For Posterity

A few months ago, at my grandmother's wake, I commented that my sister and I would be lucky to marry a man as good as my grandfather. There are many reasons for this and today I'll talk about a few.

With my grandfather, you knew what you were getting. There with things he believed and he believed them un-waiveringly. These things ranged from the mundane - his belief that a key to a long life was to NOT drink a lot of water and his feelings about the yankees v. the mets, which I understand to be vaguely related to the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to LA - to the serious.

My grandfather was a man of faith, he believed in the Church and among other things, he was part of [his parish] from the beginning.

My grandfather was also a true family man. If he knew you, he likely knew your birthday, and if you were married your anniversary, and if there was a major snow storm on either of those dates, he knew that as well. And it never ceased to amaze me how, after meeting Melinda, the chiropractor, or one of the home health aides or any of the guys from the neighborhood, they would know all about my brother, my sister and myself.

Of course, you can't talk about Mike without Millie. My grandfather's devotion to my grandmother, especially in the end, defies words.

Recently, I was driving my grandfather away from the nursing home, when he told me that he was reading the Bible. My grandfather was a cradle Catholic and a prolific reader so it surprised me that he hadn't read the bible. He told me that he knew most of the gospels but had never gotten to the part where they tell you what happens when you get to heaven. I told him that I didn't think the bible went into that much detail. He told me to think about all the people that have gone before us and asked me how you would find who you were looking for.

After 90 years, I'm sure that there are a lot of people my grandfather is looking for in Heaven, but we all know that he was worried about finding my grandmother.

I'm sure that my grandmother has spent the time since her arrival in heaven exclusively worrying about my grandfather here, among other things, the quantity and quality of the food has been lacking, and preparing for his arrival there. If there is food in heaven, my grandmother has been cooking it, if not, she has made the appropriate preparations and found him when he arrived. She likely made a comment about how long it took him to get there.

My grandfather's last days came quickly and went too fast. I can't really belief he is gone and I miss them both, but I am comforted knowing that they are now together forever.

A Marathon Haiku

While I did sneak a triathlon into September, I've basically been focused on training for the marathon the past few months. Unfortunately it turns out that writing about running 20 miles is only slightly more exciting then actually running 20 miles, so instead, I leave you with a little poem.

Marathon to run

Tomorrow to the start line

Tonight restless sleep

I'm overwhelmed by my own creativity lately. I'm sure you are too!

A Tale of Two Races - Part II

Local Olympic Tri in the Middle of NoWhere, NJ

or, the day I remembered that I love small home grown races, they're fun

circa late September, 2010

Before

At some point in my marathon training I was gearing up for a 20 mile run that followed a step back week. Just two weeks prior to the planned 20 miler I had run 18, but after an "easy" week with a long run of "only" 10, 20 was daunting. It seemed so long and far. Liz assured me that my muscles have memory and they'd remember what to do and it would be fine. And that 20 mile run was fine.

So, before the race I hoped that the same muscle memory logic would get me through this race for which I had done minimal (at best) biking and swimming preparation.

One of the best things about local races is sleeping in your own bed. It actually might have been a bit of a stretch to call this race "local" but having done the sleep in own bed and drive further v. hotel analysis, my own bed won. So it was local.

One of the best things about small races is that you can dilly dally a bit in the morning and getting there just under an hour before the start is actually plenty of time. I think I took two or three trips from my car to transition because it was just that close.

It was a bit chilly that morning so my wetsuit went on faster then it might have otherwise but before long it was time to get in the water for warm up. The race is in a pretty small lake, and I swam close to all the way across it while warming up. The water was much warmer than the air, so even after deeming myself sufficiently warmed up (when you've only swam twice in the past two months it is a fine line between warming up and tiring yourself out!) I stayed submerged.

The Swim

All things considered this was a good swim. It was a bit chaotic because, due to the small lake, you had to essentially double back across the lake before you were allowed to make the final turn and emerge. It seemed clear when you were standing on shore, but once you were in the thick of it, it was easy to disorient and now know how far you had come or how far you had to go.

