My Homestay is with a very nice couple – Sam and Noreen. They are very supportive of the athletes who do the race and have welcomed me into their home with open arms. Any concern I had about being uncomfortable was quickly put at ease and I can honestly say that I am in the best accommodations I have ever been in before a race.

I started the day by eating breakfast in their very well stocked kitchen. I kept it simple and only had a bowl of cereal. I then got my gear ready for some light workouts and headed to the registration and transition areas.

Registration consisted of the usual fare. Various vendors selling stuff, check-in and bike inspection. Check-in and bike inspection were painless and I made several purchases of stuff that I needed at relatively low prices.

I should point out that the person who inspected my bike told me it was in perfect condition. I had my bike tuned up just a couple of days ago by a member of my Tri-Club. It cost me a couple of bucks to do, but the service was well worth it. The person who referred me to him said that he will make my bike look like it was brand new. In fact, on the day I took it home from his servicing, a person on the train asked me if I just bought it.

After check-in, I went for a short swim in the Choptank River. That is the name of the body of water we will be swimming in. It was very warm – 76 degrees, and had a mild salty taste. It was a bit choppy and slight current, but overall, it looks to be a pleasant swim.

After the swim, I rode the length of the Run Course. It was flat and windy. I will be prepared based on my experience at IMAZ. However, it should be much warmer and much more humid.

I decided it was too hot and humid to expend energy on much of a run. I only ran for 10 minutes or so at a very slow pace. I wanted to save my energy and decided to go back to my Homestay to eat, rest and get ready for the next day.

It is tradition at the house to wear a Hawaiian themed outfit at dinner. If you don’t have a Hawaiian motif, you are forced to wear a grass hula skirt. This is what I wore. Unfortunately, it did not provide enough covering to afford me the luxury of going commando.

Dinner consisted of plain pasta with tomato sauce on the side, grilled chicken, steamed shrimp, smoked blue fish and a salad. It was all very yummy and filled me up perfectly. For desert we had fresh baked cookies and banana bread. This is race day heaven. Hopefully, I will be invited back next year.

I read in today’s New York Times Metro section a story about a bag of dead fish that was stinking up the Upper East Side. Apparently the heat was making the fish nice and rancid and the stench was something fierce. Everyone who passed the bag feared that it contained a dead body and were afraid to go near it. Eventually the police, coroner and finally the sanitation department were called in to investigate.

This reminded me from my younger days when I used to do a lot of fishing out in Coney Island. A friend and I would go off the Jetties and catch dozens of porgy, Sea Bass and Black Fish. One day while I was driving home with a large bucket of these small fish, I had to stop short. The bucket tipped over and the fish spilled out all over the hatch back area of this crappy old Toyota Corolla I was driving. I cleaned up the mess as best I could and forgot about the incident. That is until several days later.

This crappy Corolla was a dark blue with dark blue vinyl seats and did not have air conditioning. During the summer months it would be hotter than a pizza oven. This heat started to bring out the smell of a putrid dead fish that apparently lodged itself somewhere between the seats of the car. The smell was so intense that after only 5 minutes of sitting in the car your clothes became drenched with the smell. Too bad I didn’t have the same services of the upper east side residents to get rid of it.

I had a good workout this morning. I didn’t feel sluggish and I had to force myself to lower my effort. I caught myself starting to push too hard, which is not the wisest thing to do two days before a big race. Visualizations of having a good race and crossing the finish line kept getting my HR up higher than where it should have been and I had to keep slowing down. This was a welcome change of pace from the other day when it was difficult to push myself faster.

Today called for a 13 mile bike followed by a 3 mile run. The weather was overcast and exceedingly humid. If I stopped moving my glasses would fog. I am always obsessing with my glasses. They are always sliding off my nose, fogging up or bouncing around. On a good day, they stay put and simply get very blurry from sweat and grime rubbing onto the lenses. I wear a pair of Rudi Project glasses that have a prescription lens insert that sits behind the frosted lenses. These lenses sometimes get so dirty while training or racing that I can barely see two feet in front of me. Should I unfortunately suffer from Glaucoma in my later years, I will already have many hours of practice navigating with blurred vision.

