Molly's Blog

First Week of 2012

2012-01-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

While most people hit the first week of the year head-on and hard core, mine happened to coincide with a rest week. This was actually probably a good thing as I still seem to be somewhat reeling from the holidays and the tiredness that accompanies them. Monday morning I headed in for a swim, fully expecting the crazy January crowds that always flock to the gym for about 3 weeks before 97% of them give up. I've been going to that gym for years, and there is very rarely a change in who you see there at 5:30 in the morning. Well, imagine my surprise when I arrived to find literally six cars in the parking lot. It seems I didn't realize that it was the official holiday and therefore most people were using the opportunity to officially sleep in before they officially decided to start working out.

Then it was time for the blessed monthly rest day. Ah. It coincided with the day last week in which it topped out around 21 degrees. I only just now thought about how Christmas eve was the same and yet I still went out and rode for over 4 hours in it. Yikes. Wednesday morning was incredibly cold and windy. And that day marked the first time in a very long time, since this probably never happened to me last year after skipping the entirety of winter, in which my eyelashes froze during a run. The following day was thirty degrees warmer and yet I still had to wear a hat and gloves.

On Thursday night my sister, brother and I took our mom out to dinner as part of her Christmas present. The other part was a pair of very expensive Uggs gloves. I only say they are very expensive not to show off, but just because she was talking about them a lot in the weeks leading up to Christmas and about how she couldn't justify spending that much money on gloves but they were so comfortable, and since we can never think of anything to get her that she doesn't already have, splitting the cost three ways made it much more sane. Of course she loves them, and we just have to hope she doesn't lose track of them!

Anyway, we went to the Mile Away which was Mom and Dad's favorite restaurant. Or at least it seemed to be as far as I could tell. It is in a farmhouse on a hill and is just one of those cozy places with a fireplace and genuinely good food. The owners had also come to know my parents through the years from their regular visits, to the point that they usually wouldn't even have to tell them what they wanted to drink, it would just appear right after they sat down. So we had a great dinner and it was nice to hang out with just the immediate family. My sister even got to tell me that for the first time ever someone came up to her and asked if she was my sister because we look so much alike. He probably didn't even know I had a sister, so he must've seen something but that has literally never happened before. Sure, aside from having different colored hair, different colored eyes, different body types, different skin tones, different noses/faces and my being five inches taller we look exactly alike. Katy was probably horrified by this!

The rest of the week swimming was, fortunately, not nearly as bad as expected. Though the number of cars in the parking lot have dramatically increased since before Christmas, I really have no idea where those people go once they come inside, because it doesn't look like there are many more people around. I don't know where they're hiding. Maybe one or two people in the pool, including one guy who seems to swim extended sets with a pull buoy and his ankles banded together. Isn't that kind of redundant?

Today being Saturday, you'd think I'd be on my bike for hours like usual but instead I had a short recovery ride and that's it. Kind of unfortunate because it is freakishly about 50 degrees outside. I could've ridden in almost normal clothing! As it was, I stayed inside because I don't think I quite realized how warm it was going to be. But fortunately I was browsing around the on demand on the cable box and found, buried deep down amongst the options, Race Across the Sky which is a documentary on the 2009 Leadville 100. It looked ridiculously hard and yet I'm stupid/crazy enough that as I was watching I was thinking, "I'd like to try that someday."

Nothing else exciting to say, really. Not that any of the above were particularly exciting. I have to run a 5K tomorrow which as you can imagine I am very much not looking forward to. But the good news is that this particular 5K has a $5 entry fee. Race fees are truly getting out of control. Did you guys see how much the New York City Marathon is going to cost for 2012? Pretty soon only the rich/privileged are going to be able to afford to race.

Anyway, next week we begin the much more real training for 2012, and more unseasonably warm weather so maybe I can even sneak in an outdoor ride or two.

2011 Year in Review

2011-12-31T09:56:00.000-08:00

For someone whose life tends to revolve around racing and training, when you basically have what amounts to a non-season there's not really a whole lot to talk about. I guess I could've been incredibly upset at being injured (it's happened before) but instead I decided to accept it for what it was and take the opportunity for a physical but more importantly mental break from training. Heading into 2011 I thought maybe jumping head first back into the swing of things would make me feel better and forget the awful end of 2010, but I think I underestimated how affected I was.

But while 2011 certainly had some low points, I also did kind of a lot over the span of the last 365 days. Last year on New Year's Eve I was driving from some random Days Inn west of Oklahoma City through the middle of nowhere Texas where I had to take a planned detour from my initial route because there was so much snow on I-40 it was closed. So instead of going west and then south it was decided I'd go south and then west. I had to get off the interstate and drive some very lonely roads but it actually cut 100 miles off my trip. I went through Roswell, New Mexico without getting abducted by aliens and went up through some towns in the mountains through the snow and cold before stopping for the night at a Holiday Inn in Deming, NM. I stopped early that day because I couldn't get into my condo in Tucson until noon the next day and there was no reason to keep driving.

So I rang in the new year in a hotel room mostly watching Saturday Night Live reruns on VH1 and eating room service. Honestly, I quite enjoyed it. And on New Year's Day, I found my new home for the following three months. The condo was nice, quiet, less than a mile from a YMCA with a gorgeous outdoor pool and after only three miles on busy roads would have me out of town in the middle of nowhere for my bike rides. It's only too bad that the guy's fish died less than 48 hours after my arrival.

I figured out how to get around pretty quick and began what I had hoped might be the training I needed to get back where I needed to be. It was a lonely three months but I got in a lot of good training and even took a side trip to Los Angeles, where I hadn't been since I lived there in 2003. I really wish there wasn't so much traffic and smog out there because riding along the Pacific Coast Highway is gorgeous.

I raced in California which was disappointing and didn't hold the same fun that it usually did. It wasn't until afterward that I realized it was the first race I'd done that I couldn't call my dad and tell him about it. Overall, that was not a good day. I spent the following week in Santa Ana staying with one of my best friends from college and her husband and two daughters. Got to swim in another gorgeous outdoor pool in Irvine for a week and ride and run on some different roads.

After that, I hopped in the car and drove almost the entirety of I-10, some of which has 80mph speed limits because it is so desolate I guess they think that we should be allowed to get through there faster. So desolate, in fact, that there aren't a whole lot of gas stations. Don't you think if there isn't going to be another gas station for, say, 40 miles, there should be some sort of sign to warn you? Well, fortunately when the car stopped moving forward I somehow lucked out that it happened at an exit - the first in quite a while - that involved a campground and a gas station two miles down the road. I did not make that mistake again.

I drove on to Florida to do a training camp with friends and enjoy the novelty of actually being around friends and having people to talk to. Then I finally drove home and after 8000 miles of driving all over the country, I was back in Bedford to the cold and rain of mid-April. Not to fear though, because a month later I was back in Florida - but this time I flew. I took myself to Disney's Hollywood Studios, had a very disappointing race that I later realized was probably that disappointing because I did it on a foot with a stress fracture, and then followed up the race that evening with a visit to the Magic Kingdom with some other QT2 teammates who had raced that day. Watching fireworks while riding Thunder Mountain will take your mind off a bad race pretty quick.

After some more training spent wondering why my foot was bothering me so much I did something I'd never done before and pulled out of a race in the middle without having planned on it. My only other DNF was Kona in 2009 but I knew I had a stress fracture going in and wouldn't be running. I had run three miles and decided that there was definitely something more going on with my foot than just a little tweak. X-rays confirmed my fears and I spent the next three months in a stylish walking boot.

I didn't do an Ironman for the first time since my first one in 2004 and didn't bike or run but kept swimming in the lake. I finally bought a new car after saying goodbye to my little Sentrayoutube videos.

I got to drive the boat a whole lot and spend plenty of time at the lake. I did a sprint race at the end of the season and wore the boot for a run and later took the boot to a wedding. I went out on the lake at night with my mom, brother and sister and we spread some of Dad's ashes so he could see the house.

I finally got the boot off and started running again for what felt like the first time ever. Had to say goodbye to my "nephew" golden retriever Marley after a very quick onset of liver failure. I got back onto a training plan for the first time in months and even signed up for another Ironman in 2012. And that's basically all I've been doing since, trying to get back into shape.

Looking back, it seems that I accomplished absolutely nothing over the past year. But I did see a whole lot of the country and hopefully got the break I needed so that I can really go for it in 2012. I especially have to get on that if the world is going to end like they say. But I'm a little skeptical of that.

As for resolutions? I don't really do those. But I do have some thoughts in the back of my head about what I'm going to do with myself. I feel like I've been sort of dormant for a while, and I think it's time for that to end. I've at least got my plans on where I'll be headed soon enough, and I'm just glad that this time it involves other human beings.

So if 2010 was the worst year ever, 2011 was mostly me recovering from it. 2012? Well, who knows? But I guess I'll find out soon.

Christmas and Christmas Eve Outdoor Riding

2011-12-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

Christmas is over and I think I may finally be caught up on sleep. It's kind of sad, really, I don't even have that much 'work' to do on Christmas compared to most and their playing Santa or being heavily involved in the cooking of elaborate meals (I cooked precisely nothing) and yet over that span of days I was exhausted. Christmas showed up quick and almost unexpectedly as the lack of snow doesn't make it look all that much like Christmas.

Saturday was Christmas Eve, but also for me it meant long ride day. The fact that there has been no snow means that the roads have remained dry and clear. I have always preferred outdoor riding to the trainer in almost any circumstances, although admittedly my bike had been on the trainer for a couple of weeks in spite of a few rideable days. Once I moved it in I didn't feel like moving it back out again and I was temporarily enjoying the lack of extra laundry - one cold bike ride can often involve wearing what would amount to an entire load of laundry by itself - and the mindlessness of riding on the trainer.

However, I wasn't having fun trying to pick out what to watch and pedaling and only thinking about how much more time I had left to ride. So for some reason I decided that on Christmas Eve I would do my long ride outside. Part of it was just the fact that I'm not sure I'd ever been able to ride outside, and I always feel like I'm actually doing something riding outside as opposed to the trainer. As the day approached, it was apparent that it was going to be really cold on Saturday. It's been sort of warm lately, so this was kind of a shock. By cold I mean low 20's. But I did not let that deter me, and just for good measure, on Friday night I had everything laid out and ready to go to ride outside - bike ready to go, bottles mixed, nutrition in the jacket pocket, several layers of clothes ready to go. After all of that, I figured I wouldn't chicken out the next day if only because I'd have to put in the extra effort of setting myself up to ride inside.

Saturday started very early for me. I set my alarm for 4:55 not to work out, but to drive a friend to the airport. The airport is very close but he always seems to have the 6am flight when flying home for holidays or whatever, so it's a pretty early start. I was home before 5:30. I have to confess that at this point I did my "transition" run before I went off to ride. I will ride in the cold, but I will not ride in the dark. I had a forty minute run to do and I thought it might be better to get it done then instead of just sitting around until 7:00 when it was finally light enough to ride. I know, I know, it was backwards but I also thought there was a strong chance I'd be so cold after riding that I wouldn't be able to handle going back outside to run, so better to just get it done.

As I ran and noticed how cold it was I contemplated moving inside, but once I warmed up I decided it wasn't that cold and maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It was quite peaceful running so early in the morning on Christmas eve in the dark with no cars and many houses all lit up. Upon my return the temperature check was 21 degrees and it was kind of windy, but I was determined to go outside to ride. So a quick change and I hit the road at exactly 7:00 to an amazing sunrise.

What does one wear to ride when it's that cold? Lots. Let's see, there were two pairs of ski socks, which only fit because my dad left behind an almost-new pair of bike shoes that are normally too big for my feet, but work quite well with two pairs of socks, shoe covers, bike shorts for the padding, a pair of long underwear bottoms underneath insulated Pearl Izumi tights that normally keep me perfectly warm when it's in the 30's. Up top I had two Craft winter base layers, a thick and well insulated cycling jacket, heavy-duty gloves that I also inherited from my father, and that I had actually gotten him for Christmas a few years ago, a balaclava that covered my head, ears, neck and the lower part of my face, plus a Craft windproof hat on top of that. I probably should've weighed the amount of clothing I had on, because I think it might have been like twenty more pounds. I typically wear less layers when I go skiing.

And off I went. I was nervous at first, sort of wondering if I'd want to turn back soon or if I should stick close to home in case I needed to come back sooner instead of going on the long loop I had planned. But I decided not to give myself the option, so I rode the route as planned. My fingers got cold immediately, but after a few times pulling my fingers out of the finger slots and balling my hands in fists inside the gloves that problem went away. My toes started to get cold almost immediately and if you've been skiing you know that once the toes are cold, they will stay cold until you stop and take your boots/shoes off and warm them up. So after spending some time futilely wiggling my toes around to try and warm them up, I resigned myself to the fact that I'd just have numb toes for the next four or so hours.

I just had to keep riding, though. I rode past a ski area with the snow guns blasting and people enjoying their Christmas Eve ski. And somehow I survived the ride although, full disclosure: I stopped 8 minutes early. I was finished my loop and decided that I was probably better off stopping. Once inside I started peeling off some initial layers and found some ice formed on my jacket and balaclava. It had "warmed up" to 25 degrees while I was out. I can't tell you how glad I was not to have to run. I microwaved my bottles to turn them back to liquid and promptly drank the entire contents along with my Endurox. Then it took me another twenty minutes to get all of those layers off before taking a nice, hot shower. After that I put on a whole lot of clothes, shivered for a while and promptly got back into bed so I could warm up and take a serious, much-needed nap. I'm not sure I'd do that again if given the choice, but I was sure glad when it was over.

I could hardly stay awake that night when Mom had her annual Christmas eve gathering. It's pretty casual, paper plates and all the same relatives mostly that we'd see the next day. Christmas itself wasn't anything hugely exciting, but it was nice. We always convene at my sister's so it's fun to see my niece and nephew being all excited about Christmas because it's not really that fun when there are no kids around. The last thing I did before going to my grandmother's was go for a little run, which was much warmer than the day before. I didn't know where I was going to run yet but decided to take a little detour running up to the cemetery to say hi to Dad.

Nana's house was nice, as always. I believe that was the 55th Christmas at that house, and of course I've been there every Christmas I've ever had. It was probably the same exact meal as every other time, but why mess with a good thing? We don't get fancy. And that was that. Now just back to the same old stuff and getting my training done without having to worry about holiday gatherings. It's been an interesting year for sure, and I'll recap that later. For now I'll just say I'm really, really glad that I am not about to hop in the car and drive to Arizona. I mean, I'm excited for heading south later, but going so soon after Christmas is not fun!

QT2 Holiday Party and Coach Meeting

2011-12-19T07:38:00.000-08:00

This weekend was incredibly busy, and also marked I think my third Saturday night in a row out, which is closing in on a record for me considering Christmas eve will also be busy. Tiring, but fun. I got up early on Saturday morning to get a run in before driving down to Mass for our coach meeting. These meetings are time consuming, but also quite helpful. I always feel like I (and most other people) get way more out of things when there is face-to-face contact and conversation. And as usual I learned a lot that can help me not only as a coach but also as an athlete.

That six hours went by surprisingly fast and then I got to spend some time hanging out with Colin Kropelnicki - the youngest QT2 team member right now mostly managing walking around the house with some couch climbing to mix it up - we headed over to Maggiano's in Boston. Since I went to school right around the corner from there I am familiar with all of the street parking and luckily found a nice spot on Charles street that only cost me an hour and twenty minutes worth of parking meter fees before it was shut down for the night rather than $25 or something similar to park in some garage somewhere. It pays to have a car that isn't much bigger than a rollerskate as you can park just about anywhere.

Enough about that, though. The party was a lot of fun. It's fairly rare that I get to go to a party like that that's full of "my" people, so it's great to really be able to sit down with almost anyone there and have something to talk about. Although I do have to admit that the team has gotten so big that there was one table in which I only recognized like one of the ten people sitting there. But then again since most of these people I'm used to seeing in their training attire sometimes it's tougher to figure out if you've seen someone before when they're suddenly not wearing their bike helmet or a Headsweats hat. Either way, I did get to meet and talk to some new people and catch up with some people I hadn't seen in a while. I swear, after not racing all season I feel like I hadn't seen some of those people in years!

It's great to talk to some of these people and hear how the team and the coaching has really changed them. I heard from more than one person who had lost like fifty pounds, now looking super fit. People who had tried and been successful at their first Ironman and just loved the program in general. Sometimes you come across triathlon teams that generate a certain kind of vibe that can be somewhat off-putting, but I definitely don't think this is the case with the QT2 team. It's just a really great group of people.

I managed to extract myself once we were forced to leave Maggiano's (due to what time it was, not because we had become too outrageous to handle - though if given a few more minutes some people may have crossed into this territory) a lot of people headed to the bar across the street but I had definitely had my fill of fun for the evening knowing that I still had to drive back to NH, so I hit the road. It's funny to think about when I first started racing and I'd make up my training plan based on some book or something I read on the internet and I'd show up to the race and not know a single soul except my parents who had come to watch. I wish I'd had this kind of group when I first started.

Now it's just back to the grind and getting ready for Christmas. I will say I feel like someone has taken over my body because as of last week all of my presents were not only bought, but wrapped. My previous present-buying "strategy" involved going to the mall the last Saturday before Christmas - you know, when it's totally not crowded at all - and stay there until I had something for everyone. This time suddenly I was starting at the beginning of December and had everything ordered and arrived so early. The weather has been unseasonably warm though and other than October of all times there hasn't been any snow, so I keep forgetting how close Christmas is and really how close I am to heading south for the winter. I better get used to driving a lot again, although at least now I'm in a car that goes 350 miles in a 10-gallon tank as opposed to last year's 250 miles on 18!

Weekend Away: Army/Navy Game

2011-12-13T15:35:00.000-08:00

I travel a fair amount, but it is incredibly rare these days that I do so for something other than a race. Even rarer that I get to head to the airport without toting a 50-pound bike box and pay an extra fee no matter what airline I'm flying on. So it was nice to have the opportunity to do it this past weekend.

My uncle Matt went to the Naval Academy and played tight end for the football team "back in the day." So for him and his family and friends it is usually an annual thing to attend this game. This year, for the first time, the game was held at FedEx field, where the Redskins play and also very close to where my cousin Trip lives with his family, so some of the rest of us decided to make the trip. $49 fares on Southwest and a house to crash in made it an even easier decision.

Friday for me began at 4:30am in a scramble to swim, get my long ride in, and transition run with just enough time to get cleaned up and throw the last few items in my backpack before catching the plane at 1:40. Rushing around and my nutrition being sub-optimal made that particular bike ride feel like I was trying to climb Everest or something. I haven't even gotten to the real long rides. Even cookies 'n cream Powerbars weren't helping. But I managed to survive and get to the airport to board the short, though hour-delayed flight down to Baltimore.

We had a fairly quiet evening before heading off to bed to rest up for the big day. Saturday was early for me, sneaking out before anyone else was up to get my run in. It always makes the time go by faster to run someplace new, although I did fear I might have been lost as I tried to retrace by route back. Their neighborhood has a lot of streets that loop around a lot, so at least to me it seemed like certain streets actually intersected more than once. But I did make it back without overdoing it too much.

We hit the road at about 9:45 for the relatively short drive to the field to join 90,000 people for the game. This was nicer than a Patriots game in that it didn't take us an hour to go the final two miles to the parking lot. It was a sunny but quite chilly day, down in the 40's which feels a lot worse when standing around instead of, say, running. We spent a couple of hours tailgating, which as a non-drinker I don't really understand. Why is it fun to stand around a parking lot and eat and drink? Can't you do that at home in your living room for a couple of extra hours instead? I guess this is why I'm not into football that much and not a guy.

Eventually it was time to head inside. I went in first with my mom, whose knee has been bothering her so she thought she'd be slow. Also, the president was at the game so security was pretty thorough and entering the stadium took a little while. We made it inside without posing a security threat and I actually paid $6 for a hot chocolate that probably cost them twelve cents to make. I really think as a society we should all band together against ridiculously overpriced concessions. How does popcorn and a soda cost $1 if you buy it at Target and $10 at the movies? Anyway, I wanted it more for a hand warmer than anything so I guess I got my $6 worth anyway.

Then we found our seats. Oh, our seats. I'll admit I've been relatively spoiled when going to professional sporting events by usually having pretty decent seats. I did sit way, way, way up high at Fenway recently but even from there had a decent view of the game. And I've been in the last row at the Garden and while it's far away, again, I could make out what was going on. It's a very good thing that I didn't care about watching the game, because we arrived to something like this:

That picture isn't actually from Saturday, as the end zones were painted with Army and Navy, but you get the general idea. The overhang was so low you couldn't see sky or even many of the fans on the opposite side of the field, and a good portion of the field was blocked from view by that giant pillar there. Oh, but it's okay because they put TV's in there so you can see all of that stuff on the field you wouldn't be able to see otherwise. How are stadiums designed with such seats and how are they even allowed to charge for them? We also got to pay four times the face value.

Well, again, since I didn't really care about the game, the seats were far more funny than infuriating. We were all interested in watching the jets and helicopters fly over, which meant we had to find somewhere else to stand to actually see the sky. Us and the dozens of other people who couldn't believe what their seats looked like when they got to them. This caused a lot of random people yelling about standing in their way and not being able to get through aisles to their seats and just a lot of unpleasantness. It amazes me the kinds of things people choose to get worked up and angry over.

Well, we did survive seeing the fly over without getting into a fight and even saw the president out on the field tossing the coin before we headed back to those uncomfortable but very expensive seats so we could sit in the cold in our little stadium cave and essentially watch the game on those TV's and just kind of look around laughing about the situation and wondering how early was okay to leave.

Turns out eight minutes to go in the first half was deemed appropriate, and that was our stint at FedEx field. Originally we had planned to get Patriots tickets since they were playing the Redskins there the next day. I can't even tell you how glad we were that that plan never materialized! We went back and had a nice casual dinner at my cousin's house and warmed up before watching Rudolph while discussing with my cousin's 11-year old son that the whole special actually sounds racist if you think about it.

On Sunday we took a brief driving tour of DC headed up by my cousin Trip where we saw all of the good stuff without having to leave the car. I saw a lot of that stuff up close thanks to a basketball tournament in 1992 where we all played tourist while wearing our hideous, yellow polyester uniforms to see the Lincoln Memorial and such. This was much better. My mother pointed out that the last time we were there I spent the whole time complaining about being hungry. Come on, I was twelve!

The boys spent the afternoon watching football while the girls went to the mall to do a bit of shopping. It's always good to be at the mall with your mom around Christmas. And after a bit of a delay thanks to a flight attendant who appeared to have had too much to drink and needed a replacement, we made it home. It was definitely a fun little visit in spite of the terrible seats. And fortunately an experience like that lets you know that you don't ever have to agree to anything like that again!

Now it's just back to the regular stuff. Tough start to the week with getting home at midnight on Sunday, but going to bed at 8 last night helped. I've been on the bike trainer more lately instead of outside which isn't as much fun, but BST workouts are less painful when you get to watch Christmas Vacation while you do them. And in less than two months I'll be in Florida, so who cares, right?

Threshold Test Fun

2011-12-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

Any of you who know what a threshold test is know that it is not the most fun thing in the world, but it can at least give you some good data points to go on. It helps set heart rate zones and you can compare them to prior results of yours to see how you're doing in relation to other times. You get on the bike and the resistance increases until you literally cannot pedal anymore. It's exceedingly uncomfortable at the end, given the fact that the heart rate (or mine) is usually in the 190's. But for a while at least it's not so bad.

We haven't done one of these for me in a couple of years. Last year was more than sort of a mess on my end and the year before we would just use the data from some indoor time trials to figure out basically the same information. But, well, it was time again. After giving so many of these and watching other people suffer in those final moments when I start to feel really bad that they might throw up on my floor, it was my turn to suffer a bit.

I drove down to Jesse's last night, of course nervous as anything as I drove. I'm always nervous when I go, which is kind of stupid because I am always feeling better about things when I leave. Before Jesse I had a coach I wouldn't talk to that often, but we did talk sometimes. Not one of those times did I feel any better about the training than I did before I talked to him. That is just one of the reasons that it is so nice to have the coach I have!

Right away I hopped on the bike and did the usual warm-up. I really had no idea what to expect from this test. The first time I did one of these was at the end of 2008, when I first started with QT2. I was in the worst shape of my tri career after a terrible, terrible season and I hadn't trained much in the fall. The test was brutal, my heart rate was outrageously high and I lost it after not pushing all that many watts. A couple of follow-up test went quite a bit better, but that first one is the most memorable.

This time I was sort of expecting something similar to that first test, or maybe a little better. The summer of the broken foot made my quad muscles disappear. The test started, and as usual, it was pretty painless for a while. I had no idea what wattage we started at and then no idea how long it would take before it started to get difficult. It's amazing how the hard part in these tests really sneaks up on you. You go from totally fine to gasping for breath in a matter of like two minutes. So of course that end part was not so fun, although still less painful than the end of an indoor time trial, but the results were better than expected, which was nice. I don't think anything relating to my triathlon performance in, oh, two-and-a-half years has been better than expected, so I'll take it! It actually matched my best of these tests with QT2, after three months of training, and was 30 watts less than my best ever which was done in 2006, before my best season ever. Except that one was February, so I'm feeling good about this.

We made some adjustments to the schedule based on the results, and I get to do a lot more intensity instead of base due to my extraordinary aerobic capacity. That's not a huge compliment, since extraordinary aerobic capacity means I have vastly inferior anaerobic capacity, so that's what all the extra intensity stuff is. Really my physiology is best suited for like, a double Ironman, but, well, no thanks.

All in all it was a good meeting that left me really starting to feel good about where things are headed this season in spite of my still feeling fairly out of shape. The threshold test doesn't lie. And today I'm just irritated that I rode the trainer thinking it was going to rain all day, only to find out that there was going to be an extended period of the afternoon that would not only be dry, but also around 60 degrees! Oh, well. I'm skipping winter anyway so a little trainer riding won't hurt me.

First "Race" of the Season

2011-12-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

The past several years I've had a real aversion to road races. I guess triathlons kind of, too, but road races especially. And even more so in the very beginning of the season. I know they're good for me but as running has become my arch nemesis once again, they are not at the top of my list for fun things to do. Aside from the fact that I always wind up running into some friends I hadn't seen in a while and didn't even know would be there.

This being the rest week, I was supposed to do a race. It's my second block, and I never even mentioned the word race in October, so no races made it to the schedule. Probably a good thing, since even just a few short weeks ago I was even worse off than I am now, and any finish time I'd have been able to conjure up on my badly underutilized running legs would've surely sucked the last of the tiny remaining shreds of my faint belief that maybe, just maybe, if I keep working hard, I can be a decent runner again. Yesterday almost did it, but not quite.

I was at least fortunate in the fact that the weekend a race was needed there was a 5K conveniently located a couple of miles away, at 3:00 in the afternoon, on a flat course. It was actually the same start line as the Cigna 5K, but fortunately not the same course, because that one cruelly ends on a nasty little hill that makes you almost certain that you can't possibly finish that last little tenth of a mile. The weather was actually perfect for racing, and, as an added bonus, the first 1000 people to register would be given a free Santa suit to run in. So I made quite sure that I waited long enough for well over 1000 people to sign up before I handed over my $30. Come on, anyone who knows me in real life knows I'm no fun. I think it was a wise choice because those Santa suits clearly were not made for running, as evidenced by several pairs of shredded Santa pants I saw at the finish line on other competitors. Looks like they won't get to wear those for their kids.

I headed downtown in the afternoon to sign up and pick up a number by myself, but then ran into a few people I knew. Sometimes I forget how many people I actually know. I spend so much time by myself, I just have to remember that not a lot of those people I know hang out at my house or are willing to bike with me outside when it's 27 degrees out. I even got offered a Santa suit in spite of my being somewhere around the 1400th person to sign up. No, no, that's okay. I think I'll be fine in, you know, running clothes.

I had zero expectations, no idea what pace to run or anything. To be honest, I hadn't run with my Garmin in months. Frankly, I didn't want to know what the paces were. I thought from a mental standpoint I was better off feeling accomplished for simply going out and being able to run again rather than being upset with myself because I was "running" 12:17 per mile or whatever. This is not optimal when you need to develop a pacing strategy, but whatever, it was only three miles, right?

It was a bit chilly when we lined up, but again, perfect once we actually got moving. There was a sea of Santas all dressed in red, and I opted to go and stand up close to the start line. Not because I thought I would win (might have happened if this was a run only for people 90 and over, plus Molly, but that's not what this was) but because there was hardly anyone up there. The course was out and back down Elm Street in Manchester, which has an almost indiscernible incline on the way out, and therefore decline on the way back.

As we started, I realized I had forgotten to put on my heart rate monitor strap. Although in a 5K it's more for informational purposes. Like, "Oh, hey, my heart rate is 197. Good to know, because it felt like my heart might explode, and now I know I'm right!" But this time I didn't have that information to go on. I did have my average lap pace to look at and... nothing specific to aim for. Let's say I knew anything under 7:00/mile was going to be too fast (didn't used to be... even for a half marathon!) and anything over 8:00/mile was probably too slow. It started telling me I was averaging 12-something, then 11... so obviously something was off to start. So I just settled in to what felt sort of, kind of "comfortable." Then a minute or so later I glanced down to see 6:49 and thought, well, no, I know I am not in a position to maintain that. No way. A quarter-mile in and I felt like I had already blown my pacing as I started to taste blood in the back of my throat. It's a taste I associate always with the first basketball practice of the season in high school. As in, when suddenly I have to run and breathe hard after months of being out of shape. Well, obviously I've been running recently, but certainly not this hard.

I had a building in my sights that I decided maybe I'd really pick it up from to finish strong. Of course when I got there, with only a quarter-mile to go and the finish line in sight but still looking painfully far away, I decided I just wanted to make it to the end without throwing up or pulling any muscles and stopping so I could try and breathe in some fashion that didn't hurt my throat so much. I used to line up at 5K's and wish they were half marathons. I was not designed to go hard/fast. I can go forever, but these short races require a need to endure a different kind of pain that I just don't tolerate well. But this time, I was glad it was a 5K. If only because I'm not sure I would've been able to run much further!

Each mile was 15 seconds slower than the last, so from my own personal 'awesome' pacing abilities, that actually wasn't so bad. And I (barely) managed to squeak out something just a tad better than my fastest marathon pace. Great, right? I read all the time about people who are "so far off my game" or coming back from some terrible injury and still feeling so "slow" and "fat" and "out of shape" but they still win the race or maybe "only" come in second and ran 5:30's. I don't work like that. For me, time off makes me feel like I'm starting all over again, back when I was 21 and started running on the treadmill at 220 pounds just to get in shape for my last college basketball season. It took me three years to get kind of decent at running. I still live in fear that it will take me three years from now, and I don't have the time or patience for it anymore!

So let's just hope that that was not indicative of what I can expect, but rather just a starting point. It's so hard to see beyond it though, no matter how often I try and say that sort of thing to other people. Just do the work, it will get better. Why does it sometimes feel like that doesn't apply to me? Anyway, I spent the rest of the night with a hacking cough from all that heavy breathing and once again wondering to myself if seriously once a week (or maybe more) I should just go out and try to destroy myself by running as fast as I can for 3 miles or whatever, so maybe eventually it feels easier. Of course I know that is probably just a recipe for some new injury - the foot didn't hurt at all, by the way - but it still just makes me want to go out and do all of those impulsive, impatient things that I am pretty sure don't actually work, but sure seem like they should.

So, that was my Saturday. Got beat by a bunch of Santas and threw away my unused free beer at the after party tickets. I bet someone just cried when I wrote that. Yep, I turned down free beer.

Wait, I almost forgot the fun part of my week, though. I went surfing. I've got this very neglected surfboard I got for my 21st birthday that gets used here and there and really not much since I started racing. Well, I got invited by some people to go and was reluctant at first, given that the water was 48 degrees and I don't have a winter suit. But then I thought, but I do have two wetsuits. Yeah, tri suit under my old, too-big-for-me surf suit worked out quite nicely with my other Blue Seventy cold gear. And I gotta say, those webbed gloves are so awesome for paddling into waves I might just wear them even if the water is warm. It was almost too much fun. I say too much because now I want to go more and while I wasn't really cold, I did lose feeling in my feet for a while and I'm just not sure how long into the winter my two wetsuit plan would get me. See, I don't understand when everyone thinks I'm crazy for doing thinks like surfing or biking when it's really cold out. It's not like I wear the same stuff I do when it's 75 degrees out! You have the right clothes, you don't have to be cold. Except your lips, I'm sorry, but those will always be cold. And sometimes your toes...

Sorry, it's Sunday night, time to mentally prepare for another week. And next weekend headed to DC to watch the Army/Navy game. Always nice to get on a plane without a bike box!

Update and I Know Where I'm Going for the Winter!

2011-11-28T15:46:00.000-08:00

I know at some point recently I mentioned that the less I blog, the worse things are going. Well, this time that is not the case and I'm just a bit embarrassed that it has been so long between updates. I really do want to keep up more often and maybe even every once in a while have something actually interesting to say.

So, what was the culprit of this extended absence? Initially, it was a rogue snowstorm. October sometimes has a little bit of snow in the forecast in between the roller coaster of 65-degree days and 40-degree days. A few flurries here and there, and that's it. We had a night where snow was predicted, which isn't exciting but not that unexpected either, and I saw it falling before I went to bed and awakened the next morning to drive to the pool to see almost no evidence that it had snowed that night.

