Yesterday was a special race for a number of reasons. First, It was Father’s Day! My first Father’s Day since becoming…a Father. Secondly, it was Tiffany’s first race since Cora was born. Finally, it was Cora’s first Triathlon spectating experience. Quite a day indeed!
Let’s start the reporting off in reverse order of importance…Me first…
Being my second race of the year, and my first olympic distance, I felt as prepared as I could be given the lower training levels compared to last year. My wave was well after Tiffany’s as she is doing sprint distance this year, so I get to wait around a while until getting my piece of the melee that is triathlon beach starts. I can’t really say much about this race other than that I felt strong the whole way and didn’t overdo any one part. I was excited, however, that my average bike speed for the 24mi was 22.1 mph! The other exciting thing about the race is the photo above, where I actually look like I am running!
Now on to Tiffany’s comeback race!
She will probably say that she didn’t train nearly enough, which is possible, but given the outcome, I’d say she is doing just fine. With a 20.4 mph bike average and a 22:06 5K she took 1st place in her age group by a whopping 6 minutes and 3 seconds!
As far as Cora’s first spectating experience, I’d say that too was a success. Tiffany’s mom, [read: grandma] came with us and the two of them and friend Mike W. hung out together while watching us. Sadly, we have no photos of this as I forgot to pack a camera…I guess she will just have to start racing to get photos at these things…
Cora has now received her very own pair of sea legs during the first trip out on my parent’s boat. Not surprisingly, she was very content and even slept while the boat was moving (bumping and jostling is her favorite pastime). A side note: baby sunblock is very thick, it kinda turned her skin white for the next 30 mins or so…I guess you know it’s working if you can see it…On to the pictures…
There’s one toy that I’ve always loved for little kids, I have fond memories of this myself, and have spent hours watching little cousins and other tiny little people enjoy the simple yet thrilling device…”Johnny Jump Up” How could you not just love this thing and jealously want one for people way, way outside the 30lb. max weight…say like 180lbs. Well, I finally decided that it was time to assemble and test our very own johnny jump up with Cora. She is so small that we had to wrap a blanket around her so she could stay somewhat upright in it. Even still she is dwarfed by the size of it and barely keeps her head above the top…but she loved it! Spinning around, kicking her legs to almost represent a jumping movement…Remember she is only 2 1/2 mos. old. We tried to get some video of this momentous occasion, but alas, that didn’t turn out nearly as well as we had hoped. Here are some pretty decent photos of our fun time.
In other news: Cora rolled over from her back to her tummy 3 or 4 times last evening, and even ended up on her elbows in a pseudo crawling posture! Again, one of those moments that happened so fast we hadn’t even thought of getting the video cam out…
What’s the Goomba reference you ask? Well, for those that remember, a goomba is a small mushroom like character from Mario Bros. My first thought when I saw Cora in the Johnny Jump Up was that she looked just like a Goomba…large combination head/body and legs. It may be a bit of a stretch, but, I liked it and have started occasionally calling her “My Little Goomba” Click here for Goomba wikipedia article and here for a photo of a Goomba.
In my last post, like running through molasses, I detailed how sluggish and off my game I’ve felt ever since the GCM. I also mentioned a possibility of racing the Flag City Sprint Tri…Well, I did, and it turned out very well in a number of ways.
I realized my slowness was at least partially, in my head. From the start, I decided to compete strong but not go all out. This worked out well for me as I felt strong the whole race and felt I still had a little left at the finish line.
The race started off decently enough with a swim around the Findlay reservoir, which by the way is very clear, crisp water. After a little foot slip up the boat launch ramp, I found my bike and off I went. Shortly into the bike, after passing the fast swimmers, I found myself pacing near one other guy. Every turn, he would pass me and then the next one I would pass him back. As we approached the turn around, I started counting the bikes coming back at me. When i got to 2, we turned hit the turn around! Remember now that the races are all wave starts so people who are faster than me may still be behind, but still, my spirits were high.
Off the bike and into my running shoes, i felt strong and ready to race the 5K. I paced with my bike friend for the first bit until he pulled ahead, sadly for good. A strong kick at the finish completed this first triathlon of the year, and I felt good.
Results: I waited around long enough to find that I had come in 2nd place in my age group (behind my bike friend) and 7th overall, I love smaller races!
This race was just what I needed…I don’t feel so slow!
