I am sick again so I took yesterday and today off from training. It feels nice to be able to just lie around and relax, although yesterday I really did feel like going out for a run while it was snowing. Today I am taking my kids to the pool, but there is no way I am going to swim while suffering from a head cold. It’s a shame really as I am starting to get back into swimming.

Since there is not much to report training wise, I figured it was time to post some commentary about my travels as of late on the subway. It appears that the MTA now has a policy of putting garbage bags on the outside of the garbage cans. I am not sure this is going to work out as you can see by this picture.

Also, the MTA is now allowing the homeless to move into the subway. Here you can see someone who has setup a nice sectional part of his sofa. It looks very cozy.

Its been a few days since I made a blog entry, so I figured I’d better post something. It had been a busy week, one in which I’ve gotten in all of my workouts. Well sort of. I had a crappy bike ride on the trainer today, which was so short that I’d hardly call it a workout. But other than that, I haven’t done so bad.

Monday was almost a washout. I thought I would be home early from a trip to my brother’s house on MLK day, but that is not how it turned out. I had the day off from work, but I was called so many times during the day, I may as well have gone to the office. By the time I got home, I was feeling defeated and exhausted. I was just at the point of bagging the idea of a run when my wife told me I should go. She was right. As soon as I started running I felt much better. I figured I would go out for an easy 3 miler, but felt so good I called her up and told her I would be home later than I told her. Now that I am worried about being accosted in the park, I make sure she knows my route and the approximate time I would be home.

Tuesday morning I got in an hour’s ride on the trainer and then headed out to the Hamptons for an overnighter. It turned out I didn’t need to stay overnight, but it was late by the time I was able to leave. Rather than deal with all of the traffic headed back towards the city, I went with a friend and coworker for a strength training session at a nearby gym. It was a good workout. I am starting to feel stronger again now that I am somewhat regularly doing strength training.

Wednesday morning I woke up a little late, but still had time to go out for a run. I wasn’t sure how far I was supposed to run and my computer was all screwed up so I couldn’t view my workout plan. I decided to just go out and run 6 miles. I felt really good and wanted to go longer; which turned out to be a source of annoyance, because when I finally got my computer to work, I saw I was scheduled for 8. Well, I guess the good thing is that I wanted more rather than wanting to do less.

I also got my swim in Wednesday night. I am starting to feel a bit faster in the water. Maybe though that is just in comparison to some of the people I’ve been swimming next to. I must be going at non-prime time swimming hours because some of the people in the pool when I go have to be seen to believed. Yesterday I swam next to a woman who looked like a baby orca and would absolutely freak out if I grazed her toes when I caught up to her; which was very regularly. Finally though she left and was replaced with this stunning looking girl in a hot looking triathlon two-piece bathing suit. Suddenly my swim was much more pleasant. She flowed through the water with such speed, grace and ease; a form at which I could only hope to one day reach.

Today as I mentioned was a washout. I was exhausted. I really need to stop staying up to watch CSI:NY so I can get enough sack time to do a decent morning workout. To be fair though, I did take an Ambien at 9:45, but it failed to put me to sleep. Or maybe it is just that I am coming down with a cold.

I’ve been training well over the past couple of days. Maybe I am starting to get back into the swing of things. On Saturday I was able to swim 2500 yards while my kids were busy with their swim lessons. According to my son’s instructor, he holds a lot of promise and should be an excellent swimmer. Hopefully I can hope for him to win a swimming scholarship to a prestigious college so I can save money on tuition and spend it instead on doing Ironman races around the world.

After swim lessons, my wife took the kids out to shop for clothes, so I got to ride around Prospect Park with my friend Larry. It was raining fairly steadily, but the temperature was warm and still too nice outside to pass up an opportunity for a middle of January bike ride. We rode in a small group for most of the time and the ride was uneventful and pleasant. Initially I felt that I went out overdressed and almost stopped to shed down some clothes. However, just as I was getting ready to stop a couple of riders caught up to us and Larry and I slipped behind their wheels for some paceline action. I didn’t want to stop to shed down, which ultimately turned out to be a blessing. I started to get chilled as the rain came steadily down. In total I rode just shy of 44 miles.

