A good week and a beautiful bike ride

With the bike leg clearly my weakest link in a triathlon, I long ago made a committment to train more on the bike and to get more long rides in. Thus far, this year, none of it had happened. Finally this week I followed through. After a regular week, I headed out thos morning from Brooklyn to Piermont and back.. Unfortunately my friend Eric who set out to ride with me was forced to turn around just 16 miles into the ride, at the foot of the George Washington Bridge, with a broken bike chain. But the stretch from the GW to Piermont is pretty much a cycling highway with hundreds of riders heading out each weekend day.

The ride turned out great, the weather fantastic and the views on this ride spectacular, especially while crossing two of the countries most beautiful bridges, the Brooklyn Bridge and the George Washington Bridge. With over 4 hours of cycling covering about 64 miles, this was by far my longest ride all year. Obviously I will need a lot more like this one to get in shape for IM Arizona, but for the early summer Olympic distance races this was a good start.

Another Trip and a Brick

Time flies. During the last two weeks I enjoyed another brief trip , this time home to Vienna for some work related meetings. While in Vienna, I did not have much chance to work out, but I did manage to join a swim workout with my buddies at http://www.kraulquappen.at/ , Vienna's gay swim team. Once back in Brooklyn, last week actually tuned out to be one of the best training weeks thus far this season. I was able to log a total of 6.30hrs, (I know less than the bare minimum in most training plans), but just about where I want to be at this stage. To cap it off, yesterday morning, I did a solid brick workout in Prospect Park of about 24 miles on the bike, followed by about 7.5 miles running. All of it at a steady and even pace , and most importantly, feeling quite good during it. With about three weeks to until my first Olympic distance triathlon, I feel fairly good about where I am at this stage.

Brooklyn Half-Marathon

About a quarter mile into yesterday's Brooklyn Half, just when I was briefly turning my head to glimpse at the Ocean to our left, I found myself slipping and sprawled out on the Coney Island Boardwalk. Even with this mishap, the beginning of the run was just about perfect, maybe too perfect. Thousands of runners and a great venue, the new New York Road Runners starting corral system, and I was out of the gate clearly running too fast a pace over the first couple of miles. Once again I failed to hold back a bit, knowing fully well that I will pay a price later. And so it went, 5 miles into the run I had lost the spring in my step, by mile 8 my calves were tight and by mile 9 my harmstrings where shot. The last mile, a slight uphill towards the finish in Prospect Park was pure misery. I was seemingly unable to lift my legs and so I shuffled up the short hill loosing ever more precious time. At the end, I finished in a for me respectacle 1.40.47. This was still a minute faster than my last Brooyn Half four years ago (and thus four years younger), but it also proved my current limitations holding a brisker pace over a long distance.

P.S. I Love You!

Ah, Palm Springs! We just love this place, and once again, a week of blissful sunshine awaits us in this little California desert paradise. We spent last week mostly relaxing, lounging around the pool, hiking the Indian Canyons and spending tons of time with our little girl. As always, we also took advantage of the great public swimming pool at Sunrise Park, where I was able to put in two solid swim workouts. My running, unfortunately was not so smooth. While I did get out on my 4 mile loop three times, I was hampered by some strange tummy trouble and pain. Well maybe jsut a bit too much sun. Now we are back in New York and it is raining cats and dogs outside. Oh well . . .

A Semblence of Routine

Once I returned back to New York a few days ago, both Roy and Kiera were sick with a cold, but spring finally arrived in the city. So out of the basement the bike finally came, and we circled Prospect Park twice last week, added my usual once-a-week masters swim workout and put in a good run and short weight session as well. Since one of those bike rides was actually my first early morning workout this season, last week was almost like a routine early season .training week

Endless Winter

As if winter has not been long enough, a trip to a ski travel conference in Vail, CO clearly was not the best choice to finally get a bout of the spring fever. On the first day out, instead of a few hours of spring skiing, I was deep into fresh powder, battling the mountain and bad visibility. Most of the time, though, I was working and preparing for a presentation. What was most striking though, was how much the high elevation troubled me. At almost 9.000 feet, and skiing up to 11.500 I had trouble sleeping, getting headaches and ran out of breath fairly easy running up some stairs or so. Though I have been to Vail a few times before, this was the first time the elevation had bothered me that much. Suffice to say that, besides a few hours of hard skiing, I did nothing else in terms of training.

Scotland Run 10K PR

Today's 10K New York Roadrunners Scotland Run was my third and last late winter running race this year. The course practically mimicked the New York Triathlon run course, with a clockwise run of the hilly Central Park loop. Running this direction, it almost seems as if there are more downhills than ups, with the biggest uphill coming exactly at the half way mark.


With cold, but otherwise perfect conditions, this waas a much better raceday then just three weeks ago. I opted to shed the winter clothes and to run in shorts, something that seemingly lifted my spirits. With almost 7000 runners in the race, the first mile was terribly crowded, which provided me with protection against going out too fast. Ultimately I was feeling quite good during the whole race, finishing with a personal record of 45.20 and a 7.18/mile pace. Not great, but a nice start of spring season.