Hi readers…sorry it’s been such a long time since I’ve blogged again. And BTW…once again congrats to my new BF for his awesome half marathon time of 1:37:57 at the Austin Livestrong Half. And good luck in advance at IM Galvaston 70.3. You’ll do awesome cutie.

I’ve been busy with training for Hyannis Marathon on an injured knee. This was supposed to be an ‘A’ race and I was going to try to use it to qualify for the Boston Marathon in 2014. Given the shape of my knee (runner’s knee and it will heal) and the horrible wet and cold weather we had on Sunday the 24th, there was no way I could have qualified for Boston. It was my first marathon and I finished it…so I’ll take it and just beat my time of 4:37 next time under better conditions hopefully.

My marathon went something like this: Tony told me to stay in or at around a 9 min/mile pace. I started off between an 8:30 and 9 min/mile pace for the first 5 miles and then kept it at around 9-9:15 until around mile 13.1 when the half marathon finished….soon after, I found myself headed closer to a 10 min/mile. I was running strong and non-stop until I reached mile 21….then fail. My knee started to bug me. I slowed down to a walk for a full mile. BIG MISTAKE! But there was nothing I could do. At this point I was soaking wet and freezing cold, teeth chattering. I mentally told myself that I had 4.2 miles left to run and if I was going to finish without becoming hypothermic, I best pick up the pace to as much of a run as I could. I also wanted to manage to do this run in under 5 hours and I realized I was just wasting time now. Miraculously, I was able to pick up a pace to at least an 11 min/mile as pathetic as it was. I was able to maintain about that for the duration of the race as my legs refused to carry me any faster. My fingers were frozen to the point that at mile 25, I had to take out my ear buds to hear what one of the race volunteers had said to me, and had to have them help me put it back in my ear. I couldn’t grasp the ear bud with my frozen hand. Somehow in the last quarter mile, I was able to pick up a sprint to the finish…..adrenaline I suppose will do that to you and warm thoughts of defrosting, dry clothes, a bagel and the indoors. At 4 hours and 37 minutes, I crossed the finish line! I was tired but seriously happy!

I limped inside to the expo to find my friend Cam sitting there waiting for me. He was incredibly apologetic for missing me, but thought I was going to be in around a half an hour earlier. With my teeth still chattering, he swapped hats and bought me an early b-day gift. My hat was soaked from the past 4 plus hours of being outside in the rain. The hat said “I thought they said Rum.” It was awesome. I love my friends and family.

Post race my knee was sore and bugging me, but that was completely expected. It will heal given time and Tony says that the next few weeks will be recovery from the marathon. It’s a good thing since once I was able to take off my sneakers, I realized that half the toes on my right foot had turned completely black and I lost some of the skin on my left foot. Having said that, I did go to the pool and swim on Tuesday and did a workout on the Arc Trainer today (Wednesday). My friends and family keep asking me if I’m sure I want to be an “Ironman?” I tell them…yup….bring on the post-Ironman pain. This is all par for the course. No Pain No Gain!!!!

This past weekend I went out for nearly 11 miles. I can feel myself getting faster. I’m loving every moment of my training…except, my shin has a sharp pain in it. It’s been a little over a week. As soon as I took off the compression tights Saturday, I was in pain. Tony has me backing off and running in the water for now. Spinning, Rowing, Swimming, and the Elliptical have a lot less impact on my legs. I’m hoping that it will be fine by this weekend if I ice it and do the exercises the PT gave me. I hate set-backs. I’m not going to let this stand in the way of progress though. I guess it was only a matter of time.

I need to be better for Friday. I’m doing a blood lactate threshold test over at Marathon Physical Therapy. I need to be able to give it my all. Hyannis Marathon will be here before I know it, and if I’m going to pull a Boston qualifying time, I need to be building up both my speed and my distance. Tony knows what he’s doing, so I trust that if I follow his plan, he’ll get me there regardless of whether or not I have a minor setback for a week. I’d rather not be out the entire Tri Season or even part of it.

