Multimedia message

Was a pretty cool day. Legs are super tired though. Had the physio yesterday, all is going well, we are working on strengthening the muscles around the knee. Also  a lot of lateral movement work to strngthen muscles and prevent further injuries. 

We nt for a nice and slow 47 mile ride this morning. The weather turned out to be really nice and towards the end of it, it was in the 60's.

We found some really cool hills at the lake and will be hitting them again for sure. 

Now however I have some really sore legs. I think the physio and the ride combined was maybe just a bit to much to handle. Anyway, happy thanksgiving to everybody for tomorrow. 

Safe travels for everybody

Multimedia message

Multimedia message

So, heard back from my doctor and he has the results from my MRI. Turns out I have swelling in my knee joint and a strained ACL. Guess I won't be doing any running soon. I strt my physiotherapy tomorrow.

I did 43 miles this morning in 2:20:30 at an average of 18.3 mph. That's 5 mins off my previous time of the same distance. I guess the trainer must be working. It was also really windy today which sucked. By the time I was 10 miles in I was stuffed.

pavlik brace

well, pretty rough day today. Our doctor had some concerns that kiera had some issues with her hip joints. a bit of background is that kiera was breach and therefore we had to have a c section. apparently it is common for breach babies to have hip joint issues.

so we went to a specialist this morning and turns out she has mild hip aplasia in her right hip joint, which basically just means that the ball socket is not as tight with the ball yet. its pretty loose in that it want to pop out.

unfortunately kiera has to wear something called a pavlik brace for about the next 3 months basically 100 % of the time to keep the 2 bones in place so that the ligaments can form properly and we will have a happy healthy little baby girl. as all mothers can imagine, jennifer my wife is pretty broken up about it and isnt taking it to well.

from what ive read and heard from other people its the best thing for them and doesnt bother them to much.

as i say that kiera is crying and its pretty tough to handle. turns out she just spat up a little and didnt enjoy it to much. she is on the boob now and all is good.

anyway. had a good gym workout last night working on my shoulders, back and arms. had a good swim the day before as well. covered about 1.36 miles.

my knee

went for a short run tonight, knee felt like crap. going to doctor tomorrow morning at 10:30am

:(

my first video blog

Have a look, this is my first video blog.

I get to see my mom on friday night

Well, its thursday morning. I have been up with Kiera since 3:30 am after her feeding with mommy, I took over as Kiera doesn't go to sleep after her morning feeding so that mommy can go to sleep.

So i hung out in the lounge for a while watching tv. Once i thought that Kiera might be asleep i took her upstairs to the computer room and naturally, she was just playing with me and she was wide awake again. So i tried the little battery operated rocker and a little baby soothing music, which didn't work either.

Anyway, weve made it to 7 o'clock and she is hungry, thank heavens so i've handed her back to mommy for some more boob.

So you might be thinking, why is this post labelled something about me seeing my mom. Well, for those who don't know yet, i am actually and african american. you might say then, wow, you look really white, and so does Kiera. Well, i am a REAL african american. I was born in Cape Town South Africa. And i now live here in Dallas texas. Thus making me an african american.

Anyway, so i've been here for 5 years now and Jennifer and i decided it would be good idea to fly my mom over here to come and help us out with the baby. And seen as i haven't seen any of my family (besides an aunt of mine ) for 5 years now its quite a big deal and i'm sure when she sees her granddaughter she is going to pee her pants.

She gets here on friday night from south africa and i am really looking forward to it. My mom, like many texans has never travelled outside of the country and she is very excited as well. She is bringing us lots of our favorite south african goodies and i will be sue to tell you about all of them when they get here.

I cant wait, we are very excited.

pretty awesome day today

pretty awesome day today. Had a couple off feedings during the night with mommy and Kiera. Baby didn't want to go back to sleep after her 4:30 am feeding so i got up with her so that mommy could go back to sleep. So we got up, made some coffee and a few slices of toast.

She finally fell asleep at about 7 ish so i went upstairs and sat on the computer for a while. Mom woke up at about 9 so once the girls started feeding i went off to the gym and spe

nt about 45 minutes in the pool doing drills and speed work. After i came home from the gym, mommy told me that she had some friends coming over to play with the baby so i had a great idea and made a

n appointment at our chiropractor and got an adjustment and also and awesome massage.

Its a pity it only lasted an hour cos i had some stiffness around my shoulder blades and started feeling really good towards the end of the session.

On the way home chad, from my triathlon club ( frisco triathlon club ) called me up and said he would be at our house at around 3pm with ou

r supper. Kudos to our new found friends at the club who have brought us food during this time where my wife hasn't felt like cooking. You might say, well Jas

on, why don't you do the cooking. Firstly, i'm not that good but secondly with everything else i'm doing around the house to clean up the mess the hurricane left, we are very appreciative for the saints that offered to bring us food.

