Brain Surgery to Half Ironman

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...