Posts from — January 2006

Its time to change the music. My brain keeps playing sad songs and it is time to start infusing it with something more positive and upbeat. This morning I heard in my head songs by Pink Floyd such as “Wish You Were Here”, which is always a major downer for me. I get so depressed hearing Floyd that I find it hard to live. Next I heard Destroyer by The Kinks, which while is a more upbeat song, is about suffering from paranoia. While I didn’t feel as depressed as I heard this in my head, I started to feel very nervous and jerky. I guess it also didn’t help with it only being 5:10 am and 27 degrees. It was cold and dark which suited my mood.

I am not sure which song I need to hear to pick up my spirits. I think I will skip Metallica’s One, a song about someone who has no arms and legs. While this does have a very good beat, with my the way my left shin has been feeling, I am wondering if I wouldn’t be better off hacking the damn thing off and putting on a prosthesis. I found some nice models here.

I don’t know what song I heard in the shower today, but it was along the lines of not being able to go on and wanting to quit. This describes my run this morning. I was scheduled for 8 miles after an 80 minute bike ride. I managed to run for 12 minutes before I had to stop. I just didn’t want to continue and my shin was really hurting. Even if my shin wasn’t hurting, I would have stopped. I just didn’t have anything, physically or mentally to continue pushing forward.

Truth is, I’ve never pushed my training for this long. I’ve trained in the past for endurance type sports, but never for this long. The longest I’ve gone prior to this go around was just over 3 years. This is my 6th year for this go around and is completely new and uncharted territory for me. I know am starting to sound like a broken record as I keep complaining about being depressed, tired and not wanting to go on, but I can’t help it. It is what I am feeling. I wonder how many people reading this blog will actually remember what a broken record sounds like. Humans of the modern age do seem to outlast all current forms of technology. I just have to see if I can outlast myself.

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday the temperature in NYC reached 57 degrees and this morning the temperatures reached 27 degrees with a -2 degree wind chill factor. It snowed over night and the ground has a nice 2 inch cover of snow and ice. I love this kind of weather, even more than I like foggy weather.

Adversity brings out the best in many of us and adverse weather conditions bring out the best in me. One of the things that contributed to today’s harsh conditions was the salt spreader truck roaming around Prospect Park. It would shoot salt out of the back and the force of the pellets hitting my legs would sting something awful. I have several red dots over my thighs and calves of both legs from encountering this orange beast many times over the course of my run. You can see the salt coming out of the back of the truck.

The temperature wasn’t the only major contrast over the past couple of days. My run today was absolutely spectacular compared to my foggy day run. I knew it would be good the moment I took my first step. I felt calm and relaxed and my legs moved with fluidity that I haven’t felt in a while. I knew I would easily get my 12 miles in and I wondered if I should try for more.

Soon into my run, I met my friend Chris. We quickly fell into a steady conversational pace. I kept exclaiming how beautiful the conditions were, but he was not convinced. He saw a nasty, cold and windy winter day, while I saw amazing winter wonderland conditions. We talked about various things, which included complaining about our wives. I think bitching about one’s spouse is almost a universal thing to do, at least when it comes to athletic spouses complaining about non-athletic spouses – or maybe it is just a guy thing to do.

Chris kept me company for my middle two laps. For my 4th and final lap I turned up my radio and simply enjoyed the scenery. Music sets the mood and the tunes on the radio were making me feel very upbeat. I finished my run feeling like a million bucks and looking forward to many more days like today.

I woke up this morning with a very foggy head and splitting headache. So I took a couple of Excedrin and went back to bed. Usually, the caffeine inside the pills wake me up, but I was so tired this morning, that I fell back to sleep for another 3 hours. By the time I roused myself out of bed I was way too late for me to make it to the pool.

Part of the reason why I was so tired, was due to a Cibbows meeting last night that saw me arrive home past 10pm. We were discussing the swim races we have planned for this summer and targeting various companies to sponsor the races. By getting to bed so late, I missed my swim this morning, literally because I was too tired from talking about swimming.

Even though I was tired and woke up late, I still had time to do my run. It was a beautiful foggy day, so I grabbed my camera to take some pictures inside Prospect Park. I love the way everything looks when it is heavily foggy. I wanted to immortalize this strange warm and foggy winter we have been having. The conditions this January have been more San Francisco than NYC. This suits me just fine as I can’t take the cold anymore, but love the fog.

Unfortunately, I didn’t run well. I just didn’t have any form or pace and the run was a struggle. So I just shuffled along, looking for some decent opportunities to snap a picture or take in the surroundings. Since I was already outside, I may as well have enjoyed the scenery. Here is a picture of Prospect Park’s lake and the next photo is a picture of me looking way too serious.

