Monday, December 29, 2008

First day back at work

OK after two weeks off, quite frankly it sucked. But considering the economic times we are going through, I can't complain.

Ahhh...who am I kidding? I can complain like the best of them..

After two weeks of waking up as the sun rises or when my eyes happen to accidentally open on their own...it kind of stinks to have to wake up by alarm clock.

This is made worse by the fact that I achieved almost nothing I set out to do. Possibly having something to do with my sleeping too much ;)

Anyhow training early tomorrow so best call it quits for now.

Nighty night

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Training week of 12/29

Monday: off

Tuesday: swim: endurance. / run 60 minutes.

Wednesday: indoor trainer workout workout should be 45-60 minute keep hr low 120-145 start strength progression/ swim 45-60 minutes endurance

Thursday: run 70 minutes. hr 120-150 capped at 165 for uphills.

Friday: swim 60 minutes. Endurance focus

Saturday: ride 3 hours (can move indoors with weather sucks) hr 120-145 easy easy easy , small ring. run 30-45 minutes

Sunday: run 12 miles

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Happy Chanukah(Hanukkah) !!!

Happy Kwanzaa!!!!

Ice

Had to bag the run I was going to have outdoors with Phil. The roads are iced over, and frankly I have had it Up to Here ( Picture hand just under my chin) with injuries. So will instead do a trainer workout.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Back to swimming for me today

After last weeks problems with my collarbone getting inflamed, I had to hold off on swimming and upper body work. It was probably too much too fast. So now that its settled, I will shoot to do just 1000 meters focus on form and not speed or strength. see if a slow buildup works better.

I guess I should have expected something like that, but it served as a reminder, I did have surgery, and although I feel fine, some tendons and whatever else had to be cut during the surgery still have some healing to do.

Week of 12/22 - The plan

Monday: off

Tuesday: swim 30-60 minutes

Wednesday: indoor workout from data base, workout should be 45-60 minutes (anything BUT strength progression) keep hr low 120-145

Thursday: Christmas! Day off

Friday: swim 30-60 minutes.

Saturday: ride 2 hours hr 120-145 easy easy easy , small ring.

Sunday: run 60 minutes

Monday, December 22, 2008

The heroes lost to time

How many times do you see an old person, someone hobbling down the road using a cane, or taking extra long to walk across the road as you wait, getting impatient. How many times have we all just seen someone like this and just discounted everything they said automatically because we assumed they were senile or simply talking nonsense because of their age?

I admit to being guilty to the above. As I know are allot of us. It really isn't our fault. We are caught up in a society that worships youth. A world that has learned to shove the old away in homes. It wasn't always like that. Many years ago, we used to truly respect the wisdom that came with age. The old had a special place as advisers where we could use the knowledge learned from their life experiences. It was an acknowledgment of their achievements in the past, and a way of harnessing that knowledge.

Every time I see my folks I am reminded of times past and a little bit of my family history that shaped who I am and to be honest makes me more than a little proud.

My folks now are in their early 80's and holding up quit well. Oh they have had their share of health issues ( mother had recent heart surgery and dad has had a few bouts with cancer) but all in all they have weathered the problems pretty well. Mentally though they are pretty sharp still. When they are here I cant help but pump them for information of their adventures from Cuba.

Years ago, in the early 60's my folks were very active in the anti-Castro underground. In fact most of my family ended up as political prisoners due to their being highly involved either directly or via support to the anti-Castro movement.

As a child growing up they didn't really talk about their past too much. I just new they were the typical Cubans who were rabidly anti-Castro and anti-communist. To this day god help anyone whp dares say that the US should open talks with the Cuban government.

Knowing their history helps explain this. Back in the day my folks used to be part of the cuban underground that supplied the anti-castro guerillas with medicine and safe houses. My father used to transport medicine up to the mountains were my grandfather and uncles were hiding out in their battle against Castro's Army. Eventually they were all captured (except for my folks). My grandfather died in prison. My uncle spent 20 years as a prisoner.

As I said, they were also a safehouse for fugitives. One story I heard two years ago when my mother had just undergone heart surgery. I was in the hospital and all of these family friends I had seen over the years just came out of the woodworks.

Anyhow these folks started for some reason talking about things that happened years ago in Cuba. One story involving my mom and her cousin: He was part of a resistance movement that eventually was infiltrated and they were all captured. However, at that time he would stay at my folks house during the day hiding in a secret room under some stairs. In the evening my mother would dress up "go on a date" and escort her Cousin to another location where they were having their late night gatherings to organize an uprising. She would act like his girlfriend because the military was looking out for a single male, not a couple. He would stay there for a few hours. Then a different woman would go on a date with him and he would end up back at my parents place before dawn to resume hiding for the day.

Because my folks were a safehouse and there were a number of strangers going in and out of the house they were always a subject of house searches by the police. They were always persons of "interest" so to speak. My mom used to make ham croquets to sell as a cover so that she could tell them that yes she was breaking the law ( it was illegal to sell anything since capitalism was a no-no) she was selling croquets and the people would come into the house to buys them.

Here is the best part. One I find kind of amazing. Despite so many of these fugitives who stayed at my folks home and at the homes of others that helped them and provide them supplies. Not one of the captured guerillas ever supplied the government of the information of who was helping them. At the point of turture and death, they never gave up the information.

I was priveleged to meet some of the people that my folks used to hide in the house. His name was Fernando, and he told me they would take the prisoners and tell them if they did not tell them the names and locations of the safe house they would execute them. They would tak ethem put them up to a wall and line up a firing squad, ask them again after some beatings, tell them its their last chance, then fire ...Blanks. They would do it over and over. Occasionally actually executing someone so that they never knew if it was for real or not.

Yet not one ever gave up my folks. They literally chose death instead of giving them up.

Amazing.

We often hear stories like this but how many actually get the chance to meet people who actually lived it. As a society we will never really appreciate what they did, because unfortunatly they were on the losing side from another country. But when you see those old cubans out there protesting anything about Castro in the news, understand they are still out there fighting their war.

And when you see some old person hobling down the street using a cane moving across the street a little too slow to make the light, lay off the horn. These people did their time in the world and we owe them big.

Peace

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Mandatory winter excersize

According to this site : http://www.fitday.com/webfit/burned/calories_burned.html

I burned close to 700 calories yesterday shovelling. Looking at the snow coming down outside I am thinking today too :)

Saturday, December 20, 2008

SNOW!!!

According to my calculations we received about 7 1/4" so far......


Some may see this as Fun. Even perhaps a Winter Wonderland!


I however see it as allot of work :(



Its true. I am not a winter person.

Maybe in a little while Simba will get me to see things in her point of view :)


Thursday, December 18, 2008

Had a great afternoon run. Shoulder felt better after icing and some Aleve. The run was nice the weather a bit on the cool side but, that made for comfort 10 minutes into the run.

Rest of the day is EEaaasssyyy.

Over did it I guess

Well yesterday was a spectacular training day for me. Started the day off with a good speed workout in the pool. Went in the morning at around 8:30. The workout involved 2100 meters, of intervals. Great workout that really pushed me.

Then throughout the day I did pushups. Spread out into 5-10 at a time. My upper body has suffered due to the accident. So I have to build up strength. Then had a lovely nap at around 4 PM as one should do during vacation. Was almost completely unproductive in any of my goals outside of working out, then ended the day with a 1 hour bike workout.

Felt great! That is until I woke up this morning to find my collarbone swollen and sore to the touch. Couldn't move my neck without some discomfort. I guess the push ups may have been too much.

Thew funny part is I felt no pain whatsoever during the day or while doing any of the exercises.

So now I am here icing my collarbone and neck. Today is just a run, but I am cutting out the pushups and the swimming for the rest of the week.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Todays Agenda

Ok, so for today I have a pleasant 1 hour run, base pace. Weather looks good for that 40's slightly overcast but no rain.

Then this evening, I have an endurance swim. Possibly meeting up with Phil.

