Let’s start back in  elementary school real quick to give some perspective.

Just like most kids, my mom tossed me in the local soccer, baseball and basketball leagues. Unfortunately, I was about half the size of all the other kids and SUCKED at soccer, baseball and basketball. The whole hand-ball coordination thing was just not my thing. I stuck with little league for a while because all my friends were on the team, but it was more of a test of my mental endurance than my baseball skills.

I was the tiny kid stuck in right field picking daisies and not even paying attention to the score because I hated being there. The one time I made solid contact with the ball, it was a laser of a line drive. But it went foul. And almost took out my coach standing on the first base line. That was my one “hit.” At the end of the season I won the award for most walks. I was a joke.

Basketball was no better. Having awful hand-eye coordination and always being at least six inches shorter than all your classmates makes it pretty hard to become the next Lebron. I almost scored a basket once. Almost.

The one thing I was good at was running.

Running the mile fitness test in middle school

When I got to high school, my mom refused to let me become one of those kids that came home from school at 3pm and played video games all night. She forced me to pick a sport for every season. She didn’t care what it was, she just wanted me out of the house, being active and making new friends after school.

Freshman year cross country

Since ball sports clearly weren’t my thing and the one thing I really loved about middle school gym was the annual mile run test, I went with Cross Country. I knew a few guys in the team from Boy Scouts and jumped right in. They introduced me to people that would change my whole high school experience and I never turned back. Over the next four years, I  went from the skinny, shy and nerdy kid who could barely run two miles to the guy that was the captain of the winningest (is that a word) athletic team in the school and bringing home bad ass conference championship trophies. Sure, I still was skinny as hell and looked like an albino Ethiopian, but that was fine.

I was running. Running was me. All was right in the world.

Cross country in the fall, indoor track in the winter and outdoor track in the spring.

I went from the quiet awkward kid to the captain of the team. I wasn’t breaking any state records, but the team we built went deeper than any other in our conference and we started to build a little running dynasty at my High School. It was all about being a part of something bigger, and more awesome, than yourself. Our team rocked.

My senior year was a major turning point. I switched from “that tiny quiet kid” to the captain of the team and leading us to another championship. While living four years of pure running was great, I was burnt out. I was a six foot tall, 140 pound stack of ashes. It wasn’t the end of my athletic career, but there was some twinkling of more endurance sports to come. I just needed to get off my feet for a while.

I broke away from my pack of running friends and dove in to the pool, literally. From seeing a flier at the grocery store that I worked at for a local triathlon and watching Kona on TV, I started to think “hmm, maybe I’ll do one of those some day.” To get there, I figured out that I  needed to learn to swim freestyle. Joining the winter swim team quickly became the next step in my athletic career. Plus, it meant hanging out with cute athletic chicks in bathing suits six days a week. In High School, 90% of the decisions I made revolved around girls, so this was a pretty easy call. It was well worth having to rock the speedo.

I swam. It was fun. I almost drown at first, but slowly got faster and faster.

College came, and I was still burnt out on running. I had no desire to pick up my racing flats and go back at it. Instead, I focused on school, pizza and cheap beer. On top of that, I realized that college chicks, unlike High School girls, didn’t like 140 pound toothpicks. I started hitting the weigh room hard. Over the next four years, I ended up gaining more than 50 pounds, losing 100% of my running fitness and picking up myself a pretty cute girlfriend. Things were changing fast, but it was all in the right direction.

Still with that twinkling of triathlon in  my eye, I asked for a road bike for my  21st birthday and I got just a little closer to being a multisport athlete. Cycling kicked my butt at first, but I didn’t give up and took my bike to class whenever I could to get faster and faster.

Once I had my undergrad and grad degrees under my belt, I decided to finally take the step to complete what had become a race six years in the making: my first sprint triathlon.