The holidays have been wonderful so far. I got a $100 gift card to REI from my Step-Mom. This means that I will be able to get the Cyclops Fluid 2 Trainer Kit in the Spring when I get my dividend back. It will be pretty sweet! I also need to purchase a pair of aerobars and a new pair of running shoes. This sport is not inexpensive, but it is well worth it. Triathlon is more than just a sport, it’s a lifestyle.

In other news, I’m trying to hop back on the band wagon with the low glycemic diet to try to finish getting back down to my race weight. I had no desserts except for strawberries at my families holiday party, and one pumpkin martini which my Uncle made for me. He refilled me, but I refused to drink anymore of it. I swear the whole thing was alcohol and I really can’t tolerate that much. I’m not sure I even had a whole martini, but I was feeling it.

I updated my race schedule to include 2013 and 2014. Tony and I still haven’t planned out any Sprint or Olympic Tris or other runs or bike rides yet. We’ve just planned out my “A” race list. If anybody wants to recommend anything, feel free to comment or drop me a line. I was thinking about doing the Cranberry Tri Fest and the Season Opener. We’ll see. I’m still trying to get my friend Jim to do a sprint tri. Anyhow, those are what I’ve been thinking about.

Oh….on another note…small rant…why can’t Garmin put a Powersave Mode on the Forerunner 910XT that just tells the time (big-not in the lower right-hand corner). This watch is pretty cool and lasts 2o hours, but you have to power it off or that counts towards the 20 hours of battery power. There is NO POWERSAVE mode. Also, there is no regular setting to turn this thing into a watch. Nevertheless, I do love the watch and would recommend it. I just don’t understand how there top of the line watch is missing this feature. Garmin, why? Your other models act as just watches and have powersave modes? Is anyone else out there equally as frustrated with Garmin?

Well…I’ll let everyone know how this week goes on my bum leg. I plan to run 5-7 miles this Saturday. I know it’s a lot less than I’ve been doing, but I’m taking it easy this week. I’ll resume at full force next week.

Even though I was on vacation from work, I did not take a vacation from training…..no…I pushed myself harder. It was a little more relaxing though, since I didn’t have to be at work right after.  I did a couple extra spin classes in addition to my normal training schedule. Tony is also starting to up the distances and intensities of the workouts. He told me that my long-slow weekend runs are now going to be 9-13 miles, and when we get into January/February, he will be increasing them to as much as 20 miles since I will be preparing to run Hyannis in a qualifying time for Boston. This is exciting that he thinks I can qualify…especially since this will be my first Full Marathon. I really hope I can live up to Tony’s hopes for me! I know I can do this!

This weekend was yet another fun-packed weekend… Friday night, my friends Jon and Carolyn went with me to see our friend Jesse perform with the MIT Gilbert and Sullivan Players in a performance of Pirates of Penzance. A good time was had by all and I think we all agree that the G&S Players did a spectacular rendition of Pirates!

The next morning I got up early to meet the Oak Square Running Club once again fopr my long-slow run. Tony had an 8 miler planned for me this weekend, and Kate and Ivan both wanted to do a longer run. I believe Jacque also decided to do a longer run, but he and a few other people did a slightly different route. We wound up doing 8.56 miles along the Charles in Watertown and Cambridge and back up to Brighton. Kate was a lot faster than me this week, but for a slow run, I maintained a decent pace. We were out for an hour and 19 minutes. Instead of cold snowy weather this week, we got to run in warm rain. It seems to be a trend…running in precipitation of some sort. Oh well…rain, snow or shine, I’ll be out there.

After I arrived back home in Woburn, my friend Ethan (who lives in Oak Square where I just came from), called me and asked me if I would be his date to his cousin’s wedding so that he wouldn’t kill him. There has been a lot of tension for some time between the two of them. I changed and drove back to Oak Square. We went to the ceremony and then bailed early…the two of us went to Team Velox Rota’s Ugly Sweater XMAS Party…in formal wear.