Somewhere between them I will try and do something meaningful....or maybe not

Monday, December 15, 2008

Naughty


Figured a gratuitous sex picture would keep people intereested ;)

The Task at Hand

OK so I am now on a two week vacation. Being a "Objective" oriented type of person I need a task. Preferably it would be something like sit out on th ebeach for 2 hours daily.

But it ain't.

So I have taken on a BIG project instead....CLEAN THE BASEMENT!!

You may think so big deal ....wiseass

But here is a picture of what I have to deal with:


Quick lets play "Wheres the Bike?"

Anyhow my goal is to turn it into the triCave of my dreams from the previous post in the next two weeks ( or at least be able to walk in there;) )

Oh yeah and I am still training for an Ironman. Swim today!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Prepping the Tri Cave

Been working today at cleaning our some of the boxes that are sitting in the basement....errrr Tri Cave. They have been there since we moved in last year and really clutter up the place. I envision after some work and a little magic it can look something like this:

Tri Cave

Well today I spent 2 hours on the trainer. Decided to watch the latest Hero's episodes that are on there. Now this show I like, but to be honest I sometimes find it a bit confusing. The two episodes I saw did not change that. Saw the "Villains" episode that I guess goes back to explain how some the these folks became evil. Also now I see some of the Bad guys were really good guys and that folks that were once dead are not.

What a weird show, and yet I like it. Can't figure it out though.

Afterward went on a 30 minute run.

Training week of 12/15

Well I am now officially on vacation! one of the few benefits about working for a bank is the MANDATORY two week break with absolutely no contact whatsoever from work. I was even required to leave my Blackberry with my boss. Company policy.

So now I finally have some time to get my training going for a bit without those nasty interruptions from work. Since my chum Phil is also on Vacay for the next two weeks hopefully we can sinc up the training plans to get a couple of workouts in together.

My plan for the coming week is:

Swim run focus week still in Base training mode

Monday: swim muscle strength.

Tuesday: swim: endurance. / run 60 minutes.

Wednesday: indoor workout from data base, workout should be 45-60 minutes (anything BUT strength progression) keep hr low 120-145 / swim 45-60 minutes: speed workout from database

Thursday: run 60 minutes. hr 120-150 capped at 165 for uphills.

Friday: swim 60 minutes. Use early season workouts from data base endurance.

Saturday: ride 2 hours (can move indoors with weather sucks) hr 120-145 easy easy easy , small ring. run 30-45 minutes

Sunday: run 12 miles

Thursday, December 11, 2008

An oldie but a Goodie

How to train for a Swim start

Monday, December 8, 2008

My righteous plan for the week

Well another week comes to its start, on the plan this week:

Monday: off

Tuesday: swim 30 minutes focus on form

Wednesday: indoor workout from data base, workout should be 45-60 minutes (anything BUT strength progression) keep hr low 120-145 / swim 45-60 minutes: speed workout from database.

Thursday: run 45-60 minutes. hr 120-150 capped at 165 for uphills.

Friday: swim 40 minutes. Use early season workouts from data base endurance.

Saturday: ride 2 hours (can move indoors with weather sucks) hr 120-145 easy easy easy , small ring. run 30-45 minutes

Sunday: long run 90 minutes

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Indoor trainer

Last night spent an hour on the trainer. Love the trainer...NOT. However I am feeling that this is the key to my race skills. Cycling strength affects everything in a triathlon. It is the longest part of the race generally, and how you come off the bike affects your run. In my case I am more and more convinced that the secret to my leg cramping on races longer than an OLY is related to my cycling strength.

Last night on the trainer, just for kicks I decided to push it at the end, and lo and behold I started to get leg cramps. This was only after an hour. However, I have been away from heavy training for 5 months so my fitness is low. Oddly enough I was quite happy with this because for the first time I was able to reproduce what happens to me on long races. The first year I did Tupper I screwed up my nutrition, so when I started to cramp up on the run I assumed it was due to that.

Last year at Tupper I nailed the nutrition down, drank everything, but suffered even worse leg cramps. The only thing consistent was that I had assumed I was a strong runner and could suffer through anything, which I did. But pushed hard on the Bike. In Tupper last year I had poor bike fitness yet pushed hard to match the previous year an 18+ MPH ave on a hilly course. I did it, but I started to have leg cramps on the Bike. Just like last night.

This tells me 1) I need to up my bike fitness so that I can achieve the speeds I want without having to "push" 2) I need to be smart about my pacing for long races.

Anyhow I feel a need to build my bike speed up so I think I will speak to the Coach about refocusing my plan for that.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Thursday, December 4, 2008

So far so good

Well the swim the other day was refreshing. It was nice to be back in the pool. Only did a 30 minute workout because I did not want to take any chances of straining/pulling anything since I have not been in the pool for 5 months. It was strange to swim with the steel plate because I fell something there. Its not pain in any way its just different. But anyhow it did not get in the way and once I swam for about 5 minutes I forgot about it. My breathing was out of synch and could not go for more than 200 yards at a time. But again after some time in the pool That fell back into place. And despite the steel plate, my swim stroke does not appear to have changed.....It still sucks.

Yesterday did a 40 minute run during lunch, today back to the pool in the evening.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

All systems are GO!

Went to visit the doctor and the Xrays showed no cracks or gaps remaining. My shoulder looks like something put together with an erector set, but it works! He said if I wanted I could remove the plate, it would only require 3-4 weeks recovery time.

I said "NO THANKS!", maybe next year.

Now its back to the pool and training! Yeeha!!

Cyclocross

Looks like a helluva lot of fun!

The Ironman bug in Cuba

A while ago I read the article in Triathlete magazine about this guy in Cuba who was so in love with the sport that he and a few friends would make up their own Ironman races. They would do this without the benefit of the latest gear, using only cast off bikes from tourists. And I assume little by way of gu, and the normal sports nutrition that we all take for granted.

Recently I found that Kona Shelley was actually trying to raise money to get this guy over to Canada to do a fully supported IM Race. Well Times are hard right now for me money wise so I cant actually add to the pot myself, but I figured I had to do something to help out a Compadre being that I am Cuban myself. So If you are moved by this guys story please feel free to help him out. The link is Here





Saturday, November 29, 2008

Can you tell I have a new toy?

This clip gives me a new training idea ;)

The giving Spirit

In honor of the giving spirit of the holidays:


Friday, November 28, 2008

Indoor trainer theater

Ok so I discovered my new toy while on the indoor trainer. Hulu.com its the different networks and studios put together to offer free online TV and movies.

Sure you put up with a few commercials ( very few) but the media is great and it streams smoothly. No downloading to do.

I saw Gatica this morning on the trainer, and they have lots of other movies and shows available.

This is good because I have really used up my movie library last season.

So I figure by the end of this winter I'll be pretty familiar with it.

The stratedgy

OK so far due to travel I have not been pushing too hard on the training. I figured I still had healing to do and when travelling the training is not the best anyhow. So I used that time to just start getting my body used to workouts. Some running, cycling on stationary gym bikes and started core work. All of it base and not more than an hour. I also threw in other things like the elliptical or whatever was available in the Hotel gym where sometimes the treadmill was taken.

Now however I am back home for a few months ( I hope) and the collarbone "feels" better. So now I am planning on using December to slowly build Base again more time on the trainer and more time running. Still one workout a day 6 days a week. Also add work for core.

Can't yet do any swimming until I get clearance from the doc, who I will see this coming Teusday for a followup Xray to see if the bone has fused.



Hopefully all will be well. Then January the training will truly begin. Grrrrrrr

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful to being Home

I am thankful for my health despite a Bad bike accident

Thankful to have a job in this market, thankful for working for a bank that did not get into the "subprime" craziness when it was the "thing to do"

Thankful to have great friends and a wonderful family

Happy Thanksgiving to All

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Goodbye Sao Paolo

Well tommorow I will be off to head home in the evening. I am quite glad be home again. Back to my life. But I have to say that my opinion of Sao paolo has changed much. I actually had fun this time, first time in 4 trips here. The crime seemed less obvious and the areas was better. There were even less stray dogs!

