So I went to a pulmonologist today to see what has been bugging my lungs. My Oxygen levels were normal, my lungs sounded clear and the x-ray showed no signs of Lung Cancer, Asbestosis or other malady. I guess it could all be in my head. Which begs the question; does the absence of anything prove nothing?

I suppose your lungs are like an empty cup. You look inside it and do not see anything. This however does not mean “nothing”, as the cup certainly contains air. Maybe my lungs contain something that just can’t be seen.

Actually, the doc did state that the problem could be as a result of inhaling refluxed acid from my stomach during training, racing, sleeping or some other such time. It’s possible. It is not as catchy sounding as Asbestosis, for which I am profoundly grateful. Now if it was inhaled battery acid, that would be much more traumatic and worthy of the thoughts of impending death flowing through my mind.

So for now I will try to push the thoughts of dying a slow death of asphyxiation from my mind until I am so consumed with thoughts of lung trouble that I return to a doctor for another chest x ray. I wonder if the old saw about the patient that complained to his doctor of a pain when he moved a certain way, that he should refrain from moving in such a way applies to my condition. Hey Doc, it bothers me when I breathe. I guess it depends on whether your doctor is named Kevorkian.

After years of dreaming about going to this small island, just shy of 1 mile off the coast of Staten Island, I set out on my expedition to swim to it with two other swimmers and 7 kayakers. My friends Cristian and Michael were my swim mates and my kayaking crew was led by the indefatigable Tim.

Tim and I have been planning a kayaker escorted swim to Hoffman Island for the better part of a year. At first, we were planning a winter expedition, where rumor has it that seals sunbath on the island’s rocky shores. However, foul winter weather and spring and summer race commitments prevented us from pursuing an attempt until yesterday. The journey was arranged on the spur of a moment, prompted by an email from me asking Tim if he was ready to go.

The tides dictated that we make a 3pm start from Staten Island to catch the water during slack tide. This would give us plenty of time to reach the island, explore and start back home in time for the incoming tide. Mother Nature blessed us with a perfect day. The sky was crystal clear, the water calm and a northerly wind that was no more than breezy.

Someone raised the question as to whether or not we should inform the lifeguards manning the beach that we were going to be swimming straight out into the open water. My response was a definitive no, as we can only be told not to go. It is far better to plead ignorance, than to have positive confirmation that something should not be done. My logic was irrefutable so we hit the surf and started out for Hoffman. I was told later on that we stirred up quite the frenzy with the lifeguards. They were whistling furiously at us and two set out to catch us; one swimming and the other on a long board. Tim waited for us to be well out into the open water, before turning back and letting the lifeguards know that we were expert swimmers; channel swimmers, which in fact was not so far from the truth for some of us.

The swim to the island was very pleasant. I quickly settled into a smooth steady stroke and kept next to Cristian for most of the way. I kept the kayaks in view to my right and trusted them to guide me. Occasionally I would look up to see how much distance remained. I was satisfied to see the island approaching steadily. Eventually, the remains of an old pier started to take shape. We swam into the piers by making a right turn, followed by a quick left turn to the shore.

We landed on a very small beach made of rocks and seashells which led up to a large stone wall. In the past a dock would allow passengers who arrived by boat to disembark. It was apparent that the dock and pier were reduced to pilings long ago. The kayakers beached their crafts and we all scaled up the rocks to summit the islands retaining wall.

Signs were posted on the island that this was a sanctuary for Herons and serious penalties would be imposed for disturbing them. You could see the Herons flying throughout the island and I was able to see numerous nests. We elected not to venture into the middle of the island. I think this was partly because we didn’t want to bother the Heron nests and the vegetation was so thick, that you couldn’t help scratch your legs or getting nasty brambles stuck all over you. If I go again, I will ask a kayaker to bring long pants, so I could have some protection if I venture into the island.

Our exploration consisted of walking on top of the retaining wall that formed the perimeter of the island. We were treated to fantastic views of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, Coney Island, Staten Island, Swinburne Island and Sandy Hook. Occasionally we would stumble upon artifacts from when the island was inhabited. Bits of broken bottles, electrical feeder cables, large anchor chains and lots of bricks and concrete that undoubtedly formed the islands buildings.