That was a Thursday. So I wasn't exactly concerned when I heard that snow was once again predicted for Saturday night. Annoying? Sure, as I'm still not ready for winter, but no big deal, right? Wrong. Oh, so wrong. I did my long bike ride early that morning, heading out in the cold because if I waited too long to ride I'd just get stuck in snow. I don't necessarily mind riding in the cold, I've got good clothes for such instances. And I was fine for a while even though it was 25 degrees when I started. It "warmed up" to about 34 by the time I finished, which meant my fluids actually remained fluids, but due to the total absence of the sun, I found myself darn cold on that ride.

But whatever, I was done with it and I survived. So later that afternoon I was parked on the couch in front of the TV, as is my usual post-long ride spot. Honestly, I don't know how you people with kids do this sort of thing when you have to go train for seven hours and can't just come home and collapse on the couch and spend the rest of the afternoon drifting in and out of sleep. I watched the news and it seemed unclear how bad the snow would be. They said it could just be all rain if it started later, and the earlier it started, the worse it would be. The earliest they predicted was about 4:00, the latest midnight. Well, at about 3:30 I looked out the window and saw it had started.

It piled up way too fast. Heavy, wet snow that started bending trees in the back yard in half, pulling tree limbs down, most of which still had leaves and many of which those leaves were even green. We had been warned that there would be power outages, so I was ready for anything. Fortunately I did not have to worry about trees falling on the house because after an ice storm and a couple of bad wind storms over the last three years, there are seriously almost no trees left to fall on the house. Honestly, after all of these freakish storms I'm amazed there are any trees left to fall anywhere.

I don't tend to lose power under those simpler instances where a few people lose power for a thunderstorm or whatever. I'm across the street from a Wallgreens, very much a part of civilization. So I held out some hope that I'd be fine. Of course then as I sat there watching TV with the cable intermittently going out, the lights flashing here and there and already a foot of snow in the back yard, I didn't have much hope. To put things in perspective, the snowiest October on record around here was a whopping 2.2". And that was for the entire month. We surpassed all but one November.

I went to bed with electricity, and woke up without it. The last time this happened, I utilized an old walkman I still have for some reason and listened to the TV band to find out what was going on. Well, apparently now that we've switched to digital, that doesn't work anymore. I'll probably still keep it just in case some day I have the urge to listen to one of my mix tapes from high school.

14" of snow and no electricity anywhere around here. Great. The last time we had one of these widespread outages I didn't have power for a tad over a week. So I was expecting similar. Halloween was canceled across most of the state. Well, postponed, but still. Trick-or-treating November 6th just seems a bit odd, but at least the kids still got their candy. There was no long run not just because of snow but because half the remaining trees in town had fallen down and surely there were going to be some shaky limbs just waiting for the right moment to snap and take out a runner.

The good news was that Mom's lake house had water, electricity, cable, internet... just like it was the 21st century. I had to stay down for a christening party that afternoon, but then it was off to see the lights. I did come back before the power was back at home so I could use the pool and such and spent a lot of time hanging out at the coffee shop across the street on their internet

Well, anyway, the point of all that was that it threw me off a bit, and blogging was not on the radar screen. I was lucky at least that the power outage came during a rest week. And that the snow did eventually melt and now it's like it never happened. But seriously, enough with these outages already!

Then eventually it was back to the normal routine. Since then things have been pretty uneventful. I've mostly still been riding outside with the exception of a couple of rainy days (I don't always ride inside on rainy days, but rainy and 60 is different from rainy and 40) and running has even started to feel more like actual running for the first time since.... I don't even know. That's not to say I'm fast by any means, but I probably at least don't just look like I'm shuffling down the street to passers by.

I've been back and forth between running in shorts and short sleeves to my Thanksgiving morning ride that involved my wearing of seventeen individual items of clothing not including shoes, helmet and sunglasses. Can you imagine how much faster I'll feel when I don't have to wear forty pounds of clothing on my rides? Not to mention cutting the time down because it will no longer take me like twenty minutes just to get dressed. But the good news is that I wasn't cold.

Saturday was warm for my long ride, although I rode my bike from no snow at home up to some higher elevation with lots of snow. Thanksgiving itself was pretty quiet and uneventful. Dinner was exactly the same as it has been every other year I've had Thanksgiving at Nana's, which is most of them.

But the most important development is that it appears I have nailed down the majority of my winter plans. As discussed earlier, I wasn't sure where I wanted to go, but I knew I needed to go somewhere warm. Nothing in particular was jumping out at me. I happened to be talking to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago and mentioned my dilemma and she used to live in Birmingham, Alabama and was just raving about it. She also said she had some friends there and could probably find someone for me to stay with. I mean, I never would've thought about Alabama as one of my possible training destinations, but this was starting to sound like a good idea.

So, long story short (I never do that, I usually make long stories as long as possible, as evidenced by the wordiness of this blog) she gave me the name of a good friend of hers and I'll be spending about two months in Alabama. If it was good enough for Forrest Gump, it should be good enough for me. It's so nice to have that settled and even nicer that I won't be entirely by myself this time. I've said it before, I'm fine with alone time. I get a fair amount of it and I don't mind it for the most part. But three months of being alone is way, way too much. And it will be nice not having to figure everything out for myself. Not that I had problems with that before, but it will just make things easier. So that is where I'll be spending my training time for IMTX. I never would've guessed it, either.

Planning for Winter: Where to Go This Time?

2011-10-24T06:38:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, last winter I skipped out of frigid and overwhelmingly snowy New Hampshire for the warmer, decidedly less precipitous Tucson, AZ. I had spent the winter of 2007 in Phoenix in preparation for the then-run-in-April Ironman Arizona. One weekend I rode my bike with some friends down to Tucson and realized I'd picked the wrong city, promising myself that if I did that again, I'd definitely pick Tucson instead. I suffered through a couple more winters at home, thinking to myself I was okay handling all the indoor riding and running in slush and snow. Well, the winter of 2010, training for the early season Ironman St. George nearly broke me, so I decided that in order to maintain my sanity, I needed to escape winter.

It worked out just about the best I could've possibly hoped for. Tuscon was nice, it rained I think twice in three months, and the place I found to rent on craigslist worked out perfectly. Not to mention the fact that all of New England was absolutely bombarded with blizzard after blizzard, constantly reaffirming my decision to get out of town. I felt guilty seeing the snow storms on the news or the piles of snow in the back yard out the window when I'd talk to my mom on Skype. But it basically told me that I'm not sure I can suffer through another winter of snow and cold. Especially not with another early season Ironman to be run in the heat and humidity.

So the question now is: Where do I go for 2012? And when? And for how long? Here are the things to consider in my decision:

-I need it to be hot and humid. Arizona is not going to cut it this time.

-I know at least three places in southern California I could stay with friends or family. I could probably even just rotate between them until one person/family gets sick of me and then move onto the next so by the time I come back I'm not annoying anymore. But while the weather is warm usually, it does not help with real heat and humidity. Plus, I'm not sure I want to drive all the way to California again.

-Three-and-a-half months was way to long to be by myself. I get a lot of alone time. Too much, probably. And for the most part it doesn't bother me. But there are at least a few bouts of human interaction other than the people at the gym front desk or the checkout counter at the grocery store. After about eight weeks, I started to go a little insane. And this time I need to stay down south until the middle of May, so not sure when to begin my adventures.

-My cousin is getting married MLK weekend. Can't miss that and don't plan on going anywhere before then.

-QT2 training camp in Clermont is the second weekend in February and will definitely be on my agenda. I just have to figure out if I'll fly down and back like a normal person or if maybe that could be the beginning of my travels. But again, that would mean three months away, which is too much I think.

-I am racing both the Galveston 70.3 on April 1st and then Ironman Texas. The races are within close proximity (at least by Texas standards, and trust me, I am well aware of how far away stuff in Texas can be) and six weeks apart. It seems to make sense to me to stay down there somehow in between.

-Theoretically I guess I could just do the camp in February and then maybe Texas for just those six weeks, but March in New Hampshire is the most horrible month ever, anywhere. It's still cold, but it can either rain or snow, or often both. Snow that is there is dirty and brown and disgusting. There is no way I want to spend March in New Hampshire.

Taking all of those things into consideration, I've got a few ideas. Initially I was thinking Clermont since that is where the training camp is, the National Training Center is there and I know I'll get plenty of hot and humid plus I've been there so I know what to expect. I don't know anyone there though and not sure how easy it would be to find a place, or how long I'd want to stay. There are some extended stay places, but I'm thinking that the neighbors wouldn't be the kinds of people I'd feel comfortable with having as my neighbors.

I'm obviously also considering Texas. But where? One of the athletes I coach knows someone who lives in The Woodlands, which is where the Ironman is held and I'm waiting to hear about things there. I don't know if that is a great place to train or not. I don't think there is any big advantage in this case to training on the course as apparently it's just flat. So heat, humidity and flat roads are really all I need.

Austin is another possibility. I know a couple of people who live there, although I have not heard back from anyone yet with any information. I know there is a decent triathlon community there and roads to ride. And a few peeks at craigslist tells me that it should be pretty easy if needed to sublet a place for pretty cheap. I just want to get some first hand knowledge on what to expect should I decide to go there for a while.

So, let's see what I come up with for this winter's adventures. I will say that at the moment I'm thinking of maybe flying down for camp in Clermont and then maybe even flying from there to spend a couple of weeks in California before coming back and then driving down to wherever I'm going to be from March to May, but that will obviously depend on when I want to go wherever I want to go and doesn't make much sense if I do, in fact, choose to stay in Clermont for a few months. And, well, I suppose a long-shot option is Hawaii, since I do have not one, but two college friends who live there - one north of Kona and one south. But then I wouldn't be able to take a car and flying and expensive and, well, I don't know.

So many choices!

Still Moving Forward... I Think

2011-10-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

Wow, two days into another week and I'm still alive. I'm happy to report that swimming is going quite well, although considering the fact that that was the only thing I could do without interruption all summer, that's not much of a win. Tomorrow I'll head out on a pretty decent bike ride, planning on hitting the road early and hoping to beat the rain that is supposed to move in since lately it can't be sunny for more than half a day at a time. I went on another run today. Thirty-five whole minutes. I head out the door, start running and feel awesome just to be out running. It's great. I realize I missed it.

And then I get about as far as the end of the driveway before it dawns on me how difficult it is! I'm breathing hard, I'm slowing to a point that feels more like pumping my arms in a running fashion while walking not particularly fast, but I have to keep going. Then I occasionally feel good again on some downhills, but it has definitely not gotten easier yet. I need to constantly remind myself that it does get better, it's just always so hard to see it in the beginning.

There is no pain from my foot although I'll admit I'm in constant fear of it. The last x-ray still showed a visible line but I was given the go-ahead and told to hope for the best. Aside from that, my foot now looks like this:

I apologize, because I hate it when people post picture of their feet and I know mine is not especially attractive but at least there are no open sores. And due to lack of running for once I even have all of my toenails. You see the way my big toe points inward though? Why am I suddenly so exceptionally deformed? I didn't notice it looking like that until after I raced Mooseman and I know it hasn't looked like that for long. I would've noticed. I feel like this new deformity should've been a more gradual thing. So now visions of surgeries are swimming in my head and yet another setback to running that would pretty much put the nail in the coffin on my triathlon career before I even get a chance at my 2012 comeback. I'm going to the podiatrist on Thursday though. Let's hope it's something that can actually be fixed. Scarily, my feet probably aren't even my worst feature.

Not much else to say. The weather was nice today for my run but rain is moving in so after tomorrow's outdoor ride (hopefully) I'll probably have to hit the trainer for the first time since.... April? I honestly have no idea. Oh, and also I'm eying the waves for the end of the week. Did I mention I went surfing two weeks ago? I've had a surfboard since my 21st birthday and since I became a triathlete it is grossly underutilized but I still like to have it for the occasional visit to the New Hampshire coastline. It's no California and definitely no Hawaii but it's fun anyway. Friday and maybe Saturday are looking good, so I might sneak in a little visit to the ocean among the rest of the training. You might not believe me but I'm pretty sure my last trip to the ocean was much warmer than my swim in the lake last week.

Time to wind down for bed and continue to try and get used to getting up at 5:30 in the morning once again. It's not as easy as it used to be!

Week One: Complete

2011-10-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

I'm one week in. I do not feel any fitter. But I guess that's normal, right? I got off to a bit of a rough start due to a very late night on Sunday. I went down to the Patriots game with my mom, my sister and my brother-in-law. The weather was amazing, the seats were great and they even beat the Jets, so it was fun. I don't think I'd been to a game since they built Gillette Stadium. I would only go to games with my family, and after a certain point in his life my dad decided that fighting the traffic to go there and sitting outside and braving the elements just wasn't worth the trouble when you had big screen TV's, pre- and post-game shows, comfortable couches you could nap on at half time and beer you didn't have to wait in line for. So he started turning down tickets or would give them to my brother who would take his friends. I had no problem with that, anyone he took surely would appreciate those tickets a lot more than I would. I mean, I don't even watch the games on TV. On Sunday afternoons I'm usually recovering from a workout and falling asleep on the couch to some movie on TBS I've seen 37 times.

Anyway, the later game and the ridiculous traffic had us getting home pretty late and it's not always that pleasant to start off the first official workout week on five hours of sleep. It makes things seem a lot tougher than they really are. I've been working on getting my internal clock reset to its old ways and it's been slow going. The clock change in two weeks will help. We're starting off fairly slow since it's been so long but after the first four weeks it will ramp up quite a bit.

Oh, but running. Well. I did mention that the last time I ran was Mooseman, right? You know, running those first three miles and then getting a ride back in the golf cart. I thought I was being a baby but that was probably the smartest thing I'd done in a while. Let's just forget the fact that it would've been a lot smarter for me to have had it all checked out before I went and did the entire race in Florida on the broken foot. Hey, at least I got to go to Disney World after.

So, that meant four months of no running. I've never not run for four months, ever. That includes when I was a fat, lazy teenager. Fat and lazy or not, I still played sports and I'm sure that entire off seasons never lasted that long. Needless to say, it has not been easy, but most importantly, there has been no pain. And for at least the first half-mile of each run, it just feels awesome to be out running again. You know, before the pain of not running sets in and the freedom of doing it again is with you. My sister had a big yard sale this weekend and while I was over there my nephew came out in full Batman costume asking for people to chase him. Even running around the yard chasing after a five-year old felt good. And I can still catch him.

Nothing much else exciting. Oh, I've started using a toy that I've had for a long time but didn't have the means to use it. Maybe two years ago now, someone gave me one of those H2O audio things so you can listen to your iPod while you swim. He also gave me the iPod to go with it, which was good because I am severely behind in technology and that was my first iPod. The only problem was he got me the third generation shuffle and the headphones were for the second generation, and the two sizes are completely different so there was no way to use it. I at least used the iPod. Well, finally just last week someone gave me their old shuffle and I was able to use it. It's not great, and the first use was a disaster because I didn't realize the significance of using the correct sized earbuds, but once I went with the smallest size instead of the second-largest that were already on there, it actually worked fairly decently. I wouldn't use it all the time as it makes me lose count, but for these early season swims that are much easier and shorter it's a nice distraction. The things do tend to fall out of my ears eventually so I have to stop at least every 400 to fix them. It might be better with a better cap that stayed pulled over my ears, but right now my old Mooseman cap has it riding up after a few laps. I wouldn't buy one because they're very expensive but as a gift it's nice.

Nothing much else exciting to say except week one is done and there's still a lot more work to do. I feel so far removed from being an athlete in training it's ridiculous but I guess I'm no stranger to this feeling. I also already brought out all of the cold weather running and biking gear. I haven't needed it yet, but any day now I'm sure it will come. I'll let you know if anything exciting happens this week!

Kona day!

2011-10-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

I have great news: nobody else died for me to write about. Let's hope the trend continues.

Just about any decent triathlete would be able to tell you that today is the day of the Ironman World Championship in Kona. It is almost 4am there, which means my QT2 teammates are already up and eating breakfast. I haven't even had mine yet and we're six hours ahead. I'm really looking forward to watching the race unfold. Wishing I was there and of course wishing I was racing. But I certainly didn't earn it this year. I am, however, coaching my first athlete through it. MaryBeth Romagnoli earned her spot in Lake Placid. She is one of many examples why some people make it and some people don't. It's not some magical talent that appears after some swimming biking and running. She barely ran a step before Placid due to some lingering issues so we had to push through with extra biking and water running. Have you ever done a whole lot of water running? It's excruciatingly boring. But she never complained once. I'd ask her every once in a while, sort of prodding to see if the water running was driving her insane yet, but she'd pretty much just tell me she was fine, just doing what she had to do. We do work her schedule around her family time (wife with two sons) but she doesn't make excuses for anything, just gets it done. And that is why she is there. While I do think there is at least some pure athletic ability that is involved in getting certain athletes to Kona, I think you'd probably find that it is the most dedicated athletes and not necessarily the most genetically gifted that are racing there.

As for me, I start officially training on Monday. I haven't had a schedule since May. I haven't run a step since June fourth. I haven't done a long bike ride since the weekend before Mooseman. I've probably done about 97 less loads of laundry since then that I otherwise would've done had I had mountains of sweaty run and bike clothes every single day. I am pretty sure that the last time I went that long without running was from birth to... whenever I started running. I am told that I actually sort of ran before I walked, supporting myself with one of those stupid little plastic shopping carts and running circles between the living room, dining room and kitchen. So you can imagine I'm a bit nervous as to how this is all going to go.

But, well, I really just have to do what I have to do, right? I'll admit I think the past couple of years I've mostly just been scared. Scared of what? Scared that if I worked really hard and did everything I was supposed to do I still might fail. I don't really know why, because every other time I gave it my all I wound up with results beyond what I hoped for. The only exception was Ironman Arizona in 2007, and in that case it was a time goal I didn't hit but mostly it had to do with the fact that the wind was crazy that day. I don't know why I spent so much time thinking about the time I didn't hit rather than the fact that I'd won my age group by an hour.

I keep hearing about all of these things like if you just think it will be true, then it will be. You have to go into things with the attitude that the outcome you want is simply inevitable. I have been resistant to this sort of thinking because to me it just seems arrogant and cocky. I'm pretty sure that those are personality traits that I do not possess. But I'm going to do my best to get into my head that planning for success does not make you arrogant. At least I don't think it does. And it I'm pretty sure that I only have to believe these things for myself instead of walking around trying to get other people to believe them.

So my only choice is to go into this season first, with the mind set that I will do everything that I need to do in order to be the athlete I want to be. This goes way beyond just the training itself. I've proven over the past couple of years that you can do all of the training and still not get the results you want. This will mean eating the things I'm supposed to eat, sleeping as much as I need to, making the most of every training session and pushing when it needs to happen, and taking all of the calcium and vitamin D to make sure that my bones all remain intact for the entire season and hopefully beyond.

When things aren't going well it gets difficult to see that doing the hard work does pay off. It's a lot tougher to motivate yourself when you're struggling to run ten minute miles when you know that a while ago sub-eights were a breeze. It sucks and it's frustrating. But progress is still progress and you're never going to get over that wall if you don't keep trying to push through. You should know I've been trying to tell myself this for a while now, and it is definitely easier said than done. But I'm running out of time here and if I don't just get over it and start thinking about what I need to do then it's going to be necessary that I find something else to do with my time.

So here we go, 2012 is the beginning of my... what are we at, sixth second chance now? I've lost track. I might as well just call it the last chance. 2011 was supposed to be the last chance but you can't entirely fault me for being injured all season. I'm hoping this incredibly extensive break was just what I needed to freshen my body (hopefully not just let it get terribly out of shape) and get me ready to once again mentally tackle Ironman training. I haven't done an Ironman in over a year and I hardly even remember what it's like to be in the middle of one. So maybe forgetting the pain will also be helpful!

I'll update here more often. I was about to write try to update more often, but that just gives me an out. Yoda said there is no try, right? Is anyone smarter than Yoda? I have also been working on putting my internal clock back where it needs to be. I used to think waking up at six was sleeping in. I've been getting up at 5:30 and heading to the gym to swim and use the dreaded elliptical to simulate some form of running and it's been torture. I'll get there, it's just tougher than I remember. I think watching the Kona coverage today will help, though.

This is race morning my first time in Kona, 2005. My parents and two of my mom's sisters, my aunt Hannah in yellow and my aunt Tricia. I can't even express how much fun I had that day. Seriously. It was amazing and everything I hoped it would be and more. All I wanted to do was finish.

This was my second time there, 2006. Somehow in a year I'd gotten way faster and pedaled my way to a 5:15 bike split and seventh in my age group behind people like Tyler Stewart and Heather Wurtele. I didn't enjoy the race as much, mostly because I spent the late miles and then post-race for a good nine hours pretty sure I might die that night, but I was definitely proud of what I'd done. I actually have some video footage of me running the marathon that year, and it was early when I was feeling good. It amazes me that I was able to run that fast with that horrible run form.

And this is me in '07, the last time I got to run the marathon there. It blows my mind that this was now four years ago. I raced in '09 but I had a stress fracture and dropped out after the bike after briefly contemplating walking the marathon. After walking a mere 2.7-mile run in a triathlon recently, I'm glad I didn't opt to do that for ten times the amount of miles. I'm looking at these to remind myself that while I am nowhere near where I was then, it is in there somewhere. It's under some extra pounds and short a few hundred training hours, but it's not like anything drastic has happened to me. A few minor injuries, yes, but nothing permanent.

So I am going to spend the next several months trying to remind myself of this whenever I am dreading a run workout and upset that I am incredibly slow. It doesn't happen overnight. It didn't happen overnight the first time. Although I certainly hope it takes a little less time because I don't have three years anymore. It also blows my mind when I start to really think how old I am!

In about an hour the pros are off and I'll be anxiously watching my friends and teammates racing and trying to convince myself that next year I will be back there with them. There is a lot of work ahead of me to get there, but what else do I have to do?

Goodbye, Marley

2011-10-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

That is a picture of an adorable golden retriever puppy exhibiting some of his tireless energy. It was taken ten years ago and up until a little over a week ago the same dog could usually be seen doing pretty much the exact same thing, except he was a lot bigger. I don't have my own dog. I haven't since my old childhood dog Shannon died while I was in my last semester of college, at the ripe old age of 13-and-a-half.

My sister and my brother-in-law adopted Marley just a few months later. They had just moved into a new house in New Hampshire from their suburban first-floor split level rental in Malden. Jeff's parents never let him have a dog, and Katy grew up mostly having a dog in the house. So they found a litter of puppies, picked out the one with the orange thing tied to his collar because he was the one who followed them around the most, and brought him home. I used to "babysit" him when he was a puppy and before they even had kids for me to babysit for.

They went to the effort to train him and for the most part he was an obedient and easy-to-live with dog. I don't ever recall hearing of him chewing anything up. They never gave him people food so he never expected it or tried to steal it off the table. He never tried to run away because he just loved being around his people so much.

His only bad habit was that he went absolutely bonkers anytime anyone new showed up at the house. Now, he didn't bark or jump up on people, he'd just run up to you and sort of spin around in circles, step on your feet a couple of times and maybe eventually sit on your feet and pretty much convulse because he was just so happy to see you. Most of us had adapted our own version of the Marley defense stance to prepare for his imminent, ecstatic greeting. Except of course if his "dad" was home, in which case he would do his best to pretend he wasn't going to launch himself at your feet but you could tell it was taking every ounce of his control to remain somewhat calm.

In spite of his craziness he usually wasn't completely out of control. This is his baby sister, Moira, when Marley was only about a year and a half old. To be fair, once the kids got older he'd been known to accidentally knock them over in a fit of running in circles all over the house in the excitement of a new visitor. We all thought that once he got older he might calm down a little. He never did. If anything I swear two weeks ago when I went to watch my nephew and Marley came to meet me at the door he was even more crazy than usual. He did always eventually calm down though so you could visit in peace, it was just the initial greeting.

In fact, about three weeks ago we were at the lake house and my brother had had some friends stay over after a nearby wedding, and when Marley arrived with my sister and there were six new people in the kitchen he was just running all over the place and sliding all over the wood floor, so excited and undecided as to which person he wanted to say hi to first since he was so overwhelmed.

When Marley was about three, we became neighbors, so I got to see him a lot. It was great, having lots of the benefits of having a dog without all of the responsibilities of having a dog. I'd see him outside when I ran by and of course he was there every time I visited them. He would also sometimes sleep over if his family was going away for a night or two.

He was a lot of fun when they brought him to the lake when all of us were there. He learned to love jumping off the dock into the water, which he would only do really if someone else was in there and he seemed to think they needed "saving." Except one time he went up in November and jumped off the dock in his excitement and I'm assuming the shock of that one meant he wanted to see a human enjoying the water first to make sure it was warm enough. Just last month I was outside with Marley and my niece and nephew watching them blow bubbles and watching Marley put in extensive effort to try and 'catch' every single one.

He even went on the boat and enjoyed standing up front and catching the wind in his face. That all ended when my dad bought the Chris Craft in 2006 and Dad was not that interested in having a dog in his nice, new boat (to be fair, the first week we had it Dad promptly spilled a huge cup of coffee all over the rug) but he still loved the lake.

He loved to eat snow being shoveled, too. I guess he did have one other flaw, and that was he was awful on a leash. I mean, you could go almost anywhere with him and he'd stay right by your side, but if you put a leash on him all he wanted to do was pull you around. To demonstrate this, last year when I picked him up to watch him Timberman weekend my sister told me to just look at him there in front of us, not going anywhere, perfectly content. She clipped the leash to his collar and immediately started pulling her to the end of the driveway. It's like he assumed having the leash on Timberman expo that afternoon on my way to the lake house. My arms were sore the next day from reining him in.

He had a gentle leader, which any other dog owners probably know is a leash that actually attaches to the dogs' snout. It looks sort of like a muzzle, so once or twice when I brought him hiking with me and would pass people coming in the other direction they would assume he was vicious and it was keeping him from biting. I don't think Marley ever bit anyone. But at least he couldn't pull the leash too hard.

As Marley got older, his fur got whiter and he looked a lot older but we always talked about how he just wouldn't slow down. He was still as excited as a puppy and never had any physical problems. So last week when my sister mentioned he hadn't been eating and wasn't feeling well I didn't think that much of it. I was going to ride with Katy and Jeff to this open house thing at my brother's office last week so I went to their house to meet them and my mom was going to watch the kids.

Upon my arrival, Marley did not immediately rush up to greet me at the door. Katy and Jeff were still upstairs so I thought maybe he was up there with them. Then I saw Moira in the kitchen and walked in to see Marley lying on the floor in the doorway to the next room, barely lifting his head to see what was going on. Immediately I knew there was something drastically wrong with him. He eventually decided to stand up and come see me and my mom, who might have been standing three feet from him and he had a terrible time standing, an even worse time walking to us, and his feet were slipping out from underneath him as he struggled just to sit at our feet. He all-but collapsed.

My sister came downstairs and said he had gotten dramatically worse just since that morning and it was decided that he would go to the vet that night. I didn't think he'd make it until morning if he didn't see someone right away, although looking at him even then I figured this was probably it. It was about 5:15 and he got an appointment at 7 so we went to the open house and my mom was going to take him in and we'd meet her there. It took a minute or so to drag Marley to his feet so he'd go outside to pee, which he finally did and it was basically rust-colored which also of course did not seem to be a good sign.

When we arrived the kids were sitting in the waiting area and I sat with them while Katy and Jeff went in to my mom and Marley. They had no idea what was going on and they asked me really important questions like, "Was Indiana Jones based on a true story?" And, "Do you think anyone has ever built a real lightsaber?" The minutes ticked by and I pretty much knew once again that this was probably it.

Then my mom came around the corner with tears in her eyes and said, "Do you want to come say goodbye to your dog?" Moira, who is 9, couldn't believe it. Conor, who is 5, really had no idea what was going on and actually provided some much needed comic relief by blurting out random, funny things to ease the tension during this difficult moment. My sister mentioned something about him going to sleep and Conor said, "He's gonna sleep here?" And my mom said, "No, he's going to heaven with Papa."

Marley was still just lying on the floor looking so sad and in pain. He was almost like a zombie, not really that interested in being petted, not wagging his tail at the attention. I never had to say goodbye to a dog before. I petted him and then Moira came down to pet him and then Conor blurted out, "What, just pets and no huggies?" So Moira gave him a hug and then Conor got down on the floor and gave him a hug, still really not showing any sign of knowing what was really going on and then me and Mom took the kids home while Katy and Jeff stayed with Marley in his final moments.

Apparently he had liver failure. Possibly he had cancer and a tumor that caused it, but it doesn't really matter. It was amazing how quick that happened. Like I said, less than a week earlier I'd been there and Marley was his usual, jubilant self. Flipping out when I got there and making it very difficult for me and Conor to play Operation when he went to lie down on top of the game board. He ran up the stairs when we went up there, ran down when I was leaving. I suppose it's good that he didn't suffer long, and it wasn't one of those on the fence thing where you're not really sure if he still has some quality of life left, but still, it was an amazing shock. We all expected to see him start limping around a bit in his old age before something like this happened.

So Marley is gone and almost the minute we left the vet and weren't even in the car yet Moira asked, "Can we get a puppy?" No word yet on any decisions there. Probably a bit too early to jump into things. It was so strange though to go over there for dinner the next night and not have Marley come rushing to greet me at the door. Although for once I didn't have to contemplate which clothes to wear over there that I would not mind getting covered in dog hair and/or possible dog drool. He was a great dog and we'll all miss him a lot.

How cute is that puppy? Anyway, I know this blog has become a serious downer. Training starts officially next week and hopefully I'll have other things to write about that are more in the spirit of why I started writing this in the first place. It's a long way to Ironman Texas and we can probably think of the next seven and a half months as my last chance workout. Almost time to get serious! Although I will say that this morning when it was pouring rain and dark and there was even a thunderstorm going on I did not so much mind not having a workout that I absolutely needed to get done.

A Fresh Start... Again.

2011-09-11T10:43:00.000-07:00

It is crazy to me to think back and realize that it has been five years since I had my best season, and how badly I squandered things after that. Sure, it wasn't entirely terrible, but I brought personal worsts to a whole new level over the past two years. The worst part? It is entirely my fault. I really can't blame anyone else. And as hard as it is to admit it, much of my demise was probably preventable.

Sure, there have been a few injuries and those are really going to happen no matter what. But it's how badly I let them get to me that made them effect me that much worse. My first major issue in 2008 had me out of running for six weeks but I let it completely destroy me mentally and even somewhat physically and the repercussions lasted far longer than that initial period of not running.

For a very long time, I was the person who would never miss a training session. I'd get up at crazy hours to run 20 miles before work, spend most of every Saturday on my bike, get on the trainer at 3:30 in the morning to get a ride in before getting on a plane, plot out what I was going to eat day after day. I didn't make any excuses because I wouldn't have accepted them as legitimate. And you know what? My performances were the result of this dedication. I'll admit that I was completely surprised by a lot of the things I had suddenly become capable of doing, because in a way it sort of seemed "easy" to me. Just do the training like you're supposed to, sleep and eat well, have a great race. It's really not that complicated and there isn't some magical quality that fast people possess aside from unwavering determination.

After I had my breakthrough year, I think I got a little scared. How could I top that? It was so far beyond anything I had even dreamed of accomplishing. "Winning" Lake Placid, seventh in my age group in Kona, riding away from the field like biking was the easiest thing in the world and even somehow managing to run well. I decided right away that there was no way I could top it. So I started training and racing that way. Well, I can't do any better, so I don't really have to try as hard, right? The decline was very slow, but it was certainly there.

Aside from my injury, I still did the training, but I stopped taking care of myself otherwise. Weight started to pile back on which made me feel like more of a failure after having worked so hard to shed the years' worth of evidence of my teenage addiction to Doritos and Pepsi. I didn't take action, I simply gave up. And like I said, the race performances showed it. I remember how I used to show up at race start lines feeling like I'd done absolutely everything that could be done to have the best race possible. Suddenly every single race I showed up at had me feeling like a kid who forgot to study for a final. There's nothing you can do at that point but fake your way through it and accept the inevitable of your failure to prepare adequately. Sure, I could still finish races, but I didn't get into this just to cross finish lines. If I did, I certainly wouldn't train so much.

So we all know that earlier this season I had to drop out of Mooseman because my foot was bothering me. My foot had been bothering me since at least Mother's Day, but it didn't really hurt enough for me to think much of it so I just altered my run stride a bit. Then I found out it was broken. I was pretty much out for the summer. Oh, and out at least $1000 worth of race entry fees that might as well have been flushed down the toilet.

A lot of other years this sort of news would have been devastating to me. I cried when I found out I had a stress fracture just two weeks before Kona in 2009. I cried on the run I was on in 2008 when my back brought me to a screeching halt. This time, instead of getting upset about it, I decided to treat it like a good thing. First, it would keep me from having what I knew were going to be a series of disappointing races over the summer. I just wasn't in a position to do well. Second, it gave me a reason to stop training for a while. And I mean really stop. Not the couple-week break at the end of the season, not a break from running but continuing to swim and bike like crazy, but to just completely and totally stop. Sure, I swam and rode here and there, but there was no set schedule. I did what I wanted when I felt like it. I slept in pretty much every day and stayed up past 10 on a regular basis. I participated in family events without going home early because I had to train early the next morning. I only had to do about 25% of my normal laundry amounts. I didn't have pressure on myself about coming back as soon as possible.

do have time and as long as I do all of the little things I'm supposed to do, I can be back on track. Ironman Texas is eight months away. That is a pretty long time. But the work does need to start.