But probably it was that I had interacted more with the people here. Trying to learn the language was a great idea and turned out to be fun. The people here are great and it was nice to talk to them.

But now time to get back to my wife, dogs, cats and peeps back home. Time for loooong base runs and 3 hours on a indoor trainer trying to find things to watch. Can't Wait! for real!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Isso e Louco!

Bom dia,
One of the few benefits about travel for work is the opportunity to learn about different cultures and places. One of the best ways of doing this is to actually interact directly with the natives instead of hiding behind a guide or person to translate for you. Unfortunatly in many places where the language is so different from our own we have little choice.

I however was blessed to be born a Cuban, and as such was raised speaking Spanish. So when I travelled to Chile, for me it was an opportunity to get to practice my spanish further, and perhaps improve it a little, since I had most likely become a bit rusty in the land of "El Gringo".

Now here in Brazil, Portuguese is the main language..not Spanish. However, I have discoverred that both languages are fairly similar. In fact I can fairly easily read portuguese if not speak it. Also if people spoke to me slowly I could even understand them...mostly. Vice Versa as well. This was because the spelling and pronounciations were slightly different but the base was almost the same. For example I noticed that if a word would be spelled with a "ue" in spanish, it was spelled with an "O" in portuguese. An example is the word door in spanish "Puerta" is spelled "Porta" in portuguese.

These rules do not always apply, nor is it always that simple, but generally I have found the words are similar or even the same, simply pronounced differently. So I bought myself a English-Portuguese dictionary, and set out to learn by speaking to people around the office here when I have a chance. I found it helps to have silly phrases all set out Like my favorite to use that seems to get people giggling is "Isso e Louco!" ( Thats crazy!)

In fact that phrase proved to be a real ice breaker with the staff of folks that sit around me here in Sao Paolo. Since being here I am sitting in the middle of a cube farm surrounded by legal clerks and para legal secretary types. It seemed everyone stayed to themselves or on their own. Never saying hi or anything. I then found out from my local coworker who speaks excellent English, that they are shy because they are nervous about having to speak English and they cant, although they are trying to learn. So they simply avoid me.

So I said "well introduce me", because I wanted to learn to speak Portuguese and who better than people who do not and cannot speak to me otherwise. So He popped up and said something that was like "Hey everyone this is Javier and he asked me why no one speaks to him?, I said because they are shy" All of the sudden there was all of this chatter around me and one or two the women came up to him and said something like "I will kill you", but came over and introduced themselves and then laughed at themselves when they screwed up the "English" introduction. I then informed them I was trying to learn to speak portuguese, and showed them my cheat sheet that I had downloaded from the internet. The one thing I had written on top by hand was the translation "Isso e Louco" and they saw this and started to laugh, in fact this sheet made its rounds all over the floor. It was kind of funny. I had all of these people coming over to me asking for me to send them the link for this site.

It was like a language explosion had happened. It turns out that alot of them were trying to learn English and so they were eager to try and use it but felt intimidated. So it helped that I looked like a fool trying to speak portuguese ( well they THINK its because of that ;) because they were now not so ashamed or fearfull of goofing themselves, since I beat them to it. Now, days after I still hear people in the distance saying in broken English "I am learning English" and its funny. My local coworker thinks it quite funny. Because nobody ever tries to speak to him or ask him questions, now all of the sudden everyone around here is All over this English language thing. I also have a large number of folks that try to speak with, and who are kind enough to show me the correct way to say something. Luiz my local coworker said that he has heard people saying that now they have a friend from America who they can talk to in English. Its funny. Its been fun I have to say, and its made this chore of working away from home a little more bearable.

Brazil day 3-4-5-6

I just worked. Ate. and managed an hour workout between that and sleep. Not much else.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Day 2- Brazil

5AM up and at em. I was up super early even for me. I had set the alarm for 6AM but I was already up at 4:30. At 5 Decided to take advantage and do an even earlier workout. Good thing. I did not reset my phone which I use as an alarm to the different time zone. If I had relied on it I would have been 3 hours late!

Anyhow this morning did:

45 minutes stationary bike, easy level2 with a 90 RPM average

2X 30 crunches, 30 Flutter Kicks, 30 V-crunch, 1 minute planks

After Work

Did a short workout:

5 minutes stretching
15 Minutes core
10 Minutes stretching

Sunday, November 9, 2008

The BB-t-BB Challenge! GRRRRRR

OK so to make the best of my time in prison....errr....Sao Paolo Brazil. I have decided this is teh absolutly BEST time to start working to get back in shape. In the past I had slowly started to do some runs and time on the trainer but due to travel and work stress and shortened time at home meaning less time to do all the chores and home related improvements. It has been hard. But now the situation has changes slightly.

1) the Bathroom remodel is Finished! So now I have little major renovations to make for another few months.

2) I am in Brazil with nothing to do except work, eat, sleep and attempt to watch TV. The TV part is where I think I can fit in a regular waorkout or 2. So with little distratctions once I leave work I can definitly put in an hour or 2 a day.

So As extra incentive I bet my wife that I would lose 5 lbs by the time I return from Brazil. If I do not make the weight, I have to do all the laundry for a week, AND I will clean teh bathrooms when I return (a task I find MOST unappealing).

Anyhow, to make this more inspiring and solid I have given this mission a name: The Brazil Back to Basics Blowout! AKA BB-t-BB

So to kick off the BB-t-BB I decided to go to the hotel gym. When I got there my immediat feeling was WOW! what a nice gym! It had a small pool, a separate weight room, and separate room with the treadmills and stationary bikes. The weight room seemed impressive, with I think 20 differet stations with a combo of freeweights and machines.

However, as with any other pseudo luxury hotel, thats where teh WOW factor ends at a distant look. I was going to use the treadmill for a 30 minute run, there were 5 treadmills. All of them were turned off. So I went to turn on teh first one, turned the on switch.....Nothing. Went to the next one again turned it on, Hey teh lights came on alright! But when I pushed the speed button nothing happenned. The treadmill was a few years old from teh looks of it and the buttons were worn down from years of pushing on it. So I pushed the button hard....Nothing. OK so now I went to the next one, going through the routine again and this time the thing worked. So out of 5 treadmills 2 do not work. As I looked closer at the other machines they all looked the same ... old and unmaintained.

That is what my definition of a Pseudo luxury hotel is. Its sort of like the original intent for the hotel was to be a super luxury hotel, so the physical structure of the hotel is modern and nice looking, but as you get closer you see the wear marks that result from lack of proper maintenance. Thats what the "Estanplaza Berrini" Hotel is like. Excellent intents...10 years ago. But lack of followup. Still an OK place to stay but so far do not expect too much from it. But thats OK so long as they keep the rooms clean, which it appears they do.

ANyhow I managed to have a great workout. Ran 30 minutes at a 10K pace, followed it with a 20 minute core workout.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

One more time

Today I am off to Sao Paolo Brazil for two weeks. To be honest I hate it. Not just because I hate having to be away from home yet again. But Because whenever I go to Sao Paolo I feel like a prisoner. Crime is just sooo extensive there that it is strongly warned NOT to go out alone unless using a hotel or office taxi etc. Last time I was there there was a Curfew in effect due to riots going on.

So to make it a little more palatable I have set a goal for myself. Lose 5 of the 10 pounds I have gained since my injury, and to start back onto my training program. No excuses, there is little else I can do there other than go to the hotel gym.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Motivation

A motivational Video from NAS Sports

http://tinyurl.com/5lsecd


I think I'll go running now.

Home

For a week at least, before having to pull up anchor again and head down to Sao Paolo, Brazil for a week. There is allot to do here and with only a week, its all compressed. That is the ultimate trouble with work travel, it truly does get in the way of everything related to life.

So though I would love to be down in NYC today to support the Race With Purpose NYC marathoners, I have to be here to help out Retno with all the stuff that has not been done when I was away in Chile, and will be away in Sao Paolo.

Anyhow its a great day for a run so maybe in honor of the NYC folks I'll take the dogs out for a run.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Last day in Chile

Tommorow, Chile I like you lots as a country to come and visit, But I wanna be home!