Eventually, we circumnavigated the island and we arrived back at our landing point. The tide had seriously started its evening push in and the kayaks could be seen bobbing in the low surf. Fortunately, a couple of people remained behind with the boats or else the kayaks could have drifted off.

The swim to the island took about 25 minutes. It looked as though the swim back would be more difficult, since the wind started to kick up and the water appeared very choppy. It was starting to get late in the day, so we didn’t waste anymore time to get moving. The kayakers still had to paddle back up the Hudson to the Downtown Boathouse. It was harder to sight the land on the return trip, since the chop was moving into our faces. I just concentrated on keeping a kayak to my right to guide me home.

Despite the slightly rougher water, the trip back seemed to pass a little more quickly. In fact, the return time was exactly the same as the outbound trip and according to my heart rate monitor, was an easier swim. The water did settle down once we passed the half way point and I am sure the incoming tide made the swim less taxing.

When I landed on the beach, I was greeted by several young children who were filled with all sorts of questions about where I came from. I explained that I just returned from the island out in the distance and they looked at me with utter amazement. I was struck by how something as a 1 mile swim to an island is something that I wouldn’t hesitate to do, but for more others, the thought of doing something “so extreme” is unfathomable. I can’t imagine I am the first person to swim to the island, but I am sure for everyone on the beach, such a thing is unheard of.

Tim and his fellow kayakers beached their boats and allowed Cristian, Mike and I to gather our dry items, water bottles and to say our goodbyes. Everyone felt it was a great adventure and were eager to try something like this again. Tim and I at some point will arrange for a time for the longer swim to Swinburne Island. Swinburne is 1.8 miles away from Staten Island and appears to be the more interesting of the two islands. Swinburne Island still has some buildings on it, perhaps one of them is the crematorium that was used to incinerated the remains of those unfortunate immigrants that died of disease they carried from their homeland.

You can see all of the pictures of our adventure here:

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EcNm7Ru0asPu

Here is some information regarding Hoffman and Swinburne Islands:

http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cphl/history/books/nyhom/ch1-art6.pdf

Cristian (red suit) and I with our fantastic Kayaker crew.

Hoffman and Swinburn Islands

I don’t know what is wrong with me lately. Over the past 3 days, I feel like I’ve completely fallen apart. On Wednesday I set out to do an 8 mile run. I barely made it 2.5 miles, before I was reduced to walking and just limped my way home.

Yesterday, I had to take my wife and children to the airport to catch a 6am flight. I had to wake up very early to take them to JFK and by the time I got back home, all I felt like doing was going back to bed. I had intended to either cycle or run in the evening to make it up, but after dealing with some hideous rush hour traffic that kept me in my car for over 2 hours, all I felt like doing that night was eating and vegging out. I further justified skipping my workout because I still had to pack in order to join them late this evening. By the time I went to bed, all I had packed was a pile of clothes on the floor that I intend to shovel into a suitcase just before I leave for the airport today.

This morning I decided to run 5 miles. I wasn’t going to do it hard, since I didn’t want to kill my legs just before a long flight. I needn’t have worried as I could barely manage an 8 MM pace. It felt like I had lead in my legs.

Perhaps I am dying. I’ve felt some strange congestion in my lungs that I am convinced is an early form of cancer or asbestosis. I base this conclusion on the fact that I probably breathed in a lot of dust several years ago when I self renovated my basement. I’ve had my lungs listened to by doctors several times over the past few years, but they could never hear anything that would be indicative of a problem. Maybe I just am developing asthma; but that doesn’t explain why my legs feel dead.

I am probably a bit burnt out from the training leading up to Lake Placid. I wish I could just hang around with my children all day and watch TV all night. Work is interfering with the former and my need to wake up to train for the marathon is interfering with the latter. It is definitely a crime against humanity to require working during the month of August.

I will be in Puerto Rico late this evening, where I will soon join my wife and children. Perhaps I won’t run at all while I am there, or if anything, just do some slow runs on the beach and snorkeling with the kids.

As a parting note, I better get myself healthy soon. I noticed that the Lottery entries for the 2006 Kona Ironman Championships is now available for registration, so I signed up.

