2008 December 02 | Swim Bike Run Live

Archive for December 2nd, 2008

Top 10 Twitter Triathletes To Follow

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

I haven’t written about it here before, but I’ve been pretty active on the microblogging platform Twitter over the past few months. At first It was just a lot of tech geeks and public relations peeps like me, but lately a lot of triathlon folk have joined the twitter ranks.

I tweet at twitter.com/jamesonbull

If you haven’t heard of it before, twitter lets you post short messages (140 characters max) and send messages to friends or “followers.” These messages can even get pushed to your cell phone if you want and you can update all your friends on what you are up to via text messages too. This video explains it better, but Twitter has turned into more than just a tool for sharing “what you are dong.”

This morning I also saw a lot of people creating a bunch of specialized top 10 lists for their favorite dad/mom/ITguy/sewing/cooking/religious twitter users, but no triathletes were getting any love. So I decided to create my own top 10 list of some people that you should follow if you are just getting on to twitter and want to see what is out there and how it works. I follow a lot more than just these guys, but they post pretty frequenty, and almost exclusevliy about tri stuff, so they made the cut.

Okay, well there are 11(technically 12), but screw it. In no particular order..

Bikehugger
texafornia
coachadam
lancearmstrong
jessistensland
konaguyim
staytunedreport / triboomer
usatriathlon
triathletemag
simplystu
tdf_updates (Only really important in July, but still cool)

Who would you add to the list? Am I missing anyone?

UPDATE:

Because she is an attention whore (in the best possible way of course) I’ll add this one to the list. If you need advice on nutrition/holistic health issues, there none better/more awesome.

HolisticGuru – Christine Lynch

UPDATED UPDATE:

As twitter has gotten more popular, more cool endurence athletes joined in on the fun. I’ll be adding more triathletes worth following here as I find them.

Pro Triathletes

Tags: top 10 twitter list, Triathlon, twitter | Posted in Life, Triathlon | 6 Comments »

2008 Triathlon Goals: A Recap

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

Now that I am in full on base building mode for the ’09 season, I thought it would probably be a good idea to revisit an old post on this year’s goals to see how I did this year before laying down in detail my goals for next year. Here are the goals that I laid out for myself on January 4, 2008.

1) Build up at least a respectable base in running/biking/swimming by the time spring comes around and I can start working out outside.
PASS: But my ’09 base fitness is going to eat my ’08′s base for breakfast! BREAKFAST I Tell You!

2) Work on my core strength (read: get a 6 pack)
FAIL – core strength was better, but I still have a lot of work to do. Maybe this season I’ll be able to do laundry on my abs….

3) Take care of myself and don’t get injured, or at least don’t get hurt doing anything I could have easily avoided.
FAIL – IT band issues had me MIA for a little over a month and made the RI 70.3 a killer just to finish.

4) Actually get up to workout when I set my alarm to go off early, instead of just turning it off and sleeping in.
PASS (well, SOMETIMES)

5) Bike to work more
PASS – I probably did the best on this one. I only filled up my tank twice in both August and September.

6) Finish my first half ironman and do it without feeling miserable or like I under trained
Finish? Done. Miserable? Completely. Under trained? Nope. I’ll have to give myself a big FAIL on this one I guess.

7) Be fast enough on the bike to justify having shaved legs
I’m not sure about “fast enough” but I’ll give myself a PASS since my smooth legs were so damn sexy this summer.

8 ) Finish a self-supported IM under 17 hours with a smile on my face (even if it is makes by a lot of pain).
FAIL. This dropped off the training plan early once I realized the year wasn’t going quite as expected. It was fun to aim high though.

9) Save up for a bike that doesn’t weigh half as much as I do.
PASS, sort of – I’m not quite there yet, but hopefully I’ll be riding a new steed by August. This goal is a work in progress.

10) Smell like chlorine more often.
PASS. I should have included smelling like the water at Walden Pond more often too. I ended up swimming there a lot more than at the pool.

11) Pick more bugs out of my teeth/helmet vents
PASS. And D-licious!

12) Race more, have more fun.
PASS: I didn’t race as much as I wanted to, but I had a f-ing blast whenever I was racing or training, so I am giving myself a pass on this one.

So I ended up passing 8 of my 12 goals. With reaching a little high for some of them, a 75% isn’t too shabby. I even hit some pretty cool milestones that I wasn’t even planning on this year. I hit a new max speed on my bike (57mph) and did the longest one day ride ever (+120 miles). These were on different days obviously.

I’m working on coming up with some new goals to post for next season.

Until then here are some pics of me and my sister on or Thanksgiving afternoon bike ride while the the turkey cooked away. This may have to be annual tradition to work up a nice appetite and feel less guilty about gorging myself a few hours later. She just got her first road bike this year and this was the first time we’ve ever ridden together. It was some nice chilly sibling bonding.