The good thing about being confined indoors for working out due to inclement weather is that you are able to catch up on all of the TV you missed while you were otherwise sleeping or working out. For me, this is usually means flipping on a movie that passed through the theaters while I was too busy sleeping to spend a night out in the Cineplex.

This could have both desired and undesired consequences when it comes to the tempo of your workout and your mood upon its completion. Sometimes what I watch is action packed with a good music sound track which helps elevate my HR into acceptable training zones. Other times the movie that captures my attention is slow and depressing which is not conducive to a good workout and will leave me feeling defeated and depressed by the end. I should know better than to let myself get snagged into watching such a movie, but sometimes there is just nothing else on the myriad of premium channels my cable system delivers to me.

The movie I watched today wasn’t depressing, but it had moments of melancholy and regret. I am susceptible to mood fluctuations in the morning dependant upon my visual and auditory input. The movie that I watched this morning set me up for a tough day, where the last thing I felt like doing was going to the office to work. If only I could have hopped off my trainer and lived the life of a full time Triathlete, I am sure my mood would have been much better for the remainder of the day.

Somehow I managed to survive the day. It was very tough. It didn’t help that I used up my comfort crutches by 1pm in the afternoon. This usually consists of the food items I bring from home. By 11:30am I had already eaten my lunch and at 1pm, I already snacked on my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I escaped the office around 3pm in search of the fruit stand vendor around the corner of my office, but for some reason he wasn’t at his customary spot. I was now too hungry as well as too depressed to go look for more food.

As my training has slowly increased as of late, I find myself always being hungry again. I am going to have to start stockpiling food in my office to fend off the inevitable hunger episodes with comfort foods that elevate my mood. The only problem with eating all of the time is that it leads to frequent trips to the bathroom and excessive amounts of gas; but that is another story.

Enough kvetching for one day.

In the physical sense of the term, everything about today’s workout was slippery. It snowed overnight and the loop around Prospect Park was covered in several inches of snow. By the time I arrived in the park, the snow was already crunched down and very slippery. I didn’t think much of it at first, but the slipperiness of the snow made the run a bit more difficult than normal, especially when climbing up the hill.

In the esoteric sense, the slipperiness of today’s run got me thinking about the tenuousness at which anyone who pursues fitness and athleticism can find themselves easily start slipping back down the road to fitness. I have been battling this slippery slope a great deal as of late. I suspect that the hardest part of my training for the 2006 IMLP is going to be to staying focused. But this seems to make a lot of sense.

Often times it appears that the hardest part of reaching a goal is that short distance just before it. Maybe that is why so many people fall short of reaching their goals. As you get closer to it, the cumulative gains you see may be smaller and smaller. It is not like when you first start out and see great leaps of progress. Just think of Roger Bannister’s attempt at breaking the 4 minute mile. He kept creeping closer and closer to it, before he actually did it; and he was just going after seconds of improvement.

Maybe the discouragement in long term goals are those inevitable moments when you need to take a step back in your fitness levels in order to adequately prepare again for the next level. I have to admit that my current fitness level compared to the way I was several months ago sort of fills me with depression. Just yesterday, I was looking for excused not to finish a 50 mile ride, whereas back in the spring, 50 miles was barely a warm-up. I couldn’t imagine riding 100 miles right now and the knowledge that I have to first build up to that distance again at time seems daunting.

In any event, I am using my observations about how I am feeling to approach my coming training rationally. I absolutely know that if I stay the course and achieve the goal I set out for myself, I will relish it forever until the day I die. If I let my negative thoughts conquer me, I am sure I will regret it until the day I die. What I am going through now is just like a long training ride. Inevitably the negative thoughts will arrive and you need to tactically work through them in order to finish the ride. I am going through the same thing now only it involves a much longer ride; one of years rather than hours. I’ve worked through the negative thoughts for those all day rides. Now I just have to work through the negative thoughts on my multi-year journey towards Kona. It is new territory for me. My advantage is that I now know what happens when you don’t keep chugging towards your goal. It’s called “Regret”.