I was going to go for a run this afternoon as well but i'm doing a long ride in the morning so thought i would save my legs for that not to mention take a bit of pressure off mommy and look after Kiera. Not that it is to difficult at the moment as she is sleeping.

On another note, i'm contemplating some upgrades on my bike. i don't want to spend too much money though. maybe you guys can make some suggestions for me.

This is what it looks like. Its just a road bike with some aero bars on it. Im thinking of buying some MPH if you know what i mean. Maybe and aero helmet, Some tri handle bars. Maybe a forward shifting seat post and maybe a handlebar mounted water bottle with tube. what do you think, if you had about 100 dollars, what would you do to this bike.

Anyway, so thanks to my new BFF chad, we have pork tenderloin, rice and salad for supper, and ice cream and pie. Who said having kids suck.

First week in November

Well the first week in november is behind us. I had a pretty good week as far as being active is concerned. You see i didn't call it training. I am not going to call it training for a few weeks. Im not going to have a structured routine. I am going to try and spend as much time in the gym working on strength as possible. But if the weather is good, you will find me out on my bike or going for a run.

I am also going to take it very slow as far as the running is concerned, i really don't want to hurt my knee again and i am in no rush to get my miles up just yet. Im going to keep it unstructured and just do whatever i feel like doing. Like today i didn't have much time so i went to the gym and hit the rowing machine for an hour. apparently its the second best calorie burning machine in the gym. its a full body workout that you really feel after and hour on it.

Oh, on a side note, thanks to green bay for knocking me out of my football pool. the 6500 dollar winning would either of bought me a new bike or my wife would of put it towards a new kitchen. who do you think would of won.

i was active for 6.12 hours this week. 66 miles on the bike, 2.32 miles in the pool and 2.1 miles running. oh and also 8.1 miles on the rowing machine. I think this week i will havea bit more freedom. Mommy should be a bit more mobile and that might free me up a bit more, maybe i can get my long thursday morning ride in. that will be cool, maybe do 57 again.

I have received the new triathlete magazine and it looks like there are some good articles in it. cant wait to get into it.

well, lets see what this weeks holds for us.

update on run and knee situation

well i had a little run again this morning. those of you who don't know, i had an over usage injury on my knee. after the US open i have taken a break from running under doctors orders. I was supposed to start running 2 weeks ago but we had a baby and so its had another 2 weeks to heal.

I did 1 mile last week and went for another little 2 miles run this morning. I took it really easy and ran about a 9 minute pace just to see how things felt. i used to run about a 7:30 pace. Anyway everything worked really well. I'm sitting with ice on it now just to make sure there wasn't any inflammation. I really hope everything stays good so that i can keep running.

funny stories

we were up this morning, bright and early. Kiera was awake at about 5am after her feeding and i wanted to let mommy get some sleep so i took her and we went to the lounge to watch some tv. at about 8-oclock kiera and mommy were both in LA-LA land when that pesky squirrel came scratching at our skylight again.

Again, you might ask. Well yes. For the past few months he has been scratching at our skylight as last year i blocked off his 2 openings into our roof. So anyway, i have actually got a BB gun from Jens dad that i have been trying to shoot him with.

So there he was , scratching away and i thought, damn him. I got up as slowly as possible not to wake up the baby. Got the gun, made sure it was loaded. Walked quietly to the back door, so i could get outside and have a few shots at him. So i got to the door, quietly unlatched it. And then, as i opened it was reminded by a LOUD SIREN THAT I HAD FORGOTTEN TO SWITCH OFF THE ALARM.

Damn, so naturally after i had switched it off, thought, oh no, everybody is awake now. Well yes mommy was and she came running out of the room. But to our surprise, Kiera was still in dream land on the couch where i had left her. Awesome.

Anyway, so that was the fun start to the morning. i think the damn squirrel also got a big fright and hopefully wont be back.

Other than that it was a miserable 80 degrees and sunny today in dallas. I got out of the house again and went for a swim at the gym. managed 1.25 miles in 38 minutes. im definately getting faster and stronger in the pool which is great. My head and neck are still lazy and i do most of my breathing to the one side. I really have to work more on breathing both sides.

That was pretty much my day, Thanks to brian and marinda for coming for a visit.thanks also to the wonderful people who have been brining us food. you guys are saints.

awesome bike ride today

Well, sorry for you people that live up north. Here in Dallas today it was a horrible 78 degrees and sunny. I just had to get out on my bike for a few hours. So after i woke up this morning i made sure that mommy and baby were all happy and head out the door.

