Let's get this party started already!!!!

Oh man oh man oh man I am chomping at the bit to get started next year! For the last two weeks I have been in this weird limbo stage just trying to do something to stay active so as to not fall flat on my face when training "officially" starts next week.

I am currently waiting for an email from my coach for the first installment of my training plan. I guess this sense of anticipation is killing me right now because it will be interested to see how he concocts his training plans and how difficult they will be to execute. I am REALLY looking forward to getting started!

We had an early release day from work today, so @ 3PM I was outside running in 40 degree temps in shorts! It was wonderful! I don't know why, but I keep visualizing the Lake Placid running course. I have only ran the loop once, but I feel like I know the thing backwards and forwards. I really like the course, if you can't tell.

So I finally decided on what I will be doing next year. The racing will be kept to a minimum:

• Ironman Texas 70.3, April 10th
• Tri Ridgefield Sprint, June 5th
• Ironman Lake Placid, July 24th
• edit: POSSIBLE REV 3, Cedar Point, Sept 11th: either cheerleading/beer parade leader, or racing the half.
• and if my body doesn't self destruct, NYC Marathon, November 6th.

So I am either going REALLY long, or really short.

Have a great New Year's!

The Holiday Race Report

Yes, I call I am calling this a RACE REPORT because sometimes fitting everything in on the Holidays feels like a race. Fortunately the "Aid" stations are pretty yummy, if you know what I mean. Further more, with Christmas (for those of you who celebrate it) falling on a Saturday, it really eats into the free time off from the factory.

Here is how my "race" turned out:

Drove up Thursday night to NH to visit the family. It was an easy 5 hour drive. Little traffic once I got north of Hartford. The family dog, Aachen the German Shorthaired Pointer, LOVES to make his bed. I witnessed him many times making it and finally my brother filmed him:



Friday AM was a nice morning. A bit chilly and windy, but I headed over to the Timberman run course and did one loop. My face was frozen for the first two miles (running into a headwind) but I was really warmed up by the time the run ended. It was SO clear that I could see Mt. Washington 47 miles away! Unfortunately my camera phone is unable to capture that wonderfullness. I did get a photo of the Timberman race site! haha!

Saturday was a wonderful day of opening presents, food, and family, and Aachen making his bed numerous times. I got some tri related gifts. Mom got me some awesome Pearl Izumi gloves. You can never have too many pairs of gloves! Got some more Gu and a Honey Stinger packet. I know Lancey boy likes em, so it will be good to give that a try.

My sister got me an AWESOME gift from customsportsproducts.com, a custom water bottle. She stole photos off of this blog and uploaded em and had em print RIGHT onto the water bottle. Perfect!!!

this will NOT be going through a bottle exchange

Sunday is when the "race" REALLY started. You probably heard about the blizzard that socked the east coast all weekend long?

I had to get the heck out of Dodge by 8AM to return back to White Plains before I got stuck on the roads. We got DUMPED on! Look @ this radar image!

I think we got a foot or more.

This doesn't tell the whole story. My place has GOOD plowers and shovelers

This meant that work was canceled for today. With crazy high winds and the pools closed, it was trainer city. I popped in the Lake Placid course and video for the first time on the CompuTrainer, got as far as to the top of the first set of hills before the descent into Keene, and my computer died. Doh! Its old.

 

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend and Happy Almost New Year!!!

Calling it a year

The last few mornings have been VERY hard to get outside to run. Its not the cold, its the dark. Light @ 7:15 am? My apartment is FILLED to the brim with Christmas presents and there is NO room to get the trainer out.

Yeah, yeah, send me a box of Kleenex and a broken violin and order me the whaaaaaaaaaambulance.

Motivation to bike and run is at an all time low right now. Work has been piling it on me more and more and more and that is exhausting me more than anything lately.

The only silver lining is that I AM motivated to hit the pool as much as I can. Been totally riding that high this past fall!

But basically structured training until January 1 is going bye bye. My right leg has been giving me the middle finger for a few weeks now with a sore hamstring, sore knee, and blisters on the right foot. I am NOT feeling as "sharp" as I should be for this time of year.

With structured training with my coach starting up in the beginning of January, I think I am going to rest the legs as much as I can and just alternate days between riding and running, doing little volume and little intensity. No sense starting the season already burned out and beat up, right?

Besides, I think I have done enough this year.

Wanna hear some totals?

