November 01, 2007

A sick baby & a ground fighting triathlete

This is my buddy. He's a gifted athlete who's not right in the head. LOL.
-I got home from work @ 6 this morning to hear my baby daughter crying in her
room. That's unusual because shes a great sleeper. When I entered her room she
looked up @ me with tears streaked down her cheeks & said "Daddy!" w/ arms
raised. Turns out she got sick last night. I will never get tired of rescuing
her from even the smallest of things. I love trying to be her Hero! I bent down
& picked up my most precious little girl held her against my chest as I carried
her to the couch. There's nothing worse than when I see her sick. Perhaps some
triathletes would worry about getting sick 10 days away from the biggest race of
their tri career thus far. But what will ALWAYS mean the most to me is my little
Princess. Man I feel horrible for her, it's Halloween & she was invited to a
party where there would be a bunch of other little ones-none quite as cute as
mine though:) Now she's got to stay home. Now that she is 2 she usually never
stops moving. But today I got to cuddle w/ her all day. I love having a Daddy's girl. But I sure hate it when she's sick. I'd gladly take her place whether the
Silverman is in less than 2 weeks or not.

Speaking of Irons, surprisingly w/ only 10 days until what is known as the most
grueling Iron in the world I'm not nervous @ all. My wife & I have got
everything planned out. We rented a 29 foot RV & will be staying at a RV park on
lake Mead less than 2 miles from the race start. I'm looking foreword to it.

Another thing I'm REALLY looking foreword to is my plans to lose weight after
the Silverman. I have the motivation, the support, & a reasonable plan.

Seems like some things just seem to work out perfectly @ times. My buddy & I
are always challenging each other to do things that take us out of our comfort
zone. Not the traditional guy things like drinking & such. Things that usually
better each other. Such as triathlons & multiple day hikes through mountains
neither of us had ever been to.

2 days ago he called me up & issued a challenge to me. Dec of next year (2008) he
wants us to do Grapplers Quest. That is a multiple day tournament for Jui Jitsu &
submission grappling. Actually Grapplers Quest is the West Coast Championships.
Of course like any good friend I agreed, all be it reluctantly There is good
news & bad news about me agreeing to do that. The bad news for me is that I'll have to
start grappling again, & that takes time to train for. Time is the one thing I
have least of @ this time in my life. The majority of my spare time I'll be
training for multi-sport. But I'll need to put in some time on the matts or risk
getting humiliated, beat the heck up, & hurt. Multisport is my true love. But
truth be known Grappling was my first love. I just kind of fell into Jui Jitsu
abut 4 years ago, but I got pretty good very quickly. After only 18 months I
placed 2nd in my 1st tournament. Then after my 1st triathlon I stopped training
for ground combat & never looked back. The good news about choosing to do this
is that there are weight classes in ground fighting tournaments. So its VERY
important that I drop down to about about 199 lbs by next Nov & then I'll cut another 10
lbs right before the tournaments (more on cutting weight later). That is ironic
because no more than a week before my buddy asked me to do this I had posted a
goal on my blog to get below 200 lbs By Dec of next year.
Perfect timing & extra motivation indeed! I'm weighing in right now @ 248 lbs
right now. If the tournaments were today I'd be fighting as a super heavyweight
which is 225 lbs & above. I'd prefer not to have to tangle w/ the big boys. My
goal is to get to 199 lbs & then cut 10 lbs before my competition. Cutting
weight sucks. If you've never done it it essentially means I'll restrict food &
water for a couple days before my official weigh in, in the hopes of being able
to fight in a lower weight class. If the day of my weigh in I still need to cut
more weight than I'll have to sit in a steam room to lose that last bit of water
weight. I'm hoping to fight in the 179-189 lb category in the Gee division, 179-189 no-gee, & in the absolute division. 3 divisions total. Most people usually only choose one division, but hey I'm an endurance athlete. My theory is that this will actually help my triathloning because light is fast! I'll let u know how the training goes. I start grappling again the first week in Dec.
Thanks for tuning in. Peace!

6 comments:

Mike said...

Sorry to hear about your daughter. Hope she makes a quick recovery ... and that you don't catch it just before Silverman. Hope your tapers going well.

Grappling sounds erm ... yeah sounds different. Rather you than me :) haha

Looking forward to reading about your build up and your race day. Keep on blogging :)

Mike

S. Baboo said...

The only thing I'll do that involves any grappling would be to wrestle the lid off a peanut butter jar or something. I had my fill of hand to hand combat in the Marine Corps. Just be careful with your knees!

skoshi said...

What is grappling? Is it like wrestling? Hand to hand combat? Hand to hand grappling?
Sounds grunty and sweeaty.
Enlighten me?
Thanks

Anonymous said...

Hey Cody!

We missed seeing you at church yesterday. My guess is your work schedule interferes. Bummer. How are the kids? Everybody healthy yet? I know what you mean about being willing to take their place when they are sick. Mines at 22 years old, and I STILL hate it when the get sick. Once a parent, always a parent.

Best of everything at Silverman. You've done the work, and then some. Go enjoy your reward. The RV sounds like a great plan! I'll be following you on race day via the website. Ha! That's the only way I could keep up with you!

I'm proud of you, dude. Go have fun!

Becky

Podium quest said...

Submission wrestling (also called Grappling or submission fighting, and technically referred to as submission grappling) is a sports modality and a general term describing the aspect of martial arts and combat sports that focus on clinch and ground fighting with the aim of obtaining a submission using submission holds. It brings together techniques from freestyle wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, folk American wrestling (catch-as-catch-can), sambo and judo. Submission grappling as an element of a larger sport setting is very common in judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, pankration, catch wrestling, shootfighting, shooto and others. You win a match by making the opponent tap out, by choking an openent into unconsciencness, or by points if time runs out.

skoshi said...

Wow.

Thanks!