Long week, sad times

Well this was a week of allot of long days , and the resulting missed workouts. I am now at a stage in my plan that I am in two workouts a day mostly. My morning workouts are the only ones I have been able to complete. Each day this week has been consumed from the start of the day to 6:30-7PM non stop, without break. It was a special project to investigate some funny happenings at my company, that are of interest to senior management. Its been a truly interesting project, so I cant complain on that end, but man these days have been sooo long. So you understand I have a two hour commute to work, and 2 hours back. So when I leave at 6:30 I will not get home until 8:30PM at earliest. At which point by the time I settle down and get out of work clothes I cannot be ready to workout until 9 - 9:30, if it happens to be a swim, well the local pool is already closed. If it’s a run I can do that but have to run slowly due to the cracks and potholes created by the brutal winter ice, that I cannot see in the dark. So the only regular option is trainer work, and slow runs.

Of course that is assuming I can get right to working out, I do have a home and have to say Hi to the fam, walk the dogs, oh yeah..eat. So when I have these late days it really throws off my training.

To make matters worse I am going to be in Holland next week for business, so that takes out any swim workouts and cycling. Hotel gyms have at most stationary bikes, that I find do not really help. So what do I do? Suck it up and make it a run focus week. I will be shooting for a 40-50 mile week. Its also a great time to focus on core (grrrrr). So its not really a total loss, but it does keep me from being able to have a very focused training plan.

Now a funny ( or in hindsight not so funny) thing happened this week at work, that I think really shows the condition of the economy and its effect on people. As is well known there are quite a lot of layoffs going around. I think most people I know (including myself) know of someone (or two) who has been layed off. And I work for a bank, which has been hit possibly worse than most other industries.

Well last week the head of operations wanted to have an off site meeting for all of his direct reports and Their direct reports. In total about 30-40 people. The purpose was to motivate and discuss the way forward.

He had contacted HR to set this up. However since he did not know exactly what he was going to say HR could not provide too much info. So HR sent out an email and invitation to all of these folks stating that the COO wanted to have an offsite to discuss “the future”. Thats all.

Seems innocent enough, except it apparently did not go down that way. The woman in HR told me that right after sending out that invitation, she had no less than 6 people come into her office to ask her if they were going to get lay offs! It seems that these folks just assumed that this offsite about “the future” was a way to do a mass layoff of middle management, and to do it so that these people would be outside of the office.

At first this seemed like the most absurd idea and kind of funny in a way, but then I realized these people are truly panicked about their future and their job outlook. So much so that any activity outside the normal, even well meaning ones, is being interpreted as potentially disastrous news.

Just a year ago any mention of the future was viewed as hopeful and something to look forward too. I feel sad to know that so many people that I know are going to work everyday waiting for the axe to fall, terrified of the future. For me personally this is as big an indicator that these times are pretty bad than anything else I have seen. There will always be layoffs, but when people in such large numbers are losing not only jobs but also hope, then really how do you move forward.?

For me I still have not lost hope, I mean lets face it I do have more severe things to worry about like about my missed swim workouts :), and how this will impact my totally awesome ROYAL ASS wooping I will be laying down at IMLP!

Thank God for Triathlon

Lots of happenings

Well I have been pretty busy with lots of stuff going on. So much so that I have not been able to update my blog here. Fortunately I have a break from painting the bookcase in my study. I am between coats so while the paint dries I will write.

About my training, I have had to cancel my plans for the March 15 marathon. I have a scheduled business trip the week leading up to that weekend and it would just be too hectic flying in and then taking off for Virginia for the race. In fact I have business trips around the other viable Marathons around that time so I have decided I will do a self supported marathon on my own. Its not really critical for my training since the IM is 8 months away. But right now I am on a swim/run focus and I would like to know that I have the distance conquered before the weather gets warmer and the focus turns to cycling.

So I am shooting to do a self supported marathon at the end of March.

On other fronts I have spoken with Adam and have offerred to help him and Race with Purpose put together a beginners Tri program that will be geared to doing a Sprint Triathlon early June. Race to be determined. Adam is still working out the details regarding facilities with the JCC that we trains and does some training for them there.

I am excited about this since I have found that lately I do have a leaning to really enjoying showing others what I know. Its also nice to be doing something to help out the world a little bit. Maybe that means I am leaning towards being a coach one day. Lets see what happens.

On another front, I started a Tri meetup group in Westchester. You know all of those annoying emails that you get if you ever even once peeked into Meetup.com? The ones that say there is a meetup starting nearby, that turns out to be like 65 miles away? Well I also get the ones that say "there are 247 people like you who are interested in a Triathlon meetup, why not start one?" well I decide to take them up on it and see if there really are 247 people interested.

So far no, but there has been activity. To be honest it was quite exciting to see all of thes e people sign up and to see responses. Me and Phil had planned to do this ride from Somers so we just invited others along. Turnout is low for this first one, being mostly that its February and I gave like 2 days notice :) But I will plan other gatherings further out and hopefully there will be more activity in those.

Anyhow time for a second coat of paint.

Cheers