My biggest issue with the swim? The dude that backstroked the whole thing - I went through the photos to confirm that this is indeed what he did (it is). He was actually quite a good backstroker but its hard to tell where you're going when you're looking up at the sky (or so I would imagine) so he kept crashing into me and/or crossing my path - it was frustrating and took some time to get by him but probably led me to speed up a bit to just get away, so maybe I should actually be thankful he was out there cruising along ...

Other than that, I swam well and met my goal of getting out of the water in under 35 minutes (at least according to my watch).

The race was only one wave and I was about in the middle of the pack which is a nice place for me to start the bike.

Bike
I've never been so thankful for pre-riding a course. There is just so much slow grinding up. My goal here was to stay focused and to ride as hard as a I could (because actually, riding anything short of as hard as I could would likely have meant walking) and to finish in less than 2 hours. I met all of my goals, finishing in about 1:57. Clearly this wasn't fast, but to put things in perspective, the fastest mph average of the day was 18. Its a hard, hard course.

Run
My goal for the run was to not finish the race last. I knew there were a few people behind me on the bike and perhaps a few catchable people ahead of me so I set out. The biggest issue was that the run was falsely advertised as flat. That run is a lot of things, but flat is NOT one of them. Later the race director would query whether anyone would actually have done the race if he hadn't lied! I finished the run in 1:00:27 (why do those :27 bother me so much? why?) - a 9:44 pace which, after considering that I've been stagnating at marathon training pace for awhile, isn't bad.

The Best Part
I had fun. I attribute it to the smaller low key aspect - I was far from winning, but really no one was out there to "win", everyone was there to do their best and have fun. The shorter distance might have also helped. And of course this:


It was a very, very, very small race. But I was second in my age group. And when you're me, you take awards whenever you can.

the end.

A Tale of Two Races - Interlude

Random Training
(or lack thereof)
Up and Down the Eastern Seaboard
(ie, Northern NJ and Massachusetts, I'm not really sure what a seaboard is)

circa September 2010

Between T-Man and the second race in this two race tale, I was supposed to rest for a week and then transition directly into marathon training. When I threw in a come back race I didn't really deviate from that plan.

Thus in the one month between the race in which I almost quit triathlon, and my comeback race I rode my bike 4 times (one of those times was the hybrid bike at the beach and two of those times were "easy spins" on the gym bike).

So that is one bike ride on a road bike between races. And that ride?

Well, I had planned to travel to the race site early one Saturday with a random girl I met on the internet (sort of - the triathlon club message board) and pre-ride the course. We planned and discussed all week and then the Friday before the Saturday ride I left work with a fever.

A smart person would have bailed. Note: I never claimed to be smart.

I took advil, napped, took more advil, ate dinner, took more advil, went back to bed, woke up and took more advil and drove with the random girl out to the race site. I might have taken more advil when we arrived. The night before this advil fueled adventure we realized that there was an organized course preview this day so we also had the opportunity to preview the swim course.

So what I'm saying is that I swam an open water mile and then rode my bike for 25 miles most likely with a fever that was only held at bay by the copious amounts of advil I had consumed in the preceding 18 hours. I survived, but barely.

This race was all uphill. There were tons of steep, 4 mph, ifIgoanyslowerI'lltoppleoverbutIdon'tknowifIcankeepupthispacebutI'malreadygoingtooslow-

toclipoutsoI'mprettymuchscrewedisthereanicepatchofgrasstolandin

slow. And when we weren't dealing with that ... false flats. The course started and ended in the same place so there were obviously also some downhills but they were the white knuckle feather the breaks and try not to die sort of downhills - the sort of downhills on which, if you're me, you can never make up enough speed to make up for the slow, slow, slow uphills!

Honestly, I can't imagine how the people the encountered this for the first time on the day of the race handled it.

Somehow, the day after this adventure, I managed to run 19 miles. I'm still amazed that I survived that weekend. But I did survive and I threw in one extra swim (for a total of 4 bike rides and 2 swims for those keeping track at home) and then headed to the race for real ...

A Tale of Two Races - Part I

Part I

T-Man Half IM, New Hampshire

or, The Day I Almost Quit Triathlon

circa August 2010

The Good

At the end of the day, I remembered that I participate in triathlons for fun. And fun to me is certainly "racing" my own best times and "competing" with myself, but it's also being out there suffering with and cheering for others and in turn being cheered for.

