Posts from — April 2005

As I cruise at 20,000 feet on my way to Ironman Arizona, I find myself thinking about various Ironman dreams. Do we all have them? Does the guy who sat next to me on the train with the Ironman watch dream of one day pushing his limits to see how far, how long and how hard he can go? Is he content in simply fantasizing about it while time on his watch slips by, while his body remains soft?

For me doing the Ironman is about seeing how hard I can push myself. Can I push myself hard enough to become part of the elite few who make it to Hawaii each year? Can I overcome the fear of not succeeding and the pain or sacrifices I make while I seek my own gratification? I will soon find out, but until I do I will also dream about other ways I can push my body.

As I fly over upper Hudson Bay and see the short distance that separates Sandy Hook from Coney Island, I already start to dream about swimming across what seems to be a short distance. I know others are as like minded as me. It is good to know that communities of people exist for just about every endeavor one might want to try. Many challenges exist in life. Some are worth taking on, others are not. I pray for the wisdom to know which ones I should attempt and the wisdom to know when I should stop.

My mind right now is blank and I have no conception of the race I am about to attempt. So much of training and preparation is mental. It is in fact the hardest part of the body to get ready. I struggle daily to clear my mind of negative influences so I can enjoy my Ironman dreams guilt free. I hope that when I am old and in my waning years I will look back in joy of my physical accomplishments without any guilt or regrets. I do not wish to sacrifice my dreams and desires and think “if I’d only done that”.

I am finally on my way to IMAZ. It is 8:26am and I am sitting at the America West gate waiting the final 1.5 hours until my flight leaves. My father dropped me off at the airport and I had a skycap handle my bike box and one very large suitcase. I have no idea how I will manage once I get to Phoenix since I don’t think I can manage the suitcase, bike box and carry on bag by myself. I followed the skycap until my bike box was taken to a special doorway for loading onto the flight. I am still very concerned that it will make it on the flight and arrive in one piece.

This morning was particularly painful to leave my house. My daughter was visibly upset that I was leaving. She woke up with a very sad face and cried all morning. My son, who was relatively stoic about me leaving also started to break down in tears when I was about to leave. Seeing both my children cry just as I am walking out the door is about the most crushing thing to my soul and psyche that can happen. I was already miserable about traveling by myself, knowing that I would miss my kids immensely.

On the way to the airport I mentioned to my father how the children were crying. He proceeded to tell me how perhaps I shouldn’t be pursuing this racing stuff and start spending time with my children. How at this time in my kids life, I should be spending time with them and not wasting time doing things for my own gratification. Lastly, not being satisfied with the gapping wounds he was tearing through my mind and heart, he finishes his speech off by saying “Sophia asked grandma if she thinks her daddy loves her, why do you think she did that?”

This was such an unfortunate time for my father to be telling me such things; especially since I happened to be driving. I was about ready at this point to drive off a cliff and had we lived in the mountains, surely we would have been dead right now. Laying this guilt trip on me when I have already spent the last several weeks in a very stressful state is a situation that I would reserve for only my very best of enemies.

I never really understood how stress could be a contributing factor to heart disease, stomach ulcers, obesity and other ailments. That is until I really started to experience a large amount of stress in my own life.

Unfortunately, due to my identity becoming known to several readers of my blog, I am no longer at liberty of revealing the source of all my stress. This is quite unfortunate as writing about issues revolving about my life for public consumption has proven to be quite cathartic to me. I will have to let enough time pass before I can make these issues public, like some secret government files that become declassified after many years of secrecy.

What I can talk about is the particular physical effects that stress is having on me right now and how I have learned that the only sure method of fighting off the detriments of stress is through mental control of your thoughts, feelings and emotions.

I have found that stress doesn’t just affect your during intense situations or interactions. Stress is very much a mental state that affects you at moments when you least expect it. Thoughts about decisions you have to make or situations that cause you anxiety can cause a large amount of cortisol to be released in your body.

I have literally felt this release of cortisol rush body. When stressful thoughts pierce my mind, my heart gets a sudden start and a tingling/burning sensation to floods into my various muscles; most noticeably my quads and abdomen. Undoubtedly this is the stress hormone cortisol priming my muscles to fight or flight.