I floundered my way through the swim only to battle back and forth with a 300 pound, 60-year old man and a 15 year old girl in cheerleader booty shorts on the bike. Humiliating. The run? It was clear that I was nowhere near the hard core single sport athlete that I once was, but I made my way to the finish.

Holding back vomit, I remember Sam meeting me at the finish line and asking “How do you feel?!”

All I remember saying is “SO HARD! Let’s do it again!”

And that is how I became a triathlete.

First, I’ve never been to Texas before and I’ve only heard great things about Austin, so I’m excited to explore a new city. Second, I’m missing some pretty nasty sounding cold and wet spring weather in Boston and trading it for sunshine and heat. Can you say mini training camp weekend?!

Word on the street is that Barton Springs is open for the season starting Saturday! From everything that I’ve heard, it sounds like the Austin equivalent to Walden Pond for Bostonians.  I’m in love already, and it is only about a mile from my hotel. While the water might be a little chili (especially since I didn’t have room to cram my wetsuit into my suitcase) but I’m hoping it is bearable enough. I like to think I have pretty thick skin for cold water swimming, but we’ll see.

Also, two of my Trakkers teammates from the other side of the Mason-Dixon line who I haven’t met yet will be in town this weekend too. While the conference is pretty huge, I’m hoping that we’ll eventually run into each other and get in some swims or runs in together. The Trakkers crew is a classy group of individuals and has yet to disappoint.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atmtx/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Granted, I cheated during the 300 yard kick and did a breast stroke kick the whole time. Hey, my kick sucks and it would take me 30 minutes to kick that whole thing.

The Aquaman Super-Hero 3,000 Yard Swim Workout

500 yds Free
4 X 100 Free on 2’
2 X 3 X 50-yd Drill (each 50 yds do Fingertip, Fist, and Catch-up Drill; then repeat)
400 yds Free — Build by 50s (start slow and with each “50” go a bit faster)
400 yds Free — Swim Steady (comfortable exercise pace)
300 yds Kick (with board, zoomers, fins or on side)
500 yds Pull-buoy with Restricted Breathing (RB) by 50s (on each successive 50, breathe every 2, 3, 5 and 7 breaths stroke
200 yds Warm Down (easy swim)

Enjoy!

If you use the code “Trakkers108” when you register, you’ll get $10 off any Rev3 race.

If you haven’t checked out the Rev3tri site yet, GO! Not only is the site pretty slick, but it gives a way better description of all the awesomeness that will ensue in Knoxville, Middlebury and Sandusky next year.

There are six total races at each of the locations, ranging from Olympics, to HalfRevs to a FullRev at the Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, OH. That will be where I will become an ironman. (fingers crossed….)

If you decide to join me in the shenanigans and endorphin-fueled fun at any of the races, give a shout so we can meet up and say “hi!”

In the spirit of my 2008 goal recap, I decided to keep the tradition alive and take another look at how I was able to knock off my 2009 goals and try to give myself an honest grade of how done so far. These are the targets I laid out for myself last December.

1: Finish the Hyannis Half Marathon under 2 hours

DONE! 1:50:29 – Nailed.

2: Be able to race, not just survive, two HIMs

Rev3 was all about surviving the run, but I was able to race up until about half way through Timberman this year. Probably a solid C+ performance. Room for improvement next year. Expect to see this goal come back for 2010.

3: Finish sub 6:00 in at least one HIM (preferably both). Maybe even sub 5:45?

FAIL. I blame this on not being able to completely nail number two. Going sub-6 is definitely in my abilities, it is just a matter of getting all the dominoes to line up perfectly.

4: Have a blast whenever I race, no matter what happens.

DONE! I especially nailed this one at Lobsterman. If I’m not having fun when racing, what is the point. Right?I have some fun ideas planned to make sure that I don’t loose sight of what is important next year. They are top secret for now. Stay tuned.

5: Upgrade to a tri-specific bike.

DONE! I love my Cervelo P2. I have decided to name her Victoria. She is smooth and sexy and I tell her my dirty little secrets when I’m alone on my on my long rides. She is locked down to my trainer for the winter, but I plan on spending plenty of time with her until the weather warms up again.