The Bad

For reasons that I can only sort of articulate, T-Man was not fun.

The Ugly

(aka, the reasons I can only sort of articulate)

The race is huge. I was good about getting things done early this year but the traffic and people still seem to take a lot out of me. Everything takes so long.

I was in the last wave. In a race this big, the last wave is over an hour after the first wave.

The conditions deteriorated as the day went on (and, did I mention I was in the last wave?). Thus, the water was choppier - disorganized lake chop - and I couldn't wait to be done swimming. That is never a good way to start a long day.

Starting that far back and being a less then super biker, made for a pretty lonely 56 miles. It also started raining. I dropped my chain. I forgot that the end of the course was net uphill.

I was happy to be off my bike but as I set on the run, I saw most of my friends finishing up the run. It was raining. I wanted to put on my sweatpants and hang out. But instead I had to run a half marathon. In the rain.

Maybe it's the back of the pack, or maybe it was the rain, but last year it seemed like everyone on the double loop run was cheering and chatting and having a good time. This year ... *crickets*. Except for the poor dudes who commented on my smile and friendly demeanor (seriously, this is one of the rare times in life when I'm friendly and chatty with strangers) the third time I saw them I made them promise to stay on the course until I passed them again. Of course as soon as they promised and I was pass them, it stopped raining and started pouring. I hoped they would go back on their promise and go inside. They didn't, they were still there as promised and it made me smile.

But, at the end of the race, I still declared myself unfit for triathlon. I was going to look for a new sport. Or maybe just run.

(More Good)

Then I drank a beer. Or three. And ate an oreo cookie, or 8, and remembered the good and started plotting a come back - I could find a small, local race perhaps reminiscent of my most favorite race and it could be fun ...

I woke up at 3 am unable to sleep and ate some more oreo cookies and looked up races on my iphone. One month later I would be back ...

One weekend in August

found this in the drafts ...

My mother has tiny, tiny feet and she claims that they used to be smaller - that while she was pregnant with me, her they grew half a size. Right before I graduated from grad school my feet grew half a size. And I assure you I was not pregnant. This leads me to believe that her feet would have grown that year regardless.

This summer, I feel like I've been nesting. I've done my share of travelling but sometimes, when Friday rolls around, I just want to relax, eat sushi, watch Friday Night Lights and follow that up with a mellow weekend at home enjoying August in the city with half the population at the beach. I can still assure you I'm not pregnant which makes me wonder if sometimes everyone needs to nest, regroup and then emerge back into the craziness.

Anyway, this nesting (or, if you don't buy into my theories above, staying at home and being anti-social) has left me with plenty of weekend time for training which is good because I have a half IM coming up. Two weekends ago I had volunteered to lead our club's less aggressive ride and woke up in plenty of time to pump up my tires and fill up my bottles. Plenty of time until the tire valve broke and I wound up needing to do a quick tire change and, unfortunately for me, "quick tire change" isn't really in my repertoire. I notified the group to head out without me - they offered to come help me, but I was too frazzled and knew that there probably weren't any less aggressive people there waiting to be led - and I took my time tire changing and left about 30 minutes late. This would have been fine but somewhere in the madness I ate like half a granola bar for my entire pre-long ride breakfast. If you've ever wondered if the pre-race/ride meal is really important, I'm here to tell you that it is!

I was rather starving in the middle of my ride (at which point I hate some pretzels) and in the middle of my run (at which point I stopped running and went home and inhaled some eggs and waffles) but I did get in a 4 hour ride 25 minute run all solo and was quite proud of myself. The first long, long solo ride of the year always freaks me out a bit and this year, this was the long, long solo ride. After eating I rested and headed down to the beach to meet some friends (b/c nesting or not you can't be reclusive all the time) and amazed them with the amount of food I ate before I declared myself comfortably full. I then told them about my 60 mile ride/2+ mile run and I think they found that more amazing then the post ride food.