My family suffers from a lack of inertia, myself included. Too often I come home from work or a workout and I suggest to my wife and children that we should go outside and ride bikes or go to the playground, etc. I am usually greeted with howls of despair at being forced to get up off the couch or to leave the television.

Being myself tired from a hard days work, I usually just relent instead of trying to create the momentum to get outside. But just like Newton’s law of an object at rest, tends to stay at rest, for every action there is a reaction. In this case the action is my family’s inaction, building a volatile rebellion inside me.

Yesterday, I decided that I was no longer going to stand for this lack of inertia and I was going to take my children out for some exercise whether they liked it or not. I had missed my active recovery run earlier in the day and I felt that doing an easy paced run while running next to my bike riding children would be the best way of accomplishing two goals: Getting my run in and getting my children off of their asses and away from the TV.

My daughter immediately started to howl like I just handed down a harsh punishment when I told her to get ready to ride her bike. My son started to follow her lead and began to complain as well, albeit not as much. It took a fair amount of yelling on my part for my kids to get their sneakers on and to get ready to leave the house. After about 15 minutes of ultimatums to get ready, we were finally able to get moving.

Pleasantly enough, the screaming stopped as soon as we started to move. I suppose the pleasure of being on a bicycle under ones own power proved to be soothing to the savage beast and my children were soon laughing and smiling as we entered the park.

I did have a few moments where complaints were uttered by my son as we hit some of the hillier sections of the park. However, every time he crested the hill, he would scream with joy as he barreled down the other side of the hill. My daughter was able to ride around the park on her own and I helped my son up the hills during the more difficult sections.

When we returned home, my children looked very happy and content. My daughter took the opportunity to hide behind a wall in the basement and scare the crap out of my when I brought the bikes downstairs. If she wasn’t such an innocent child, I would say she did that as revenge for making her ride. I think she was just feeling good and wanted to play.

My lesson learned for the day is not to let a lack of inertia stop me from doing what I know is right. Even if it means some yelling, screaming and inconvenience, I think I will be better off in the end. My children got some much needed exercise and I think they were very happy in the end to be outside with their Dad.

I describe today’s run in two different ways; “It was a good strong workout and I felt like I ran well throughout” or “I felt weak and slow and am discouraged by how difficult it became towards the end”. I am balancing on the sea-saw, trying to figure out which was the more apt description. So far, I am going to give myself some credit and say it was more of the former, rather than the latter.

Weather.com says the humidity is around 76% with the temperature around 82°F, with it feeling like 87°F. According to my watch, the temperature was more like 86°F and to me it felt like 90% humidity. My pace was nothing so great considering my HR, but I guess I run slower when it is warm and humid. I certainly sweat a lot.

I stopped at a bagel store on my way home from Prospect Park and I handed the cashier two 1 dollar bills that were literally dripping with sweat. A drop or two fell onto the counter when I handed her the bills. When I walked into my house, I had to go into the backyard in order to take off my short cropped Tri top. I was able to wring out a cupful of water from a top that barely covered my chest.

I wore Tri shorts for the run. I wear these types of bottoms, since I am able to tuck a gel flask on my left hip and a coin holder containing Endurolytes on my right hip. It is the simplest method of carrying fuel and electrolytes that I have found. The only drawback to wearing these shorts is that the bike pad was as wet as an overflowing maxi-pad by the time I finished.

During the run, I started to feel really fat. I’ve always had a layer of fat over my abdominals that stubbornly refuses to go away. At one point during my run, I could feel this layer of fat jiggling. The momentum of the fat moving in the opposite direction of my stride was very disconcerting and annoying. I am once again wondering if I can make positive gains in speed through liposuction induced weight loss.

For recovery of my run, I made myself a large glass of chocolate milk with some Hammer Whey Protein. I made sure to take some Lactase enzymes to keep my lactose intolerance to a minimum. So far it appears to be working. I then showered and returned to my kitchen to make blueberry pancakes for me and my children.