Tonight I pick up a Triathlete I have not met before, for the trip down to the Eagleman Half Ironman in Cambridge, MA. I connected with Jason through a Triathlete message board. He was looking for a ride to the race and in exchange offered free lodgings for the weekend. It will be in a Homestay. Homestays are local residents who open up their homes for athletes to stay with them over the race weekend. It is my understanding that Natasha Baddmann also stays at the house where I will stay. I am hoping I can get a picture of me with her holding a sign stating that I will kick ST’s ass at Lake Placid. It will go good right next to his picture of me with Amanda Beard holding a similar sign.

I am going to have to end this entry short, as I am writing it on the subway and a large class of eight year olds just boarded. It is becoming too difficult to write with them jostling into me.

I head for the Eagleman Half Ironman tomorrow evening. I don’t think my children know I am leaving yet and I am hesitating to tell them. I think in the end it bothers me to be gone more than it bothers them. I would have preferred to leave Saturday morning, but I got a free place to stay in exchange for giving someone a ride. Maybe I will appease my guilt by buying them presents with the money I saved from a one night hotel stay. At least I will be with them for a few hours before I leave. It would be nice to tuck them into bed though.

I still feel a bit sluggish from my Taper. Not as bad as on Wednesday, when I felt as fast as a three toed sloth. My coach told me that it is normal to feel slow when coming off high volume training with a short taper and that I will feel fine come race day. I hope so. I looked at my times for this race at last year’s event and I don’t feel like I can run as fast as I did then. I am sure though I will perk up come race day.

I get all out of sorts during a Taper week. I get to sleep late since the workouts are shorter, I am less hungry, but I still feel like eating and I worry like crazy about losing fitness. Old aches and pains start to subside and new pains start to appear. The workouts are so short and easy, that you wonder if it is even worth doing them at all.

To start out my Taper week, I took Monday off. This was more a matter of needing extra rest from my busy weekend, than having a scheduled day off. Today I rode an easy 14 mile in Prospect Park. At one point during the ride, the usual morning peloton caught up to me and slowly passed. I jumped onto the back and hung out with the pack for a mile or so. However, they were going at a very leisurely pace and having the nice draft in the pack made the ride much too easy. My HR dipped from around 70 percent to somewhere in the low 60’s, so I decided to let myself coast past them on the downhill.

When the pack saw me passing, it was like I disturbed a swarm of bees. They all started sprinting furiously to get ahead of me and I swear they wanted to cut me off. I found the whole thing very amusing.

I’ve had a pretty full weekend. It started out on Friday night with my daughter’s ballet recital. She looked beautiful in her costume and radiated excitement. Of course, this necessitated a later night out than usual for me, so I just planned on dealing with less sleep than I am accustomed.

I think I got to bed around 10:30 pm. It took an Ambien to knock me out and I only slumbered until 2am Saturday morning. I got up and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then lay in bed for the next 1.5 hours. I gave up trying to sleep sometime before 4am, so I started to get myself ready for my ride in Harriman State Park (HSP). I picked up Lowell, my riding partner for the day just after 5am and we started to ride just after 6:30am.

The day started out rainy and overcast, but you could see the sky trying to clear as we headed further north. By the time we started to ride, the rain had stopped, but we encountered wet roads and some fog through the climbs. As the day wore on, the sun broke through and we had a spectacularly beautiful day to ride.

On our first loop, I snapped a couple of photos while we were climbing the road Tiorati Circle. This is a much forested road, with streams, waterfalls and lakes. It was peaceful and serene, with only the sounds of our breathing or my exclamations at the beauty of it all punctuating the sounds of the mountains.

The Road to Tirorati

Upon completion of the first loop, we ran into our fellow Tri Club member Jason. He was joining us in the mountains to train for the Canada Death March – an ultramarathon with an elevation ascent equivalent to Mt. Everest. Jason was hitching a ride with us back to the city after his run, since his ride up did not plan to stay for that long.

Jason getting ready to run 30+ miles

One and a half loops later, we encountered Jason again on his first loop around Harriman. We didn’t see him again, as after his first loop; he abandoned the roads in favor of running the trails.

At some point during our third loop, I lost one of my fueling bottles. This contains 700 calories and was half of what I was hoping to consume during the day. The bottle was in one of the bottle cages behind my saddle, which are prone to being launched if the cage doesn’t grip it snuggly and you hit a solid bump in the road. Fortunately, I also had some Hammer Gel with me and it managed to get me through the ride.