After a fun night out I got up the next day, ate some breakfast (having learned my lesson) and headed out for a run. I told my friends I'd be gone for awhile but didn't let on as to distance. Pretty much as soon as I left it started pouring but it was kind of nice because it scared all of the people away and I had the roads to myself and I ran and ran and ran and jumped through puddles and wrapped my iphone in a garbage bag which kept it dry for 14 miles! And with that marathon training commenced.

Probably as close to the perfect combination of reclusive athleticism and summer fun as I'm going to get ...

There is hot and then there is HOT

or, NJ State Race Report

Somehow, going into this race I tried to pretend like the oppressive heat we've been having would not effect my day.  I thought I could just gut it out and be fine and have a great race.  And to some extend I did, I finished in one healthy piece, which makes a race great - but the heat definitely took its toll.  I pretty much switched from go go go race mode to survival mode when I felt the first bead of sweat drip down my bike as I walked to the porta potty.

Of course, when I stepped into the water for my warm up and realized that the water was maybe warmer than the air, survival mode took on a whole knew meaning.  The water was 85 degrees and it kind of made me gag - it was like swimming in pee (not that I've ever swam in pee, but you know).  You just knew that there was some nasty stuff growing in there and you weren't even afforded a wet suit for protection!

Now that we've established that both air and water were HOT ...

SWIM

The only thing I regret about this race is my swim position.  This race has had some bad experiences with weak swimmers so the RD was seemingly trying his hardest to discourage people from even getting in the water (I do see his point, but it was extreme to the point that I thought about bagging the swim and I'm a good swimmer) - in light of this and the fact that it was an in water start, I thought that to the outside and a bit back from the first buoy was a great place for me - right up until with barely 30 seconds left I realized that there were hardly any people behind me.  I tried to reposition a bit but when the gun went off I had ALOT and I mean ALOT of breast strokers to get through and while I've become more aggressive with my own swimming and less afraid of getting man handled, I refuse to be the man handler.  So it was slow going at first but I eventually found clear water and then went for it - I think that in the end my fear of what was growing in the water and the awful ear (or worse) infection I could get from it counter acted my fear of spontaneously combusting because of the heat!  I was :20 seconds slower but given my starting position, I'm not complaining.

Ts

I won't bore you with details, but both Ts were faster than last year and both were 2:27.  What are the odds??

BIKE

I somehow failed to notice that the one loop bike course was made into two - I noticed before the race, thankfully, but not say before I signed up.  All of the turning took away any advantage I may gain from a flat course.  I'm a wimp, I slow down when I turn, its ok.  Other the turning (and the head wind, I didn't like that either and if I'm going to complain I might as well complain) the bike felt good.  My pace was .1 faster than last year but my time was 8 minutes slower??  So apparently they made the course longer in addition to more technical.  Good to know.

RUN

Did I mention it was hot? And they ran out of cold towels at the cold towel stop and I thought about re-using a used cold towel (no worries, I didn't)?  I was glad that I had the experience of that crazy hot half marathon earlier this May because I knew that if I just went at my pace I'd be fine and the miles would tick off.  What was my pace you ask?  Well, there were three options: walking, running and not moving.  There was only one pace that I could run and it was SLOW but it was running and it got me to the finish even if it took 7 minutes longer than last year.

In the end, the race took 15 minutes longer than the year before but I left knowing I did the best I could with what I was given and knowing that the elusive sub 3 hour oly is still out there somewhere.  I also left thinking that with the change in this race course, I might be done with NJ state because ... its just not that pretty.  

Between Pat G. being over my brother's wedding weekend and being maybe done with NJ state next year could be a whole new adventure!  But first, some epic training stories and epic shopping at lulu (yikes!) and then ... Timber ... man!

Stay cool out there kids ... 

Scenes from Criminal Minds and a PBS Special

(with a triathlon thrown in for fun!)