Friday is a national Holiday here which we were not aware of when originally planning so that means get to go home a day early. Never looked so forward to that. I am actually packing my bags tonight ( or shall I say throwing the dirty clothes into the suitcase :)

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Sunday in Chile

Well I am sitting in the Lobby of the Hotel, in a little section that has a small bar ( serving only non-alchoholic drinks thanks to elections) typing away at the keyboard. I started my day with work that has to get done being that I will not have time tommorow. I spent about 2-3 hours on that. Then I decided to do a nice workout: 40 minutes on the stationary bike (ave HR 129, Max HR 144); After I went for a 3 mile run (3.16 miles to be exact, ave HR 156, max HR 173) The run was seemingly a very slow pace, but the fact wass I stopped alot since part of the run was through a sculpture park that was previously closed.

Now I am back online trying to catch up on work that seems to just creep up on me. Right now I am short one staff person at work so while I am in Chile manageing the work being done here I am also trying to finish up work that the previous occupant of the now empty position.

I read somewhere that you can tell the quality of life a population has by the amount of parks and the number of people using them. I am looking out the hotel window as I sit here working; looking at the locals playing in the park along the River. What does that say about me I wonder?

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Slow long days

The weather in Santiago has been spectacular. Not that I have had the chance to enjoy it since I have been cooped up in the office. Been some VERY long days here. Business travel is not all it sounds like it could be. Travel to exotic locations and sit in an office to leave after dark to a restaurant. Thats it.

Now this weekend figured to see do some sightseeing. It was OK but it was cloudy and drizzly at times. NOT the awesome weather we have had. Tommorow(Sunday) I will have half day off to veg out and relax. The other part I will be working on some memo's. FUN

Travelling for bussiness just sucks.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Travel like crazy!

OK so the next six weeks I will pay for the arrangements I had made earlier in the year. I had rescheduled business travel so I could train for Ironman. Of course The Ironman did not happen thanks to my timely collarbone breakage.

So Now I pay the tax man. I have to leave today for 2 weeks in Chile, come back for one week to change clothes say "Hi" to my wife and dogs( also probably throw in a paint job in the house or some other repair work that will no doubt come up), and then I leave for Sao Paolo Brazil for another two weeks.

International man. Thats me :) One benefit tho is I have racked up enough frequent flier miles to buy my folks tickets to come visit me for Christmas! Which I think is really cool!

In a way this is the best time time to do this. I cant really train yet so it disrupts nothing.

Oh well, none the less I hate travel, but its just part of my life right now. So I make the best of it. I will get a chance to revisit some spots I saw the last time.

I may just contact my pals at www.labicicletaverde.com and see about taking a tour with them. I cant really get into the hard stuff I did last year, but the tour is fairly tame since its for tourists. I should be fine doing that.

Monday, October 13, 2008

My Life

Sunday, October 12, 2008

The 5 K run

Well as part of the World Wide Festival of races I did a 5 K run at the Rockies. It was my return to running of sorts so I did not want to push it. I was joined Jackie at the Rockies, who was there with other Rockies regulars like Irwin and some of the Westchester Tri folks.

It was a beautiful day, and I was joined by Simba. Who as usual did awesome. My results were 31:04. Pretty slow for me. But plenty fine since I was just enjoying a pain free run :)

The Sleepy Hollow High Parking lot where just about All Rockies runs start from


Me and Simba on a Sunny day



Simba was wearing her race attitude and gear!


Yes she is pulling me along. a 9 min pace just won't do

The Start of the Rockies trail

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Kick the Couch

For some reason I woke up feeling a need to workout today. I jumped on the Bike downstairs for 30 minutes ( easy) and felt great! Saw that several of my Peeps had signed up for an online event called the World Wide Festival of races which is a online race where you either register for a real race or do the distance on your own and report the results. This was right up my alley since I cannot really race and have to take it easy. But I have and can run 30 minutes in a slow and controlled manner. So this seemed perfect! I am doing it with Simba. here is my Bib:

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Slow but steady

OK so I, after some research, have found a few useful exercises I can do without ruining my collarbone or back. I can do some core work, not all not because of my shoulder but because of my back. BUT did do leg raises and strangely enough I was able to do planks. I started off slowly yesterday just to get a feel for it and see if it aggravated anything. Literally 15 second efforts. No negative effects! So Today I will continue with 15 seconds but add more reps. So I figure I can slowly work that up as well as scissor kicks. I know I can do the stationary bike so long as I am sitting up ( cant bend forward due to back) But it still works the legs.

My doc did say I could begin to do light strength work on the arms also, like use a 5 lb dumbbell do do curls and such. He emphasized it was just to keep muscle tone not to build strength.

So I think I can slowly start to work back into these, over time. Looking forward to getting going, but right now patience is more important. I can easily screw up the recovery I have had thus far. So I will take it lightly. This is the one reason I will not try the light run strategy the doc said I could do, because the last time i tried it, after 20 minutes I was zoning out as I do when running and found my self taking off when I felt good. that is until my collarbone started to hurt from the bouncling around. The temptation to "Book" is just too strong.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Frustration

This morning I woke up feeling incredibly frustrated and bummed that my injuries just keep piling up and I am just starting to feel well....OLD. Due to them I am unable to do things that I normally do. The inability to get things done is just getting me down.

However, this morning I woke up to this scene below and realized that Marmalade(my cat) was having a worse day ;)




As Marmalade and I have discovered, life just has a way of coming between us and our full potential.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Pain... a love/hate relationship...mostly Hate



Well the back is better, still sensitive to the touch, in fact its bruised. I think thats odd since I did not hit anything but I guess its possible I burst some blood vessels back there. Still feel pain when bending over. But at least i'm mobile and do not feel pain when walking like I did on Sunday. Medicine is a wonderful thing. One of the medicines is a muscle relaxant. I wonder if a joint would help? hehe anything in the name of science!

This much I know, I will never make fun of people that are holding their backs ever again!

Monday, September 29, 2008

Today

OK so my back is sore today not as bad as it was yesterday. But I have to say this getting old SUCKS! Still on limited activities for today. Saw a doctor yesterday and he told me I had a sprained back. This happened because I was trying to avoid putting any weight on my right collarbone when lifting an oddly shaped box. It was no more than 20 lbs but it was enough.

The doc said that my back was probably already a bit off kilter due to the fact that I have been trying to compensate for over 2 months with out using the right arm for anything which made sense. Oh well I have been resting up anyhow. But ths incident sure makes me miss my workouts even more.

NOTE TO SELF: Focus on Core workouts in the prep phase

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Insult to Injury!

Now for teh first time in my life, I have lower back pain! It looks like I somehow strained my lower back. Dont ask me how, but the nurse at the 24 hour Unutedhealthcare hot-line thinks it may have something to do with the broken collarbone. meaning that I compansate for not being able to use my right arm. Thus putting more strain on other parts of my body.

GREAT!

SO now I am almost immobile from the pain that just started this morning, when I lifted a small box!

Today is My Birthday!!

Buy me something!

My Amazon.com Wish List

Saturday, September 27, 2008

09 Training notes and planning

Ok so here I am now trying to get excited about training for 09 and IM. I say "trying" but in reality its hard for me to get crazy excited, because I still cannot do any serious workouts. At least not till the end of October.

Not that that is such a hindrance considering I have been saddled with two overseas business trips in late October and mid November. Chile in end of October for 2 Weeks, Brazil Mid November also for 2 weeks.

SO Training really cannot get started anyhow. So my plan is to Use Nov and early December as an Anatomical adaptation phase. Light workouts to basically get into the swing of things again. Start to develop a routine again and get used to following it.

I have read Going Long to get a better background on what my training is supposed to look like:



This was purely for information purposes, because I decided to go ahead with continuing using John Hirsch as my coach (THE CREW!!). Though I am using a coach, I think its always good to know whats going on. I am happy to say that John's advice has always been spot on and everything he has told me in the past agrees with the advice of several other well known coaches like Joe Friel and Matt Fitzgerald.

