2009, a year in review

2009 is done! And I feel like I have grown tremendously as an athlete. I finally moved far beyond just being a recreational cyclist to someone who "races" and someone who is striving to do longer distances.

2009 was the year of the Timberman. That was my goal for the year and I beat it by 5 mins (goal was to go sub 6 hours). I learned a LOT from that race and it is shaping 2010, which will be the year of the Half Ironman. So far I am signed up for 3 HIM next year! Yikes!

2009 was also the year of the marathon qualification. I qualified for the 2010 NYC Marathon via their 9+1 program. You race 9 and you volunteer for 1. I did all of that and learned that my legs have some speed in them afterall! I started setting AND breaking PR's. It was super fun and really taught me that if you put in the work, you are going to see results. Its actually rather easy!

I learned to like running.

I learned how to "really" swim. Thanks Bob (aka my super swimmer coworker)! If it weren't for him, last season would not have been as pleasant. Basically I was getting really frustrated with my swimming form up until last April. I could barely swim 2:00/100 yards and I was exhausted after 100 yards. He swam competitively through college and went to the Master's Worlds. He basically waved his magic hands over me, had me do two weeks of drills one on one, and suddenly, I mean OVERNIGHT, was able to swim a 1:45/100 yard pace. He also showed me how to go faster in the pool which resulted in some decent swim pacing, including shaving over 2 mins off of my .5 mile OWS time.

2009 was also the year of the blisters. I got to the point where I was taping up my right foot on every single run. And the crazy thing is that the blisters got the worst by Timberman and the thing that cured them was Timberman itself. They had callused up so much by that point in the season, that the run just rubbed off all of the dead skin and I was cured. The blisters, I later figured out, were due to speed laces which do not hold your shoe as tight as regular laces. Learned my lesson on that one!....which is convenience comes at a steep price.

In March, I repeated my first ever race from 2008, the Prospect Park Duathlon, and destroyed my previous time by an ETERNITY!!! (that felt goooooood).

I had a rough half marathon race with unseasonable high April temperatures of 80+ degrees and a super steep climb. My goal was to break 2 hours, and I came in @ 2:00:10. Heartbreaking yes, but there will be other opportunities.

By the middle of May, the temps cooled WAY down into the 50's and the rain began, on the day of the Montauk Century. This was my fifth Century ride, and by far the coldest and wettest ride I have ever done. Never have I ever been so chilled to the bone with 50+ miles to go. I built up some mental toughness that day!

Then came triathlon season. TriRidgefield turned out to be one of my favorite races of all time and I ran a 23 min 5K....a new PR and I came in 4th in my AG.

(I must have been flying....my feet aren't touching the ground!)

Then came my most put together race to date, The Stamford Triathlon, where EVERYTHING came together and I shaved 20 mins off of my Olympic distance time. I came around the corner to the finish line, saw my time, and blurted a few expletives in shear happy glee. I was hurting on that run, but boy did it pay off!

By the end of July I learned that my body and humidity don't agree with each other. I learned this on the run course to the NYC Triathlon. I put up a great time and PR'ed again in the Olympic distance by 6 seconds, but that run was one I wish I could have redone.

(Look at those arms! Farmer's tan anyone? Yeesh!)

By August, Timberman was looming quite heavily and I was SO GLAD to have gotten that race done and over with. I had a great experience and beat my goal by 5 mins, but I learned that going out too hard on the bike will lead to you paying for it on the run. I also learned that humidity and I still don't get along.

(Neoprene is sooooo 2009)

Quickly after finishing I decided to give the half ironman distance a rest for a year. I wasn't satisfied. Three days later I was chomping at the bit to go at the distance yet again. Little did I know that I would be signing up for 3 for 2010!

Because I broke my goal of 6 hours, I rewarded myself with a new bike. A REAL time trial bike!

I rode this new (fast) baby for 4 weeks gearing up for the ITPMan triathlon, which my relay team came in 2nd and I broke my previous speed record by 1 mph to hold a 21 mph flat pace. I had the 14th fastest bike of the day! (I am VERY proud of that!)

(Im a shorty....but put yourself next to 6'5" and 6' tall guys!)

Then things sloooooooowed way down. The bike was mostly put away and I didn't hit the pool seriously for about 8 weeks. I would go through spurts on the bike where I would get it back and then lose it again but the pool basically became distant. It was ok; it was the off season!

The running heated up though during this period. I focused soley on a standalone 10K way down on Long Island. I broke both my 5K and 10K records at the same time. The resulting recovery was long, but it was SO worth the effort! I found the speed in my legs again by holding a 7:39 pace.

After the 10K race, I went into autopilot mode, found my fins in the water again and just ran, ran, and ran.....and ran some more! Which gave me a monthly distance record for November (73 miles) and an even newer one for December (80 miles).

