The faint. The dings. The celeb.

Apologies again for my lack of blogging! It’s been a challenging couple of weeks for me, to say the least.

In terms of my training - two weeks ago was a letdown. I was scheduled for some more big brick action over the weekend, but ended up only managing about 1 hour of workouts over the two days. In PA we had a helluv an ice storm and I went to my sister- and brother-in-laws house to help them shovel their driveway in preparation for my niece’s birthday (4 years old!). I made the idiotic mistake of not drinking or eating anything in the morning before I went over to their house. Unfortunately I paid for it by fainting face first in the snow and ice. Fortunately, when you faint into snow and ice you at least avoid hitting your head on concrete - there’s a bright side to any negative experience as I’ve found out through life! Kidding aside, I was a bit freaked out as I had never fainted before. I’ll chalk it up to dehydration, but I still need to go see my doc to make sure all of my cylinders are firing correctly. The moral of the story is that if you are going to shovel snow and ice in preparation for your niece’s birthday party – do yourself a favor and drink some water beforehand! I don’t like to screw with my health, so instead of a planned 7 hour training weekend it turned into a 1 hour training weekend with only 6 total hours logged for the week. Crapola!

Last week was okay in terms of training. I managed my longest ride yet on Saturday (4 hours 10 minutes), followed by a 12 mile run on Sunday, which happened to be my longest jaunt since the Philadelphia Marathon in November. All in all I only managed 10 hours and 7 minutes for the week as my consistency was mediocre during the work week. Reason being I was pretty down and out about getting dings (a.k.a. rejections) from two of the three business schools I applied to. It really stung at first, but I’m starting to feel better about the whole process. These are really fiercely competitive programs to get into, and if things don’t work out for me this year I will go back to the drawing board and reapply for next year. Failure puts success into context better than anything else.

A bright side to last week was my tri-celebrity sighting last Thursday in Philadelphia at City Sports on Walnut Street. The store promoted a “trunk sale” for tri gear, so I headed over with Silvia to check it out. Low and behold, Nicole DeBoom was there to promote her SkirtSports clothing line which is now being carried by City Sports. Not only was this a tri-celeb sighting, but it turns out that Nicole and I have only 1 degree of separation. That 1 degree being Silvia. Silvia and Nicole swam together at Yale. Craziness! Let me say, it was so cool to ask her “so…what’s Tim doing for races this year?” Referring to Tim DeBoom by first name only…so cool! I am such a tri-geek!

One final note – In today’s newspaper my horoscope read: “Be realistic about what your physical capabilities are.” - It's obvious to me that the author of this is not a triathlete and most likely has never heard of Ironman!

That’s about all for now. Thanks again for reading!

Reverse Bricks

Okay…for the record, run to bike “reverse bricks” are just about the hardest thing I’ve done thus far in training. Last week was another decent week of IMLP training. 12 hours in total. Getting solid hours in during the work week was challenging, as the man was keeping me in the office late on multiple nights. That said, I did put in another 5-hour brick on Saturday. I’m all about mixing things up in training and keeping it interesting. On Saturday and Sunday I did reverse bricks where I ran first and rode second. I don’t know what it is about running first and riding last, but it feels ten times harder than doing things the other way around. Running through Valley Forge for a near 8 mile run and following that run by riding for 3 hours 47 minutes and 28 seconds to top off a 5-hour brick was the single hardest effort I’ve put in thus far during my Lake Placid journey. On Sunday I put in another reverse brick, but it was far abbreviated relative to my Saturday effort. I’ve been trying to take Steven’s advice and try to run with my wife once a week. I love being able to spend quality time with Silvia during workouts. Following our run, I hopped back on the bike for 1 hour 16 minutes and 37 seconds to top off a 2 hour reverse brick.

Not too shabby.

Monday: Scheduled Rest
Tuesday: Bike - 120 minutes
Wednesday: Bike - 60 minutes
Thursday: Swim - 60 minutes
Friday: Run - 60 minutes
Saturday: Run - 1:12:32, Bike - 3:47:28
Sunday: Run - 0:43:23, Bike - 1:16:37

Total Swim: 1:00:00
Total Bike: 8:04:05
Total Run: 2:55:55
Total Time: 12:00:00

Thanks again for reading!

This. Is. Crazyland.

Life has been hectic lately. Hectic enough to make me quite the delinquent blogger! Work…training…being a good husband…being a good friend…waiting on decisions from the MBA programs I’ve applied to…all of these occupy a slice of my life right now. And let me tell you…it’s HECTIC!

The beauty of having structured triathlon training in my life is that I have to be as efficient as possible in all facets of life to make my schedule feasible. Fear not, although I haven’t been able to spend much time blogging about my tri life recently, I’ve been staying on track quite well. Last week I managed to put in a solid 13 hours of training – broken down as follows:

Monday: Scheduled Day of Rest
Tuesday: 60 minute run, 40 minute swim
Wednesday: 90 minute bike
Thursday: 30 minute run, 68 minute swim
Friday: 75 minute bike, 57 minute run
Saturday: 181 minute bike, 119 minute run
Sunday: 60 minute bike

Total Swim: 1:48:00
Total Bike: 6:46:00
Total Run: 4:26:00
Total Time: 13:00:00

A few of last week’s workouts were particularly noteworthy. Thursday’s swim was truly magnificent. One of my sets in the swim was 10X200 (alternate - pull easy, swim hard). A lot of my swimming really focuses on just building up a distance swimming base. In college I was a sprint breaststroker, so while you might think I have some huge advantage in swimming, I’ll be the first to admit that I AM NOT A DISTANCE FREESTYLER! Because of this, when I’m in the pool I spend much more time focusing on building an aerobic base rather than doing speedwork. However, I do crank up the speed on occasion, and when I do like last Thursday – I really feel alive. I feel like I belong. Swimming was my sanctuary when I was growing up. When Mom had cancer, the pool always welcomed me with open arms. Ready for whatever I had to offer it. The pool is where all of my work ethic in life was created. It’s where I learned that the human heart can beat 220 times in one minute. It is an enormous part of my identity. Last Thursday I traded the aerobic blah blah blah for some speed. Before I know it, I was clocking mid 2:20’s for my 200 swims. A far cry from the 2:07’s that I would drop as a high schooler in practice, but not too shabby for a just recently ex-Clydesdale.

Saturday was also quite a good workout. Another 5-hour brick baby! I mixed things up a bit and was scheduled for a 1-hour bike, 1-hour run, 1-hour bike, 1-hour run, 1-hour bike. I had some company too, as I rode and ran with my good friend Mike, another fellow BU breaststroker, who now lives only about 10 miles from me out in the Philly ‘burbs. All in all, the workout was awesome. I had to tweak my time on the bike slightly to compensate for my run times, which were just slightly off from the 1-hour goal. Three hours in the saddle, 12 miles of strides on the road. I felt pretty damn good when it was all said and done. Progress for sure!

One other tri-related note – I finally forked over my $150 and signed up for the Black Bear Triathlon (HIM distance race being put on for the first time in the Poconos). This race is my IMLP tune-up. My friend Mike will be joining me at the starting line. Rumor has it that Dave will also be joining. Speaking of Dave, please do stop by his blog and send some congrats to him. His second son entered the world last week!

That’s about all for now. Thanks again for reading. Back to Crazyland!