Also with my varied schedule and regular changes that I need to make due to frequent business travel, its good for me to know what type of workouts I should be doing at what point, so that I can make a change when traveling if needed.

Anyhow below are some notes I took about the various training periods.

Prep Period

Generally 4-12 weeks long which leaves me much flexibility to travel and recover from my broken collarbone and travel for business.

The main objective is to slowly bring the body back to condition and adjust back to a regular training cycle. Additionally this is a good time to work on the basic skill sets ( cycling efficiency, swimming efficiency, running form).

Early in the prep period sessions should be short having come off a rest period. It’s a good time to incorporate cross training or non-triathlon specific skills that will still help build on your endurance base. The training intensity should be kept generally low, and add to your general fitness.

Training volume should be easy. Maybe 5 sessions in the week for the first 2-3 weeks.

After the 4th week, a baseline should be established for Threshold testing.

As the prep period nears its end, the volume should increase gradually to ensure a smooth transition into the Base period.

Base period

Generally 12 weeks

This is the most critical period of training for an Ironman distance race. By the end of this period the athlete should have all the endurance strength needed to complete the race. It is during this period that the athlete develops the endurance, force and muscular endurance that will be further developed during the Build period. Often however, especially for novices a race can be very successful with only a Base period completed since at this point the athlete should have the necessary endurance and strength.

Base period is often broken up into Base 1, Base 2, and Base 3

Base 1 ( 4 weeks) objectives are to build endurance and strength. Endurance workouts are longer. And there is a focus on improving technical skills

Base 2 (4 weeks) continues on the focus of endurance with increased work to build Muscular endurance. Thus addition of ME workouts are added. Endurance sessions get longer.

Care needs to be taken not to seek higher intensity workouts, that could result in Peaking too early

Base 3 (4 weeks)

Weekly volume reaches a peak here. With long endurance sessions and the addition of more ME intensity work. A C level race can be used for intensity at this time.


Build period

Generally 8 weeks

The early part of the build period is similar to the late base only with more volume. The objective of the build period is to prepare the athlete for the specific stresses that will be faced during the A race. Training on similar terrain and conditions.

The build period should include over distance training as well as race simulators. This is a good time to work on race strategy. Open water swims are good to add at this time if possible.

For my purposes I am throwing in Lots of planned century distance rides the race with purpose Bear Mountain Boondoggle and the Putnam purgatory ride come to mind. These are fancy named rides that me and friends have put together based on known routes but of course its just another ride if you don't give it a name! They are each 110 miles + Maybe I'll even throw in a 140+ miler.

My build will be starting with a half ironman such as the Endurasport half which is done in the well known Harriman state park usually in May( May 16 in 09). The bike is 4 loops of the famously challenging Harriman sprint course. GREAT hill training.


The Build will be ended with a race at Tupperlake which I do every year with the Race with purpose crew. Normally I do the HIM but in 09, I will do the Sprint so that come Sunday I can do the full 112 miles in Lake Placid, followed by a 10-15 mile run.

This should allow me to test out my race strategy. In the past on my HIM races I always have suffered cramping on the run. One of my goals is to avoid this since I cannot imaging running a marathon with that type of cramping. So I will be testing out whatever strategy I use on the Lake Placid course.


Peak period (Taper)

Generally 3 weeks

The objective here is to bring it all together and prepare the athlete to peak at race time. It is characterized with high intensity workouts, followed by good recovery periods. During the first two weeks of this period it makes sense to schedule breakthrough sessions or short race simulators, to maintain race level intensity, followed by thorough recovery. There should be 2 intensity sessions per week.

Race period( race week)

Only one goal here. Conserve your energy to arrive at the race fully charged and ready to KICK SOMEASS!!!


Sunday, September 21, 2008

Volunteering

Well today I decided to do something I never did before in Triathlon, I volunteered at a race. Specifically the Nutmeg HIM, run by Endurit multisport. To be honest the past few years I was I guess a bit selfish. I always thought ah well other people can do that, its not my thing. PLUS they get volunteers from communities anyhow.

BOY was I wrong!

Yes there were great volunteers from the community, but without people who are athletes there to guide them you end up with madness. AN example I had today. I was helped by 4 great kids who were there to help. Before the race the Gatorade cups were filled and the water cups were filled. We also had GU's ( the race was nicely stocked, at least at MY aide station ;) So AT first took it lightly didn't think much of it until the first runner came up and the kids just held out water and Gatorade, not saying anything. There was another woman there but she was not an athlete. I was at the bathroom as the guy was coming up to the station, immediately saw his confusion and watched him slow down.

AS I got here I immediately saw the problem:

1) They were each holding one of each and were not reaching out. better to have each kid hold one type of drink and have them stand apart announcing what they have. Put water up front and Gatorade at the other end of the table. Making sure they are clearly separated. making it easy for an athlete to distinguish what is what. This made things easier for teh athletes.

2) Some of the aids station was set up right before the turning point, so we would catch the athletes as they leave the bike, but force the athletes heading for a second loop to look back for water or supplies, so I made n aid station move, moving it up 50 feet so the athletes could see the aid station as they come in to the loop ahead of time and plan for it, not having to make any special effort.

What I did was not special. I saw others doing the same and after 10 or so minutes the stations were running smoothly. Why? because they had knowledgeable athletes manning the station helping organize the non-athletes. I have had the experience of dealing with race conditions and how they affect me. I have had the confused aid station experience as well as the smooth one. I know what works for me when I am an athlete and can apply it.

Seeing this I realized I cannot leave it up to others to make sure all my races go well. I have to participate in my sport. For an organizer to hire enough people to do this, our race fees would skyrocket. So it really is up to me and other athletes to realize our sport cannot really grow and be the great sport it is if we do not on occasion take the time to help out.

On a personal note I have to say I was a bit inspired seeing folks having a brutal day, tired as all hell hit the turnaround, knowing they have another 6+ miles to go, in 87 degree weather, going uphill. They were not going to win because those guy s were already in. Heck they were not going to have a good time at all. But they pushed forward to finish what they had started despite all of that. Awesome.

Most important, I got a free Technical T and Pizza! Yeah BABY!

Great job to Phil who Kicked A$$ taking first in his AG, and a shout out to the JH CREW who was there in force helping out.

And Great job to Mandy for putting on a great and TOUGH race!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Sweet revenge!

From Failblog.org

My funniest training story

Today I was sitting around thinking of the training I have to do for IM Lake Placid, and that got me to thinking about swimming and of how sometimes swimming in Open water, especially around NYC, you can end up with interesting situations.

I think 2006 in the Park to park race in NYC. I was doing this race just to get some open water time and experience in the Hudson river as I was training for the NYC Triathlon. As such it was training session for me. Now I have to say I have done the NYC triathlon. 2 times and have done the park to park also 2 times and I always enter the water of the Hudson with a bit of suspicion. Maybe it has to do with all those Law and Order and crime shows where you see a body floating in the rivers around NY. Or many it has to do with the large number of times I have seen condoms and other lovely artifacts floating in it. Anyhow, that mentality probably set the stage for what happened.

I was swimming along after the gun went off and I would say maybe 5 minutes into the swim I am cruising along nicely feeling comfortable, when suddenly I feel something long wrap itself around my shoulder and start to wind around my Neck, I though " damned seaweed" at first I was going to continue and ignore it. But it felt slimy on me so I slowed and went to pull it off. As I pulled I felt it tighten around my neck! Immediately In my mind I thought, "Wait there is no seaweed in the Hudson river! What the F is this?!" The more I pulled it just tightened. It was not long before I was rolling around in the river struggling with this thing, thinking I was possible at war with some mutant strain of something or other ( no doubt a creation of the garbage processing plant upriver!). It seemed like forever, but It was really not even a second. After I got it off I realized It was a long, clear, sheet of plastic wrap that must have been tossed into the river by some picnicker up along the park in upper Manhattan. I realized that Kayackers were coming in for me, they saw me struggling and assumed I was in need of help.