Today’s Run Stats:
10.5 miles
1:32:52
139/151 HR

Weekly Stats:
Run: 27.3
Cycle: 59.5
Swim: 2000 yards

IMLP 2006 Totals:
Run: 53.3
Bike: 140.3
Swim: 4000 Yards

p.s. I understand my friend Todd went to the city yesterday with his wife and that is why he couldn’t ride with me. I am sure it was more like his wife taking him to see Santa Claus so he can ask Santa for a magic elixir that will allow him to beat me at IMLP 2006.

I have trouble deciding on whether I am pushing too far or wanting to slack off. At what point is it ok to say enough is enough without feeling like you were looking for an excuse to stop a workout early. This was the thought was confronting me today.

The weather was very windy, partially cloudy skies, an air temperature of 32 degrees and a wind chill of about 16 degrees. I was scheduled 50 miles of cycling and I decided to do it outdoors. Completing a 50 mile ride would be the longest I’ve accomplished since Ironman Lake Placid back in July. When I reached around 30 miles, I found myself looking for excuses to cut the ride short.

On the side of cutting it short was the fact that the air temperature was the coldest I’ve ridden in quite some time. It was very windy and my pace was very slow. Add to that the fact I have ridden over 40 miles exactly 1 time in the past 4 months and getting in 40 miles was looking to be quite the accomplishment. For added influence, I tossed in the thoughts of my children waiting for me back home.

Conversely, there was no good reason for me to pack it in early. I was dressed properly so I wasn’t cold at all. My feet were in excellent shape and my hands were only slightly chilled. I decided to let my annoyance at being dropped on hills a couple of times by pace lines to be incentive for me to keep on going. How am I ever going to regain my Ironman like fitness if I can’t even complete a 50 mile ride?

I was hoping to see Todd in the park to have some company while riding. A short time after I returned home from the ride, I received a message from him giving all sorts of lame excuses for not showing up in the park. Yada, yada, yada… I am used to him coming up with reasons for not doing a workout or event that is tougher than normal.

In the end I decided that I didn’t have any good reasons for not finishing 50 miles. It was too cold to take my children outdoors, my son was resting with a cold and it was still early in the day. I wasn’t tired, injured, thirsty or hungry. I just needed to finish it and not let any excuses get in my way.

That is pretty much it. I rode in a pace line for a while, by myself for a while and chatted with the occasional rider. It was a perfect winter ride.

Stats:
Data Value Unit
Duration 3:04:55
Sampling Rate 5 s

Energy Expenditure 1765 kcal
Number of Heart Beats 24975 beats
Recovery -25 beats
Minimum Heart Rate 88 bpm
Average Heart Rate 135 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate 163 bpm
Standard Deviation 12.6 bpm

Minimum Speed 3.2 mph
Average Speed 16.8 mph
Maximum Speed 29.9 mph
Distance 51.3 miles
Odometer 166 miles

Minimum Cadence 31 rpm
Average Cadence 93 rpm
Maximum Cadence 150 rpm

Minimum Altitude -55 ft
Average Altitude 7 ft
Maximum Altitude 80 ft
Ascent 1539 ft
Descent 1660 ft

Minimum Power 3 Watts
Average Power 195 Watts
Average Power (0 W incl.) 185 Watts
Maximum Power 442 Watts
Pedaling Index Average 22 %
Pedaling Index Maximum 41 %
Left Right Balance Average L52 – 48R Left – Right
Left Right Balance Maximum L76 – 24R Left – Right

I was pleased to get my swim workout in last night, but I was paying for it this morning. I wanted to stay in bed, but used the encouragement of my own forcefulness to get the swim in to rouse myself out of bed. The trick to getting out of bed I have found is to assume a vertical position.

This vertical position after you wake up is a very necessary precursor to successfully accomplishing a workout. After that, everything else is pretty much a piece of cake. Once I get vertical, I know I will most likely get a workout in.

While I did my ride in Prospect Park, I happened upon a dead rat in the middle of the loop. It was pretty cold outside and I wondered if it froze to death. I decided that was unlikely after my tires rode over him and I could tell his guts were still squishy. Fortunately, its skin held together and it didn’t cause my wheels to slide out from underneath me. I was on a turn when I rode over him and was very happy not to make the rat road pizza.

