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!