Swim: around 250,000 yards
Bike: just shy of 3,500 miles (will hit this next week)
Run: around 925 miles


Race totals:

• Half Ironman: 4
• Sprimpics: 1
• 25K: 1
• Half Marathons: 2 (well, 6 if you count the ones from the HIM)
• 15K: 1
• 10K: 1
• 5 Milers: 2
• 4 Miler: 1
• Slept in: Twice I think?
• Races in 4 different states
• and a BUNCH of PR's!!!

Like I said in my last post, this was a season of growth. I have NEVER swam, biked, or ran that much EVER in a year's time. Looking at my logs, ~3,000 of those bike miles were from from January to August. This past fall was a "fun" period of riding for pastries.

Now I must do one final transition of the year from large volumes of swim, bike, and run to large volumes of food and wine.

I shall call this, T3.

Have a wonderful Holiday and New Year's everyone!

2010, the Year in Review!

I did this post last year and it was a great reminder of if you put in the work, you will get the results. It also helped me learn my strengths, weaknesses, and mistakes that I made during the year.

Because the first half of this year was SO race heavy, I ended up doing a January to July 1st year in review post so as to not make this post UBER long!

So here is the last half of my year, from July 1 to now.

Starting July I was on target for Timberman (my A+++++ race for the year), but I was getting bored with the training. Since Mooseman, the training was so monotonous. I needed a break and spice it up! Fortunately in the schedule, another somewhat local HIM fit smack in the middle between Mooseman 70.3 and Timberman 70.3, Ironman Rhode Island 70.3.

The race did NOT turn out to be a success. I had a great bike split, but the swim, and especially the run, were HORRIBLE! The swim was rough and by the time I hit the run, it was pushing 90 with little shade.

I felt sea sick!

Felt @ home on the bike

I think my face tells of the misery!

Smiling just to be done. That sucked! Actual finish time: 5:41:11

I look back now on that Rhode Island race as a good ass kicking. It wasn't a race meant for a PR. It was meant for another HIM experience to go through the motions of that distance. This race was just money in the bank.

But the biggest thing to happen in July was volunteering and signing up for Lake Placid. Yes, THE Ironman! What a weekend this was! Perfect weather and an incredible atmosphere of energy.

I worked the transition area as a volunteer

I immediately fell in love with the town and it was a no brainer to sign up for 2011's race!

From Lake Placid onwards I noticed that my body was starting to peak. I was knocking off 56 mile hard rides followed by super fast 5K runs. I felt like superman!

Then I didn't feel like superman anymore. I wasn't recovering properly anymore. I didn't feel "sharp" anymore.

Fortunately though my body held out just long enough for my A+++++ race of the season, Ironman Timberman 70.3 on August 22nd.

The goal of this race was to seek revenge upon the distance. I did this race as my first HIM in 2009 and had never been so humbled in my life!

This time though, I think I humbled the race. I blew 47 minutes off my time and finished with a 5:08:20 and finished in the top 1/3 of my age group. This was my first race where EVERYTHING came together. I PR'ed the swim, T1, the bike, T2, and the run. It was a good day!

Me and the family

Almost there!

Me and the Queen of Triathlon!

Like I wrote above, my body held out until that day @ Timberman, then it broke! haha! It saved the best for last.

My calve muscles were unusually tight after that race, especially the left calve. In fact it was so tight that it pulled on my plantar and and some other tendons in my left foot and knocked me out of running for almost 4 weeks.

I had planned on running the NYC Marathon in November, but it was a no brainer that due to this injury that running a marathon was suicide, especially since I am doing an Ironman next year.

I did however, regroup and get my run back in shape for a late season 10K in Central Park on December 5th. 104 miles of running in November lead to my first sub 45 minute 10K, and a new PR by almost 2.5 minutes. The finish line to that race was the same spot of the start line of my first race back in January. Symbolic?

I guess I could describe the 2010 season as a season of huge gains and growing up. I now understand what is like to put up large volume and sustain it for 4 months. I know what it takes my body to recover from long distances. I know my body doesn't do well in the heat and fumidity! I learned that I run faster out of the gate after a swim or a run.

Looking forward to next year, I am going back to being coached. I probably won't race as much or as far other than Placid. I know that the more I race, the less hungry I get to race. Its a supply and demand kind of thing. With fewer races next year, hopefully I will be hungrier on July 24th.

See ya @ the finish line!

Nuts!!!!

Yes, I like Almonds and Pecans. They are my two favorite nuts to eat and I usually eat them both on a daily basis. Note: Healthy fats!!! Pecans also make an AMAZING topping to Sweet Potato Casserole.

Aside from the edible nuts, life has been NUTS!!!

