I am extremely grateful to Catapult for their continued support of my athletic endeavors! Their support enables me to work with an individual swim coach, which I know has helped over the years.
Earlier this year, I worked with Ryan in the Columbus area. I’m looking forward to doing that again later this year, along with trying to find another local coach.
THANK YOU, Team Catapult!
(Photo courtesy of Digital Knight)
Knowing the challenges from 2021 at Sylvan Beach, I booked flights so I could get in as early as possible Friday. But airline inefficiencies and Mother Nature had other plans… I’ll leave it at being stuck on a plane for almost 4 hours in OKC was NOT fun… I think I made it to the hotel at 1:30 AM Saturday.
After a really quick turnaround, I was at Sylvan Beach Saturday morning for the pre-race clinic. Before getting into the water, Erik found a great way to improve the tether and simplify the swim. We’ll see if I can make further improvements to it (mostly through new T1 belts) before Nationals.
Things went well during the clinic, including some very fast 100yd times. Erik also did an amazing job keeping us safe on the tandem in/around the parking lot when drivers didn’t act as expected…
Race morning started by being absolutely, positively devoured by mosquitos. Before the race even started, I had small golf-sized bumps all over my body — even under the Tri kit. I have no idea how they managed to get to some of those places. This was an in-water start as a group, with all the others behind us in self-seeded starts. The updated tether worked really well, and we were out of the water quickly.
The bike has two sets of overpasses that you have to do. Going out, the second one seemed to be a pause (meaning a turn or something similar) into then trying to climb. So I was concerned about that coming back. Fortunately, there was a nice downhill climb for the climb. It doesn’t mean that it was easy, it just meant it was bearable…
On the run, things were fairly strong up through the 2 – 2 1/4 mile mark. After that point, I started getting the normal foot / flem issues and the last part was a struggle. Also, while I know it will be different for 2024, the last roughly 1/2 mile on the shared bike/run course was a challenge with a guide. But Erik helped to make it work.
All in all, a solid return to Sylvan Beach. Thanks to Erik for guiding me, Nelson for the use of his tandem, and to everyone who helped put on the clinic!
Earlier this year, one of the e-mails from a local running store (Naperville Running Company) announced a weekly track workout program. As the run has always been a struggle, I’m always looking for legitimate ways to get better… I’ve been advised that ‘unasked borrowing’ of eyes (AKA ‘boss, I was forced to run’) is not allowed.
After finding a guide (Scott), we showed up for the first session earlier tonight. As usual, I was out at the roughly 9 min / mile mark (roughly 4.5 min above where I was supposed to be). Thankfully, Scott was able to help a lot with the pacing, and it was a success.
While I won’t be able to do it every week because of other commitments, I’m looking forward to the program. NRC brought in a solid, extremely well-accomplished coach, and it was a lot of fun.
Over the last 10 years since doing my first 5K, I’ve continually looked for interesting and challenging events to add in for ‘fun’ as I work towards the main goals. The most recent addition was trail racing.
A few years ago, I found Universal Sole in the Chicago area. While I had intended to do a race with them prior to now, there were other commitments that conflicted. This race fell into line with the schedule, so I was excited to do it.
It had been about 5 years since I did my last trail race, and that one was a huge bear. It was in a wooded area with lots of hills. I’ll just leave it as my white singlet was grey by race end from all the sweat…
While there were challenges along the lakefront, the first 3 miles were OK. There were some decent divots and a couple of minor ‘potholes’ along the sand portions of the out and back that we had to do quick walks over/around.
And then we got to the last mile… which was about 90% grass in the setting sun. Not being able to see any potential pitfalls, and twisting an ankle was a real concern. Especially with three specific (including 1 very special) athletic events in the next few weeks. I’m glad that we didn’t try to push it in the grass, as there was an off-center, really bad rut at about 3.6 – 3.8 that I know would have caused an injury if I was trying to push it. Even with having to walk almost all of the last mile for safety reasons, I did still sprint through the chute as normal.
Thanks so much to Ian for guiding me and keeping me safe throughout the race!
As you may remember from last year’s race, it was a DNF due to a crash at the last turn on the course. So going into this year’s race, the priority was just to finish. To help ensure that, we did a decent amount of bike practice before the race. Also going into the race, I was still struggling with the swim tether. As I mentioned in the past, the one that worked the best was partially lost in 2021.
After doing packet pickup on Saturday, we racked Nelson’s tandem next to its twin (owned by Leti and Jaime) and figured out last-minute logistics with the RD. The night ended with simply getting inked for the morning.
On race morning, the butterflies were out in full force. Mostly out of concern about crashing again; but a little about the first outdoor race of the season. We started about 7 minutes prior to the first non-Para wave, and that gap helped a lot. I know that helped us to get some separation in the swim, even though the fastest people from the next two waves caught us at the end. There were a couple of times that I had to pause and adjust the tether, but we made it out OK.
While the bike mount wasn’t perfect, we made it out and cautiously did the bike course. As I said, the focus was to finish the race rather than trying to hit the normal 19-20 mph numbers and potentially crash again. Even given all of those proactive measures, it almost happened again..
Last year, the turn at the bottom of the hill was a sharp 90 right, so that’s what I was expecting. This year, it was a wide sweeping turn into the left lane (which is not normal). I didn’t know this, and was expecting a tighter turn. So when we went wide, I started to slow pedal, which then caused a wobble. We made it through without a 2nd crash, but it was dicey…
We made it back though with a relatively clean dismount. On the run, it was much the same from Texas runs. In that there were some stretches of strong running and other patches of having to walk / run (especially around the hills). The healthy competition among friends helped to push me though, and we finished strong. We did wait at the finish line for them to finish, and gathered with the team for post-race awards.
