Sunday, June 30, 2013

Clothing Cleanse

Most of the morning I spent going through each of my drawers and trying on all the clothes to make sure they fit. I was sorting them into 3 "groupings:" 1) stuff that fit (depressing since it was so little due to my fatness) ; 2) stuff that should go to charity; and finally 3) clothes that had a connection but do not fit anymore. The frightening point is that even though I have 4 bags of clothes designated for charity I still have plenty of clothes to wear.

I have yet attack the closet but that's on the plan. I also have the garage to attack but that has a real deadline as our garage door recently broke. The estimate to fix it is about the same to replace it. It is almost 20 years old so I think we got our money out of it. The downside is that they said we need to move all my bicycle stuff so that they can do the replacement. I think I may have more bicycle stuff than every day clothes, even after the cleanse.

This reminds me of the saying regarding spin class denizens. When you see them in real life the thought comes to mind of "I don't recognize you with your clothes on." You know what that means but it when said out loud it can mean something unintended to many.

Do you have too many clothes? How often do you cleanse?

Sunday, June 23, 2013

The weekend in review

After my whining post from the the other day (link omitted on purpose), here's what actually happened at Lake Placid in Fireman Ironman:

  • I wanted to swim on Friday night in Mirror Lake and I did. I brought all 3 of my wetsuits hoping one would fit. I was fairly sure my sleeveless would fit as I bought it when I was first getting into triathlons (read when I was fat) but I first tried on my sleeved wetsuit because the water was rumored to be in the high 60s. IT FIT! Hurray for minor miracles. A bunch of LITC/TRE folks and Mandy from the Internet jumped into the lake and we were off. I swam a total of about 25 minutes and declared success even though I crashed into a stranger in the middle of the lake (that always seems to happen to me). I had some aches in my shoulder/pec/ribs that I was hoping not to have so I need see a doctor after I figure out what kind of doctor to see.
  • The next morning was to be the long ride. Most of the people who were dry-running IMLP were in for two laps. I originally hoped for one lap but struggled with my fitness from the get go. I decided to bail early, invented a very short cut, climbed the bears, and went to take a nap. All in about a 90 minute ride but I declared it a FAIL. I had lots of aches and no power nor fitness. No training with less hills will do that to you.
  • Instead of eating a rubber chicken at the Fireman Ironman talk my friends convinced me to join them for a steak. We saw the 32oz Prime Rib called the Algonquin that was calling our names. I ordered one and didn't finish it. This steak was about 3" think! Call it a push.
  • Sunday morning I was up early and although it wasn't raining it was very wet outside. I decided to run instead of ride through the puddles. One lap around Mirror Lake according to the Couch Potato was perfect to end the workout portion of the day. WIN.
Then I packed my stuff, ate some breakfast and hit the road back to civilization. Traffic cooperated but overall I hoped for more this weekend. The good news is that I came up with a plan. Stay tuned as the plan will be revealed over the next few weeks as I execute the steps.

Friday, June 21, 2013

I don't know a f****n' thing.

On my way up to Lake Placid today I was alone in the car driving for about 6 hours. Although there were periods of singing along (in key, of course) to the songs on the radio and that singing was loud, it did give me time to thing without a lot of distractions. The net of this soul searching was the title of this blog entry.

But Rock Star, you know stuff. Most of it is useless but there is a gem often hidden in the muck, right? You've done all sorts of events, coached people in endurance sports, got certifications and licenses, have hundreds of people working for you in real life, you have patents, you even worked on the Space Shuttle back in the day you real life rocket scientist. You must know some thing even if it is simply how to wipe your own ass.

If I knew anything why would I have gone up to Placid without being properly trained? Because I rationalized it. I convinced myself that I knew something and there are exceptions to the rule and because I did it before I should be able to do it again and, and, and, (you get the picture).

In summary, I've been listened to the voice in my head. That voice, I determined during my drive, knows nothing. It doesn't know when things are going good or when things are going bad. It keeps telling me not to train because there is plenty of time to make the training up but there isn't. When something hurts it convinces me to shut it down so I don't get injured rather than having confidence to tough it out. It rationalizes the amount of food that I eat and tells me that in spite of all evidence to the contrary I'll be about to lose a gazillion pounds almost instantaneously. All wrong.

So, what to do?

I'm here in Placid looking at Mirror Lake. I've brought all my stuff even though I doubt my wetsuit will fit. The bipolar voice in my head keeps telling me that I will amazingly gain all the fitness necessary to be amazing but then it changes its tune rather quickly and rather often. The new tune is a variation on a requiem.

