admin – Page 24 – No Crappy Excuses

One and Done – 8/1/16

Last summer, Terri and I made it out to Oswego many times to practice on the tandem which Art Black of Oswego Cyclery has generously let us use. This summer, the timing just hasn’t worked. We were supposed to get in at least two sessions, but Mother Nature had other plans about that…

So yesterday was our one and only practice session on the bike before the Naperville Sprint Tri. While we were waiting for the previous pair to return the tandem to the bike shop, we went for a walk along the path. During this time, we experienced this very odd situation. We were walking against traffic and a bicyclist was going with traffic (both as we should have been). But instead of doing the normal thing and going around us, the bicyclist kept heading towards us. Terri saw her and had to put her hand out to physically stop the bicyclist. We saw that same bicyclist on the way back, and she apologized for being an ass. 🙂

When we actually made it out on the bike, things went very well. While the Fox Valley path still needs a lot of work, it was nice to see they had patched a few places. We did have a couple of issues with the 2nd restart (having to dismount/remount after crossing at light). But for not having ridden together since last August, it went very well.

While we didn’t get much bike practice in this summer, I know we will starting next spring. I am extremely grateful to Art for letting us borrow his tandem for the last two years. I will hopefully have my own tandem before year’s end (still working with Comotion).

Pushing Forward – 7/31/16

As bad weather had scrapped a couple of workouts, a bike/run brick became just a run on Sunday with Terri. This time, I remembered to do the pre-run warmup that I should be. And while it adds more time out there, it seems to be helping. I’m still failing on the intervals before we get through the entire workout. But it does seem to be getting easier in the later parts.

I know it will all come together in the near future. In the meantime, all I can do is just keep pushing forward…

Amazing, Simply Amazing – 7/26 – 7/27/16

Having seen and met a few of the younger Dare2Tri athletes at the May/June PT camps, I had some idea of what I was in for at the Kids PT Camp. But what I saw and experienced while volunteering was even more amazing.

At the beginning of camp, several of the attendees were nervous — whether from being in an unfamiliar environment, from not knowing how to do one of the disciplines, from being uncertain of the adaptive equipment, or something else. But before long, that nervousness seemed to disappear and they got into it. We had several that had never swam before out in Lake Michigan as part of our first group, and they seemed to be doing well with it. And after lunch, they seemed to be getting into the run/push and bike with adaptive equipment.

During the 2nd day, the kids had a chance to demo the course in the AM before racing it in the afternoon. As a ‘human cone’ on the run/push course, I got to see and encourage on many of them. And during the race, I could tell that a few first timers were really pushing themselves. All of the photos from camp are available here.

Truly an amazing couple of days, and an event I plan to volunteer at in 2017! For more information on Dare2Tri and to see how you can help, visit their web site.

Lake Michigan Brick – 7/26/16

After Day 1 of the Kids PT Camp (more on that later), a group of us gathered at Ohio Street Beach for the weekly Open Water Swim (OWS). As with the last OWS I made it for, we had the Life Time Fitness training groups (about 500 people) with us as well.

Two weeks ago, we had more time for swimming, and we were out in the water for about 45 minutes. But since it seemed a storm was close, we only had time to do a 1/2 mile. Once we got out of the water, I thought my evening workout was done. However, I was told by my Coach that it was time to go for a run.

So an Achilles runner and I set off down the beach path for a run. I almost forgot to do the new routine that my Coach had asked me to do, which helps with endurance. But I remembered before we had gone too far, and it really helped. We got in 1.5mi after a 1/2 mile swim and then headed home.

Dr. Seuss Meets Triathlon – 7.24.16

Growing up, one of the things I heard a lot of was Dr. Seuss books. I specifically remember The Sneeches, The Sleep Book and Horton Hatches the Egg. As a nod to the last, I think the following pretty much sums up my Wauconda experience. “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.”

For those of you who haven’t been reading my blog in the past, what that refers to is no DNFs. I’ve said it, and I meant it. And unless I’m physically injured, I’ll stil finish even if means walking the bike back (see Pleant Prairie blog).

