Two Days Out!

What goes through MY mind two days before Ironman?

Data, of course!

Here are some other things I am thinking about:

1. I have not been doing anything... running, swimming, biking. Okay, maybe a little. Can I still run an Ironman?

2. Upon finishing—I hope— how long will it be until I can walk again?

3. If I really, really, really love the experience, how many years will have to go by until I can convince my wife that it is time to run another one?

4. How many days do I get to wear the race t-shirt/hat/cape/every other piece of gear that I will purchase to prove that I ran this race before it is really lame?

5. How long do I get to talk about Ironman after my event before I become "that guy" to my coworkers?

I went out on a half hour run last night at 9:00 p.m. I had just come home from work, got the kids in bed, and my body was just itching to get out there and run. I really had to dial it back, because I felt like a racehorse chomping at the bit to sprint.  That's good, right?


As my triathlon season comes to a close, want to use this post as an opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me this year. Let's start with the obvious:

1. My family: You have been incredibly supportive and PATIENT supporting me as I logged countless hours away from home. We have sacrificed a lot together—thank you!    p.s. Huge family activities planned for the months of October and November.

2. My sponsors: especially the fine folks at crankskins.com—whose coolest company slogan ever, "Wrap Your Crank" has been the subject of numerous emails, blog fodder, and safe sex education classes this entire season, Blue competition bicycles for making me much faster than I really am on the bike, Lazer Helmets, and H20 Audio. Thanks for ensuring that I could actually take part in a sport that I absolutely love without mortgaging my home, getting divorced, and not holding a baked good sale once a week.

3. My blog readers and follower: I have gotten amazing motivation, training tips, psychotherapy, the occasional chastisement, and encouragement from all of you. Thanks for reading, and following along with me. I've loved your comments and your words of wisdom.

Okay, updates from the site to come!

Train smart!

TRIATHLON MATH: 80 MILES+22 MILES=LESS PAIN AT IRONMAN

I had another incredible training session this past weekend—if by incredible you mean incredibly difficult and incredibly painful on the body on my recovery day. I took the family into consideration when I asked my training partners to be AT my house by 6:15. I know how getting out on a long bike ride goes. You spend about 45 minutes preparing nutrition, filling up water bottles (no one did this prior to arriving at my house, of course. This meant I had to remind my young single friends not to continually let the front door slam shut so as  not to wake every member of my house up.) This, of course, proved futile. By the time we were getting ready to take off, everyone was downstairs watching Scooby Doo.

However, if it were not for Luca waking up, we would have no one to take this super cool picture of the whole crankskins.com team heading out before the big ride.

The ride started off well. We rode south, gradually uphill for the first 15 miles. We were clipping right along until Manuel decided it was time to get a flat tire. How selfish. Anyway, it is good practice. The rest of the team used this time to duck behind the giant prehistoric plants behind us and take care of some excess fluids in the body.

Approximately 20 miles in. Notice we are still all smiles. 

I tried to stay in front, but comfortably spinning most of the way. I know that come 12 September I am not going to be able to draft anyone, so I figured I better not get too comfortable with that now. Our goal was to make it down to another one of our beautiful western New York Lakes—Conesus, but we never quite made the right turns. It was kind of nice sort of knowing which direction we were traveling in. I had mapped out two bike courses. One was the shape of Texas and was 114 miles, the other was about 80. The menu called for a four bike with a 1 hour run sprinkled in for good measure. So, we all decided that the 80 miler made more sense. We arrived (in a very circuitous manner) in the lovely town of Geneseo—a college town where my wife went to school.

Manuel was off at the local bike shop getting some extra tubes. 

I loved the t-shirt of the young woman who took our photo:

Luca and Julian found this t-shirt absolutely hilarious.."you know... because
they are saying warm you buns, like you butt."

On the way back, guess who got another flat tire? You guessed it, Manuel. This time, Adam wasn't very enthusiastic—or anyone else—about Manuel trying to change another flat. He decided to do the dirty work  himself. Could it be that he found Manuel's nearly 30-minute flat repair a tad tedious?

Oh yes, it was great joy. Adam fixed the flat in under ten minutes (good thing we weren't racing!) We went another couple miles down the road when... you guessed it, Manuel suffered his third flat of the day. It turns out that really deep gouges in a tire are not the best thing in ensuring a flat-free ride. Anyway, by this point, I have to admit, we were all growing steadily annoyed at the continual stops, especially me. Finally, I told Manuel that I had to keep spinning. He totally understood. 

