Brain Surgery to Half Ironman

 We are definitely living in strange times to say the least.  Being out in public and seeing all of the masked faces, trying to identify friends by the way they walk, their body language or even their eyes, it is all very surreal yet it seems to be the new normal.  A lot has changed in a year in all facets of my life.  When races and life in general seemed to get canceled and the world seemed darkest is when I started to shift my focus.  After the initial disappointment I realized that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.  A chance to spend more time with my family, more father son time on the golf course, watching Jordan develop a love and passion for a game that was and still is a big part of who I am.  Today with me working from home and Jordan’s hybrid schedule we get to go for a walk everyday at lunchtime, more family dinners on weekends, these are the things that I am thankful for in a time of uncertainty.  Last week also brought back ...

As I sit here on my couch with my legs elevated I have to take a look at where I’ve been and how far I’ve come. A little over 7 months ago I underwent brain surgery #2 and it was right before that I told my surgeon that I needed a big goal to focus on.  I set my sights on Half Ironman Maine even though I had yet to do a triathlon of ANY distance. Today, as I stare at my Garmin watch that tells me I am 176 days out from Maine I hit a major milestone in my training. Earlier in the week I had my longest swim, 2300 yards.  Today though was a bigger one.  I rode 56.9 miles.  For those that don’t realize, the bike portion of a Half Ironman is, 56 miles and the swim is roughly 2300 yards. That’s right, almost 6 months away from race day and I have swam and biked the distance that I will tackle when I race. Now I am more than aware that I still have a long way to go, but something about seeing 56 miles on the monitor today was a huge boost mentally. More importantly I ...

Those of you that know me, know that I am NOT a numbers person at all.  Never was and never will be.  I also generally don’t believe in fate or luck.  I believe that if I work hard then I create my own luck. That being said, on my run this morning the only thing that kept bouncing around in my head was NUMBERS! My coach had assigned me to run my first 10k, 6.2 miles in zone 2 which is essentially a recovery or nice easy run.  I knew going into this run that I had to trust my training and more specifically heart rate training.  This is what I used when I ran the marathon so I know that it works.  The downside, especially for those type A, immediate gratification people like myself is that you must go slow to eventually go fast.  So they key is not to focus on pace, but rather my heart rate. So off I went, in a light drizzle, but 55 degrees it was perfect running weather. About a mile and a half into the run it dawned on me that this would be my long...

So today was the annual Lifetime Indoor Triathlon.  One year ago this race signified the start of what I thought would be my triathlon career.  After a speed bump last year this is the take two of my triathlon career. You may be asking yourself, what is an Indoor Triathlon? In a regular triathlon there is a set distance that you are trying to complete in the best possible time.  In an Indoor Triathlon there is a set time and you try to go as far as you can.  So a 10 minute swim, 30 minutes on a spin bike and 20 minutes on a treadmill. There were some butterflies and a little anxiety as I waited in the pool to begin, but once the whistle blew all of that went away. The first 100 yards went great, 1:48, a little faster than I would’ve liked, but I was trying to remember and implement what I learned in my 7 hour, yes 7 hour swim clinic yesterday.  Sharing a lane with a good friend and teammate which allowed for some drafting was just what I needed, and then at ...

This Sunday brings to an end my first official month of triathlon training with my coach.  Those of you that know me are aware that I am very much a type A personality, very driven and focused once I set my sights on a goal.  In this case that goal is 267 days away. Along my training journey I will be subjected to regular tests by my coach.  Not tests like Jordan takes but tests to measure my fitness and my progress.  These help us to stay on track and make sure that I am peaking next August. I affectionately refer to these tests as “go hard and try not to puke” tests.  They take place on the bike in the form of a Functional Threshold Power test which measures my power on the bike.  I do this test  both in spin class and on my bike in the garage.  It’s basically a 20 minute all out effort and at the end you feel like death! I completed both of these over the last two and a half weeks or so.  The good news, at least to me is that my numbers...