Today I ran a little over 10 miles on my own. I decided to get a little adventurous and ran outside of Prospect Park for a change. I started by going through the park and then out by the Ocean Parkway exit over to Fort Hamilton Parkway. I then took a right onto McDonald Avenue and ran along Greenwood Cemetery and up the steady climb back to Prospect Park West. I then went back in the park where I did a figure 8 along the transverses to get me to over 10 miles.

When I got home, I was annoyed to see that my workout today actually called for 15 miles. I was really running well today and would have liked to go longer. But by the time I realized I screwed up on the distance, it was too late in the morning and I had to get ready to take my son to basketball practice. I had fun running around with the kids for the duration of it and made up some further exercise later on by doing some strength training at the gym in the mid afternoon.

I was running with Larry in Prospect Park this past Wednesday and I got to talking with him about how much better it is to train in the city rather than in the suburbs. Here we were running around a perfectly paved road free of traffic under the cover of darkness. Those in the country don’t have that sort of luxury. We both agreed it is far more dangerous to be running on country roads with their blind turns than to be in a city park at night with plenty of other like minded people.

Well my confidence in that belief was somewhat shaken last night. I was running on my own down by the skating rink (sometimes known as the low rent section of the park) when several young punks started to approach me from an angle. As soon as I saw them I knew I was in for a bit of trouble. The leader of them came directly across the road, up from behind me and then paced me on my left hand side. He asked me for money, to which I replied excuse me (I was listening to my mp3 player). He asked me again and I told him I didn’t have any. He then replied “What if I hit you”. I could hear his friend laughing and running up to my right had side while this was happening.

I was glancing over my shoulder to see where his friend was (he was just about on top of me), when the leader called out to him “Yo Chill”. I am not sure what happened to make them suddenly stop and I just kept on running. Perhaps he didn’t like the look on my face or the fact that my demeanor didn’t change at all. I don’t think I changed my pace a bit during the entire time, but I was ready to start to make a break for it. I just wasn’t sure if I could outrun them. Fortunately I didn’t have to find out. Possibly they were just kids looking to horse around, but you wonder what type of parents bring up kids who think scaring people is a good time.

Besides thinking about how I was going to get out of the situation, I kept thinking about how my kids were waiting for me at home and how it would really be sub-optimal to get hurt while out for a run. What scared me even more was my daughter was a fraction of a second away from coming with me this evening and I had no idea how I would have handled the situation had she been with me.

I am really pissed off over this. Running is one of the ways I can relieve my stress and I enjoy my time being out in the park where I can let my thoughts and worries disappear. To have that solitude disturbed by several assholes is extremely disturbing. I am now worried about taking my kids out with me at night and resent having that pleasure taken away from me.

After the incident had passed, it took a while for me to pass anyone else in the park. I finally saw a single woman walking towards me into the direction of the incident. I stopped and warned her along with another male runner who happened to come up on me. Finally a Parks Department vehicle came up from behind me and I flagged it down. The people I warned must have already told the officers, because they already knew about the hooligans and were heading towards the area. At that point the alert was sent out and I saw several police vehicle enter the park.
This was not the way to end my week. Or perhaps it was a fitting ending to a crappy week. It seemed as though everything that could go wrong at work did. It was a stressful week and a stressful way to end it. At least in the end I had a good run and my legs felt great. I have a 3-day weekend now, thanks to MLK, so hopefully it will be restful and peaceful.

Email to coach@slb-coaching.com

Neil -

I got in 7 miles last night with my friend Larry. It was a good run, we pushed the pace towards the end. I felt like I was breathing heavy throughout it, but that could be because I am not used to breathing in the cold air.

This morning, according to my HR, I rode easily. It didn’t feel easy though. I struggled through an hour on the trainer while watching Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC. It came out in 1966, which means I waited 40 years to see this movie. I don’t think I stuggled because of the movie, if anything, the hour I watched of it got me through it.

I am going to the pool this evening, to make up for yesterday, skipping it tomorrow and will swim again on Saturday while my kids have swim lessons.

Winter is the new Summer, at least according to the temperatures as of late. It was over 70 degrees on Saturday, which made me actually feel hot. For the hell of it I took my son outside with his magnifying glass to see if we could light a piece of paper on fire.

