And so it begins. Again.

I decided to end my blogosphere hiatus of a sort. I'll be reading less blogs, commenting less frequently, and probably not posting as much as I had in the past. Sorry, but this is all about me.

A while ago I signed up for the Fireman Ironman Camp in Lake Placid with the blessing of my family and my coach. My coach felt that any opportunity to dedicate time towards training could be beneficial. My family knew how important it was to me and it was sort of a Father's day present for me as the camp was last weekend. The rub was this camp was full of people that were doing this camp in preparation for IMLP at the end of July or people that had already done IMLP and were reliving that special memory. And then there was me with my next race as a sprint tri at the end of August - most people at the camp joked by giving me encouragement saying that I shouldn't have a problem finishing the sprint if I keep training.

I wasn't following the official camp agenda since, after all, I'm not doing IMLP. I decided to use this camp though as my kickoff of official Ironman training. Friday I swam 2 miles (per the Garmin 310xt with the swim firmware) in Mirror Lake and was happy with getting it done in a very casual 1:14, Saturday did 60 miles on the bike (portions of the course) with a transition walk (I'll call it a very slow run of a few miles) and my camp workouts ended with another ride of 42 miles on Sunday before the ride home for dinner on Father's day with the family. All in, my weekend riding included 5500 ft of climbing.

I hate climbing.

I learned I still have problems with my body composition. I'm still slow. I'm still old compared to most "athletes" doing this stuff. I have a real issue with nutrition that I need to figure out (I wanted to ride longer Saturday but was wrecked due to a nutrition fail). My body isn't that broken any more though.

On the plus side, it was great seeing Mandy and a bunch of others that learned a lot about their upcoming race. My base training is to the point where I can ride for a while without issue (assuming the nutrition gets worked out) and was really pleased with my swim. It should only get better from here and I believe if I do what I have to do, I will succeed.

But doesn't that apply to a lot of things in life?

PS: Thanks for all the notes while I was elsewhere. It meant a lot to me.

Quote of the week.

"When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart." - Diane Ackerman

Hiatus

I will be exiting the blogosphere for a while. Good bye and thanks for all the fish.

Quote of the week.

“Training is like fighting with a gorilla. You don't stop when you're tired. You stop when the gorilla is tired.” – Greg Henderson

Something I hate.

I went online earlier to see where exactly where the 100k bike ride I was planning to ride Sunday started. I vaguely knew it was somewhere in Connecticut about a 90 minute drive from home. I had never done this ride but there were a couple of things it was noted for: 1) It was a ride, not a race; and 2) the terrain was on the hilly side so it would be a good training day. The website stated that the ride was closed out since they reached capacity of 2000 riders. There would be no day of ride sign up.

Arggggh. This was a RIDE, not even a RACE.

Why would I pay to ride? I don't need yet another cheesy shirt but I equate the $25-$35 registration fee as insurance in case I need a SAG wagon and free food at the rest stops. Instead I rode 35 miles of hills solo today and there is a ride leaving my house tomorrow that will attack a bunch of more hills. These folks will probably push me a little more that I would push myself so all will be good in the hood

On the other hand, kudos to you organizers of the Bloomin' Metric. I'm sure your ride is getting more popular than you even expected. The bad news is that the Gran Fondo NY 2012 has been scheduled for May 20, 2012 (same day as the Bloomin' typically is) instead of Mother's Day. I'm planning on crushing that Fondo next year. It is one of those revenge type of things so I really don't have a choice.

Quote of the week.

"Nothing happens by itself... it all will come your way, once you understand that you have to make it come your way, by your own exertions." - Ben Stein

Non race report.

I signed up a while ago to race the NYRR Wall Street Run that was scheduled for today. I haven't been running due to my blisters and other assorted foot issues. Since I have been feeling better and my blisters are almost healed, I thought about doing this race even though I haven't run a step in about 6 weeks. I packed up my running stuff and took everything with me to work.

The starting line of this race is right near my office so it is very convenient. The race is short at only 3 miles and so crowded that you really can't run fast until it thins out. Many, many, many people walk this race. I've run this race before. On the other side, the weather report was horrible. Sheets of rain were coming down in the morning but for whatever reason it stopped raining early in the afternoon. The sky looked like it would start raining again any minute and the forecast called for up to 3 additional inches of rain today/tonight.

I figured all I needed to do was get caught in the rain, get my feet soaked again, get more blisters, and not be able to run for another two months. I decided to not do the race due to the risk and head home instead. I still wasn't raining when I got home so I laced up my sneakers, put on a running shirt and shorts, found my Garmin, and headed out the door.

As I was playing with the Garmin while walking down my block, the skies opened up. I figured that this was an omen and jogged home. Total distance covered: 0.24 miles.