6: Keep the rubber side down = no crashes on the bike. (Unless I have a nice soft pile of mud to crash into. )

DONE! I had one or two close calls, but no crashes (yet) to report for 2009. Fingers crossed!

7: Be able to do laundry on my stomach.

B+. My core strength is WORLDS better than last year and I somehow managed to lose about 8 pounds since last year. Not  laundry on my stomach (just yet). Sorry ladies, no pics.

8: Even when I’m beat up, tired and grumpy, still listen to Coach Brett.

I think I did pretty good at this one. With the exception of missing/rescheduling some workouts when life got in the way, I think I did pretty well. Based on evaluating some mistakes that went down around Rev3, I took a lot of his nutrition tips to heart. I treated Timberman a lot differently and attribute that to being able to PR.

9: Take full advantage of my tri coach and make sure we keep up good lines of communications.

FAIL. Being coached by Brett was great, but this was probably the biggest issue of the year. Having a coach that agreed to train you for free who is also training for his own Ironman is just a recipe for disaster. Without regular communication, the value of having a coach is pretty moot. We started the year with good intentions, but somewhere along the line things broke down. You live. You learn. I’m still super grateful to Brett for all his help this year.

10: Still maintain a normal social life and not get so engulfed in training that I can’t talk to non-triathletes about anything other than training. (I’ve seen it happen to a lot of other people. It isn’t pretty.)

I had Sam score me on this one since I feel like she has a more honest outlook on my tri-life balance. She gave me an 80% only because of a few times where we had to end a night out with friends early because of a race/training ride early the next morning. 80% isn’t too shabby. I’ll take it.

11: Break my 1 day long ride record of 127 miles.

I did an 80 mile ride and a 90 mile ride, but haven’t gotten  past my one day ride record. There is still time left this year, but I may focus on some other goals for the rest of the year.

12: Find a way to keep myself from getting mentally/physically burnt out.

I think I did pretty good. Except for a big post Rev3 slump in June, I made sure I didn’t let things get too monotonous and loose sight of why I’m doing all of this in the first place.

13: DON’T GET INJURED

DONE! I had some mini physical breakdowns, but nothing that a day or two of rest and some TLC couldn’t resolve.

I made pretty decent progress on 9 out of 12 goals for this year. Not too bad. I’m happy with it, but it does set up 2010 pretty nicely. I really want to return to Rev3 with my Team Trakkers crew to address some unfinished business with that course. I’m also toying with the of doing the Mt. Washington Auto Road Bicycle Climb. It is pretty Bad Ass. That is all I needed to be sold on it.

Now on to solidifying plans for next year, but that is for its own post. Hold tight.

Sure, it may be genetics and specific body proportions that turn Phelps from what would otherwise simply be a world class swimmer into the freak of nature (in a good way) that he is today, but it is very dangerous to overemphasize the impact of genetics in his success.

If Phelps had picked up football in High School, he may still have the same general body proportions, short legs and huge wingspan, but his flexibility and strength would be like from an entirely different animal.

My point is that personal physiology is not a static element in someone’s life. The human body is insanely adept at reacting to the environment that you put it in.

Personal physiology is not a static factor. The human body reacts to the environment that you put it in.

Train, live and eat like a marathoner. You will have a marathoner’s body.

Train, live and eat like a weightlifter. You will have a weightlifter’s body.

That is not to say that if you train like an Olympic runner, that you will necessarily be taking home gold, or even making it to the games, but you will certainly take on some of their physical characteristics.

For example: In High School I was a running machine. Cross Country was my thing. That is all I did. I was 6 feet tall, 140 pounds, ate like a bird and you could see my ribs when I ran shirtless. I ran 5-6 days a week almost year-round and could pull off 17 minute 5ks. I was never fast enough to break any records, but did pretty well for myself.