Peter and his wife Carol were very kind to let me stay at their house so I didn’t have to mess with Chicago transportation fun. So I was thinking Wauconda would be a great race for me, especially since I’d have a full night’s rest going into it. However, at about midnight, I woke up sick. What immediately went through my head was ‘how do I get back to passable so I can race?’ 3 hours of ‘fun’ in the bathroom later, I was feeling better. We headed off to the race, and Todd and I set up transition. This included adding a flat kit to the bike after Pleasant Prairie.

While the walk over loose gravel in bare feet wasn’t fun, I thought we were all set for a great race once we got to the start area. And the swim went really well – out in about 20 min range. We moved to T1, then the bike without issue. That is until we were about a mile out. At that point, the rear tire went flat. As we had a flat kit, I thought we’d only lose a couple of minutes. But when Todd looked in the saddlebag, the tool that the CO2 cartridge goes into wasn’t there. So we lost at least 15 minutes waiting for the support vehicle to come along with a bike pump.

We got back on the bike course to finish the last 13+ miles, and I know I pushed it too hard. We had lost a good deal of time from the flat, and I wanted to try and make it up. But by doing so, I overstretched/pulled something in my lower back. This made it hard to run throughout the run portion overall, and near impossible at times.

We did finish, and while I don’t see official results yet, there was still improvement from Leon’s (subtracting out the flat time). And as frustrating as yesterday was (especially to have flats 2 races in a row), there were still several learning points.

1) Always check and triple check everything in your gear. And once you’ve done that, check it again.

2) While you may gain a little back by overexerting yourself, you’re going to lose 2-3 times as much in a later discipline. Nothing wrong with pushing it, but if you go too far, you can ruin a day.

3) That there are always going to be some challenge during a race. Whether it’s wather, a course change or something else. Deal with it, find a way to move forward and keep racing.

And while it’s frustrating to have a flat issue two races in a row, it’s just that. I’m not upset or disappointed. I am grateful that I’ve had great guides to help get things back on track and support me. The support of my teammates also helps greatly when these things happen. And yes, I would have walked the bike another 13 miles to finish if the support vehicle hadn’t had a pump.

Even though things didn’t go as planned, I am grateful to everyone who helped to make this race possible. Especially the person who provided the sponsorship so I could race.

Back to training and back to focusing on the next race. Naperville on 8/7 is the next Tri on my schedule.

A Year Later – 7.19.16

A Bad Day – 7/19/15

For many years, I drank at least 1 2 liter of diet soda (whatever was on sale when I had run out). And when I was in the middle of a large development project, it would be more. I heard all of the things about diet soda from friends and family, but just ignored it. The caffeine was helping me to get things accomplished, and with a couple exceptions prior to last July, I hadn’t had issues.

What it took to make the change was almost missing out on a very important triathlon. After the scare on the path, I had to rush around to get medical clearance to race a couple of weeks later. It all fell into place in time, but the two pieces together made me finally give up soda. All of the triathlon and racing things I’m doing are ffar more important. And I don’t ever want to go through that again.

More Media Coverage – 7.15.16

Last week, I was asked to do an interview as part of the Chicago Triathlon race. As one of my goals is to get more AWD/PT competitors out to races, I immediately agreed. The article by Bill Bird of the Naperville Sun is below.

Naperville Sun – 7.15.16 (Bill Bird)

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Back in the Lake – 7.12.16

It’s been about 9 months since I’ve been in Lake Michigan. And with the Chicago Triathlon in less than 2 months, it was time to get back in it. Dare2Tri hold Open Water Swim (OWS) sessions in it, so I went downtown to take part Tuesday night. What I didn’t know was that Life Time was also doing one of their five training sessions at the same time.

So instead of it being the handful of us in the lake, we had several hundred people along with us. Even with those crowds of people, the swim still went well. With Eric Robb guiding me, we made it through a 1/2 mile swim. The time was about 2 minutes faster than my ITU time, so something to build on / from.

I’ll have a couple more chances for OWS practices before the Triathlon.

You Can’t Break Me (aka Pleasant Prairie take 2) – 6.26.16

(Photo courtesy of Lindsey Cook)

“It’s like deja vu, all over again.” (Yogi Berra) And quite frankly, even while I was in pain during the race and for a few days later, I would have gladly taken that yesterday. But instead, this happened….