I didn’t wake up early enough to ride for as long as I would have liked, but I did ride for as long as I should have. Now I just need to see if I can make it to the pool tomorrow morning. I’ve only missed scheduled workout in the past 16 days (a swim) and a trip to the pool tomorrow is looking slightly in doubt. I feel a cold coming on and the little devil inside me that tells me to stay in bed is already whispering in my ear.

Earlier this week, I was giving myself grief about not getting up to do a swim workout, when one was not even scheduled. Not doing that unscheduled swim was looking to linger over my head yesterday, when I was unable to rouse myself from bed to head to the pool. If only I went to the pool on Monday, I wouldn’t be faced with the prospect of blowing off no less than 50 percent of my scheduled swim workouts.

Taking a chance that I would somehow still get it in, I took the barest of swim gear essentials with me to work. I was heading to Huntington, LI for the day and figured that maybe I would head to the Aquatics Center at Eisenhower Park on my way home for a swim. It turned out that a coworker in my LI office was also swimming after work and invited me to join her at her pool. It was further away from my home, but the cost for going was free.

The ride to the pool was supposedly only a few minutes away, but the ride took us at least 20 minutes along small roads that I was completely unfamiliar. I began to think this was a major mistake and envisioned getting home around midnight.

Once I got to the pool, things started to look better. The pool was crowded by my friend’s standards, but to mine, it was blessedly empty. My friend complained that it appeared she wouldn’t be able to get a 25 yard lane all to herself. If that is crowded, then she hasn’t swum at Asphalt Green during the same time when only 4 of 16 lanes are available for adult lap swimming. I shared a lane with a benign fellow and concentrated on doing my drills and various freestyle intervals. The water was a balmy 82 degrees which suited me just fine. I finished 2000 yards of swimming before 7pm and stood a good chance of making it home before 8pm.

Unfortunately, no towel service was available so I had to shake myself dry like a shaggy dog walking in from the rain. I tried hanging out in the sauna for a while, but it wasn’t hot enough to do more than eliminate the chill I developed walking into the locker room. Finally, I grabbed a bunch of paper towels from the wall and patted myself dry as best I could. I wished I brought along a change of clothes instead of having to get back into my work suit.

The pool was on a large campus (I am keeping the name a secret so it doesn’t get crowded for when I go back), and I struggled to remember where I parked my car. It was quite dark outside and my wet hair was causing me quite the chill. I managed to find it in due time and started the drive home. I even made it home on time to tuck my kids in bed.

So despite what I said last week about needing to change your state of mind, I skipped swimming Monday morning, which is making me feel like I am a bit of a loser. I know I am being hard on myself, since when I checked my workout schedule at 4:30am, a swim wasn’t on the agenda for the day.

However, my workout plan said I should swim at least twice this week, although 3 times would be better. So instead of taking the opportunity to get start off the week with an early swim towards the better goal of 3 swims I went back to bed. I figured I could use the sleep, since I didn’t sleep that well through the night. My wife kept waking me up with a recurrent cough and nose blowing. Every time I would start to fall back to sleep, I would wake up again like someone suffering from Sleep Apnea, only it was my wife instead of me suffering from blocked breathing passages and I would be the one waking up.

Which leads me to a matter of etiquette; in the case of a couple who sleep in the same bed and where one keeps awaking the other because of a cough, due to allergies, cold, etc., who should move into another room? Should it be the person with a cough so they stop waking up their partner, or should it be the person without a cough, figuring the person with the cough is suffering enough?

I know if it was me with the cough, I would go into another room so my wife could get a good night sleep. Evidently, she doesn’t feel the same way. If you are reading this, I would really like to have your opinion.

According to my schedule, this past week was the first of Base Building. I guess this is where I begin the long journey on preparation for another attempt of qualifying for Kona at the 2006 Ironman Lake Placid.

So far I am off to a good start. My legs are healthier at this time of year than at the same time during the previous 3 years. I don’t feel as though I have the speed I once had, but then again I haven’t been trying to run fast. I am taking it easy, according to plan, and that is suiting me just fine. Without having to push all of the time, I find myself enjoying the training more than I have in a long time.

This morning I set out for a ten mile run. I was going to do it over the northern 2.5 mile loop of Prospect Park and had just completed two plus loops when I ran into Todd. Usually when this happens we are running in opposite directions and we stop and cajole each other into running the way each of us was going. This time I gave in to Todd as he ran in my direction the last time this happened.