Here are the workout stats:

Lap Time Lap Time HR Max Avg Min Dist min/mile
1. 0:32:06.8 0:32:06.8 154 157 141 108 3.7 8:40
2. 0:59:51.4 0:27:44.6 155 166 155 130 3.4 8:09
3. 1:26:43.0 0:26:51.6 160 163 158 142 3.4 7:54
4. 1:46:34.6 0:19:51.6 160 163 160 155 2.5 7:56

Sweat Hog Run

Actually, there is not much to review this week. It has been a hum drum week of some easy running, swimming and biking. The only excitement I experienced occurred on Wednesday evening as I returned home from work. I walked in the door about 1 minute after my son had his finger smashed in said door.

We waited an hour or so to see if the pain he felt would dissipate. It wasn’t getting better, so we went to the emergency room at Methodist Hospital on 7th Avenue in Brooklyn. This was a highly unpleasant experience.

The ER was packed and they only had one Triage nurse on duty. We sat in the room for well over an hour without making any progress towards seeing the duty nurse. My son’s finger looked to be ok or at least not getting worse, so we decided to leave since he was no longer crying. My son though wanted to stay, because he liked the idea of getting an X-ray.

After we returned home, my children fell right to sleep and my wife and I soon went to bed ourselves. About an hour later, my son started screaming about his finger again, so I took him back to the emergency room at my wife’s insistence. I didn’t think we needed to go, as I could tell the finger wasn’t broken, but my wife said that we shouldn’t take a chance.

Off to the hospital I returned. This time, we made a little better progress and saw the nurse within 40 minutes. She took some basic information and asked us to return to the waiting room to get registered. Only one person was handling registration, when she wasn’t busy running off to do a million other errands. She told me I would have to wait to register, as she had 5 other people ahead of me. During the next 30 minutes, she registered one person. What was killing me about this was I had to go to Pediatric ER and the people ahead of me were all adults. Even after the adults got registered, they still had to wait for the dozens of people ahead of them. I appeared to be the only one with a child in the ER and probably could have seen a doctor pretty quickly.

I wanted to shout at this woman to have some common sense and compassion, but I knew she wouldn’t hear me.

After an hour passes, my son was begging me to take him home. He was able to open and close his hand without trouble and just wanted to go to bed. I couldn’t stand waiting anymore, so we went home.

When my son started crying again, my wife became furious with me because I brought him home. In a way I couldn’t blame her, but I knew the hospital would do nothing. She took him back to the ER, where eventually they took an X-ray and pronounced that his finger wasn’t broken and that there was nothing they could do. They returned home around 5am.

All day Thursday, my son slept or cried/complained about his finger. This morning when I looked at it, it was all swollen with the nail completely black. My wife took him to a different hospital, where they drained the blood from under the nail. Hopefully, this will significantly reduce the pain he is feeling and he will soon forget about it.

It broke my heart to see my son in such discomfit. I felt though, that I handled his pain much better than I may have done so in the past. I was able to keep the obvious pain he was feeling in perspective and deal with it in a way that was much less troubling to my inner emotions.

Before I began training for Marathon, Triathlon, etc., the site of my children in pain and crying would bring tears to my eyes. I felt their pain as if it was affecting me directly. I think I have developed the ability to compartmentalize feelings of pain and discomfit not only for myself, but for my loved ones as well. I am able to keep feelings and observations of pain out of my conscience self. This is a welcome ability as it allowed me to offer comfort, love and care to my son, without letting myself breakdown and cry along with him.

Anyway, alls well that ends well. My son is home happily playing as if nothing ever happened. He had Ice Cream and Candy for lunch and is no worse for the wear.

It has been a positively soupy weekend, perfect for some hard efforts. I’ve become very accustomed to the heat and don’t mind training in it at all. Yesterday, I did a moderately paced 52 miles on the bike and today I did 10 miles worth of running.

The run today was a bit of a struggle. I set out to do 2 miles at 8mm, 2m at 7:45, 2m at 7:30 and 2m at 7:15. The fastest I could manage was a 7:31 pace which I did beginning at the 3 mile mark for 5 miles. Once I got to 8 miles, my legs developed a leaden feeling so I just took an easy jog for the remaining distance.

I cooled off at home by going in my inflatable family size pool. My son joined me in the water and we spent the next hour playing shark attack, Seahorse Bronco busting and underwater explorers. The cool water was the perfect way to let my legs and body recover. My son really seems to enjoy the water and my optimism remains high that he may follow in my Ironman footsteps.