So let's just pretend that I didn't squander the last two years and maybe just train like there's no way I can fail. I've got friends I used to train with that I haven't been able to because I got way too slow, and it'd be nice to be able to train with them again. I'm hoping to spend the next month slowly getting back on track, still without a schedule and still without running because I'm not there yet. But biking, swimming, lifting, elliptical, just generally starting to get into a regular routine again. Then hopefully I'll talk to my incredibly patient coach, Jesse Kropelnicki, and we can pick an official start date. Three years ago he brought me back from the dead. I dug myself a similar hole this time, and hopefully we will both be able to bring me back again.

So here's to hoping that my blog will now turn back into updates on my training and how things are going well. Oh, but if only my Garmin 310XT didn't shatter last weekend after falling off my wrist during the race :(

One Year Later

2011-09-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the lack of updates. I promise once my entire life gets back to normal (which I'm hoping will be very soon) I will put blogging back on track. But for now, sitting around and not training and staring at my booted left foot doesn't make for interesting blogging.

All right, instead of working chronologically, I'll start off with the fact that somehow today is one year after my dad died. I haven't seen or talked to him in a year. It seems unbelievable both that it has been that long and even still that it happened at all. It still feels like some sort of horrible dream that I've yet to wake up from. The only problem is that for the past 365 days I've awakened to the reality of not having my father with us anymore.

While the year was not without a few bright spots, it's probably safe to say that it was the worst year ever. I've been told that the first year is the hardest and I am sincerely hoping that is the case. This past Saturday night, after dinner my mother, brother, sister and I took the boat out and spread some of Dad's ashes over the lake. We didn't go far, Mom told me to stop a ways out but just make sure that he could still see the house. Afterward we spent about an hour just talking, just the four of us.

While the circumstances surrounding that evening were obviously horrible, it's probably pretty rare that any family, even one as close as ours, takes the opportunity to just sit and talk for a while, just those of you who grew up under the same roof. We all felt pretty much the same. We've all been pretty well checked out for the past year. So I apologize to anyone who I may have alienated in any way or just not seemed like myself, I just found it difficult to muster up enthusiasm for much of anything. And everyone else who was on that boat with me that night felt the same way. We're hoping that it can bring some form of closure and the beginning of what can maybe be a much better year. It seems unfair that all that we can really do is move on, but that's just the way it goes.

My mother has been amazing through all of this. As much as I know it hurts me to miss Dad there is the added knowledge that Mom doesn't have him anymore. You often hear how marriage is work, but my parents made it look like the easiest thing in the world. A chance meeting at a bar in Boston turned into a relationship that spanned over forty years without any significant road blocks. Obviously they loved each other, but they also just genuinely liked each other and enjoyed spending time together and just talking. I even said to my mother on the boat that the two of them set an impossible standard for marriage and my unmarried brother agreed. How do you replicate something like that?

Mom reaffirmed that everything I perceived about them was true, and that is a good thing. She also told us how proud he was of all of us, even though when she first married him he apparently took a bit of convincing on having kids at all. Hard to believe that someone who was such a great dad wasn't really that interested in the job in the first place. It was a nice evening and thanks to our house guests who let us abandon them for a bit and even cleaned up after dinner.

I had feared the summer as a whole was going to be awful, given that that was where Dad really thrived, driving the boat, riding his bike, golfing, just enjoying life in general. I inherited the job of boat driver and did my best at trying to get my brother and sister competent at navigating the lake and which side of the buoys to drive on so as not to destroy the propeller on some rocks. I got to drag the kids behind the boat on the tube and saw why Dad always seemed to have so much fun seeking out waves and trying to send the kids flying.

So to be fair, we did have some fun this summer, though there was no denying there was something missing. It wasn't really until the last couple of weeks of August that I really started thinking about it. Mostly that that time last year everything was totally fine and I had no idea that everything was going to change and I'd never see my father again. We talked about him often, though, mostly the good memories.

Labor Day weekend was especially difficult although we purposely involved some major distractions. We had quite a few visitors up on Saturday, and in spite of me still being relegated to the boot, I decided to do a triathlon on Sunday morning. You see, last year the Circle Triathlon, the race just down the road from the lake house, was the last race that Dad saw me do before he went out that afternoon on what turned out to be his last bike ride. He never went out in the afternoon, but he came to my race instead of riding, putting that off until later. He zipped up my wetsuit before I got in the water and cheered me on even though I was terribly slow and it capped off a dismal tri season from a performance standpoint.

The nice thing was that this time there was no pressure to perform. I'd been riding for two weeks after having two months off along with swimming a bit. I really only had to make it through the first two parts before I walked the last portion. Most unfortunate was that my Garmin fell off my wrist at the very end of the bike, the strap separating itself from the watch itself, and the screen is now shattered from being run over. Also racing was my cousin Jeff, the other Zahr triathlete, although he hasn't done a whole lot of races. Of course it would've been fun to have beaten him even with the boot but I couldn't pad my lead enough with the swim and bike and he passed me on the run. Next year, Jeff.

I got a lot of funny looks but probably more cheering and encouragement on the run as I walked along in the boot. It was 2.7 miles, not exactly an incredibly long way to go, though the boot did leave me some nice blisters. I will say it was a lot easier than walking the entire second half of the marathon at Ironman Utah last year. I crossed the line way behind where I normally would have, and while most of my family was there to witness it, it was certainly obvious that there was something missing. And that afternoon as time moved on, I would think about how at noon last year after the race things were still fine. Everyone went home and I was just watching TV before my mom came upstairs to get me at 3:15, crying. It is just still so amazing to me that things can change so fast.

The rest of the week has been something like that, too. Thinking back to last year and spending every day in the hospital just wondering what might happen. I'll admit that from the beginning I had held some sense of optimism that at some point Dad would wake up and we'd have him back, even if it would take a lot of rehab to make him so that he could ride his bike again. Mom knew from the beginning. While today is the day that his heart stopped beating for good, she still considers September 5th to be the day he died.

I sometimes think about how if this were a movie, that death would've just seemed totally unnecessary. We didn't need to lose someone to bring our family closer together. We didn't need for him to die in order to realize how amazing he was or how much we should've appreciated him. But unfortunately in life sometimes stuff like that just happens. And I will say that as much as I hate what happened, since then I've certainly heard of worse tragedies. Young fathers, kids, mothers, daughters, whatever. As unfair as I feel it is, I do know that things could've been a lot worse and I'm incredibly grateful for the time that I did get to spend with him. I just wish it could've been longer.

So now begins a new year. Each one will hopefully get a bit better although I doubt there will ever be a time in which I'll be able to think of him and not wish he was still here with us. Whether it be any major life events or just watching the first Patriots game of the season. Working the grill on a random Saturday night, driving the boat while I fall asleep in the front, taking me skiing and of course being there at the finish line of my races. I do hope that I can cross a few more finish lines in the future knowing how happy he would've been to see me do so well. I don't think I will ever lose the vivid memory of how excited he was when I was leading and then crossed the finish line as the first female in Lake Placid.

As an abrupt segue I will now mention that as of Tuesday's x-ray I am finally boot-free. There is still a fine line in the x-ray and I've not yet been given clearance to run, but I can wear matching shoes, I can bike, swim, lift, walk, even elliptical. I'll be honest and say that while it was frustrating to basically miss an entire season, it was probably a good time for it to happen. I think I needed the break in more ways than one. It took me a little longer than I thought it would to really want to train again, and I think I'm finally there. I also got to spend much of last week with my best friends from college who I never get to see anymore thanks to a wedding, and not being able to train gave me an excuse to not miss time with them for training and wearing the boot to the reception gave me a solid excuse not to show off my complete lack of dance skills.

So this is it. A year later, a lot of changes and a lot of unfortunate firsts. But I'd just once again like to say that I've got an incredible family and I know we don't say it really, because we know anyway, but I love you guys. As great as my dad was my mom is equally amazing and we are handling it as well as we are because of her. My aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone has been great. And thanks to my friends, some of whom came out of the woodwork after not having seen me for years. Every note, card, bunch of flowers, bit of food, visit, hug, phone call, e-mail, comment and even facebook "like" meant a lot to me. Losing Dad sucks either way, but it certainly makes a difference knowing I/we have so much support. So just know that it is greatly appreciated.

We still miss you terribly, Dad. Even though sometimes it feels like we just saw you yesterday. While I know we can't have you back, we can at least try and continue to make you proud.

Day Sixty-Three of My Captivity...

2011-08-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

It's been two months since Mooseman, when I ran three miles of the course before deciding that whatever was wrong with my foot could no longer be ignored. It was another two weeks before I got an x-ray to confirm the fracture but I haven't run since I stopped at the medical tent just past mile three. I'll be honest and say that I probably needed a break. From the beginning of this I've tried to look at it from the perspective of me having been training hard since 2002 without ever taking a real break. And I mean more than a couple of weeks. So maybe this was just what I needed to be completely mentally and physically refreshed. Admittedly I took a pretty significant break last fall, too, but the circumstances surrounding it didn't really make it feel like the refresher that I probably needed.

So I've been doing a whole lot of not training. The timing worked out that there have been some family events that might not have otherwise been enjoyed as much by me due to having to go to bed early to get up and train the next morning or being exhausted from another seven-hour workout day. Also, for a while it was an exceptionally hot summer and I certainly didn't wish that I was out running when it was 98 degrees out. Not to mention the fact that my laundry loads have diminished by approximately 300%.

But, wow, am I ever sick of this! I had another x-ray last week that showed that the bone had barely improved in the last three weeks. I'd fully expected to be good to go by now. And yet it continues. You know, when your entire day is really built around whatever workouts you have to do it's like losing your identity when suddenly you can't really do anything. The most annoying part is that it's one, stupid little bone that doesn't even really hurt that much. And yet it has essentially ruined an entire season.

So while not training all the time I instead have to get overly introspective and panicky about what the future holds when/if I finally do get to start training again. I realized it has been two months since I last ran which is a new record for me since I started running regularly a little over ten years ago. It took me five years from that starting point until I got to being a fairly decent runner for that very brief period of time in 2006. I don't have another five years to wait, yet it feels as though I'm going to be starting from scratch again. I get jealous now when I see people out running, though. I don't even remember what it's like anymore to return from a run all tired and thirsty and sweaty.

With the season pretty much shot I had one last race I wanted to do. It's hardly anything, really. A tiny sprint with no awards, mostly first-timers, one you can show up to like twenty minutes before the race and still be okay. I can sleep in my own bed and ride my bike to it in less than fifteen minutes without breaking a sweat. Old mountain bikes dusted off from the garage and baggy shorts are far more the norm than race wheels and aero helmets. A quarter-mile swim, a twelve-mile bike and a two-and-a-half mile run and that's it.

So why do I care? It's not that it's easy and close by. It's that it's the race my dad came to watch the morning before he went off and got into his bike accident. He was there early and he zipped up my wetsuit for me before high-fiving me as I went off to get in the water. He smiled at me anyway even though it capped off my worst ever triathlon season (until this one, I just keep on "improving"...) We were even going to go to dinner that night to cap off Labor Day weekend. It was my last real experience with him, although I did see him heading off on his ride later that afternoon. So it makes me feel like I really need to do the race again. Just recently the race organizers posted a bunch of pictures from last year on facebook and there was one of some spectators waiting for the bikes to come in. And there was Dad, his eyes down the road, waiting longer than usual for me to come in. We can be pretty certain that that was the last picture ever taken of him.

It probably doesn't mean as much as I think it does, but I feel as though it might bring me some closure. Sort of finish out the first, tough year after everything changed. Now that it's August and we're closing in, I keep thinking back to the end of last summer, not knowing that those were the last few weeks I'd get to spend with my father. I was quite lucky that I did spend that time at my parents' house on the lake.

See, this is why I need to be out swimming, biking and running like crazy. When I do that I'm far too tired to think about much of anything!

Ironman Lake Placid Report From a Spectator's Perspective

2011-07-28T16:16:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was yet another Ironman Lake Placid. The big difference this time was it was the first time I headed up there not to race. In 2004 I went up, scared to death with no clue if I'd finished based on my own training plan, and I finished my first Ironman. In 2005 I thought maybe I could qualify for Kona and I did. In 2006 all I really wanted to do was break 11 hours. Which I did... by a little over 48 minutes with a 57-minute PR. In 2007 I returned as some pseudo reigning champ and actually got recognized. Then I went and flipped over the handlebars before turning for the second loop, causing amazingly minimal damage, and I just kind of phoned in the rest of the race since I already had my Kona slot. In 2008 I went in as a shell of my former self thanks to a series of injuries that kept me from doing lots of my training. I limped to a new personal worst. In 2009 I was in a new age group with a new coach and I saw some semblance of my old self and a finish I was finally proud of again, if a tiny bit disappointed that it still was nowhere near where it was. After a dismal race in Utah last year, I sneaked into the race at the last minute and managed somehow to once again go much slower than I ever had there before.

So, due to recent history, you can see why maybe I wasn't all that upset that I would not be racing there. That, and the fact that the swim start gets more and more dangerous every year as they try and stuff more and more people on the course. Once again, for the love of God, just because you can accommodate 3000 bikes in the transition area does not mean that it is safe for all of them to be in the water and out on the bike course! This continues to drive me insane and I have a horrible feeling that at one of these races someone is going to die because of it. I hope that's not what it takes for them to finally cap registration at a much more reasonable number.

But anyway, that's not the point of this post... So this year I headed up with my friend and athlete I coach, Kris. My good friend, and Kris's boyfriend, Trent would be racing his second Ironman and his first Lake Placid after completing St. George last year. We all knew that Trent was going to have a good race, and he did well as being the only one in our little group who was racing. His parents also came to watch. We did not arrive until late Friday afternoon, which was very strange for me having always arrived earlier, although of course when not racing, there wasn't much point in arriving sooner. It was literally 97 degrees most of the drive up, but got much cooler as we approached Lake Placid. By much cooler I mean like mid 80's, but still. I swear that happens every year though, it's really, really hot and humid when I drive up, then a front moves through and race day is quite pleasant.

Almost immediately upon our arrival we went out to dinner at Jimmy's on Main Street which overlooks Mirror Lake. I have eaten there on every one of my trips to Lake Placid and always enjoy it. It's just that this time I didn't have to go out of my way to stuff my face full of carbs in preparation for the race. The following morning was the QT2 breakfast, but not before Kris and I headed down to the water for a swim. We'd heard it might be too warm for wetsuits this year, and it certainly felt toasty in there, but nice.

Breakfast was nice considering once again, I did not have to eat until I felt sick. I also got to sit and talk with my athlete MaryBeth who was racing. She lives far enough away that I hardly ever get to see her, so it was nice to get to have a face-to-face chat before the race. I played coach some more while I went back to another hotel after that to give another one of my athletes, Shaun - who was there supporting his wife - a threshold test. I'm sure he quite enjoyed that... or at least is glad that it's now over.

After a quick trip to grab lunch I headed back to the Crowne Plaza to meet with MaryBeth and go over her race plan. It was good because she didn't seem nervous at all, so we were able to just focus on what needed to be done throughout the race. I finally made it back to my hotel at 4 and thought to myself, wow that was a long day. Then I realized that tomorrow I'd be up earlier and certainly would not be back to the room by 4 and I felt a bit silly. But at least I got to lie down and rest a bit before dinner.

It was nice on Saturday night to not have to worry about what I was eating and how it would feel in my stomach in the morning and to not have to get up at 3:30 in the morning to shove ungodly amounts of applesauce down my throat. I'll admit that after seven races in a row there, I really didn't feel as though I wished I was racing that day.

As is almost always the case on race morning in Lake Placid, it was overcast. It felt humid when we started walking down to the water, but while we waited a cool, dry breeze blew in and took the humidity away. We heard that wetsuits were optional but required for anyone who wanted to qualify for Kona or get any age group awards. If the numbers I saw were correct, roughly 20% of people actually skipped the wetsuits while 80% went ahead and wore them instead of shooting for awards. Now, to me, if it's going to be a non-wetsuit swim, shouldn't it look like one?

Aside from the fact that each and every year I did this race the swim got scarier and scarier, I hadn't really considered that anyone without a wetsuit in the middle of all of these buoyant people was likely to get shoved under with no life-preserver effect to bounce them back up. Honestly, I get short of breath just thinking about it as I can certainly recall that feeling from prior years. There is not enough room in that lake for that many swimmers. Sure, the super fast people are going to get off the front no problem and the lousy swimmers or those who simply don't want to get caught up in the craziness are going to wait off the back, but for your average-ish swimmers who need to be aggressive enough to be in a good spot for awards but maybe aren't top age group swimmers, it's downright dangerous in there. This was another reason I really didn't wish I was in the water with them. It was nice to be able to breathe whenever I wanted.

Anyway, after some waiting and watching a whole lot of bobbing heads, the cannon fired and the race was off. It was crazy to see from a spectator's perspective. It looked scary even from 200 yards away. Except for the two or three people who zoomed off the front, vastly far in front of everyone. I wonder what that feels like? Oh, and they were wearing wetsuits. It took several minutes for everyone to really "start" the race and cross the line, and a few people were off the back so far I swear it was like they weren't even trying to swim forward. And literally 400 yards into the swim someone bailed and got hauled out in a boat. I have no idea why, but that seems awfully early to quit the race. At least try one loop.

After watching some of the faster swimmers continue on to their second loop we decided to head over to transition to watch people come through. I got separated from everyone as I made my way down to the fence surrounding transition so I could really see people and get some good pictures. There was nobody there, so it was great.

That would be QT2 teammate and coach extraordinaire, Tim Snow heading out to get on his bike in his tenth race in Lake Placid. After that I moved to watch people come out of the tent in droves. Everyone I expected to see earlier came out much later due to the whole wetsuit vs. non wetsuit thing. I have heard some pretty rough stories about the whole ordeal and hopefully it is not something that will happen again. Anyway, I kept my eyes open for all of the QT2 people and was still pretty much by myself except for this one other woman. After literally about 45 minutes of spectating there some security guy told us we had to leave. I have no idea why it mattered at that point, but I went out onto the street and ran into my friends Kevin and Leslie, AKA the rest of Trent's supportive fan club.

We did some sitting and some more sitting and I started to see how this whole spectating thing might be a better deal than racing. I was sporting my awesome boot over my broken-foot-that-will-not-heal and got to stumble around lopsided all day long, but it was far less uncomfortable than I expected. The sun was out and eventually we abandoned our lovely couches inside the Golden Arrow and went up the hill to where the bikers would come through to turn for the second loop. Eventually we got in touch with Trent's parents and Kris and had to describe where we were. Our easiest frame of reference is, "Okay, do you know where Molly crashed her bike? Yeah, we're up the hill from there."

Here are Leslie and I spectating at the top of the hill. Kevin was nice enough to leave the boot out of the picture.

Here is Trent looking all serious and focus before he hit the second loop. Apparently he didn't even notice us even though there were six of us and we were all screaming for him, but whatever.

We got to watch everyone come through, looking good. Trent was right on pace. After watching the throngs come through, we decided to go and get some lunch. Again, why did I not think of this spectating thing before? Instead of Powerbars and gels on the go while riding and running I could sit down and eat a sandwich? Yes, please. After that it was hard to believe that runners would already be coming out. Me and the boot started walking back to the run start. That was my nickname all weekend - Boot. Did I mention I'm tired of having a broken foot?

The lead runners were far and away ahead of everyone, due to both the fact that of course they're pros and faster than most, and that they had a 10-minute head start.

We snagged a nice spot on the run course that was both where the run started and where they came back around mile eleven, and above is TJ Tollakson in the lead and on his way to his first Ironman win. It was fun to get to see the different ways people run out of T2. It's very apparent who is going to have a good run.... and who probably isn't.

This is Trent smiling and waving as he begins the run... way too fast. If not for the uniforms, a QT2 athlete can always be spotted by the banana in their hands out of T2. He was pretty much on even pace for the second half of the bike from what we could tell and looked to be in a good spot. Actually, any and all QT2 athletes we saw coming down that road looked good and not at all like any of those people who had obviously biked too hard.

This is my athlete MaryBeth, running her way to a Kona slot in her second Ironman.

We stayed in that spot for a while before we decided to move on to somewhere a bit less crowded where we might be able to sit down for a bit. Trent's parents and Kris stayed there and Kevin, Leslie and I wandered over to where the QT2 tent was on the short out-and-back by the lake. Or to where we thought it was. After a very convoluted route and lots of crossings, we discovered that the tent was on the other side of the road from where we thought it was. There were serious fences preventing us from getting over there so we had to walk way down to cross and then come back by going up and over this hill. It seems silly to be irritated by that sort of stuff while these people were doing an Ironman, but come on, I was in a boot and Leslie is recovering from brain surgery, so give us a break!

We had the tent to ourselves as apparently most of the rest of the QT2 crew was down at another spot. We got a lot of good cheering in there, along with a lot of good sitting in the shade. Mary Eggers stopped by briefly to say hi and introduced us to a friend of hers. He asked me again what my name was and I told him, and then he said, "This is going to sound really weird, but do you kind of kick your heel out when you pedal your bike? I think I went back and forth with you a bunch of times here two years ago." Yes, recognized for my funky pedal stroke. I really need to fix that. I've probably been remembered for much worse. Although I used to get remembered for having "won" there. I swear, walking around town now in the state I'm in I feel so far removed from that it's as though it wasn't even me or it happened in another lifetime or something.

Anyway, the spectating continued and we had a great view of the athletes from there.

This is Trent about to start the second loop. He ran the first one a tad too fast but fortunately still held it together for a great marathon. This was just before Leslie asked him if he peed on the bike and he had to admit that he pulled over twice.

There's Brian Hughes, owner of Fast Splits in Newton and another member of the QT2 team. I didn't really want to leave our lovely little spot, but eventually it was time to make our way back toward the finish line. At least this time we knew the more direct route. We had seen the winners come through, TJ and then Heather Wurtele for another win. You know, the last time she was an age grouper she finished 20 seconds in front of me in Kona. We seem to have followed different improvement paths since then.

We caught Trent coming up the hill just past mile 24, definitely looking like someone at mile 24 of a marathon, and then we headed over to the finish line to watch him come through. This is where the boot got tricky, when trying to walk on slopes. Trent finished in 10:19 which was pretty much dead on his goal time. Tim Snow of course had been the first QT2 athlete to come across. A whole bunch of others followed soon after, pretty much everyone having great races. I waited and saw MaryBeth come through, also pretty much right on goal time. Her run was questionable going in because she's had some issues but she toughed out a 3:55 marathon after running like four times in eight weeks and getting 6th in her age group and that Kona slot.

We made it back to the hotel and went down the road to the Dancing Bears lounge to sit outside and enjoy a celebratory meal. Trent was still getting around pretty well. Then I got to actually enjoy some sleep after an Ironman race. If I race I can never sleep because I'm so pumped full of caffeine and sugar from the day. Not much to do the next morning except head over to rolldown which seemed almost more chaotic than usual. All of the slot allocations were changed because of the wetsuit wearers and non-wetsuit wearers. Your slots would be determined by the number of eligible athletes in your age group. Far more 40+ people wore wetsuit than those younger, and even though those age groups had the most participants they lost a bunch of slots. In the end I think my age group had something like six slots, which is crazy. I don't think any women's age group ever gets that many anymore. Anyway, Trent did not get his slot, but a slot in the women's 35-39 age group rolled way down since they told everyone rolldown was over and then came back ninety seconds later and said they had one more. Someone is very happy they stuck around because a whole lot of names were called before it was claimed.

Anyway, then it was time to leave Lake Placid behind for another year. I did not sign up for next year. It was strange to be there under such different circumstances. I had lots of fun and just enjoyed the moment, but looking back it's interesting to think about all of those other times going up with my parents and finding them in their little spot before the race, seeing my mom when I went to get my bike in transition - and last year making sure I did not continue down the wrong row. The two of them at the top of the hill by the lake as I came around to finish the first loop, my dad always right there when I got off my bike and headed into T2. Then of course seeing them on the run course and at the finish line. Of course I can especially remember seeing them in 2006 and their reactions then. Even though I've enjoyed being a spectator and gotten used to it at this point, I do hope someday to get out and race to my potential again. Unfortunately another x-ray on Tuesday showed that my foot is healing incredibly slowly. So you can imagine the frustration. So if anyone has any secret special ways to make bones grow back together (isn't there some Harry Potter spell or something?) that would be great. I've been bad enough at running the past two years even when I was training. It's been two months without running now. I may be 45 before I get it back again. I don't think I have the patience for that.

Nana is 90

2011-07-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

7-11-21. Some lucky numbers, right? Also that would be Nana's birthday. She turned 90, although whenever we'd tell her that her birthday was coming up she'd ask us what year it was and then try and do the math and figure out how old she was going to be. She was so shocked one of the times I reminded her that she said, "I guess I can no longer deny being an old lady." Nana is not a fan of being thought of as an old lady. When she was in her early 80's she had cataract surgery that left her with perfectly clear vision for the first time in years. One she got her first good look in the mirror, she immediately went out and bought wrinkle cream. I'm sure those things work great as a preventative, but I'm not sure they can turn back time thirty years.

My Nana is the greatest grandmother ever. Don't even try to compare. She never knitted or sewed us anything, she really doesn't cook anymore, (although she did make the best mashed potatoes in the history of the world, as well as the best potato salad) and she doesn't shower us with money or gifts. Much better than that, she's just a great person to be around. She almost always can be found sitting at the head of the table at the breakfast room in her kitchen, overlooking that peaceful, serene intersection of Wallace Road and Route 101. I suppose when they moved into that house in 1957 it was peaceful and serene, though now it is anything but.

My grandmother grew up in South Boston near the beach, although she will tell you that she doesn't know how to swim. I think I've heard the story dozens of times about the mean woman who used to throw her in the water, and this must've happened in the 20's.

I could tell a ton of stories I've heard over the years, but I'll try and give you the condensed version even though we all know that's not my strong suit. My grandparents were married in November of (I'm fairly certain) 1944. Katherine Pucci was now Mrs. Leo McLaughlin and I sincerely doubt that they had any idea of the legacy they were going to create. My mother was only the beginning. They lived in a house on Sunset Hill Road in West Roxbury until my grandfather bought an old farmhouse in Bedford, New Hampshire without Nana even getting a look at it.

Nana goes in cycles of stories she tells me. Sometimes she tells me a bunch of times about the mean woman who threw her in the water, sometimes she tells me about her brief attempt at smoking cigarettes at the insistence of her friends that left her so horribly sick she decided that maybe it wasn't the best idea. But recently she's started telling me about when they moved up to Bedford. A big, white house with enough room for all of the kids, a huge field in the back and twenty acres of land all for $28,000 in 1957. She likes to tell me how she thought she was moving to the edge of the world because there was hardly anything around. There's a lot more there now, but that was where she raised her ten kids.

I have no idea how she managed to raise such a household with her five daughters, five sons, dogs that came and went, and other kids surely coming and going. I'm not sure I even want to imagine what that must've been like. By the time she had her tenth kid she wasn't even forty. I'm sure it helped that the back yard was a vast field with woods beyond, so everyone could just go outside. The field got a backstop and a mound and turned into a baseball field, and eventually they put in an in-ground pool, which at the time was something not a whole lot of people had.

She raised those kids and eventually those kids had some kids, and some of those kids have kids. All in all, if my math is right there are currently thirty-four people whose lives she is directly responsible for. And literally in days that number is going to reach thirty-five. That's a heck of a lot of people. We are down one because my aunt Rosie died in 1994, on Nana's 73rd birthday. I can't imagine what it must be like to look around and see all of these people that wouldn't be here without you. I'll let others be the judge as to whether or not our family's existence is a good thing or a bad thing...

I've spent every Christmas at her house and most of my Thanksgivings. Most of my childhood summers were spent meeting up with my cousins at her pool. You see, of all of Nana's kids, most of them didn't go very far. In fact, several of them built houses right on that land that they bought in the fifties. We refer to it as the compound, which I thought was a new name until I recently discovered an old family newsletter my grandfather had written that included that title, and in it was mention of how my mother was going to have another baby - my twenty-nine-year old brother.

So many of my memories are from her kitchen, whether they be holidays or just a random Saturday for lunch or a Sunday night dinner. My parents had their wedding reception in that back yard, and so did a few of my other aunts and uncles. My sister had hers there and next summer my cousin is going to have his.

She almost always has a smile on her face and has no shortage of visitors. But she's also really good at reading people and she can tell if someone probably shouldn't be bothered with. She may not be able to tell you what day of the week it is most of the time but she's still one of my favorite people to just sit down and talk to.

Here's a picture of her at her 90th birthday with her "little" sister, Peggy. (who is 88)

Nana is the one on the right in pink. Her party was a great success, good times had by all and I think she was more amazed than anyone at how many people were there for her. I loved the look on her face as we all sang Happy Birthday to her. And in spite of her typical memory not being able to tell you what she had for lunch, like, five minutes after she finished it, a few days later she was still talking about what a great party it was. So I'd say it was a winner.

So happy birthday, Nana. We all love you!

Fourth of July Weekend

2011-07-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

This was the first fourth of July weekend since 2003 in which I was not roughly three weeks away from racing in Lake Placid. It's been two weeks and I'm tired of my stress fracture and, in a bizarre twist of events, actually want to go for a run, but this weekend at least I was able to look on the bright side of not having to do a whole bunch of crazy workouts, getting up at the crack of dawn to get things done and avoiding tempting treats at parties. That's not to say I'm eating like a pig, either, but I don't feel intense guilt if I eat a brownie for fear that I just added 3 minutes to my Ironman time.

The weekend was spent mostly up at Squam Lake with my mom, my sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew and brother. Friday night was especially exciting for me because I finally got a new car. I had debated whether or not to get a new car recently and finally it seemed like a good time. I finally had to say goodbye to this:

This is my 2001 Nissan Sentra. I bought it on July 2nd, 2001, not long after I graduated college. That was my parents' graduation "Let's learn responsibility" thing. They helped with the down payment, and I was responsible for the rest. This car has been through many cold, New Hampshire winters but it has also spent some time transporting me around when I lived in Los Angeles and Arizona. I got into one car accident in it, involving an incredibly busy intersection and bright morning sun that just sears into your retinas. Amazingly, I finished up after almost exactly ten years with just a little over 90,000 miles on it. Based on the fact that I never had a long commute and I'm sure I probably rode my bike more miles in the past ten years than I drove. (that's unlikely, but I bet it's kind of close)

I bought the car originally after lots of internet research and knowing that I wanted something that was reliable, would last forever, and would get good gas mileage. At the time gas prices had soared... to about $1.49 a gallon. I think at first it cost me like $15 to fill the tank. I had a few cars in mind and I remember I first test drove I think some small Suzuki that felt a lot more like driving in a really small tin can than a car, and a steering wheel that didn't adjust and did not accommodate my extra-long legs.

Next on the list was the typical stuff: Civic, Corolla, Sentra. We went to the Nissan dealer first and I thought it was a good car and certainly a huge step up from the first car I test drove. My mom came with me and she is not known for her patience. "You like it? Okay, let's get it." Wait, what? Shouldn't I try... nah, okay, let's just get it. I'm more of a person who likes to weigh my options and make sure I'm making the absolute right decision. My mom is more like, let's just go ahead and pick the first thing we like. In the end, I don't think it would've made much of a difference. Both of my parents are also terrible negotiators, and I have certainly inherited that. They tell us the price, we just say okay. It scared the crap out of me to be responsible for an entire car and to actually owe what seemed like a huge amount of money, but fortunately I did not have a problem paying it off. In fact, I usually paid more than was due each month just so it would take me less time to pay it off. I repaid a 60 month loan in 30.

Anyway, it did just what I needed it to do. I never had to make what I considered to be major repairs. It never broke down. It didn't have any strange quirks. For some strange reason though, once the car got up there in years my mother hated me driving it. She was convinced it was just going to die on the side of the road even though it had never done that. But then that check engine light got pretty persistent. And accelerating to get on the highway started to become a lot tougher than it used to be. I'm sure that these things could've been fixed, but it had gotten to the point where the money to fix it very well could've been more than the car was even worth anymore. Plus, I was in a unique position of having two cars to trade in, thanks to that ugly, yellow Xterra. No offense to anyone who has one of those, but anyone who knows me can probably tell that driving around in a bright yellow, attention-grabbing car is totally not my style.

I did some research again on small cars and a new Sentra seemed kind of expensive for what it is. I thought about the Civic but that was sort of the same thing as a Sentra. Then I came across this:

Anyway, Saturday we went over to Winnipesaukee for a party at a family friends' house. They have this party every year but this was my first time going. Usually I'm on my bike, or like last year, running a 10K race. So it was kind of nice to just get to go and not worry about workouts or anything. On Sunday we had some family up to the lake for a cookout and set off some fireworks and watched fireworks being set off all around the lake. There were no "official" fireworks, but I swear, the stuff people buy now to set off themselves can be almost just as good. One of the founders of Comcast has a place across the lake and the show they had rivaled that of many small towns. And for once I didn't have to go to bed before the sun went down so I could be up at dawn to run or ride my bike for six hours.

