Mateo and Daddy

Me

Hi, I'm Mark Rios. I'm a triathlete from Northern California. I don't do triathlons to set records. I just do them to stay in shape within my domain of work and family. Before I found triathlon working out was a bit of a chore. But triathons are interesting and keep life interesting because they are simple, yet beautifully complex. In this sport your workouts are different every single day, which is great because it minimizes the chance of burnout and reduces the risk of injury. Also, in my opinion as of current triathlon is still mainly a science and in its infancy. There's still a lot we don't know. So in terms of being sport, it's still evolving (for example a female professional is on course to be just as fast as the fastest male professional triathletes). But my favorite thing about the sport is that it attracts really great people from all walks of life and of all colors. The cliche, "you can't judge a book by its cover", is so true in triathlon. Never have I ever before in my life enjoyed the company of others from so many varied backgrounds. I'm constantly amazed at who participates in this sport. From the stay at home mom to the 80 year old nun. It's just filled with people of great character, those who will amaze you, and make you question your assumptions on life, reality, and what the human body is capable of.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Stuff I Really Want for Christmas, Just Dreaming

1. Pentax Optio W80 Waterproof 12.1MP Digital Camera With this litter camera I can video all my friends' free style stroke and hopefully get it critiqued by a swim coach, thus making them faster swimmers. Also, it would be a cool toy to have when I take my five year daughter Ainsley and eight month old son Mateo to the pool. Imagine way back, who would ever have thought we would be taking under water photos of our children?



2. Quarq Power Meter, FSA Team Issue We use to train primarily by heart rate but now the tool for the 21st century is power. No more waiting for my heart rate to go up, no more heart rate affects from diet or fatique. Power is instanenous and doesn't lie.  It's also a must for a triathlete who really want to focus on efficiency and maximizing energy expenditure so the run on the Ironman is not snail slow.



3.  Zipp 1080 Wheelset According to TriTalk's David Warden, aero wheels drop olympic distance race times by at least a minute.  For an Ironman Distance that's around five minutes or more. Of course the devils advocate could ask "What's the point of five minutes?". Well, at my level it's probably not worth the expense but I sure could use a five minute catch up on the bike because I was five minutes slower on the swim than most of my age group, meaning I don't have to expend my quads on the bike as much, and have a faster run time.



4. New Balance Men's MR850ST Running shoes that fit well mean less pain now and less injury later. Enough said.


5. Nikon D700 This camera has a sensor with the same dimensions of the old school 35mm camera. You're like, so? Well it's a big deal because Nikon's old school lenses have f stops at f/1.4 and f/2.8. What does this mean? It means you don't have to use a flash with your indoor photos and make your friends' faces ghost white and make their eyes appear blood hangover red. It's also a tool for narrowing depth of field so background objects can be blurred out and making the viewer concentrate on the subject. The extra speed also means more pictures in low natural light. You will not have to wait for the flash fire up to take an other shot. You just shoot people in real life, and in the actual light that they saw.  Some of the best photos in history were taken this way.





5. Eye-Fi Share 2 GB Wi-Fi SD Flash Memory Card With this little card in your camera you eliminate some computer pain in your life. Just stick this card in your camera and when you get back to your computer your photos are already there. Now, there are range limitations, but hey it means one less chord hanging from my desk so this thing is awesome.

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