I waved them off and continued on a bit embarrassed. About a minute after I had to slow down and stop mid river because I could not help but start laughing at myself just imagine what I must have looked like rolling around in the river as if I was fighting some anaconda in a Tarzan Movie.

I suppose thats why I like triathlon, due to the huge number of time you are out there training and doing things in situations that are NOT an everyday occurrence, you get to have allot of these weird experiences that makes for well adventure.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Gopher got scared of his shadow

Well no Spring like return to training for me. I saw the Doc today and he said based on Xrays, the bone looks like it healing, but it still has not fused. He said its not surprising because it was a pretty extensive break( as can be seen here) , not a fracture type of thing.

Its not a real blow to my Overall IM LP training since its still far off, but I would have liked to do some training for a marathon or some foot races. Just to have fun.

Oh well. I'll have to continue harassing people on their Blogs and on other triathlon related Blogs I guess. Maybe I'll write a book about everything I know about triathlon.......OK maybe a pamphlet is more like it ;)

Train of thought

Sorry folks but here it comes......the wandering train of thought post.

OK So this morning I decided to go to IAMTRI.com, the official Ironman community. I realize some people may choose not to join this site because it is part of the ironman "establishment". However, because I have no morals ( at least from a triathlon perspective) and could care less if they trample on the little people, I went anyways.

Immediately whenever I go there I am struck by two things: 1) there are an amazing number of HACS on this site (HAC - Hot Athletic Chicks) 2) there are a Huge number of God fearing folks there too ( ie they post allot of "God Bless you" and even quote the bible. I mean seriously in the middle of a post about Anaerobic threshold for example you may very well see a reference to Luke verse II or something) .

Now the above is not meant to say there is anything wrong with the above. Its just that these are unusual concentrations to see. Not the HAC part because everyone knows that Triathlete women are the best looking hands down. But the Gospel folks, is a bit different. This led me to make an association. that naturally in my caffeine sloshed state I followed to a miserable end. So now Jump with me! ---> It seems to me that Gospel folks almost universally seem to go towards association with organizations often seen as being the "establishment". in this case the Ironman Brand. But also in my experience they are almost overwhelmingly Windows O/S Users.

There is a group of people known as "MAC users" who happen to be almost fanatical ANTI-WINDOWS users. Seeing Windows and anything to do with Bill Gates as having to do with the Anti-Christ. Making Bill Gates ( and Jerry Seinfeld by association thanks to those crappy commercials) THE ANTI-CHRIST.

So here we have two camps in some bizarre way contradicting each other, and yet having the same goal. The gospel folks who live and breath doing battle with Evil, and in living the good life, are IN FACT using the tools, that according to MAC users, of the Anti-christ.

Interesting Huh?

So what doe this mean? is the end of the world coming?

Are battle lines being drawn-up as we speak! with insidious maneuverings on both sides? Are the God fearing folks basically using the devils tools against him? literally Throwing it in his face! Sticking out their tongues at him? or is theother way around, is the forked tongued cretin sneaking his way in, to undermine Gods people?

OR*** Are the Mac Users just plain confused ( very likely BTW)

Just something to think about.

Or better yet ...not.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

ITS ALIVE!!!

The past week we started to have our upstairs bathroom redone. The plumbers were here last week and took out theTub. Now taking out a tub is messy business. The sheetrock walls had to be taken off down to the studs. So since they are coming back next week, I have the task of "cleaning up" like remove the nails and screws from thewalls etc.

Now when they took the tub out we found that the plywood underneath was rotted, so we took out the rotted portions and will replace with new plywood.

So we have a section of subfloor exposed, and the subflooring goes over to the room next door. As I pulled out some of the sheet rock that was left over and screws etc alot of it fell into the subflooring. After I was finished and cleaning up I started to pull the stuff out from teh sub floor. AS I was reaching in I noticed in the sub floor a few feet past the wall under the next roon a pair of large shiny eyes. .....I froze. ....They were huge. Much bigger than any mouse or rat I have ever seen... and glowing.

Slowly they were creeping towards me. ..HOLY SHIT!!

I pulled my arm out and .....The the little bastard Marmalade pops out meowing at me.

I was sitting there cathing my breath as he scrambled out of the hole and out the door. He must have slipped in without me noticing while I was on the ladder pulling nails out from the top of the walls. I just cracked up after that.

2009 season thus far

So here are my tentative races for 2009 so far.

The season is being built around IM LP. All races before that are there solely to train for IMLP. they serve one purpose or another.

May, 09 Endurasport half- This is a HIM that is done every year at Harriman state park. The same course as the well known brutal Harriman spint, only the bike course is done 4 times! It will be great opportunity to work hills and also to work out my pacing stratedgy

Per their course description : "The bike course is a difficult 14-mile loop course with 1,500 total feet of elevation gain/loss per lap"

June 27, 2009, Tupper Lake Tinman half- This is the Race with Purpose traditional race. Done every year for the ast 3 years. A great Race, Great company and lots of fun. Howecer this holds anpther good reason to go. Forst its on a Saturday, so on Sunday we all hit the IMLP bike course to get firsthand experience with it. Possibly extend the time there for more extensive work up there. This is also a race where I have for each race done here had trouble with cramping on the run. So this will give me a final opportunity to test out a new race stratedgy before the BIG ONE. Finally due to its timing this will be the Final big weekend of My Build Phase.

July 12, IAMS Doggie DASH, The worlds most expensive 10K race. AT least for me. I had paid $250 to do a Doggie Duathlon in 2008. The Swim portion had to be cancelled due to the City of NY changing their mind two weeks before. So they turned it into a 10K run. In my case since I coiuld not attend they offerred me free entry into the race in 09. ANyhow its really a fun event that is done along with the NYC tri, and well I get to race with my bestest Pal Simba.

July 26, 2009 IM Lake Placid- Need I say more?

September 20 2009, Nutmeg half, Thinking the Nutmeg half in Connecticut.

Other Possibilities, the Toughman Half. This was its inaugural year. Of course I am on the DL list. But its a local race, no travel planning involved.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Sluggish!

Yecch! I feel incredibly slow today. This past week work has been a non-stop meeting fest, which just drags after awhile. I swear at one point there was a meeting in there to discuss what other meetings we need lol

To make matters worse, I havent worked out in weeks. I was starting up a bit a few weeks ago, but realized I could not follow doctors orders. I was supposed to run but more like a shuffle so there is no bouncing. But once on the road the urge to tear off a quit sprint was overpowering. So decided its better to forego the running for a few more weeks until I am cleared for running unhinderred. The last thing I need is to undo whatever healing has been done to date.

I've benn using the trainer tho but not every day. I just settled myself to wait it out until I get back into the swing of things. Next week I meet with the surgeon again, to get more Xrays and see what progress has been made. hopefully, I'll get a green light to get back to my normally abnormal life of extreme training hours and ridiculously crazy hard physical challenges.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Google humor

Go to Google.com type in "french military victories," and click the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

:)

This is what you get:



Sorry for the crummy picture, Try it yourself!

Google had quit a number of other gags(make sure to check out their FAQs):

How about their "Free" in home wireless service:

http://www.google.com/tisp/index.html

Then of course there is Google Romance:

http://www.google.com/romance/index.html

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Are you sure you are registerred for your IM race?

Dont know if anyone other than me noticed a few weeks ago that my IM Lake Placid countdown was showing a Blank "Image not found" type of message. The reason for that was that the image is located on the Ironman USA website ( MA Sports) and their servers went down. In fact they were down for a few weeks, and they are still recovering. Since they lost their backup files as well. So what does this mean to you and me?

They lost all participant records.

Thats right all of your registration info and the fact that you were registered for one of their races. The only reason most people are now listed is because Active.com was able to provide them a list of participant that paid through them. This helped with the athletes that registered the regular way.

BUT if you went through Community fund, I got news for you. They do may know you are in any of their races.

How did I find this out? Because I was suddenly NOT listed in the IM Lake Placid 09 race anymore.

