out.
Continue reading "What's the most fun car for the fewest dollars?" »
Editor's Note: We'd like to welcome Andy Holgate of the great state of Britain to the EMT editorial team. Andy will be writing a weekly column each weekend about his continuing journey from everyman to Ironman. Today he starts with a brief tale of testicle shrinking proportions.
The freezing cold water enveloped me, stabbing at my exposed body like a hundred knives. My testicles took their self-preservation seriously and retracted towards internal safety somewhere in the vicinity of my gasping lungs. Adrenaline flooded every inch of my body and I started thrashing wildly, forgetting all that I had learnt about swimming technique. Not surprisingly I winded myself.
Knackered, only about fifty metres from the start I ground to a halt. Gasping for breath, treading water, taking a few seconds to dispel the panic. Telling myself to get a grip, quitting was not an option and besides the hardest part was over with. I’d jumped blindly into the cold, dark water and wasn’t dead.
Reaching out with my right hand, throwing my left arm above me I plunged forward. Learning my lesson, I counted out a rhythm with my arms. One, two, three, breathe…..one, two, three, breathe. The panic subsided, moving through the water my lungs didn’t seem to be working so hard any more. I took that to be a good sign.
Welcome to paradise - Kapalua, Maui - home to the 2011 XTERRA World Championship. Kapalua Resort has long been lauded as one of the world’s greatest travel destinations and this October the XTERRA Tribe will get to discover it - from the white sand beaches to the West Maui Mountains - in a way no others have before.
For the last several months the XTERRA crew explored much of Maui Land & Pineapple Company’s private 22,000-acre oasis to uncover an epic 18-mile mountain bike loop and six-mile trail run route worthy of the world’s best athletes.
What they found and then created by clearing stretches of previously un-passable mountain foliage was a wild, undulating terrain full of promise. From palm trees to pine trees and ridgeline to ravine, this course may best be described as a tropical roller-coaster ride through pineapple fields and forests.
Gone are the calm seas of Makena, the kiawe thorns and sharp lava rocks of Haleakala, and the unforgiving South Maui sun. It’s a whole new world at Kapalua, and the inaugural class of 2011 will usher in a fresh era of big surf, red dirt, and verdant green passages.
What's the coolest way to combine work and triathlon? The story below from the BBC gets this year's EMT award for most unique way to add a bit of triathlon training to your daily job.
BTW: Click HERE if you want to watch Rob Thomas swim with the penguins.
A Zoo official from Scotland has been training for the London Triathlon in the attraction's penguin pool in a bid to get fit for the event. According to BBC Edingburgh Rob Thomas, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland's conservation and research manager, has been donning a wetsuit to swim with the penguins.
Continue reading "Photo of th day: man swims with penguins to get ready for London Triathlon" »
Man down! Man overboard! ABANDON SHIP!
Is that what a lot of Kansas City area triathletes are thinking? I thought it was just a race here and there that looked a little lean on participants early in the season until I looked at more races as the season has gone on. Numbers don't lie.
The events around Kansas City that I dove into were:
Heritage Park Triathlon
Kansas City Triathlon
Kansas Ironman 70.3
Shawnee Mission Park Triathlon
Midwest Mayhem Triathlon
I excluded duathlon participation when I looked at the numbers and only looked at finishers, not the number of people that signed up.
Continue reading "At least in Kansas City...triathlons are no longer selling out" »
Vancouver, Canada (25 July 2011) - Triathlon is breaking new ground with an innovative and exciting concept which the International Triathlon Union (ITU) launched today with just under one year to go to London 2012. Triathlon Live Sites in six cities around the UK on August 6 and 7 will welcome visitors to experience live triathlon in an unprecedented format.
Each city centre location will be transformed into a mini sporting arena where everyone can be part of the triathlon action with an Endless Pool, treadmills and stationary bikes bringing the sport to life. BBC coverage from the Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series London in Hyde Park will be simultaneously broadcast live on big screens right in the heart of each city.
Continue reading "ITU takes the indoor triathlon concept to the next level in the UK" »
What's the best and fastest wetsuit in the triathlon biz this year?
In this exclusive EverymanTRI video report from Bike Dealer Camp 2011 in Utah Ben Greenfield tests the year's newest wetsuits to find out.
Check it out below as Ben swims in some of the newest and best wetsuit on the market and of course struggles, like all of us, to peel them off.
Continue reading "Exposed: The newest and fastest triathlon wetsuit of the year" »
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Today marks exactly one year until the start of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, and USA Triathlon and its athletes are diligently preparing for the sport's fourth inclusion in the Olympics.
