Surprisingly, the run went well.  I kept it short and fast, around two miles, and felt pretty strong.  Unsurprisingly, I’ve been sore from it for about 3 days now and my IT band has decided to stage a revolt against this uptick in activity.  Even still, like an old friend, ‘the urge’ to, you know - do stuff - is slowly making it’s way back.

But like that old friend who never seems to make it anywhere on time, ‘the urge’ has shown up much too late.  I’m registered for the Cranberry Country Triathlon.  Which is… oh, lets see here… THIS SUNDAY.

While I haven’t completely ruled it out, chances are good that I’m going to be watching this one from the sidelines and playing cheerleader while everyone else suffers for 3 hours.  Which poses another interesting dilema.  I’ve already paid for the race.  There’s at least a t-shirt coming my way (a nice tech t-shirt, if they’re like last years).  Can I wear the shirt of a race I didn’t actually do?  It certainly wouldn’t feel right.  But I paid good money for it!  Maybe if I only used it for working out or something.  Hmm.  This not doing stuff is hard.

Even though Michael Phelps got me all pumped, I’m still not ready to get back in the pool.  And my bike might stay in the basement until Hub on Wheels rolls around again in September.  But I definitely feel like running again.  And that’s good enough for the time being.  This waistline is starting to get a little tigher than I’d like.  And I can’t be having that!  I gotta look good in my kid’s first pictures come March! 

We’re having a baby!

How f-in cool is that!?  Actually, we found out for semi-sure the morning of Ironman Rhode Island five weeks ago.  But we wanted to wait a little longer to make sure thing were progressing normally before saying anything.  And so far, it’s all good.  We had an ultrasound two weeks ago and saw the heart beating.  A little beating heart… inside a blueberry-sized alien looking thing… inside of Dee.  That’s absolute craziness.

The baby is due March 20.  And right now, Dee is about 9 weeks along, which means it’s slightly less alien-like than a couple weeks ago and more grape sized than blueberry.

(7 week ultrasound.  The baby is the measured blob.  The thing above it isn’t a head, it’s a yolk sac.  Yeah.  I said WTF is a yolk sac too)

More to come soon…

I had a pretty solid week of training coming off of Mooseman, ending with a trip to RI for a 76 mile ride with some few friends.  I felt surprisingly strong the whole time, which is good since Ironman Rhode Island is only 4 frickin weeks away!

The MS 150 is in 6 days.  I’m still $55 short of my $1000 goal, so I’ll have to do one more push for donations this week and try to put it over the top.  I’m psyched.  900 cyclists, 150 miles over two days, my friend Mark is riding and our other friends are volunteering… it should be a really good time.  And to be able to raise that much money for something important to me goes way beyond what I anticipated.

Here’s what our dog Elvis thinks about it:

I’m so close to my goal of $1,000 and I need all the help I can get to put it over the top.  If you’ve got a few extra bucks lying around (ha!!) and would consider pledging to me for the ride, I’d sincerely appreciate it.  Really… ANYTHING would be deeply appreciated.

My MS 150 Participant Page

Thanks!  And I’ll be sure to post some pictures from the suffer fest ride when I get back.

I ran down the beach and out onto the road to start the run feeling much better, physically, than last year.  I ran the first mile in a surprising 7:20.  Knowing that a couple port-a-potty’s were coming up at the first rest stop, I started thinking about whether or not I had to pee.  And once I started thinking about it, I had to go, otherwise that’s all I’d think about for the rest of the run.  When I got to the water station, both of the toilets were taken.  If my race wasn’t screwed already, I probably would’ve kept going and held it.  But my motivation to endure that kind of thing was gone.  I stopped and waited in line for about a minute before it was my turn.