After arriving at Pleasant Prairie at 4:30AM, we ggot the bike set up and went for a test ride. It was a little uncomfortable doing all of this in the dark when I couldn’t see much of anything. But this is one of the many places where complete trust in your guide comes into play. I knew it would all be fine, and it was.

With the bike set, we went into and set up transition and got pumped to rock the Tri. And then the rain and thunder came… An hour later, the Triathlon became a Duathlon (Run/Bike/Bun)I realize that this killed the race for a few people that were the swim part of a relay team, but I saw a LOT of people leaving. One of the main things of being a triathlete is that you have to be flexible — conditions won’t be perfect but you’ve still got to roll with the punches.

I’ll admit that I’m not a strong runner, so going from a Triathlon to a Duathlon wasn’t what I wanted to hear. But I was still optimistic for the day since we still had the bike. We started as a group, and it seemed to go well. We made it about half way around the lake before the 2nd group started.

I was feeling good as we made it to the bike. And it went well until we took a hard left turn on a wet surface. This was the point where the back tire went from a slow leak to flat. When it happened, my immediate reaction was “we are not giving up”. So we started walking the tandem back to the RecPlex, passing a set of course marshals soon after it happened. They asked us if we needed the assistance of the van (aka getting pulled from the race); our response was ‘hell no, we’re walking it back’. I wanted to reply more emphatically, but profanity is a USAT violation, so I left it with that.

After about 5 minutes of walking the tandem, Keri and another team member passed by us. Thankfully, Keri had a flat kit so we thought all was good. Lindsey fixed the flat, and all seemed well. That was until we took the next turn and the tire went flat AGAIN. That meant there was something within the tire, and rubber coming off of it confirmed that thought. So all we could do was walk it in about 3.5 miles. During that walk, Lindsey and I had a chance to talk and get to know each other better. And during that walk, we had a lot of people asking if we needed help and sharing words of encouragement.

When we finally made it back to transition, we had been out on the bike course for two hours. After getting changed back into run gear, we headed out for our 5K run. After about the first half mile, my body was just done. My right side hurt so much that I couldn’t even jog, not even after stretching it out. I think that was because of the extended walk back with the tandem. So we walked the rest of the way back. There was a lot of encouragement for us on the run, and even more surprisingly a big cheering crowd at the finish line. Lindsey said that a lot of those were people who had seen us walking the bike back. Very, very cool that they stuck around until we finished.

So as you can see, what was expected to be a great day went south. And while I could have made it much shorter than the 3:30 I was out on the course, that wasn’t happening. Put simply, I don’t believe in DNFs —

1) I’ve got too much pride to ever tap out.
2) I’ve got too much respect for my teammates and the Dare2Tri organization to do so

We all have struggles out on the course, it’s how you deal with them that defines you. I found out after the race that one of my teammates (Eris) had gotten a flat as well and rode back 10 miles on it so their race could keep going.

Naperville is the next planned race, but I may add another before. I’d like a ‘do over’ for this race. Not because it went badly as a Duathlon, but because it went from a Triathlon to a Duathlon. We’ll see what I can put together. And regardless of when it is, I plan to have a seat bag with a flat kit in it.

Thanks so much to the RecPlex for a great day, Dare2Tri for all of their support and Lindsey Cook for guiding me!

Extreme Pride – 6.20.16

At the beginning of the year, I was selected as part of the 2016 Dare2Tri Development Team. A very exciting moment, as it not only validated my hard work in 2015, but also showed that I had people that believed in me going forward. And in the 6 months since, I’ve been pushed – both by coaches and support from team members. So understandably, I’ve been proud to be wearing the team gear while on the race course and at events.

But I’ve been missing one piece of gear until today — my team kit. I now get to wear this with great and extreme pride throughout the rest of the season. Yes, it is a piece of clothing, but it means much more than that to me. I am truly honored and proud to be part of the team, and look forward to breaking the kit in at Pleasant Prairie this weekend!

To learn more about the Elite and Development Teams, visit www.dare2tri.org.