In the AM Sunday, I did my Brick Workout and Yoga as usual and then returned home to get ready to head into town once again. Craig “Crowie” Alexander, three time Ironman World Champion and two time 70.3 Ironman World Champion was giving a lecture, Q&A and doing a book signing  at the W Hotel in downtown Boston. Crowie pretty much affirmed everything Coach Tony was saying about training. He stressed how important indoor trainer sessions were, speed work and strength/core work. He went on about how important strengthening all of the muscles in the core that attached to everything else including the legs was for endurance athletes. He said if you don’t have strength there, it made things a lot more difficult. He also answered a lot of questions about training and race nutrition. Most of what he said was not a surprise to me, since Tony is always saying the same things. It is nice to hear these things re-iterated by a a professional Triathlete that has been successful and in the circuit for a while though.

After the lecture, we waited in a very long line to get his autograph and a photo taken. Crowie was not an ass that was full of himself like a lot of pro-athletes. He was a very nice down to earth family guy who lived a slightly different type of lifestyle traveling back and forth between Boulder, CO and Australia where he hails from every 6 months while training and traveling a lot for races. He has 2 children and a third on the way. I don’t know how he has the time…but where there’s a will, there’s a way.  I picked-up a second autograph for John, one of Tony’s other athletes who lives in Austin, TX. He was jealous that we got to see Crowie. I figured it was the least I could do for him since he couldn’t be there with us. He was very thrilled that I got an autograph for him.

Once again, sorry I haven’t exactly been faithful about blogging every week. I took a staycation from work last week and trained a lot, and caught up on holiday shopping, gift making, and friends. In the morning of December 1st, I went out running with the Oak Square Running Club. That day was the first day that the club had met up again. I got a chance to run with Coach Iron Tony for the first time in a while. It was snowing! We went out for 4.08 miles since Sunday I was going to be running with TMIRCE (The Most Informal Running Club Ever) to help them defend their title from last year at the Cambridge Yulefest 5K.

That’s Ivan with his arms thrown in the air. Tony and I did a little extra distance. This photo was taken just as we caught up with the rest of the group. We passed them and Ivan was like…where did you guys come from…good times.

In the afternoon I went back into town with my friend Jim and we joined my MS Cycling Team (Team Velox Rota) for their annual 12 Bars of XMAS charity pub crawl. It was a major success and we raised a couple thousand dollars! I was thrilled that things worked out, as I helped Michael, our team captain to organize it. A good time was had by all.

The next morning I woke up bright and early to get myself over to Harvard Square. I went into the 5K race with the attitude that this was a “C” race and just for fun, but came out without even trying with a PR of 25:23 for a 5K. I figured I could have pushed myself a bit harder and shaved off about 2 more minutes if I had tried. All of Tony’s speed work with me has paid off. TMIRCE defended it’s title and won a Yulefest Beer Mug once again this year. We then stayed for the party and went over Zack’s house for a potluck. A good time was had by all.  We even all wore critter hats…

Yulefest in Cambridge

I realize it’s been over a week since I last blogged. I really don’t know how many people are actually following this. I’m having a lot of fun in the off season with these Obstacle Runs and 5 and 10Ks. My legs might be taking a beating, but I feel stronger and I am having a blast! Last weekend I did the Rebel Race in Haverhill, MA. I did a rope traverse that bruised my leg up and down…after a day it didn’t hurt a bit though. I don’t know how many people approached me when I was wearing fitness clothes or while I was by the pool to ask what happened and to make sure that someone wasn’t beating me…lol. I told them I did it to myself and that it looked far worse then it felt.

I decided that I need to show people exactly how I did it…since the Rebel Race posted photos, I posted on my Swim. Bike. Run. Repeat. Facebook page the photo of me doing the rope traverse.  The Sunday after, I did my brick workout and then Monday I did Spinning and Swimming. My week was still full up with Tony sanctioned workouts. Thursday I had a Fartlek workout…this is Swedish for “Speedplay”. It consisted of me running at 8.3 mph for 6 minutes, then going down to 7.1 mph for 6 minutes, walking for 1 minute and then repeating this four times. I almost made it three times before my phone (which I was using to listen to music) flew off the treadmill. I decided that my body had reached the point of failure. Oh well…next time. This Thursday, Thanksgiving, he has an outside Fartlek workout planned for me while I’m in NY.