Despite the bathroom break, I wound up running the first 5k in 25:14.  But it all went downhill, or uphill rather, after that.  Once you hit the turnaround, you’re immediately faced with a steep hill to run up.  I got about 15 feet into it and said, “Ahhh, fuck it” and started walking.  Not my proudest moment, but it happened a few times during the second half of the run.  Fortunately, the other athletes were great and kept saying things like, “Come on number 15, lets go” or “Almost done Christopher, don’t stop now” (our names were on our bibs) or “Short break, then get those knees up.” If it wasn’t for them, I would’ve finished much slower.  Eventually, I got to the last mile of the run.  I had forgotten from last year, but once you’re that close you can hear the cheers from the finish line.  As they drew closer, I forgot all about how much I was hurting and started picking up the pace.  I’m not sure, but I must have run the last mile in 7:30.  I killed my run time from last year, finishing the 6.2 miles in 52:40 (an 8:29 pace).  When I finally came down the finishing chute, it seemed so much louder than last year.  I swore someone was right behind me that everyone was cheering for, because there was no way everyone was cheering for me.  But I guess they just had some great spectators there this year.  It was awesome.

It took an hour or so after the race for things to sink in, but I eventually started feeling good about racing on such an enjoyable day with a couple of my best friends, and a nice weekend getaway up in New Hampshire with Dee.

I convinced Mark and Dave to do it too this year, so we all rented a cabin for the weekend.  Before packet pickup on Friday, we drove the bike course and went for a swim to see just how cold the water was.  A sign at the entrance to the park said 58°, which felt just about right.  We got our wetsuits on, went in the water, and spent 20 minutes jumping around screaming about numb feet, hands and faces.  But at least we learned that we would need a little time in the lake before the start of the race to acclimate, otherwise we’d spent the first few hundred yards of the swim in complete shock.

So when race morning rolled around, we got in the water at 7:15… about 15 minutes before the start of the race.   You know… to ‘acclimate’.  Unfortunately, the fog was so frickin thick on Newfound Lake that we couldn’t even see the second buoy from the shore.

Which meant they couldn’t start the race on-time at 7:30.  At first, they decided to wait and see if the fog lifted, or if putting flashing blue lights on the buoys made them easier to see.  This lasted about 30 minutes and didn’t work.  When the fog actually started getting worse, they decided that the best course of action would be to revise the swim course.  They spent another 30 minutes figuring out the best way to go about that.  Eventually, they decided that they would shorten the course and have us swim out to only the second buoy, which I was actually kinda happy about since I hadn’t been spending enough time in the pool lately.  But the real problem was that being in the first swim wave, we had to be ready to go as soon as they had things figured out.  This meant staying in the supposedly 60° water to remain ‘acclimated’ while we waited through all this.  For over an hour.  Which, in hindsight, turned out to be a terrible idea.

The race started just after 8:30 with a rather unceremonious “GO!”  I started swimming with 100 of my closest friends and after a few strokes, I realized my form was just terrible.  My hands were entering the water all wrong and I couldn’t get a good pull.  And then I realized that was because I had absolutely no control over my fingers.  Hypothermia had begun to set in.  No matter how hard I willed it, I simply could not close my fingers.  Although it was a little disconcerting, all I could do was keep going.  About halfway through the swim, I noticed that I couldn’t feel my wedding ring anymore and had to stop and make sure it was still on.

Despite how insanely cold I was, I finished the 0.6 mile swim feeling pretty good in 17:13.  I ran out of the water and over to the wetsuit strippers.  Unfortunately, I picked the wrong duo to pull my wetsuit off.  A little kid got ahold of my right suit leg and pulled as hard as he could… but he just wasn’t strong enough.  The suit got stuck on my timing chip and no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t get it any further.  When I tried to help, I realized I was in big trouble.  I was out of the water and still couldn’t feel or move my fingers.  After what seemed like an eternity, someone else gave him a hand and got it off me.  Then I ran to my bike, where the problems continued.  I was a little confused and my motor skills were almost completely gone.  My transition was almost five minutes long as I struggled to do the easiest things, like putting my helmet on.  When I finally got going on the bike, it took me over a mile to put my sunglasses on because I couldn’t grip them between my fingers.

