admin – Page 25 – No Crappy Excuses

Back on the Horse – 6.19.16

Last weekend took a lot out of me. Two days of being pushed by coaches followed by a grueling Triathlon on Sunday put me down for the count for a few days. Monday is my standard off day, but I was limping through Wednesday — even with 3 solid days of heat and Advil. And with other commitments in the back half of the week, today was my first training session since last weekend.

If you want a good Triathlon simulation, head to a local pool on a hot summer day. I wasn’t even thinking that with today being Father’s Day a lot of people would stake places during Adult Float and stay most of the day with the Beach being their Father’s Day event. So instead of a moderate crowd, there were a lot of people — and thus a bigger obstacle course.

So we worked around the crowds, first in the shallow (4ft) end and then in the deeper (13 ft?) water. I played around a little bit with my most favorite drill (bilateral breathing), but gave it up quickly due to the traffic. When we found a little clearer spot, Terri introduced yet another ‘fun’ drill. This one was swimming sidestroke, and IMO is far less fun than bilateral breathing. Like saying a root canal is more fun than a frontal lobotomy.

But just like with bilateral breathing, sidestroking will continue to be part of the workouts. Not because it’s fun, but because you need to have a Swiss army knife of skills out in the water. And since I know bilateral breathing saved me at Leon’s, I won’t fight sidestroking… too much. 😛

And after struggling to do 50m of sidestroke swimming, I have a new found respect for my guides. A lot of them are swimming 10-15 times that without issue to make sure we stay on course.

Back to the scene of the crime (Pleasant Prairie) next weekend. Hopefully I can get at least 2 runs and a swim in before heading back.

2016 Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Camp (aka Pleasant Prairie Take 1) – 6/10 – 6/12/16

(Thanks to Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Club for the photo)

For those of you who haven’t read my 2015 Camp blog, please read my 2015 camp blog first. Or if you don’t want to, the thumbnail is this — I had never done a triathlon before, I struggled at camp and managed to cross my first finish line and had some amazing experiences.

Prior to this year’s camp, I had spent about 6 months in the pool, continually getting my ass kicked by one of my coaches. Never fun to wake up at 3:30AM for a 5AM session, but oh so worth it… And there were other times and other ways that both of my main coaches (Coach Stacee Seay and Terri Hayes) pushed me during the last year since camp. If you want details on any of it, just backread through the last year – it’s pretty well chronicled.

Day 0 of camp went pretty much like last year – get to 31st Street Marina, get on the bus to Pleasant Prairie and then crash out early. The slight wrinkle to this year was that I was so spent from the week to that point that I didn’t bother going out to dinner and just crashed.

Day 1 of camp started with the introduction and then led us into the pool with Coach Stacee. Last year I was struggling to do a 50 meter swim and having to stand up at the middle sandbar. This year, while they weren’t as smooth as they should be, I was still churning out 50s, 100s and multiples of 100s. And then I got to do my oh so favorite drill of all time – bilateral breathing. Never a fun one, but oh so useful. Much more on that later on…. When we finished in the pool, we did functional strength drills and then had lunch as a group.

The afternoon of day 1 started out on the bike with Coach Chris. While there were a lot of fundamentals (start/stop, mount/dismount, turns, etc.), it was still great to do. We finished with a run session with Coach Judy that started with the fundamentals (paw and more) and then went to tension running. Last year, I know I struggled on the tension runnings; this year, I was close to beating the camper I was running against. And we got to finish up with the ‘fun’ of running up hill several times, during which I was told I had great arms.

Day 2 started out hot and then only got hotter. I know that I put on full suntan lotion 3 times and had someone else do my legs/face a 4th time. But it was still so hot that I ended up burning in a couple places. Our day started out on the bike doing interval rides up H/88 and lots of turns. For those of you who have never been at Pleasant Prairie, H/88 from Park Place is mostly uphill. Not much fun to do 8 loops of that during training (or 3 loops during the race), but all part of the day. After about 90 minutes on the bike, we went onto the run.

During the run, we did 2 800s and then 4 400s. After the first 800 (5:33), I was tempted to sit out the 2nd (run in 6:04). And the same was true of wanting to sit out parts of the 400 (first 3 run at about 2:55 each, 4th run at 3:17). What kept me from sitting out ANY of those regardless of how much I was hurting was this simple thought – ‘there are a lot of people here with a lot less than me. If they can do it, I’m going to push myself until I at least fall down on the course and someone has to pick me up’. None of the runs were any fun, but I pushed through all of them. What got me through was that thought above and a LOT of ice, water and ice.

