Camp #NoSightNoLimits – 1/20 – 1/25/17

This all happened because I didn’t understand the rules. Yes, I know that’s an odd way to start a blog post, especially when I know a USAT/ITU official will most likely read it. But it’s the honest truth.

As a brief explanation for those of you who haven’t read the historical Triathlon blogs, what I mean is this. When I decided to do Triathlons, Terri was my intended guide. I thought the USAT rules about guide gender would throw a wrench into all sorts of plans, so I went looking for male guides. This eventually led me to several wonderful Facebook groups. What I found in the long-run was that I didn’t entirely know the rules. Meaning that for Regionals and above, the USAT set is inflexible; but for the smaller races there are some rules that Race Directors have latitude on (guide gender being one).

So even though it was unnecessary to have gone through all that at that point, it was good for the long-run. If I hadn’t expended the effort, I wouldn’t have met Amy Dixon, I wouldn’t have known about Camp #NoSightNoLimits, and I would have missed out on an AMAZING opportunity.

Since receiving my Golden Ticket the day before Thanksgiving, I had been getting things together for camp. Not just the material things (gear, nutrition, etc.), but also the physical base. Several workout sessions on the bike with clips proved to be frustrating but still a good step forward. And after scrambling around the week prior to camp, I left for San Diego ready to learn and get stronger, faster and better.

To say that there were bumps getting to San Diego would be an understatement. It started with my dad severely bruising or tearing a tendon in his arm as we tried to get the bike box in the car. The next hiccup was when I got to O’Hare and was told the bike fee wasn’t waived. Apparently the reservations people didn’t put their notes in. Once that was fixed by the supervisor, I made my way to the gate. I have been traveling alone for many years as my sight declined and have never seen a terminal so dark or struggled so much because of it. The best analogy I can give is that the power’s gone out and you’re powering things at 40% off of generators.

Having finally found the gate, I was able to get help with pre-boarding and thought it was smooth sailing ahead to San Diego. Unfortunately, I was wrong again. While I don’t know this as a fact, I am pretty sure that two of the engines momentarily cut out somewhere over Oklahoma. I say that because I felt the plane going downwards and then heard noises like a helicopter starting up. I was only a couple rows in front of the wings which is why I was able to hear it so well. Coming down out of the clouds in San Diego wasn’t much fun either. In turbulent weather, it was like the huge roller coaster drops.

While the trip to San Diego didn’t go as smoothly as planned, things did once I arrived. United’s ground crew helped to make sure that I got from the plane to a taxi with my bike/bags, and I made it to the hotel without incident.

As we didn’t need to be at camp until noon the next day, Luke and I went swimming at a local YMCA. In the outdoor pool, I did a little more than a mile before we heded back to get breakfast and get ready to head to Chula Vista. Upon arriving at the Olympic Training Center (OTC), we had a chance to meet other campers during lunch and then unpack while bikes were built by Mike.

The first workout was a 16 mile bike ride (8 out and 8 back). I had spent time working on clipping in/out and pedaling while clipped, so I was looking forward to getting out on the bike. Unfortunately things didn’t go as well as I had hoped – clipping in was a struggle and a real safety issue. The shoe/clip issue is one of the many tweaks that came out of camp and will make things better in the long run. Because of the safety concerns, I was on flat pedals for the rest of the camp.

After an entertaining evening in the room, the second day started in the pool. After doing warm ups and some open water drills, Coach Ray spent time helping me with stroke and breathing mechanics. That was a huge help, and something that I was very grateful for. We also figured out a better way to tether at the leg instead of the waist. This will help going forward so that I’m not hitting one of my arms during the stroke.

The afternoon found us on the lawn, on bikes and ready for an interesting bike skills workout. It had been raining for two days before and throughout. There was wet grass and mud – I’ll let you use your imagination as to how things worked out. We did get in a lot of good control drills, and I found something else to tweak on the bike. The seat seems to be too long and at one point it caught and tore the outer layer of the kit. We finished up the day on the track with all sorts of different running drills.

The next day started in the pool again since it had been raining. We were told that you have to wait 72 hours after it rains before you can go into the ocean. Knowing that there was a small window before leaving and a long bus ride, I packed my bag the night before. I was certain that I put my tri kit into the bag, but when we got there I couldn’t find it. Thankfully, Luke had an extra pair of shorts and I was able to be in the pool. Coach Ray helped more with the technique and breathing throughout the session, and it went well. Ending the session in a hot tub was a nice benefit.

Once back, we did some work on the track and then a transition clinic. Up to this point, it had been raining pretty much every time we’d been outside. This time Mother Nature decided to add insult to injury and added hail during it. We had to run for cover, but still did the clinic once it let up. I learned several things that will help going forward.

The fourth day started like the previous two in the pool. While it was a familiar place to start the day, the drills, format and focus were different. Doing hypoxic drills when you know it’s X strokes to a breath is bad enough. Doing them where you’re focused on not breathing for yards/meters is even worse. There were a couple of other drills that worked really well and will get incorporated as I continue training.

In the afternoon, we were out on the Criterion course. It’s a course built with hills, curves, ups-and-downs and more to test your skills. After several loops around, we did different drills (180s, starts/stops, and more), finishing with the slowest race on earth. At some point during the drills, I cut up my leg. I saw it and that was bleeding but just kept going. Minor injuries / hurdles will happen during a race; you deal with what’s an emergency and push through the rest. The evening finished with an opportunity to thank those who had helped make this experience possible after time in the weight room.