Flash forward to today. After realizing the whole skin and bones look wasn’t exactly what the ladies were looking for and taking a few years off in college from running to become a gym rat and drink Keystone Light on a regular basis I completely changed my body. I balooned up to about 195 pounds, actually got chest and arm muscles and I barely looked like the same person. Since college I’ve slimmed down to about 175 now that I’ve gotten in to triathlon training, but you get the point.

There is no way that, with the body I have now, I can pull off runs like I did in High school, but also I probably couldn’t climb hills on a bike or zip across lakes as smoothly with the body that I had then.

My point is that natural born talent is an illusion. Most of us may never break the tape at Kona, it is key to remember that our bodies are products of the environments that we choose to put them in.

And now for the movie that is reponsible for helping to form most of my views on “talent.” If you havent’ ever seen Without Limits, go rent it now.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the 4 weeks after Rhode Island I didn’t do much except for a few spinning classes, with varying degrees of discomfort, and a few 1 and 2 mile runs. But I have been a stretching machine, which has really helped out my IT band and I’m ALMOST back to running normal distances again without pain.

I ran 2 miles yesterday and just felt a little tight at the end. WAY better than the excruciating pain that I felt after one mile about 6 weeks ago.

I think one of the reasons that I’ve seen some more progress in the last few weeks is this new stretch that I’ve been doing a lot. After doing tons of my normal IT band stretches, the foam roller wasn’t even hurting anymore and it felt really loose, until I would actually run on it. I figured something down there was still tight and the stretches I was doing just weren’t doing the job.

I eventually poked around YouTube and found this stretch.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Trust me, I look just as hot in those little booty shorts. I swear.

Anyway, as soon as I started doing this new one and a few other glut stretches, I could tell I had this big ‘ol knot of tightness in my left but cheek that I hadn’t noticed before. Hot, right? After stretching it out every morning before work and at night before bed for a week or so, I’ve gotten pretty flexible and now my running is almost back to normal!

Just in time to squeeze in some training to get for a September Oly! Woohoo! There is a lobsterman race in Maine that is calling my name.

Now that I’m starting to get back in the groove after exactly one month off, I feel like my endorphin tolerance has completely dropped. As soon as I start running (without pain) I get SO PUMPED and am reminded why I love it. I got in the pool for the first time in a while this morning and my warm up was almost 800 meters. I just kept swimming because it was fun and completely forgot about starting my real workout. It was the most fun I’d had in the pool all year.

Nothing like a little injury to refresh yourself in the middle of the season, eh?

Oh, and my work had a caricature artist come in today to draw me and the rest of the new people. Everyone has a pic of themselves by their desk instead of a boring sign or name plate. Kinda cool. I think this was the first caricature I’d ever had done. He even gave me disk wheels without me asking. Sweet! I didn’t bother trying to explain to him how to draw aero bars though…

What do you think?

My body REALLY needs the rest. I made the dumb move of planning to do all of my run workouts for the week in three days, back to back. When my running hasn’t been that strong lately (but slowly getting better) and I’ve been biking a lot more that makes every run hurt a LOT more. Thursday morning I woke up and the inside of my knee felt like hell and really tight.

I was at least glad that it was on the inside and not the outside, so I could rule out IT band issues, although at least I would have known what to do to fix it. After taking the next two run workouts really easy, stretching constantly, taking an Epsom salt bath on Friday, doing some form drills on a rubber track (to stay off of asphalt as much as I could) and doing another Epsom salt foot bath on Saturday, I think I may have finally gotten my knee back to normal and warded off any injuries. My goal, over anything else this year, is to NOT get injured. Hopefully I can still keep that goal open to check off at the end of the season.

This morning I got up early and did a bike-swim-bike from my apartment out to Walden pond and back. It is about 17 miles out there and I LOVE swimming there. It is one of my favorite places to go in the summer. I knocked off about a mile and a quarter swimming around the edge of the lake, and suited up to ride back home. My legs are complete jello. No energy, just dead weights. I definitely need to make sure I’ve fully rested and turned all this soreness into strength and speed that I can unleash on the race course next week.