Yesterday was gorgeous weather and a little bit of teaching my brother how to navigate the lake in the boat and how to dock it (which took a few tries) and eventually came back for yet another cookout at a friend's house. I think I'm all partied out for now. The good thing is that being busy all weekend didn't give us, or at least me, much of a chance to think about who wasn't here for the first time.

So now we get a bit of a break before a huge party this weekend to celebrate Nana's 90th birthday. Since her short term memory isn't so good, she gets amazed anytime she realizes her birthday is coming up and can't believe how old she's going to be. Last time I was with her and she realized it she said, "I guess I can't deny I'm an old lady now, can I?" Her birthday is 7/11/21. Lots of lucky numbers. Yes, this is definitely a good year to not be doing Lake Placid. Too much going on. And of course the fact that my foot is definitely still broken.

No Ironman For Me This Year

2011-06-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing anyone who reads here noticed that I have not posted much in terms of training or racing recently. Training has been driving me nuts lately and I couldn't figure out why. I've had this persistent pain in my left foot that started out as a small bruise and then just became an annoyance on every run I went on. But I altered my stride so I was running off the inside part of my foot and it didn't really hurt that much, it was just irritating. It was bad, then kind of better, and then I went and raced in Florida. Once again it hurt some, but I got through it. I'm guessing because that course has a whole lot of grass and I was losing it for different reasons on that course, so I finished with a run split barely faster than my bike split.

I came home and things continued as they were. I had Mooseman only three weeks later and I had more training to do. One day I went out on a routine run and right in the middle I just felt like something went in my foot, right where it had been bothering me but recently had become much more tolerable. Well, this time it stopped me in my tracks. I tried to run a few steps again and immediately stopped. I stood still for a little bit longer, walked it off a bit and then decided to start running again. Well, it certainly hurt more than it had before, but I was able to finish the run and decided that was just how it was going to be for a while.

Fast forward after a few more awful runs and some normal biking and swimming and suddenly it was time for Mooseman again. It was a beautiful day for a race and unfortunately I was not in a place to take advantage of it. The swim was chilly but not too bad, the bike was atrocious because the course is a monster and mentally I just wasn't into it. When I got to T2 I honestly wasn't sure even before I put my shoes on if I was going to continue. But I slowly changed into my run gear and decided I didn't feel that bad and I might as well go out and run.

Well, at least the first mile was good. In fact, it was probably the fastest mile I'd run in months. But the further I went, the more I just didn't think my foot felt right. And it didn't seem to me to be the smartest idea in the world to keep going. So after three miles, I stopped at a med tent and hitched a ride on a golf cart back to the start. Was I disappointed? Kind of, sort of, but not really. As I said, I wasn't mentally there at the time so not finishing, especially when I felt like I might do further damage, seemed better than walking my way to a 3+ hour run split.

Instead I enjoyed watching my teammates have good races and then of course made an appointment pretty quick to get my foot checked out. First on the agenda was... not an x-ray. But I was recommended to go visit a podiatrist, who I couldn't get an appointment with for a week and a half. So I continued on, wondering how in the world I was going to do an Ironman in a couple of weeks. I had never felt less enthusiastic about an Ironman.

Finally, June 20th, I got my podiatrist appointment. He checked out my foot, pushed and prodded and then said he was going to do an x-ray just to rule some things out. Well, the technician put the x-ray up on the wall before the doctor came back and even I could tell that it was definitely broken. Was it upsetting? I guess it's annoying, but it sure does explain a whole lot. It's been at least six weeks since this has been bothering me. But I didn't think it was a stress fracture because it didn't seem to hurt as much as the last one I had. See, the last one was the third metatarsal on my right foot and there was just no way I could even try to run on it. This one was the fourth metatarsal on my left foot so I could sort of just run off the inside of my foot and not put pressure on it. At least it's nice to know that my problem isn't all in my head and I don't have to feel so bad about not finishing Mooseman. As well as having an injury with a definite healing point.

So my trip to Coeur D'Alene was canceled and I was out an entry fee. And sometime before February I'm going to have to take some flights on Southwest to use the money I have there. Did you know that aside from their consistent $50 bike fee, which is the cheapest you'll find except for the few random times they might not charge you at all, but you can cancel or change a flight with no penalty? I can use all of the money spent on that flight to go towards another one. Also, unlike Lake Placid, there was no crazy cancellation fee on the hotel room, so I could just cancel that no problem. It sucks, but it could've been worse.

So for now I'll be doing a lot of open water swimming, getting some bike rides in, hopefully spending a good amount of time at the lake driving people around on the boat because I'm the next-most-competent one. (I think I was the only one who Dad wouldn't get nervous when the boat was taken out by someone other than him.) I'm also really, really looking forward to going to Lake Placid and not racing. I love that town. I've said before that I could probably live there. And while going there to race is great, as I'd done it for seven years in a row, I'm even more looking forward to going there and just enjoying the town and not having to worry about not walking around too much or staying up too late. And of course watching my friends have great races.

So, there it is. My first year without an Ironman since 2003. Thinking about it that way, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe this is what I needed. Just a forced rest and a complete do-over. I'll just have to keep my bones intact from now on so I can find my running stride again.

Oh, and one last thing. I think that was the first time in my life my left foot had ever been x-rayed. Well, this x-ray not only confirmed my stress fracture, but it confirmed my long-believed suspicion that I broke my foot my freshman year of college playing basketball. He mentioned he could see that it looked like there was a fracture at some point on the outside of my foot that never really healed quite right. I'd always thought that little protrusion on the outside of my foot didn't look right. But, well, my freshman year there were only five of us on the team. I'd recently severely sprained my right ankle and was playing with that all taped up. Then I felt something definitely wrong with my left foot, but we wound up just taping that foot up, too and letting me play every minute of every game. It's hard when you really don't know which foot you're supposed to be limping on.

Father's Day

2011-06-19T04:59:00.000-07:00

I asked a couple of friends recently who had lost their mothers a few years ago when it is that it stops being tear-inducing every time you think of it. Apparently there is no definite answer to that question. But I guess the first year is most definitely the hardest. The first Christmas, their first birthday that they don't get any older, Mom's first birthday, and now the first Father's Day. We never tended to make a huge deal out of Father's Day, just your usual cards and sometimes a present (Mom and Dad had recently decided to tell us to no longer get them presents since they already had everything they needed.) But of course it's hard not to think about him a little more today. And it's not just thinking about him in general that is sad to me, like fun things we did or anything like that. It's thinking about the fact that he's never coming back.

My father was just about everything you'd want in a dad when we were growing up. He and Mom fell into the traditional gender roles in the household, so Mom did all of the cooking and house work stuff while Dad worked full time and dealt with taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, etc. I never once witnessed either of them getting on the other's case about not doing their "job." It all just worked out quite easily. And while my father worked very hard at his job, I never heard him complain about it and I never remember him working late or being gone a lot. We all ate dinner together almost every night, with my younger brother and older sister.

He coached my teams, went to my games, started taking bike rides around town with me when I was around eight years old. He took us skiing, out on the boat, played basketball with us in the driveway, took us to McDonalds, Disney World, made us waffles on Sundays and did countless other dad stuff and he never seemed like it was a chore. He actually seemed to like it. And let me tell you, one thing my father was not good at was pretending to like anything.

Dad taught me a lot of things without actually teaching me. I mean, he taught me some stuff conventionally too, like how to shoot a basketball, swing a bat, cast a fishing lure, drive a boat, drive a car (Mom was the one in the car when I crashed into Nana's house...) ski,and a whole bunch of other stuff. But he also taught me a lot about conducting yourself with integrity, being honest with people, playing by the rules, being good to people, watching your language, being smart about money, showing up on time (or almost always early, as we call it "Zahr time") doing a job to the best of your ability, not raising your voice or getting angry and worked up about things and just being kind to people in general.

My father never once sat me down and told me to do any of these things. It was just how he conducted himself and made me realize that that was obviously how I should act. I won't say I'm perfect, because of course I'm not, but I do know that I never would've wanted to disappoint my father with my behavior. I doubt I succeeded one hundred percent, but I tried, at least.

I guess I did sometimes wonder if this was all some childhood illusion, like this ideal you create based on what you saw when you were a kid and everyone idolizes their father. Well, last week we had the opportunity to attend two events honoring my father. First was a charity golf tournament for a cause that he was on the board of, and this tournament had been named for him. Then an awards dinner for the Associated General Contractors of NH in which he was the recipient of this year's ethics award. At both of these events I had the opportunity to hear some of his business associates, and not even from his own company, who spoke on his behalf and listed a lot of the traits I did. That's just who he was.

So this Father's Day it is very sad that I don't get to give him a hug and tell him to enjoy the day. Each day that passes we just have to get more and more used to living without him. At least I still get to be grateful for all of the wonderful times we did get to spend together. And I don't really have to sit back and regret not having spent enough time with him. I would've liked more of it since September and maybe into his 90's, but I got to spend a lot of time with him while he was here.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. We miss you.

The Seven-Hour Ride and an Awkward Trip to the Bike Shop

2011-05-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the infamous really, really big ride four (sometimes three) weeks before the Ironman. Since joining QT2 Systems in 2008 I have not had to do this ride by myself because we usually had some organized training weekend. Not this time. So yesterday morning I decided to hit the road really early and do my nice loop up and over the Kanc. This was the same route I rode last year in preparation for Ironman Utah except that time it was 40 degrees and raining and three of the six of us opted to go back and ride the trainers after about the first hour while Jesse, Cait and I continued on, though not without a stop at a ski shop for them to buy some extra clothes.

Fortunately, for my solo ride the weather was a bit more cooperative, though still not quite as nice as I might have liked. It seems like any time I choose to do this particular ride I never get a clear view from the top. But it was nice to be in shorts and not spend a moment of that ride shivering. Although once I approached the top there was an annoying and persistent drizzle that was just enough to put a damper on the ride. As far as long rides go, while physically demanding, in all honesty, it was fairly painless. And the fact that it was a loop and I didn't have to constantly check the run time and wonder when I had to turn around made it seem to go by quite fast. No crazy wildlife encounters this time although towards the very end of my ride when I had the pleasure of going up a hill about 3/4 of a mile with a 13% grade I happened to come across someone coming down... on a skateboard. I did not have the opportunity to see him reach the bottom but I swear I felt as though I was watching a 14 or 15-year old boy just moments before his death. But from what I saw of him, he did remain upright.....

This afternoon I decided it was finally time to bring Dad's bike into the bike shop. First, considering how he turned out, you'd be surprised at how little damage there was to the bike. The front wheel is a bit off and I don't know yet if it even needs to be replaced or if it can just be fixed as it is. The left shifter was bent in but that fix is also apparently pretty simple. As far as I could tell, that's it. There's nothing else wrong with it. A couple of weeks ago I also finally went and rode down the hill he crashed on, just to see if it made any more sense. Well, I was going a little over 30mph, so that will do it. But also at the peak of speed the road didn't really curve as much as I thought it did, so then it made a little less sense. And then when I put the chain back on the bike today it was in the small ring, which also doesn't make sense if he was speeding down a hill, but I should probably just stop trying to figure it out because of course we'll never know.

Anyway, the bike shop up here which is also the one he got his bikes from I also use sometimes and one of the mechanics knows us pretty well. I honestly had no idea if he knew or not, though I suspected he did. Unfortunately he was not the one who greeted me. So I showed the guy the damage and I had been kind of dreading this part for, well, the nearly nine months it's been since it was apparent that I was now responsible for this bike. "Did you crash?" "Uh, no, my father did." "Is he okay?" "No." Poor guy, it's not his fault he didn't know that. Well, a few minutes later the other mechanic came out to assess the damage and he's not the kind of guy who would come out and offer condolences or anything, he just told me what would need to be fixed and then when I went to grab a new bottle cage that I needed for my own bike he told me to just take it.

So at least that part is over and done with. Aside from the picking it up, but that won't require any explanations on my part. I think I'm going to keep the bike. He'd only had it for a few weeks, anyway. Maybe sell my old road bike that I haven't ridden in a very, very long time. Two tri bikes and two road bikes might be pushing it in the stable for me. I always felt like my LeMond was too big for me, anyway. Anybody want it? 2004 Zurich, components are in great shape, you can have the clip-on aero bars if you want. I only rode it as my main bike for 1 season and then as a back-up, though it has been in an Ironman. It's a 59 so you have to be tall! If you don't want it, you can at least suggest to me how much I should charge for it. I spent about $3500 on it way back when and it's been sitting safely in the garage for a very long time with some very occasional rides...

First Open Water Swim.... Probably a Bit Premature

2011-05-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of swimming and I suspect it has more to do with not liking the pool and constantly turning around and swimming back and forth than it has to do with the actual act of swimming. I can say this with some authority because when it finally comes time that I can do some open water swimming I don't mind it nearly as much or even not at all. No lane sharing, no flip turns, no chlorine smell or post-swim sniffles, and when I'm up at the lake I don't even have to drive anywhere. Just walk down to the dock, get in and get going.

So it goes without saying that I love to get in the open water swimming at the first available opportunity. This doesn't work for all swims, though. If I've got a workout of 20x100 (which I feel as though I've done 20 times by now) then I'm pretty much stuck in the pool. But especially perfect for open water is the recovery swims, so I love doing those in open water.

When I'm not up at Squam there are a few groups of people locally who sometimes meet to swim. And most of them are just as crazy if not crazier than I am when it comes to willingness to swim in cold water, so I can almost always count on at least a few of them to be by water's edge at 6am. They'd been swimming there for a few weeks and only yesterday did I finally head over to meet them. I had planned on it a couple of weeks ago, but that morning I woke up and saw it was 32 degrees and decided that maybe the pool was still the better choice. It's the same lesser of two evils thing I have with the trainer and riding outside in the cold. There just comes a point where the indoor, boring version is actually better if only because you're not risking hypothermia.

But yesterday I decided the time had come. So when I woke up I donned my wetsuit (I'm weird like that and on cold mornings will drive in my wetsuit and drive home in it and wear it directly into the shower!) and headed for the lake in the rain. I met three other brave souls to head into the water and we set up our little route and would stop about every 800 yards or so and regroup. As I stepped into the water my first thought was, "Oh, this isn't so bad." And my next thought, probably only about ten seconds later was, "Oh, maybe it is actually worse than I thought." And after a couple of minutes of chatting and stalling, it was time to take the plunge and submerge more than just the wetsuit-clad lower half of my body.

Holy $&%^ that's cold! My breath caught in my throat and my face burned from the icy water. I instantly regretted my decision to drive to the lake instead of the pool, but I was already there and there was no turning back now. Often times when I swim at say Oceanside or Mooseman I'll get that initial face-freeze, but eventually it subsides. Oh, this was not going away. Normally in an easy open water swim I will breathe every three strokes, but I needed to breathe every other just to get my face out of that freezing water and catch my breath as I tried to swim probably faster than ZR just so that I might warm up a bit.

I think I might have felt a bit warmer at times, but anytime we'd stop and regroup I'd have to almost immediately start swimming again so as not to let the cold set in. This was tougher since I was the fastest and therefore stopped the longest! Early on I decided that it was not quite the coldest water I'd ever swum in. I still think that title belongs to our Ironman St. George practice swim. I have decided that for a couple of reasons. First, during the race, as I swam as fast as I could starting with about halfway through my entire body started to feel cold, not just the parts exposed to the water. And I think it was actually warmer race day than on the day we did our practice swim. Second, when we swam out to some rock and then stopped to regroup, after only having been in the water for maybe five minutes, when I came up and looked around the entire world was spinning. I felt queasy and sick any time we stopped and for a few minutes after we got out of the water. I had a bit of that feeling yesterday when we stopped, but definitely not to the degree that I had it in Utah.

I do, however, think it was colder than my first time in California only because I don't remember the face freeze lasting that long there. If I had to guess, I'm thinking somewhere around 54 degrees. Definitely not the kind of water you want to be swimming in by choice. But again, already there, already in, gotta get the workout done!

We lost one of our swimmers on one pass to the exit and three of us continued on. Of course, it was the three women. As we continued on, the novelty was definitely wearing off and when we'd stop and regroup it seemed that everyone else's lips were starting to turn purple. But all in all, we survived, if only to not be able to articulate words to each other when chatting before we raced to our cars to blast the heat.

This time last year I had been swimming open water for weeks and the water was even nice. It doesn't work that way when the sun disappears for a week and the day before it topped out at 50 degrees and drizzled most of the day. Come on, warmth! I have to do some open water swimming this weekend at Squam which is likely even colder and I'd also like to not exit the swim at Mooseman without the ability to work my fingers!

Needless to say, either way, the pool is on tap until the weekend.

Florida 70.3

2011-05-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

I promised a race report, so that's what I'll give you. Last weekend was my first time participating in the Florida 70.3 that takes place at Disney World. Coincidentally, two years ago I was there on a family vacation at the same time the race was taking place though I didn't watch or participate. I did, however, ride my bike down toward where it started at about 4am as part of my ridiculously early workouts that week so as not to disrupt the family portion of the vacation, so I saw people headed down to set up. I really didn't have much interest in doing the race.

I arrived in Florida a little after 9am after yet another perfectly smooth, early arrival, $50 charge for the bike box flight on Southwest. If you're traveling with a bike, it's almost the only way to go. Apparently JetBlue is the same way but they don't fly from the airport that is less than ten minutes from my house. I ran into Cait at the car rental pick-up area, but she had a bike ride to do and we couldn't get into our house until 4:00, so we went our separate ways. I had no workouts to do, and at first settled into a Starbucks for some tea and a bit of e-mailing.

By 11:00 I thought to myself, am I really going to spend the next five hours here just killing time until I can get into the house? I was about five miles from Disney World. It was only Thursday. Hmmm.... why not? So off I drove to Disney's Hollywood Studios where I spent three hours walking on just about any ride I wanted to go on, including five trips on the Aerosmith rollercoaster and four times on the Tower of Terror. If you ever come to Disney World with me, you should know that I instantly return to being ten years old. I guess I don't act much older than that in real life, but it really becomes apparent when I am in Orlando.

Once I had had enough of the rides I headed back to our house and reconstructed my bike. Cait and I were the only ones there really that night as teammates Michele and Ron were arriving quite late that night and Jesse, Chrissie, Colin and Tim weren't due to arrive until the next day. I slept until after 7:00 which for me sometimes feels like noon. But it was needed. I headed out to do my bike and run and returned to find Cait swimming very short laps in the pool behind the house. We had spent some time on the internet the night before trying to find somewhere to do our last swim but everything seemed pretty far and like an awful lot of trouble just to keep the arms moving basically for twenty minutes to get ready for the race. I don't think you should spend twice as much time driving to and from a pool than you're going to spend swimming in it. I took my turn after that and while it was the longest twenty minutes of swimming ever and probably two hundred 4-stroke laps, it served its purpose. And more importantly, I was done with the pre-race workouts nice and early.

I resisted the urge to go back to Disney World as it was getting a bit too close to the race and one day at the park by myself was okay but I think the novelty of a second would've worn off quickly. Although you should know that there are serious advantages in line-cutting involved with being a lone rider. I think I was typically back on that rollercoaster about seven minutes after getting off thanks to the single rider line. The rest of the day was pretty quiet and uneventful and while Cait went to get everyone else at the airport I went out to dinner with Michele and Ron during a really great thunderstorm.

The following morning it was time to do nothing but eat. Unfortunately that eating would start at Denny's. Denny's and I do not get along very well. In a very uncharacteristic move, I didn't even finish my pancakes. I mean, well, have you had their pancakes? But at least the rest of the team was there and the conversation was good. I still had to register and drop off my bike which I decided to do all at once to as to save myself from having to make more than one trip.

I had incredibly good timing on a lot of things over the weekend. First, registration. Bike drop off was at 1:00 and I got in line I think around 12:30 and had no problem getting through. By the time I came out the other side the line was incredibly long. I felt bad for the poor girl who had to type everyone's name into the computer which was surely why the whole ordeal was taking so long. Why do they not have more than one line for things like that?

Anyway, I was in and out of bike drop-off nice and quick which was good since now they seem to prefer the first come, first served kind of bike racks rather than giving everyone a specific place. There is a range of numbers on each rack and I was close to the end. The problem with this is that the bikes are squeezed ridiculously close together. And my seat post is literally like 5' high and I can never rack by the saddle, which seems to annoy people, but nothing I can do about it!

After that I headed over to the Wildnerness Lodge to meet up with some friends from home, one who was racing, the other watching, and I got there just before it started pouring rain. Another stroke of good luck in timing, missing standing around in the rain to drop off the bike. Gotta love leaving the bike in the rain all night long. My favorite was the line in the race information that said that we were not allowed to cover our entire bikes "for the safety of the volunteers." Will someone please explain to me how it would be unsafe to a volunteer if we covered our bikes from the rain? Would it leave them unable to tell the difference between a covered bike and a concealed ninja?

Anyway, I got myself a really good turkey sandwich at the hotel and sat and chatted for a while before heading back to my own place for a nice, early night in which we were all in bed before the sun went down. As far as nights before races go, I slept pretty well. With the exception of the last hour in which I had several anxiety dreams about waking up at 6:30 and knowing there was no way I could make it in time for the start of the race. I got up just after 4:00 and was shoveling down the applesauce while Tim stood looking out the window and declared that we were not going to have a swim that morning. A few strikes of lightning later, I couldn't really argue. They left a bit earlier since the pro wave went off at 6:20 and I hit the road at about 4:30 with Michele and Ron leaving not long after me.

The entire drive involved watching the sky light up and me wondering about more than just the swim. I really thought I wouldn't mind if the swim was canceled. I pulled into the parking lot without incident and not surrounded by many cars but couldn't help but notice an incredible line of cars behind me in the rear-view mirror. As I parked, I noticed Jesse, Chrissie and Colin (who is an 8-month old baby, in case you were not aware) and we walked over and got right on the shuttle bus. In yet another stroke of good timing, as we settled in and looked out the window, suddenly there was a huge line of people waiting to get on the shuttle and already a line of cars backed up to get in and park. This line had transpired literally less than two minutes after we made our way through.

It was an odd morning. When I walked in there were people just standing under awnings and trying to stay out of the rain. It felt oddly chilly for Florida. Upon arrival I realized immediately that my hydration plan was sitting in the fridge back at the house. They always have plenty of water hanging around before races, but never the Powerbar drink. Thanks to my teammate Rob Gilfeather for helping me out! Normally I take my time in transition and don't leave it until much later. But this time I decided there was no reason to wait. It was a no wetsuit swim, so it's not like I'd have to stand around in my wetsuit all morning. I got everything ready, tucked my backpack off to the side and let it sit in the pouring rain and walked around barefoot with my goggles around my neck for a while. For some reason transition at that race closed at 6am even though the race didn't start until 6:20. They tend to say things like that, but not really mean it. This time, they definitely meant it. I was out of there by 5:30, but later on I saw them literally turning people away. That would've sucked.

Oh, I had also run into Michele and Ron coming into transition after just having arrived. They left five minutes after I did. I must've seen then forty-five minutes after I had arrived. Again, timing is everything and they said the parking lot was a mess. I used the real bathroom, somehow without a line, and came out to find a huge line waiting to go in after me. The race announcers kept insisting that the race would start on time and it just kept raining harder with plenty of lightning and thunder. I went and sat at some tables inside a building that normally is home to the infamous Hoop-Dee-Doo-Revue, a silly dinner show I remember attending with my family when I was seven. While chairs and shelter were a good thing, it was actually colder in there than it was outside which made it not the best place to hide out.

Heading back out into the rain to see what was going on, it appeared that the race might actually be starting soon and miraculously the sky was clearing up. I found Jesse, Chrissie and Colin and sat down to await my swim wave that was set to go off forty-six minutes after the start of the race. I wasn't nervous or excited or much else in between. Just kind of waiting to get things going. Jesse went to watch the start which I did not know had actually been delayed twenty minutes so I wound up taking in my pre-race gel way too early. But eventually it was time to make my way to the start.

The swim was in the lagoon behind the lodge. You know, those man-made ones behind certain Disney hotels that they don't let people swim in? That did not sound appealing to me. I spend most of my time in New Hampshire swimming in crystal clear lakes that I could probably drink from if I got thirsty out there, so I was more than a bit nervous that this water was going to seem a bit, um, disgusting. The sky was clear but the sun wasn't glaring at us so the course looked like it was going to be incredibly easy to sight which was nice. I had obtained a nice, legal Blue Seventy suit to wear over my brand new QT2 team uniform so I at least looked like I was ready to go.

We had to start on the beach with one foot in the water and one foot on dry land and I started to the left in the front. Watching other waves go off in front of us it seemed that it stayed quite shallow for quite a ways out, so I knew not to dive in and start swimming for much longer than I'd normally wait. Finally, we were off and into the water I went. I'll admit my approach was slow, but this had a lot more to do with the fact that (graphic detail) I really, really had to pee and without a wetsuit or an in-water start I was not afforded the opportunity to do so, and I had to move slow in order to relax enough to do what I needed to do. Sorry people behind me! I know you were doing it too anyway.

There was a bit of seaweed when we first got in and the water felt warm but not too hot, which was nice. Once I started swimming I was actually pleasantly surprised at the fact that the water actually didn't seem disgusting at all. I couldn't really see very far under water, but it didn't taste weird, either, which is a good sign. To be honest, for some reason I felt really comfortable during that swim. I tend to swim a lot better with a wetsuit but I actually felt a whole lot better swimming in just a skinsuit. Maybe it was because unlike in California I wasn't really, really cold.

There was very little contact and Jesse had told me that if nothing else I was to get on someone's feet and let them lead the way through the masses of the seventeen swim waves that had gone before us. I finally did manage to find someone's feet and did just that. But by the time we hit the turn buoy all the way out, I wasn't sure if she was going fast enough, so I branched out on my own. The only problem now was that I couldn't find a single other gold cap of someone in my age group. There were people everywhere from the waves in front of us, but none from mine and therefore no more feet worth following. Oh, well. It wasn't very difficult to dodge people as I felt like I was swimming right on the buoy line while everyone else was wide to the right. I had no clue how I was doing as I didn't wear a watch in the swim, but I actually enjoyed most of that swim and felt good, which is quite unusual for me.

I came out of the water and saw 1:21 on the clock, which I thought meant that I had swum thirty-five minutes, which for me is a really good swim without a wetsuit. I was quite happy with that. I found out later that the timing mat was not until we entered transition after quite a run from the water, which I was not happy about! I felt like I was going to throw up for some reason as I ran up from the water, literally until I found my bike. That task was difficult because we came into transition from the back and I was completely disoriented and kind of amazed I was able to find my bike at all since I expected to come in from the water from the other end. I saw a whole lot of bikes still on the rack near mine, which I took as a good start. But I got into the bike gear and headed for the extremely crowded corridor that took racers and their bikes out to the course.

The sun was out and already the dreary morning was long forgotten. The course was quite crowded and I felt somewhat obligated to get away from as many people as I could early in the race. It was very flat and with a little wind so mostly I was able to keep up a good pace. Amazingly, I didn't see a whole lot of drafting going on. Some for sure, but not as much as I would've expected given the flat course and so many participants.

There's not a whole lot to say about the bike. There were a lot of 180-degree turns and out and backs and no way to tell how far in front or behind you those people were who were coming back the other way. Sometimes they were a mile ahead, sometimes it could've been ten. I really had no idea where I was going, I just followed everyone else. My biggest worry was drinking enough. I'd been given a target of six bottles on the bike. Yeah, that's a lot of fluid, but I sweat a whole lot. I missed a bottle at the first aid station and was only able to grab one. I've said this before but it needs to be said again: please, do NOT let young children do bottle hand-ups on the bike! It's just not a good idea! They can be great at picking up stuff we toss or handing out drinks on the run but I just think it's dangerous to let a nine-year old stand there and try and give a bottle of water to a biker coming by at 22mph. I personally slow down more than that, but many others don't.

The course was pretty well closed to traffic and I felt very safe. I don't know why, but I had this preconceived notion that this race couldn't possibly be well organized just because it was held at Disney. I suppose I might've felt differently if I hadn't gotten on the shuttle bus when I did, but it all went very smoothly and I would do it again, definitely.

After facing what felt like a perpetual headwind in spite of a lot of turns towards the end, I finally made it back to transition. Oh, but first I took my feet out of my bike shoes way too early. Oh, well. I got down my six bottles... well, maybe five-and-a-half, and changed the shoes and headed out on the run course. Ah, the run. Why do I even bother anymore? I should probably seek out aqua bikes, but I seem to love beating my head up against the wall.

To be honest, we got lucky as far as weather is concerned. It didn't feel nearly as humid as the days before. And instead of being 95 degrees like the days before, it was only about 85. Believe me, that does make a big difference. So for me it meant that I could do some approximation of running between aid stations instead of just walking most of it. My legs were telling me I might've ridden just a bit too hard. I can't really help it at this point. When you know your run isn't going to bail you out either way, it's hard to justify holding back on the bike. I had heard that the run was on a lot of grass with not a lot of shade, but this year they changed it a bit so it wasn't as bad. Although one thing I did notice was that the aid stations seemed really far apart. There was one right out of transition and then not another one for at least a mile and a half. In that kind of race in that kind of heat, to me, that's just way too far. By the time I got to it I had to walk and drink a whole lot of... everything. Also, this is the first half ironman I think I've ever done where there weren't sponges available at the aid stations. Really? In Florida? I've done races when it was 55 degrees that still offered sponges. Nobody took them, but still. At least I was still able to dump ice into my jersey.

The rest of the race was me getting from aid station to aid station, which always seemed too far away. I walked a lot at each aid station to drink as much as possible and always arrived at the next one with a dry throat. But I guess the good news is that after every little walk/drink break I was able to get back to some approximation of a running motion, no matter how slow it was. I seem to have found myself in this sort of position a lot lately, and last season it was generally upsetting and demoralizing. I don't know if I'm used to it or if it's some sort of attitude shifting but in this case it was more of just a feeling of ok, this is just all I can do today and I just have to keep going and I'll get through it, but it's just all I've got right now. I wasn't upset. I didn't feel physically terrible. By the third lap I was definitely getting tired of it, but I had no doubt I'd make it through.

I noticed that the crowds of racers had thinned significantly as I made my way through the convoluted course. I continued to drink and drink and dump water over my head and ice in my jersey. I had seen Cait and Tim doing a cooldown run much earlier and asked Cait how her race went, "Pretty well" she said. She won. Most everyone else on the team had run by me at one time or another and just looked incredibly good. Lots of good races on the day.

Finally, somehow, I made it to the end of yet another half ironman. It was nice to do a different race, I just wish I could've been in a better position to do well. But I found my teammates soon after and pretty quickly gathered my stuff to head back to the house and shower and lie down for a bit. Michele and Ron had stayed for the rolldown just in case, and apparently this scene has turned into something very similar to the Kona rolldown with screams of joy and sometimes even tears. In 2006 when I was at the very first qualifying race for Clearwater in California they literally couldn't give away all of the slots. They might have twenty slots left for, say, men 35-39 and it would be asked who was there who finished the race and wanted a slot and people would raise their hands and they were counted. "Okay, you're all in!" Definitely not the case anymore.

Jesse and Chrissie had to bring Cait and Tim to the airport since they were flying out that night and I wound up sitting at the house for quite a while wondering if anyone was ever coming back. Finally Michele and Ron made it back, McDonalds in hand, and a while later Jesse and Chrissie returned. We had talked about maybe going to Disney that night, but it was probably 6:00 by the time everyone came back and I had really lost all hope of that happening until Ron came and said they were going and I could come if I wanted to. I knew the park didn't close until 11 that night and for about 30 seconds I thought maybe I shouldn't bother, but then once again I thought, well, why not? Jesse's mother was visiting and he had some work to do and Colin had probably had way more excitement than a baby could be expected to endure in one day, so unfortunately they stayed behind, but me and Michele and Ron headed over to Disney for an evening of fun.

I don't think we got there until just before 8:00 but we did pretty much everything I could possibly want to do there in only three hours thanks to no lines. This included sitting down and having something to eat. Pirates of the Caribbean, skipping Splash Mountain in favor of not being wet for the rest of the evening, which was a sacrifice I was willing to make and the only ride I would've gone on had there been more time or at least some sun, Thunder Mountain twice while there were fireworks going on, the Haunted Mansion, It's a Small World which I hadn't been on in twenty years because that's how long it took to get the song out of my head, and then a couple of trips on Space Mountain. We even did a bit of shopping on the way out and somehow my legs felt fine the entire time. I don't know if that was the reason I wasn't upset about yet another bad half ironman, but a trip to Disney World post-race is definitely great to lift the spirits.

We got home after midnight and I had to get up at 4:30 in order to make a 7:30 flight. This was actually sleeping in compared to the day before. But once again the flight was simple and we landed early. The only bad news was that when I arrived and walked outside it was 50 degrees and raining. The sun only just came out yesterday for the first time since I've been back. And it's gone again today. It's warmer at least, but still. I even rode the trainer this week. The only good news was that it made it a great time to bring my bike in to get all fixed up. New cables, headset, bottom bracket, spacers... lots of stuff just a corroded mess.