While I’ve talked about the workouts, that was only one piece of camp. Another was getting to meet and talk with the other athletes and their guides. Take a look at the NBC video to see and learn a little about some of them. Yet another was learning sessions. We learned about nutrition, guiding, rules and so much more from amazing and spectacular coaches. I learned a tremendous amount during these sessions that will help as I go forward. I’m not going to go into detail about these though – you had to be there.

Even though there were a few challenges, it was an amazing experience. Five days of being pushed to and then beyond your limits to continue getting better and stronger. I am so extremely grateful to everyone who made this possible – family, friends & CAF for providing support, Amy, Debbie and all of the coaches for camp and all of the amazing experiences/learning; Luke for being my guide/pilot and United for all of their assistance.

You can see a small snapshot of camp by viewing the NBC video!

I had an opportunity to spend time with a friend that I hadn’t seen in 20 years before heading home and family during a stopover. I was glad to make it back home, and am focusing on the next steps towards improvement for 2017!

Golden Ticket – 11/24/16

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“I’ve got a golden chance to make my way
And with a golden ticket, it’s a golden day” (from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory)

About two years ago, it all started with a simple goal – to find a male guide for Triathlon races (not knowing that local RD/ROs could waive that). But in that time, there have been so many unexpected benefits from the connections made from the original offshoot. Once of which was being made aware of an amazing Blind Triathletes camp (Amy Dixon’s #NoSightNoLimits camp).

I applied for the camp in early October, and received my Golden Ticket the day before Thanksgiving! I am extremely grateful for and exicited for this amazing 5 day camp experience. But I can’t just show up for it — there are two very important things that I need to do between now and January.

The first is to keep running consistently and increase my miles. Going into camp, I need to be at 15mph on bike, 1500m swimming and 5 mi running. The bike and swim are good, especially since a running joke among some of my teammates is about me not wanting to get out of the lake at camp. As running is the weakest of my 3, I know that this is going to be a challenge. But I know I can make it; especially after the improved performance at the Turkey Trot.

The second is to reach the fundraising goals. In addition to the camp costs, we’ve also got transportation costs to get there and back. If you would like to support Luke and me, please go to our fundraising page. As USABA is a 501(c)(3), all of your generous support of us is a tax-deductible donation. Even if you can’t support us, please share the link with family, friends and colleagues through social media, e-mail and your Christmas letters. Thank you in advance for your help with this!

I also want to give a big shout out to United Airlines for their help in ensuring that I’ll have my tandem with me for camp. In the past, I’ve looked for and used whatever airline offered the cheapest fare. But going forward, I intend to use United for all of my Triathlon related travel. I would strongly encourage all of my PT friends to talk with United about their travel needs after all their help!

This will truly be an amazing opportunity, and I’m extremely grateful to all that are making it happen!

More Media Coverage – 7.15.16

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

D2T-Award

(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

Finish. Always. – 9.19.15

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For those of you who know me well, you know that there times where in frustration, profanity comes out in spades. But even in that time, there are words that you’ll never hear me say. Simply because they’re not in my vocabulary. Another word, which you’ll never hear me say had a 3 letter acronym. If you change the F to a C, you’ll get DNC.

Yesterday, the PC Open race at the ITU Grand Finale bent me but couldn’t break me. Even with the challenges of the day, it was an incredible one.

The swim was the worst part of it. Even though we were inside of the break wall, the waves were still bad enough that I couldn’t get my head in and keep it there to do a normal freestyle stroke. And the tether broke shortly into the swim. Luke figured out a plan B to deal with that and kept pushing me along to finish even when I felt like there was nothing in the tank. I was really concerned that we were going to get pulled out of the water (which would have ended the race), but we finished and headed back to transition.

After transitionwe headed out on the bike for our ride. This particular course would have been impossible for me to do without a guide, as about 1/3 of it was on lower Wacker Drive in the dark. But with Luke as the pilot, it went well. The extra padding in the Dare2Tri suit helped from the last time I was on the race tandem.

We then came back to transition and out for the run. About 1/2 way through, my lower back started to tighten up and it got hard to run for any long length of time. But I kept pushing with Luke encouraging me on, and we finished (2:21 total), and I was so happy for the post-race massage. 🙂

Even though it was a struggle yesterday, many positives and many things to work on for the 2016 season.

1) Even with Lake Michigan utterly kicking my ass, the difference in the finish time at ITU and Naperville as about 1 minute. And that’s with an additional 350m in the water at ITU. I see that as a HUGE psitive.

2) There will be a lot of early mornings this fall and winter for swim training. And I need to find a way to make it down for Open water sessions in Lake Michigan next spring/summer.

3) The struggles of yesterday did nothing to discourage the long term goals. It only fueled me to push harder to reach them. To that point, Naperville (8/7/16) is already firmly on the schedule and about 15 other events (Tris and running races) are in pencil.

One final thing — THANK YOU to the ITU event staff and all of the fans that were out there yesterday. As usual, there was a tremendous amount of encouragement and support for us out on the cours and at the finish. And a special thanks to the kind woman from Canada who lent us her phone so we could coordinate the post-race meet-up.