I can now see how the constant release or cortisol can cause your muscles, heart, lungs, legs, etc. to break down over time. The muscles get primed for action but have no where to go. Having stress for long periods of time is a chronic condition that will eventually get to you.

If you are unable to remove the stress from your life, you must learn how to deal with it better. I am trying to focus my thoughts on more pleasant items and am trying to keep the stressful ones at bay. If I can keep the stress from entering my mind, I can keep the stress from affecting my body.

It is unfortunate that I am dealing with these issues when I am only several days away from IMAZ. My body should be resting and recovering for the grueling event ahead, but instead it is breaking down, not due to the efforts of training, but due to the affect of stress. The final days leading up to an Ironman are stressful enough.

Fortunately, my wife, Super Todd (ST) and my coach have been supportive of me. I have been turning to them to help me deal with the issues that are torturing my mind. I have never been in such a mental state before and without the support I am receiving I don’t think I would be able to deal with it.

ST came over to my house yesterday to help me prepare my bike for transit to Arizona. Having someone who knew what would be going through my head while I started to get my bike ready was very reassuring. We discussed things such as nutrition (Perpetuem from Hammer Nutrition of course), tire pressures, full vs. long john style wetsuits and most importantly, “who is the better athlete?”

So now my bike is already to go and I just have to get the rest of my gear together. I really should have done this after my last 10 mile run today, but I had a lot of errands to run. In a way this is not such a bad thing, because I know if I already packed all of my stuff and then had it lying around for the next two days, I would feel compelled to check on it many times before I actually left. By waiting for as long as possible, I will not have to worry about checking to make sure I packed everything.

Here is my training log entry in the form of an email to Neil Cook.

Neil,

My throat felt scratchy when I woke up, but I was able to do my run in relatively good form. I kept a relatively easy steady pace, with some harder efforts climbing the hills. I didn’t really pay attention to doing set repeats of harder efforts as my mind wasn’t really focusing. I just kept tract of working around IM pace.

Besides the various stress factors floating around my brain, I am still suffering from a slight lower abdominal strain. It is more irritating than anything else.

I am not sure what caused it, but I can key on a moment about a week ago when I had a very strange and acute cramp in the area. At first I thought it was my bladder and or intestines. Now though I think it must be muscular. I have difficulty doing a dead leg lift while lying on my back or if I spread my legs and push them together against resistance.

Fortunately, neither of those motions are events in an Ironman, so I think I will be ok. Here are the details of today’s run:

Time: 1:21:11
HR: 146/162
TiZ (155/137): A – 0:1:22, I – 1:07:54, B – 0:11:55
Laps:
2.8 – 24:26
2.5 – 19:56
2.5 – 19:57
2.3 – 16:51
Calories: 1118

I have discovered that eating cottage cheese a couple of hours before doing a run is a very bad idea. The combination of running and being slightly lactose intolerant made for a very uncomfortable situation, especially if you are running on a treadmill in a crowded gym.

Fortunately, those around me were all wearing headphones and the din of the exercise equipment pretty much drowned out the sounds of gas being expelled towards the end of my run.

By the time I got off the treadmill, it felt like my intestines were going to explode. Fortunately I made it to the bathroom before I left a trail of devastation.

My wife had packed the cottage cheese for me to eat as a healthy snack. I had warned her previously that milk products tend to give me a touch of wind. My only consolation is that she is now suffering the consequences about as badly as I am. I feel the discomfit, but she gets to smell it.

Other than the gas problems, my run went very well. I felt very strong. So strong I questioned whether the treadmill was calculating the correct pace. I ran 6 miles in 46:20 with a relatively low HR 152/159. I could have easily run much faster, but I held back since I am tapering.

Earlier in the day I drove to Asphalt Green to get in my swim. I almost wished I stayed home. When I went to get on the Brooklyn Bridge from the BQE, having just turned onto the entrance ramp, all the cars in front of me were at a dead stop. Some moron in an 18 wheeler decided to drive onto the bridge. Fortunately, it only took 15 minutes to back him past the BQE entrance.

With no further difficulties I made it to AG and was in the water by 5:45am. I saw alternating easy/IM pace 500’s on 30 seconds rest. Once again I was surprised by how fast I was and so little effort. I completed 3000 yards in 52:23. I then left AG and was back at home at 7:20am eating breakfast with my family.

Only 7.25 days remain until IMAZ.