Unfortunately it was raining Saturday morning so instead of riding in the warm summer temps, I rode on my trainer in the basement. I didn’t have time in the afternoon after it cleared up since I was having company over the house and I needed to get the place cleaned up and ready. Besides riding, I also got in a swim at the Dodge YMCA while my kids took their swim lessons. The pool was really crowded at this time and only two lanes were open for lap swimming. Both of them were filled with swimmers that moved with a zombie like pace. It wasn’t the optimal situation for a swim workout, but at least I got it in. I did spend some time with my son outside throwing a ball around, including trying to throw it over our roof from the front of the house to the back. On one of the throws, the ball didn’t make it over, necessitating a trip onto the roof. The roof was bathed by the full force of the sun and it was literally hot on it.

Today I ran with my friend Larry down to the Red Hook track. We wanted to recalibrate our Polar 625x heart rate monitors. It was nice to venture out of Prospect Park once again. To test our calibration procedures, we ran 1600 meters to first see how inaccurate it was, then 1600 to calibrate it and the 2×1600 to test the accuracy – once in miles and the other in meters. The calibrated distance was a few hundredths off what it should have been. I am going to blame that on not running exactly along the lines on which a 400 meter track is measured.

We finished running by 11am and then it was off to my son’s basketball practice. The head coach for our basketball team could not make it today and the other coaches looked to me to start leading off the practice. I guess they felt that since I am into Triathlon, I would be good with warming up exercises, stretching and calisthenics. I haven’t warmed up or stretched before a workout in years and the last time I did calisthenics I was 10 years old. Hopefully our head coach will be back next week, because if these kids need to rely on me to teach them how to play basketball, they are going to be some terrible basketball players.

That’s it for the day. My wife took the kids to a roller skating birthday party and I got to sit at home with my in-laws watching the NY Jets lose to the NE Patriots. My in-laws are over for some reason today cooking a turkey in my oven. I have no idea why.

I feel a little better; mentally. I got in a 6 mile run on this balmy January evening. It’s incredible that the temperature is 61 degrees and I am running at night in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. I’ve seen summer nights cooler than this.

My stomach and guts are still absolutely killing me. I think I may just give up food. It seems I only have stomach and GI problems after I eat. If I give up food, I reason that the pain will just go away. I’ve been to a doctor to have my issues checked out. They scoped me from top and bottom and found nothing wrong. I think not eating may be the best course of action.

Well maybe not entirely stop eating. Perhaps I can try a liquid diet. I can probably subsist on Ensure, Pedialyte and other liquid meals. Maybe I just don’t like solid food. If I give up solid food I won’t have to worry about getting bits of food stuck in my teeth and I can give up flossing. I always hated to floss.

I so blew it today. I refused to get out of bed when my alarm clock went off. I kept telling myself that I didn’t want to go for a run and that all I wanted to do was sleep. That is what I wanted to do at the time, but I am so regretting it now. I finally did pull myself out of bed, but then I took my sweet time getting ready. By the time I was finally ready to get out the door, it was almost 7am. My kids’ school had Parents as Reading Partners today, so if I wanted to go to that it was too late to get in a run and be able to get ready in time.

I asked my daughter if she wanted to go for a run with me this evening and she said she would. Hopefully I will get that in. However, it is supposed to rain all day starting late morning and I doubt this will happen. It was beautiful outside this morning. 60 degrees and calm in the middle of January – perfect weather for a run. I am on the train now to work and the only thing I can think of was the fact I should have done my run. I would be feeling so much better now if I had gone. Right now I am feeling depressed and anxious. I haven’t done anything in 3 days now. I’ve been suffering from a bit of a stomach virus since Wednesday morning so I took the last two days off. Today will make 3 if I don’t get in my run tonight. My stomach is still bothering me though, so who knows how I will feel tonight. If it keeps feeling like this I am going to leave work early.

I don’t know what it is with me lately. I don’t know why I am struggling to get out. I am like a gigantic boulder that has stopped rolling. It is so hard to get it moving again and gathering momentum. It takes such energy to get it moving that it seems impossible. Once I get the momentum going though, I know it will be easy to continue. I just can’t seem to gather it.