As is usual with Todd this soon turns into a competitive run. I found myself frequently reminding him to tone it down a notch. Like a premature ejaculator he just can’t help himself from trying to push the pace. I’ve learned from experience that the results are so much better from holding back and saving yourself for the end.

After my run, I had a quick meal and shower and put in another couple of miles at the ice skating ring with my family. Fortunately, my legs are still fresh and feeling very good. I will have to ask my coach as to whether the skating should be counted towards my training.

Weekly Totals:

Run: 26
Bike: 76
Swim: 2000 Yards

I spent Thanksgiving night at my wife’s aunt’s house in Lakewood, NJ. I wondered how I would feel the next day after a night of engorging on a hearty Thanksgiving meal. I didn’t actually overeat, but by the nights end I was stumbling to bed with a stunning migraine. It was a real brain buster, which saw me rolling around and moaning in a strange bed. The only consolation was that the house was relatively quiet, dark and cool. I popped 4 Excedrin and finally settled down around 2am.

Around 7am I rolled out of bed feeling less than rested, but better than I had the night before. I fed my children some breakfast, while my wife was already out with her Aunt prowling the outlet malls with my hard earned dollars for an early start on holiday shopping. I watched TV with them until 9am when my wife’s cousin woke up and agreed to watch them while I went out for a run. I decided to go to the Manasquan Reservoir nearby. It is a 5 mile loop on a dirt packed trail.

The temperature was approximately 30 degrees with an occasional gust of wind. The air smelled clean and crisp and the trail based running was a welcome change of pace from the Prospect Park loop. Several times along the way, I took the opportunity to document my run with the camera on my Treo 650 smartphone. I was enjoying the run and the surroundings and I felt the urge to stop and smell the roses.

After I completed the 5 mile loop, I started out for a side trail that I passed earlier. I went along it just enough to make my distance for the day six miles. It was too bad I wasn’t doing my long run today as I was running very well and didn’t feel like having it end.

Today was definitely not a day to be swimming, but that did not stop the (fool) hardy Cibbows gang from participating in the Cibbows Second Annual Turkey Dip. This was an important year for the event. The first time could have been considered an anomaly, but two years in a row is the start of a tradition.

I have been blessed with friends who are willing to participate in this now annual tradition. This year’s participants consisted of Sondra, Abe, Julia and me. Conspicuously absent were Bess and Mike, but they got a pass since they were at home with their newborn son Cole and the grandparents. I was disappointed not to have them, but I understood considering the circumstances.

Julia, who was participating in her first Turkey Dip event, was sitting on the fence for a while about whether should would participate or not. After a couple emails between us, I managed to convince her that she would be foolish not to come to the beach. I think our email exchange says it all:

——————
Wednesday, November 23, 2005 1:44 PM

OK, I’ll do it. What time are you picking people up?
Julia

—–Original Message—–
From: Charles
Sent: Nov 23, 2005 11:28 AM
To: JULIA Subject:
Re: Turkey or chicken?

I fully plan on putting on my wetsuit before I leave my house.

Where are you coming from? I am picking up a couple of people by the Williamsburg Bank in Brooklyn at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenue.

Don’t do something you would regret. While it may be easier to sit on your couch or lie in bed, I am sure years from now you will remember the Second Annual Turkey Dip, but it would be difficult to remember what you saw on TV or thought about while under your covers.

—– Original Message —–
From: JULIA
To: Charles
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: Turkey or chicken?

Suffering succotash! Back on the fence.
If I bring the wetsuit (!!!!!) but leave the common sense at home ….
I’ll let you know later today (never make a decision until you have to)
Julia

On Nov 22, 2005, at 12:25 PM, Charles wrote:
Isn’t there an expression “Failure is not an option”? The Turkey is such a majestic bird compared to the Chicken.
—– Original Message —–
From: JULIA
To: Charles
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 12:23 PM
Subject: Turkey or chicken?

