A big motivation...

After Tuesday's 5.5 hour day of training I took Wednesday off to recover. Then was back at it yesterday with with a near 2.5 hour day of running and swimming.

It's really still a cram for the race. It still doesn't help that I'm feeling sick. I cough, the back of my right lung seems to hurt when I breath deep. Derek R made a joke he thinks I have SARS. I'm starting to think he might be right.

Talking about Derek R, I have to see he's my brother in arms and one of my biggest cheerleaders.

I met Derek through social media at least 4 or more years ago. Derek found my original Training Payne blog. The one I wrote daily for over 4 years.

He found the blog and liked it so much he actually went right to the beginning and read from day one. I wrote over 1000 posts.

Derek was running and just starting to get into triathlons. He lives in Minnesoda.

He has a great story. At the height of his madness he a drug addict and major cocaine user. He quit. I'm not sure how long it had been since he quit but maybe 7 - 10 years?

I remember him telling me that his wife's friends weren't to keen about him and didn't believe he turned a new leaf. I remember reading his blog posts and being amazed at how good of a dad he was to his little girls and did a lot around the house and had a stable full time job.

There was times he would be up at 4 or 5 am to get his runs in and other times I remember hearing about some birthday run that he ran a mile for every year he was born, I think it was 38 or 40 miles at the time.

We hit it off via the blog and twitter. There is a few people you met right of the bat that you know are friend material and Derek is one of those guys. In spades.

Then the amazing happened. Derek started getting into triathlons in a big way. He went from a finisher to a podium finisher. In 2011 Derek signed up for the Lake Placid Ironman, his first and we did it together.

Prior to Ironman Lake Placid I'd never met Derek in person. Lake Placid was the first time. We did have a group of us that were all online buddies via twitter that hooked up and did the race together. It was kind of cool. Especially post race we all sat around waiting for the others and feeling sore.

John Proc, Derek R, Mr Wonderful, Simon Cross

What amazed me about that race was that it was Derek's first race and he finished in a time of 10:46. It became apparent to me then that his ideal race, similar to mine, is Ironman distance. The long stuff.

Maybe it has to do with his extreme personality. If you are going to do something go all the way. If you are going to do drugs, do them all the way. If you are going to do Ironman's do them all the way.

Since then Derek has gone on to do a 70.3 this year at a 4:30 something pace if he wanted to would have qualified for the World Championships. He may do Ironman Kentucky this year. He hasn't yet signed up. I think if he does he will have a very great chance of qualifying for Kona. I know a week or two ago he came in 2nd in his division at a local triathlon.

So why all this commentary about Derek? Because this guy keeps me motivated. He sends me tweets, emails and comments on the blog. He sees my struggles at times and keeps optimistic. When I have gains he's the first to recognize them. He's the type of friend that I believe I can ask anything of and he'll be there for me.

Recently Derek has also been sending me tweets to get my blog posts up. I've been doing them every couple days and a week or so ago I went about 5 days without a post. He wants to know how I'm doing. Where my training is at.

What I find most interesting is how the sands of time have shifted. He started reading my blog and it motivated him to get into shape and pick up the sport in a real way. After accomplishing everything I want to accomplish in the triathlon world I'm going through major transitions in my motivation and now looking to train just for recreation and fitness. The opposite is true for him. He's training for performance and I'm really enjoying watching and cheering him on from the sidelines.

There is a living through one vicariously thing going on here.

When I don't want to get out that door I think of Derek. I know he'll be waiting to read the blog and I don't want to let him down. I want to see this thing to the end and finish my training as strong as possible and then ultimately cross that finish line in Boulder.

Yesterday was one of those days I thought of Derek. The run I didn't need him. The swim I did. It had been a while since I swam and I needed to get into the water to see how much swim fitness I'd lost and how much 2.4 miles of swimming was going to beat me up. I knew Derek would be watching so it pushed me.

The swim went much better than I expected. It didn't tire me. I did go very slow however. I didn't care I got in 1 hour and 17 minutes. If I can get a couple more swims in before the race I'll be ready.

I did a 11 km run yesterday. I'm going to try and do another one today if my Achilles doesn't feel to sore.

It's getting tough to train as work is starting to pick up. The timing to finish this triathlon could not be better.

As many of you know I'm launching a new social media app called Salmon Social. I believe it has the ability to become the next big social app. Other apps with a similar idea with different twists have raised millions of dollars. I'm doing mine on a shoestring budget and the app is almost ready for prime time and only a week away from launching at the Boise Hawks Baseball game. It's going to be Salmon Social night and we are donating $1 to charity for every person that checks in.

Now that the app is REAL I'm getting my butt in gear to start marketing it. We need worldwide adoption for it to be relevant and that is no easy task. In this past week other than the training I've been spending most every waking hour on getting ready to market the app.

For me I've invested much time, money and energy into this app and the next two months are most critical to get it out into the wild and market the heck out of it. If Ironman Boulder was any later I wouldn't be able to train for it. After this race my goal is just to train 5 or 6 hours a day and every other moment dedicated to launching this app.

It's kind of an exciting time for me. I did some amazing things in triathlon in those first 4 years of getting back into it and I'm hoping to do the same business wise. There is a sense of excitement on my part and there is no doubt the experiences of trials and tribulations during my heavy triathlon training are a huge benefit. To me I just see this next phase as an extension of my first phase. First phase was Ironman, second phase Business and I want as much glory in business as I received during those heavy duty Ironman years.

The key for me is to keep in shape, keep the weight down, the muscle up and use training to help keep perspective and provide me those moments of zen.

Run - 1:09:13 / 11.20 km
Swim - 1:17:54 / 3474 meters.