Back at the conclusion of the Buffalo Springs race, I just did not feel all that great. My training was there, my racing was going ok, but something was missing. I visited with a client while at work and he suggested that I try going Wheat Free to see what it did for me.

So, with nothing too lose, I gave up wheat. This meant, I had to give up a staple of the triathlete diet, pasta. Prior to this decision, I ate pasta averaging one meal a day. I also ate so much bread that Panera should send me a trophy.

At night I found myself hungary again and I would put down a few bowls of the kids cookie crisp. Everything felt good while I was eating it, but I just did not feel right afterwards.

So to give it up, I knew I still needed to eat carbohydrates. I have found great substitutes in rice, beans, fruit (mostly pineapple) and many other choices. I also found some rice noodles that were ok with some sauce when the kids were having pasta.

In 8 weeks, I have lost 10 lbs and my body fat has dropped to 7%. I also find that I am not having the huge hunger swings I once had prior to going wheat free. I come back from long rides on the weekends and can eat a sensible meal and not be starving a few hours later.

When I started this, I was worried about my ability to train and race. As it turns out, my training could not be any better and based on my results last weekend, I am obviously racing better.

In addition, I read an article in Cycle Sport America Magazine this week about the Garmin Slipstream team and how they follow a low inflammatory diet. The basis of this diet is to remove high inflammatory foods like wheat and substitute them with rice, vegetables, fruit and lean protein sources. In addition, they use a lot of monounsaturated fats (avocados, olive oil). Hello Guacamole!

I have told a few friends about going wheat free, but after reading the Cycle Sport article and reflecting back on the changes it has made for me, I thought I should share my success with others.

A few weeks ago, I decided to race one more time before Kona. The race of choice was the Clear Lake Triathlon in Clear Lake City, Texas. The race was Olympic Distance or a 1500m swim, 40k Bike and a 10k run.

I got up yesterday at 3:15 so I could leave by 4:00 am to be in transition by 5:30. I like to get up early, but 3:15 comes real early. My goal for the race was to see what I could do in the heat and just push the pace as hard as I could. Training for an Ironman can be long and tedious, so having a chance to go fast can be a lot of fun.

We were the 3rd wave to go after the Elite (pro) wave and the 40 and older group. For those of you that don't know, wave starts are determined by the race director and they typically put the largest age group waves first. In most races, the 35-39 wave follows the Elites, but this race was a bit different.

The Elite men had about 4 minutes on us before we started and the 40+ men had about 3 minutes. From the gun, my swim felt strong. The water temp was 88 degrees so there were no wetsuits. I did have on my Blue Seventy speed suit, which makes a big difference. At about the 200 meter point of the swim, I found myself in the front of our wave and was also starting to swim up on the wave in front of us. At about 1000 meters, I caught nearly all of the 2nd wave and was even on the feet of one of the Elite men. I don' know why the swim felt so great, but I just felt stronger as the swim progressed. As I exited the water, I looked back and realized that I had put minutes on anyone in my age group. I like to start the bike in front and today was no exception.

My bike has not been as strong as it should be in my past races this year. I knew I had the potential to ride fast, but I just have not done that yet this year. I have had good rides, but no fast rides. To try and change this, I went out hard on the bike, much harder than I normally do and was quite uncomfortable. I checked out the power meter and found that I was holding 300 watts and about 25.5 mph for the first few miles. At about mile 10, my power came back to a more realistic level of about 270, but my speed was still 25+ mph. I also felt that my legs were feeling better and my HR was 165 beats per minute which is what I wanted. I took advantage of this and just went with pace and focused on keeping my power as close to 270 as possible.

At about mile 22, I caught up with another guy in the Elite Wave and that got me thinking that I could have a sub 1 hour bike split. I put the head down and pushed the power up to 300 for the last 10 minutes and got home in under an hour. I was so excited to have this kind of bike split, and tried to use my excitement to get me out on the run course as quickly as possible.

The run started fine with my first 2 miles at 6:20 pace. However, at mile 3, I started cramping in my diaphragm to the point where I could not breathe. It was extremely uncomfortable and I started laughing to myself, because I was about to walk in an Olympic Distance race. I walked from the turn around and after about 2 minutes of walking, it went away. It was a good lesson for me, because I now know that if I get something like this in HI, I can get through it and still have a great race.