Here is my lesson learned for this week:

I only brought two water bottles filled with my Infinit “special blend.” I downed one on the bike there and was wicked thirsty once I got out of the water and practically finished off the second one. Needless to say riding back (albeit wicked slow at barely 15 mph) in the 80 degree sun beating down on my backpack holding my wetsuit, I got really REALLY thirsty.

I was dying, but really just wanted to get home. Sure, I could have just stopped at a gas station and picked up some more water or gatorade, but I was getting cranky and just wasn’t in the mood. That was until I was coming into Cambridge outside of Harvard square and saw a bunch of girls selling cookies and lemonade on the side of the street, raising money for some school in some country that I can’t remember right now. Business looked slow so I was happy to reach into my saddle bag and take out a few dollars to donate to a good cause. Plus, that lemonade was freaking delicious!

I’ve always brought my wallet/ID with me on rides in case something happens and someone needs to find out who that schlub on the side of the road is, but it is also a good idea to have a few dollars for picking up some roadside lemonade and snicker doodle cookies!

That is all. I know the blogging has been a little light lately, but things should heat up once I get closer to my first 70.3 in July! WOOHOO.

After pulling in to the Inn where everyone was staying on Friday night, hanging out and tossing back a few beers, I headed to bed to rest up for the 9:00 ride on Saturday morning. We split up into a half dozen different groups based on speed and distance of the routes we wanted to take. I jumped in with the 60-ish mile B group.

After a few miles, It was pretty clear why we headed up here. Northern New Hampshire is HILLY. About 10 miles in, and after one long steady bitch of a climb, it was all down hill from there. Nice smooth pavement, no big turns, it was beautiful. I just kept picking up speed, tucking down as aero as I could get in my drops and VERY cautiously passing a few other riders.

I was 100% focused on the road ahead of me and keeping a nice smooth line through some gentle sloping turns. I only looked down at my bike computer once and it said 54 mph. HOLY FUCK! I started screaming with excitement, but with all the wind blaring past me, I could barely even hear own voice. It wasn’t until a few miles later, when I was actually going slow enough where I could start pedaling again, when I looked to see what my max was. 57 mph!

I know that the pic is fuzzy, but trust me. It was Ca RAAZY. It was the fastest I had ever been on a bike by at least 15 mph, and I’m still absolutely terrified/excited thinking about it 2 days later. I’m SO not telling my mom about this one. She’ll flip.

I do feel the need to give a shout out to ROL Wheels. While I’ve admitted several times to the high crap factor of my Fuji Ace, I did upgrade to some nice few wheels that I won from a Simply Stu TdF contest a few years back. I can’t imagine the stock wheels would have handled so smoothly at a 57 mph decent, but those things were amazing and (for whatever ungodly reason) I felt pretty damn confident on them.  If a high speed decent isn’t a good test of a set of wheels, I’m not sure what is. I ride the SL 28′s, which are discontinued, but all there stuff is made for the “cost conscious” rider and I’m a real big fan after really pushing their limits this weekend even after I’ve been riding them for two seasons now.

And as with any downhill, it is inevitable that you have to start heading uphill again and we headed to the top of the Kancamagus Highway. For reference, the Inn we left from was at 800 feet and the top of the Kank is 2855. That is 2000 feet of climbing (not counting the first hill we did. DAAAAAAMN. After training like this I better bust through the bike course at Mooseman in a few weeks like I’m racing in Florida.

In the end the ride was about 67 miles with 4:25 in the saddle. The ride took much longer, but we had to stop a few times to refuel, rest up, take some lunch, etc. After we got back, a few of us headed out for a 20 minute run, which actually felt pretty good. Now I’ve actually been doing a lot more running in training (since I slacked on my running so bad last year) I’m super psyched to see it is actually having an impact. Sure, my HR was in the high 160′s the whole time, but it still felt great.