I’ve done some renovations to my blog as you can see. I now have an Ironman USA Lake Placid countdown clock, as well as relocated my Feedblitz subscriber button. I’ve added more stuff to my profile to tell fans a bit more about me.

Credit for the Ironman countdown clock goes out to “Bolder in Boulder”. His blog contained helpful helpful instructions for how to put it on my page. Thank you very much. I also snagged the code from his page to display the weather. Now everyone can see what sort of day I am training through.

I am also debating on using my domain name runnyc.com for the hosting of my blog, rather than relying on the runnyc.blogspot.com address. My original thoughts concerning runnyc.com was to make an Athlete’s community website, but the time and resources to accomplish such a thing is taking much too long and costing too much to do so. I think I may abandon that plan and just use the address for my blog. Much like Wil of Through Th3 Wall, just started doing with her blog.

I am also attempting to renovate my mind (brain). Or perhaps it is more of just an early spring cleaning (this statement seems oddly déjà vu, I am going to have to see if I wrote something like this before). I need to clear out all of the negative thoughts and emotions that have been weighing me down as of late and rediscover my drive, focus and passion. Much like a house is reborn and beautified after all of the years of stagnant old paint has been scrapped away. I need to know down a few mental walls and open up the space in my mind.

To that end, I got a jump on my training this morning. This is in spite of the fact that I got in late last night after I night of bowling and drinking with my coworkers. The bowling was fun, but I definitely felt like the old man of the group. It warmed my heart though to know that while they were most likely sleeping it off during the twilight hours, I was awake and in my basement pounding out an 80 minute bike followed by a 40 minute run – All before 7am. The workout was immensely pleasing and for some reason I had no trouble with my get up and go this morning.

So I will continue my renovations. Hopefully – no strike the hopefully – More good renovations will soon come on my blog and my mind as well. I may as well try to have a positive outlook – its such a happy color, but very tough to apply.

Via Email to coach@slb-coaching.com
————————————–
Neil -

I rode for 80 minutes today on the trainer. I did the workout almost as you prescribed. For some reason, I couldn’t hold form for the 1 legged drills for more than 2 minutes, so I stopped it at the 2 minute mark for each leg. I repeated this 3 times. I kept my heart rate low throughout. You can see exactly how the workout went from my attached Polar file.

I say struggling along in the subject line, because I am battling a major case of depression ever since the start of the New Year. I haven’t felt right since I backed off from my training when I developed Bronchitis again. Tomorrow should be a telling day as it is the first sort of big workout day – Bike/Run/Swim. Hopefully, I won’t be too tired around noon, as I am speaking at a real estate industry conference. Hopefully also, I won’t make a fool out of myself. I am sitting on a panel and the subject matter is “Innovative Broker Strategies”. I have no fucking idea of what I am going to say, but I usually react well under pressure.

I am not sure if I am still sick with Bronchitis. Every now and then I cough up some phlegm and it is slightly discolored. It is coming more from the back of my throat, rather than my chest. Maybe, I am just possessed by an evil spirit. Most likely that is not true, but thinking the worst possible case and finding out that is not true should prove to be a major relief when you find out the cause is something less insidious.

The Exorcist was on cable TV over the weekend. I remember when I saw it the first time. It was in 1973, I was 8 years old and my parents thought that it would be a fine movie for me to see. What a wholesome family movie! For years afterwards I would have trouble standing by the foot of a bed as I was afraid that the possessed girl’s hand would reach out from under it and grab my ankle.

I feel like I could use an Exorcist now though. Maybe illnesses in its various forms are small demons that infect a person. Could an Exorcist cast the demons away? Could an Exorcist get rid of the voice in my head that tells me to stay in bed and get more sleep?

I definitely raged an epic battle to get out of bed this morning. I was so warm and comfortable. I felt like I was being held down on the bed by a demonic force. Once I got up though, the demon lost its grip and I was able to do my workout. Granted my battle was nothing like poor little Regan Teresa MacNeil’s (the possessed girl in the movie) and for that I am thankful.

For a change of pace I went off-road mountain biking today in the Blue Mountain Reservation up in Peekskill. It was a good workout, but I have to admit that my mountain biking skills are a bit rusty. I guess it didn’t help that my MTB is held together with a little more than rust, doesn’t have clipless pedals and never even heard of suspension. The bike is practically from prehistoric times, compared to the mountain bikes of today.

