This past weekend I presented a Group Cycling Clinic to a bunch of my Team Triple Sports teammates. I will be writing up a blog post with more of the talking points later this week. If you would like a copy of the presentation notes, please feel free to download it here. Group Cycling – etiquette and safety

I will update this post later with more details, please check back soon.

Jeley

Been a while since I blogged it up. I just figured it would be good to get some of my 2011 experiences down on “paper” before my old age prevents me from remember much of what went on.

2011 was a banner year for Jeley. I would say that it was pretty dang near my best year yet. I feel like so many things were accomplished and I feel that it was a successful culmination of 365 days.

Professionally, it was a great year. 2011 was my 5th year with Solid State Networks. I work as a manager of many hats; Product Manager, Engineering Manager, Project Manager, and to a certain extent Account Manager. Solid State Networks (SSN) is a small software startup in Tempe Arizona. We started off as a Peer to Peer file sharing software company and slowly (but surely) moved to a company that specializes in the delivery of very large digital assets, like video games, movies, etc. We used to be a software as a service company and now are a software products company. Our products assist content publishers in delivering their large assets reliably and quickly.

In 2011 SSN landed and delivered on a couple of very big contracts. First, in July, SSN took over as the download manager client for Adobe Systems group. Our DIRECT product is now at the core of every delivery of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Reader on Windows. The solution we provided Adobe gives them the ability to offer opt-in/opt-out 3rd party products (including Google Chrome) at the point of download of the Adobe products. This has lead to SSN products being responsible for the most downloaded software on the web, and now contributing to the second largest number of Google Chrome downloads and installs on the web. At the end of 2011 we shipped to Adobe the first iteration of our DIRECT Client for MAC on the Apple Web Kit platform, and look forward to that going live in 2012.

The second big win SSN had in 2011 was assisting EA Games, BioWare, and Lucas Arts in the release and delivery of the most highly anticipated online game release of 2011; Star Wars: The Old Republic. We spent all of 2011 working very closely with BioWare to provide the best possible solutions for downloading, patching, and installing SWTOR. SWTOR went “live” on Dec 20, with over a million pre-ordered copies, most of them distributed online…many more copies were sold off the shelves of your favorite electronics stores. BioWare reports that there were over 1.5 million monthly subscriptions ordered in the first 2 days, making it the fastest selling MMORPG in online gaming history. Every one of those games sold, contains SSN DIRECT patching systems, and a bit of our blood, sweat, and tears. I am very proud of our team. I work with some extremely talented folks, that worked VERY hard all year to make this happen.

Personally, 2011 was also a banner year. In 2011 I lost nearly 45 lbs. Mostly due to my new obsession with triathlon. I trained for and competed in 7 multisport events in 2011 and am proud of how far I have come with my swimming and running.

Also in 2011 my amazing wife Christine had not 1, but 2 heart surgeries to fix an exercise induced arrhythmia. This condition would cause her heart to beat out of control randomly during some of her workouts. It is a very dangerous condition, and it ultimately came down to getting it fixed, or discontinuing her athletic activities. The first surgery wasn’t successful so she ended up on medication to mediate the problem. Medication worked pretty well for about 8 months, then it just stopped working. It became apparent pretty quickly that a second surgery was the only option.

Christine did a lot of research and found a new cardiologist that was willing to actually work with her. Once the surgery was decided upon we were anxious to get it done and over with. This surgery has a 70% success rate, so we knew going in, that there was possibility that it would not fix her condition, but it was better that sticking with a solution that was 100% guaranteed to NOT work. The surgery took a lot longer than the first, but when the surgeon met Christine’s mom and I afterward, he was VERY confident that he had fixed the problem. So far, she has had no arrhythmia events since the surgery. BIG WIN!

Also in 2011 Christine trained all year long (even with heart issues) and completed not 1 but 2 70.3 half Ironman races. Once in Oceanside California where she finished in just under 7 hours. And the second was in Sonoma California where she finished in 6 and a half hours. I am SUPER proud of her, she has a will that is simply amazing. With all the set backs she had with her health, she never got down on herself for more than a couple of hours. She missed maybe 8 workouts all year and met all of her performance goals.

Overall, it was a great 2011 and I know 2012 will be even better.

IronMan Arizona; for local triathletes the week leading up to IMAZ is almost like Superbowl Week or Daytona 500 Week for most of the rest of the (US) population.

IronMan is a triathlon that is 140.6 miles in length, 2.4 miles swim, 112 miles cycling, and 26.2 miles running and it has to be completed in 17 hours or less. Along the way athletes will have to complete each discipline within certain time limits. For instance, the swim must be completed within 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Athletes that are competing in an IronMan typically train 15 or more hours per week starting about 6 months before the event. Suffice to say, most people, the mortal ones at least, do only 1 IronMan race per year (if they do more than one in their lifetime). For those of us that compete regularly in triathlons and are not doing IMAZ we are just a bunch of fan-boys. This is a chance to watch our friends bury themselves in athletic endeavors at the cost of $600 entry fee, ridiculous cash spent on nutrition, countless hours training, and aggravating the hell out of their families and friends by not being able to discuss even the most current events simply because they have nothing but Swim, Bike, and Run on their brains.

The obvious motivational impact of IMAZ is not felt only by the athlete that is competing, but is felt by nearly every other triathlete in the community. Even though our “off-season” has already started, we still get up early and head to the pool for a little more intense speed set than usual. We hop on our bikes when we would be typically headed to a big stack of pancakes at our favorite breakfast joint. We strap on our running shoes right before the sun goes down and try to log a new 5k PR, even though we already did 5 base miles earlier in the day.

We can’t wait for the IronMan trucks to arrive in downtown Tempe. As early as Wednesday before the race, we find ourselves commuting over the Mill Ave. bridge so we can see the T1 transition area being setup…even if we don’t work anywhere around Tempe. The site of all of those empty bike racks in the grass at Tempe Beach Park is immediately replaced in our minds-eye with the same area filled to the sides with shiny $5000 aero machines and wet triathletes scrambling to put their helmets on and get their bikes off the rack and head out for 5+ hours of riding the “Beeline”.

We begin to imagine ourselves headed out of T2 with all of our run gear on, our legs heavy with 112 miles of biking, and wonder how in the world WE would survive a marathon after everything we have already done. We see our friends, teammates, and families standing on the side of the course or riding by on bikes and yelling encouragement. We see ourselves running down the finishing chute and hearing Mike Riley’s voice as he proclaims us “IronMan”…

For those of us not competing in the 2011 IMAZ, we get inspired by the venue, the race, the athletes, and the stories of how hard it has been to get this far, and how rewarding it is to realize the dream of competing in and finishing an IronMan…and we start planning. We start saying to ourselves “I can do this” and “When can I start training for next year”.

It starts this week, and it starts with going to IMAZ events, the pro press conference, pro “meet and greets”, the kids 1 mile run, the IronMan expo and then the race. Some of us will volunteer on the race, some of us will just watch and cheer. Some of us will pay very close attention to every nuance and think “how exactly am I going to handle this next year?”…

IMAZ week is here, time to train that much harder, stalk pro triathletes like they are celebs, buy M-dot gear like it’s going to be in-style, and prepare to spend 17 hours watching a sporting event that is like no other.

In honor of National Chicken Lady Day – no, seriously!