I originally went into this weekend with the plan of swimming a lap (1.2 miles), biking at least a lap 56 miles on Saturday and see if Sunday mixes in a run or a swim or another shorter bike ride before the drive home. My new plan is that I'm going to try a bunch of stuff and see how it goes.

What that stuff winds up being will determine if I should listen to myself or perhaps revalidate the need for a coach to be that voice. Either way, the weekend will have value.




Thursday, June 13, 2013

Smarticles

There are times where I feel I am smarter than most. There is a cause for this and a cure for this. The cause, besides ego, for me is often when I find myself surrounded by idiots. My cure is to surround myself with people who are, ahem, actually smart. The crux of this problem is figuring out who is actually smart when everyone is an idiot. Everyone.

I used to consider myself really smart. Not valedictorian smart like my wife was before I met her but more of the lazy flavor of smart. I got decent grades in school without much effort. I was able to be successful in technology stuff not by working so hard but by it just making sense to me. I was reminded that I still am fairly smart in that area as I gave a talk yesterday where the audience (yes there was an audience) lined up after my talk to continue the conversation and actually pay attention to my ramblings. In other parts of my life, though, I feel I'm more of the lazy flavor of dumb than the lazy flavor of smart. Lazy comes from the training that I should be doing but am not. Why not? Dumb not.

I'm not training like I should be and I think a cure for that would be to surround myself with people who are training like I should be. The catch, not 22 but there is always one, is that most people do not train like I do. I'm slower than most. I'm definitely fatter than most. But I can do what I can do.

Next weekend I've setup the whole weekend of training already in Placid. This weekend, with the seemingly monsoon like rains we've been experiencing, I'm planning on riding Saturday and some sort of run on Sunday. (I am breaking a cardinal rule of blogging here by talking about what I am going to do versus what I have done but I'm already on the dumb way to hell so what's the risk?)  Any smart people want to join me?


Monday, June 3, 2013

Indications of training.

Tonight I swam. Like in a pool and everything. It wasn't a long swim, only 30 minutes and about 1000 yards, but it was a swim and I'm hoping this could be the beginning of a "thing."

Earlier today I decided to go to the Fireman Ironman training camp in Lake Placid in just a few weeks. I'm expecting that I'll be able to swim a loop of the IMLP course on that Friday, bike a loop and perhaps a little more on Saturday, and finish up with weekend with a short run on Sunday after I swim another loop in Mirror Lake.

I think I learned my lesson last weekend. I won't be able to swim 1.2 miles without some swimming beforehand. So, why not try some actual training? There still could be issues with fitting into the wetsuit but that's a worry for another day.

I also ate healthy-ish today and wrote down everything I ate. If I keep this up a little more it might mean that I really am training.

Stay tuned.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

The Ride to Montauk (in bullets)


  • I haven't done a lot of training this year
  • The last I was on a bike was 3 weeks ago.
  • Longest ride this year has been 50 miles. 
  • Somehow I didn't think this would be an issue.
  • This ride had 73 and 109 mile choices.
  • I chose 109. Should have chosen 73.
  • Summer decided to start this week with temps breaking 90 on Thursday and Friday.
  • Saturday was supposed to be not as hot.
  • Woke up without a cloud in the sky.
  • Up at 5am to met the TNT LI cycle group for a 6am departure. 
  • In typical TNT timing, actually left at 7:15.
  • Serious cross wind and sun beating down. Getting hot early.
  • Realized I missed some key spots with sun tan lotion.
  • First 30 miles was great. Rest of the ride less so.
  • Didn't have any endurance (surprise!) but kept going.
  • Lots of aches and pains since I wasn't used to being in the saddle this long.
  • At the 3rd rest stop (76 mikes) decided to get in a SAGmobile to the end rather than slog it in. Could have finished with a high physical cost.
  • Still think this was a wise choice.
  • Waiting too long for the stragglers so got on the bike and rode the last 6+ miles.
  • All in, 82 miles.
  • Fairly happy with the 82.
  • Realized, though, I have to actually train. Can't wing it any more.
  • Had only one free beer at the end.
  • Enjoyed scamming a way to ship my bike back to civilization.
  • Not feeling so bad today (the day after).
  • Looking for more rides to do better.
  • Think I'll do the FiremanIronman training camp. One issue is that I'm swimming less than riding.
  • There is an obvious solution to that. Just need to do it.