The Life of Pizza John

Since I really started surfing about 8 years ago, it's really been my escape from triathlon and life in general.  Not that I need an escape, but there is nothing like paddling out, catching some waves, then returning to life feeling like a new born ready to take on the world.  I've never had an interest in surf competitions and I've just enjoyed having surf in my life... ...but things change. Anyone that knows me knows how competitive I am.  I don't have to win all the time to be satisfied, I just like to compete and grow in all aspects of life.  This started with surfing at the beginning of 2017 when a couple other friends decided to set a goal to surf 100 sessions this year.  BUT, we had to decide what counted as a 'session'.  We decided on the following: 1) Must catch 3 waves 2) You cannot paddle out, catch three waves, then go back to the beach and repeat for another session.  It has to be a legitimate separate event of the day. The first...

I raced the Blackwater Xterra and Florida 70.3 the last couple weekends and I'm feeling pretty beat up!  I finished 4th at the Xterra after leading out of the water and leading into the run and if I could have run well it would have been a much better race.  I wasn't in the best shape for a 70.3 so I didn't place well, but I ran a 1:30:03 which I was pretty happy about. Look at all the sweet bikes!!! Alligators?  Are you kidding me? Good times

I like to start the year off with the same race to judge where my fitness is. I was curious to see how much fitness I had lost due to taking time off while in Hawaii and while I did lose some fitness I didn't lose as much as I thought I would.  I've been working my butt off to get back in shape and it shows.  Alia and I were originally going to drive down to Clermont the morning of the race, but our friend Sue offered for us to stay at her place in Ocala so it would cut the morning drive time in half.  It was wonderful! I raced well for the level of my fitness and I finished 1st in my age group and 5th overall.  I made a mistake that I never have before which ended up costing me about 5 minutes and a much better overall placement.  I made a wrong turn on the bike!!!  I know this course so well so I have no idea what I was thinking.  Wrong turn or not, my bike and run were both slower than last year, but not by a whole lot.  I did swim faster th...

Each year I create goals and sometimes I accomplish them and sometimes I don't.  This was one of those years when I did not accomplish most of my goals, yet it was also the best year I have ever had in terms of happiness.  The one goal that I did accomplish this year was to get my PMP certification and I am super happy about this since it has been weighing on me for a while.  A few of the goals I didn't accomplish were: -Break 1:30 in Half Ironman run (I got really close on this one and ran a 1:30:13) -Break 55 minutes in Olympic bike (I also got really close on this one with a 55:09) -Podium finish in AG at IM event (At Florida 70.3 I finished 7th in AG and 14th overall) -Qualify for 70.3 Worlds (I never stuck around for rolldowns so I'm not really sure about this one) -Qualify for Kona (this has been a goal for a long time, but I'm either not cut out for long distance racing or I would need a few more years to work towards it.  Training for Ironman distance ...

I decided it was finally time to do a 5k and what a better time than Thanksgiving morning.  Shut up and Run is a small, fun race put on by a friend Sally and it goes all around the road and trails in Treaty Park.  I was pretty impressed they could get 3.1 miles out of the park, but with a little creativity, they did it well!  Plus, it was mostly run on trails which is at lot more entertaining than the road. At the start of the race, I took off with the lead pack and hung on to them until the last mile 3/4 of a mile.  I finished 5th overall with an 18:50 which isn't super fast, but based on lots of turns on a trail I was semi-satisfied.  One fun part about this race is there is a Pie Guy and if you beat him, you get to take home a pie. Needless to say, I got a pie.  Lots of my favorite OFC people also volunteer at this race so it was great to hang out with all of them on Thanksgiving morning. Now....off to Hawaii for a couple months!!! Don't mind the...

Another successful year for the St Augustine Triathlon Team (SATT) so we had to celebrate!  We got together, ate The Taco Shop (best snacks on the beach) and drank until we enjoyed ourselves way too much! What a great group of people we have. I enjoyed mingling and making sure everyone had a full drink as I tried to 'play' and 'play host' at the same time.  I think there was even a booty grabbing contest and Mark Mondello won! This on is for AJ Everyone has high hopes for next year! Let's make it happen!

What an interesting day!  Actually, the whole trip was interesting!  Alia and I drove up to Maryland to begin the adventure. We took the route that goes over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge which was pretty cool.  It actually goes under water in two places for the barges to pass over.  We stopped a night in Ocean City before getting to our final destination of Cambridge. Ocean City was kinda a dirty place but we didn't have a ton of time to explore.  Almost the whole time we were in Maryland leading up to the race it was windy and rainy.  This made attempting to do any workouts challenging since we didn't know the area very well.  We spend most of our time indoors working and hanging out. This was the first Ironman event I have gone to that I felt was poorly organized.  No one knew what was going on and it was just poorly run.  I know a lot of this may have been due to the weather, but I have been at races where the course had to change and it w...

Over the last month, I've done a couple races and won them both!  The first was the HOT triathlon and since I had to defend my title, the pressure was on.  I ended up having a great race and lead out of the water, then stayed in first place the whole race.  The road conditions were not great with some super big potholes and I almost went down on the bike twice, but recovered each time (luckily). Overall, it was a great day and I had my best Olympic run of the year. The second race was the 6 Legged Monster which consists of alternating 3 Mountain Bike legs and 3 Road Bike Legs and it is done with a partner.  I had won this race last year with my partner Yaro, but this year he was out of town so I had to find a new partner. I ended up with Josh Hennessey and he ended up being a great partner!  Plus the fact that he totally reminded me of Toni, a friend from SLC was a big bonus.  After about 5 minutes into my second leg of the race I took the lead and never...

With all the travel, training has not been what it should be. In return, I don't do well.  My bike has come back pretty quickly, but my swim and run are far behind what they should be.  At the Jax Tri Series #3, I had a personal best bike split of 55:09, barely missing my goal of going under 55 minutes.  But at this race, I finished in 5th due to a poor swim and run.  At the BFAST tri a few weeks earlier I finished 2nd, but also did not race very well.  I do feel like my run is coming back so I hope to have better races as the season comes to an end.  I also got a new Road Bike so I plan on doing a little road racing in my free time.  We'll see how that goes!!!  Here are a couple pics from the races!

I thought I would head back to Texas after a really bad performance last year to see if I could redeem myself.  I definitely did not redeem myself and I was originally pretty unhappy about my performance, but as time passes I'm giving myself a little more credit and think it wasn't too bad after all.  Leading up to the race I remembered why I didn't like Houston. It is dirty, not pretty and the traffic can be horrible!  Needless to say, I'm done racing IM Texas and will be finding other ones next time around. Swim(1:04:30) I was super happy with my swim.  I started towards the front of the self seeded rolling start and tried to stay on people's feet the whole time.  Each time a person passed me, I hopped on their feet until I couldn't hold on anymore.  I got out of the water feeling good and skipped right through T1. Bike(3:58:35) The bike was shorter than normal(95 miles), so it was hard to compare it to other races.  There were a lot of turns ...