Pathetic, perhaps, but I realized I wanted to run and am looking at the next try in some train wreck sort of way. Stay tuned.

Reflection and cycling.

As I was lamenting in my gimpyness lately, I had a lot of time to reflect on why I do what I do, what do I like about it, and what I don't like about it. I thought I'd share a few of the tidbits that have been rattling around my brain.

I realized that not being able to run well nor fast is not the end of the world for me. Although this would crush others emotionally, running isn't something that I live for. I run because I have to, not really because I want to. It is hard. My body complains. I am not instantly going to become a fast runner. If I spend a ton of time at running, it STILL won't be a strength for me. Could it be possible that I will run the marathon leg of Ironman under 5:00? No. Is is possible that it will be under 6:00? Maybe but not likely. I think that between 6:00 and 7:00 is the most likely range but over 7:00 is possible too. So the upside of investing a lot of time in running isn't that great for me. Yes, I'll gain some time but it won't be significant. The downside is that more running will keep me on injury road. Injury road prevents me from cycling and swimming. That's the base of my success.

Swimming is more of a hobby for me. I used to think this is my weakest link but I've improved over time to the point where I consider myself average. Yes there are people that swim like fish and that isn't me but I hold my own now. I view the swim stage of a triathlon as a prelude to the bike ride.

But cycling, ahhh cycling. I realized cycling is what ignites my passion. Since I couldn't run, we mixed in more cycling on the weekends lately. The more I rode, the more I wanted to ride. I realized if I couldn't ride, like last summer after my broken wrist and before that after I broke my ribs (and bike), it impacts me on a bunch of levels beyond the physical.

So I had a conversation about this with my coach, The net of this is that we are going to bias more of my training towards cycling and use cycling to drive my fitness. I'm going to cut back (not completely cut out) on the run and let my legs heal. On the rare times when I find some extra time, it will be in the saddle. I'll be riding both days on each weekend and at least one and probably two additional times during the week where some of the hard stuff will be.

I've decided to opt out of the Half Rev at Quassy and do the AquaBike instead. I'm probably not doing the Brooklyn Half Mary but will ride instead and I'm OK with that.

Time to go for a ride. There are some hills taunting me as only hills can.

Quote of the week.

"You never have the wind with you - either it is against you or you're having a good day." - Daniel Behrman

Medio Fondo NY

Last Sunday I rode in the inaugural Gran Fondo New York. The Gran Fondo is a "popular cycling event stemming from Italy. With a peloton of 500 to 10,000 participants, a Gran Fondo covers at least 100 miles and goes over challenging terrain. In France and the UK such events are known as cyclosportives." For the first New York version two flavors were offered: the Gran Fondo at 100 miles with 6600ft of climbing or the Medio Fondo at 65 miles with 3668ft of climbing. I chose to do the medio since my training really doesn't need a hundo (yet) even though my "friend" DrFran kept asking me to consider doing the whole enchilada that he was doing as part of IMLP training. I luckily declined.

This ride was expensive. They included a jersey that was required to be worn to take advantage of the ride support. The start wasn't all that convenient as it started at 7AM on the bottom of the George Washington Bridge so I had to get up in the dark to find free parking (I did!). When I got there and looked around at the few thousand people lined up I noticed that there were very few women riders and a preponderance of hammerheads. There seemed no cheap bikes. George Hincapie showed to ride but didn't wear the "official" jersey. I wonder if he got a banana at the rest stop wearing his BMC kit. It seemed like a lot of people we racing this ride. The announcer advised not to race until after the first 5 miles to let the crowd thin out.

Before the start they had someone sing the anthem. I noticed early on that she seemed to be moving the words around but near the end of the song, it seemed very free form and I thought she was making up her own words. I thought I was the only one that noticed but I saw a bunch of people start making up their own words to the anthem too and laughing.

This ride was hard. It was crowded in the beginning. The organizers controlled traffic well (most streets were patrolled by members of the law enforcement community). There were lots of climbs and it was definitely harder than I thought it would be. It covered many of the "standard" NYC rides with a little bit of extra hillage thrown in. At the end of this ride I was hurting more than after a 70.3 due to all the climbing (Fran's Garmin said the hundo had over 10k ft of climbing). I just wanted it to be over. Unfortunately the finish line was in New Jersey and my car was in New York so I had to ride an additional 4 miles over the George Washington Bridge to get back. That extra climbing was really annoying as I was already spent.

This ride is definitely on the future Rock Star calendar especially if they move it from Mothers Day as promised. Maybe even the hundo.

PS: My friend Mikey called me yesterday and asked how I could get out to ride a long ride on Mother's Day. I answered that my wife, the mother of my children, is a special person, she endorsed this training day and let me gallivant around that morning. Another example of how lucky I am.