And now, more pictures:

More mountains.

Cruising along the bike path past Echo Lake (i think).

More bike path. While these pictures don’t really do it justice, this was by far the hilliest bike path ever. It is like a mountain bike trail that was paved. I was switching gears constantly. Not cool.

Taking a quick look at directions to make sure we weren’t lost.

Sunday:

After boozing it up at the Inn’s bar and pulling the late night party crew into the hot tub until they ended up turning the lights out on us the night before, we packed up our wetsuits on our backs and headed to Echo Lake for a nice chilly swim.

Bike ride? You guessed it, more hills. 4 miles, straight up. It was like trying to ride my bike up the side of a building and I kept tapping my shifters hoping that I had one more magic gear that would help relieve my quads. I don’t think there was a single one of us that wasn’t blurting out expletives at some point in the climb.

Thankfully, once we got there, it was gorgeous. Cold, but gorgeous. The water was about 55 degrees, and wasn’t so bad once I got my feet and hands in the water, but it made me want to tear my face off. I had to “man up” and get at least about 600 meters in, but it was a really nice swim and totally made the ride up there worth it.

Here is the view from the beach.

Jane taking a swim after a run around the lake. She was an absolute machine. She forced a few brave souls to take a different look and go on a 90 mile ride with her on Saturday and never let up all weekend. She is turning 50 this year and I can only hope that I’m that bad-ass when I’m older.

Matt and I flexing. Flexing somehow turned into the theme of the weekend.

Group shot.

And just to be clear, YES. That IS SNOW in the background. (me on the left)

I have pretty good swimming form, but there is always one thing that has plagued me no matter how many stupid drills and techniques I tried. bi-lateral breathing.

Sure, I COULD breathe on both sides, it just isn’t pretty. On the right side? I’m as good as gold. But when my head turns to the left, all of a sudden I go into some weird spasm, my arms start slapping the water, I start choking on water, and my kick goes all sideways. Not a pretty thing, at least until yesterday.

Yesterday I went to a swim clinic with my triathlon team and I got some much needed critique on my form. After a few new drills and realizing that I do this weird cross over and quick correction with only my right arm, that makes it really hard to breathe on the left side without lifting my head out of the water, all of a sudden breathing on the left side is SO much more comfortable.

I know seems like a pretty small step, but I’ve always tried to breathe on both sides, especially so I can sight better in open water and not go as far off course in open water swims,

Bilateral breathing? Check. Now on to that 20 mph average bike and sub 20:00 5k….

But first, I might actually want to think about working out again since the few hundred yards of drills that I did yesterday is the closest thing I’ve done that resembles a workout since last Sunday, exactly a week ago.

Being Sick Sucks!

I’m feeling really good and have finally fully recovered, but am still going it pretty easy with a nice light treadmill run this afternoon.

Happy training everyone.

A short bike trainer workout and some time on the balance ball wasn’t enough to keep my mind busy for very long today as the snow outside messed up the rest of my plans. I ended up on this site for custom bathing suits (www.splishcustom.com) playing around with different designs for a while and here is my favorite one that I made so far.

Get it? Mullet?

Business in the front, party in the back? Haha.

Well I thought it was funny and figured that at least TriBoomer would appreciate it. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to order it, but I just wanted to share. Have a good week everybody!

-Jamie

It may have been the ice covered sidewalks outside of my apartment this morning, or just the fact that my speedo has probably gotten  pretty lonely and has likely been banished to some dark corner in the back of my workout clothes drawer… but I have decided that my swimming hiatus needs to end tonight. So pool time it is!

Sorry kids, no real news to blog about today. Just realized I hadn’t posted in a while and wanted to make sure you all knew I was still alive and kicking.  I probably owe posting a video too, but posting a video of me in a Speedo may break some FCC regulations or something. Maybe next time.