Sorry I haven't been commenting very much lately. I feel really bad!

Work has been INSANE. Everyone @ work is sick or is getting sicker except for me (I owe it to living this active lifestyle AND eating an insane amount of oranges, grapefruit, and clementines. Anyone else notice this year has some AMAZING citrus so far?) so I have been picking up the slack. Movies don't make themselves! Picking up the slack means less downtime to read all of your blogs and comment during the day.

Outside of work, whether I want to believe it or not, Ironman training HAS BEGUN! I am just telling myself I am in an accelerated prep program priming myself for the onslaught that will be next year. I have been looking at my numbers for November and Decemeber, and they reflect mid season Half Ironman training minus the bike.

Its going to get harder than this?!??!?! YEP!

Already I feel a level above where I finished up last season. I guess its mostly a confidence thing. I finished another brutal run this morning with my coach after a 3000+ yard swim. Yes, I got dropped on the run again, but hey, I have to remind myself that these guys are Kona qualifiers, sub 18 min 5K'ers, 70.3 World Championship Qualifiers, multiple Ironman finishers. The fact that I hung with them for MOST of the run means that I am doing my homework. They are probably at an easy pace the entire time! haha!

Its a good group that I have found. I am leaching off of their extensive knowledge. Been thinking of switching to a compact crank for Placid and after talking it over with a few guys, it's the right choice. Anyone happen to have a Shimano Ultegra 6750 170mm Compact Crank that you want to offload?

Finally, I finally pulled the trigger and signed up for the Memorial Hermann Ironman 70.3 Texas (long name, eh?), formally known as Ironman Lonestar. This will take place on April 10th and will be my first Triathlon of the year.

Other than this and Placid in July, most of my season schedule is still up in the air. I did NOT get into the NYC Half Marathon, which is a bummer because that is a FAST course. Then the Manhattan Half Marathon on January 22nd is the same day as one of my swim workshops with my coach, so that is out. Doh! Fortunately there are a few other races on those same weekends or on surrounding weekends that can fill the void.

I may just not do a lot of supporting races this season and just stick to the big guns for 2011. I do want to do a triathlon the weekend of June 5th-ish. I have three options, a Sprint, an Olympic, or a Half Ironman and they are all within an hour of my house. Decisions Decisions Decisions.....

SPAM recipe

This is actually pretty tasty:
Sauteed Spam covered with couscous and maple syrup!

The back story to this (oh, there has to be a back story to a recipe like this!) is that I was out camping for 10 days in early march in the snow up in the White Moutains of NH. This was our last morning and we were out of food, except for SPAM, couscous, and maple syrup. Hey, it worked! The previous morning we tried to make pancakes out of powdered milk (powdered milk looked the pancake mix). THAT didn't work so well! haha!

But back to that SPAM. SPAMmers are getting through this blog again :( Boooooooo! I HATE CAPTCHAs (the word verification thing when you make a comment). I really hope the SPAM dies down, or else I will have to put that back up. Boo!

Now to swimming. Despite my monday night swim class being more chill, this coach still knows how to drop the HURT. We basically did 2400 yards of drills, including a 500 yard set where you pull AS HARD AS YOU CAN. OUCHY!!!

Amputation might be the only remedy to my sore shoulders. Holy crapola if I can just endure this swimming abuse for a few more weeks, hopefully my body will adjust to this added work load.

Then it snowed last night.

Our first snow of the season.

So this morning I hopped onto the trainer for 45 minutes then went outside into the 20 degrees and snow for a 3 miler.

THIS IS THE OFF SEASON?!??!?!!?

P.S. I am REALLY behind on reading everyone's blogs. I hope to catch up with you all ASAP! I love reading about all of your experiences.

28 and beyond

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! Wow, turning 28 was great, but I will be 29 in 2 weeks already! (Thank you USAT and you race your age as of December 31st)

Turns out December 12th was also a birthday for two other bloggers. Small world, eh?

Kristin @ Triathlon Dreams celebrated her birthday.
Jason @ Life of an Aspiring Triathlete also celebrated his birthday. And want to see how even smaller the world is? Jason used to live RIGHT down the street from me. He now lives in Texas.

I attempted to run yesterday morning, but up in Northern CT @ my brother's house everything had a thin layer of ice on it and it was POURING rain, so I opted to take it easy instead and eat pancakes and bacon.

This morning I did get out for a 4 miler. It was a balmy 43 degrees so I wore shorts! So great! My legs were still a bit sore from Saturday's beat down.

Tonight I am off to my other swim class. Have a good week everyone!