But of course yesterday when I set out for my long ride there was a persistent drizzle that just made me and my bike a mess for the first couple of hours. I also managed to hit an incredibly awful pothole that I'm amazed didn't destroy my wheels or give me a flat but propelled all of my bottles off my bike, and my sponge, and loosened my handlebars. An allen wrench will be accompanying me on all further rides. I'm actually surprised that I wasn't propelled off my bike, either. I was 27 miles from home and my resourcefulness found me at a forest ranger station where a nice old man helped me tighten the bolts and head on my way. Of course I spent the rest of the ride with that phantom feeling of the handlebars continually slipping downward. But all remained intact the rest of the ride, just with a layer of sand and road debris even though the sun did eventually come out. It was good to see it.

So now there are five weeks left to go until my Ironman. Normally by now I'd be feeling good, fast and ready. I don't feel any of those things, but I do keep going every day somehow. It's like I said in my last post, staying motivated gets tougher when the results aren't reflecting the time you're putting in. Maybe sometime soon it will be time to say forget it, but I don't know what else I'd do if I wasn't training every day or traveling around to these cool places to race. I just have to earn my right to be able to do that.

Motivation to Train

2011-05-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

I raced the Florida 70.3 this weekend and I promise that I will write a race report, but I just felt the need to address this topic first since I've got a lot to say on it.

A lot of times people will hear about how much I train or have trained in the past and say, "I don't know how you do it." What they don't realize is that most of them could do the same thing if they wanted to. It's totally fine if you don't, and I certainly sometimes wonder what the heck I'm doing to myself when I get up at 5am on a Saturday to go ride my bike and have already done at least fifty miles by the time I can smell bacon and waffles cooking in people's houses as I ride by.

How well our training goes is greatly influenced by our motivation to be out there in the first place. The source of this motivation tends to change as you progress from year to year. At first my "training" was more just "working out" and the motivation was mostly just weight loss. It was the first time I'd really committed to eating right and exercising outside of basketball season and was finally seeing results. In the past I'd maybe try eating just salads for three days, get annoyed that I hadn't already lots ten pounds, and go right back to a steady diet of Doritos and Pepsi. But suddenly I was lighter than I'd been literally since I was probably twelve years old and I figured out that running doesn't actually have to suck if you just keep at it and eventually it gets so much easier.

Then suddenly I got the itch to try a running race and a triathlon. So that became my new motivation: training to finish those races. Notice I didn't say do well at those races, but simply finish them. I got all of my information from books and the internet and trained diligently every day, and almost always by myself. The exception to this was riding my bike with my dad, where we would routinely go out and ride probably 30-35 miles and take turns trying to destroy each other by pushing the pace and making the drafter really work to keep up. It is absolutely because of him that I got so strong on the bike so fast.

I had fun at my first sprint and then moved on to my first half ironman where the race nearly destroyed me. Timberman was about 95 degrees with 95% humidity and I spent most of the race wanting to curl up under a tree in the shade and just go to sleep. I crossed the finish line and told my parents that that was by far the most difficult thing I had ever done. They took me out for ice cream and I think it only took until I went to bed that night for me to think to myself, "I bet I could do better next time."

That was my motivation mostly from then on. I always wanted to do better. It worked really well for a few years until suddenly I reached a bit of a plateau and I allowed some disappointments to really get me down. For a long time. It's harder to stay motivated when suddenly you have a race where you trained like crazy and actually started expecting a certain result and you didn't get there. The race was far from a disaster, and if it had been my result merely a year earlier I would've been more than thrilled, but suddenly the expectations got way higher.

Each subsequent race suffered because of it. I stopped being excited about training because once again, what if I train really hard and still don't get the result I want? I didn't know how to deal with that. I did the work but my heart wasn't in it and I lost that desire to push through. Race results got way more disappointing the next year when I was faced with a real injury for the first time and it kept me from running for six weeks. That was three years ago and I feel like I'm still trying to come back from that one little setback. I don't do well with setbacks, but I'm working on it.

I had a brief taste of the athlete I used to be in 2009 when I joined up with QT2 Systems, got a new coach and a new outlook. Things went well. I won my age group in Lake Placid. I was happy... for a couple of days. It was still more than twenty minutes slower than my best race there. My swim and bike were about the same but I'd lost it a little on the run. The motivation waned a bit, and the race results followed suit. Well, a stress fracture that prevented me from finishing the race in Kona surely didn't help, but the motivation wasn't really there before that, either. It only exacerbated a problem that was already there.

2010 was a rough year in more ways than one. As far as racing went, it was like the spark was gone. I suffered through a painful winter on the trainer and running in snowstorms and the lack of sunlight and time outdoors nearly destroyed me. My races went horribly. I started doing things I'd never done before like putting off training to much later in the day and merely slogging through it. Then I had that major real life problem that put the whole triathlon thing by the wayside for a bit and quite possibly threatened to keep me from training and racing indefinitely. I mean, would you want to get right back on your bike? I feared I wouldn't, but then I did, and it wasn't so bad. I'm not afraid. I could get killed walking into the grocery store, so I might as well keep doing what I love.

Going to Tucson for the winter definitely helped me some. It broke me out of a rut and brought back some of the motivation. But towards the end the excessive amounts of alone time really started getting to me and I stopped being excited about the workouts again. So I've been thinking about some of the things I used to think about to motivate myself; some little tricks that usually got me going. Granted, it gets a lot more difficult to stay motivated when you're training just as much but going way slower than before, but I'm learning to accept it for what it is and worry about moving forward rather than thinking about how much faster I used to be. I think my friend Mary Eggers has experienced some of the same ups and downs as I have, and in a recent race report she mentioned that she no longer "grieves for the loss of past performances" and I think that is a great way to put it. I'm still working on letting it go, and I think I'm a lot closer now.

So in that same effort, if I can't be the same athlete in the races, I can at least be the same one I used to be in training. And if I do this consistently, it should mean that I can get back to competing at a high level, right? I guess there's only one way to find out. So as far as getting the training done, some things I used to always think about in training:

-Aside from finally crossing the finish line, there is no better feeling than showing up to the start line being as prepared as you can be and knowing it. I don't think anyone ever feels truly ready, but you can at least know that you've done everything you can. Lately I've experienced a lot more of showing up to start lines feeling like a kid showing up to class without my homework. It's not fun, and the results speak for themselves. I've had disappointing races when I was prepared, but the true disasters have only happened when I hadn't worked nearly as hard as before.

-Everyone remembers the incredible enthusiasm of when you first started training and were excited about everything. It was cool to go swim forty laps in the pool and go home smelling like chlorine for the first time since you took those swim lessons at the Y when you were nine. The idea of riding a hundred miles on your bike was great because you'd never ridden that far before and the whole concept just seemed crazy not that long ago. (I used to be amazed when my dad would come home and tell us he'd ridden 35 miles, it might as well have been a hundred) Then suddenly you're riding that far every single weekend and it's not nearly as much fun anymore. It's just that thing you have to get through on Saturdays before you can take a nap. Sure, some rides are fun, but other times sitting on your bike saddle for six hours is about the last place you want to be. I don't think there's any way to get that initial enthusiasm back, but it is good to keep the big goal in mind when you don't want to be out training.

-If I was in the middle of a run and felt like I wanted to walk, I'd think about specifically why I wanted to walk. Does something hurt? Usually no. Are my legs tired? Eh, kind of, but not really enough to actually warrant walking. Am I going too hard? Nah, my breathing is pretty steady. Thirsty? Hungry? Would rather be asleep? It might be one of those or any combination or something entirely different. But usually the reason was never good enough to actually start walking. I'd remind myself that surely in the marathon there was going to be a time that I'd start to feel like this. What would I do then? If I got used to giving up and walking now, then it'd be easy to do it in the race. So I would tell myself that if I just pushed through now maybe getting through that marathon would be even easier.

-Some mornings you are going to wake up and absolutely not want to get out of bed and train. It happens to everyone. Again, the first thing to do is to assess why this is the case. Sometimes it is a legitimate reason. Like you've only slept for four hours the past couple of nights or there is some work or family stress going on or you're sick or that weird back twinge you've been having is acting up again. If going out to train is actually going to make things worse for you, then of course you shouldn't do it. But I'd guess that for most of us, the reason is more like, "My bed is way more appealing than another 4000 yards in the pool right now." And yeah, it usually is. But is staying in bed going to make help you reach your goal? Again, in some circumstances, yes. But usually, no. My usual mantra on this is to think to myself, when I go to bed tonight I'm either going to have done the training, or I won't. Which one is going to make me happier and help me sleep better? The answer is obvious, and before you know it, you're done the workout anyway and feel a lot better than you would if you got to work and by 9:30 thought to yourself, "Why didn't I just get up?" Skipping workouts has a nasty way of suddenly becoming habit, so try not to let yourself out of it without a legitimate excuse.

-Do your workouts in the morning, almost right when you get out of bed. Now, for some people, this might not be the right approach. I do know people who train at night and have no trouble getting it all in. So if it works for you, that's fine. I find I do much better if I just get up and train right away. It feels great for it to be only 7:30 in the morning and you might already have a two-hour workout under your belt. If you get into the habit of simply getting out of bed and immediately training, you don't even think about it. You just do it. If you start putting stuff off then it gets easier and easier to come up with excuses not to or to have things come up and get in the way. I'm in a fairly unique position where my "day job" is coaching, so I can do it whenever and wherever I need to, so there's no need really to get up at the crack of dawn to work out because I no longer have to show up to the office by 8am. I get asked by friends why I get up so early to train when I don't really have to. I experimented with just waking up whenever and getting to the training whenever this past summer and the end result was sometimes not training until like 6:00 at night for no other reason than I just kept putting it off. It became a habit. In the past, if my workouts went past 3:00 I was not happy. Suddenly it was the norm. I didn't enjoy the day leading up to it either because it was like this thing looming over my head that I still had to do in order to have had a productive day. Your day is a lot more relaxed if by noon you can sit back, all clean and dry and finished with the last shower of the day and know that you don't have any other workouts to do until the next morning. I know people think I'm crazy for starting my long bike rides at 5am when there's sufficient daylight, but if you saw me at 12:30 in the afternoon sitting out in the sun with my feet up and a book in my hands and nothing else to worry about the rest of the day, it might not seem so crazy after all.

-Realize that if you are consistent, the results will pay off eventually. Now, this does mean different things for different people. Some people can work really, really hard and have a twelve hour Ironman, which is definitely not too shabby. And some people can work really, really hard and go 9:30. Some people are just gifted that way and it is a rare few who have the desire, patience and work ethic to get there without the natural talent. But you have to understand that either way, you can still do all you can to reach your potential, whatever that is. And it can vary from year to year. Maybe you're coming back from having a baby or you've had an injury or had to take off last season because work was too crazy. It's okay to adjust your expectations and probably a good idea to do so rather than thinking you can just automatically pick up where you left off. The key is knowing that the consistent effort will result in improvement if you keep at it. The first time I discovered this was when I finally started eating better for more than, say, a couple of days. Weight came off, started working out, more weight came off. You mean diet and exercise really does work if you stick with it? Amazing! The same is true for training. Work hard every day and don't skip workouts without a legitimate reason and you will get faster... as long as you are following a decent plan, but that is an entirely different issue.

-Treat the training as though it's not optional. Don't think that maybe I'll get to it, maybe I won't. Just get up and do it. You'll feel better and again, when race day rolls around, you will know that you've done the work and are ready.

-Just deal with the bad weather. Bad weather sucks. It really does a lot of damage on the motivation to train. It's a lot easier to convince yourself to head out the door for a two-hour ride when it's 75 degrees and sunny than it is when it's 45 degrees and rainy. Either way, you still have to get that ride in. And again, just think to yourself that three hours from now, whether you ride or not, you'll be clean and warm and dry. And you know which is going to make you feel better at the end of the day. It doesn't mean that cold, wet ride will be all that enjoyable, but at least you'll have gotten it done. And if you live in the northeast, it is entirely possible that you could face those conditions on race day, so you might as well practice it. And if you don't, you can at least tell yourself during the race, "This is much easier than riding in those awful conditions on some of those training rides." Buy some good cold weather gear and face the weather. Hose off and lube your bike after. You don't have to do it every time and the trainer is certainly a viable option, especially when the sun just won't come out and you just can't stand the idea of being cold and wet the entire time, but try it sometime. I'd admit my threshold for this seems to have adjusted since I spent so much time in that-land-where-it-never-rains, but I do tend to think of riding on a cold and rainy day as the lesser of two evils when compared to riding the trainer. We all have a different temperature cutoff. Mine changed when I realized that water bottles do eventually freeze if it's too cold. I also find your mental attitude on these rides can help. If you spend the whole time thinking about how miserable and cold you are, it's going to be an awful experience. If you just ignore the weather, ride like normal and let your mind wander to other things or even just think, "Race day will never be this bad and it'll seem easier because of this," then it will be a much more pleasant experience. But again, clothing makes a huge difference. I've had rides in the same conditions where on one I've been fine and the other I found myself shivering like crazy in a McDonalds waiting for my dad to pick me up because I stopped to use the bathroom at a gas station and couldn't turn the key in the door because my fingers didn't work. That's gonna be miserable no matter what, especially when you can't shift or use your brakes.

Those are just some of the things I think about to keep me going. I also used to adapt the "do whatever it takes" to get the workouts in. This has meant getting on the trainer at 4 to be done before some family event or maybe to get a ride in before catching an early flight. Maybe getting up to train somewhere between 3:30-4 every morning while on vacation with the family at Disney world to squeeze in a 26-hour workout week while still being able to enjoy the entire day with everyone at the parks. Maybe being at the pool at 5am to swim before driving up to go skiing with Dad before coming home and still getting in that trainer ride and transition run before falling into an exhausted sleep. It it always fun? No. But you do what you have to do in order to get the results you want to have. Don't treat the training as optional. Get it in however you can. Could I get up at 3:30 on a regular basis? No way. But for a temporary situation it was what I needed to do, so I did it.

I feel almost like a hypocrite for writing this because at the moment I'm not really following my own rules. But today I was thinking about all of these things I used to do in training and how I'd get myself through it and figured maybe by writing it all down it might help me start adapting that attitude again. Or at least help some of you. It's definitely not always easy, even for the best athletes. But it helps to know that the hard work does pay off, not just physically, but mentally. You're going to show up at that starting line either knowing you did all you could or wishing you hadn't skipped those workouts and maybe you'd eaten better and lost those last few pounds coming into race day. Which would you rather be thinking?

Training on my old routes

2011-05-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

It's good to be back and training on my old training routes. New Hampshire takes way better care of their road surfaces than Arizona. Or even Massachusetts really, since one of my rides has me looping down there for a bit before coming back and right at the state line the pavement changes and is noticeably better in NH than in MA. Now if only the weather were as perfect as Tucson then it would be amazing. On Tuesday last week I made the mistake of braving the conditions for four hours. The "conditions" consisted of drizzle and temperatures in the upper 40's to low 50's.

Normally I'm pretty good about dressing for the conditions and I've been out in weather like that plenty of times and been fine. Well, it seems I forgot how to dress for it, because after only an hour I could barely shift because my fingers had stopped working. And sometimes drizzle is worse than rain because by the time I was done I was so caked in dirt that I had to hose off the bike and then myself. Nothing like icy hose water when you're already freezing. By the time I was finished with everything and had finally showered I spent the rest of the afternoon wearing two pairs of pants, a long underwear base layer, a long sleeved shirt, two sweatshirts and ski socks. How long did I spend in Tucson? Apparently too long.

On Saturday I headed out for my long ride and got to see some snow. But don't worry, it's only because I rode by a ski area that still had some patches hanging on. I really did miss riding around here. You know, like trees and stuff instead of vast desert. It makes the time go by so much faster. I spent a lot of the ride thinking about my dad. My mom told me that the boat is in the water at the lake and I couldn't help but think about how normally he'd be up there taking it out for a spin, one of the only boats out there on the freezing water aside from the fishermen, just as happy as can be.

This is also when he would really start taking his bike out. Dad was a fair weather rider, although I can't say I blame him. Why would anyone ride their bike when it was raining if they weren't training for some event? So he would be very excited this time of year when the sun would come out and it would be warm enough to go out and ride. I think a lot of us get to a point in our training where we wake up in the morning and think, oh, I have to ride my bike today. For him, it was always I get to ride my bike today. He loved it. He loved it so much that in August when his titanium bike frame cracked and was going to be replaced because it had a lifetime warranty, he decided he didn't want to wait the two weeks for the replacement to come in so he bought a new one to ride in the meantime. I offered him my road bike that I hardly ever ride, but he didn't care. So for the last two weeks of his life he was alternating between two brand new carbon Trek Madones. I still have to take the one he was riding in to get fixed. I just hope they don't ask me any questions about how it got banged up. Although considering what happened to him the bike is in amazingly good shape.

There he is in his favorite spot. If you look closely he's wearing a Mooseman hat. He loved that hat so much that when it blew off his head one day and he lost it, I had to contact Keith Jordan to see if he had any others left, which thankfully, he did. He wore it almost anytime he drove the boat.

Anyway, I'll just have to try and think of him whenever I don't really want to get on my bike. And sometime soon I'll have to take his boat out on the lake for him because it seems wrong to just let it float there at the dock.

Speaking of docks and lakes, it seems some of my crazier triathlon friends have already started open water swimming around here. They even said the water wasn't that bad, and I tend to trust them because when the water is that bad, they'll still tell you that even though it doesn't stop them from going in. I actually had my wetsuit laid out and ready to go and meet them this morning, but when I woke up and went to check the back yard thermometer while I was brushing my teeth, as is my morning routine, and saw that it was thirty-four degrees out, well, I decided that it might not be such a bad idea to go to the pool instead. While I do not like the post-chlorine thing and am convinced that I am allergic to my pool here on some level because anytime I spend more than an hour in it, I spend the rest of the day sniffling and sneezing, I think I made the right choice.

I guess that's about it. Headed back to Florida next week, which seems unbelievable because haven't I done enough traveling? But at least this time there is a plane involved.

I'm home!

2011-04-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

What a long trip it's been. And somehow, I actually made it home unscathed. My week in Santa Ana was good. I had a great time visiting with my friends I hardly ever get to see and training in a different place. Driving somewhere to start runs and rides isn't really ideal, but it beats cold weather.

I hit the road early Sunday morning to begin my trek to Florida. I knew leaving from the Los Angeles area I'd be a lot better off leaving very early as that was the last place I'd really have to worry about traffic for a while. I think I was in Arizona by 8:00 in the morning. Normally in my long-range drives across the country I'd simply drive until I got tired of driving and then stop somewhere for the night. Looking at the map, I knew that sometime around when I'd be ready to stop for the night I'd be somewhere in west Texas. Have you ever been through west Texas or even looked at it on a map? There is nothing there. I mean literally, there is nothing there. Portions of I-10 and I-8 through Arizona are pretty barren as well, but nothing for as long as those stretches through west Texas.

So as I planned my attack for the 2400 miles I'd be driving, I was forced to pick a target for the day. I'm very scientific about these choices. I look at an old school map - one printed on paper and not a graphic on a computer - and I pick a town roughly 1000 miles away that is listed in large enough letters on the map to make me pretty sure that the place probably has a hotel or two. So on day one I found myself headed to the exciting town of Fort Stockton.

As I got into the car and set my GPS, my estimated time of arrival was 9:49pm. Ouch. The big problem that day was that I'd be crossing not one, but two time zones, and therefore I'd be losing an hour. Can someone explain to me why the mountain time zone is so small and the central time zone is so huge? It seems like it should all be pretty equal. Well, as I zipped through the desert and stopped only every 250-ish miles to get gas, use the bathroom and grab something to eat and drink in the car, I watched the ETA drop. A lot. I guess that's what happens when you never hit a hint of traffic.

I felt like the trip hadn't even started before I finally drove back through Tucson for the last time, six hours into the drive. I stopped at a gas station just south of town as I was pretty sure that'd be my last chance to fill up for a while. As I continued east the mesas of Arizona and New Mexico were slowly replaced by just vast, flat nothingness. I don't recall much of anything through New Mexico before I finally passed into Texas and the brief hint of civilization of El Paso. It's like one minute there were cars and Burger Kings and TGI Friday's and then suddenly there was nothing. Nothing except 80mph speed limits, which is about the only thing that made it tolerable. I'm pretty sure that if I'd set the cruise control and somehow fixed the steering wheel in a perfectly straight line and leaned back to take a nap I would've woken up 100 miles later and still been perfectly fine. I did pass a truck maybe every 5 miles or so, but that was it. If you ever wanted to disappear off the face of the earth, I'd imagine that's where you'd want to go.

And not that you didn't already know this, but Texas is huge. And you know what? It's mean, too. The minute you cross into it there is a sign that tells you Beaumont is a mere 852 miles away. And you'll still be in the same state.

This was all I saw for literally 500 miles. That truck was an anomaly. Mostly I saw no sign of civilization.

I watched the ETA get closer and closer and I even got over 300 miles on a tank of gas on that horrible guzzler thanks to a 40mph tailwind for a good portion of the drive that nearly blew the door off the hinges when I stopped to get gas in New Mexico. Finally, my exit was approaching, and along with it signs that read for food, gas, and lodging. It was like an actual town with actual people! I pulled off just after eight which gave me a huge sense of accomplishment after completely destroying the original time estimate the GPS had given me. And no, I did not drive 100mph... although I bet it wouldn't have mattered. But when you can set the cruise control to 85, even zipping by a few state troopers with no reason to bother with you, over the course of hundreds of miles, that time sure does add up. So 13 hours and two time zones after leaving southern California, I was settled into my hotel room for the night.

The following day I decided I wouldn't try to push through as far. So instead of leaving at the crack of dawn, I left at the crack of 8:00. Well, that was like 6:00 where I had left the day before, so probably really not that much of a reprieve. The next 300 miles were probably about the same as the last. Just a whole lot of nothing. Nothing with fast speed limits. And let me just say, I really think that if it's going to be forty miles to the next gas station, they should probably warn you about that. That's just common sense. Although I did hit some more civilization as the speed limit dropped back to 70 or 75 and I drove through San Antonio.

That day I called it quits nice and early, just west of Houston in Katy, TX. I covered about 500 miles that day and didn't even have to cross time zones. The only bad thing was that because I still had to get through Houston before the bad traffic set in, so it would be another early morning. 5:30 on the road and no problems before getting back to more empty roads.

Things were suddenly greener and I was seeing trees for the first time in a while. And I finally felt like I was making some progress as I crossed into Louisiana for the first time since a basketball tournament 1992. It's kind of amazing that after so much desert and so much dryness you can so quickly cross into a place where there are bridges several miles long to take you over swamps. And honestly, I don't think the police have anything better to do in that state aside from pull people over for speeding. I was spared even though suddenly driving 65 or 70 felt like I was crawling after those 80mph limits, but seriously, I don't think I've ever seen so many cops with so many people pulled over. It was literally every two or three miles.

And again, in no time I was in Mississippi for the first time in my life.

But then, hey, welcome to Alabama! I thought about visiting Forrest Gump, but wound up never getting out of the car as I cruised through the tunnel in Mobile and saw the battleship and drove over a very long bridge that might have made me nervous if I tended to be worried about such things.

But just as quickly, I was finally in Florida. Which always tends to make you feel like you're getting somewhere until you realize you're still 500 miles from your actual destination. I hadn't planned on arriving in Clermont for the camp on that day, but once I crossed the final state line I put the address in the GPS (I really didn't need it until then. Almost as soon as I'd left Santa Ana the directions went like this: Get on I-10 and drive.... forever) and it gave me an estimated time of arrival of 7:30 that night. While I wanted to stop earlier, I also loved the idea of simply getting where I was going and waking up the next morning and not having to drive.

So the decision was made, and I was going to keep on going. That western section of Florida was almost as vacant as west Texas except for the fact that the roads were lined with trees and grass. Either way, both completely lacked much sign of civilization. I swear I didn't see much of anything until I was finally close to Clermont. I can't be sure though, because with about two hours to go I spent the remainder of the ride dangerously close to falling asleep at the wheel. Honestly, I think the driving itself isn't that bad until you're actually almost there. Then the last 45 minutes can simply feel like an eternity.

I knew we had hotel reservations for the following night at some hotel in Clermont but I couldn't remember which one. Rather than stopping somewhere to try and figure it out and maybe checking in a day early, I simply stopped at the first hotel I saw because I was pretty sure that if I tried to drive one more mile, I would've learned what actually does happen when you fall asleep at the wheel. I think I nearly put my head down at the check-in counter as I waited for the woman to give me my room key.

It was great to go to bed that night knowing that I would not have to get up and drive the next day. Not to mention the fact that I'd actually get to see and talk to some people I knew. That had become a novelty. In fact, as I pulled up to the hotel I would be staying at for the remainder of the weekend and decided first to get some lunch at Panera next door, I didn't notice a fellow camper Duffy ordering in front of him. I had to apologize for not having noticed him earlier, because I wasn't used to running into people anywhere for months. After we ate I could finally check into the hotel. My roommate Mary wound up being bumped from her flight and I got to have an entire hotel suite to myself which I did by sleeping quite soundly.

Camp involved a good amount of training, but not the crazy amounts usually reserved for our team camp in Vermont. After breakfast we headed out to another gorgeous outdoor pool, the National Training Center. I tell you, I've gotten spoiled by all of these gorgeous outdoor pools. We had an easy bike in which we rode down to a little lake which we'd planned to circle until it was time to ride back up. The only problem was that nobody in my little group seemed to have paid much attention to what point in the loop we should pull off and ride back up to the hotel. Finally, after knowing for sure that we had passed that little bridge way too many times, someone stepped up and said we needed to ride back. Fortunately, it had been noticed that there was a large water tower next to our hotel, so we sighted off that and took random roads - hitting a few dead ends - until we finally made it back. Although we did have to walk our bikes over a construction zone rather than riding down another half-mile to make a U-turn to come back. That water tower got me home on every ride, because in all four rides I don't think I ever figured out the right road to take back.

I'd never been so thirsty in my life as I was out far longer than intended, therefore did not have enough fluid, and also somehow hopped on my bike minus the straw from my aero bottle. So at an early red light I pulled it out and chugged the whole thing, leaving me not a whole lot in reserve. It did not bode well for the post-ride transition run!

Mary had finally arrived that morning and we stayed up way too late talking that night. I even apologized later because I felt as though I was using the weekend to get out 3 months worth of pent-up conversations I hadn't had.

The next day was the infamous long ride day. Pat, our infamous leader, had determined that we would take the bike path down to the route he had planned because the road he had originally planned out was a four-lane highway with almost no shoulder and way too much construction. The only problem was that the bike path did not connect to our route quite the way he thought it would. We did finally find one of the roads we were supposed to be on, and once I told them we needed to go right, not left, we were on our way and back on course.

We rode a bit over twenty miles before hitting another bike path that would make up the majority of our ride. This path was roughly thirty miles of uninterrupted, straight, flat, wide, paved road reserved solely for bikes. Nobody mentioned that to the possums, snakes and alligators, but we all remained unscathed from those. Except poor Rick who went down in a non-animal-related incident and wound up breaking his collarbone. Again. The same one he broke and had surgery on in October. So, definitely not a great day for Rick! At least somehow they were able to get an ambulance to the bike path. Hope you heal quick, Rick!

I wound up somewhere right in the middle of two groups of riders as the only one on my own. Had I drafted I'm sure I could've kept up with the lead group, but I lost them and just couldn't catch up, so I remained in no-man's land, listening to who-knows-what dashing through the woods as I rode by and startled it. This happened every tenth of a mile or so and had me wondering when a gator might come out to get me. The great thing about the path was that it was flat and made it impossible to get lost and impossible to get hit by a car. The bad news was that it was incredibly boring. Especially riding solo. If you looked straight down the path I swear you could see five miles away.

But eventually the ride got done and I managed not to get lost heading back to the hotel by myself, although I did turn the wrong way down one road and had to deal with the construction and such but pulled in at about 5:58 on the clock. Perfect. The good news now that was instead of a normal near-hour transition run I only had to head out for twenty-five minutes before I got to collapse on the bed and hopefully get a good nap in before dinner.

The next day began with a swim workout of epic proportions. Pat had e-mailed me a few weeks ago asking if I still had the e-mail that Jesse had sent us with the swim workout they'd made up for our pre-Utah training camp. I wish I could go back in time and pretend I couldn't find it, either. Jesse divided us up based on swim ability and somehow I fell on the line with the "faster" group. By faster we're talking about several pros and a couple of could-be-pros-if-they-wanted-to-be. I am 99% sure everyone in my lane is a (well) sub-hour Ironman swimmer. I am not. We only had two lanes, but it was a 50-meter pool for the day so at least the lane wasn't crowded.

Cait put the workout on the board and Jesse told us the interval time for the 400's or 200's or 50's or whatever it was we were supposed to be swimming. It made absolutely no difference to me because once we got started and I was the last one to start in the lane, all I did was swim continuously until everyone in front of me had stopped. I think most of them got some rest, but I was swimming about 1000 yards at a time and just trying not to get lapped by Tim, which eventually started happening once we moved onto 400's (or 1x2400, as it turned out to be for me) So, 6000 meters later or whatever it was (Mary's official tally says two million meters or something like that, and judging by the way my arms felt after, she may be closer) I could get out of the pool and go wish we did not have more workouts to do!

We biked and ran some more and for once we managed not to get lost and even figured out how that stupid bike path connected to the lake in the way we had intended. Another run and more sweating and another shower and the camp was already almost over. The final morning involved yet another recovery ride and a long run and it was all over before I knew it. The only problem now was that I still had to drive home!

We had our goodbyes and a little camp wrap-up and I hit the road at about 3:30, I think, bound for Georgia. I drove for about four hours until I hit what felt like the hundredth hotel I'd stayed in on that trip. Actually, I figured out that over the course of my little adventure I drove 8000 miles, passed through 25 states, saw two oceans, stayed in eight different hotels, three guest rooms at people's houses, one person's couch, and spent time in four different time zones. And yes, I'm still exhausted. Pooler, Georgia was a quick visit and I got on the road later than intended the next day due to an alarm that was anything but alarming. Actually, it was the fault of a wary watch battery, so instead of the alarm sounding, it simply reset itself to midnight on January first.

It was okay though, because there would be no hotel for me that night. My cousin Trip lives just outside Washington, DC with his wife Paula and their three kids. I figured it would "only" be about eight hours of driving to get there, so no big deal. Up to that point I'd had incredible luck with those kinds of out-of-your-control things like traffic and weather. I'd never hit traffic. And while there were staggering reports constantly about crazy storms, wild fires and tornadoes, I never hit any of that, usually driving through a day or two before or after these problems arose. I was pretty lucky. Finally as I was heading towards Richmond I hit my first traffic. It was a construction zone and cars were pretty much stopped at times and according to the GPS I lost a good 45 minutes while people took forever getting down to one lane. It was funny, all throughout Arizona and New Mexico there were "construction zones" with flags and reduced speed limits and such, but nobody was ever actually doing any work in them and traffic never seemed to slow down. Well, traffic had definitely slowed down. So I was a bit later than intended getting to their house, but it worked out fine.

I'd never been to their house and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. They also have a four-month old golden retriever puppy. How can that not make someone happy? Even if she did immediately pee on the floor the moment she met me. I have that effect sometimes. The weather was great and we ate on the deck and it was so nice to be around some family again. I'd considered staying there for a few days since I usually only see them once a year, but at that point in the trip I just wanted to be HOME. So I woke up so early I didn't get to say goodbye, but I had less than five hundred miles to go and I had to leave early enough to beat the DC traffic but not so early that I hit New York City traffic. It wound up working out perfectly. You'd think in all that big city driving I would've hit traffic somewhere along there, but I really didn't. Although I did briefly question the GPS's sanity as it took me on some convoluted combination of parkways and interstates before taking me over the George Washington bridge.

Eventually I was in the Merritt Parkway which I had a nightmare about being back on the other night. The good part about it is that they don't allow trucks, which is great since trucks on the interstate drive me crazy. Especially when they try and pass each other and suddenly you find yourself behind a blockade of eight or nine semis driving at least ten miles per hour under the speed limit and keeping you from knocking more time off that ETA clock on the dashboard. But you do have to pay serious attention because there are a lot of curves and a lot of very short on-ramps. Oh, and also somewhere around New York City things got dreary and a light rain arrived. I hadn't had to turn on the windshield wipers.... ever. Seriously. In the entire time I was gone it never rained when I was in the car. It barely rained at all anyway, but literally never once while driving (or biking or running or swimming). So my welcome back to New England was punctuated by clouds, rain, and watching the temperature drop on the rear-view mirror thermometer.

Once I was through Hartford I finally knew exactly where to go and basically couldn't believe I was finally almost home. It was crazy to think back to that frigid morning on December 28th when I'd first left to start driving across the country. It wasn't a whole lot warmer (42 by the time I got home) but at least there was no more snow on the ground. And then, just like that, I was home. As if none of it ever happened. Although I had a bag of dirty laundry that would suggest otherwise.