I set off for the trails at 6am this morning under the cover of darkness. The plan was to meet Ben and Erik from the Asphalt Green Triathlon Club by 7am and to start riding soon after. Erik had a very nice Seven mountain bike, with front suspension and disk brakes, whereas Ben had a mountain bike that was literally separated at birth from mine. Unfortunately for Ben, the freewheel on his rear wheel gave out within 20 minutes of our ride. It was a problem I encountered with my MTB two years ago and since corrected. Ben had to walk his bike back to his car to go home, while Erik and I continued on.

If I learned one thing today, it is that I am not ready for Xterra racing. I don’t have the feel for the trails like I used to have. I suppose I should have insisted on going to a trail system that wasn’t so technical. The Blue Mountain trails were very rocky, icy and slippery from many leaves. Really, though, I am going to blame my less than perfect riding skills on the bike. My brakes barely worked and riding in pedal cages just sucked.

We spent about 2.5 hours rolling around the trails. It was excellent cross training, but I would have liked to put in a few more miles. Hopefully, I’ll do another MTB ride in a couple of weeks with an upgraded bike.

I am shocked and dismayed over reading (here, here and here with a picture) about the practice of metzitzah b’peh; basically the sucking of blood from a babies penis after male ritual circumcision (aka mutilation). To make matters worse, several babies that underwent this procedure developed Herpes as a result and one of the babies even died from complications.

I’d be royally pissed if I found that my first blowjob came from a smelly, disgusting rabbi. I would be in a homicidal rage if I found out that a sore on the tip of my penis was from a rabbi who did the procedure with a herpes infected mouth. I question why the practice of circumcision (although I do like my aftermarket conversion) is even continued to this day and think it is an abomination to clean the wound like with a bacteria and virus infested mouth.

All of this begs the question of course, how did the rabbi get herpes in the first place. Exactly where has he been putting his mouth to acquire the virus? Truly we live in a Sick, Sad World.

If such a thing happened to me, I wonder how my life would have been different. Would I have been too shy or embarrassed to pursue a mate and lived an abstinent life? Possibly, I would have taken that pent up sexual frustration and concentrated it on pursuing athletics. I certainly would have had more time to do so, since I never would have had a girlfriend, wife, and kids. Maybe, that is the secret to some of the best athletes in the world. They have an STD and they use athletics as a means to take out their sexual frustrations and aggression.

I am so freaking nervous and depressed today that I can’t stand it. I feel like a crack addict about to rip off a liquor store in order to get enough money for his next fix. I suppose the drug I am coming down from is called endorphins, those mood regulating chemicals that circulate through your body.

I’ve taken two days off from in an attempt to recover from Bronchitis. During this time my mood has decidedly taken a downward spiral. I guess the lack of exercise has allowed my endorphin levels to drop and I am feeling the effects of withdrawal. Taken from the Wikipedia website, exercises that are most likely to produce endorphins include running, swimming, cross-country skiing, bicycling, aerobics, etc. I wonder if there are any studies that show people going into black holes of depression and despair from lack of exercise.

The thing about depression is that it is hard to get motivated to exercise. The endorphin rush is like a raging fire. However, the endorphin fire is difficult to start when you are too depressed to exercise. It’s a nasty catch 22.

I was planning on writing a year end summary of my training and racing for the year 2005 and possibly my goals for 2006, but I got preoccupied with a project that had the hallmarks of an endurance event. The project took me a couple of hours everyday day over the course of a week to complete. It was tedious, tiresome, frustrating and only marginally rewarding. I used up all the time I had for writing in the pursuit of this project.

I stuck with it, because I pretty much had no choice. My children expected me to complete it and I couldn’t leave it unfinished. Basically, I built the Empire State Building from the Landmarks of the World Erector set.

This is a toy with a recommended age of 8+ years old. I would love to meet the 8 year old that would have been capable of following the instructions and displaying the dexterity to complete such a thing. My fingers were rubbed raw and my patience on edge as I tried to build this thing in time for the New Year.

I finished it on New Years Day and we capped it off with a miniature King Kong. This was very fitting since we all saw King Kong at the movies the night before.

I was hoping to begin 2006 with another strong week of training. However on New Years Eve day, I woke up with the feeling of Bronchitis in my chest and the occasional hacking up of green goop. This is very annoying. I was finally getting my training back into gear and I just hit another bump in the road. There is no way you can train through Bronchitis, unless you want to make yourself sicker. I did a ride on New Years Day, but by the end my chest was starting to feel very congested. I probably should have taken off.

I hate when I get sick and have to miss training. I get all out of sorts and start to feel depressed. It is not how I want to start the New Year. Then again, maybe I am just depressed because I have to go to work tomorrow after a week off and it reminds me from when I was a kid and had to go back to school.