I was nervous that wind on the bike would make things worse, but I actually warmed up pretty quickly.  Within 15 minutes or so, I was feeling much better and able to settle into a decent rhythm.  As Devil Hill and the crazy devil lady came into view around mile 5, I passed Jamie with a quick fist bump for good luck.  I paced the bike pretty evenly until the start of the long uphill stretch at mile 16.  I tend to excel on the long, gradual uphills, so I opened it up a little to put some time in between myself and my friend Mark, who stayed hot on my heels through most of the ride.

Around mile 22, I finished up the hilly part of the ride and started to hammer back to transition.  I was flying and feeling great, averaging over 20mph.  Before the race, we were warned that the roads in this last section of the course were pretty beat up.  Little did I know I know that I was going to be one of the people that would fall victim to it.  I don’t really know exactly what happened, but I think I hit a pothole, because out of nowhere I heard and felt the telltale “thump, thump, thump” of a flat back tire.  I pulled off to a ditch on the side of the road and spent about 11 minutes or so changing out my tube with the help of a race volunteer who conveniently stopped with a tire pump.  I got back on the bike, but left my motivation in the ditch.  I was pissed off and dissapointed.  I’ve wound up with mechanical problems in two of my last three races with my bike, yet I can’t even remember the last time I got a flat on a training ride.  So frustrating.  But I tried to make the best of the situation.  My race was over, but I still had a run to do on a beautiful course and did my best to enjoy the day.

I wound up finishing the bike in a 1:32:34 (17.7 mph).  Certainly not what I had hoped for, but respectable considering the flat tire.

(to be continued)

Officially - 1:50:26
Unofficially - 1:49:30

I finished in relative comfort. I ran it exactly how I wanted to. And this is after a week with 11+ hours of training and doubles every day.  I’m VERY happy with my results.

Mile 1 - 8:38
Mile 2 - 8:30
Mile 3 - 8:22
Mile 4 - 8:21
Mile 5 - 8:06
Mile 6 - 8:03
Mile 7 - 7:45
Mile 8 - 8:16
Mile 9 - 8:36
Mile 10 - 8:27
Mile 11 - 8:27
Mile 12 - 8:37
Mile 13 - 8:09

Ok, so I really can’t be too surprised.  When you start training for an Ironman, you know you’re eventually going to hit these kind of weeks.  But damn.  That’s a lot of training!

Monday
Swim 2800 yards
Run 30 minutes (Z2)

Tuesday - the ONLY day this week without two sessions
Bike 1:15 (Functional Threshold Intervals)

Wednesday - BRICK
Run 30 minutes (Z1)
Swim 1400 yards (Recovery)

Thursday
Swim 3000 yards
Run 1:25 (Z1)

Friday
Swim 3200 yards
Bike 1:30 (Steady)

Saturday - BRICK
Bike 1:40 (Tempo)
Run 15 minutes (Transition - Z1)

Sunday - BRICK
Swim 1500 yards (Recovery)
Run 45 minutes (Transition - Z1)

Total Scheduled Time… 11:35

Running was toned back this week.   Only four sessions and no long run… Coach Jorge wanted to give my legs a rest.  Instead, he kicked my ass with two hard tempo sessions on the bike over the weekend.  I’m SORE today!

Monday
Run 3.86 miles
Swim 2600 yards

Tuesday
Bike 0:48

Wednesday
Run 3.38 miles
Swim 1000 yards (had stomach problems and cut it short)

Thursday:
Unplanned rest day.

Friday:
Run 4.63 miles

Saturday:
Bike 1:25

Sunday:
Swim 2800 yards
Bike 1:20
Run 3.45 miles

My weekly training hours are still behind where they should be, but I’m not too far off track and still feeling good.  My plan calls for two more weeks of a run focus, then I switch to volume over frequency in preparation for the New Bedford Half Marathon - just 29 days away!