Today was the Garden State Plaza 5k Race.  This particular race was extremely meaningful to several of the participants.  First off were the 20 or so runners who graduated my running club’s Beginner 2 Finisher running program.  This was the culmination of 10weeks of hard work and I tip my hat to each of them and hope that this was the first of many races for them.  Second were Lori and Jordan for different reasons.  Normally I would run with Jordan and we would let Lori run ahead at her own pace.  Today however, my coach wanted me to actually race, more on that in a minute, which left Lori and Jordan to run together.  Unfortunately, Lori cramped up and had to let Jordan run ahead.  Although in noticeable pain and discomfort she never gave up and finished the race strong, a true demonstration of her newfound strength and mental fortitude.  Then there is Jordan who ran the entire race, never taking a walk break and finished in 35:06, good enoug...

There are special things that happen on the same day year in and year out, not necessarily the same date, but the same day.  The second Sunday of May is Mother’s Day, the thirds Sunday of June is Father’s Day and then you have the first Sunday of November........this is the day that we turn the clocks back and get an extra hour of sleep.  It is also the day of the biggest block party in the world!!  The day that more than 50,000 people lace up their shoes to run through the boroughs of NY and cross the finish line of the NYC Marathon in Central Park.  Marathons like Triathlons are really the only sporting events that the mere mortal amateur athlete can compete on the same course as the world’s best, the elites of our sports. Last year I was fortunate enough to be one of those 50,000 plus athletes. This morning as I watched the start of the race on television, watched as the cannon was fired, watched both the elite men, women and the Achilles runners take off across...

They say that time flies when you’re having fun.  I don’t necessarily know that recovering from brain surgery constitutes “fun”, but time has certainly flown by these last 3 months.  This past Wednesday was October 25th, 3 months since my surgery.  It was also the day of my follow up MRI and appointment with Dr. Sen. Even though the catscan the day after my surgery showed that the entire cyst was gone, this MRI would be the test that gave a better picture of where things stood. The last 2 weeks have been great as far as my training goes.  I went back to PWR Spin at the gym which is a high intensity, interval based spin class geared towards triathletes and avid cyclists.  I have been on the trainer for longer periods of time, had my fastest 3 mile run since coming back and this morning I swam 1200 yards straight which is the longest since surgery.  I have also resumed strength training.  The most important thing that these last 2 weeks have shown me i...

My father was a man with a very dry sense of humor, a sense of humor that I often see in my son Jordan.  He, had many sayings that have stuck with me and that I have passed on to Jordan.  Some of my favorites are, "geographically desirable", "O dark thirty" and the theme for this post, "directionally correct". These last 10 days or so have seen more firsts in my recovery and the official setting of my big goal, Maine 70.3. Last Sunday October 1st, registration officially opened for Half Ironman Maine.  I swam early that morning and then came home and was eating breakfast with Jordan as I sat in front of my Ipad anxiously awaiting the opening.  When 8:00AM struck and the screen changed from "coming soon" to "register now" my heart skipped a beat like a kid on Christmas morning.  My excitement paled in comparison to my son's who started jumping up and down screaming, "we're going to Maine, we're going to Maine. I can...

As the saying goes, "all good things must come to an end".  This Monday, September 25th marked my first day back at work.  Just 8 weeks removed from surgery it was time.  Some might think that I rushed back after brain surgery, but to be honest I was ready.  I was never the type to just sit around and binge watch television shows.  Believe it or not, sitting on the couch for 5-6 hours a day gets old real quick for someone who is used to being on the go all the time. My recovery has had its phases.  First there was the hospital followed by coming home and laying relatively low for a few days.  Days filled with walks, and midday naps.  Then I got a little more freedom and was able to exercise in moderation, drive and I wasn't as fatigued.  Every phase made me a little stronger and after 8 weeks I was ready for some sense of normalcy. On Monday morning I woke up, shaved and showered and in the infamous words of Barney Stinson I "suited up"! ...

