USA Triathlon Life article

If you get the USAT members magazine Triathlon Life, check out page 44.

I was pretty pumped to finally get the magazine after responding to a bunch of emails, phone calls and such back in October. Unfortunately it mostly focuses on me, but also talks about the fantastic kids and their improvement. I'm hoping for more interest and visits to the website at http://paltriathlon.googlepages.com if people search for Fresno PAL Triathlon Team or Brandon Dorman Triathlon in google. (right now it points them to the right sites...).

Reading the article, it was cool to sit back and just kinda enjoy a job well done in the midst of aiming for higher and higher aspirations for my students (and myself!).

a more somber post

Officer kills young attacker at Roosevelt High

- not my high school, but 2 of my triathlete students go to that school and it's less than two miles away from where I teach at. In other words, just down the street.

Scary as hell in some respects. A student (sure, not the brightest idea to go after a cop with a baseball bat...) is dead tonight. I can't even imagine. And to think just tonight I took 4 kids to swim practice for triathlons and tomorrow will take even more running... which is GREAT. And certainly probably the main reason I take them on everything is to keep them away from that stuff.

So I guess that's good motivation but not the kind I want to see every day...
Yesterday: easy 2 miles, then some sprints, pushups, squats, and the PLANK for 1:30.
Today: about 2,000 yards but mostly focused on technique (like breathing) with the noobs Josh and Daniel. Angel and Edna came along too.

Tomorrow we'll try for 2-3 miles at a bit of a faster pace. More kids from my classes should be coming too! Millerton triathlon this weekend!

Professional Development

So this past Saturday (exactly one week after Ironman California) I attended a conference for "Computer Using Educators" here in Fresno. Good stuff - http://cvcue-conference.pbwiki.com/ is the conference website. I attended three sessions and all but one were fantastic and inspiring.

Tonight I also went to a mini-conference on teacher team collaboration sponsored by a local school that has been doing it for years. http://www.cart.org/ They did a great job and I was again encouraged to see all the great things that local teachers are doing to make learning come alive in the classroom.

One thing I am doing is the use of webpages for my students. They are all engaged in creating a "space project" based on specific job descriptions and a common theme across the five subject areas out in Turning Points Academy, my small learning community. http://dormanmath.googlepages.com/spacepage has more information.

So the good news is, I'm already doing a lot of the things they recommend! (such as making the students accountable to their peers on a weekly basis, and only using me as the "hammer" in the final grade decision - but if certain students pick up where others are supposed to, that will be reflected in each weekly grade/status report.)

Also good is that I'm caught up for the moment with BTSA (beginning teacher stuff) paperwork after staying up til 2am last night (and waking up at 5am! I had basically two 24 oz energy drinks today plus a 20 oz mountain dew! I will be going to bed before 9 tonight...)

Back to P.D. My main questions for the teacher-readers out there - so far I've often felt the biggest thing missing from professional development is teachers from other schools just... talking and thinking together. I appreciated at tonight's forum we did have a chance to do that and it's great - no egos, no agendas to get past, etc. Just strangers that love math talking about how to teach it best! Good stuff...

- Small Triathlon this Sunday!

running

workouts this week:

Tuesday 6:30am meet @ McLane; 2 mile run.
wednesday, 7-8 swimming @ State (practice a 400)
Thursday: 3-4 miles same time/place

Saturday ride in the later afternoon (after the swim meet)
sunday: Visalia Sprint Triathlon! (going: Ramiro/Josh as a team, Rico(??), Josh Wise maybe, Albert now maybe too?

amazing kids

I just love and am always amazed at how a little bit of attention to a kid can go a long way. Just tonight I received a phone call from a kid I was a camp counselor to in - get this - 2002. He is the age now that I was when I was his counselor. He talked about a time back in '02 when he was getting picked on, and walked into the cabin and apparently I'd told the guys to say something nice to him. He was really surprised and it stuck out in his mind.

In fact it seems to have made a big impact in his life. I mean, it's 6 years later and he still remembered it enough to call me about it. He's never called me before - got my phone number from the "signature" line of my emails which we've corresponded maybe every six months to a year over the past 5 or so. He is one of those kids that initiated/kept in contact with me well after camp, and i even went and visited him and some other people a few times as he lived nearby my hometown. I'm realizing more and more the importance of my role as "that teacher who didn't give up on me" in these kids lives. Even if I feel too persistent or annoying or like they're taking advantage of my kindness. I'd rather feel those feelings than give up and not find out it put their life on the right track.

