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.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Christmas and Christmas Eve Outdoor Riding
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!
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!
Monday, December 19, 2011
QT2 Holiday Party and Coach Meeting
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!
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!
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Weekend Away: Army/Navy Game
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?
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:
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?
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Threshold Test Fun
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.
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.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
First "Race" of the Season
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!
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!
Monday, November 28, 2011
Update and I Know Where I'm Going for the Winter!
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.
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.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Planning for Winter: Where to Go This Time?
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!
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!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Still Moving Forward... I Think
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!
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:
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!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Week One: Complete
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!
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!
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Kona day!
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?
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.
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?
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Goodbye, Marley
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 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 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.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
A Fresh Start... Again.
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 :(
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 :(
Thursday, September 8, 2011
One Year Later
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)