Our afternoon ended in the lake. As it was about 7000 degrees out, jumping into a 65-70 degree lake felt really, really, really good. So much so that after 800 meters of practice I joking told a friend that I was just going to stay in the lake until the morning. If you haven’t gotten the point by now, “the sun [was] a mass of incandescence gas. A hot nuclear furnace. A gigantic nuclear furnace. Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees” (Thanks to the 2 Johns for that. And I take no responsibility if that’s now stuck in your head.)

We finished Day 2 with Yoga and then a group dinner, at which I was blindsided. They do camp awards each year, and I was presented with the one for most improvement. I would not have received that had it not been for all of my coaches – especially Coach Stacee and Terri Hayes – continually pushing me forward throughout the last year. I was very proud to receive the award, not just as validation for my effort but also to validate Dare2Tri’s support of me. At the beginning of the year, they selected me to their Development Team, which means a lot of support from them and a lot of investment into me. I am very proud to be able to show that their support and belief in me is starting to pay off. And I meant what I said that night – it’s never going to go perfect, but you just keep pushing forward and it’ll all come together.

Day 3 (race day) started off with a very patriotic salute led by Melissa Stockwell and others. And then it was time to race – 800 meters in the lake, 15 miles on the bile and 3.1 miles on the run (aka Sprint+). For added fun, that meant 3 loops uphill into a 20-25 MPH headwind.

We started out in the lake as a group and the swim went well for the most part. One of the buoy turns took straight into choppy water. This is where the bilateral breathing came into play. And when I forgot to do it, I got a VERY stiff correction to do it right by getting a huge mouthful of water. It was going so well that I was surprised when Lee told me that we were done with the swim. Along the lines of Day 2, if he hadn’t told me that, I probably would have done another loop. We headed out of the water and onto T1 (aka long transition).

Towards the beginning of the bike, I made my first mistake. We were close to the tandem team of Caroline and Ashley and I decided to try and keep pace with them. For those of you who’ve never seen them ride together, just think of that Jim Croche line “You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger and you don’t mess around with Jim” and substitute Caroline/Ashley where it says Jim. Sadly, I will never remember that lesson for the simple reason that as I continue to push forward, I will see them out there a lot. And I’ll continue tor try pushing that envelope. Charlie Brown eventually kicked the football out of Lucy’s hands, right? 😉 😛

The bike portion really was no fun. As I’ve already mentioned, it was 15 miles with big chunks of it uphill into strong headwinds. But we pushed through it and made it back to T2. That was after we listened to the incorrect information from a volunteer and lost a few minutes.

From T2 out onto the run after putting nutrition into my body. To say I was spent at that point would be an understatement. But I was determined to get that 3.1 miles in, even if it was 1/1 intervals. And unfortunately there were a few place where it was like that. But in the end, we made it back to a lot of cheering campers, staff and volunteers.

In summary:

1) THANK YOU to all of the volunteers, staff, coaches and sponsors that made this weekend possible. And a special THANK YOU to Luke Migalla and Lee Dunbar for helping to guide me thoughout the weekend.

2) Even if you struggle, don’t give up. There will always be bad days, bad race and people that continually beat you at a disciple or on the course. If you give up, you’ll never have a chance; if you keep pushing forward, you will eventually get to a point where you can. It won’t happen tomorrow, but it will happen…. Eventually.

3) I am so glad that I did the Shamrock Shuffle last year. If I hadn’t, I would have never have met Keri and NONE of this would have happened.

4) If you want to succeed and push forward, the words don’t, can’t, won’t and will not need to disappear from your vocabulary.

I’m looking forward to being back at Pleasant Prairie in two weeks to race with an even larger field!

And if you would like to support me as I move forward with my season, you can do so through my Race2Raise Page

Leon’s Triathlon – 6/4-6/5/16

And so the outdoor season beings… Leon’s Triathlon (Hammond, IN) was my first race of the for the season. While the training hasn’t been perfect, I felt confident heading into it. Especially With th swim. Simply because Coach Stacee has been kicking my ass in the pool for the last 6 months.

There was a camp/team dinner that we went to Saturday night. Leon’s mom showed up, and I ended up sitting next to a wounded veteran (I believe Navy) and got to hear all kinds of amazing stories from him.

On Sunday, we practiced with the tandem that Dare2Tri loaned us, and then got ready to race (including the new magnetic race belt set up — thanks to Dare2Tri) They did an amazing opening ceremony with the garason flag and a multi-service (I believe Army/Navy/Narines) veteran singing the National Anthem. As we were the second-t-last group to start, we had about 45 minutes to wait after transition closed. This gave us a chance to see some of the other groups start, and antics from the wheelies. We’ll see what photos turn out… 😉

Prior to starting, Leon met us at the gate to the lake and welcomed each of us. There weren’t big waves in the lake, but they were consistent. The course seemed to be a sideways J, so the straight part out was into the waves and a challenge. There were a couple of times that it got hard to breathe because of the consistent waves. That’s where the bilateral breathing (one of my least favorite drills) became very helpful. I was able to make it out in my target window (less than 21 min) and we moved onto T1.