Anyhow, here is the photo of me doing the rope traverse at the Rebel Race:

So this weekend I had a planning meeting for Team Velox Rota, my Bike MS Cycling Team. I am helping them to coordinate some fundraising events and in turn, the team helps us to reach our minimum fundraising goals. Currently, I have helped to put together the 12 Bars of XMas Charity Pub Crawl December 1st. The team is planning on a Singles Auction, and possibly a Casino Night and some Training Rides as well. To sign up for the Pub Crawl Dec 1st, please go to our Event Brite page and sign up. I believe it is $15…it gets you entered into the raffle and our exclusive Elf Hat. http://12barsofchristmas.eventbrite.com/#. It should be a lot of fun.

I went from there to hang out with some of my TMIRCE (The Most Informal Running Club Ever) friends at a pre-party before the Informal Runners Summit at the W in Boston. A good time was had by all. And yes…I wore a dress. It was a whole floor of extremely fit people dressed up, drinking, dancing and listening to live music…oh and posing with a cardboard standup of Justin Bieber…yes, the Biebs! A good time was had by all.

I think I got home around 2 am to Woburn, went straight to sleep and slept until 10 am. Since I didn’t have to do my brick workout in the AM, I made myself some almond flour pancakes and got myself ready for the Spartan Time Trial at Fenway. I met my friend Jim over at his house at noon and we practiced our spear throwing skills. We took off, parked in Newton Centre and took the Greenline over to Fenway. You could feel the excitement at the park in the air…

Our wave went off at 3 pm. We started with 11 burpees, table tops and then a bear crawl under strings on the pavement near the bleachers around Fenway. We ran up and down through the bleacher area interrupted by rails, walls, cargo nets, wall traverses, lifting jugs of water, cement blocks, a spear throw, a ball throw, over under obstacles, a rope climb, a rope lift, hopping up stairs with a band around both legs, box jumps, dodging gladiators, rowing machines, and my favorite task was carrying a 60 pound sandbag over my shoulders up and down and zig zagging through the bleachers of the park. Oh…I forgot to mention the burpees…there were lots and lots of burpees. Everytime you failed an obstacle or decided not to do it, you had to drop and do 30 burpees. I believe I totaled 171 burpees for the day. They really slowed me down. There was an exclusive burpee station below the green monster and another station were we had to jump rope with a really thick rope. There was yet another station for push-up and releases…I had a blast doing it and it was amazing getting the opportunity to run at Fenway.

Here is a photo of me doing the box jump (Jim finished a few minutes before me and managed to capture me doing the box jump at the end) and another of me being a complete dweeb at the end of the race posing for Jim.

Box Jump at Fenway Spartan

Super Dweeb finishes!

Here are the nifty finisher medals that they gave us at the end…they must have spent a pretty penny getting these made up for the over 5000 people that participated in the Spartan Time Trial on Both Saturday and Sunday.

Front of the Finisher Medal.

If I don’t do another burpee for a while, I’ll be all set…but I am eager to do another one of these Spartan Races again. I think that this race was a lot better organized than any of the other obstacle races that I’ve done lately. I do have to say the Rugged Maniac in Southwick was a fun course…I got so muddy and wet and it was loads of fun. Anyhow for now, I’m Spartan Strong…Aroo…you’ll now at the finish line as they say!

Back of the Finisher Medal. Pretty Nifty, huh?