I will say it's good to be back in some ways. Family and friends of course, having a garage to ride my bike in and out of instead of carrying it up stairs and keeping it inside, driving my own car again. And oh, the pavement is so smooth here! But come on, can we get a break with the weather? Today's ride was spent gradually getting more and more difficult to shift due to the inability to use my increasingly-frozen fingers. My feet lost feeling early on, and while it wasn't raining really and only continued to drizzle, this did not prevent me from finishing the ride covered in dirt and sand. It was nice out in Tucson to never, ever look at a radar online to try and pick a good window to miss the rain (today, there was no window) Also, my indoor pool seems like a kiddie pool now. It's the same size, but it's shallow throughout. The first time I hit the wall to do a flip turn I nearly flopped my legs on the pool deck and smacked my head on the bottom since my depth perception was off having not looked at a "T" on the bottom of the pool at a depth of only four feet.

Well, I'd say I've definitely gone on long enough and if you made it this far, you deserve a medal or something. Or maybe you should try and get out more. So currently I'm just hoping for some better training weather and wondering if someone is trying to make up for the fact that I missed months and months of bad weather. It makes me more than a little nervous because we had a recent June where there were only four days in the entire month in which it didn't rain and the recent trend for May seems to be local floods. Bring on some dry weather patterns! Or, just welcome back to New Hampshire! Your bike will get rusty quick!

Moving on...

2011-04-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

Well, obviously I've left Tucson by now. It was great to finally get out of there and the drive through the boiling hot desert of Yuma and the desolate I-8 was pretty uneventful. Getting to Oceanside made it feel like the beginning of the season once again. I hadn't race a half since this race last year, and this was my fourth time competing there, though my fifth time visiting. In 2008 I got injured only about ten days before the race and went in the hopes that maybe I'd wake up race morning and my back would be magically better, but that didn't happen, so I spent the day as a spectator with privileges thanks to my race bracelet and a timing chip that never crossed a timing mat.

I had never been to a race like that completely by myself. My mom had accompanied me in the past and other times I've stayed with friends. Last year a bunch of QT2 was there but most of them spent the winter training to race in Puerto Rico a couple of weeks ago, so only two others were there and we didn't stay together. I did know some other people from New Hampshire racing although we didn't get together before the race. I guess in one way it was good because it allowed me to be incredibly rested the day before the race since aside from eating, I spent pretty much the entire day lying on my hotel bed with my feet up. And thoroughly enjoying having so many TV stations.

I wasn't incredibly excited about the race. I just didn't feel as ready as I felt like I should've. I felt as though I hadn't raced in a couple of years even though it's only been a tad over six months, though a lot has gone on in that six months. I was on the later side getting down to transition as I only had to ride my bike down and was in the 18th wave, going off at 7:33 after the first wave at 6:40. I also started riding down to transition without my bottles for the race, but fortunately figured that out about a tenth of a mile down the road, so after that false start, I headed down. I was only about a half-mile from the race, so not a long ordeal.

Transition was set up quick and after almost heading to get in line with my swim wave without my goggles, I grabbed those and got in the LONG line of people. Not that I wouldn't have had time to go back and get them. I wasn't really nervous, I was just kind of indifferent. Although I was interested to see how the swim would go. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the water was about 60 degrees, which there might as well be 80. The first year I swam there I think it was about 53, which was not pleasant.

Upon getting in it sure felt cold, although once we started swimming, I really felt fine. It was overcast which made it really easy to see, another nice change of pace. After spending a while among people in my wave, I started hitting the obstacle course of the swim waves in front of me which is good in the sense that it makes you feel good about your swim split since you're catching people who started several minutes earlier, but is also a huge pain because you just keep having to swim around people and as usual, I never had any feet to try and hold onto because I would always have to swim around them!

Things got rough as we were exposed to the open ocean and I felt like I was never going to finish the stupid swim and I wound up exiting the water with a typical swim split for me. Although I did feel pretty good about it since when I got out of the water most people's bikes were still there, which is an unusual occurrence. Out on the bike I felt pretty good and the first half was quite fast. I was passing people, but fortunately it just didn't seem that crowded since it seemed I had actually taken care of quite a few people on the swim. It was still overcast and nice for riding. Like usual, I rode too hard though. And oddly, on some of the steep hills I saw a couple of people literally just keel right over. I know it's steep, but it's not that bad. things slowed down quite a bit as the hills and the headwinds came and I wound up with a disappointing split.

Onto the run. Well, what can I say? I seem to get worse at this at every race. My legs felt kind of crappy which was my own fault for having ridden too hard, so I decided to walk the aid stations. It was slightly less demoralizing as I ran than last year, yet I wound up with a worse run split.

I guess in a lot of ways it was good to just get out there and race again for the first time in a while, just get it out of the way. But again, it's frustrating to continue to get worse at this. I didn't get too upset over my slow finish. But not long after I had gone back to my hotel and showered and chatted with my mom and my coach, it suddenly dawned on me that it was the first race I'd done that I didn't get to talk to my dad after and tell him how it had gone. And that was the worst. I'm sure there are bound to be more moments like that that come up, but I hadn't been blindsided by that sort of thing yet since September. Everything else was much more obvious. It made for a rough post-race evening.

But as always, things move on and it was time to continue my little adventure. The next day I hopped in the car and drove 50 miles north to Santa Ana, where I'll be spending a week with one of my best friends from college and her husband and two kids. Hearing the weather back home I'm of course glad that I decided to extend my trip. It was only about an hour drive which might have been shorter had it not been for the awesome southern California traffic! They live in a nice little area that is only ten minutes from this pool:

Not bad, right? It is going to be very difficult to go back home and swim in my old indoor pool all the time. Although I haven't seemed to grasp the concept of needing sunscreen when you're swimming outdoors and have paid the consequences. I had a failed attempt at riding from their apartment yesterday though, as I saw they are only about two miles from a bike trail. Well, this bike trail also has stop signs ever fifty feet for a while, and when it didn't have that issue, I found some places where homeless people have set up camp. And then I never did find the connector where I could've made it down to the ocean, so for future rides, I will be driving somewhere to start and finish. Oh, well.

I still find it kind of crazy how long I've been away and that I'm just driving all over the country. Let's just hope that sooner or later this all pays off! I'll be here until Sunday, then off to QT2 camp in Florida.

Last long ride... cut a bit short

2011-03-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

I was very happy when I woke up Saturday morning that it would be my last long ride in Tucson. There are a couple of stretches of road that have been involved in all of these rides that I have no problem knowing I'll never have to ride down again. I was physically and mentally pretty darn tired, but of course off I went, a little after 6am which was perhaps a bit earlier than advisable considering the daylight situation at that time, but I just wanted to get it over with.

Things were uneventful, as usual, as I spent most of the time just thinking about hours later when I'd be comfortably sprawled on the couch taking a nap. My thoughts then drifted to the fact that I had not suffered a flat tire the entire time I've been riding here in Tucson. Well, unless you count the one I got when I was checking the tire before heading out for a ride in January, and I pulled a thorn out of the tire which promptly deflated. But an at-home tire change is a lot different than on the fly. And considering the fact that I flatted a couple of times week it seemed when I was in Phoenix, I was amazed. There's plenty of glass on the roads and rough pavement and all sorts of obstacles.

I should never have thought about that, because as I was riding I suddenly felt like something wasn't quite right. Now, this happens sometimes when I feel like I might be flatting, but I'm not. Maybe if I don't look at the tire, it will stay inflated. Except finally I glanced down at the front tire and saw that it definitely didn't have as much air in it as it did when I started. I thought back to a few minutes before and remembered hitting a bump or something awkwardly and wondered if that was the culprit. So I pulled over and checked the tire, which was quite deflated though not completely empty. I didn't see any glass or anything in it, and then went to fix it.

Except I didn't have anything to fix it with. My saddle bag was conspicuously absent. Oh, great. Now what? At the time I thought maybe it had fallen off somewhere, but it only occurred to me a few hours after I got home that it had obviously been missing for a week. On last week's long ride one of my rear bottle cages broke clean off. Guess what was attached to it?

The only good news was that I was twelve miles from home instead of fifty. I thought for a minute, try and ride it back? Like I said, it wasn't completely empty. So I got on and started pedaling, but immediately it just seemed like a terrible, terrible idea. Let's not forget that aside from the rough pavement I'd have to cross a few cattle guards to get home. Cattle guards on a wheel rim did not seem like a good idea. So I stopped again and then just sort of stood there for a few minutes, wondering what my next move should be. I had my phone in my back pocket, but it occurred to me that was pretty useless as I didn't really have anybody to call. Makes me wonder why I've tossed it in my pocket for all these rides these past few months.

Well, fortunately as I sat there with zero ideas popping into my head aside from walking my bike home twelve miles, a guy pulled up on his bike and asked if I was ok. He was on a hybrid comfort bike, so even if he had tubes or something they wouldn't have fit. But he did actually call his wife and she came and got me and brought me home. This is actually the third time in my life I've had to accept a ride from a stranger in a dire flat situation. The first was actually back home, I was about fifteen miles out and I don't think I had my phone. My family was all away I think and I had run over something and destroyed both tires and a nice couple stopped and offered me a ride. The second time I was in Phoenix, riding in the middle of nowhere on a cold, rainy day in January when I got my second flat. I was in the middle of changing it and this woman stopped and insisted on bringing me to a bike shop or something. I could've been stuck 30 miles from nowhere with no more spares and decided to take the ride even though I didn't need it... at least not yet. I think I bought like six spares when I got to the bike shop so I'd have them to carry with me for the rest of the ride.

Anyway, I've definitely been lucky in this aspect so far. But it gave me another reason as to why I am immensely tired of being here by myself. And if I don't have more than seven channels to pick from soon I'm going to have to kill somebody. Probably me, because I don't know anybody else. I am so looking forward to hitting the road on Thursday!

And now one week to go...

2011-03-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

Well, it appears I have not updated for a week. Not that there has been much to say about my glamorous life as a loner triathlete training in Tucson. I had a couple of frustratingly restless afternoons outside of the training last week due to extreme boredom, but this week I seem to have settled in pretty well. After the training is done for the day I sift through my collection of DVD's I brought with me (I miss cable and my DVR!) and spend probably 15 minutes deciding which movie to watch for the 5th or 50th time, depending on which movie, only to fall asleep about ten minutes in, no matter which one I chose. So really I should probably just start putting in the first one I see, because it doesn't matter anyway.

Two things occurred to me this week: 1: a week from Saturday when I do the California 70.3 it will be my first half ironman in a year, coming off that race last year. That's ridiculous. Last season was scarily devoid of much actual racing if you don't count those two Ironmans I did. It was like a non-season. I was supposed to race Timberman in August but it was decided that it would only serve as an exercise in futility (and finisher hat and medal collecting) so I abstained. I feel like I haven't been at a race start line in a couple of years and it only just occurred to me that it's time to start worrying about the water temperature next week (upper 50's... brrr....)

The second thing that occurred to me is that this is the start of my tenth season in triathlons. That is just crazy to me. I graduated college, spent my first summer running just to keep in shape and riding my bike occasionally, and then the following summer had signed up for my first race, a sprint, and then jumped into Timberman (back when you could sign up like six weeks before) and learned a hard lesson in being prepared for the distance.... and doing a half ironman when it's 95 degrees out. It was all just a fun way to stay in shape and do some races here and there and now it has become the main focus of my life. It only took a couple of years, a Kona qualification and ultimately an Ironman "win" to get to that point. I used to show up at races and not know a soul and now I can show up almost anywhere in the U.S. it seems and wind up running into someone I've met along the way.

There have been countless yards of swimming, as well as miles of biking and running. Honestly, it does sometimes make me wonder if there are better ways to spend my time, but I still seem to keep coming back, even through the setbacks of the past few years, so I suppose I'll continue.

Yes, I'm still ready to get out of Tucson in spite of the ever-perfect weather. The past few bike rides I've gone on I keep thinking to myself, ok, I only have to ride down this road a few more times! And I couldn't be happier about it. I will not miss riding by the coyote carcass in Marana that has been there literally since the first ride I went on when I got here. It sort of amazes me that it is even still identifiable as a coyote, but it looks almost the same as when I first saw it in January.

I go back and forth with being excited about California. Over the past few years it has seemed to be a pretty good indicator of what kind of season I'm going to have. 2006? Solid race, leading to the best season ever. Did not race in 2007 because it was too close to Ironman Arizona. 2008? Unable to start because a week-and-a-half earlier I messed up my SI joint on a run and limped across the country anyway in the hopes of maybe magically waking up race morning to find things had gotten better. Instead I spent the day on the sidelines watching my friends race, leading up to most of the worst performances of my career (to that point). 2009 I wound up bettering my time from 2006, faster swim and bike but slower run, and finally came around to have some decent performances at Mooseman and Lake Placid and another Kona qualification. The problem there is that it's useless if you don't get to the start line healthy, and a stress fracture ensured that my day in the lava fields would be over after 114.4 miles.

That did not set me up to be in the best of mental states going into the 2010 season. And somehow I showed up in California just not into it. And my race performance showed it. I had a mediocre swim and bike and admittedly pretty much gave up on the run. What happened after that? Oh yeah, back to back new personal worsts for the Ironman. By hours, in fact. And, well, life got in the way at the end of that mess and left me feeling a little less than enthusiastic heading into the preparation for 2011.

But, well, I already paid for a few races and I can't seem to figure out what else to do with my time aside from swim, bike and run, so I decided to keep my plan of leaving town for the winter (I don't recall when I actually decided that initially, only that I knew I would shoot myself in the head if I had to spend another winter of Saturdays in the basement riding for 5 hours at a time, almost didn't come after September but ultimately decided to go for it) in the hopes that it would give me a head start in the right direction.

So, that remains to be seen, but as you can tell I feel like I have a lot riding on April 2nd. Even better though than just getting out and racing again will be finally seeing some old friends who always come out from New Hampshire. I've always enjoyed that race, too. Not so much the cold water, but a fairly tough but fair bike course and an easy flat run along the beach. Sometimes on that run you forget you're in a race. And while I'm not a fan of what WTC has done to many of my favorite races by buying them and changing them, California has always been the same and I've always expected that sort of big event feel from it, so it doesn't bother me. Although I'm not a huge fan of being in wave #18. Can I show up an hour after everyone else is supposed to? No matter how they arrange it, the women never get to go in one of the earlier waves.

But until then, a few more tough training sessions, a little bit of resting, eating what feels like my millionth plate of egg whites and vegetables and a nice, six-hour drive to prep me for the 3-ish day drive to Florida and the day-and-a-half drive from Florida back to NH. Oh, speaking of which, another thing I realized this week was that after all is said and done, I'll have been in 25 states during my little adventure. Or maybe 24, I can't figure out if on the final drive home I have to go through Delaware or not, but still. Not bad.

Two weeks left in Tucson

2011-03-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that two weeks from today I will be leaving my winter training camp. Although it feels like it was a year ago that I pulled up to my temporary home on that chilly first day of the year after driving across the country. Somewhere around the halfway point of my trip I started to feel like it was never going to be over, but suddenly the end is sneaking up on me. At the same time, though I'm leaving here in two weeks, the reality is that I still won't be home for over a month, so in that sense it still feels like an eternity!

There are things I will miss and things I won't. I'm really looking forward to getting back to my old training routes, what with the less traffic, rolling hills and vastly superior pavement. I'm looking forward to having more than 7 channels on TV. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing my friends and family again and having near-daily human interaction instead of mostly only conversing with the lady who checks me in at the pool and the cashier at the grocery store.

At the same time of course I'll miss never, ever having to worry about whether or not it's going to rain when I go to ride my bike. Seriously, 3 months, usually 6 days a week of riding, and I think twice the weather was questionable, but it just happened to work out that during those instances, which never covered entire days, I didn't have to worry about riding in the rain. I will also miss living 90 seconds from the pool and the lack of humidity. And these 85-degree days in March aren't so bad, either. Oh, and I am for sure going to miss TV running on central time. For someone who goes to bed at like 8:30 usually, it's great when prime time starts at 7 and I get to watch some of it. And watching the Oscars is way more tolerable when it ends at 9:30. Also gotta love the fact that they don't change the clocks here!

I will not miss living in someone else's place. It worked out fine, but it still just isn't that comfortable living somewhere that isn't yours. And having to keep my bike inside on a second-floor walk-up, which at times is ok, other times, after a tough 6 hours of riding, those stairs seem like Everest. Especially when trying to balance myself in bike shoes while carrying the bike. I will also not miss the fact that I swear 85% of the vehicles that drive past me while I ride are white pick-up trucks. I don't know why this annoys me, but it does. There are way too many white pick-up trucks in Arizona.

So now I just have to finish out the last couple of weeks. The weather has been amazing, but I'm tired of my training routes here. I also have to make sure that I ration out the last of my food so I don't leave anything behind because I hate that! I have to eat a lot of chicken and ground turkey in the next two weeks. Oh, wait, that's what I eat mostly anyway. These last couple of weeks will also give me a chance to finally finish off that box of Powerbars I'd been eating that I just realized expired two months ago. That's not as bad as the gels that expired in November, but I'm not dead yet!

Mt. Lemmon

2011-03-12T16:28:00.000-08:00

Probably any cyclist or triathlete has heard of Mt. Lemmon. It is, according to some, one of the "best" climbs in the United States. Mt. Washington back in New Hampshire is considered another, although I have to tell you that that is probably the one route in which I'd actually rather do the run than the bike. I just can't even imagine riding my bike up a 22% grade. I think I'd begin going backwards and never be heard from again.

While Mt. Lemmon cannot boast the steepness of the 7-ish mile climb to the top of New England, it certainly makes up for it in duration and altitude. In fact, I just found a list of the hardest climbs in the US and #1 is Mt. Washington and Mt. Lemmon comes in at a paltry #9, so I can see I have a long way to go before I even consider my home-state climb. A look at the numbers tells me that Mt. Lemmon ascends 5400' in roughly 26 miles. Mt. Washington ascends 4586', obviously less, but does so in a mere 7.6 miles. Ouch. Someday, maybe if I'm feeling crazy enough I'll try it. If I chop off one of my arms maybe first, or have removed some of those pesky internal organs that seem to serve no purpose other than giving me extra weight to carry uphill. They still don't really know what our appendix is for, right? I've been lugging that thing around all these years for nothing...

Anyway, being in town for three months in such proximity to a legendary climb makes it seem almost sacrilegious not to do it, so I finally broke down and went for the ascent. To be fair, as recently as two weeks ago I couldn't have ridden up at all because it snowed and only cars with chains on the tires were allowed, so I guess it's not so bad that it took me ten weeks to head over there. One concern since I'd be heading up to an altitude that I've only once ever been at, not counting airplanes of course, was the possible huge temperature difference from the bottom to the top. Fortunately, the weather has been unseasonably warm around here, in the 80's, so the chances of it being frigid at the top were almost nothing.

The climb never got particularly steep, and the only reason I ever got out of the saddle was just to change positions for a while rather than because I needed to stand up in order to keep moving forward. It is, however, pretty relentless. I recall one or two spots where I kind of, sort of went downhill, but for the most part it was 21 miles of up, up, up. Each mile slowly ticking off as I passed those green mile marker signs lining the highway and coming up far too slowly. Until I reached about mile 12, I wasn't sure I really wanted to keep going all the way to the top. There were also signs each 1000 feet we ascended, the first of such I noticed was 4000, and the last of which was this one:

The only other time I've been that high was when I went skiing at Steamboat Springs in Colorado. Or at least I think it was that high, I'm not entirely sure. I really have no idea if the altitude did anything to make the climb seem any harder than it should've, my heart was beating just as fast at 4000 feet as it was at 8000, it's just that my legs were probably burning more by the time I got to this point since I'd been climbing for what felt like an eternity.

As I neared the top there were some shadowed areas that still had some snow, remnants from the freakish little storm we had a couple of weeks ago. But with all of the going uphill at a whopping 8mph much of the time, I certainly didn't feel cold. Maybe until it was time to turn around and start heading down. You know a stretch of road is tough when it takes you well over two hours to go in one direction and maybe forty minutes to go back the other way. Fortunately the chilliness of the descent didn't last long as I got back into the 80-degree temperatures pretty quick. My legs were immensely grateful for the break.

I also snapped a couple of other photos:

I believe this one I took at windy point, after climbing a particularly steep section. Down there you can see the road that I had already ascended, probably not too many miles back but certainly a whole lot lower. I believe this is somewhere around mile 14, Windy Point. Contrary to its name, when I went by it was not windy. I do know that I spent a lot of that climb though contemplating turning around and riding back down. Nobody would have to know, I would think to myself. But then I also thought to myself that this could be the one chance I ever had of climbing up, and I knew that when I went to bed last night, I was going to feel a whole lot better if I had climbed it all than if I had turned back halfway up. Besides, it had been quite a while since I did something that really seemed difficult to me in that way, so I knew it would be good for me.

This is essentially the same picture from a wider angle. All in all, it was a pretty good day. And anytime I am not enjoying it I have to remind myself that any time spent out training, no matter how painful orFor sure I still don't feel like the athlete I once was, but we're slowly moving back in that direction. I still on occasion feel like someone who snuck in for a little while only to eventually become an outsider again. But at least for now I'll keep plugging away.

Six months

2011-03-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

Six months ago today was the worst day of my life. Or the culmination of the worst four days of my life. Like anything, sometimes it seems like it was a much longer time ago and other times it feels like it was just yesterday. As you can imagine, I still think about my dad all the time. Sometimes it's just memories of the regular stuff and sometimes I can't help but think of all of the things we went through with him at the hospital leading up to the end. Given where I am and the fact that I wouldn't expect to see him here makes it a little easier. It's just that when I call home I only talk to my mother instead of one of those three-way calls with Mom on one phone and Dad on the other, telling me that training better be going well because he wants to go to Hawaii. Recently I was e-mailing with my brother and I asked him if every once in a while he ever just thought, wow, did that actually happen? Because I do it all the time, and so does he.

I don't know why it suddenly occurred to me that today marked six months, but I wish it didn't. As a result, it was not a good day. And I can't decide if it's better or worse that I don't have anyone to talk to. I'm not sure I'd want to talk about it even if someone was available. But anyway....

Let's not talk about that anymore. The remainder of my rest week was uneventful and boring. I got really restless without anything to do. Although I did at least take the time on my second day off to cook up some food for the week. It's much easier to eat what I need to eat when I've already cooked up and stored a bunch of stir fry that only needs to be reheated. Boring? Yep. But it gets the job done. I also ran a race this weekend. I haven't toed the start line of a race since September 5th. I was definitely not excited about it, although I also wasn't dreading it completely, which was a good sign. It was a low-key, small local 10K. I've run very few 10K races in my career. The last one was one of my many, many unmitigated disasters of the 2010 season, though I tried to blame it on the bear that crossed the street in front of me around mile 5.

Well, there are no bears in Tucson. At least none that I'm aware of. I had to get up at 5:30 to eat breakfast because for some reason the race started at 7:30. Little early for a 10K, but oh, well. I had my pacing and tried not to think about the fact that most of my teammates run that pace for their recovery runs. Not to mention my previous ability to run a marathon not much slower than that, but whatever. I lined up with the rest of the racers on a bright and sunny 50-ish degree morning and took off.

For I think the first time ever, I did not go out way too fast. That is not to say I couldn't have run the first mile faster, but for once I was able to hold off and hit my splits dead on for the first couple of miles and it didn't feel too bad. Just for reference on my poor pacing ability, you would not believe the amount of half marathons in which I've run the first mile in about 6:30. I've never broken 1:30, though. There was a 5K being run at the same time and of course after my first loop I would've loved to have stopped, but I still had 3.1 more miles to go. Of course it got tougher the second time around, after a brief delusional period in which I wondered if maybe I'd be able to pick it up for the last mile or two and beat my goal. My pace slipped only slightly, my legs were burning and I was breathing way harder than I thought I should be considering the pace, but at least it was almost over and I could tell there was no way I was going to crash nearly as badly as I did in the last 10K I ran.

While the course was quite flat compared to most races I run, the last mile was mostly (though only slightly) uphill, which made for a painful stretch and my slowest mile, but in the end, I was incredibly close to my goal and could at least be happy with that fact. Given my time that would put me way behind every single runner I know back home apparently I actually came in second in my age group but left before the awards. I wonder what I would've won? It's been about five years since I got an award for a run race. But let's just say that the competition wasn't exactly deep. Had I run the 5K, I would've come in third and won cash. And I wouldn't have had to run any faster than my 10K pace.

So that was the "big" first race of the season. Again, I'm tired of running slow, but at least executing a race well made me feel pretty good about the effort. It's also quite nice when your stomach doesn't give you troubles and there are real bathrooms with no lines instead of porta-potties with huge lines. Often makes me just want to do these sorts of races exclusively from now on.

One other "fun" thing that happened to me this week is that my computer got a virus. Who gets a computer virus anymore? Apparently I do. I couldn't open a word document, an excel file, any web pages, nothing. My anti-virus software was useless. As was the extended protection plan I bought for my lap top from Best Buy. Nope, still costing me $200 to get it fixed. If my brother-in-law was around I'm sure he could fix it. But I can't wait another six weeks to get it back. Makes me want to go into the computer fixing business because that price just seems absurd. Better than the computer screen quote they gave me a few months ago, which was $700, or exactly the price I paid for the computer in the first place. Fortunately I got it fixed elsewhere.

So that's it for now. I'm tired and I've barely really even gotten started again with the training block. Only a few weeks to go until California and leaving Tucson behind. While I've enjoyed my time here and I'm glad I did it, I'm feeling ready to get back to my old training routes. I miss trees. And less traffic. And rolling hills and good pavement. And having more than 7 channels on my TV. And my family and friends. But for now I will take consolation in the fact that it's going to be 80 degrees out for the rest of the week.

Hello, Rest Day

2011-03-01T12:09:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last several days looking forward to today, my first day off from training in a month. That is not to say that every day has been hours and hours of swimming, biking and running, as one day every week is always incredibly light and there are a few days in there that involve, say, less than three hours in the saddle, but there is nothing that can really rest you mentally and physically like waking up in the morning and not throwing on the swimsuit and driving to the pool, not loading fluids on the bike and gels and Powerbars in the jersey pockets and hitting the road for a ride, and not lacing up the run shoes and gazing at my Garmin for an hour or two.

I've learned to value these rest days, especially when, like this time, I was really feeling the fatigue built up over the last few weeks and knew how much it was needed. Of course, when you are alone in a city without any of your friends, your rest day starts to get old around, say, 9am. I can appreciate lounging in front of the TV after four hours of workouts, but for some reason I have a hard time just sitting around all morning when I haven't done anything. I will say though that it was nice to wake up this morning whenever I woke up and not feel like I had to jump out of bed and head to the pool. I haven't minded my swim workouts lately, but it is less appealing to strip down to the bathing suit to jump in the pool when it's 35 degrees outside. Yes, I know, I've only been here two months and I already think that 35 degrees is cold. If it gets that warm in NH people start busting out the shorts.

I also had decided yesterday to take care of any errands I'd been putting off, like an oil change that turned into a new radiator hose (can't let the car repairs slide when you still have to drive about 3500 miles in the near future) a trip to the post office, a little grocery shopping and canceling my gym membership. No, I'm not done there yet, but if you're in a temporary situation like this you learn from experience to give a lot of notice on that so that they don't charge you an additional month that you won't even be there to utilize. So that left me without much to take care of today. This is a good thing from a rest standpoint, because the rest day loses its usefulness if you spend the entire time on your feet running all over town doing different things, but it can also leave you a little bit stir-crazy, but I'm hanging in there so far. It is only 1:00, though...

What else? Oh, when last I blogged it had snowed. Well, the forecast for the rest of the week goes as follows: 78, 80, 80, 78, 78, 75... etc. That's more like it. No more of this cloudiness or snow or rain nonsense. I have to say, while I love New Hampshire, I swear I do, it's going to be tough to go back to a place where it rains far more than one day a month. What I won't miss are traffic lights, terrible pavement at times, broken glass on the shoulder, unreal amounts of white pick-up trucks on the road, lack of trees and lack of rolling hills. Let's not get into what I will miss or I may start to wonder why I'm coming back. Oh, wait, I also won't miss spending so much time by myself! I know this has been good for me and I was fine with it for a long time, but I've had about enough of that now.

But, now that I can post pictures, I forgot I have another one. This was the sunset on my balcony the first day I got here:

Not bad, right? Well, I think that's about enough of mindless ramblings in the midst of my extreme boredom for now. But beware, there is another rest day coming up on Friday...

So.... it snowed here

2011-02-27T14:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am still in Arizona, and yes, it snowed. And I have photo evidence which I can now share with you. But first, let's backtrack a bit. It's been a busy few weeks between fitting in my little California detour, which brought me this sight from the beginning of my ride:

Nope, definitely not in New Hampshire anymore. Now you can probably see why I enjoyed it so much. Not long after my return from California, I had some visitors in the form of my mother and my aunt Tricia who were very happy to be escaping the brutal winter back home. So for that week it was pretty much, wake up, train, shower, and go play tour guide. They were staying at a nearby hotel and I was the one with the car so I couldn't just strand them there! Although they did take the car on their own during my long ride, as waiting until sometime in the late afternoon might have been a bit much and I surely didn't need it.

We went to Sabino Canyon and they went to Tubac to see some art galleries and we just liked of drove around and saw some random stuff, nothing too exciting. It was nice to have some visitors and to go to a few restaurants and have some decent meals that weren't eaten while sitting alone in front of the TV. One night in particular we went to a really nice restaurant in the Foothills that had a piano player, who, for some reason, actually started playing the song from "On Golden Pond" which was Dad's favorite and the standard soundtrack to evening boat cruises on a near-nightly basis. So we had a little moment there (do you know how much it sucks to have something happen in your life that can now make you near tears at the drop of a hat?) and Mom said he was with us, but then inserted her typical humor by saying, "Maybe he'll pick up the check."

And last Saturday I had myself the most Kona-like wind experience I've ever had on the main land. Of course it hit for the long ride. At one point I thought I was driving into a rain storm or something because it looked so dark up ahead, but it was simply blowing dust. I felt at one point as though I was tilted at a 45 degree angle during a crosswind just to stay upright. Then there were times of effortless 35mph pedaling on the flats with the wind at my back. You can only imagine what it was like when I had to turn around. At times I felt dirt blowing into my ear canal and likely being embedded into my brain. But, well, I survived and made it back in time to shower and rest a bit before hitting the town again.

They had some decent weather and lucked out with warmer mornings than we've usually had around here, and they flew off just in time for Tucson to get its first measurable rainfall for 2011. I was on the couch and suddenly heard this noise outside, looked out the window and yep, pouring rain. It didn't last that long, but it was definitely the first real rain I've seen, aside from a few drops here and there.

I enjoyed their visit but I was also ready to be back on my own again. It's funny, but when the training volume gets really high and suddenly your afternoon naps get wiped off the schedule, you can get pretty exhausted! Actually, to the point where I think it was Tuesday night that I literally went to bed at 7:45 and slept ten hours. I felt a lot better after that, but definitely after all of the training this week there have been some naps involved.

Oh, I also got some long-overdue new running shoes. I went down to Fleet Feet and it was great. I haven't loved a pair of shoes in a while and I keep trying different things, unsuccessfully. But they fitted me in a pair of Pearl Izumis that I must say I am loving so far. It's been years since I loved a shoe from the first run, so that's promising.

Yesterday was the first legitimately cloudy day we've had here, where the sun was pretty much completely absent. And of course, another windy long ride for Saturday. It wasn't as bad as last week, but it seemed to be in my face a lot more and start a lot earlier in the ride. It caused me to ride seven minutes longer than scheduled and let me tell you, on a day like that, that seven minutes can feel like an eternity. It was also chilly the entire time because of that cloudiness, but at least I was dressed for it.

Ok, that brings us to today. This morning I woke up at 3am due to the sound of unbelievable wind and what I thought sounded like rain at the time. All I could think was, I hope it doesn't stay like that, and then I went back to sleep. Well, it didn't stay like that. Somewhere in there the wind died, and then things turned into this:

That is my little patio, all covered in snow. I had seen the snow in the forecast and figured it couldn't possibly get to me. Well, it did. Later on, I went and got this shot:

Yeah, I was not thrilled to see any of this. I will say though that it did show me how sensitive the snow is to the elevation here, because while I'm at about 2300' at my condo, this was about 2700' and there was quite a bit more snow there. It made me feel better when I got back. Of course, all of these mountains were just pure white first thing this morning and I think by noon they already looked just like they did yesterday. So, while I was not happy to see snow, the very thing I came here to avoid, I was at least able to look at it and think it was pretty, only because I knew it would be gone almost instantly. And because it's going to be close to 80 degrees for most of the rest of the week. Sure did mess with the big golf tournament going on here right now, though!

So, now it is time for a rest week! I have to admit, while the last one I had I didn't really feel was all that necessary, I am dying for this one. But it made me realize how little time I have left in Tucson. I have five weeks, but two are rest weeks which means I have only three real weeks of training left here. Of course then I will begin my California/Florida adventure, so in that sense, still lots of time left. For now, I'm just hoping that the snow stays where it belongs!

A little detour

2011-02-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

I decided to take a little break from Tucson. And I mean little. A few weeks ago I thought to myself, hmmmm... maybe I should take this opportunity to go out to Los Angeles and visit with my cousin's family? I could have a little scenery change of pace for some of the training, go back for the first time in eight years, visit with family I don't get to see very often and have some actual human interaction, which would be a nice change of pace. So a little e-mail exchanging and here I am.