For me, T1 always takes — or at least seems to take — an eternity. There’s a lot of gear that need to get switched. Wetsuit/goggles/cap/tethercap off; towel off; socks/shoes/vest/camelback/helmet/gloves/sunglasses on and nutrition in.

Once all of the changes were completed, we were off on the bike. For almost the entire course, we were riding into a headwind. The softglide seats helped during the bike, with my ass falling asleep less times than it normall does during a 12mi ride. I thought we made it back within my target window (30-32 min), but when I saw the results it showed 42 min.

Back to transition for T2, which is always shorter since I’ve got most of my run gear already on.

On the run, my body was just spent. The majority of runs, I’ve been doing 4/1 or 5/1 intervalss, and have been close to 13 minute mile averages. I wasn’t able to do anything close to that on the run course – maybe 2/1 at best. I think there may have been minor ITU band issues, but stretching didn’t fully help. It allowed me to run a bit longer but nothing in the normal 4/1 area. So the run ended up taking 44 min.

Overall, the race went well. I was able to shave 23 minutes off of my sprint PR. And I believe that once I finally have my tandem and can practice on it consistently, I’ll be able to shave even more off. It was an amazing race setting and weekend, and will definitely be on my 2017 schedule. The only thing that I think needs to be changed for 2017 is a better fitting swim cap. This year’s were extremely tight — to the point of hurting. So unfortunately it won’t get used again. I know that TYR makes better fiting ones, as I’ve almost worn out the one from last year’s Naperville Sprint from consistent wear.

Thanks to Lee Dunbar, Dare2Tri and everyone else who helped to make it a great weekend. Next race is Dare2Tri TriIt (Sprint).

Walls in the Pool – 5/20/16

As I’ve mentioned in prior blog posts, you sometimes have bad workouts. Last night was one of those for me in the pool.

With about 45 min in the pool, my goal was to hit between 1300 and 1400 (including the breaks). Too get there during these shorter swims, I do increasing 100s — 100/200/300/400/500 (or part thereof). And it usually works out well, with me getting to or close to 1500.

But last night, my body just wouldn’t cooperate after the 200 piece. I was only able to get 50s in before I had to take breaks. And there were a couple of times that I had to stop mid-lap. That’s not happened for a LONG time. Thinking it might be too much CO2 in my lungs, I did some modified sink downs (as the pool is only 3 1/2 feet deep). That helped a little, but not enough.

I left the pool only having been able to get 750 in. While that wasn’t what I had planned to do, as I told my friend — Even a bad workout is a workout. It won’t always be perfect, but you still need to keep moving forward.

Please Help – 5/20/16

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed another big interest of mine – football. I started a project in 2007 (The Dream), and I t’s been stalled over the past few years for financial reasons.

Earlier this year, I started a GoFundMe project (For the Love of Football) to try and make 2016 an amazing camp year. Unfortunately, that hasn’t gotten to the point I need for even one camp experience. Very frustrating to lose a year on the sidelines.

Despite the frustration, I am focusing on 2017 and selecting 1 camp (Notre Dame). If the GoFundMe project exceeds that cost, then I will look at my other options. And yes, I do realize how odd that may look to those who know me since Notre Dame is now an ACC team. All I can say to that is that I can’t control conference realignments. This has been part of the plan since 2006.

I am asking for your help to make this happen for me as there’s no way I can afford to do it on my own. Please support the GoFundMe project (For the Love of Football) if you can. If you can’t support it, please share the link on social media and with friends, family, coworkers and anyone else who might be interested in helping.

Thanks so much!

Giving Up… Some things – 5/14/16

One of my biggest challenges with nutrition is that I can’t cook (mostly because of vision). So the majority of my meals have been something you can put in the microwave. I’m sure that this means a lot of preservatives and a lot of other crap that’s not so good for you. And while I had fruits and vegetables around, that wasn’t what I reached for for snacks.

As the outdoor season is close, I decided to try two things – one being giving up the bagged snacks (pretzels, chips, etc.) for vegetables and fruits, the other being replacing at least 3 meals a week with fresh meat (typically chicken).

So far it seems to be working well. Thankfully I’ve got people to bring me fresh produce, as the closest grocery store charges 2-3 times reasonable prices. The first measuring stick of progress will be Leon’s on 6/5.

Paying the Price – 5/9/16

In late April, I had gotten back to a routine where I was running at least twice a week in addition to swimming. Then I had a couple of bad weeks back-to-back where I think all I got in was one swim workout.

When I got back to running this week, I could tell that I’d have to pay the price for that. And unfortunately, I am… big time. To put it mildly, my body has not been happy with me since I got back to running.