Hello fellow readers. So my right upper hamstring has been aching for about a week. I’ve been stretching, doing yoga and dynamic warm-ups…and pushing through my workouts. I am attempting to still push myself harder. I won’t settle for mediocre. I have hit failure a couple of times this week before completing workouts, but intervaled the rest of the workout or decreased the elevation on the treadmill. Today in the pool, I did my 500 yard swim drill warm up followed by 10 x 100 yard sprint splits with a 60 second break in between getting increasingly faster until I was going as fast as I could possibly go…then my normal cool down 200 yard IM kick. I have to say that this workout was more difficult then I anticipated. I was extremely winded by split 10, even with breaks. I prevailed though…I think that my splits were pretty good…not Michael Phelps good, but good enough for me. I was working really hard.

My spin classes are getting cut throat. You have to sign up 2 days in advance. On Monday, I went to sign up for today after my spin class, and there were only three spots left before it went to the wait list. I may have to get up at 5:30am on Saturday just to log-in and secure my spot for the Monday class. I believe about 38-40 people have been signing up for 23 bikes. I got there Monday about 15 minutes early, and the bike that I usually use was already taken (there is something about the bike that just works for me better than the other ones…and it is closer to one of the fans). Today, I got up at 4:45am and was out the door by 5:00am. I got to the YMCA at 5:10am and got my spin bike. They told us today that they are getting rid of the old bikes in another week, and replacing them with 30 new bikes. It should be interesting with the cold weather fast approaching.

You might ask why I want to get into Amelia’s spin class specifically? Well, she might have questionable tastes in politicians, but she is a cyclist and she really pushes everyone in the class. In fact, at times she puts people on the spot to make sure they are between the RPMs that she laid out for that ride. Unfortunately, today at gear 22, I was unable to sustain 70 RPMs for a minute…I fell down to 40-45 RPMs…and boy did I push hard. Oh well, maybe next time.

Tomorrow, I will attempt to run 30 minutes at 7.5 mph without stopping. If I fail, I will interval the rest. YPump was unfortunately cancelled for tomorrow. Saturday, I have another Mud Run, the Rebel Race. And the following weekend, I’m doing the Spartan Sprint at Fenway. Sunday, I will be doing my normal brick workout (spin with Chris, followed by a 5K run off the bike).  I was thinking of doing the Cambridge Yule 5K with TMIRCE (The Most Informal Running Club Ever) on December 3rd. We’ll see.

This weekend I will also be going out for tea/lunch with another athlete who asked me out on a date. It should be interesting. I really thought she was a neat person the other night when when we met. We seemed to hit it off and she knows that I’m not looking for anything serious at the moment…but hey, if she’s the right person, you never know. I am not willing to compromise my training schedule and my dreams for another person. They will just to take me for who I am. I will continue to train and push myself harder.

I realize it’s been over a week since my last blog entry. Sorry for that if anyone is actually following my blog. I’m new to this whole blogging thing. Anyways, training is going great. Tony is turning up the heat a little I feel like! I’m loving every minute of it. Last Saturday, before hurricane Sandy, I ran the Devil’s Chase 6.66 miler is Salem, MA. I didn’t try to race it, instead I just ran it at a casual pace. It took me around 59 minutes. I came in 401 out of 1200 people without even trying. Not too shabby for not trying to race. The costumes were great and the Zombie dance after cracked me up. Sunday, I did my normal brick workout…pushing myself in Chris’ spin class.

Sandy didn’t hit me hard. I didn’t even lose power (my office building did for a few days).  I worked remotely from my apartment. The YMCA cancelled all morning classes Monday and Tuesday…which was annoying to say the least. Tony told me to do the recumbent bike followed by the elliptical for an hour to mimic my spin class, and then I went down to the pool to swim 2200 yards. Tuesday I did my normal running routine, but TRX was cancelled. Wednesday finally returned to normal. I went to Amelia’s spin class followed by doing a 2700 yard swim work out in the pool. In the evening I went running by myself for 2 miles at Horn Pond dodging a few very large, old trees that were uprooted during Sandy and blocking the path around the pond. I just saw them as obstacles to overcome…