Here's to the small moments that make lifelong impacts. (share a story of yours?)

Half Ironman

It was an amazing Ironman weekend for the Fresno PAL Triathlon Team! I (Coach Dorman) competed in my first (half) Iron man race (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) in 6 hours and 35 minutes; I was hoping to finish between 6 and 7 hours so hit right on the money! Seven students (Albert, Marvin, Edna, Michael, Aaron, Eric, Omar) came down with me in the Suburban as well as my girlfriend Meagan and friend Jen. The students did a GREAT job volunteering/cheering people on as I raced and Meagan and Jen took pictures and cheered me on!

To make a long story short, we left Friday around 7pm due to a swim meet against Fresno High, arrived around 1am and went to bed at 1:30am… only to wake up at 4:30 and leave by 5am for the race! Saturday after the race we hung out at the beach for a bit, had some great Pizza and Guitar Hero at my good friend Jeff's house. Sunday we went to some tide-pools at the beach and played some football. Then it took about 8 and a half hours to get home due to traffic and some pit stops. Car time is quality time...

Preliminary results are here:

http://www.nasports.com/results/cah2008prelim.html you can search for Dorman.

Some pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/hightri/halfironman

Special THANKS to the Ironman staff who helped make it happen, Fresno PAL of course, my brother and his fiancée Trish for letting us invade their house, and the parents of my students who gave us sandwiches for the road!

Some kids and I will do the Millerton Triathlon April 19^th with Sierra Multisport (http://www.sierramultisport.com) and others have chosen to do a Visalia super-sprint triathlon(http://www.onyourmarkevents.com/Vi-TriInfo.htm) and the Kids Triathlon here in the Fresno area April 27^th! http://www.triclubcentralcali.org/kids_event.html We are going to try and get some more kids from Fresno PAL's mentoring programs involved the Kids Triathlon as well. We are having some problems with bike maintenance so if anyone has some forks laying around or chains we always welcome donations!

Any questions, comments, etc. should be directed to Brandon Dorman or http://paltriathlon.googlepages.com Thanks for your support! I was SO proud of these students this weekend!
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my race report:
Swim: LOVED every minute except getting kicked by some guy in the face. felt good about a 1:33 100yd split. water wasn't that cold with my new skull cap thing!

Bike: Really enjoyed it although the hills were challenging and I was Way slower than everyone on the bike... i honestly don't think i passed anyone! but that's ok. it was fun to cycle for the first time ever for me... I was super stoked at the end, especially considering the longest i'd ridden in one sitting was 45 miles on March 1st. Some people complained about the wind but I didn't mind it really... also I appreciated the slightly overcast weather sometimes because it kept me cool. I did feel like I perhaps needed some more liquids, but the aid stations and water i had kept me fine. I downed 3 packages of shot blocks and several gels as well, and always did drink water or gatorade after those!

run: I was tired so walked quite a bit as shown by my 10:30ish average mile time. also hadn't done a full half marathon in training. there were some hills and what not but was the most challenging part for me was looking out on the beach and smelling barbecues, people having fun and just spashing in the waves, etc... ugh! I wanted to just jump off the course and into the ocean for a minute!

analysis: more training of course, also more bricks. and rash guard for the wetsuit... looks like a giant hickey much to the amusement of my high school students... But overall a GREAT trip overall and great race too! also need to get a second water bottle for the bike...

teaching and... Ironman-ing?

Ok so now some students and stuff are starting to read this as well... we'll see if they post back though!

- this week we will be refreshing the past few months (i know, a week is a LONG time!) and doing a project on the Pythagorean Theorem to finish it off. I didn't want to finish it before easter break because it's so important it's good to start off now with it. Eh, something like that.

- You'll also be working on your space projects! I posted a sample website as well as job descriptions and examples here.

- One week from Saturday - March 29th to be exact; I will be racing in the Ford Ironman 70.3 California race. Basically it's a "half ironman distance" so not the full ironman, but something about teaching and coaching, and a Girlfriend/life get in the way right now of doing that. and i enjoy mountain dew too much.

- still, I'm very excited! You may see me riding my bike to work a few days this week to keep my legs loose for the race.
- I will be checking homework every day again and you will have a quiz on Friday.