To illustrate what I mean, while I’ve never been a strong runner (1st full mile was in 2013), I’ve been able to put together run/walk miles with more ease this year prior to the break. The first run was a painful mile out and I had to walk the mile back.

It’s gotten better since then, but it’s not yet where I need it to be. I can’t read my phone’s screen when I’m running, but I could have sworn I heard it say an 11:21 mile yesterday. Regardless of what it says now, I need to be able to put 3.1 miles together in the 34-35 min range when it’s race time. Doing the math, that’s what I need to be in the ballpark for a Nationals Qualifying time.

We’ll see how it all turns out. First outdoor race of the season is Leon’s in Hammond on 6/5.

Start the Season – 5/1/16

The Start the Season event is Dare2Tri’s kickoff event for the season. This year, it was a combined event with the Chicago Tri Club (CTC), who has helped Dare2Tri since its inception and who provides a tremendous number of volunteers each year.

It was a great event, including an amazing program (including BP’s donation), bowling/botchi and more. Photos from the vent are available here I was having such a great time talking with other Dare2Tri members that I completely spaced on the raffles. Oh well, next year…

To help support Dare2Tri, either financially or through volunteering, please check out www.dare2tri.org.

Inner Strength – 4/16/16

In early March, one of my friends that used to play for the Chicago Chaos (semi-pro), and who is now a coach, invited me to their charity game against the Chicago Fire Department’s team. That immediately went on my calendar. And when a couple of other options came up that could have worked around it, I declined them to ensure that I could be there for it.

Because of my vision, traveling during the day is sometimes a challenge. Not so much because of not being able to read signs (I always figure a way to amek that work), but moreso that I’m dependent on someone else driving. To keep things within budget, I figured out a triant to train to cab route that was about $25 there and back. I even left early in case things didn’t work out exactly as planned.

When I made it to the city, I ran into the first bump with Metra having eliminated the a time for the 2nd train I needed. But because I had left early, I was still somewhat on track. As I wandered Union Station and got lunch, I saw two peacocks fighting (visually – not literally — essentially an man and woman were about to come to blows over one of them bumping the other and then both bringing out their feathers). Knowing I was cutting it close, I even took time to put Uber on my phone so I had a back up if needed.

When I got off the 2nd train, I only had 10 minutes to find a cab and get the 2 miles to the event. When I couldn’t find any or get one to come by 2:15, I went the Uber route. I really should have just figured out how to walk it and done that. I would have been better off, as I waited almost 90 minutes for the Uber to show. By the time he did, I wasn’t in any state to go for the last few minutes (if it was even still going on), so I went back to Union Station and went home.

While I was waiting to get picked up and the cabs / Ubers weren’t showing up, I was getting more and more frustrated. Not just in that moment, but also about when the vision gets worse and I have even more issues with getting around. I happened to be waiting in front of a liquor store, and I had serious thoughts of going inside to get a bottle of something strong to pound when I got back home. I knew it would sidetrack training and all productive things for a few days, but that really wasn’t my concern in those moments.

What stopped me every time I got to the point where I was ready to walk inside were thoughts related to Dare2Tri. Not just having met a long list of extraordinary athletes that do so much with less than me, but also the fact that they had selected me for the Development Team. They’ve put their resources and belief behind me, even with the limitations I have. Those were the strings of thoughts that kept me from going inside.

While it was a hard day, and not something that I necessarily wanted to write about, I did it for this simple reason. There are ALWAYS going to be hard days – in training, in races and in life. When those come, find a way to push the dark clouds away and bring the sun back into full focus.

Indoor Tri Wrap-up & Training – 2/28/16 – 4/14/16

First of all, sorry for the long hiatus. Life has been extremely busy since late February and I haven’t had much time for blogging. This and the next few entries dated prior to today (5/20/16) are all ‘ctach up’ articles that have been in my queue to post.

After the last Indoor Tri post, I did two more – the final event in the MITCS series and the final event in the ET series. The first went really well; the latter had bumps. Specifically, towards the end of the bike at ET I felt really constipated. So I lost 4 minutes of the run while I was still taking care of that.

Overall, the Indoor Tri season was a great experience. Not only did it give me an opportunity to have targets to push for as I was training, it also gave me experience for the outdoor season. I plan on doing both the MITCS and ET series next year. I will not do Life Time again – IMO it was far too crowded, and just not a great experience. Combined with the fact that it’s the only for-profit race that I’ve had to pay for my guide, just not on my list for next year.

I greatly appreciate everyone who helped me throughout the Indoor season. Specifically Coach Joe, Todd, Lee & Steven who all really helped to make it work out.

In between the Tris and once the season ended, I was back into the pool. Although it isn’t a big jump, I was able to cut another 10 seconds off of my CSS time in the pool. I know that every little bit helps.