Thursday (yesterday), I did Y Pump for strength and challenged myself by adding more weight this time around. Then I did my Thursday threshold run. Tony scheduled me for half hour anaerobic sprint intervals on the treadmill with an incline. The first 5 were flat at 8.6 mph (7 min mile pace) for 30 secs with a minute rest in between, the second 5 were at an incline of 5 (same speed etc.), the last 10 intervals were at an incline of 10. I made it all the way through to the last 3 sprint intervals at a 10 incline and was overheating/ couldn’t breath, so I took the elevation back down to 5 so that I didn’t go flying off the treadmill. I swear if I had left it at an incline of 10, then I would have fallen off. These sprints were definitely anaerobic (without oxygen) and my RPE towards the end was going through the roof…as well as my Heart Rate I’m sure. Tony told me that at intervals that short, there isn’t a way of measuring your heart rate. The monitor doesn’t have time to register in that short a period of time. He told me to go by the RPE scale.

Last night I went into Boston to go see Sharon Needles, winner of last season’s Ru Paul’s Drag Race. The club was packed…I felt like I was sweating almost as much as when I work out being that closely packed in with other people. The show was awesome. My friend Carolyn and I went to go see her perform at Club Cafe as part of Carolyn’s week long 50th B-Day Celebration.

Tonight Carolyn will be performing at Radio in Somerville. All of the proceeds from the cover charges will go to the Harbor to the Bay AIDS ride which we both have been riding for several years. It is a 125 mile one day bike ride from Trinity Church in Boston to the Harbor Hotel in Provincetown on the Cape. It just passed in September…another great ride, but she is still trying to raise money for the ride. Friday’s are my rest day…I always feel lazy…like a slug. I hate not doing anything. It’s funny how once you get into a routine, if you stop doing it for one day, you feel like one of those people who just vegges on the couch in front of the TV. I know that this is far from the truth and that my muscles need the rest and time to repair…but still.

Tomorrow morning I plan on going out running with TMIRCE (The Most Informal Running Club Ever) for an 8 mile run. I think they are doing 3-6, but I’ll just run the rest on my own. Tony planned 8 miles, so I plan running 8 miles. He’s the boss…I want Ironman Lake Placid…he is going to get me there. I’ll let him control my life- or at least my workouts, for now. He’s really a great coach and great guy. He seems to know what he’s talking about.

And finally, Sunday…back to my brick work out (spin with Chris and 3.1 miles running). Swim, Bike, Run, Repeat.

Saturday I went out for the longest run I’ve done in quite some time. I went out for 8 miles with my friend Jim. I felt great! I was able to not only run 8 miles, but I felt like I could have kept going. It was a beautiful morning and a lot of people were out running. We ran from his house in Winchester, up through Medford and all around the Mystic Lakes and back through Winchester Center past the farmers market. The run was beautiful and fairly flat. I like trail running better…less pounding on the knees. All the same it was a great run. In the evening, Jim and I got back together with a meetup and went to the “Haunting of Hammond Castle”. It was a high budget haunted house and was a lot of fun. Then all of us went out to Captain Carlos.

Click Here to see the route we ran on Saturday.

Sunday I got up for a “Late” Spin Class. I did the 7:15 spin with Chris at the North Suburban YMCA. He kicked my butt with high gears and telling us to increase the RPMs…I managed to keep up, but was sweating profusely…as I stretched out after spinning, I transitioned quickly and ran upstairs and ran on the treadmill for 3.1 miles. Another great workout. I was a little tight after both days, but I foam rolled/ took a lacrosse ball to my legs and back later in the day. It probably didn’t help being in the car for a couple hours later Sunday. My friend Jon and I went to VT to look at Foliage. It was a little past peak season, but we had a great day nevertheless.

My muscles are a little less achy after spinning and swimming this morning thank god. I feel ready for another week of sweating, swimming, cycling and running.

The body is capable of some pretty amazing things if you push it! I never thought I would be embarking on this journey to become an Ironman! I feel strong and pretty amazing.  I’m ready to have a great 6.66 mile run this Saturday in Salem. I’m running the Devil’s Chase 6.66 miler…devil horns and all!