It's a little under 500 miles, which now to me is hardly a big deal at all after coming all the way across the country. Plus, it's a lot more desolate highway with high speed limits, so it actually only took me a little over six hours to get here. Plus a nice time zone change meant it was more like five hours. I lived with these guys for a while when I lived here, so it's nice to be able to come back. Also, it meant that I got to ride my bike on the Pacific Coast Highway for the first time since I moved back.

So yesterday I had the bike in the car and off I went to the coast. While the weather in Tucson has been sunny and such, it hasn't really been that warm. I'm not complaining, because 50 is certainly better than 20, but when I ride in the morning in the desert air I've still been stuck in tights and long sleeves mostly. Well, not the case out here. I parked where I always used to, right by Sunset Boulevard, hopped on and started riding north through Malibu.

Now, I tend to enjoy riding my bike mostly, though like anyone, there are times when I just don't feel like it and am not that excited about it. I couldn't tell you the last time I enjoyed a bike ride the way I did yesterday. I didn't want it to end. It was sunny and in the 70's, riding along the ocean with trees and mountains and lots of other cyclists. Sure, there were lots of cars, but trust me when I tell you that it is a small price to pay. The entire time I was thinking that everything about this trip might be kind of dangerous because I'm not sure how I can ever spend another winter riding my bike in the basement and running through snow and ice under fifteen pounds of winter clothes.

I don't remember ever seeing quite that many cyclists out when I used to ride out there, and certainly not so many tri bikes, but as you can imagine, there were lots and lots of bikes out. The surfers were doing their thing, beach volleyball, and quite a few stand-up paddle boards, which definitely wasn't a big thing last time I was here but has really exploded in popularity.

Everything about yesterday made me just immensely glad that I had chosen to come out here this winter. I feel the same way in Tucson, but you just sort of fall into a routine after a while and stop thinking about it as much. I had to keep reminding myself that it was February and not June. I really needed this trip. I think a lot of times I think about what I should be doing or what I shouldn't be doing, and what I'm basing those on, I'm not sure. But most of the time you really have to sit back and think, wait, why not? I realize that I am in such a position where it's easy for me to pick up and go somewhere for months at a time and not leave behind kids or anything like that, and a lot of people just don't have that freedom. As long as I've got it though, I'm going to take advantage.

That is another reason why I think I've decided to extend my little trip a bit. The plan was to race Oceanside and then drive back from there the first week of April. Well, we have this QT2 training camp coming up in Florida about a week and a half later, and I was thinking to myself, why drive back and then fly down to Florida so soon after? Why not drive to Florida and then drive home? So that's what I think I'm going to do. I'll stay in California for a week, drive to Florida and do the camp, and then drive home. I might even stop off in DC on the way back and visit another cousin I don't get to see that often. And maybe then the snow will finally be gone. How often do you get an opportunity to do something like that? I don't think that often. So, I'm taking it.

Well, another day in Los Angeles and then back to the desert tomorrow. My mom and my aunt are coming to visit this week so that should be nice. You know, eating dinner in front of the TV is nice and all, but six weeks of almost strictly that and I think I'm ready for a break.

Superbowl Sunday

2011-02-06T15:53:00.000-08:00

Ah, here it is, Superbowl Sunday. The big day where most of America parks in front of their TV's wearing their football jerseys, screaming at the TV and may or may not be more interested in the commercials than the game. Myself, well, while participation in sports has always been a big part of my life, I don't make for much of a spectator, especially when I'm not at a game live.

Most of the time when I was growing up we'd head over to Nana's house and sit in the aptly named "Big room" and watch the game on the big screen TV. She had a big screen TV long before everybody had a big screen TV, so it was a big deal then. And sometimes I'd bring a movie to watch upstairs. My mom would make what she calls her "white trash chili" in which she is selective about whom she shares the recipe with, since it involves Campbell's tomato soup and ketchup. I have to admit, it's pretty darn good.

Superbowl Sunday was one of Dad's favorite days, as you can imagine. Sometimes he'd take me skiing at Cannon since it was two-for-one day. Then he'd park himself in front of the TV and watch as much coverage as was available. Sometimes he'd go to Nana's, but sometimes he'd just stay behind because he not only wanted to watch the game in its entirety, but he wanted to listen to the game and not have the commentary be overshadowed by other people in the room who have no clue about football and ask those kinds of stupid questions that people tend to ask when they have no idea how the game is played.

He was a die-hard Pats fan from the time they were a team in the NFL. He and my uncle Bob, Dad's twin brother, had season tickets way back in the day and my mom still has the stubs. I do believe that the entire season was just over $100. But you see, for a long, long, long time, the Patriots were terrible. But he stuck it out. We were actually on a ski trip to Colorado when the Patriots went to the Superbowl in 2002, and we had t change our tickets home because we were due to fly back during the game. He was only disappointed that he couldn't watch the local news coverage all day since we stayed an extra day. Coming home early would've made the trip too short. It's too bad he's missing his favorite day, although it's not so great that the Patriots screwed up so badly. In fact, my brother said to me that one good thing is that Dad wasn't around to see that travesty of a game. Good point.

Ok, enough about that. My rest week is coming to a close and I can only say GOOD. Don't get me wrong, I needed it and I appreciated it, but just put yourself in my shoes for a second. Yes, I'm in great training weather and able to focus on pretty much nothing but training, eating and sleeping. But, yeah, there is nothing but training, eating and sleeping. You take away a lot of training hours, and suddenly you're left with a lot of empty hours in the day. And I have seven TV channels, essentially. Well, seventeen, but three are shopping networks - yes, seriously, three shopping networks - four of them are in Spanish, one of which actually tends to show some pretty awesome movies, unfortunately dubbed in Spanish, three more of them are of the C-SPAN or other news variety, meaning I would never watch them, and one is PBS. That doesn't leave with a lot of day-to-day entertainment options. It's a good thing I brought an arsenal of my DVD movies as well as all episodes of 30 Rock available on DVD thus far, which I could easily watch over and over again... and have.

So, needless to say, I am ready to get back into a more consistent workout routine again. I am glad, however, that my rest week coincided with that freezing cold spell we had here. Seriously, they can't handle that kind of cold here. There was a gas crisis in part of town and some people are still without heat. I've already become a cold weather wimp. At least it looks like we are going to be back to normal this week with temperatures in the 60's and 70's. Phew.

Hmmmm... what else? Well, a good chunk of time today was spent cooking some food that should carry me for much of the week. After overdosing on turkey and pumpkin chili in the first couple of weeks I was here, I took a break and am ready for some more again. I froze some though so I don't have to eat it every day. I also made some chicken tortilla soup, although there weren't actually any tortillas involved, just kind of a nice, spicy flavor. Although in all honesty, the two recipes were awfully similar, a lot of the same ingredients but only a few alterations. Hopefully I won't get bored with them. I also cleaned a lot so basically I've set myself up so that I have almost nothing outside of the usual to do over the next few days. Oh, good.

I guess that's about it. I should start paying attention to this game (we're in the first quarter, still nothing to nothing) and of course the commercials. One good thing about watching by myself: nobody is trying to get my to buy Superbowl squares or anything like that. I never win crap like that. Ok, time to pay attention.

Yes, it's even cold in Tucson

2011-02-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

I realize that this post is unlikely, to garner sympathy from anyone based on what the weather is like in much of the rest of the country just consider it more of a commentary on the weather rather than me complaining about it.

First of all, this blast of cold weather had perfect timing for me since it was a rest week with a lot less training than normal and only three days where I had to get in the outdoor pool instead of six. I will say that it has been somewhat amusing to see the reaction on the news just because it's going to be 20 degrees at night. To be fair, this almost never happens, so when it does it's apparently a big deal, but they are treating it much like those wonderful New England weather men who like to update you throughout the day during a storm in case you hadn't looked out your window recently and didn't already know that it was still snowing. Schools have even been canceled. Yes, just because it's cold. Ok, so it has to do with the fact that the pipes are frozen and there is no heat or water, but still. Yeah, their pipes freeze when it's 20 degrees. Can you imagine if that happened in New England? I will say though that waking up to a 42 degree living room isn't that fun, but fortunately the heater works.... I just have to turn it on!

I have to admit though that already I've become a wimp when it comes to the cold. Barely more than a month ago I wouldn't have thought twice about hitting the road for a morning run when it was 18 degrees out. Suddenly I just can't stand the thought of it. And it's not that I don't have the gear for it, because I had the foresight to pack clothes for just this kind of situation. I just don't want to have to use them! I also didn't bring a particularly warm jacket with me. But even when it was 30 during the day, the sun did make it feel pretty warm.

I will say that on the days I have swum this week it has made a great difference in lane availability. Not that it's usually amazingly crowded, it's just that there seem to be a lot fewer souls willing to bear the cold weather to get in. I'm honestly not really sure why. The pool itself remains toasty warm. I feel worse for the lifeguards who appear to have been wearing every piece of clothing they own. Although getting in and out while walking on ice and changing in an outdoor changing room with icicles coming off the faucets is slightly less than inviting. As was that big sign out front informing me that "Toilets and showers are frozen." Fortunately, After a quick change I was home two minutes later and in my own warm shower.

Hmmm... that's about it, I guess. I continue to cringe every time I see more bad weather heading to the northeast, knowing how I'd feel if I was there. Except maybe I'd be getting some good skiing in, not sure. I'd probably mostly be watching bad movies on the trainer in my basement and wondering why I do what I do. That's about it from here, a little training, a little freezing, and a little boredom.

One month down, and still no rain

2011-01-30T13:49:00.000-08:00

It's kind of amazing to me that I've been here for a month already. Even better, this week I really felt like I was making progress. That is especially good considering the fact that over the past, um, many months I've felt as though I was going nowhere and sometimes even going backwards. I can't tell you the last time I saw a 1:25 run on the schedule and didn't approach it with absolute dread, but that was finally not the case this past week or so.

Swimming has even been going well, which is another amazing feat considering the fact that back in 2004 I made some great strides in swimming, as evidenced by the fact that that year at Timberman, after the race my father told me that he could no longer pick me out of the crowd of swimmers from fifty yards out in the water because I no longer looked like a flailing mess. My Ironman swim time then was better than it was this year, and pretty much the same as it's always been. So to see some good splits in the water is quite encouraging.

As for the bike, well, that's coming around, too. It's a very different kind of terrain than what I normally ride. Back home it is usually quite rolling, punctuated by some sharp, steep climbs and maybe a few slow, steady ones here and there. Here it's either flat or very long sections of slightly up followed by very long sections of slightly down. I'm sure I could find some serious climbs, but I believe the temperature is in the 20's atop Mt. Lemmon right now, so I think I'll wait on that. Anyway, the point is, biking is starting to feel pretty good, too. Biking has always come pretty easy to me, and while the first bunch of rides out here were less than stellar, the last couple of rides I've gone on have been quite encouraging. The only annoying part is that my heart rate is pretty low which means I have to work a lot harder. Annoying at times, but also means that I'm becoming stronger and more aerobically fit, so I guess I'll deal with it.

These first four weeks were all big training weeks, so I am very, very ready for a rest week. I'm definitely getting plenty of rest between workouts because I don't really have anywhere else I need to be but my legs are definitely starting to feel the cumulative fatigue of the near-100 hours of training I've put in over the past month. But it should also be noted that coming into this season I don't think I've been more well rested since I started training in the first place eight years ago or whenever it was. Maybe nine now? Of course I did not enjoy the reasons for the extended physical and mental break, but as a result I just don't feel the same kind of burnout I'd been feeling for quite a while. I don't think it's normal for me to be able to say that when I'm doing weekly six-hour long rides in January already, but even yesterday I felt like I easily just could've kept on going.

The last time I did this, coming out to Arizona to train, I was coming off what was and still is my most successful season ever. I thought it was going to kick-start even more improvements and set me even further ahead. Well, it didn't. I got a little bit overly focused on high expectations and wound up being disappointed in my race at Ironman Arizona. When I look back on it now, it seems ridiculous that I would've been disappointed in a result like that, but I was. But I also remember starting up with that big training in January when I was in Phoenix and wondering why the heck I was doing so much so early in the season. I was already burnt out after racing Lake Placid, Hawaii and Clearwater and not really taking a break at all. It's nice to be starting out much fresher, even if I am way less fit now than I was then.

Also, in case I hadn't mentioned it before, I vastly prefer Tucson to Phoenix. I picked Phoenix last time because that was where the race was, so why not train on the course? The truth is, find any stretch of barren, ugly highway with a slight incline and maybe that goes past a dump and you have the Ironman Arizona bike course. You don't need to train on it to do well on it. There are no tricks or turns, just desert. Not even pretty desert, really just dirt. But on that trip I did ride my bike down to Tucson one weekend and decided immediately that I'd picked the wrong city, and I knew if I ever returned, that was where I was going to go.

I still see on the news every morning how bad the weather is back east and it makes me wonder how I ever make it through with my sanity. This week alone I spent over 16 hours on my bike. Can you imagine trying to find 16 hours worth of entertainment to fill the time while pedaling nowhere in your basement? I've already exhausted almost every movie I ever even thought I might want to see on Netflix. I vastly prefer the outdoor version, even if it means that currently I am sporting a tan only on the lower half of my face. It remains to be seen though whether or not I make this a yearly event.

Now, of course Tucson isn't perfect. Like I said, some of the roads are in pretty bad shape and there is an extraordinarily large amount of broken glass scattered on the shoulders of the roads. Not to mention the dead coyote I've been riding past in the same spot all month long. Oh, and while the outdoor pool is nice and all, I did just see that it's supposed to be in the 20's at night this week due to a little cold front, which means I will be getting in and out of the pool and using the outdoor (well, unheated, of course there are walls and stuff) changing room for my morning swims. That's not going to be super fun. But, well, I suppose I shouldn't complain too much. After all, it still hasn't even rained. Supposedly it might tomorrow, but we'll see.

Anyway, everything is just going really well. I spent most of my last excursion like this sort of waiting for it to be over, and this time I'm just sort of amazed at how fast it's going by. My mom and my aunt are coming out to visit in a couple of weeks which should break up the trip nicely. Maybe I'll even venture by car past the 4-mile perimeter that includes all of the grocery stores and pools I need. Whole Foods is four miles away, Trader Joe's is two, and any number of others are even closer. The pool takes about a minute and fifteen seconds to drive to. I might walk there, but you know, there's a big hill and the fact that it's really cold in the morning. Besides, even with that I still haven't had to put gas in the car since the day I arrived in town. And I believe I already told you what terrible gas mileage the Xterra gets.

I apologize once again that there are no pictures to go along with this. When my mom comes I'm having her bring my camera cord so that you can finally see where I've been. Hot air balloons every Saturday morning when I start my ride, mountains in the background, pretty sunsets, not bad. Don't get me wrong, I love New Hampshire, but I'm currently really, really glad that I came out here. Especially when I almost changed my mind back in the fall. I saw four coyotes this morning on my run again, all separately at different times. Considering the fact that back home I've come across bears these little guys seem a lot less intimidating, and equally as uninterested in me.

I guess that's about it. Very excited for my rest week and my once-a-month day off. I just have to come up with something interesting to fill that time with. So far what I've come up with is washing my sheets. Very exciting. I never said I led a glamorous life, but it's getting me back in good shape which is really the entire point of this excursion.

New swimsuit and warm weather

2011-01-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

Last week I had an 800 time trial in the pool scheduled for Tuesday. I pushed as hard as I could and wound up with a time about a minute slower than my best. Now, while that time would usually come well into the season after lots of speedwork, being a minute off seemed like a bit much. I recorded the time in my log, noted it was slow, but my coach told me it was not bad. After all, it was about 15 seconds faster than the one I did last month. But then I thought to myself, maybe it's just time for a new swimsuit? So, after my workouts on Wednesday, I made my way to Sports Authority and checked out which suits were on sale, found one in my size and took it home.

Thursday morning I hopped in the pool for a set that began with an 800 steady. So, off I went. And, without working particularly hard, that 800 was a bit faster than my all out 800 on Tuesday. Yep, sometimes all it takes is a new suit. And I know you're wondering, and I saw the old suit in the mirror and it didn't look that bad, it was just that the outer layer of fabric had really started to create sort of a parachute effect, apparently. But at least swimming has gotten a lot easier now and that suit is definitely in the trash.

What else? Well, I have been watching the news in the morning and noting how much of what I'm seeing is based on the weather and how unbelievably cold and snowy it is all over the country. Then I look out my window and wonder why I ever bother to put up with that. Ok, I get it, I enjoy a good snow storm every once in a while and didn't even mind the blizzard that occurred right before I left to come out here. Actually, it's probably good that it postponed my trip a day to prevent me from getting here too early. But when you log onto facebook and at least four of your friends back home have posted pictures of their car thermometers reading -9 or whatever and you go swim in the outdoor pool and know it's supposed to be 70 again today, well, it's hard to argue that this is the much better place to be right now.

I honestly almost feel guilty about it, even though it's not like it's my fault it's so cold there and it's so warm here. Of course, the trade off is that you have to remember I am completely alone out here. I'm doing fine with it so far, although I know eventually it will really start to get old. But hopefully by then it will be time to come home, and I'll get a bit of a reprieve because my mom and my aunt are coming to visit in February. I think after all of this next winter my mother might be the one who spends next winter somewhere warm. Seriously, if all you have to do is find somewhere warm to go, why do we even put up with it at all?

Other than that, lots of training going on, of course. Also on my run yesterday I got to add coyote to the list of wildlife I've come across while training. At this point there's not a lot left for me to run into. Fortunately he did not appear interested in me at all, and after we made eye contact he just trotted off leisurely in another direction. Been logging lots of miles on the bike, a decent amount on the run and lots of time in the water. I will say that I am definitely looking forward to my rest week next week, though. Although I do notice that I definitely am much more aware of how alone I am on the days with less training, but maybe I'll try to think of something fun to do.

Anyway, that's about it. Enjoying the warm weather, not feeling like I'm missing out on the snow and cold and training, training, training.

Tucson is much warmer than New England

2011-01-18T16:11:00.000-08:00

I have toolbar on my internet browser that includes a little weather icon that shows me the temperature and a sun, clouds, rain, snow, whatever the weather may be. Of course it was originally set for New Hampshire, and I didn't bother to change it when I got here. On Saturday morning I woke up and saw that it was two degrees out. By the end of my long ride it was in the low 70's here. And today, when once again it was snowing and sleeting and freezing raining back home, it was about 75 on my ride. That's actually a bit unseasonably warm for this time of year around here, but I will definitely take it.

So, as you can imagine, things are going pretty well. It's quite apparent based on the weather reports and 20" of snow in one storm that I made the right decision by coming here. I'm already working on my funny tan lines, most notably the one on my face, where you can certainly tell which part of my face is covered by my helmet and sunglasses on every ride. I'm getting used to riding the rough pavement that is the only downside really to riding in Tucson. It's not the entire ride, but some good stretches. I've found some roads that have made me feel like I'm the only person left on Earth, been chased by a couple of stray dogs, and on Saturday mornings I usually see some hot air balloons out for a ride early in the morning.

Of course, I'm sure everyone has heard by now what happened here in Tucson just over a week ago. I was long gone on my bike ride and had no idea anything was going on until I returned that afternoon and turned on the TV. It's definitely strange to think that that morning when I was riding out that shooter was at the Walmart down the street trying to buy his ammunition. And a reporter came by the pool one morning because apparently the judge who was killed swam there in the mornings, and the little girl who died was also a member there. Both of their funerals were at the church about a half-mile down the road from me. In fact, an ill-timed run of mine had me dodging hundreds of early arrivals and news vans.

Anyway, enough about that. I'm sorry I don't have pictures to upload. More accurately, I don't have a way to upload them. I will say that it is pretty here in a very different way than New Hampshire. And I like it a lot better than Phoenix. I had a decent swim this morning and a good ride this afternoon and now I'm very much enjoying having my feet up. Yep, things are going pretty well.

Almost a week in....

2011-01-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

Well, so far I am enjoying my stay in Tucson. I am sure I am happier here than I would be if I had stayed at home through the winter. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to be glad when it's time to come home, I'm sure, but for now, this is a good change for me. It's nice to be able to go and ride outside. It's a little rough in the mornings when I wake up and have to strip down to my swimsuit on a pool deck when it's 35-degrees outside and the lifeguards are dressed how I would be if I were going skiing in below-zero temperatures, but of course once I'm in there it's fine. And since the drive is two minutes, when I'm done I can be home and in a hot shower in no time!

I really lucked out too with the condo I found to sublet off Craigslist. Of course, that kind of "shopping" can be risky, but in my case it worked out quite well. Except for one, minor thing.... the guy left behind his fish. Ok, not a big deal, right? This was one of those bullet-proof goldfish that somehow had been thriving for the last 14 years. I had a goldfish once when I was a kid. I won it at the school carnival and it died after a few weeks, like most goldfish tend to do. We gave him a proper burial at sea; and by that I mean we dumped his bowl in a nearby stream rather than your typical flushing him down the toilet burial. We had a dog and a hamster who fared better, but that was my only experience with goldfish.

I know that sometimes there are freakish ones who do live a long life. I had a friend in high school who had a goldfish that she had gotten in the same fashion that I did, winning it at the carnival. Except her fish lived for something like ten years before it finally died. And for some reason I've yet to figure out, they kept it in the freezer for a while. So I was told that the fish would be here, but he was only fed once a month and I wouldn't have to do anything to take care of it. The guy I'm subletting from had a change of plans and wound up not leaving town, but fortunately still honored our agreement and was letting me stay here while he stays somewhere else for the duration, and he would be able to come by once a month and feed the fish. Good, nothing to worry about there, right?

So maybe a grand total of 36 hours after my arrival, I walked by the fish tank and noticed that Lovie (yes, Lovie) was lying on the bottom in the corner. I don't know a whole lot about fish, but I am pretty sure that that is not normal fish behavior.... at least not when they're living. So, great, the freakin' fish is dead, pretty much the minute I moved in. This was reminding me of the Bubbles the hamster incident in November all over again (though Bubbles would've been a much more appropriate name for the fish, no?) I am apparently the new angel of death. And come on, even I was wondering if I'd done something based on the fact that the fish died almost immediately upon my arrival, in spite of the fact that all I'd done was walk past it a few times. The guy I'm renting from thought nothing was wrong when I first e-mailed him, apparently the fish gets pretty inactive once he eats and gets full. I knew different.

So, finally, after a couple of days and the fish finally floating to the top of the tank the way that most dead fish tend to do, it was finally accepted that after 14 years (how many is that in goldfish years?) Lovie was dead. I offered to take care of it, because frankly, it's kind of creepy having a 6-inch dead goldfish floating in the aquarium every time I walk in and out of the condo. So I took care of the memorial services (flushed him down the toilet) and had a brief flash to that episode of the Cosby Show when they had that nice funeral for Rudy's goldfish. Maybe I should've gotten dressed up?

So anyway, aside from that little incident, things are good here. The weather has apparently been unusually cold, but for someone from New Hampshire, when it's in the 50's in January, we consider that a good thing. But temps have gone up and the mornings aren't below freezing anymore. Training is slowly picking up, not feeling great yet, but who feels great in January? It's nice to be able to focus on nothing else.

So, with no more pets left in the house to die, it should be smooth sailing from here on out, right?

Welcome to Tucson

2011-01-04T16:38:00.000-08:00

Well, as you can imagine by the fact that my last post was a few days ago and only 200 miles from Tucson, I made it. I opted not to get up at dawn for the mere 3-hour drive and instead took my time and wound up arriving around 2:00. Oddly, there was snow on the ground much of the early part of the ride and into the Arizona state line, but fortunately it was gone by the time I got to Tucson. Once again the drive was painless, and although the weather wasn't normal Tucson weather as it was only in the 40's, the sun was out and of course it is due to warm up, so I wasn't concerned.

First step was going into my new condo. I found it without issue, and thanks to Google street view I knew what to look for. I found the place from an ad on Craigslist, which we all know can be risky, but seems to have worked out ok. Turns out the guy I'm subletting from has a sister who lives about 20 minutes from me back in New Hampshire, so she was the middle man in the key/money exchange, which was nice. Also made me feel pretty secure that I was probably not giving the guy a check only to get scammed.

So anyway, in I go and the place is quite nice and has a great view. I really wish I could show you said view, but I forgot the cable that downloads the pictures from my digital camera to my lap top, so it will have to wait until I maybe go buy a new one. I do want to keep this interesting and share some nice pictures. But I can't just yet. Of course even though the drive was as painless as could be considering the duration, and I really hadn't felt that tired, it was like as soon as I arrived I felt exhausted and the prospect of unpacking the car felt like someone had just asked me to do a double Ironman. But of course, it had to be done, so I lugged three months worth of stuff upstairs. At least I tend to pack light, so probably brought less than most might in my situation. I did bring my cold weather riding and running gear, though. I packed similarly when I was in Phoenix in '07, and while the majority of the time it's pretty decent, I know that sometimes it can get pretty cold.

At that point I was torn between collapsing and the fact that I had no food with me. The thought of getting in the car again seemed awful, but it had to be done. At least there is a Super Walmart right around the corner. I saved the big shopping for later and opted just for some essentials to get me through a day or two. Then it was time to collapse for a bit. On Sunday I ventured out for some workouts and signed up for where I'll be swimming for the next three months. There is a YMCA less than a mile down the road with a gorgeous outdoor pool. To top it all off the place is $30 a month cheaper than my gym back home and there was no joining fee due to a January special. I feel silly signing up for a new gym on January second, I feel like saying no, I swear it's not a resolution thing!

So I was set and ready to go. Yesterday morning I was up bright and early and drove the 3 minutes down the road to the Y and hopped in the pool. The pool itself is a nice 82 degrees, although the 30-degree air is a bit rough when it comes to getting in and out. Still, a small price to pay when you get to swim under the stars. I realize I could've waited until later when it was warmer, but that's not the way I like to do things. A nice weight workout and I was done early for the day and ready for some more serious grocery shopping.

Today it was back to the pool again and then I had a pretty substantial ride to get in. Of course I didn't really know where to go, but I'm pretty good at Google. So I searched Tucson bike routes, found a couple that were near enough to where I live and off I went. It's not incredibly warm here just yet, maybe in the 50's, but as long as the roads aren't snow and ice, I'm probably doing pretty ok. And to top it off, I didn't get lost! I nearly lost a water bottle that was pointed out to me at a stoplight by a passing motorist, but otherwise it was a good start. The roads here are not exactly in the best condition, but again, the weather is decent which is a lot more than I can say for things back home. And the roads were pretty quiet, which is obviously a good thing. So the beginning of my adventure is going pretty well. Only 12 weeks to go.

New Year's Eve in New Mexico

2010-12-31T18:58:00.000-08:00

I have driven a lot in the past few days. I believe at this point right around 2400 miles. If I had timed things differently I could actually already be in Tucson, but I can't get into my condo until 1:00 tomorrow afternoon so I figured I might as well stop and have an extended rest somewhere and not be driving.

It seems that I do my driving in much the same way that I deal with long trainer rides or bike rides. I start early enough that it's like you're not even awake enough to notice the first couple of hours. That, coupled with crossing time zones on occasion makes it seem amazing to me when I do the math and realize I've already been driving for six hours or whatever the case may be. Day 1 began super early. I had set my alarm for 4:45 to be on the road at 5, but I woke up at like 3:45 and couldn't fall back asleep so just decided to get up and leave. I was in Pennsylvania by 8am after having crossed New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. Of course then the states get really long.

One of my best friends from college happens to live just over the border from PA in Ohio who I only get to see every few months, so I figured why not take the opportunity? I got there at about 1:30 and was a great house guest initially as I almost immediately went and took a nap. That was about 640 miles on day 1, although I was thinking to myself that had I kept going I probably could've made it past Indianapolis.

Day 2 began about the same, this time I slept until my 4:45 alarm and was in the car 10 minutes later. I did this drive four years ago with a friend and I knew that time we almost made it to Indiana on day one and then got west of Oklahoma City on the second day, so my goal was to close the gap. Which I did. I figured it would be 1000 miles and obviously a lot of time in the car, but I was also gaining some time with a time zone change, the weather looked good and the speed limits increase as you move west, so I had high hopes. That, along with the fact that I am very efficient in my stops which include less than 10 minutes at each gas station in which I fill up, use the bathroom and buy whatever available to eat in the car and continue on my way. Efficient? Yes. But I'm sure it would annoy anyone else who might want to join me.

Day two involved a lot of state line crossing again, but all much bigger states. Ohio to Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma. I left blizzard conditions to drive into what looked like well-worn snow, and that second day began with some light rain that turned into real rain through Indianapolis and a bit in Illinois before it was just overcast. The snow slowly but surely disappeared and the temperature steadily rose. This wasn't so much because I was slowly heading south, there was just a front of unusually warm air moving through the middle of the country. It wound up being nearly 70 degrees at the warmest points of the day.

One thing I definitely noticed driving across the country is that there are trucks everywhere. And they drive me nuts. Why? Because they are always trying to pass each other. It's just like in a triathlon when on the bike the guy in front of you is trying to pass someone, except he won't complete the pass and move over and you get stuck. Another anomaly I found was that while the speed limits steadily increase as you move west (75 in Oklahoma and west) it seems like people actually start to drive slower. In New Hampshire it seems that while the speed limit is 65, everyone is driving at least 75. Here, the speed limit is 75, yet someone is in front of me in the passing lane going 65. What is wrong with you people? At times on I-44 especially I would come across what seemed like a dozen trucks all bunched up, some passing each other, and taking a while to get around. But the further west I went, the less traffic there was and the less of an issue anything was.

You'd think that driving 1000 miles by yourself for over fifteen hours might start to drive you crazy. I don't know why, but mostly it didn't really bother me. I never said to myself, man, I can't stand being in the car anymore! Initially I was nervous because I don't think I've driven more than 4 hours or so by myself, but it's been fine. And something tells me that it will continue to be fine for the final 200 miles. I guess I'm just used to spending lots of time by myself, so why should this be different?

So last night I had made it through Oklahoma City and it was about 7:00 (8:00 from where I'd left) and dark and I finally decided to stop. I actually felt fine to keep going, but my mother had called and my phone was roaming and I couldn't answer it, so I figured I'd better stop and call her so she wouldn't think I was stranded by the side of the road somewhere. So I got a room in El Reno, Oklahoma and didn't realize how tired I was until I actually stopped and lay down.

Unwittingly, we hit I-40 and made it several hundred miles before somewhere in Texas, of all places, the roads were completely covered in ice. There was a bit of snow on the ground, about the same amount that we'd hardly even notice in New Hampshire. But the roads were just a complete sheet of ice. It was bright and sunny at the time, but cold. There weren't a whole lot of other cars on the road and we just had to drive probably 30mph for a while until finally we hit New Mexico and the roads cleared up. I'm guessing the problem came from the fact that it's likely they just don't have the amount of plows and salt trucks that we do.

So, we thought we'd made it through the worst of it. We'd stopped at a gas station that said that 40 had re-opened from the day before. We never even knew it was closed. So we kept driving... until the traffic just stopped. So we sat there for a few minutes before realizing that this wasn't just slow traffic, I-40 had literally become a parking lot. The thing that was strange was that at that particular spot there was no ice and the roads were fine even though there was snow on the ground. But apparently that was not the case further west, and the interstate had been closed.

I don't know, this seems odd to me that the interstate just closes like that. We've had some pretty crazy snowstorms back home and the interstate doesn't just close. You just have to drive slower. So after sitting and not moving for a couple of hours and fortunately having Olive Garden leftovers in the car, my friend Kate had made friends with some of the truck drivers who were going to lead us on an alternative route so we would not me stuck in New Mexico indefinitely. Finally we were led off a nearby exit by the police and we proceeded to follow two semi trucks and a couple of other cars from the northeast who also happened to be heading for Arizona.

I really have no idea how we got anywhere. We were on dirt roads passing nothing but an occasional farm for probably 100 miles. Once we hit pavement we lost the truckers and had already come across a couple more roads closed due to snow, but fortunately I can read a map so I was able to navigate us the rest of our new alternative route. This included going through Roswell, New Mexico. I saw no aliens, but I can understand why they chose that particular spot. You just go miles and miles through nothing and then suddenly there is this random city there. I think if you wanted to go to the "next town over" you'd have to make it a day trip.

So the last time we did that, that was a very long day. And this time I was determined not to wind up in that same predicament. So I took out my lap top and very quickly found out that I-40 was unbelievably, once again, closed for about 80 miles in the exact same spot as last time. Is this normal? Does it snow there all the time? Does the road just close anytime it snows? Why does it always snow there when I am supposed to drive through it? I think there is some global conspiracy that is trying to keep me from ever seeing Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was unclear whether or not the road would be open the following day, but I decided that the last thing I wanted was to find myself stranded on the interstate for hours or days or whatever. Granted, there are enough Powerbars in the car to keep me alive for at least a few weeks, but still.

So, right off the bat I devised a new route from my hotel down through Roswell once again but minus the scary, dirt back roads with no names that aren't on any maps. The funny thing was, when Google maps gives you the options, of course it usually shows you the interstate routes but also sometimes gives you some options. Oddly, the second choice route, which happened to go through Roswell and avoid all of that closed roads business, was about 100 miles shorter and was estimated to take less time. Why was this not the first option? It was like taking the hypotenuse of the triangle, and I was ready for that different route.