As I write my journal for today, I sit at my brother’s house away from almost everyone else. I decided to have a post run recovery drink consisting of a large glass of chocolate milk with some whey protein. It was positively delicious and refreshing. However, I am somewhat lactose intolerant and my colon is blasting out incredible amount of foul smelling gas. I suppose I should be happy that I am at least passing this gas, instead of being double over in pain from gas cramps.

I guess the fact that so many people are lactose intolerant is one of the reasons why no one has invented an energy drink/gel with lactose as its main ingredient. Imagine a marathon where the energy drink was milk instead of Gatorade?

This past Friday I set out to do a run workout consisting of a 1 mile warm up, 4 miles at 7mm, followed by a 1 mile cool down. I found myself feeling very sluggish and I wasn’t even sure I would be able to run 1 mile, much less 4 at a 7 minute mile pace.

While I was warming up, a regular in Prospect Park, whom I nicknamed Stoneface speed walked/ran past me. I call him stone face since he always has the same fixed expression. I have never seen his face move. It is as if he suffers complete paralysis of his facial muscles. This runner is hard to miss. He is always wearing long pants and a cotton t-shirt. In the rain, he will run with an umbrella.

Anyway, Stoneface passed me about a half mile into my warm up. I was going very slow and contemplating how difficult is was to be running, much less how hard it would be to pick up my pace to 7mm. The one mile mark had me at the top of the hill, so at first it was pretty easy to start to pick up my pace. As I got to the bottom of the hill, I caught up to Stoneface.

Stoneface was the last person I would ever have expected to put up a challenge to keep me from passing. I never really saw him move with anything other than a very fast speed walk. This day however, he saw me coming an refused to let me pass.

I found the situation quite amusing. It was just the inspiration I needed to hold my pace. For a while I was concerned that I wasn’t even approaching a 7mm, but I was running as fast as I was capable at the time. Stoneface match my pace stride for stride and refused to let me pass.

I know for a fact that if he didn’t mount this challenge, there was no way I was going to be able to hold the pace. We ran this way for about 2 miles, just until the bottom of the next hill. By this time I finally wore him out and my legs found their pace. Like the space shuttles solid rocket boosters, I was now launched into a respectable speed.

I completed 1 loop of the park in 24:38 which is just slightly over 7mm. I’d had enough and started to walk to let my HR settle and then started an easy run home. Stoneface caught up with me by this time. I could only wonder what he was thinking. I would have said something to him, but I don’t think this man has communicated with another human being in years.

Today I began training for the 2005 NYC Marathon in earnest. My first workout towards running a sub 3 hour marathon consisted of a 1 mile warm up, followed by 4 miles at a 7:00 minute mile pace, followed by a 1 mile cool down.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to run the 4M at the 7mm pace. However, at the end of the 4 miles, I accomplished that goal with time to spare. My HR for the 4 miles hovered between 89-95 percent of my running max – a bit higher than where I would have liked it to be. Perhaps it was a bit high due to the warm weather and humidity.

This year, I hope that my legs do not fall apart before the marathon. For the past two years, I had to drop out of it, due to highly painful shin splints. If I can manage to stay healthy, I think I have a better than reasonable chance to accomplish this goal.

I happen to be a fanatic for clear and healthy skin. Nothing turns my stomach more than seeing someone with a nasty rash, sore, pustule or other skin affliction. I suppose this stems from the days when I worked as a volunteer in Coney Island Hospital. While on the job, I was unfortunate to have experienced the site of nasty Decubitus Ulcers (bedsores), the round diabetes skin lesions and various other skin afflictions. Seeing those ailments convinced me that I was not cut out to be a doctor. I could get past the disgust and fear of catching something while I was doing my duty in the hospital.

I remember a time a few years ago, when my wife had a bad case of Poison Ivy. Her skin became red, swollen and blistery as a result. I was horrified and could barely stand to be next to her. Heartless you may say, but it was either that or freak out and puke.

This fear of skin ailments has me applying various creams and lotions to make sure my skin stays perfectly clear. During the course of a morning, it is conceivable that I will apply no less than 5 creams or lotions to keep my skin clear. This also does not count other products I apply to my skin such as shaving cream, deodorant and hair gel.