Looney Toons...

Drumroll Please.......I just launched a new business. It's called Triathlon Toons.

It's a website that triathletes and their families can order high quality Caricature Toons and have them put on products, like T-Shirts, Posters, Mugs, Mouse Pads, etc.

The idea came to me a couple of years ago when I had a caricature done of myself and Rich Sohor. It was a picture of the two of us running, me with a beer in one of my hands and Rich with a rum and coke in one of his. The tagline was Sohor & Payne Together Again and the Muskoka Ironman Logo underneath.

I wanted to do something special for this race. Rich and I had met 20 years earlier at a half Ironman, and after a 20 years hiatus, we were racing a half Ironman together again.

I had T-shirts and a plaque mounted poster made. During the registration process, everyone was commenting on how much they loved our shirts. I then did a similar thing for Davis the following year and it too was a hit.

So when I decided to start something new I asked myself, "What do I like? What am I passionate about?" I came up with Triathlons, having fun, Internet based marketing and not having to work 9 - 5 or having any employees. That's when the idea of Triathlon Toons came to me.

I'm not sure if it will be a hit or not, and only time will tell. I've got it set up where artists from all over the world receive orders through my website and communicate through the website directly with the customer.

After the Toon is finished, the customer can use pre-templated triathlon designs and place it on a variety of products. I've hooked up with a supplier that prints the Toon (or any image for that matter) on all sorts of cool products and ships worldwide.

It's the type of business that is flexible in the amount of hours I need to spend running it. I have some potential future plans that may spawn from the site, but it's all about "baby steps". For now this is just phase one and "proof of concept" stage and most importantly, it's about having fun while doing it.

One immediate benefit is the sponsorship dollars I'm receiving from Triathlon Toons as I train and travel to different races as a goodwill ambassador promoting the product as "the Captoon".

For all my blog readers, please go through the site and send me your feedback, good or bad. Email it to me directly at headtoon@triathlontoons.com . I'm also looking for any marketing advice anyone might have. I'm all ears, which is highly unusual. Be sure to register and play with the product builder.

As a store opening special, if you order a Toon and enter the coupon code "trainingpayne" you'll get a 15% discount on any Toon you order. Please feel free to pass the coupon code along to others. The store just opened today and the more orders the merrier.

Also, if you want to become an Affiliate, you can make extra cash. On the bottom of the site you'll see the link to "affiliate" and if you fill in that information, you'll be able to get banner ads that you can place on your site and when someone links from your site and buys anything from Triathlon Toons you get a commission, and I get more beer money.

On the training front, it was an easy day. I only had my long swim. It was much to slow of a swim. I was only doing about 1:50 per 100 meters. By next week, after a couple more swims, I'll be back down to 1:38's. Swimming is weird that way, some days you got it and other days you don't.

Tonight I went to the movie Toy Story 3 with Reid and Alice. It was a good movie and I heard it will have you crying at the end. I had a little wetness but no tears. Not like a friend of mine who was "blubbering" and will remain nameless. Although he does drive a Ferrari.

I was actually disappointed, I was looking forward to a good movie cry.

Long Swim - 1:05:14 / 3100 meters