I am sure the loss of one of my main fueling sources contributed to the fatigue I felt during our 6th and final lap. Our lap times for the 5th and 6th lap were now taking over 50 minutes and I feared that one more loop would take well over 60 minutes. Rather than try to gut out another 15 miles, we decided to stop riding and go for our 5 mile run. Our decision must have been providence, since at this time we saw Jason start making his way down a trail back towards our cars. At this point Jason had only run 23 miles. I told him I was disappointed as I expected him to have run at least 28-36 miles by now. While we racked our bike, Jason switched out of his trail sneakers into his road running shoes so he could run 5 more miles with us.

Lowell and I were both happy to be off the bikes. When I started to run, it felt like I put on a new set of legs. I felt great and happily ran our out and back course. After all of us finished running, we headed to the lake. Jason and I took a couple of short swims, while Lowell declined to fully immerse his whole body in the water because it was too chilly.

Some quick stats for the workout:
Time Ride: 5:01:42
Time Run: 20:17
Ascent: 7845
Calories burned: 4500
Calories Consumed: 1500
Max Speed Bike: 50.3 MPH
HR: 139/161

Later in the day, after I returned home, my kids and I washed our car. It was a nice way to spend the remainder of a hot afternoon. Both my children seemed to love the idea of climbing on top of our Ford Explorer and cleaning the roof.

After we ate dinner and then went for a bike ride into Prospect Park. We rode around the park one time and into Long Meadow field to watch the planned fireworks and the first Star Wars movie. I didn’t get to bed until well after midnight, giving me almost 24 hours of constant activity.

The next morning, Sunday, I got up around 8am to do a 10 mile run. I discovered a race being held in Prospect Park, which included Pee Wee Races. I thought my kids would enjoy doing this race, so I ran back home to see if they wanted to do it. The answer from my son was an emphatic yes, and my daughter reluctantly decided to try it as well. I shuttled myself back and forth to race registration and planned to meet my wife back in the park by 11am. The kids ran the races and had a blast.

I capped my weekend off, by taking my daughter to a birthday party and then having an archeological expedition in my back yard. My son wanted to dig a hole and as we started digging deeper, we began to find buried bricks, tiles, a marble and the cap from an old German cold remedy called Formamint. Maybe I can sell it on eBay and buy an energy bar with the proceeds.

I’ve had a very productive weekday training week. My coached stated that is was supposed to be an easy week, something that I thought I needed considering the high volume of training I put in over the past couple of weeks. However, upon looking at the schedule, I saw nothing easy about it except for some reduced mileage on the bike workouts. My schedule went from a total cycling distance of 148 to 105; basically midweek I went from 24 to 20 and tomorrow I will go from 100 to 85. Other than change in distance the workouts themselves were just as hard as they have always been.

Today I swam sets of 20 x 50 yards, 20 x 100 yards and 10 x 50 yards on 10 seconds rest with a 400 and 300 warm up and cool down. It took me 1:14:00 and I felt pretty snappy in the water. I think part of my snappiness can be attributed to the fact that my lane was invaded by a bunch of newbie triathletes while I was in the middle of my workout. Subconscientiously , I must have pushed myself harder to show them how a real triathlete swims – with speed grace and sense of purpose. I have reached a sort of Zen with the water. I will never move through it with the speed of a dolphin, but I am happy enough with my swimming technique that I no longer fret about it.

My run was very strong. Actually, what I should say was my mental focus was very strong. My legs are definitely fatigued. However, I ran my 4 x 1 mile intervals with alacrity and purpose. I remember thinking that it was feeling hard to run at the pace I was maintaining, but the more difficult it felt, the harder I pushed myself. My HR felt like it was higher than my monitor was indicating, but I think that was my body telling me that it was tired. I did not allow those signals to slow me down. I ran the 1800 yard intervals (40 yards over 1 mile) in paces of 7:26, 7:12, 7:04 and 7:40 respectively – add 10 seconds to each pace to find the 1800 yard times.

I was discussing my new found sense of training purpose with my coach. He pointed out that I really have reached a new level of training. I can now push myself through fatigue and maintain a high level of intensity. Previously, I would have backed off or been unable to maintain the intesity.

He pointed out that finishing Ironman Lake Placid fast was more important to me than the fear of blowing up and DNF’ing. This is definitely true. I no longer care about finishing an Ironman. I only care about finishing it fast. I would rather risk a DNF, than finish slower than my potential.