While there were several hiccups during the race, I was glad to finish this year. I’ll be back in Texas in about 2 weeks to give Sylvan Beach another go. Thank you to Nelson for guiding and all his help!
“Those are speed holes. They make the car go faster.” – The Simpsons
For context, the mobsters are shooting at Homer, who they think is Krusty. IMO what it really boils down to is ‘don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining’.
When I found this race, it was billed as a Glow Run. Knowing that it was a charity event, I didn’t expect all of the bells and whistles that I’ve seen from prior commercial Glow Runs (i.e. GloRun). BUT, I did expect there to be reasonable lighting along the course.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. For almost the entire course, the primary lighting was the light poles that you see in parking lots. There were a few places that had lighting elements on generators. This also meant that there were chunks of the course that were completely dark.
While the last 1/4 mile or so was well lit, I just did not feel safe at times. I honestly felt safer during the run in nowhere, TX in the dark on the side of a 2 lane road with cars coming towards us at times.
I’m going to just leave it as I cannot recommend doing this race. I appreciate them refunding the entry fee given these issues.
Thank you to John for guiding me and keeping me safe!
Football has always been a big part of my life. At a couple of crucial junctures, I allowed my vision issues to weigh too heavily on decisions related to football. Those are decisions that I will always regret.
After graduating from college, I made the decision to get in as much football as possible prior to the projected blindness at 30. When I first started looking for football camps, I found the Global Football ones (Notre Dame and Penn State).
At that time, it wasn’t feasible to do the Notre Dame one, so I took a different path. More than 17 years later, I’ve finally found a way to make it work.
I’m going to be honest about two things:
(1) When it came to registering for camp, it was a ‘pull of the bandaid’ type of thing. Meaning that you complete it and hit submit before giving yourself an opportunity to second guess the correct decision.
(2) That there are going to be a lot of emotions leading up to and during the camp. I’ll be upfront that there’s a strong chance that this could be my last camp. It will have been 12 years since the last time I was in full pads / helmet and the vision has decreased since then. I don’t want to just be a mascot…
One thing that I learned during the prior round of camps was to be upfront about the vision. I know that I was losing footballs in the roof of the IPF before I was legally blind. And I was at the point of not telling the coaches… oops.
I am working on a couple of other tactics to make this a success. The fact of how well the IrisVision has worked gives me confidence that I’ll be able to see the film sessions.
If you want to get an idea of what I’ll be doing, please check out Mike Drosieko’s YouTube videos. He did a great job chronicling his 2022 experience. I would suggest subscribing to his channel so that you can get a view of the 2023 camp in relative real-time.
Out of respect for what he’s done / is doing, I’m going to wait until post-camp for any major updates. There may be one-off photos on social media during camp though (@nocrappyexcuses).
I am extremely grateful to Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) for their continued support of my athletic endeavors!
Their support helps ensure that I can get to practice, trainings and races. As I’m unable to drive, all of those costs add up quickly. I look forward to all of the opportunities that this year’s grant will provide!
During the January Indoor Tri, I felt that things had gone well. Unfortunately, that did not repeat during the Feb race. This time, my mom joined me and raced her first Indoor Tri!
In the swim, I physically about 5 yards shorter. But because I didn’t hit the wall before the whistle blew, it counted as one less length. Even still, I was able to hold the bilateral breathing for a little longer this time round. But that was where the good ended…
I lost at least 3 minutes on the bike. When I realized just how much time I had lost, I tried to make up for it — probably hitting 23 or 24 on a stationary bike. But I also paid for it, as I was limping a little after the bike.
Things just got worse on the treadmill. While I tried to run, I just couldn’t hold a consistent pace until the very end. So it was mostly a walk.
While it was not the race I wanted, I’m still glad that I did it.
As I’ve mentioned in the past (see 18 Years Later), music has played a huge role in how I’ve gotten to this point. This past year, volunteering with REVERB became the next chapter in that journey forward.
Over the last 25 years, I’ve looked at going to Lollapalooza. Even when there have been bands that I’ve really wanted to see, I’ve opted out. I just didn’t want to deal with the insanity of tens of thousands of people. But in 2022, wanting to see Metallica without having to give up a body part to afford the tickets won out over those crowd concerns. So I decided to give volunteering with REVERB a chance. And I’m glad I did…
The volunteering part at Lolla was a lot of fun, and Metallica delivered. Go and find the video of One that’s on YouTube. As good as that is, IMO it was 10x better in person.
With those successes, I decided to try my first truly solo trip in almost 20 years to volunteer at the My Morning Jacket shows at Red Rocks. The last time I did one truly solo led to roadies having to help me out of Camden when I had gotten lost in the dark…
The cocerts in CO went well, and I was hooked. I ended up doing a couple more shows in the Chicago area before the end of 2022.
While I enjoyed helping to support REVERB’s mission and getting to see a lot of great music, I also gained a lot of stability and personal growth because of these opportunities. I can confidently say that if I hadn’t volunteered at Lolla, the Naperville race would have been a mess. I also ended up finding out a lot of useful things as I went through the ‘Rubix Cube’ of planning a solo trip.
During the 2022 volunteering, I stayed at the REVERB table instead of trying to rove. For 2023 (and beyond), I wanted to give myself the opportunity to rove.
So I had the shirt/vest shown in the header image created by RUseeN Reflective Apparel, and I plan to start using it this year. One thing that I want to make clear is that this is simply for safety so that others can see me. I look at myself as a REVERB volunteer that just happens to be visually impaired.
Hopefully, things will go well as I start to use it. 20 years of going to concerts has taught me that there is a small percentage of people that will be jerks (either natually or because of intoxicants). But I’m not going to let that stop me from trying.
I am extremely grateful to REVERB for providing all of these opportunities to this point. If you’d like to volunteer with them, check out their site.