My official time for the race was: 1:12:41
Click here for the rest of the results, links to photos are also there…
Ever feel like every workout is like running/pedaling/swimming through some thick viscous liquid? Yep, that’s how I’ve felt these past few weeks. My legs constantly feel soft, like I got nothin’ left…sort of like the days after a long race. This morning Mark (run partner) and I agreed that we both have been feeling this way for a while. Ever since the Glass City Marathon, which didn’t go so well, my legs have felt just completely drained. I’m hoping this is just a mental thing (our pace this morning wasn’t slower than normal) that will go away with continued training. I can’t help feel a bit of concern that this is happening right at the beginning of what will hopefully be a good yet sparse racing season.
My first race was going to be the Maumee Bay Tri on June 21st, but I’m seriously considering doing the Flag City Tri the weekend before, just to see if I’m really slow right now or if it really is just mental on my part…It’ll be especially interesting as I plan to do the sprint distance if I go, which I haven’t done that distance since the ‘07 season. From what I remember it’s just a pedal-to-the-metal, fast and furious, go as hard as you can for 1 1/2 hrs kinda distance. It may be just what I need.
Last night Tiffany and I decided to try out the jog stroller with Cora. We picked a time that gave us the best odds of having a good run, and packed everything into the stroller, locked the car seat in and took off for the city park. Our thought was that we could run the 1/2 mile loop around the park and if we ran into any issues or crying we could run home quickly. Best laid plans, huh?
The first 10 minutes were well enough, Cora just looked back at us from her seat, so I snapped some pictures. Tiff took a turn pushing and I got some photos of her running along. Then came the first cries…followed by more cries which turned into a full-blown scream. We stopped and Tiff held her for a while until we thought she was asleep and continued on. She fussed until we got out of the park and onto a bumpy sidewalk…She fell fast asleep and we decided to go over to my folks house and back. All in all I call it a success, and we found that the key to success is bumpiness…Here’s some photos and a video of Tiff pushing the stroller and Cora’s face…
Yesterday during the sermon, our Pastor told the story of when he was growing up he detested the smell of a certain Bisquick cake his father used to bake. Years later, after the passing of his father, he found himself baking that very cake and being reminded of the fond memories he had. A once mal-odor became a sweet memory through the lense of time and experience. Every once in a while I have a similar olfactory experience and it is one in particular that I found myself dwelling on after church was over.
As I was looking through some bags and random racing/triathlon supply boxes, I found myself looking into the closet of our guest bedroom, which happens to have our wetsuits. Suddenly, I found myself taken back to the last triathlon of the much storied (at least by me) 2008 racing season…the Portage Lakes Triathlon, the last race in the Wheelie Fun Racing Series. The culmination of a season packed with lifetime memories and experiences, excruciatingly painful running courses, seemingly endless uphill bicycle battles, frigid swim courses, that feeling you get as you come into view of the finish line, hearing your name followed by the 4 words “You are an Ironman” and knowing you have earned it. Memories abound as I reminisce about predawn wake ups, race day checklists, pre-visualizing T1 then T2 making sure everything is in its place, shoes here visor there…don’t forget the race number belt. All of this because of a smell…
What was the smell? Like Pastor Malanga’s sermon, it wasn’t the smell of roses, or fresh bread, no this scent has a darker origin…Neoprene and stale lake water. Why does this smell have such power over my memories? Why does the combination of synthetic rubber and highly suspect lake water have such a cogent affect? It isn’t a sweet smell, not particularly inviting at all, but it is the smell that bears the memories of a summer spent training, racing and traveling with my wonderful wife. It was a good summer, one I’m sure to look back upon fondly as I share those memorable moments with friends, family and now…my daughter Cora.
Tiffany and I were talking yesterday afternoon, and I mentioned how that summer could not have been planned better. It was a grueling schedule of training, B-races, A-races, and everything else. It was exhilarating, challenging, painful, but most of all…wicked awesome fun! Tiffany had a suspicion and we later confirmed that during Ironman and all subsequent races, that she was pregnant. She was still able to not only compete in the remaining triathlons we’d planned, but she became the champion of the Wheelie Fun Series…with child… All of this and many more memories are firmly stored in that part of my brain that can be accessed by (among other things) the smell of a man-made rubber-like product aimed at keeping me warm and the strange concoction known as your ordinary off-the-shelf lake water.
As we plan our comparatively meager racing schedule for this year, I find myself still highly affected by the smell that currently resides in the closet of our guest bedroom, to which I’ve returned a few times to make sure those memories are still there. I do not look back with a sense of longing or regret that life has taken its unexpected turns, no those memories deserve so much more. They are a single summer, a collection of events that came together in a way that can never be, nor should ever be, repeated. That smell will forever be known in my own mind as the smell of racing.
