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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…

The power of a smell…

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.

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 »

The most popular question that I get about Tiffany these days is…Is she still running? Though most people say it more like…”She’s not still running, is she?” My answer is a most definitely yes, and swimming too. For those not in the know, Tiffany is now 9 months pregnant, so far along is she that she could really go into labor at any time. The due date is April 1st. I joked around with some people in our saturday running group that if she hasn’t given birth by this coming saturday, we would have a “Run with Tiffany mere days or even hours before giving birth” jog. I think we’ll do it if possible, maybe it could be an annual thing too…who knows. Anyway, here’s some pics of a jog we did last night (mar. 23).

If you have ever followed Hal Higdon’s marathon training plans, you’ve probably come across the inevitable hill workouts. For most thisis just a regular part of any training…However, for us in Northwest Ohio…specifically Bowling Green (former swamp land) it is near impossible to find any place to do this workout. Normally I believe the plan has a 3 minute hill surge followed by a recovery period. There is absolutely nothing within a good radius of our lovely hometown that would take anybody 3 minutes to run up. Our sledding hill is approximately 30-40 feet tall (30-40 seconds if done very slowly) and the hill at the university golf course is only a few yards taller. What’s the answer, well, highway overpasses, and yes you read correctly. We have one in particular that we use for our “Hill Repeats” that is almost exactly 1/2 mile from a street sign at the bottom of one end to the stop sign on the other. I routinely get made fun of for actually touching the signs at each end, but hey, I want my workout. The hill itself takes around 1 to 1 1/2 minutes to climb and then we recover on the downhill. It has proven to be a fairly effective workout when done at the proper effort levels. If you’re in a flat location, you should certainly give this modified “hill” workout a go. Cheers!

See below the breathtaking vista atop our chosen “hill workout” location.

If you’re anything like me, I like knowing where I stand with my training. I am always looking for ways to gauge my overall fitness level and determine what to expect from a given race. Bart Yasso has his “Yasso 800s“, a company called Quantitative has a running calculator (and even one for triathlons…but that’s for another day). There is one that is consistently regarded as the best in class…You may have even heard of it…The McMillan Running Calculator. This particular system was developed by a man named Greg McMillan. He is a scientist, coach, and runner who has all the grooming to be an elite level running trainer. In his own words he says,

“I haven’t found one[running predictor] that is specific enough, is laid out in an easy-to-read format or that is based on what runners in the real world are capable of doing. So, I created my own and I’ll share it with you.”

Before we dive in to McMillan’s world of race predicting, let’s first briefly discuss some other major players in this arena. First up:

Read the rest of this entry »

For the last few weeks, I have been doing a workout that can best be described as a combination 1hr Bike Trainer Tempo Ride & 40min Tempo Run. This workout has taken place on Monday nights and I have grown a weird affinity for the special kind of pain that this workout seems to inflict on my legs…

A quick glance at this combination and you would say that this is an ordinary Brick workout ala your standard triathlon training, and yes that is what this is…But it is much, much more…The run is, in fact, a workout that would fit all of the characteristics of a Marathon training plan tempo workout. I keep my pace steady and fast…10K pace. By the end of the run, my legs start screaming for it to end.

Now the Bike ride…I started this as a typical winter trainer ride where the pace hovered well within the “easy” category, but recently I’ve felt that this is just about useless to me given my desire to time-trial this spring in some official races…So basically, I have turned this bike workout into another tempo workout where I constantly keep my cadence in the 95-100 range. When you put that bike ride up against the tempo run, it makes for a cardiovascular festival of oxygen deprivation and muscle fatigue [read: pain]. I am really hoping that this serve to increase my overall fitness and endurance as I train for the Glass City Marathon, the Maumee Valley Wheelmen Time Trial races, and several Olympic Triathlons and the big race of 2009 for us…SteelHead 1/2 Ironman…

So take an icy cold leg bath in a mountain fed spring on me…As a good friend is fond of saying…“Get into it!”

One nice thing about training for this year’s Glass City Marathon (Toledo, OH) is that the 18 week training program started the last week of 2008. This is nice because it helps to think of 2009 as a fresh start with a new training cycle. I’m pretty excited as it looks like there will be others training for the same race (or the Half) all together! So far we’ve had 3 people confirm that they’d like to do the training, which brings me to the reason for this particular post…

SPEEDWORK!!!

I know, I know, speedwork is a necessary part of the training that increases overall running speed and endurance, thereby decreasing the risk of bonking mid-race (see columbus marathon 2008 for jeremy), and I didn’t make it any easier on myself by not looking at what the program calls for and making my own workout up (read: went overboard). So the workout we were supposed to do was like 4x800s, what we actually ended up doing…(notice the decreasing pace times as the distance decreases…for the most part)

Interval Workout # 1 (2009)

Luckily, I felt good during the workout so it wasn’t as bad as some other workouts I’ve participated in. Here’s to a new year, new training cycle & hopefully a good racing season…