Tony Smoragiewicz

Ah, Wednesday, the hump of the workweek. As many of us stare at the clock today waiting for our 15-minute break or trudge through the office to the coffee machine, Tony Smoragiewicz, Brian and Tamara Gorman are at the Horace Mann Pool at 8 a.m. this morning, preparing for their two-hour swim session. All three will compete in this Sunday’s Rapid City Triathlon.

Smoragiewicz is one of the hardest working athletes I have ever been around. So I thought, who better to kick off IDS’ new feature series, “What I did this week to make myself better.”

Here’s what Tony said about his week.

“For triathlons I did some workouts where we work on transitions and getting from swimming to biking and biking to running. So you work on switching muscle groups. We did an easy warm-up and then twenty-five minutes at race pace for the bike and then you get off and do some fast running for a few minutes and then some easy running after that.

My miles have gone down since the end of track season, but I run about twenty miles a week. For biking I’m not sure, but overall this week I want to put in twenty hours of training running, biking and swimming.”

About 2 p.m. today, when all I think about is taking a nap, I am going to think of Tony, Tamara and Brian. Just for quick a reminder of what hard work can do.