When we got back to my house (minus Scott who had to get back to his wife and baby daughter,) we threw on our sneakers and went out for an hour run. The legs were okay. Nutrition and hydration are really the keys for me. Adam and I ended up pulling away from Manuel and Mike a little bit. I was a little surprised because Mike is such a strong runner—a marathoner with several to his credit—but he competed in his first HIM this year and has not had a lot of experience running off the bike yet. When we all got back, we decided it was a perfect opportunity to go out and get some milkshakes. I was the champion of my family that day coming back with milkshakes for everyone. 

Hey look Alexa and Kelly, I AM wearing a shirt!!

Alaina made fun of me because she said I am flexing my legs in this photo. I can not help it if I have big muscular, Italian, non-running legs that are only made for biking AND act as 40 pound weights in the water while I am swimming.

I followed up my 80 mile ride and 10k with a 16 mile run on Sunday. I ran from my house to a public beach on Lake Ontario. It was pretty cool. At the very end of my run I envisioned myself running the last couple miles of Ironman with people cheering. I even threw up my arms at the end of my run to practice my triumphant finish line cross. My family was there on the beach waiting for me. I immediately jumped in the lake to get a minor ice bath. I had a scary thought:

The wind was whipping really hard and the waves were about 4 to 5 foot swells. I thought if Lake Erie is like this for Rev3, I am in some serious trouble. I may need a one man submarine to navigate the swim course. I mean, it is one thing swimming in the calm and placid waters of the finger lakes, and a completely different thing swimming in this huge pond. Luckily, the race organizers have a secondary swim course in case the waters get a little too treacherous for you average mortal swimmer.

I am managing to get in all my "competitive weeks" workouts in, but it has been challenging. I have a 1:30 run and a 2 hour bike ride scheduled for today. I think I may have to truncate the bike a little bit because of time. I am working all day and am going to take the boys to soccer tonight. Then the wifey has a rehearsal. Tag team parenting at its finest!

None of you guessed where the beautiful campus is that I will be teaching this year. Here's a hint: it is in the town of my favorite HIM! I leave you with this lovely picture of the wifey and me:

Train Smart!

Holy Cookie Monster Weekend!

Wow, what a weekend. I had a solid week of training capped off with a 13.45 mile run Saturday morning with Vanessa and Adam. It was a great run. We left about 7:15 in the morning. By running standards, that is considered pretty late. I mean, heck, by eight o'clock it was already pretty toasty outside—mid-80's—with a bazillion percent humidity. The first part of our run was a really slight gradual uphill, followed by an increasingly steep incline. Once we got to mile three, it was pretty much smooth flat sailing to about mile eight. At the turn around is when the run gets a little more challenging. There is two-mile, steady incline that was making us work. Once we got to the top, the challenge was not to let our legs go and shred our hamstrings on the steep decline. The view on the run was spectacular. That is what I like most about going out on these long runs. I am out there, in the middle of these farms and ponds, and long roads with zero traffic. I have my nutrition with me, and my Fuel Belt on, and I am just going. Mile after mile. The sweat starts to drip off my face and onto my sunglasses. I am toasty warm, and all I can think of is how spectacular the scenery is and how much of a rock star (a.k.a. triathlete) I feel like—minus the throwing of televisions out of hotel windows, and not being able to differentiate between night and day.

Adam was so hot after our run that he had to be hosed off by Vanessa. Here he is seen doing his best Flashdance impersonation.

The Three Amigos one last time (for a while anyway)

After getting home, I had to quickly take a shower and get ready to go to my twin's first dance recital. They danced for about two and a half minutes, in which time they pranced, galloped, crawled, and twirled on stage. They were awesome. Stella even snuck in for a picture with the dancing queens. 

Ah, not ready to claw each other's eye sockets out over who gets control over the Magna Doodle, book, or doll.

Just look at those beautiful lines!

Sunday was a lot of fun. It was Father's Day, so while my wifey was at rehearsal from 9:30-1:30, I got to be... a father. Afterwards, she came home and Adam and I got together for a 50 mile ride followed by a 5k. Adam and I had a great ride out to a state park next to Lake Ontario. It was about fifty miles round trip. Cookie Monster (my new ride) was fast, real fast. I know everyone says, "It's not the bike, it's the engine." Yeah, well, true as that may be—I agree there is NO substitute for training—it is the bike a little bit as well. I pushed hard into the wind on the way there, but I never really felt fatigued at any point. On the way back, I averaged a pair of 31 m.p.h. (49.89 k.p.h.) splits on some fast flats. No offense Madone, but I never did that with you. I am excited for Musselman coming up on 10 July. That HIM left be bewildered last year. I had no idea what to expect, no idea at all about nutrition. Seriously, I drank less than 30 ounces of fluids on the bike. What was I thinking? Oh, I wasn't. I have the nutrition down this time around, so I am excited to see if I can knock off some serious time and set a new PR on this course. Our run felt fine. We ran a solid 8:20 pace off the bike. We were not trying to run hard. In fact, a couple of times, Adam and I had to slow each other down because we felt ourselves gradually get faster (oh, and Adam was sporting his Garmin 310 XT, so he knew exactly how fast we were going at every second.) That gets annoying really quickly!