I had my best run of the year today. I can say that, because that is the most applicable way to describe it. It was really very good otherwise I might have described it as the worst run of the year. I ran with Larry around Greenwood Cemetery and then back through Prospect Park. It was raining, but the temperature was mild and the conditions were quite pleasant despite the rain. This is the second New Year’s Day in a row I ran with Larry, which is the start of an annual tradition as far as I am concerned.

I wasn’t sure how far I wanted to go this morning, but as we crept up on 6 miles, I definitely felt like going longer. However, we were both doing the annual Polar Bear New Year’s Day dip, so we had to go home to get ready for that. I really couldn’t believe that I was going to do it, especially since I’ve been having such trouble with the cold. However, Larry’s wife Kathleen promised her famous Hot Toddy’s and Chili back at their house for all dippers. It was something that is far as I am concerned is worth the suffering of a little cold water.

As a special treat, my daughter decided to come with me. I was very happy to have her along to watch the spectacle. I figure if she comes to enough of these events, she is eventually going to want to do one. Today she was the official event photographer. It was just fun having her with me and laughing at all of the funnily dressed people. We got a picture of ourselves with King Triton.

While we waiting around for the dip to begin we threw a football around the beach. I hadn’t done that in a very long time. It was just a lot of fun to be hanging on the beach with a bunch of friends. The fact that it was the dead of winter and we were about to plunge into the cold Atlantic made it all the better.

When the time came to go in the water, everyone ran at the same time and took the icy plunge. Everyone was yelling, screaming and splashing. I am not sure how I did it, but I got in and dunked my head underwater. Everyone from our group did not just one time, but three. My daughter was waiting for me every time I came out of the water laughing, smiling and taking pictures.

After three times of plunging into the water, we dried off, dressed and set to cleaning up our little beach campsite. We didn’t hang around much longer after that and headed back to Larry and Kathleen’s house for post dip festivities. The Hot Toddy and Chili was everything it promised to be. A perfect way to warm up after the cold swim. I was content to stay there all afternoon, but I soon had to leave for New Year’s dinner at my in-laws. It was a busy day and a good start to the New Year.

It is much easier being a triathlete when you don’t have to work a job. I’ve taken the last two days off and I find getting in my workouts to be much easier. I can sleep in if I want to and get out the door at my leisure. Then I can come home, eat, nap and then do a second workout if it is called for. It is such a better routine than swimming, biking and running before 8am in the morning.

I’ve started to strength train again. It feels good to begin building back some strength and I am somewhat reassured in my fitness when I realized I hadn’t lost as my physical strength as I feared. The first time was this past Tuesday. I went to the Dodge Y with my kids who said they would wait for me to weight train after we first went to the pool. The kids had a fun time swimming after and diving for their Water Toypedos. They would race to see he could return the most the fastest. It was a good way for them to build up their swimming endurance. After the pool, my daughter read a book and my son followed me around the gym while I did a quick 25 minutes weight training session.

On Wednesday, I went for a 6am run. The most memorable thing about it was that I was back in my house and back in my bed before 7am. I was able to sleep for another half hour before I had to get up for work. It was like the run never happened and if not for the file I downloaded from my Polar Heart Rate monitor I may not have believed I actually did a run. I also swam on Wednesday evening; a relatively relaxed 2300 yards.

Thursday morning was a trainer ride in my basement. I am liking riding my bike in the basement as opposed to dressing warm for an outdoor ride. I am able to space out and watch a movie, instead of dealing with the cold. Not that it has been cold around here lately, but it was chilly enough that I didn’t feel like dealing with bundling up. Later in the day I met my friend Chris at the Y for my second strength training session of the week. We did dumbbell press on a stability ball, one-arm dumbbell rows, leg press and abs.

Today I did another morning run. I asked my daughter if she wanted to come with me, but she wanted to sleep a little longer and said she would go to the pool with me later. I ate breakfast afterwards and hung around the house for a while. Then it was off to the pool, where my kids played in the water on their own while I swam 2000 yards. We got home a little after 2pm. My kids had snacks and watched some TV, and I did some chores around the house. After a while I cajoled my kids to go back outside. It was too nice outside to let the remainder of the afternoon pass by indoors watching TV. My wife felt I should just let them sit around, but there is something about wasting the time away watching TV when it is nice outside that just drives me crazy.