Check this out: With my new bike and just a 53 tooth chain ring (no long crank arms yet), my average speed increased 1.8 mph over 20 miles. So what, right? What’s 1.8 mph mean in the grand scheme? If nothing else changed, I’d finish biking 35 minutes earlier. I may even have time to eat lunch before I have to run. Run, get it?
The long awaited, much talked about crank arms are coming tomorrow (as long as UPS delivers them), and my ride on Saturday will be the test! I can’t wait. If I can add 1 more . . . → Read More: speed demon (almost)
On Sunday Chris and Steve took me to lake Wallenpaupak in the Poconos to try out my wetsuit for the first time in open water. Chris happened upon this lake like he finds everything else….. and I have no idea how. He showed me a picture of it on Friday and I have to admit it was a little intimidating. It’s a huge lake. There are three or four companies that rent boats that you can take on the lake. The plan was to rent one of the boats, and have them follow next to me in the boat as . . . → Read More: The first time I….
Where to start….. Firstly the 200 mm crank arms won’t fit on my bike. The design of the bike has the chain stays flaring out to a point that hits the crank arm at the very end. Great! I waited almost 2 months for my bike and the crank arms won’t work with it. I called the manufacturer to come up with a solution and the only thing that can make it work on my bike is to go with shorter crank arms. What the heck. Secondly, a bolt in the front derailer won’t hold the cable to switch gears . . . → Read More: new bike —- issues
My wetsuit is called a Tsunami FS Triathlon Wetsuit. I can’t wait to test it out in open water! Here is a picture of it:
Looks impressive too, huh?
It seems like everyday I have a different favorite of the three sports. Today it was swimming (though running in this perfect weather wasn’t too horrible either). Since I get up really early to go swimming , it’s getting increasingly tougher to roll out of bed. It’s been really cold and the sun doesn’t even think of rising for a while. It feels like the middle of the night. But once . . . → Read More: Sounds impressive
With Thursday will arrive (I hope) my new ride. It’s a Fuji D6. My brother Steve says it doesn’t even look like a 10 speed, it looks VERY fast (like a G6)(my parentheses not his). John at TriCountyBikes.com is picking it up for me tonight, putting my longer crank arms and bigger sprocket on in the morning, then I’m ready to ride. You can’t imagine how bad I want to ride it. It seems like a month has passed since I ordered it. The Fuji race team techs are putting it together (so I didn’t mind waiting for . . . → Read More: Like a D6
It’s too early, it’s too cold, it’s too hard, it’s too much work, it’s too much on your body. It’s too mentally taxing. It’s too physically draining. It’s too scary. It takes too much time. It’s too expensive. There is too much travel involved. I’ve thought of some of these things and some have been implanted into my head from people I know.
Though I’ve been pretty good auditing things I allow through my mind, some still creep in. I understand that some people may think some or all of the above. I may have at one point. It’s true that . . . → Read More: it IS too
I don’t have a running or consistent biking partner to push me when I get tired, but I do have the Schuylkill River Trail ‘partners’. This past weekend I was racing everyone on the trail (unbeknownst to them) to keep me motivated to keep going. I was certainly not the fastest one on the trail, but I did keep up with some pretty fast people for a while. I even passed one on my bike, after catching up to him, going faster than I ever have for such a long stretch. I unfortunately ran out of steam 1/2 mile . . . → Read More: ghost racers
If I actually slept well in June of 2010, I wouldn’t have a bike, and I certainly still would not know how to swim. That morning after I made the decision to fly to Phoenix in November 2010 to sign up for ironman 2011, I put on my sneaker (weren’t called running shoes yet) and walked around the block. I don’t think I walked very fast or very far, but I felt like it was “something”. I wasn’t very consistent with walking or jogging over the next few months, because I wasn’t sure that I would actually get a slot . . . → Read More: next thing you know, you’re running
IM…I said.
There is a life guard at the Kroc center that calls me IM, since I told her I was training for my first ever ironman. Her attitude is to act as if I already accomplished it to get me in the mindset that doing so is inevitable. I have no doubt in my mind that I will finish the race on November 20, 2011 before the stroke of midnight. The only unknown is how long before 12 o’clock I will cross the line. I’d really like to do be so fast that I qualify for the world championship . . . → Read More: IM…. I said
September 20, 2011: I have 2 months to the ironman, but just about a month of buid-up training to go. I can’t continually build up distances in November and have to take at least a week or two before it to ease off a bit. That’s the theory anyway. I don’t know how I’m going to build up those distances in such a short period. The furthest I’ve swam was 1 mile. The furthest I’ve biked was 112 miles and the furthest I’ve run was 15 miles. Even if I could do all my furthests in one day and I’m still . . . → Read More: 2 more months left!
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Vitals Stats 
- Date: 1/23/2012
- Age: 40
- Height: 6’4
- Weight: 185 lbs
- Swimming experience:I learned how to swim last year.
- Cycling experience: I got my first bike since I was 12 years old....last year.
- Running experience: Arizona marathon 2008, Ironman Arizona 2012
- My left hip, knee and ankle STILL pop with every step
- Running Totals (starting January 23, 2012)
- Sit-ups: 5200
- Hrs Blasting Quads: 51.5
- Push-ups: 920
- Miles Run: 360
- Miles Biked: 1545
- Hrs in Water: 27
- Hours training: 233
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