To celebrate the one-year mark to the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremonies, USA Triathlon has launched a special web page to look ahead to the London Games. Visit usatriathlon.org for athlete profiles, a look at the Olympic triathlon course, feature stories, video from Susan Williams' 2004 medal-winning performance and much more.
The first qualifier for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Triathlon Team will be held Aug. 6-7 on the 2012 Olympic course in London's Hyde Park. Nine Americans will chase a top-nine finish, which can secure one of the first spots on the 2012 squad.
Continue reading "USA Triathlon celebrates exactly ene year and counting to 2012 Olympics" »
Running with runners is a very different experience than running with triathletes. Apart from the actual running motion itself, it is two entirely different entities. Runners are not balancing three sports and are doing fewer workouts each week. This makes a very big difference in the execution of the key workouts.
Let me take, as an example, the track workout I did on Saturday:
We met at the track at 8am. The whole group warmed up together for 20 min. We started at a very pedestrian pace. We reconvened back on the track for 10 minutes of dynamic stretching. After stretching we did some strides. The workout was explained and off we went. In between the reps we had some rest in which we could walk, jog slowly, take a sip of water, and catch some air. After the workout we jogged a very easy warm down. In total, the workout lasted over 90 minutes.
Michael Phelps has not had the best 2011 World Swimming Championships.
Earlier this week he was beat by Ryan Lochte who caught Phelps in the second half of the men's 200m freestyle final to win gold...leaving Phelps with a silver.
But at least in his signature race (the 200m Butterfly) Phelps beat Japan’s Takeshi Matsuda over the last 50 meters while at the same time holding off China’s Wu Peng.
After the race Phelps said, "I didn’t want to lose that race again, Having a number of defeats this year, that was extremely frustrating for me. I didn’t like that feeling. I kind of wanted to have the feeling of winning a race again."
In this photo Phelps waves to the fans after winning the 200m Butterfly final in Shanghai.
While he may have lost some of his speed from the last Olympics he still has has about a year left before the 2012 games in London.
“I want to be faster," Phelps said after the tight win. "That was a little too close for comfort. . . . This is just a small step for my next year."
Follow on twitter @everymantri or view latest videos on YouTube.
A new study has found that a combination of weight training & aerobic exercise is best for heart health.
The study recently published in the American Journal of Cardiology concluded that people doing only weight training gained strength but saw saw very little benefit in terms of heart health while those people only doing aerobic exercise dropped weight and inches off their waistlines.
"Aerobic plus resistance is clearly the optimal program," said Dr. Timothy Church, of the Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.
Continue reading "What's the best exercise weight training, aerobic training or both?" »
Have you ever wondered why highly successful bike companies like Trek, Specialized or Giant never design and build cars?
We figure the answer is pretty straightforward: cars are a completely different breed of transportation and the bike companies are smart enough to realize that they don't have the engineering expertise to build a good car.
Too bad the car companies don't have the same attitude because they seem intent on building expensive and lame bikes.
Continue reading "Porsche designs and builds two lame and crazy expensive bikes " »
In 2005 I was training for my first Ironman, and got hit by a car while out for a ride. I was in aero position, going about 28 mph on a gradual downhill in the bike lane, and a guy in an opposite left hand turn lane decided to gun it and try to beat me across. He misjudged. Before I could even come out of aero position to make a grab for my brakes, I t-boned his passenger door and flew, bike still attached, over the top of his car.
It was a rather spectacular-looking crash (according to the horrified onlookers). I was wearing a Road ID, and when the ambulance came, I didn’t have to scour my dazed brain for a phone number. My husband was called and I got carted off for x-rays.
Three months later, when my body had healed and my new bike had arrived, I went out again. I was admittedly white-knuckled, but had to get back in the saddle, literally. I told my husband I would stay close to home and do laps in a low-traffic area with a very wide bike lane.
Continue reading "Product Review: the Road ID is a no-brainer for amateur athletes" »
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - More than 2,500 of the nation's top amateur triathletes will be in action Saturday, Aug. 20 at the USA Triathlon Age Group and Sprint National Championships, presented by Subway and People's United Bank, which will be contested in Burlington, Vt., for the first time.
Burlington is assured of hosting the largest USA Triathlon-owned national championship event in the organization's history. Held each year since 1983, Age Group Nationals sold out in record time and for just the second time ever earlier this month. A USA Triathlon-owned national championship event for the second straight year, Sprint Nationals registration also reached capacity.