After my brief walk, my run picked back up and I finished the race in 2:05, my fastest ever Olympic Distance time by over 7 minutes.

When the results were posted at the race, I looked at the 35-39 age group and saw that my name was not there. I was quite stunned, because I knew I did enough to win the age group. Someone said, you need to "look up", and there I was on a special sheet showing the Overall Male and Female winners. I had my first ever Overall Amateur win and my fastest Olympic distance race ever.

The day ended with a nice trophy and an wonderful welcome home from the family. My son even offered to put the plaque next to his trophy from his podium finish last week.

I have always wanted an overall victory and thanks to my family, my sponsors (Luke's Locker, Bike Lane) and my Coach Dana Lyons, I achieved that goal. I hope to be back next year to try and defend the title.

Wow what a weekend! As always the Monk Family was busy, training and racing and it was not just me this time. We had the Kiwanis Kids Triathlon in Bear Creek where Hannah and Parker both had outstanding performances.

Parker raced so well that he finished with 3rd place in his age group. Parker took off on the bike in 6th place and reeled in 2 people to find himself in 3rd at the start of the run. He ran fast and kept everyone behind him from catching up. I was really proud of him, because this was only his 2nd race and when we left the house, he told me that he was going to get a trophy. That is exactly what he did, and he got to stand on the podium and show it to everyone around!

Hannah raced as well, and did her best. She was a bit sick going into the race, but insisted on doing it anyway. Hannah is into swimming now and demonstrated a perfect freestyle at the event. She now wants to start swimming again, so Dad will sign her up soon for the Gators program once Girls Run is done.

We have more photos of the race published on-line: http://gallery.me.com/tmonk47229#100584

Proud Dad also made a short movie of Parker's race:

As far as my training, I had a hard week consisting of several breakthrough workouts that got me pretty excited:

• Tuesday was a track work out doing 5x 1200's. I averaged 4:27 pace in some serious heat.
• Thursday night was a key swim work out, where I saw 1:04 in several 100 freestyle swims.
• Friday morning was a big run day where I did my long run, but with 5 x 2 mile repeats in the middle of the workout. Al Richardson met me for the repeats and I averaged, 6:46, 6:36, 6:26, 6:31 and 6:11 pace. I felt terrible during the first part of this run, but thanks to Al, we picked it up. Total run distance was 15 miles and about 2 hours.
• Sunday was my long ride day, but again with some work in the middle of it. I had to do 2 hours at faster than Half IM pace and I did that and managed 252 watts, 44 miles total and a HR of only 152 bpm. The weather was hot and it was a challenge. The total ride was over 100 miles and about 5 hours.

Lastly, I am planning to race the Clear Lake International Triathlon this weekend. I hope to get a boost in my bike and run speed. Should also be a good test of my ability to run in the heat!

I have to share this video with everyone. It came out last year and was about Mike Weins, the guy that beat Lance. It is also the race that inspired Lance to come out of retirement.

Enjoy the video.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/10/08/sports/1194822950958/dave-wiens-mountain-biker.html

On Thursday we took a trip up to Kanas City to visit our good friends the Schloegel's. Matt is my old training partner from California and one of my closest friends.

I have to credit Matt for being my inspiration for getting into the sport because when I met him, he had done 2 Ironman races with one of them being Kona. He could run and ride fast.

When I purchased my first bike, Matt was there to take me on my inaugural ride. Matt basically took me to a hill in Lincoln, CA, and dropped me while he climbed away. At the top he said the following: "You can draft on the flats, but you can tell who is in shape when you start climbing." Boy was he right. I spent over two years trying to chase him up and down the mountains of California. I could never climb like him and he always inspired me to try harder to just keep up.

Our friendly competition only increased as we trained for Ironman Couer D'Alene together for the 2005 and 2006 races. Matt tried to make Kona in 2005, but fell a bit short. But on a 95 degree day in 2006, he qualified again for Kona and raced there the same year. I fell short by 2 places and from that moment on, used it as motivation to get me across the line in Wisconsin in 2008.