Monday: OFF


Tuesday's Morning Speed Workout: 


2 mile warmup
Fartleks on roads: 10 Farletks at 90 seconds, with 2:00 minute recovery run in between. 2 mile cool down.

Finished my Fartlek's and made Julian's graduation just in time. Congratulations Graduate!

Lastly, congratulations to Luca and his friend Bradley for making the All-Star Team this year. 

Good job guys!

More soon: A cool review opportunity for me, and a GIVEAWAY!

Train Smart!

Achieving Qi With Index Cards

There exists a delicate balance between the amount of training that I can endure, and my body's ability to actually withstand and tolerate that training. It is sometimes physical, but more often psychological. I believe mental fatigue from the rigors of la vie quotidienne play the largest part in determining my  physical well being. There are times when I can actually fool my body into doing more than it is capable of physically, if I am mentally neutral—the state that I define as not being overwhelmingly mentally fatigued. Ironically, I am actually most susceptible to crash and burn if I am overly eager to get in a workout. I think that the anticipation of the actual workout takes some energy. It is like the wait for the swim the morning of a triathlon. My body needs just the right amount of micromanaging in order for it to not rebel and want to sit in front of the television watching reruns of Golden Girls.

The last three or four weeks have been incredibly difficult in terms of training. Here is what has been going down:

1) Busy at work
2) Finishing some gigantic projects/starting NEW gigantic projects
3) Left shoulder feels like it might dislocate at any moment while I am swimming
4) I have five children
5) I have five children that I would like to spend time with
6) The weather has been consistently terrible to go out for a ride, and I do not feel like putting my rig back on the trainer
7) I have been going to bed too late because I am up trying to catch up on projects
8) My wife feels it is necessary that we spend at least ten minutes every night talking
9) Remodeling two bathrooms in the house
10) Giving and grading final exams

I literally saw no end in sight to the mountainous amount of work I had going on, but it is beginning to thin out here recently. My saving grace? 3X5 index cards. Honestly. Everyday I spend time writing down everyone I have to email, mail out scores to, and errands I have to run through the course of my day (as I remember them.) Some of these errands make lists on consecutive days until they are finished. It feels really good to be able to cross anything off that list.

Okay, instead of getting crazy about not getting to get in my scheduled workouts during the 36-week commandments of training, I asked my friend Kelly over at trimommylife what could be done since I am still under a little bit of stress. She recommended that because I am not getting in the volume that I would like these last couple of weeks—especially with the swimming—she suggested I ought to aim for making every workout a higher intensity. That is exactly what I did. Last Thursday I ran a 20:48 5K. Then Friday and Saturday I ran two consecutive 8 milers (8.5 on Saturday at an 8 minute pace.) Sure, not blazing fast, but still faster than I was running last year at the mileage. I hit the gym for some weight training yesterday. It was the first time I've hit the weights since starting Ironman training back in January. The result? I am having trouble walking up and down the stairs today.

Cousin Matthew is coming up this weekend to begin the Summer Beatdow..... er training. Matt had a serious relapse this past year and put on some serious weight as a result—a good twenty-five pounds—and the number on the scale is steadily rising. His problem? Plain and simple: he drinks alcohol, gets three sheets to the wind, and then runs out for fast food at 1 a.m. while hammered. That is pretty much a recipe for disaster. One obvious solution for weight loss is to avoid the empty calories found in alcohol by NOT getting snookered off your rocker. Sure, I imbibe from time to time in a nice glass of wine, the occasional beer (or three, and it is rare that I will ever have more than two beers.) Two beers and I am done—cheap date. Getting back to Matthew, he will not have the opportunity to drink this summer. He is going to eat better, and his only form of transportation will be his two legs or a bicycle. I am pretty brutal when it comes to "Fat Camp." Fat Camp is not fun, and being the sadist that I am, I do not mind inflicting pain and suffering upon someone if I know it is all for the greater good.

The cycling is not going as well as I would like it right now. What the heck May! Really.... forty degrees in May?! I mean honestly, what gives? My training parter Mike said we should try to get in the lake soon  as I have a tri coming up on 6 June and we are both eager to start training in open water without all the chlorinated, 92 degree water that we are use to. The next day or two after he mentioned that, he told me that he looked up the lake temperature and it was 46 degrees. Forty six! I would have to put a wetsuit on top of my wetsuit to get in water that cold.

I have some VERY exciting news to announce in my next post, which coincidentally will now be a little more frequent as I have passed the proverbial hump of the insane end of the year work load.

Okay, more soon. Train Smart!