We've all heard the saying, "you must crawl before you walk and walk before you run".  Now, to an infant or even a toddler this saying makes all the sense in the world,  to most people starting out in any new endeavor it makes sense.  However, for a Type A personality who enjoys instant gratification that saying STINKS!!! The worst part about it is that it doesn't seem to apply to everything.  Last weekend was Labor Day so on Thursday to kick off the long weekend I took Jordan for a run.  Nothing too stressful, a few miles of run/walk(running for 2 minutes, walking for 1 minute).  We started with a walk to warm up and then we were off.  Almost immediately my heart rate was very high and I felt like the 2 minutes would never end.  To say I was relieved when my watch beeped indicating the first walk break would be an understatement.  A year ago I was running 20 miles as part of my marathon training and here a year later I'm sucking wind runnin...

The great thing about this new journey for me is that I get a lot of "firsts".  No, they're not realfirst time experiences in the truest sense of the word, but on this journey to Maine they are firsts.  The coolest thing about these little milestones to me is watching the progress over time.  It's like when a runner starts out and every week they go a little farther or every race is a little faster even now that sense of accomplishment is incredible, it's a rush that definitely helps to fuel the fire. On Tuesday August 22, 2017 I put my proverbial toe in the water, literally, to go for my first swim post surgery.  In the weeks leading up to surgery the pool became my stress relief, my happy place if you will.  It was the only exercise I was allowed to do and therefore I made it my mission to use that opportunity to get better.  On July 23rd, the day before surgery I was in the pool to swim a mile and now here I was a month later getting back in.  It w...

So, today was a big day for me.  Today was my post op visit with Dr. Sen at NYU just three and a half weeks after brain surgery number 2. While I was definitely optimistic going into the appointment I would say cautiously optimistic might be a better description. Thus far my recovery has been pretty uneventful.  No pain meds since 3 weeks ago, yes that's right, no pain meds since 3 days post surgery.  I was up and walking quickly while at the hospital and since returning home I have continued to walk, averaging between 4-5 miles a day.  Basically, I've done everything that I promised I would, most importantly I'd listen to my body and know when to back off. Despite feeling great, there was always the possibility that I would be told that I still had to wait to get back to life as I knew it. First, I was seen by Mary, the nurse practitioner, who looked at my incisions before removing the stitches from my head.  Step 1 ✅ Next Dr. Sen came in.  After goin...

In 2014 just 2 years after the initial surgery I was informed that it looked like the cyst that they had "totally removed" was growing back.  This wasn't a complete shock given the nature of the cyst.  At that time Dr. Sen said that we would continue to do an annual MRI to monitor the growth and decide when and if a second surgery would be necessary. 2015's scan showed slight growth, but it was deemed inconsequential, marathon training was just getting underway and I was given the green light to continue training to take on the streets of NYC. It was in the summer of 2016 that things changed....... So, I am a founding member of the greatest running club in existence, The De Novo Harriers.  Hands down the most ridiculously supportive group of people you will ever meet.  Some might even describe them as "cult like" until they experience it for themselves and drink the proverbial Kool Aid. In the summer of 2016 marathon training was in full swing, early mor...

So, what is the real beginning here?  Was it when they found my original cyst as a young adult.   Was it when they assured me it was benign and not changing? I guess any of those would qualify, but to me the real beginning was August 25th, 2012 when the cyst ruptured!!! Hearing the surgeon say that there were 3 possible outcomes, stroke, seizure or chemical meningitis.  Apparently I had chosen wisely or someone else I should say chose wisely for me, chemical meningitis it was and clearly the least severe of the 3. I was told that the damage had been done and with my sister getting married in October there would be no harm in waiting,  so we waited.  The headaches were managed and I went on with my life, December 11,  2012 I underwent a right frontal craniotomy, fancy language for what the doctor would call "minor brain surgery".  For the record, my definition of minor was slightly different, it involved him doing it on someone else an me watching!!! ...