Gear For Multisport

I have been doing some open water swim practice Tuesday & Thursday morning down at the Minneola Tiki Bar at 7:30 am.   I appreciate Todd & his family tolerating us getting in and out at the Minneola Inn.  I have buoys now that I set up & have been able to talk Chris Seymour on occasion into getting up early & meeting me there. If anyone reading this ever wants to swim on a Tues/Thurs. morning..email me at KJGrog@aol.com Hope to make it a tradition thru the rest of the season.

Should be ready for a good swim at Disney 70.3 this weekend.  Looks like our age group is stacked.

The M35-39 Field…
Gregg Blow, Authur Mathisen, Daniel Domingo (Former Pro), Anton Van Zyl (Former Pro)
John Reback (Should of been a Pro), Rick Copley, Rudolpho Gonzalez (South Florida),
Chris Huff, Ramsey Small, Andres Munera, Lee Boyer, Jan Sturma (Team Czech), JD Strickland, Pete Newsome, & C-Sad.
 

This weekend is the Lake Minneola - Run Around the Lake.  As far as I have lived here, it is the first time event for Sommer Sports.  I think Fred use to have this event some time back.  Should be a fun time.

Here are the details on the event..

http://www.triflorida.com/Events/ClermontRunAroundtheLake12K/tabid/804/Default.aspx

St. Anthonys weekend came & went for me.  Gusty winds & large chop caused my buddy Phillip Lahaye to cancel the amatuer swim.  Very responsible call on his part as I am sure we would of lost someone out there.

I had a good run for the first time in a while.  Held it together.  Wasn’t real fast when it was all said & done but I will use this one to build from.  Just knowing that I still have the legs in me after the bike is some good confidence. 

It was a nice trip away to clear my mind & relax.  With some sort of flu bug, some much needed rest was nice.  Thanks for Kimberly for letting me go & thanks to her mom for helping out with the kids.

It was also good to see a lot of triathlon folks from my days in South Florida & from around the state.  My former Clermont roommate Rebecca Wassner won the womens title with my other friends Sara & Sara (with Clermont connections) following close behind.  Congrats to all.

Its always nice to see Timmay & Ninja as well..

And also a sight at some of the triathlon’s around the state is the Reback (David) five kid stroller.  Quite a sight..

Done some racing lately.  I was second today at the Lake Mary 5k.  Did the Lake Louisa Triathlon where I was the 2nd place amatuer.  I also did the Clermont Olympic tri a few weeks back & also ran the 15 mile Croom run to get ready for St. Ants..

I also got some coverage this week from the NBC telecast for Clearwater 70.3…

This weekend is exciting for Tri Clermont community.  We have our big Spring triathlon right here at Lake Minneola.  Once again Gear for Multisport is on board as the swim sponsor for the entire Sommer Sports 2009 Series. http://www.sommersports.com/
Both Kimberly & I will be racing the Olympic distance race as the Best of the U.S. spots are on the line (http://www.bestoftheustriathletes.com).  We both have a chance..but at the same time I am not holding my breathe as these two spots bring out some serious elite competition.

This time of year we also get some good trips in to Disney.  Probably once a week.  Like Kimmie said to me earlier this week..if only the Transportation Station sold lunch, we could just ride the monorail all day and G.G. would be content.

I returned to the East Pasco/Zephryhills YMCA for there Spring Fling triathlon.  Had a good swim-bike but my run was off. I was able to hold off the competition to take the OA win though.  It was a fun race & its nice to see races like this grow.  This was the third year, I had raced and I am proud to say a Grogan has won it every year (me 2 years ago & Kimberly last year).

Will focus on some brick workout to get my bike to run legs back under me.

Tampa Bay News Article..

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/community/article985107.ece 

Results…

http://www.championchiptiming.com/Home/tabid/65/Default.aspx?EventID=342

What happened this weekend.. 02/14/2009-02/15/2009

Saturday:My Valentines Triathlon, Gavin’s Kids Duathlon, Gavins Birthday Party Train ride.

Sunday:  Kimberlys Escape Triathlon, Kimberlys Birthday Celebration @ Disney. 

V.day results..http://results.active.com/pages/displayNonGru.jsp?orgID=216352&rsID=75109 

I went out to Dade City & ran the Michigan based Dances with Dirt 50k run Saturday.  It was chilly so I waited in my car for the start @ 7:30am.  I sat there fueling up, staying warm, and all of a sudden I saw a big group run past me @ 7 am.  I peaked out of the car & asked a spectator “what was that?”  He told me it was my race.  Phuck! Rookie mistake number one.  I stripped quickly and off I went.  I quickly made it thru the field by about mile 10.

I took some wrong turns & spent a lot time back tracking and even passing the same people twice.  I was pretty bitter when I hit the second to last aid station & my garmin had 31 miles showing on it & asked the volunteer how much further I had and he said 3 or 4 miles.  I would then run another four for the longest/toughest run of my life to date. Finished with 35.4 miles on my Garmin.  Ran an additional 4.4 miles. 

The course was well marked and I accept full responsibility for my wrong turns.  It is just very hard to stay focused on a 31 or 50 mile one loop trail for that long.  Also..some of the course was not true trails.  It was running in the woods from hash (tree w/ a pink ribbon) to hash.  I would run-stop-look for next hash-run-stop look for next hash etc.. 

Luckily I held on for the victory so I couldn’t beat myself up too much for all my mistakes.  Here is a picture of my Alligator award I was given; very cool.

http://www.dwdgreenswamp.com/results/50kresults09.htm

Next up…the Valentines triathlon this saturday at Lake Louisa. 

A week back, I went back to Alafia for the Florida Challenge Trail Run.  Things started out ok but I soon realized I was way out of my league running in a group of six guys way out in lactate land in the front of the race.  The first 3.5 is very technical & at the end of the section I had realized I had blown up.  I started damage control at about mile 6 and realized I needed to slow way down. My buddy Tim Johnson passed me about mile 8 & made me feel like I standing still.  Tim ended winning the Masters title & my wife Kimberly placed 3rd overall (women). 

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/09/fl/Jan25_Florid_set1.shtml

Learned a bunch about my fitness level that day.  This next weekend I have a 50k coming up on the Green Swamp Trails out in Dade City.  I am curious to how intense these trails are.  If they are anything like Alafia, I may have to rethink some strategy.  I will keep you posted.

BTW…here is Gavin on my dream toy growing up..The Green Machine.  Notice the foam block on the seat & the legos on the pedals.  

KJG    

Saturday, I went north to run a 5k put on by The Villages up in North Lake County.  At GFM (Gear for Multisport), we get a lot of Village residents that come down to visit us, so it was nice to get up there and support the event.

The race started off pretty fast with a couple of high schoolers from the school there going out pretty quick.  The pace soon settled in and I was able to find my pace.  Came thru in 17:38 which is fine for this time of year.  The temp. at race time was 29 so it was a bit chilly.  The race organizers were kind enough to give me a new DVD player for the win & a nice big ole trophy. 

My buddies on the WindermereRoadie forum have been sure giving me a hard time about hitting this race cause it was in a Senior community.  For a good laugh check this out:

http://www.windermereroadies.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5591