I slept in a bit more and didn't hit the road until 5:40 after one more check of the weather and deciding that, no, I wasn't going to risk going I-40. The road conditions looked slightly iffy where I was headed, too, but no sign of road closures, which is of course what I was most concerned about. So off I went. The first couple of hours in the dark were a total blur. I think the sun was up by the time I crossed into Texas. I had a brief concern when I burned through an entire tank of gas in a mere 150 miles, where it had normally been about 240 or 250... also sad as the Xterra gets terrible mileage. My Sentra gets 350 miles to a tank and holds six less gallons! Anyway... I realized just before I pulled off to get gas that while I had the cruise control set, for some reason it was sort of stuck constantly accelerating with high RPM's, which burned through the gas fast. So I had to pay attention to that the rest of the time, but fortunately that was the only 150-mile tank of gas.

The worst part about that gas stop was getting out of the car. It was nearly 50 degrees when I'd left my hotel in Oklahoma. It was about 24 in Texas and WINDY. Maybe the 40mph headwind didn't help the gas mileage, either. I passed the restaurant in Amarillo that serves the 72oz steak and totally would've stopped to try it if it wasn't 8:30 in the morning at the time. (no likely; I haven't eaten 72oz total of steak probably in the last ten years) And that was where I got to defer to my new route. I-27 to... other roads. On the map they look like total back roads, but they're almost exactly the same as the interstate. Four lanes, medians, 70mph speed limits. I couldn't figure out the downside.

I guess one thing was that at times I seriously felt like I was the only person left on Earth. I mean, there was nobody anywhere, no houses in sight, no buildings, no cars.... just road. In Texas it was incredibly flat and then suddenly this one, big mountain showed up in the background and a whole bunch more weren't far behind that one. I did make sure that this time I didn't wait until the gas tank was near empty, but rather stopped at almost any gas station I found because, well, you never knew when the next one was going to show up. Fortunately I never came close to running out.

I'm very curious to know how bad the snow was a bit further north and whether or not the road was closed again because where I was, you never would've known anything had happened. If I ever drive this way again I would definitely choose the route I drove today, because it was no big deal at all. It was great, actually. It did progressively get colder, down to 17 degrees (I thought I left that behind!) and at 6000' there was some snow, but we're talking an inch or two, and nothing that slowed down what little traffic there was. I saw some houses in some interesting places in the middle of nowhere. How do you grocery shop? Do you even get electricity? And a couple of the post offices... how do you staff something literally in the middle of nowhere?

So, after winding through the mountains of New Mexico and leaving the little bit of snow just as quickly as it had shown up, I was down the other side and found myself 700 or so miles from my starting point yesterday in ten hours. I love you, 75mph speed limits. I opted to stay in the exact same hotel as the last time I drove through here, and stopped just before 3:00 mountain time. Obviously I could've kept going... heck, I could've made it all the way to Tucson by now, but I can't get into my place until tomorrow afternoon and I've been pushing and pushing the last few days, so why not take some extra time to sit down and relax and maybe get a full night of sleep? Plus a nap? It's still freezing cold and windy, again, exactly like the last time I did this, but it should warm up in Tucson in a couple of days.

So, this is where I spent New Year's eve 2006 into 2007. 2006 was an amazing year for me. By far the best in recent memory and honestly, possibly my favorite ever. '07 wasn't as great, but not bad. Now, I wouldn't say this if it wasn't true, but 2010 was, by far, the worst year of my entire life. I don't think there is any particular other year that I would've considered bad as a whole. Some not as good as others, but none that were just plain bad... until now.

First, the clearest example as to why 2010 was awful: my father died. That in and of itself is plenty, thanks. I can't tell you how often I think about how much I still just can't even believe that happened. And it's probably going to be another 9 months of "first time" things without Dad. We had the first Thanksgiving and Christmas, not looking forward to the first summer without him, but we've probably talked enough about that kind of thing...

So the tri season. Oh, the tri season. Wow. We're talking epic bad. In 2008 I had a horrible season also, but this one surpassed it by leaps and bounds. I set new personal worsts in several categories and pulled off my two worst Ironman finishes by far (1 and 2 hours slower than the previous worst) one of them with more time on the marathon than the bike and the other one darn close. I somehow only did 1 half ironman this year and while that one wasn't the worst one I'd ever done, it was still just generally not a good experience. I had my worst 5K, slower than my best Ironman marathon pace-wise (there's a real feat, isn't it?) worst 10K, did manage to avoid my worst half marathon. Two years ago when I had that other rough season due to injury I at least managed to pull out a win at a really small sprint race on the lake. Not only was the race that day a complete disaster for me this year, but of course that was the day Dad got in his accident, and otherwise would've been out on his bike that morning instead of watching me suck at racing. I did finally remember that there was actually one bright spot to the year as far as racing goes, and that was the BTTITT (Boston Triathlon Team Indoor Time Trial) back in February that I managed to win. I got there late because I got a little lost and I seem to excel at racing without warming up. I got a pair of Oakleys out of that deal, definitely my best prize for winning a race and the shortest duration of effort for the wins. 10 hours for your win? Have some Ironman socks!

There wasn't a whole lot else specific that sucked about this year, at least not that I can think of. But in general I just wasn't quite my usual self. Maybe I knew already it was going to be a bad year so I was pre-emptively depressed. Yeah, that's it. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to moving on from here. That is why I am in New Mexico right now, almost at Tucson for a winter of being focused on nothing but training. I felt a little bit guilty when I packed up the car and left the snow behind, and I don't think I'll need to do this every year (my best season came about after suffering through the snow and cold) but for now, I need a change of venue, a clean slate and a fresh start.

Somewhere along the line things started to go in the wrong direction, and that's where they keep going. What is that saying, that the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing but expect different results? Yeah, that. So, warm weather, different training grounds, a totally fresh way to jumpstart my 2011. I've got a lot riding on the next three months. One thing that definitely happened the last time I trained in Arizona: I definitely got in really good shape. While the race at the end of that stint was a disappointment, that was the fault of race execution and maybe slightly too-high expectations (looking back now I'd just about kill to have a race like that again!) I'm hoping that this one will end on a higher note.

So that's it, now I'm going to sit back and continue watching this Saturday Night Live marathon on VH1 before I fall asleep. Do we really get to start over completely just because the calendar says so? I'd kind of like to be able to start 2010 over again and do it better (and lock my dad in a closet on September 5th) but I guess we just have to take what we've got and move on, right?

Hope everyone else has a great 2011.

Leaving in the morning...

2010-12-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

I will post about Christmas later, but for now, just a quick note that I am finally leaving for Tucson in the morning. At first I thought I'd leave the 27th, but that seemed kind of early so I decided to leave the 28th. Then I woke up yesterday morning to the blizzard and decided to give the roads an extra day to clear out from the mess and am now, honestly leaving in the morning. It doesn't seem real. Again, I did do something similar in 2007 but that time I went with someone and I think it is just now dawning on me that I am about to spend several days in the car by myself and another 3 months the same way. Well, the idea anyway is to just completely focus without distraction, so I guess I am at least set up to make that happen.

After spending some time braving the wind and cold I have to say I am not sad to be leaving winter behind this year. I don't think I'd want to skip it every year, but I was just about to go completely out of my mind last year, so I think this will be good for me. The car is packed, gassed up and ready to go. I am, unfortunately, driving a bright yellow Xterra for the next few months. My brother wound up with my father's car (my sister and I both decided we didn't want it and didn't mind if he took it, being given a car is one thing, but having to pay to maintain it and put gas in it is another entirely) and my mother seems to think it is a bad idea to drive a 2001 Nissan Sentra across the country, so '04 Xterra it is. Strangely, the Sentra has less miles on it. I think I often ride my bike more miles in a year than I drive my car.

I will try to post often, hopefully with some pictures of the fun I will be enduring over the next couple of months. It will be an experience, for sure, just hoping that it is a fun one.

Christmas

2010-12-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

Ten days to go. As usual, I started to feel complacent since I did a small amount of my Christmas shopping kind of early (for me this means the beginning of December). But then it's like I forgot that I have several people left to buy for and not a whole lot of time in which to do it. However, I have at least learned that the mall on Christmas eve isn't crowded at all. I will do what I can to make sure that a Christmas eve trip is not required, but, well, at least I know it's an option.

And, hey, I've got one less person to buy for. And in looking through some of Dad's stuff I did happen to discover a shirt I bought him for Christmas last year, still all neatly folded with the department store cardboard inside it. I've bought him clothes in the past that he has worn, but apparently missed the mark last year.

So, let's state the obvious that I am not looking forward to Christmas all that much this year. I mean, who looks forward to the first holidays without a parent? Especially one who left way too early? Now, I do think it could be harder than it probably will be. Dad was always more of a background figure at the holidays. Every Christmas of my entire life has been spent at my mother's mother's house, and my mom has a whole lot of brothers and sisters who are a whole lot more vocal than my father ever was. Dad was never one to talk unless he really had something to say, and he definitely wasn't one to fight for attention at a table of thirty or so Irish in-laws. In fact, back when we had a dog he used to use that as an excuse to make his quiet exit.

Of course, just in our house, he was a major player in the Christmas morning rituals. My father used to get up at like 4:30 in the morning every single day... except Christmas. It used to drive me and my brother insane. I'm sure at some point it bugged my older sister, but by the time I was old enough to remember this kind of thing, she was old enough to not be quite as enthusiastic on Christmas morning.

My brother and I shared a room for a while when we were younger, and even in the years after I had moved into my own room I would usually sleep in the extra bed in his room on Christmas since he was upstairs and "away from Santa". It just seemed wrong to sleep on the same floor that Santa would be coming on. I rarely slept at all on Christmas eve. I just remember lying awake all night and wondering when it was going to be time to get up. We never went downstairs until everyone was up and we could go down together.

I don't know what time it was that my brother and I would start knocking on my parents' door to get them to wake up so we could go downstairs. I like to remember that it was more like 6, but Mom tells me it was a lot earlier than that. Either way, it always seemed that we couldn't go down until closer to 7:00 when they finally got up. Again, my mother I think tells me that they probably relented a lot earlier than that, but I know it wasn't 4:30, Dad's usual time to get up, which was what made it frustrating.

My sister would come upstairs and we'd wait impatiently until Dad finally led the way downstairs, to the right of which was the living room complete with the Christmas tree and three large piles of presents. They were never under the tree, we each had a designated spot. And we weren't the kind of family that sat around and watched each person open a present before moving onto the next person. It was just a free-for-all of ripping through the paper as fast as possible to find out all of the stuff we'd gotten. Then, when the dust settled, we'd go around and see what everyone else had gotten.

Eventually we'd sit down to breakfast and Dad would make freshly squeezed orange juice. This was all long before we'd finally go over to the chaos at Nana's house, where aunts, uncles and cousins made for a very full house and plenty more presents.

Obviously Christmas hadn't been exactly the same anymore, at least not the beginning part. It still winds up very similarly at Nana's, except now there are great grandchildren. I think this will be Christmas #54 at that house. We now go to my sister's house mostly to see the kids and their toys, because Christmas really isn't much fun unless at least somebody gets toys or is excited about Santa.

So, that was what Christmas used to be all about for me and my family. It's obviously not going to be quite the same. You know, a lot of times I can sort of ignore the whole thing because hey, it's not like he'd be around right now, right? Well, you can't really ignore it at Christmas.

2011 begins tomorrow

2010-12-05T16:59:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the beginning of my training for the 2011 season. I had a good conversation with my coach about a week ago and we have laid out what should be a very busy schedule, but hopefully a good one. I have to say, at the moment I feel so far removed from any racing that it might as well have been years ago that I set foot on the start line. In fact, it was three months ago today... and that was also the day of a pretty horrible event, but let's not get into that right now.

So my key race for the year will be Ironman Cour D'Alene. I have to admit that when I heard this was the race that most of my fellow teammates would be doing, I wasn't really that excited about it. I don't know why. In fact, I wasn't going to sign up for it. But then, when it came time to figure out my schedule for next year, I couldn't really figure out which other race to target. There was always Utah again, but let's just say that although someday I would do that race again, I'm not incredibly anxious to revisit the sight of the longest time I've ever spent on a race course. And that was with perfect weather. Just imagine that course with less-than-favorable weather conditions!

I guess there was that new race in Texas, but that didn't really spark any interest in me either. There was always Lake Placid. But seriously, that would make it my eighth year in a row going there. Isn't that just a tad bit excessive? While it is the sight of my greatest triathlon accomplishment it is also the sight of my most bitter disappointments. So, what was left? Cour D'Alene. Ok, so I guess I'll be visiting Idaho for the first time in my life.

Aside from that there will be a lot of 70.3's which will be nice because just as I was typing that I realized that I did exactly... ONE of those this year. The plan for next year? If all goes as scheduled, five of them. That's a bit of an increase.

Also on the docket of course is that three months I'll be spending in Tucson. I can't believe that I will be leaving in three weeks. I need this excursion right now more than anything. I don't think that at any point in my starting to do these races that I have ever felt like less of a triathlete than I do right now. While that is certainly the case, I can also say that I have probably also never been more rested than I am right now. Usually I finish up a season with an Ironman when I'm exhausted and sick of my bike and never want to drink Gatorade again for the rest of my life. I couldn't tell you the last time I had some sports drink.

So, this could all be a really great place to start or a really terrible one. I don't know. I'll let you know in April. Actually, hopefully I will be a much better blog updater when I get out there. If for no other reason than to make those of you riding your trainers while it snows outside insanely jealous. That, and I'll be there by myself, so what else do I have to do while I'm not training?

So tomorrow is the beginning of what I guess I can consider my last chance season. If it goes well, fine. Good. Let's keep at it. If not? Well, I don't know yet. But hopefully I'll never have to figure that out.

Disney World, Philadelphia, and it's almost Thanksgiving.

2010-11-24T16:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I have been a terrible blog updater. But lately the posts have bordered on more than just mundane, so I laid off for a while. But recently I actually had some slightly interesting events, if you could call them that. Last week I went down to Disney World. I always enjoy a good trip to Disney World and it lets me act like the big kid I still am. We went a few times when I was growing up, then I went with a few friends in college, and then we did another big family trip down there last May when I actually managed to squeeze in 26 hours of training around long days in the parks by getting up between 3:30 and 4 every morning, swimming in a smaller-than 25-yard pool, biking in the dark on a 2.4-mile loop over and over and over and over again, and running in the dark in circles. Hey, you do what you have to.

This time wasn't quite like that as I had minimal training to get in that could be taken care of by awakening at much more sane hours and also riding the spin bike in the hotel gym. This is one of the only times I am glad for my current training focus on running.

Anyway, I'm going to admit that although I know I love it down there, I wasn't super excited to go. I mean, when things aren't so great in life you're not that excited to do all of the fun things you usually love. But it was really just the distraction I needed for a bit. I went down and met up with one of my best friends from college and her husband and kids. They are in the Disney Vacation Club and has some use it or lose it points and asked if I wanted to join them. Let me think... ok, yes. Between planning the trip and going on it, Heather discovered she was pregnant with child #3 so unfortunately that meant no extreme rides for her. But fortunately for the rest of us, it made the decision of who stayed back with the 3-year old and the 16-month old that much easier. We'll just have to go again later when she can do the rides.

I might be unwilling to divulge this secret for fear that it might get out, but I figure even if the seven of you who read this take advantage of it I'll still be ok. But the week before Thanksgiving is a fantastic time to go there. While the parks seemed to have lots of people walking around, there was never a line for anything. I mean NEVER. A few times we got fast passes but never wound up using them because it wouldn't have made the wait times any faster. I don't think I'd be able to tolerate Disney World if I had to wait more than 10 minutes to ride anything. I honestly don't know why you'd even bother to go if you knew it was going to be crowded. Why spend all that money when you're going to spend the majority of your time in lines? I managed to do the Everest rollercoaster four times in the span of maybe 15 minutes. Finally they stopped even bothering to make me get off. Space Mountain? No wait. Thunder Mountain? No wait. Splash Mountain? Tower of Terror? Aerosmith rollercoaster? Yep, get right on. It was great.

It was also probably the only time I've been ok with Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. Some of the lights were incredible. Although the music just felt weird, being in shorts in the warm sun and having it feel like summer. So if you get the chance to go then, I'd highly recommend it. The weather was also perfect, which made up for the last time I was there and it rained literally the entire week. Record setting, worse than a hurricane, almost 20 inches of rain that week. At least we dind't have to worry about sunscreen. But anyway, had a great time, hung out with some friends, enjoyed some good weather and then came back.

Except I didn't fly back to New Hampshire. Instead I flew back to Philadelphia to watch my friends Kevin and Trent run the marathon there. They drove down on Friday and were due to pick me up at the airport. I kind of knew in the back of my head not to expect them on time, so I found myself a nice little corner with a comfortable chair and got my computer out and killed three hours until they got there. Hey, as long as I can stretch my legs and stand up whenever I want, I'm fine.

Once they picked me up we headed to New Jersey to stay at Kevin's friend's house since they were actually at Disney World just then. There was a note to feed the hamster, and Kevin told us to look around and see if we could find the hamster food. Then he called us into the next room to see if we saw a hamster in the cage, because he definitely didn't. Great, so we're thinking there is a hamster roaming around loose in the house and I started looking for any little debris on the floor because when I had a hamster as a kid that was how we always found her when she got out.

Eventually Kevin had texted his friend and he said that she likes to burrow down underneath all the fluffy blue stuff lining the bottom of the cage. So, fearing that we might get a little hamster bite to the finger, I started digging around using the eraser end of a pencil. Finally I uncovered the white, furry little body burrowed way down at the bottom. So great, she's not loose in the house. But not so great, she's also not moving at all. A couple of more forceful pokes with the pencil confirmed it: Bubbles is dead. Great. Lesson learned, kids: if you're going away from home, have someone feed your hamster in less than a week. I mean, maybe it was just her time, but there was no food in that dish when we got there...

So that minor trauma ended and we tried to watch a movie but fell asleep instead. Got to check out the Philly expo the next day and see a bit of Pennsylvania and only made it back to the house in time to eat dinner and go to bed. I was glad not to be racing, but not glad that I was sharing a car with them and would have to leave just as early as they did. At least we had managed to secure gated parking at an office building right close to the start line. And it wasn't that cold of a morning, which made the spectating that much easier. But it was definitely one of those mornings where when my alarm went off I had a few moments of, where am I, what's that noise and why do I have to get up right now?

The race was a success for both Kevin and Trent and as usual Kevin could hardly walk afterward while Trent sauntered down the street was no big deal. To be fair, Kevin went 2:55 and Trent went 3:08, so maybe once Trent breaks 3 hours he will have equal trouble walking back to the car. We immediately got out of town and after a quick stop to pick up our friend Leslie in New Jersey we finally headed home. We were even home at a decent hour, and I was afraid it would be like 11 at night when we got back, but before 7 was perfect.

So that was my big, exciting week that made me feel all well-traveled. I relish any opportunity to travel without my bike. In fact, all I had was my backpack so I didn't even have to deal with baggage claim. So now here I am, waiting for Thanksgiving. And I'm trying not to think too much about how this is the least I have ever looked forward to Thanksgiving, ever. By far. Aside from the one time I stayed in Los Angeles for the holiday, this is the first time I have to have Thanksgiving without my father. Most of the time we have celebrated it with my mother's family, which is big and loud so Dad was more of a background fixture rather than the one running the show. But that will probably only make it a little bit easier. You see, for a while now it's been kind of easy to just convince myself that well, Dad wouldn't even be here right now with me, so what's the big deal? There is no denying that he would be there at Thanksgiving dinner, no matter how much he would've rather stayed at his lake house and watched football all day. We will miss you tomorrow, Dad.

I'm Officially Wintering in Tucson

2010-11-10T06:57:00.000-08:00

So, I think I might have mentioned this before, but I am going to be spending the winter in Tucson. I don't remember exactly when I decided it. It might date all the way back to my 10th long ride last winter done alone in my basement when I had finally seen every movie ever made, including all of the really bad ones, and I thought I was finally going to go insane. Whenever the decision was made, of course it never quite seems that real until you finally set up accommodations for when you get there.

Well, thanks to the power of craigslist, I will be subletting a place in northwest Tucson, a bit out of the city, from a guy who is going away for the winter. This is great because it means it is not really a vacation property and in a way I'm doing this person a favor as well. Plus, the location looks great, it's next to a golf course which leads me to believe that it is in a nice neighborhood, and according to Google maps, it is half a mile from a YMCA with a gorgeous outdoor pool and plenty of lap swim hours. In short, I think it's just what I had in mind.

This is exactly what I need on so many levels. Obviously things have been a bit different in my life, we're still getting used to the idea that Dad is never going to be around again. And admittedly right after that incident occurred I thought to myself that there was no way I was going to go away for the winter. But time passed, and you know what? It still feels like it's what I should be doing. So I am.

This is not my first winter of escape. In 2003 I was living in Los Angeles. That wasn't for the purpose of escaping winter but rather my brief attempt at having a career in the film business. Believe it or not, that is actually what I went to college for. Unfortunately, the summer before I left I also did my first triathlon, and the rest is history. But anyway, I also decided to go out to Phoenix for the winter of 2007 in preparation for Ironman Arizona which back then was run in April. I left my real job and headed across the country for what I considered to be the beginning of an amazing training experience.

Well, when race day came around, although I was swimming and biking faster than ever before, I may or may not have tried to power through the hideous winds that kicked up on the bike course and somewhat sabotaged my run. Of course, my marathon time that day is probably one I'd kill for now even though at the time I considered it a huge disappointment, and the overall time got me first in my age group and the Kona slot that goes along with it, but at the time, that wasn't good enough for me.

But anyway, sometime during that fun outing I rode my bike from Phoenix to Tucson and realized very quickly that I'd picked the wrong city in Arizona to live in. While Phoenix isn't entirely terrible, at least from where I was living, I was pretty much forced to drive my bike 20 minutes away from home and park somewhere to get a decent ride in. On occasion I'd ride from my condo, stopping at lots of lights, riding briefly on the paved canal paths, then stopping at more lights. But it was close to an hour of slowly getting out of town, which meant I'd spend an hour slowly coming back. That is not the kind of riding I wanted to do. And maybe for some people they don't mind driving their bike somewhere and riding, but that has never been of interest to me. I like to get ready to ride from home, open the door and start pedaling. And, fortunately, I think that this time I've gotten myself a place from which I can do that.

Having all of the details worked out makes it seem like much more of a reality and makes me much more excited about it. I don't necessarily mind winter... until Christmas is over. Then I'm sort of done. I actually do enjoy skiing. But I can't tell you the last time I went skiing that I wasn't with my father, who was always initiating trips to Cannon Mountain and when I worked for him sometimes he'd actually make me take a day off in the middle of the week to go with him. Needless to say, I don't know that I'd be going skiing this year even if I did stick around.

So off I will go to warmer weather. I really need to do this, I think. I need the complete change of scenery. I need to be in a place where I can just focus on the training and not worry about anything else. I need to be free from distraction. I used to be a lot better at getting myself through the training with other things going on, and I think that once I get back into that mind set, I'll be fine with it once again when I come back. But for now, I just need that little push in the right direction.

Because you know, if things don't turn around again next season, I don't think I can do this anymore. I mean, this is sort of what I want to do with my life. Or at least what I want to do with it until I get too old and ruined to do it anymore. But I can't keep going back and forth from having decent seasons to bad ones for no good reason. I completely respect the fact that there are so many triathletes out there who just want to go out and race because they enjoy it and don't really care what the outcome is as long as they finish. I'm just not one of those people. If I can't do it well I don't really want to be wasting my time with it. So, I've got a lot riding on you, 2011. Let's not mess this up.

Some ramblings

2010-10-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

It seems wrong that any triathlete with a blog wouldn't comment on this whole Ironman Access Program debacle that transpired over the course of 24 hours. When the e-mail popped up in my inbox, I went down the list of 'benefits' thinking to myself, huh, that's interesting, I guess. Then the final line listed the price at $1000. Are you kidding me? Um, no thanks. Now, to be fair, had it been listed at a lower, more sane rate, chances are there would've been too many people lined up to snag those 'slots'. But making it $1000 to join this exclusive club insured that nobody would sign up unless they really, really wanted to... or $1000 just isn't that big of a deal to them. Probably both.

I will say that although I found the whole concept a little ridiculous, knowing it was simply a way for them to make $1000 per entrant in return for... nothing. Did anyone have to pay for their subscription to Lava magazine? Any of us who's done one of their races this year already got a free subscription simply for signing up for one of their events. I'll stop there, because you've all heard the arguments, but I will say that I never expected there to be the amount of angry, keyboard happy triathletes as there were. If only we could start collectively working to make them lower entry fees or at least keep raising them so much, and stop letting so many freakin' people into their races.

Now, I've got my own opinions on this, but I don't want to go off on a big rant about it. I will say though, that as far as the apology and the cancellation of the program goes, I cannot for the life of me figure out how exactly this was supposed to solve the supposed 'problem' of people signing up for multiple races and only showing up at one or two of them. Had the program meant that these people could get into events up to a month before hand, well, that would make sense to me. Giving them one week in advance to ensure a spot, to me, doesn't mean they wouldn't sign up for more than one event. I don't think most of the people who choose to do this are doing so because they are afraid if they wait to try to sign up for IMFL, they won't get in because it will fill too fast, so they might as well at least make sure they get into Louisville. I am sure that some of these people do this, I just don't believe for one second that it is anywhere in the vicinity of 2500-3000 athletes as they claimed.

But ok, so what if it did fix the 'problem'? What they are telling us now is that they are taking registrations and filling these races to capacity, but then suddenly race day comes and there are 400 no shows. Of course some of these are injuries and some are family issues or deciding they hadn't trained enough or any number of reasons. And I'm sure some are people who decided to do Ironman Lake Placid instead of Cour D'Alene because they had signed up for both. Sure, like maybe five or six of them (and that's being generous).

The thing is, they allow a certain number of entrants knowing full well what to expect in terms of actual racers when the day finally comes. So, are we expected to believe that freeing up these 'unused slots' for people who were shut out of registration is supposed to be a benefit to anyone? For anyone who did Lake Placid this year (and probably any number of their races) the thought that the course could've actually supported the three thousand entrants is laughable. This was my seventh time at the race and I'm sad to say that it might be my last. Just because you have room for 500 extra bikes in transition in 2010 as compared to 2009 doesn't mean that it is a good idea to have that many of them out on the course. And don't even get me started on the swim.

So, apparently this 'solution' was going to mean that there were going to be less no shows and even more crowded courses. And if you've done any of these races lately, and especially if you have been doing them for several years, you will know that the courses can't get much more crowded without calling it a parade instead of a race.

But you know, a lot of things have changed since I started racing. It makes me feel like an old-timer or something when I can start to say things like, "Back in the old days..." Yes, the 'old days' of 2002, when I first got into this crazy sport. I'd just turned 23 and decided to try one of those Danskin all-women's sprints. I hadn't discovered internet forums (where mostly you spend time reading about all of the things in the world you are supposed to hate and be enraged over) and trained based on a little book I found in a real book store. I didn't wear a wetsuit and it wasn't out of place. I used a road bike without aero bars and it wasn't a big deal.

Also unbelievable about that first year was that I signed up to do the Timberman half... about 8 weeks before race day. Just try getting into a race like that two months before now. Plus, I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $130. And I think I came home with more SWAG that year than any other year since, even though the price has ballooned to almost $300. I get inflation, nobody can get around that, but are we expected to believe that the cost of putting on the race has doubled in 8 years? Somehow, I doubt it. Especially with literally 2000 more people contributing to the pot. Yes, that first year there were something like 800 racers. The bike course was a bike course, not an obstacle course.

It's not just race entry fees though. It is everything associated with the sport. I raced for two seasons on my dad's old road bike which I finally had to get rid of because the bike shop told me it was going to rust through. I bought a new road bike and tossed some aero bars on it. I never even considered something like race wheels. To me, that seemed like something only the rich people in the sport bought. Now? It's like you can't even show up at a race and not have race wheels without feeling completely inadequate. In 2005 I went to Kona for the first time and I am pretty darn sure I was the only bike on the pier without race wheels. I aws only 26, surrounded by other people in my age group. Where did these people get that kind of money? Race wheels were about as much as my bike.

The $5000 bike seems more like the minimum you have to spend to get a nice bike anymore. But 7, 8, $10,000 isn't really unusual either. I know, you can always buy cheaper, but it just seems to me like now you can't even sign up for a race without at least looking the part, including a really nice tri bike.

Oh, but now let's talk wetsuits. I did my first season without one because I didn't get what the big deal was. Ok, I also didn't know I was going to become addicted to the sport and fortunately both races I did had very warm water, so I just had to suffer through my 45-minute half Ironman swim without one. When it became apparent that I was going to start racing indefinitely, I decided to get a wetsuit. My first wetsuit, which was brand new, was $129. Sleeveless, but still not a bad deal. I still have it and there still aren't any tears in it. I do recall that back then the top-of-the-line wetsuits for each of the major manufacturers ran about $400. I got a message in my inbox the other day that XTerra's new top-of-the-line wetsuit is $750, and I suspect that many of the other companies will be similar.

I don't expect every wetsuit to be under $200, but again, I just find it hard to imagine that the cost of producing these things has gone up so much in the past few years. Oh, and the best part is that these new, expensive wetsuits seem to only last a season or two before they rip or the zipper just pops right off.

And then there are run shoes. I guess that a lot of them haven't changed that much, but everyone is being roped into thinking they need to spend $180 on run shoes every 3 months. Fortunately, you can still find good deals and really all you need to go running is some shorts and a t-shirt, so running is at least relatively safe.

So it's not just signing up for these races that has gotten more expensive. I guess the truth is that I wonder if I was 23 and starting the sport now, would I even be able to get into it? Could I afford it? I can barely afford it now, but fortunately my most expensive pieces of equipment were the result of sponsors. In the case of my race wheels, that sponsor's name was Dad. Someday I probably will have to buy a new bike, but I am not looking forward to shelling out the money for one.

A lot of this stuff just makes me less and less excited about racing. I have some great friends I've made in this sport, and it is always fun to go meet several other questionably-sound people to swim in a lake in New Hampshire in October, or ride over the Kancamagus Pass in April when it's 40 degrees and raining in the middle of a 7-hour ride or run the toughest 14-mile route you can find just because you can. But I feel like those aren't the people I'm seeing anymore when I go to these races. Not the majority, anyway. I don't know, maybe it's just turning into another "thing to do" because people have the time and the money and they want a good excuse to eat lots of carbs. It just doesn't feel the same anymore and it makes me wonder if I would've been as excited to be a triathlete if I had waited 8 more years.

So... what now?

2010-10-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

It's Columbus Day weekend, which is usually a pretty nice weekend in New England, complete with tons and tons of tourists checking out the foliage. This was the first Columbus Day weekend I've actually been home since 2004. Because that was the last time I wasn't in Hawaii. I didn't get to cross the finish line in Kona every year. I qualified in '05, '06' and '07 and raced and finished. I had a bad year in 2008 when I was injured but I went to spectate anyway. Being there as a spectator was actually kind of a nice change... until I saw the finish line and knew I wouldn't get the chance to cross. I decided I'd do what I could to get there again the next year.

So I did. I qualified last year, except 4 weeks out from race day I found myself walking home on one of my last long runs with a stress fracture. I continued to train and actually thought going in that I'd finish no matter what, even if it meant walking 26.2 miles. I made it to T2 and sat around for probably 20 minutes before I decided to just call it a day, and once again was left without finishing. 2010 was supposed to be the comeback once again. Except it wasn't. I had no injury excuses, I just wasn't in it mentally. So I did two Ironman races which were the two worst performances of my career, out of 12 finishes. Not really moving in the right direction there.

I thought about going to spectate again, but well, you know, stuff happened and I stayed home. I will at least say that it was an amazing race to follow online. I was disappointed in the lack of Chrissie Wellington, but also got to see some amazing performances from both men and women out there, as well as friends and teammates. So many going sub-10, lots in their first appearance there, and of course Cait running her way up to 8th overall with the second fastest women's marathon ever recorded there. Not a bad day. Wish I could've been there with you guys.

But, can't do anything about what's happened this year, all I can do is try and take control of what's going on next year. I feel like I'm in the worst shape I've been in for years, but it is certainly not the worst shape I've been in ever. We always have to start somewhere, it's just a lot easier to start from a place where things are easier. You ever dig yourself into what feels like an insurmountable hole? That's what I feel like I'm in now. But watching the race coverage yesterday made me remember how much I love being there and how much I missed not being there. My parents hadn't been out there to watch me since 2007, and had already talked about coming out next year. Obviously only Mom can come now, but I still want to get there.

Sooo... what's the plan? For now, just trying to get in some semblance of shape. I had originally planned on running a marathon in a few weeks, but as you can imagine, a lot of plans changed. A couple of weeks of no running made that not such a great idea, so instead, we are just training to train. After Christmas, I'm going to get in my car and drive across the country to Tucson, where I plan to live and train for 3 months. Well, assuming I can find a place to live. Anybody have any leads? I could use some ideas! And the only two races I'm signed up for as of now are California 70.3 in April and Ironman Cour D'Alene in June. I guess I'll fill in the gaps later, but that's what I'm in for to start, anyway.

So, that's the plan. Trying to find that athlete I keep seeing in pictures from a couple of years ago that is hiding somewhere in here. Getting the dedication back. My father loved watching me race and I don't think he'd be happy to know that I stopped, so I better keep at it.