The biggest things I learned are that pacing your bike correctly will lead to a good run. I made the mistake of going too fast twice which gave me subpar runs.

I learned you can get through an Olympic distance on a bottle of water and 2 Gu's and some water on the run. You can NOT get through a HIM on 2 bottles of liquid, 3 Gu's and 2 bars on the bike and make it through the first 7 miles of a half marathon before bonking. Eat once you get off the bike is my lesson learned! And to repeat this again to myself, GO EASY(er) on the bike!!! Yeah, I finished the bike 25 mins faster than I expected, but the cost was a 23 min longer than expected run.

How did your 2009 play out? What were your hi's and low's? What were the biggest lessons you learned?

learning the backstroke

Not only did the PT tell me that I was "rounded" meaning that my shoulders slump in due to the fact that I work on a computer 8 hours a day but that I should learn the backstroke to open my chest up and develop some back muscles. Thats fine; I can do that. I started today in the pool with my super swimmer coworker, Bob.

Little did I know that learning the backstroke IMMEDIATELY improved my freestyle. I was shocked! Basically with the backstroke you are rotating your body and using your core to drive power and to whip your arms out of the water. I guess I was not rotating my body enough with the freestyle because I took that same concept and applied it and my freestyle rotation was soooooooooo much easier and better! I'll take it! So I am thinking of adding a little bit of backstroke to my warmups almost as a drill to improve rotation.

Then this morning at 'oh dark o'clock, I was on the trainer for 60 mins:


I watched Righteous Kill. Eh, ok movie; it kept me distracted.

PT, a run, a swim

Woah, talk about a busy day! The wind woke me up this morning. It sounded like a freight train was outside! And since I was up and I had to do 4 miles, it was back onto the dreadmill. I felt my knee 3 times and each time it was a sharp pain that lasted about 5 seconds. The good news is is that I did NOT feel my knee once afterwards or during the day.

@ Lunch it was off to the pool. We did:
400 WU
6 x 200 main set, descending on 3
3 x 100 drill
100 CD
--------
2000 total

For the 200's, I went 3:26, 3:21, 3:15, 3:35, 3:26, 3:11. I thought my heart was going to explode on that last 200. It was a good workout and a taste of what pain is. Oh, its gonna get worse soon :)

Then after work, I went to see a Physical Therapist about my knee. My knee has been getting better, but that is not good enough. I wanted to know WHY it hurt. So the PT had me lie on my back and she turned my legs inwards and outwards. Whe she turned them inwards I felt my knee and yelped. She suddenly had that look of, "Oh. I know what it is."

It hurts because I am out of alignment. My right quad is super tight which means my left hamstring is super tight and my pelvis is not totally level. So it is NOT joint/ligament/tendon/non muscular. PHEW! That is a huge relief!

So the PT went to work on my legs and it turned out to be a massage. This was no "fluff" massage as she put it. She had me gripping the table in agony! haha! She had her forearm going across the meat of the quads and her finger burried deep into the hamstrings. She kept laughing at how inflexible I am. Yes, I know I am inflexible. Well, the inflexibility is starting to mess with my running, so no more ignoring it. I am now the proud owner of a foam roller and I have homework to do in regards to stretching.

I am looking forward to the bruise on my leg tomorrow AM. ;)

Has anyone ever used a foam roller before? Do they really hurt that bad?

Peanut Butter Chocolate Gu!!!

I feel like a mad scientist right now. I have discovered the recipe to peanut butter chocolate Gu!

....not that it was really all that hard to figure out ;)

The recipe is really simple:
1 Gu packet
1 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
1/4 tsp water

And the good thing is that it all mixes together, consistently (ala water addition). I was a little worried since Gu will NOT freeze solid that it is made up of a bunch of unnatural non-freezing type stuff. Trust me, I tried to see if I could make a chocolate Gu-pop. FAIL!

Here was my process:

Add Gu

Add peanut butter a tsp @ a time. Came out to 3 tsp = 1 Tbsp

Mixed: came out REALLY thick due to peanut butter addition

Added 1/4 tsp of water to bring it back to original Gu consistency (you can add more for desired thickness). I may add more to make it more liquidy for Gu flask.

Taste tested and APPROVED! :)D

So it tasted great! Nutrition wise, this will add 95 more calories, 3g of protein, 8.5g of fat and even more wonderful flavor. I'll be using this in a Gu flask.

This reminds me of my homemade uncrustable's PB&J method.

some new tri gifts and getting it together for IMNO 70.3

Santa was nice to me this year. I received the top item on my list, the Speedfil hydration system.

Which on the bike looks like this:

(not my bike, I have the step down from the P3)

Its a 40 oz container that is locked onto the frame with a large straw inside a mesh sleeve that goes right up to the cockpit. The mesh sleeve guides the straw and keeps it from going everywhere. So no more reaching down for the bottle and no more bottle attached to the TT bars. which means more time in the aero position (good!).