Earlier in the week during my previous 1 mile sprint sessions, I kept myself running hard by repeating the phrase “Medical Tent”. It was my visualization of me crossing the finish line at a fast past and collapsing as I crossed the line. I am looking forward to racing the whole thing hard and leaving nothing out on the course. I imagine I will be hurting badly once I cross the line and I look forward to that feeling with intense anticipation.

Via email to Neil Cook my coach. www.slb-coaching.com

Hey Neil -

Another strong workout today. I felt good on the bike, even though I still had some residual fatigue in my legs. It was not really possible to do the workout as your prescribed. Instead I separated the park into three sections. Grand Army Plaza to Bartel Pritchard, PPSW/Parkside to Ocean/Parkside and from the parking lot entrance to the hill. I just concentrated on hold my speed above 20mph during these sections and didn’t worry about the time.

I posted my fastest loop on my last time around. I passed the cyclist with whom I have a long standing feud and he decided to get on my tail. This inspired me to have a 9:13 lap and allowed my average speed for the day to reach 20mph.

I only ran 2.5 miles since this is an “easy” week. I am not sure what is easy about it other than some reduced distance. My legs felt sluggish, but with my new found mental facilities, I was able to push past the physical crud and post a sub 8 minute mile for the distance.

As a side note, I took off yesterday from running. I wanted to spend the time with my family and I figured walking through the Bronx Zoo would be Active Recovery enough.

Note – Prescribed workout: 10 minutes warm-up, 18 mph, 19 mph, 20 mph, 21 mph, 22 mph, 23 mph for 60 seconds at each speed, recovery for 4 minutes and repeat 4 times, 10 minutes cool-down.

Grinding out another day.

To kick my Memorial Day off on the right note, I went swimming with ST and another Triathlon fanatic Robert. We went to the McBurney YMCA on 14th Street as guests of ST. We would have gone to Asphalt Green, but it didn’t open until 8am and I needed to be home early to take the family to The Bronx Zoo.

The water in this facility is much warmer than I am accustomed. It averaged around 85 degrees, which is much warmer than the 72 degrees I am used to swimming in. The mystery as to why ST refuses to swim open water without a wetsuit has been revealed, as he clearly is only used to swimming in bath water.

Despite the warm temperatures, we proceeded together with a hardy workout. We started out with a 500 yard warm up and then did 20 x 50’s, 10 x 100’s and 4 x 500’s. Robert led each interval, followed by Todd and then myself. Being the weakest swimmer of our group, I just tried not to get lapped. I was successful in that endeavor except for 1.5 times (Robert lapped me twice, Todd once).

Robert on several occasions rolled is eyes as ST and I gave each other shit. He for the most part handled our bantering with mild amusement, until the locker room, where I tried to convince Todd that shaving his balls was the thing to do. Both were disinclined to experiment with the idea.

Unfortunately, time did not permit me to hang with the boys after our workout. It would have been nice to get some chow and relax for an hour or so. Instead I drove everyone home so I could get an early start out to the zoo. It was a perfect day and we say most of the exhibits. The only disappointment of the day was the lacking of a Toucan in the bird exhibit – something my daughter wanted very much to see.

At an early point of our visit we happened upon some amorous bears. Fortunately, my children didn’t notice anything amiss. It must have been the springtime air.

Robert, ST and Beast after a crisp 4500 yards.

Spring Fever

Today I definitely broke through some mental barriers. I was filled with doubt as to whether I would be able to complete today’s run. It was very difficult at times, but I somehow managed to push through it and stabilize myself at a decent pace.

I attribute today’s exceptional run to two items. 1- Reading Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes. It is truely inspiration reading as he talks about breaking through his pain, both mental and physical on his way to completing the Western States 100 miler. 2 – Having company. I ran with Todd for most of the run and we kept challenging each other. I would have to say I got the best of him, although I was lagging him at several points.

I think part of my problem on the run at last year’s IMLP and IMAZ, is that I just wasn’t pushing myself through the pain I felt. I didn’t give myself a chance to adapt to the discomfit I was feeling and to try to push through it. I am hoping that I will take today’s lesson and remember it when the going gets tough this year.

I ran slightly over distance, just over 15 miles. I could have gone 20, but I refrained. Here are the detailed lap splits:

Overall HR: 141/165
TIZ (155/137): A – 5:32, I – 1:19:25, B – 31:52
Calories: 1463

Lap Splits