OK, so it looks like an excel formula, and you would be right. Why, you may ask, am I writing about this? I love simple solutions to things, techniques that make long laborious tasks much more manageable. Recently, I was given a spreadsheet at work and charged with the task of putting a couple of columns together and adding some text to form a filename that would be used for a whole list of web images (in the end, more than 8000 items). The filenames in the spreadsheet had to match the real files or else things would start breaking. Rather than spend the next 4 weeks typing each name up and matching it to the image file I decided to make use of a formula that has recently become indispensable in my virtual toolkit…”=concatenate”. Simply this formula allows you to take both cell values and text strings and put them together in a new cell.
Here’s my example…nerdy as it may look.
you have 3 columns of information that needs to be combined into a filename with each piece separated with and “_” and the “.jpg” file extension at the end. Here’s how to do it. The formula looks like this: =CONCATENATE(A2,”_”,B2,”_”,C2,”.jpg”)
Every day brings with it a multitude of new experiences for Cora. Just staring at the ceiling fan is cause for great observation and contemplation. Her very own hands can be cause for great concern as they (from her perspective…i’m told) are an unidentified flailing object that is not only a nuisance, but a source of distress. At some point we all started experiencing our world in a similar way and haven’t stopped learning since. As a parent, I have the great opportunity of not only observing this process (9 mos from the beginning), but being a guiding participant in it.
On a lighter note, I’m led to believe that when a newborn smiles it is not because of some awesome joke or crazy face i’ve just made, but a reaction to excess gas making its way through her digestive system…
As with all babies, when Cora was born it took a little bit for her to take her first breath…This is one thing that you can be told and think you understand, but absolutely cannot know until it’s your child laying there awaiting whatever it is in the brain that tells her to inhale for the first time. In less than 60 seconds (but felt much, much longer) her tiny little body realized that it was time to take that first, life affirming, life giving, breath. Ever since then, I have had an almost paranoid compulsion to make sure she is breathing. If she doesn’t move or make a sound for a while, I find myself putting my ear next to her nose to check that she is still breathing. Originally, I thought myself alone in this preoccupation, but I’m finding that it is more wide-spread, especially amongst dads. A vast majority of breathing is sub-conscious meaning it happens whether we think to breathe or not. As a new dad, I find myself doubting this most simple of instincts in someone who has been living for mere minutes, hours or days…So I double-check…
As I ponder the depths of my not-quite-rational urge to confirm respiration in my daughter, I realize that there is much much more to this whole breathing process that goes beyond the survival instinct. Good breathing technique is essential to running or cycling and most obviously swimming. People who aren’t confident in their swimming typically cite their inability to breathe as their main deterrent from starting. What is truly interesting about this whole topic is that by focusing on your breathing during physical exertion you are able to calm your nerves and even limit the pain or discomfort you feel. If someone is punching you in the arm and you cannot stop it, the best remedy is to try and think of something else. Breathing seems to be contrary to the notion of taking your mind off the pain, rather you would be best served by putting your mind on that pain. Breathing is one of the only things you have control over during any endurance type activity, it is both a source of pain and discomfort and a worthwhile endeavor to limit that same pain and discomfort. So to all you new moms and dads, runners, swimmers, cyclists and anyone else within the human race, take a long deep breath and realize the life-giving, pain-reducing, calming effects that accompany this most basic of life’s activities. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday was a special race for a number of reasons. First, It was Father’s Day! My first Father’s Day since becoming…a Father. Secondly, it was Tiffany’s first race since Cora was born. Finally, it was Cora’s first Triathlon spectating experience. Quite a day indeed!
Now on to Tiffany’s comeback race!
As I ponder the depths of my not-quite-rational urge to confirm respiration in my daughter, I realize that there is much much more to this whole breathing process that goes beyond the survival instinct. Good breathing technique is essential to running or cycling and most obviously swimming. People who aren’t confident in their swimming typically cite their inability to breathe as their main deterrent from starting. What is truly interesting about this whole topic is that by focusing on your breathing during physical exertion you are able to calm your nerves and even limit the pain or discomfort you feel. If someone is punching you in the arm and you cannot stop it, the best remedy is to try and think of something else. Breathing seems to be contrary to the notion of taking your mind off the pain, rather you would be best served by putting your mind on that pain. Breathing is one of the only things you have control over during any endurance type activity, it is both a source of pain and discomfort and a worthwhile endeavor to limit that same pain and discomfort. So to all you new moms and dads, runners, swimmers, cyclists and anyone else within the human race, take a long deep breath and realize the life-giving, pain-reducing, calming effects that accompany this most basic of life’s activities. 
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