This weekend reminded me how much I miss racing and training with my good buddy. Houston has been a wonderful move for us as has KC for Matt. However, we definitely had some good times training for IM races in California.

The Schloegel's are busy people chasing down 4 girls and his wife Bebe is a superstar raising such a beautiful family. She was a great host and packed our weekend with great activities. The highlight being an outdoor production of the Wizard of Oz at the KC's outdoor theater. The kids have never seen the movie, so they loved sitting outside in Kansas with their friends and watching Dorothy try and get back home.

The subject of our special trip to Paris for the 2010 Tour De France did come up. So stay tuned and who knows, next summer might include a mountain top duel between Matt and I as we race a stage of the tour.

It was a beautiful weekend in Kansas City and we thank the Schloegels for an awesome weekend.

Today is my 38th birthday. It seems like yesterday that I was sitting in Denver with my friends the Salazar's and Fricke's for my 30th. You do have to wonder why life seems to go by so quickly.

Here is how I would sum up my life at 38:

Marriage: Awesome
Kids: Awesome
Health: Awesome
Job: Awesome

Overall Grade: A- (You can always improve!)

To sum it up, I feel better at 38, than I did at 28. I also could not be more positive about the future.

I am taking a few vacation days for the rest of the week, so it will be nice to spend time with friends and family.

This past week was a good one, with some great work appointments in Austin, some great training and it was topped off with a nice early birthday celebration with family.

I turn the big 38 on Thursday, but my parents came over for some grilled buffalo and tri-tip and we enjoyed a nice afternoon by the pool. I got some awesome gifts, including a coffee mug with tons of Ironman stuff on it and a bamboo sushi platter for my ever increasing sushi habit. It was a low key affair with family and it could not have been a better time.

My mom also hinted at volunteering at the Ironman. I hope she does it!

As far as training, I had a really good week. I had an opportunity for a ride during my trip to Austin. I loaded up the bike into the Element and took it with me on the road while working this week. I also talked Mike Young into driving over so we could get in a before work 60 miler while in Austin. We did a ride called the Mansfield Dam loop. It had 3300 feet of climbing and compared to Houston, it was a nice test of the legs. I felt really good going uphill and feel my cycling is really improving.

I also have to go on record that Mike is no longer droppable. I had big plans to ditch him on the first climb and despite his broken spoke, he never went away. It is official, I can't drop him on flats and cannot drop him on hills either. He now has to have a 2:30 bike split at the Longhorn 70.3. He no longer has any excuses. Here is a view of our route:


View Larger Map

Austin is such an awesome place to train. You have Barton Springs for open water swims, Town Lake trail to run on, countless hills to bike on and all from a downtown destination. I plan on many more trips over there in the future.

When I returned home, I got in a long run of 2.5 hours or 19 miles Friday morning. I did most of it in the dark before work and it was still 78 degrees with 100% humidity. However, at about 7:00AM a big storm blew in and it cooled off. I had only 30 minutes to go on the run and decided to pick up the pace. I clocked off some 7:00 miles and finished the run strong despite being at 15 miles at the time.

Saturday was an easy ride with the Woodlands Cycling Club then time with Shani and Hannah at the Doll hospital in Old Town Spring!

Sunday morning came with me waking before my alarm and I did not feel rested at all. The 2 cups of coffee did not bring me to life and to my surprise, I was not hungary at all either. I started my ride at 6:15 and found my legs to be heavy, sore and nothing like they did when I had the great idea to push the pace for the last 4 miles of my 19 mile run. I was scheduled to do 5:30 or 110 miles. I did not have it and had to rely on Mike to pull me home in 4:30 or 85 miles.

I hit this point several times last year training for Wisconsin. When you have a bad day, you have to cut it short, eat a lot of food, rest and try again later.

I have 10 weeks to go and I am already pushing big volume weekly, despite my work schedule. The past few weeks I have averaged, 200+ miles on the bike, 9000 meters swimming and 45 miles running. If I stay smart and recognize the signals my body sends, I will be ready for the big day.

Lastly, we are off to see the Schloegel's this weekend in Kansas City. I always look forward to seeing them and spending time with Matt. I don't know if we will get a ride in, but I will make sure we run!