Community Fund spots do not go through Active.com so they could not recover the info. I suspect this affects the 09 races mostly. Because they were able to find my info, but I was back to being registered for IM Wisconsin. Which I had changed back after my accident 6 weeks ago.

Of course they should have your checks but I suspect they cant find those lol
I am not the only one, my friend Phil also went thought this pain of having to send in the registration info again.

So do yourself a favor, check that you are still listed in the IM race you are training for, especially if you went through the Community Fund.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Bionic Collar bone



This is a snapshot of my new and improved collarbone. With it I have my new superpowers like the ability to tell if its Humid or raining right now, through a uncomfortable feeling in my shoulder!

Friday, August 29, 2008

09 Plan

The past few weeks I have been doing some research and allot of reading about IM training. Due to budget constraints for next year. I have had to make the decision that I cannot use a coach in 09. Which is unfortunate because I did find having a coach to be quite helpful in dealing with plan changes due to my occasionally hectic business travel.

But all is not lost!

I still have the training plan that was developed for me by John Hirsch last year in preparation for IM Wisconsin that as you know I never was able to compete in due to my accident.

So using that as a starting point along with all I did learn from John and my own experiences thus far. I figure that I can put together a pretty good plan for tackling IM Lake Placid.

To help out with the planning I have also been reading Going Long: Training for Ironman-Distance Triathlons (Ultrafit Multisport Training Series), as well as my other resources from my reference library ( I like using that word it sound important!): Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide, and The Triathlete's Training Bible (2nd Edition).

Overall planning is looking pretty good. And its also looking like my formal training will be starting in October. Looking forward to it. With all of this Learnin' that I'm doing I should be OK to handle any emergency plan changes that come up due to Business travel.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Forced Politics

OK at the risk of sounding like an idiot...Don't say it...I have a question:

Who decided that we ALL have to see the Democratic National Convention on TV? I mean its on all the major networks?

Seriously, what is there to learn from this. Obama is not even there at the moment, its just a bunch of folks there doing the Ra Ra Shish Boom Ba type of thing. I understand when Obama is there maybe as the future president we should hear what he has to say. But who cares about Senator Pork-barrel from Omaha, telling us from a 3rd person how Obama is going to change things.

Personally, put the greatest American dog back on, its a more thought provoking show

Monday, August 25, 2008

Recovery meal

Well I just finished a 45 minute EASY workout on the indoor trainer. No HR, no speed or pace, just easy spinning. Its just an exercise to get me off my sorry ass. I tried doing crunches the other day and felt a slight pain in my collarbone afterwards, so I decided to skip those until I done some more quality healing. ( no really, its true, this is not an excuse to get out of core work!)

Anyhow, I was able to progress on my reading of "Going Long" So it was a pretty efficient ride in getting two things done at once.

Anyhow now I am having what is maybe my favorite recovery meal, Black bean soup. LUV it! Being Cuban born eating Black beans is basically a standard thing. Yet as much as I do eat them I never get tired of them. They have protein, and carbs. To keep things simple I just get the Goya Brand Black bean soup, the one that are ready to eat. Throw in a dash of garlic powder and Adobo ( mix of different seasonings) And presto! recovery meal.

I also find this to be a great pre-race meal, one of the better known side effects helps keep people from Drafting during the race ;)

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Going Long

Reading "Going long" by Joe Friel and Gordon Byrn. I figured I would get some more pointers that I could use to improve my Ironman training. I have to say, the book is chock full of training information. I am just through the Training Overview section, where the book described training periodization, HR, Power and RPE training etc. If you are looking for an easy to read "How to" book, this is not it.




Not a book I would recommend for a beginner. You really have to be interested in the subject matter, and training specific information. However, if you are an experienced athlete, past your initial triathlons and are now looking to expand your knowledge, this is an awesome source of information. So far alot seems to be similar info as what is found in The Triathlete's Training Bible (2nd Edition) only that it is geared towards athletes who are focusing on training for a half or full ironman race.

Life Simplified

Well, all of this time sitting on the sidelines has given me an opportunity to see my life from a third person perspective. Its scary!

My god I was involved in so many things that I realized I could not focus on anything really well, but since I was in the middle of it I did not realize it because I was on auto pilot going from one event to the next. Here is a summary of my ADD like haze:

-IM Training, need I say more?
-Race with Purpose, I am a beginners tri coach there post daily, then plotting future training sessions etc
-Blogging
-Starting businesses, multiple... thinking up strategies for each
-Home remodeling projects- specifically making the tri-cave a reality
-Busy surfing the net for deals on Tri stuff I want
-Training SImba to be the next Great American Dog ( never applied but who cares?)
-The internet in general takes up at least 2 hours of my day
-JOB, The biggest distraction of all. Wish I could get rid of the need to work lol
-Then the latest and greatest distraction from life, TWITTER. Nothing better for an ADD type personality. Imagine being able to stop whatever you are doing and send a message to all of your friends that you are about to go to the bathroom! Better yet, they expect this! You are guaranteed to NEVER be fully focussed on anything ever again!

This is Just a few, there are more....so many more. But notice what is NOT on that list. Being home and enjoy my family.

I have a great wife and I do enjoy my home. She has not said anything to me but I know she would like me to maybe give my home a little more focus. I agree. Its not enough to come home to sleep. My wife is too good to just focus on her when there is an emergency.

I am a multi-tasker by nature, so I will always have several things in the air, but I need to modify the focus of those things a little. Keep things simple, and enjoy life. Did you know I have a HUGE deck with some lovely untouched woods out back. This weekend was the first time we went to get some outdoor furniture and actually enjoyed our deck. ( LOVE my new contained firepit!)

AT first sight my accident really was a bad thing, but there was a very good side benefit, I was forced to see my life from a different perspective. Like forced to be home lol

Now I better go and twitter everyone about what a waste of time Twitter is ;)

Friday, August 22, 2008

Sit back and enjoy

Today I decided I was actually going to use a vacation day, well for vacation. The weather looked great, low to mid 80's, sunny. What else can you ask for?

Lately all of my vacation time went to dr's visits and X-rays. So I took a real decisive move and chose to take a day off "just because".

So far I have done very well at it. I woke up at 10am! OK with a few little breaks from sleep that started at around 6AM, but none the less I did manage to mostly sleep between 6 and 10. Thats a record for me.

It is very new to me to get up and have nothing that I absolutely have to do. SInce I cannot train much I cant do that either. I mean I have some workouts I can do but they are 30 minutes, in my Ironman world where most workouts take at least 90 minutes and a pint of blood, that doesn't count as a workout. 30 minutes at a very slow pace is just goofing off.

So taking a day like this is pretty refreshing, I really needed it, there is allot going on at work, and in my life in general, so I kind of felt I needed to take a day to veg. I personally think that most people do not take enough time like this. I know I do not. My friend Erin recently wrote about the benefits of living a while with out her laptop or an internet connection, in her life unplugged post. It seems far too radical for me, but I can definitely see what she is talking about. How often do we take time to just enjoy doing nothing? I know that I do not do it enough. If I have a spare moment I just try to fill it up with something. I literally have 3 or 4 major projects sitting on the back burner for those days I get restless. Thats not counting my active ones (this does not count home maintenance because that is a given).

In about a month or so I will be given the greenlight to begin training more rigorously. To include swimming, regular cycling, and running. Although I do look forward to that day, especially for the cycling. I do realize that I have been missing something in my life a bit, I have been missing the sitting back and enjoy it aspects. I need to make it a point to arrange days like this a little more in the future.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

First Run in weeks

My last run was a short transition run on July 13. Today was my first run after my cycling accident that resulted in my broken collarbone. Per doctors orders, it was extremely slow with little arm movement. It was basically a shuffle for 20 minutes. It was great to get out and run in the sun. Get the cobwebs out.

Tomorrows I star a very easy training program, based on what the doc told me I could do. Its basically 30 minutes each day of cycling and running. Doing each on alternating days. Doesn't sound like much but , after todays run my shoulder was sore. So it tells me I am not going to be back to my usual work load in a while.