My swimming is really coming along.  My coach recommended I drop my paces again, which means that since October, I’ve gone from swimming my ’steady’ pace at 2:00/100 yards to 1:40/100 yards.  That’s a pretty significant drop.  I’m swimming faster and more easily than I was at my peak last year.

My cycling is… well… I don’t really know.  Still banging out miles on the trainer.  Coach Jorge keeps it interesting with the functional threshold intervals and tempo sets.  But it’s still the trainer.  I’m itching for it to warm up a little so I can get outside.  Not only to ride, but to see where my fitness is relative to last year.  This is the first time I’ve been consistently training on the bike through the winter months.  I’m really looking forward to see how that’s affected me.

I also FINALLY got a bike fit the other day.  On Coach Jorge’s recommendation, I went to Brian at Fast Splits.  He told me I had dialed in an almost perfect road bike position.  But once I got into the aerobars, I was way too stretched out… which I knew, but didn’t really know how to correct without making it worse.

Essentially, we needed to shorten up the distance between the seat and the handlebars without making the bike too unstable and me uncomfortable.  He wound up putting on a 2cm shorter stem and a new seat post that brought me forward about 3.5cm closer.  The end result is that a lot more weight is distributed onto my forearms when I’m in the aerobars, which means I don’t have to engage my abs as much to hold the position.  This should help fight fatigue on the longer rides.  It also changes where in the pedal stroke power is being generated, which will allow me to use less of my running muscles on the bike.  End result - I’m way more comfortable and very happy with the new fit so far.

My running isn’t really getting much faster anymore.  The focus is starting to shift from frequency to volume.  I did another 73 miles last month with a couple of 9.5 milers that I actually felt pretty comfortable with.  So something must be working!  And my first race of the season, the New Bedford Half marathon, is quickly approaching.  It should coincide well with where I’ll be in my schedule.

Overall, I’m feeling pretty good.  And I’m getting really excited for this racing season.

In other news, I started watching “Into the Wild” on the trainer last night.  Interesting movie so far.  It’s loaded with quotes, but there’s one that immediately struck me.

“I read somewhere how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once… to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head.”

Of course, I haven’t finished watching it yet. So it’s possible the main character learns he’s been wrong about everything.  But I’d like to think he’s not.

Kinda gives new meaning to being one with the water.

What a year.

December 12, 2006: My first recorded workout on my journey to becoming a triathlete. The log simply says, “Ran 5 miles in Slater Park in the morning. Went surprisingly well! The weather was perfect. By far, my longest run to date.” No time. No heart rate. I just ran… and then took 6 days off to recover while my body screamed at me for doing something so stupid.

December 29, 2007: Just another training day. 5.81 miles. 1h 01m 02s. Average HR 142, max 156. The workout? “Easy run, zone 1″. In my notes, I ridicule the distance with single quotes for emphasis. “Awesome run. Much better than last week’s ‘long’ run. Stayed in Z1 and had good control over my pace.” This was after a 4+ mile run the day before, and followed by another 6 miles and a hard bike ride over the next few days.

In a year, I’ve come further than I could’ve imagined when I started this whole thing. And going into 2008, I’m both very fortunate and very excited that I have the opportunity to keep making progress. It’s shaping up to be a big year, and I’m more ready for the challenge than I’ve ever been.

2007 Monthly Training Volume (in minutes)

In the USA Triathlon rankings, I did pretty well considering my noobish nature, ranking squarely in the middle of my age group, both nationally and regionally.

2007 Age Group Standings (Male 25-29)

• National: 1766 / 3660 = 48%
• Regional: 211 / 412 = 51%

2007 Race Results

2008 Planned Races

Goals for Next Year

‘A’ Goals
1. Finish Ironman Lake Placid.
2. Purchase our first house.

