Luck must turn!

Vermont didn't go so well. Quick summary: 1 half day skiing for kids, sub-0 temps, 0 skiing for me, 1 trip to emergency room for my daughter, 3 stitches, little to no exercise, little to no rest. Hmmm...I know what I forgot... Last night my daughter puked ALL over the house. When do they learn to run to the toilet to do such things? All in all, it's been a full week so far. My wife is away on business this week, and these things seem to always happen when I'm alone with the kids. Wouldn't be exciting otherwise I guess.

On a positive note, I went to a meeting in my town last night for the beginning of a biking/triathlon club. The turnout was huge, but my guess is that most people there were more the occasional, social biking type...nothing like the hard-core, blood, sweat and tears triathlete that I like to believe I am.....Right! It is good to know that there are other maniacs, other than myself, who have an interest in this crazy sport, so something good should come out of it.

Training has been a joke lately. I'm not really sure how else to put it. In the last week I've done very little. Granted, a good part of this is because of my nagging leg injuries. But, I have no excuse not to get my lazy ass out there and do something.. anything! I attempted a 3.5 mile run yesterday, to see how the ole IT band would feel. I literally ran at 10 min/mile pace, and still, like clockwork, at 2 miles the pain kicked in. I'm starting to think I should take a month off from running to let things heal properly. It'll kill me to do so, but the last thing I want to do is drag this out into my actual Tri season. I will focus on swimming and as much biking/spinning/trainer work that I can if I do follow through on this. I am starting to think that there is a chance that my bike setup may be causing some of these issues. I made an appointment at the bike shop to be re-fit next week to check it out. I've really only been riding for a year, and on this bike for 6-7 months. Ive got to believe I am riding differently now then when I could barely push out 10 miles a year ago. Also, towards the end of the summer I added some clip-on aero-bars myself. God only knows if I did that right!

The focus now is GET HEALTHY. I currently have 3 tris on the calendar: Ridgefield Tri (sprint dist), NYC Tri (Olympic), and the big daddy The Timberman 70.3 (half-ironman). I'm hoping to add 2 more at some point along with some running and biking races for training purposes along the way. A lot to chew on while my legs feel like crap.

Working through pain

Go figure. I am in what is considered the "off-season" for triathlon here in the Northeast, and my training has not been nearly intense as it was months ago, yet I am plagued by injuries. I am really ok working through pain. My first half-marathon, which I ran in October, I completed knowing that 2 miles in, a nagging IT band injury would rear its ugly head, and I knowingly ran the race anyway. If you haven't experienced IT band syndrome, it is not fun. For me, it feels as though someone is stabbing your knee with an ice pick! That injury went away within a couple weeks. However, here I am again, with another IT injury, in the other leg. This is coming off some weird bruising type pain in my other knee that has been lingering for a month now. Also, my on and off relationship with achilles tendonidis. Bottom line, getting old sucks.

My wife and I have "sports-guru guy" who we see for things of this nature. He is technically a chiropractor, but he specializes in active release, and that fact that he is an iron-man himself, helps me to have faith in his knowledge. I went to see him yesterday. He stressed the importance of stretching, which for the first time in my life, I'm starting the deem as important. For now, I'll do everything but run. Running seems to intensify the pain. As much as I actually miss running 3x a week (yes, I actually said that!), I think it's important that I give the legs a rest from it. We are off the Vermont today for some skiing... We'll see how the old legs feel doing that.

And away we go...

Welcome to my blog. I guess that is what this is called. What is a blog, really? A forum to make your thoughts, antidotes, dreams, fears, etc public? I'm not really sure if that's my goal. I suppose I never really thought I'd have a need for a blog until it seemed like a good idea after completing my first year of triathlon. At worst, from a selfish standpoint, maybe a blog will hold me more accountable in my training. And best case, who knows, maybe someone will relate to something I put down here and actually enjoy reading this. I've read a few blogs as of recent, relating to triathlon. Some are informative. Some are entertaining. Some are hilarious. And, some, just plain suck. I'm hoping mine won't morph into the latter, but if it does, I certainly won't lose sleep over it. I'm not quite sure what I'll be throwing down here. I guess I'll spew it as it comes. One thing I'm sure of; after my first year being involved in this crazy sport...There is a lot to tell!

I guess that brings me to the next question: How in the world did a 40 year old guy, married with two kids, and generally out of shape, not only discover, but become hooked addicted to the sport of TRIATHLON? It's probably too long a story to put down right now. Suffice to say, what started a as goal to complete just one sprint distance tri, has become somewhat of an obsession for not only me, but for my wife as well. While some are addicted to religion, drugs, power, money, sex, you name the vice....I guess I am a born-again triathlete. I know what you must be thinking; wow, you must be very good! Quite the contrary. I am what they call very middle-of-road. Despite my aspirations for greatness, I have no natural ability when it comes to swimming, biking, or running. However, I have been somewhat surprised how much I've enjoyed pushing myself over the last year. However, my results so far have been average at best. Im hoping to improve on this in year two, but we shall see.

This is a start. Something to put down, and break the ice so to speak. Going forward, I hope to share some of my training, ups and downs, and certainly some of my experiences over the past year. I have once again raised the bar in terms of goals and races for this new year (thanks, in part, to the encouragement of my wife who is in this as deep as me, if not deeper!). I think that maybe it is the driving, the pushing, the raising of the bar that I enjoy...