But it sure is nice to see a training plan stretching out before me.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Mossman Triathlon

Last Sunday I accompanied my Pal Christine (AKA Holistic Guru) to a Olympic distance triathlon being held in Connecticut called the Park City Mossman. Anyhow nice race but the tide was low at the swim start. Look at the results of THAT

I'm BACK Baby!

Ok Not completely, but after my last visit to the Doc I have received the Greenlight to slowly start running and doing Indoor cycling ( trainer or stationary Bike) workouts. SO I am already up on my Buckeye outdoors account working on a training plan (of course).

It will be a month before I can fully begin to run without care, and another month after that before swimming can come in but its something at least. makes me feel sooo much better. I just felt like a slug not being able to workout.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

I thought I had a problem with Dog poop

Flying piece of art causes museum chaos in Switzerland

Mon Aug 11, 3:26 PM ET

A giant inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again, the museum said Monday.

The art work, titled "Complex S(expletive..)", is the size of a house. The wind carried it 200 metres (yards) from the Paul Klee Centre in Berne before it fell back to Earth in the grounds of a children's home, said museum director Juri Steiner.

The inflatable turd broke the window at the children's home when it blew away on the night of July 31, Steiner said. The art work has a safety system which normally makes it deflate when there is a storm, but this did not work when it blew away.

Steiner said McCarthy had not yet been contacted and the museum was not sure if the piece would be put back on display.

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The above story was copied from Yahoo news



Sunday, August 10, 2008

An evening at the Animal ER

So I am up blogging because I am awake. Too pumped up due to this evenings activities which I will spell out shortly.

In just an hour I have to go and pick up Guru to take her to the Park City Mossman Oly in Connecticut. This is her first season doing Tri's and I have been coaching her since May. This is Probably her last tri of teh season. She has been her A race. So I was planning on going to bed around 10:30 so I could get up at 4AM, to go pick her Up at Adams house in Scarsdale.

Then Life happened. The timeline below is an estimation. I only know for sure the time we initially left for the ER, because we looked the time to determine if it would still be open, before we remembered it was a 24 hour place. and the time we got there because I know I had blown speed records ( I of course had to log the speed and pace info ;)

9:00 in late from Home Depot played with Dogs out back. We feed them. Nothing unusual

10:00 Simba acting odd in that she is sleeping instead of annoying us with a tennis ball. This is worrisome. Check her out she has a small bump on her mouth, like a mosquito bite. Nothing else.

10:15 My wife calls out that something is really wrong with Simba! I walk over casually (while sounding alarmed) because unfortunately My wife is very picky about the dogs and considers svere fur tangles as emergencies. However, when I get to the living room, Simba's eyes were bloodshot, puffy and nearly closed shut.

SO we decide we better get to the ER because we have never seen this and it could end up affecting her breathing. I Try to stay cool and collected , but frankly this is freaking me out at how fast this is happening. I Forget my broken Collarbone, I picked that dog up and threw her into the back of the car. We are in shorts and ragged T-shirts, and fucken flip flops that really do "Flip and Flop" when you try and go fast. NOTE: Not recommended to use flip flops for racing or escaping murderers and any other such emergency

10:20 Her right eye is swollen Shut and she cannot seem to open it.

10:30 after racing at 80-90 MPH on Rte 684 we get to the ER in record time, with my Wife giving me a play-by-play "Simba is foaming!" , "She passed out!!!.... No wait she is awake!", along with a large volume of "Get out of the way you Fuckers!!!, MOVE IT!!" Retno( Wife) suffers from passenger road rage at times of duress. OK I was yelling "YOU SHIT-HEAD!!" a few times as well.

Once we entered the ER they took her right in and injected liquid benadryl and a fast acting steroid directly into her bloodstream, to counteract her allergic reaction. An hour later she comes hopping out of the treatment room all peppy except that she looks like she just went 10 rounds with the heavyweight champ.

12AM we get home and she runs off to the back and comes back with a tennis ball.

All is well

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Spaniards continue world Dominance

In the Cycling sports that is :)

Cycling Olympic Gold

Vote for Coach Adam!

The guy founded Race with Purpose which is a grass roots fundraising organization dedicated to helping childrens health and welfare causes. He has given tons of energy and effort to the community, So what does he ask for in return?....He wants to win a Rudy Project aero helmet.

Its all part of the Bfit challenge. which requires:

Take your age and in any order:

1) Swim the number of miles in the first number,
2) Run the number of miles in the second number,
3) Bike the number of miles in the combined number.

So Adama 43-year-old athlete did:
1) Swim 4 miles
2) Run 3 miles
3) Bike 43 miles

So the site is having a competition on who can garner more votes.

So Hey if this is all he asks for after all he has done well I can easily do my part...Vote for Coach Adam!!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Cheat the system

OK so I have been thinking that a bike upgrade to do next year is to go more aero. However I want to do it on the cheap. So I will be getting an aero helmet ( no brainer at 100+ bucks) they say it may reduce drag as much as a set of disc wheels.

Finally I am considering purchasing Wheel covers. Wheel covers go over the spokes on the wheel same as disc wheels. In fact they look like disc wheels. my understanding is they reduce drag, just not as much as true disc wheels. But here is the beauty, they cost 75$. For 75$ I can try them out.

The only bad thing is they do not do the cool woosh noise that you get from the real thing. It sort of announces you to the folks up ahead. Maybe I can tape record that and play it as I ride ;) or stick playing cards in my spokes to make a different yet very cool rapid fire sound.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Time for a new start

Well now that I have been sitting around for a few weeks recovering from my croken collarbone, I feel a moment of clarity. Its odd, up until this morning I think I was still too heavily invested in the current season to really let it go. Or shall I say I was in the process of letting it go. Mentally I was geared up to do IM Wisconsin. Possibly a marathon in the Fall.

What I was not ready for was several months not able to do anything at all. So I think it has taken me a few weeks to truly adapt to that. Logically I was able almost instantly to shift over and say I am injured and cannot do the IM this year. And so I was able to do what needed to be done to shift all my races over to next year. However I was not able to shift my planning over. Although I had all the time in the world I simply could not sit down to make decisions about it. Instead I just vegged. Which perhaps is the best thing I could have done for myself.

Aside from my training I am also going through potential career changes. Good changes. But changes none the less. So it was good to have an opportunity to clear the plate and reorganize so to speak.

This morning I feel ready to plan for next year.

Next year I already know I am doing the IM Lake Placid. So really my planning involves identifying when I can start training for it. I also have budget considerations to make. I have the money to continue as is with my training, the question is do I want to?

By that I mean, each year I have upped my game a little. Last year was the year of getting a carbon tri Bike, and a coach

Next year? I would like to upgrade, and I have a budget to add somethings but I do not have enough to upgrade everything. For example do I shoot for aero wheels? Or do I take the same money and get a Garmin, aero helmet and maybe wheel covers that would simulate aero wheels? How many races should I do? etc Cost is a factor what with every half ironman now costing about $300

I have to balance all of this out with the fact that I have a house and family obligations. We have allot of upgrades to do for the house. So I would actually like to set a budget for next years tri goals so that I know Thats what I have to work with and that my other parts of my life will not be suffering because of it. So these are the decisions I need to make. Finally I feel a little clear headed about these. In a way I needed to simply my life a bit, my broken collarbone in a unplanned and brutal fashion accomplished that lol

SO as far at training time goes, here are the facts the Doc says that I will require 3 months before I can fully get back to triathlon training. Meaning he does not recommend swimming or any exercises that use the shoulder until then. So that leaves out Swimming. My plan is to give myself the full amount of time needed. So I will not be doing any Tri training until November.

That still leaves me with 9 months in order to prepare for IM Lake Placid which is plenty of time. So I am not really worried. Between now and November I should be able to gradually get back to cycling and running, so that I can slowly begin to build a base again. In a way I will be starting over as if I have not done a thing all year. I remember reading somewhere that it takes only two weeks of inactivity to begin to lose fitness. So in three months I will have lost alot of fitness. Oddly enough thats OK. I'll look at it as a fresh start.

I'll keep you guys posted as to what happens from here.