‘B’ Goals
1. Finish IMLP in under 14 hours.
2. Place in my age group at the Triathlon by the Sea.
3. Run the New Bedford Half Marathon in relative comfort and without injury.

‘C’ Goals
1. Under 5:30 at Mooseman Half.
2. Under 1:00 at Triathlon by the Sea.
3. Under 1:45 at New Bedford Half Marathon.

‘Dream’ Goal
1. Finish IMLP in under 12 hours.

With all that said… my training pretty much kicked ass in December.

I ran 73.8 miles. Which for some people, isn’t a lot. But for me, that’s huge. My previous biggest month was February of last year, with 47.36 miles. I just about tied that in November with 47.22. But I absolutely killed it with the huge spike last month. And I still feel great! Coach Jorge has emphasized frequency and consistency over distance, and it’s working well for me. Especially over the last couple weeks. I’ve seen my HR steadily decline for efforts at the same pace. Which is a telltale sign of improvement.

With the weather, my bike rides have been limited to the trainer in front of the television, so it’s more difficult to measure improvement. But holding hard efforts for longer durations is getting a little easier each week. I feel like I’m going to hit the roads stronger than ever come Spring.

And my swimming was rocketed into the next level last month when I started feeling the water a little better and dropped 15 seconds off my 100 yard pace. In January, the pool workouts start getting a little longer and I feel completely ready for it.

Coach Jorge emphasises that consistent training is the key to success. Through December I tried to keep that in mind, with only a single day off all month. I’m entering the new year highly motivated, but with the understanding that the big day is still seven months away. Patience is very important. For now, my focus is on getting my training in today and trying to have a solid week without missed workouts.

Week 9 Totals
Swim: 44m / 2400 yards
Bike: 1h 48m
Run: 2h 50m / 17.6 miles

December Totals
Swim: 5h 49m / 16,550 yards
Bike: 8h 44m
Run: 12h 08m / 73.8 miles

To which his teammate replied, “You’re not going to swim in college?”

“No, I hate this crap.”

Ok… maybe he’s just doing it for college application fodder. Or maybe he thought being negative would make him look cooler than everyone else. But seriously? If you hate being on the swim team, then don’t do it. It’s not even like it’s an easy extracurricular activity. I see the coach and he kicks their ass. Why the hell would you waste three days a week doing something you hate? What a toolbag.

If I ever start going around saying I hate my workouts, someone remind me it’s time to throw in the towel.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a couple days ago I talked to another kid who I was splitting my lane with.  He was there alone, on a day his team doesn’t train, putting in the extra hours to take his swimming to the next level.  When I asked about his races, he excitedly told me which distances he’s best at and which meets are coming up.  He was just as interested when he found out I was training for Ironman.  This kid was alright.

Overall, it was an excellent week. I trained every day and only missed one bike workout. My swims felt a little off, but everything else was solid.

Week 7 Totals

Swim - 4,100 yards
Bike - 1h 43m
Run - 19.58 miles

Coach Jorge is taking it a little easy on me this week with the holidays. Still training every day, but no doubles. Woohoo!

I thought about it and realized that stopping has never really been an option.  When I signed up for my first triathlon last year, it all became very real.  I knew that I had to be ready to go by a certain date and I knew what it took to get there.  I don’t think it ever crossed my mind that it was something I didn’t have to do.

So what keeps me outside running when it’s below freezing, and everything is covered in snow and ice, and the wind is so bitter that it opens up a cut under your nose that doesn’t stop oozing for a day and a half?

Too much information?

Because if I wasn’t outside running five days a week, the thought of putting myself through an Ironman seven months from now would scare the crap out of me.  “You can quit, and they don’t care.  But you will always know.”  It’s absolutely true.

I keep going because I don’t want to fail myself.

With Ironman there’s no procrastinating or cheating the system.  You put in your training or you fail.  And the only person you’re really accountable to is yourself.

I keep going because I have to.