Thursday after work I left much, much later then I had planned for my weekend getaway for the local (to my parent's summer home) sprint triathlon. It was a long, long night of driving but I finally arrived at the hotel where I was crashing before heading to the Island. The lobby was empty but the check in dude was nice enough and he suggested I leave my bike in the hotel's ballroom (at first this seemed odd to me but then I remember that many people travel with bikes - mostly beach cruiserish bikes, but whatever - to the island so the hotel clearly had a plan) - it was late and I was going to be in the hotel for less than 8 hours, so I said fine. I was totally down with the ballroom right up until he emerged from behind the desk and I realized he was like 8 feet tall and walked with a weird limp and he unlocked the door to the dark ballroom and suggested I bring my bike to its far back corner ... um, nothankyouverymuch ... scenes from every creepy crime show I've ever watched flashed through my head and I was certain that as soon as I was fully in the ballroom that door would lock behind me and I would belong to the 8 foot tall dude and he would keep me locked up for years. So I did what any good triathlete with a nice bike and an active imagination would do - I gave the bike a shove in the general direction of a table and hoped for the best - my feet at all times stayed firmly in the hallway of the hotel and I then went quickly to my room and double locked the door. Crisis averted!

Friday was a great, relaxing day and Saturday was the race. Really, all I can say about this race is that it was what it was. Its not an A race for sure and not really even a B race - its mostly just a reason to get away to my favorite vacation destination for a weekend. I obviously wanted to improve from last year but the conditions were so different that its almost impossible to compare ... but I'll try, starting with the swim (obviously).

I was hoping for a solid swim because I always hope for a solid swim, its the part of the race where I feel, well, solid. During the swim I felt way off course, but I always had people around me. I also felt like when we made the turn towards home you could swim and swim and swim and get nowhere. This swim is in the sound and it later became clear that there was some sort of current going on. Despite this, I was hugely disappointed to see that my time was 4.5 minutes slower than last year (10:56 v 15:28). However, post race analysis reveals that I had the 15th fastest swim of the 74 people in my age group and that the fastest female swim time in the WHOLE race this year was 10:40 ... so to compare the two is really apples and oranges and I was solidly in the top 1/4 so in the end it was all good.

Someone also told me that the swim was all anyone was talking about in T1. I didn't notice, I was too busy catching my breath after the long sand run and putting on my bike shoes and helmet 18 seconds faster then last year - and considering how hard I worked in the swim this year, that's impressive! Ha.

The bike is what it is. And it is just not long enough for me to get into a groove (not to mention I was stewing over the swim a bit) ... it was about 2.5 minutes faster (44:33 v 47:17) so I'll take it.

T2 was when I realized that there was a distinct chance that we would all spontaneously combust on the run. It was now about 1:30 and it was HOT. Despite this I moved through T2 12 seconds faster then last year.

The run was, as expected, HOT and it was one of those runs where you're trying and working but your legs just aren't moving quickly - it was about 2 minutes slower (31:15 v 33:25).

Overall my time was about 4 minutes off (1:38:06 v 1:42:01) but a fun time was had by all so I can't complain. My super athletic Boston friend got a last minute spot in the race and had the fastest female run time. That is THE FASTEST FEMALE RUN TIME. She was also 4th in her age group.

Unfortunately the next day she almost drowned in the ocean. Seriously. Literally. A good samaritan rescued her because we were not at a lifeguard beach and while I'm a solid swimmer I'm not down with the ocean these days. All an attempted rescue by me would have done is left two people to be saved. Prior to the incident I was thinking that I needed to come to terms with my ocean fear so I'm not one of those scared moms (not that I have imminent plans to become a mom) but now I think I'm down with being scared - I'll just add "not afraid of the ocean" to things I look for in a man. Anyway, keep this in mind for any trips you might take with me to the beach: unless it calm, you're on your own out there!

Seriously though, she didn't know that if you are caught in a rip tide you swim parallel to shore. Despite the fact that given the rough conditions, swimming parallel might not have been an option, everyone should know that, thus the PBS special. And for those that know me and could envision me freaking out, know that I was alone in that general part of the beach (there were others that would have heard me if I yelled) except for the good samaritan's friends who, like the good samaritan, might have been 12, and therefore I remained incredibly calm - I kept my eye on her so I could point her out to anyone else that might have been needed to assist and I was ready to call 911 (the only reason I didn't do that initially is that we were down a long dirt road and far from town ... it would have been too late). It was only later that I wondered what happens when you're on vacation with a casual friend and she drowns ... it freaked me out a bit, but in the end I was just grateful that I didn't find out the answers to that question!

I anticipate this weekend's triathlon to be much less eventful ... more on that later.

Stay cool kids!