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2009 Triathlon Goals: A Recap

Monday, October 12th, 2009

I know. We still have more than two months left in 2009 but after spending all Saturday watching some amazing athletes battle it out in Kona and I’ve decided that it marked the official end to my triathlon season. I have a fun race next weekend in Newport, RI, but my mind is already on to 2010. Racing, sponsors, base training and more fun times. Before I get ahead of myself with plans for next year, lets take a minute to step back for a second.

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.

Tags: mt. washington auto road bicycle climb, trakkers, trakkers gps, triathlon goals | Posted in Cycling, Ironman, Life, Running, Swimming, Training Log, Triathlon | 4 Comments »

The Illusion of Talent

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

With a healthy diet of Olympics coverage this week, I’ve been having some deep conversations withmyself on talent vs training. It always gets under my skin when people make comments about an athlete’s “natural born talent” with their training as a mere side note.

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.

Tags: beijing 2008, genetics, michael phelps, olympics, training, without limits | Posted in Cycling, Running, Swimming, Triathlon, Videos | No Comments »

Back in the saddle

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Blogging has been light because I have been lame.

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.

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?

| Posted in Running, Swimming, Training Log, Triathlon, Videos | 7 Comments »

Build Phase #1 = DONE

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

…and it couldn’t have come any sooner because my legs are FU@#ING SORE. The good news is that I at least know that my body is reacting to upping the mileage, and hopefully getting stronger, but right now my legs feel SO heavy and tired. Thankfully, as of 1:21 p.m. this afternoon, I’ve officially started my tapering for my first Olympic distance triathlon of the season, Mooseman.

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.