The route that i sometimes ride starts about 10 miles away from my house so i just jump in my car and head down there. Its a parking lot in a park setting. There is a concrete path that leads all the way down to our local lake which is known as white rock lake. Turns out its about 7 miles from the parking lot to the lake. Then its about 9 miles round the lake. Also with very good concrete and asphalt pathways.

So today i felt like doing a longish ride so headed town to the lake and the did 3 laps of the lake and then back up to my car. So i had an awesome day out. i am back home now with mommy and kiera and my legs are kinda tired. I didn't go to hard as i was trying to keep my heart rate between 130 and 150 which worked out pretty well.

The weather was really awesome and hopefully it will continue for a while longer. We can normally still get good weather here into december with a few cold days mixed in. Its normally January and february when we get below freezing consistently. So anyway ended up doing 43 miles in 2:25:05 at an average of 17.8. will be pushing for 18 next time and then onto 19.

So some interesting fact i thought i would share with you.

From the 1st of january here are my training stats:

workouts, bike, swim, run and gym : 161

distance : 1080.63 miles

time : 102:13:36 hours

average time per workout : 38 minutes

ave distance : 6.8 miles

max distance : 57 miles

calories : 61 394

Wow, looking at a year in this way put things in perspective for you doesn't it. I wonder what it will look like at the end of the year and what it will look like at the end of next year. Here is what it looked like at the end of 2008 :

workouts, run and gym : 35

distance : unknown, most of it was in the gym though

time : 33:42:22

average time per workout : 57:16

ave distance : unknown

max distance : unknown

calories : unknown

Wow, now its really in perspective isn't it.

Training wrap up for October

So looking back on october, i have to say it was a success. On the 11th it was the Us open Triathlon in which i came 5th in my age group. Here are the stats.

age : 32

overall place : 31 out of 274

division place : 5 out of 45

gender place : 28 out of 205

time : 2:03:20

swim 800m : 14:50

T1 : 3:16

bike 24.8 mile : 1:20:07

T2 : 1:51

run 3.1 mile : 23:17

Whilst this was slower than i was hoping for i do totally blame the weather for that. It was a cold, windy and rainy 55 degrees for the race and the roads were wet the entire way. In fact i only felt my toes about 2 miles into the run.

That was my second sprint race and went much better than the first which was in september.

but looking back on it it is obvious that my training paid off and i am very happy with the result.

So as far as my training went for october this is what it looks like.

swim distance : 7.68 miles swim time : 3:48 swim pace : 29:41

bike distance : 226.67 bike time : 12.49 bike pace : 17.7

run distance : 5.77 run time : 0.47 run pace : 8:11

total miles : 273.22 total time : 19.45 total cals : 12715

It just dawned on me that i will be training about that much a week when i do my ironman in 2011. wow that crazy. That is the one school of thought anyway. The other that is punted by a lot of people these days including Ben Greenfield is that you could complete an ironman on about 12 hours a week. That might be something to look into.

Anyway, as you might notice, there wasn't much running going on as i was recovering from an injury to my knee so wasn't allowed to run. That seems to be all better now and hopefully will be able to get some miles in.

Also october was the month that my daughter Kiera graced us with her presence and that has slowed my training down a bit, but was on my bike yesterday again after about a week and a half and it felt great. i actually did 23 miles at an average pace of 19mph. So i am taking the break as my post triathlon season break.

Anyway so as november rolls on and with it some cooler weather i am hoping that i can get back into training. Hopefully i can hit about 300 miles this month on my bike. about 20 miles running and about 10 miles in the pool. that would be great.

How are we doing

So i just thought i would fill you guys in on how we are doing. If you didnt see, Kiera Paige Mellet joined us last Sunday on the 25th of October at 14:58pm. She weighed a healthy 7lbs 7oz and is doing well.

Its been an interesting week to say the least. Kiera's first night at home was very tough. Neither my wife or I got much sleep as Kiera probably sensed our fear and took full advantage of it. She spent most of the night screeming her cute little head off and nturally we didnt get much sleep.

Lucky for us though, the rest of the time has been pretty good. Whist she still hasnt got her days or nights in the right order, She has been pretty good for the most part. She sleeps a lot which is good. It gives me time to clean the house and prepare meals whilst mommy sleeps and takes it easy.

I went for my first trial run yesterday morning. I had a slight knee injury and have not run in almost 3 weeks. I did a nice and easy mile around our neighborhood to see how it would hold up and all was good. And then to my delight my wife told me i could go to the gym today so i got an hour in today as well. I have the best wife. Now i am looking for a bike trainer that i can use here in my house so i dont have to dissapear for 3 hours on my bike.

Incase you were wondering, Jennifer (my wife ) had a C section and cant really do much at the moment and is still in a lot of discomfort.

Other than that, we have had some friends around who have brought us food which is totally awesome of them.

Im looking forward to getting back out on the road to put in some miles.