Hi Charles,

I’ve been trying to convince myself that I’m intrepid enough for the Turkey dip, but I’ve failed.
I’ll be thinking of you all as you go Cold Turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Julia
——————

We all drove together to Brighton Beach and began the process of disrobing in the Municipal Parking lot. Abe and Sondra stripped down to their bathing suits, Julia put on a long john wetsuit and I completely wussed out and put on a long sleeve wetsuit with neoprene booties, scuba hood and gloves. Sondra provided us all with Turkey feathers and we posed for a moment to snap a picture.

On the beach, the wind was blowing so fiercely that the sand was blown as smooth as glass. The sun was struggling to come out behind a fair amount of cloud cover and the water was whipped into a wicked froth. The wind would pick up bits of foam and blow it out over the beach.

Depending on your point of view, the sea could have had the appearance of a pissed off body of water looking to kill, or it could have had the look of a wild amusement park ride. We hesitated briefly before entering the water, reconsidering as to whether or not we should be doing this. Really though, the decision was already made, because there was no way we were coming all of this way to turn back.

The wind and surf made it hard to enter. The waves were brutally attacking the shore. I caught a nasty wave face first. The sudden rush of cold took my breath away. My head hurt the same way when cold ice cream touches the roof of your mouth.

On this day, I really didn’t do much swimming. The neoprene gloves gave me no feel for the water and the scuba hood wasn’t conducive to turning my head to breathe. For the most part, I just hung out in the surf and enjoyed the ride of the swelling waves. Sondra on the other hand, swam at least a few hundred yards and Abe and Julia did a fair amount of swimming as well. As we started to leave the water, one last wave snuck up on Abe. It swept his swim cap and goggles away.

Having escaped the water, we came across our friend Tim. He had just finished kayaking and came over to see how we were doing. Tim snapped a couple of more photos and then accompanied us back to the car.

After changing, we drove to get some warm beverages and then continued on to our friend Cristian’s house. Just as last year, we crashed on his pad to warm up and chide him for not joining us. Maybe next year he will come. In the meantime, I am grateful for a very successful past year and my good friends.

The conditions in a nutshell were:

Air Temp: 41°F
Winds: 24 MPH sustained
Water Temp: 48°F
Sky: Mostly Cloudy

If only it was easy to change your state of mind, I am sure many people would be able to change their lives. Once a certain way of thinking sets in, I have found it hard to change the course of my thoughts. It is like traveling downhill on a bicycle and you come up to a fork in the road. You somehow wind up taking the left fork, but you wanted to take the right.

Now how can this be? If you wanted to take the right fork, how could you let yourself veer to the left and start going the wrong way? Was it because the left fork was just easier and you are just tired of pushing in the direction you want to go?

Once you start going down the left fork, the longer you let yourself go, the harder it will be to go back and continue on your desired course. You have to stop the downward momentum, push back up the hill (how far, depends on the distance you went before you stopped yourself) and then get back on track. If you let yourself go too far, it will be impossible to climb back up. You will need to continue down this easy path, until the end, whereupon you will find nothing.

You know you are cruising smoothly when it is easy to avoid those left forks in the road. Sometimes though, the road is so slanted to the left and the road to the right is so rocky, bumpy and difficult, that you just let yourself go with the flow.

This is where I am now. I am traveling downhill and I am struggling to stay to the right. I am ok with that. I am definitely succeeding to staying to the right. I’ve arrived at similar forks in the road in my past. This was always after several years of training, where one day I let myself glide to the left.

This easy road on the left side of the fork is very seductive. I’ve taken it before and discovered that at the end of it, I wish I stayed to the right. I arrived at the end of the easy path soft and out of shape and having wasted all of the hard efforts I put in before. I suppose part of the reason why I did this in the past was that I had no set goals in my mind, or if I did, I believed them to be impossible to achieve. I know other people, besides myself who have slipped and taken the left fork in the road. I’ve never heard one of them say they were happy about their decision to go down it. They always look back with regret that they didn’t struggle to stay on course.

This morning the left fork stared me in the face and beckoned me longingly. It was in the form of my warm bed and soft pillow. The right fork announced its presence with howling winds and a cold chill blowing through the cracks in my window. The last thing I wanted to do was follow the right fork to the pool at Asphalt Green for 2000 yards of swimming; but that is what I did.

Right now I am wondering, what was so difficult about that? Left fork, you are a devil.