The opening to the bottle is a open-hatch design that will allow a bottle to insert liquid, but liquid will not come back out of the opening, which means easy fill ups on course. I need to practice exchanging bottles while riding.

So my hydration system is taken care of for the season. Sweet! Thanks Santa (aka mom and dad)! There was even a sample pack of Infinit in there. That is something I am going to start experimenting with really soon and was on my list of to-do's last season, but never got around to it.

Another gift I received that I was NOT expecting was a Gu flask:

It can be filled with 5 Gu's and is a lot more compact (and environmentally friendly) than having 5 individual Gu's in my bento box. Plus, they make a bike mount for it or you can fit it in your bento box or onto your running belt or carry it by hand. It has measurement markers just in case. I am curious to see how squeezing out the Gu works. Does anyone use one of these? Should I add some water to make it more liquidy? Will water even mix with it? I mean, Gu does NOT freeze!!!! The great thing about the individual Gu's is that you can use your teeth to scrape out every last drop of the Gu. I am worried that the hard-ish plastic will leave some of that wonderful Chocolate Outrage in there. Another thing to experiment with!

Total side note: I emailed Gu with a suggestion to make a chocolate peanut butter flavor. They responded with a "thanks for your sugesstion, we are looking into it....", but it sounded a little too automated. I still have my fingers crossed!

And now its time to start bringing up Ironman New Orleans 70.3 more and more. I am a freaking A+ personality when it comes to traveling and racing. Believe it or not, April 18th is gonna be here before I know it. This will be my first destination race, as in I gotta fly there to race, which means transporting the bike. I have heard horror stories of a bike going on a plane with the passenger from the east coast to the west coast and the bike wound up in Puerto Rico (twice!). That person was not able to race.....bummer....

Another horror story was a person shipped their bike via UPS or FedEx and the bike box appeared to have been used as a soccer ball. No thanks!

And this is what brings me to the holy grail of bike shipping, TriBikeTransport. You just show up with your bike at a pickup location (usually a local bike store), they take it and put it on a truck and it shows up at the race site intact and unbroken down....no assembly required! Then you race, and you put it back on a truck and there it shows up at your local bike shop. I am lucky and I have a pickup spot 3 miles from my office at the shop that I bought the bike. I will drop it off 1 week in advance of the race. SCORE!

Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! Did you score any goodies?

a small victory and happy holidays!

I'm up in NH for a few days for the holidays and I ran on the treadmill for 27 mins this morning. I felt my knee a little bit off and on, but nothing like last monday; I immediately stretched and iced when I finished. I haven't felt my knee hurt once since. So I am going to call this a small victory. The two days of full rest with stretching and icing really helped a lot. Now I'm going to do nothing but eat and drink for another two days (plus some more stretching and icing) before I hit the treadmill again on Sunday.

Which brings me to my next point in that I am finding myself building with anxiety because I am not either running, biking or swimming on a daily basis! I think its the routine that I have gotten into and have become comfortable with and by NOT doing anything athletic on a daily basis, it feels unnatural. Weird, right? Or its the OCD in me kicking in....

Regardless, I want to wish everyone HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

(and I am super excited come Jan 1st to get this show going for 2010!)...its gonna be an EPIC year!

Not the "I" word!

My right knee has been bothering me for about a week. Dare I say its "injured"? I'd rather call it a "bothersome" for now, since I don't know what it is exactly.

Its the inner back part of the knee that has been bugging me. It occured after my 8 miler over a week ago and last week it would come and go. It wouldn't hurt during a run, only afterwards and during the day. After a few days rest, it was fine, until after a run. Come Sunday morning during the snow run both knees were bothering me so I was REALLY confused as to what hurt.

But this morning I went out for a 4 miler and my right knee was definately hurting during the run, which was a first. I called it quits @ 1.66 miles and swallowed my pride. I iced it immediately.

So now what? Well for starters its only December and there is NO reason to overdo it right now. No reason at all! So I stop running for a week? Big deal, its not going to ruin my season. My goal for 100 miles this month? There will be plenty of months to accomplish that. Its not worth it!

I am ditching tomorrow's run and will half my run on Thursday, which I will do on a treadmill. I will probably ditch Friday's run (its Christmas afterall!). And depending on how I feel for next Sunday's 10 miler, it will most likely be halved to 5 miles IF my knee does NOT hurt. If it hurts in the slightest come next Sunday, I will stop immediately and drop running altogether until I can see a PT.

I gotta keep telling myself, "Its only December, its only December...."

I am probably doing my classic overreaction, but I REALLY don't want to mess around with this. I don't have to run! Its really simple.