45 and less than a month to go till IMAZ

OK, just two days ago I turned 45. So, I am officially my age group. I don't know what I feel about this, probaly not much at all. True, when I look in the mirror in the morning I see a man clearly in his middle age, but, nothing wrong with that. Life has been very good to me the last few years, no need to wish back the days of youth and unfocused confusion.

So, 45 and only four weeks away from my biggest physical challenge thus far, my first Ironman. The weather in New York is now colder, a headcold is slowing me down, my bike was in repair for some days, and I am not close to training enough. My regimen seems more in line with preparations for an Olympic distance event. Whenever I tell other triathletes about my training volume, I almost sense pity and fear, for my sake. And still I feel an odd sense of confidence creeping up. Hopefully not unfounded. I will try to make this week count one more time with a few mid distance runs and a long bike ride. Lets hope it'll be enough.

Travel, A few Boo Boos and a broken Spoke

With only five weeks to go until Ironman Arizona, this is supposed to be the time to rev it up one last time. But not quite. Frequent, but short business trips keep me a bit off balance regarding my workout schedule. But more importantly, I have had a nagging skin infection on my inner thigh that has really slowed me down last week. I am also a bit hampered by tight hamstrings and on top of it, I broke a spoke on an early morning ride on Friday, keeping me bike less for the planned Saturday long ride. On the plus side, I had a great swim workout Friday night with a solid 4000 yards of hard intervals and an 18 mile long run in Prospect Park on Saturday morning. I am now giving myself two more weeks of solid training before starting my taper.

A week of coming back and Grete's Great Gallop

After the Nutmegman Half Ironman I dashed off to Austria for a week of business meetings. Unfortunately I caught both a bit of a cold and a nagging eye infection, and that, on top of a busy schedule basically set me back my training a full week. So last week my goal was basically to ramp up my training again. The first two easy runs of 4 miles each were anything but easy though. I felt like crap, pardon my expression. My midweek swim workout did not feel much better. Sluggish would best describe it. So I decided to add another swim workout Friday evening, this one a vast improvement already.



And this morning I ran my first New York Road Runners Race in months, Grete's Great Gallop, named after the great Grete Waitz, part of the Norwegian Festival. Actually I ran a bit more than this Half Marathon on the hilly course of Central Park, adding 5 miles after the race to finally get another long run in. The Half Marathon itself was fine, I ran more or less race pace but without pushing my limits towards the end. The 5 mile add-on however, felt rather tough. Guess my pace was a bit too ambitious during the race and my legs more or less gave in. My hamstring started to bug me quite a bit and my fee started hurting. Still, it was a proper ending to a fairly full week of training.

The Hills Are Alive!

Yesterdays Nutmegman Half Ironman in the Southern Berkshires of Connecticut was both as scenic, but also as grueling as expected and feared. I woke up very early in my hotel nearby, seems I can't sleep well anymore the night before the race. So, after quick shower and breakfast I headed to the race site. There we were greeted by bitter cold and low hanging fog, delaying the race start by half an hour, as we could not even see the swim course. Then, at 7.30 off we went. After a nice swim start I suddenly found myself in the fog not seeing any other swimmers. In the distance a volunteer in a kayak frantically waved and screamed that I had missed a buoy. Ouch, so back I swam joining the race.

Then onto the bike course and, immediately, a steep hill out of Kettletown State Park. And so it went, a three lap course that was either up or down, but never flat. The first lap was really the most difficult as I had a tough time to find any rhythm at all. The hills were mostly steep enough to get me into my easiest gear and out of the saddle. So, after three laps of this grueling madness I was quite surprised that I was feeling fairly light on my feet starting out my run portion.

The run started out with the same hill as the bike course and, more or less, also was mostly ups and downs. So, I tried to coast on my downhills and not kill myself on the uhills. OK, I admit, I actually walked sometimes on the steep uphills, a tactic that payed off as it allowed me to stay under 2 hours on the run and finish stong the last two miles.

Finally done with this adventure, 6.04.31, good enough for 29th place overall and a 3rd place age group finish.

For anyone looking for a tough, small and scenicely awesome race, this is definitely one to consider. As this was my last race before attempting IM Arizona I am feeling pretty good that I had to dig deep for this one.

Photos courtesy Ken Schultz

Nutmeg State Half Ironman coming up

Tomorrow I will head to Southbury CT for my last big test before IM Arizona. The Nutmeg State Half Ironman in CT is only held the second time around. Last year I was part of the inaugural race which was scenically beautiful but also insanely hard (the bike leg was simply not normal I'd say). This year the changed the race site completely, so I have no real sense what to expect, but I do expect the worst again (and the best as far as scenic beauty goes). I love the fact that this race is less than 100 miles from my home so it is a relatively stress free adventure to head up there tomrrow and back after the race on Sunday.

It is 5 AM and the alarm rings. Are you ready . . .

...to take the call and stumble out of bed, make some coffee, eat some granola and head out for a 75 mile bike ride on a wet Saturday morning? Yesterday, I am glad I was. The last couple of weeks have not been going well as far as my Ironman preparations are concerned. We were all busy with settling into the new home, family commitments, including my mother visiting from Austria, and the last couple of days heading to Atlanta for business. On top of it, I have been weirdly suffering from allergies, leaving me at times listless to train.

So, when the alarm did ring far too early for a Saturday, I was more then tempted to hit the snooze button and head back into sleepy land. But I did not and was rewarded with one of the most spectacular, only in New York kinda ride experiences. Crossing the Brooklyn bridge the fog and clouds remaining from the heavy rains the night before still enveloped Manhattan. Minutes later I rode along the West Side bike way and watched up close the early morning arrival of a cruise ship to the left while, to the right, the Empire State building looked spooky and awesome. And on it went one picturesque moment after another. I regretted not to bring along a camera, plus I had to make decent time to meet my friends from the Brooklyn Tri Club across the George Washington Bridge for the ride to Nyack.

The Nike Human Race 10K

Last Sunday's Nike Human Race 10K was one of the most bizarre running events I ever participated in. Let's start out by saying that I had a really nice evening at the run. Heading to the event with Roy and my friend Sigrid, heading up the East River on a little ferry to Randalls Island, finishing the run in Icahn Stadium, one of the countries premier track stadiums. enjoying a concert by the All American Rejects after the race; all good fun. But as a running event it was more or less a practical joke, no matter that it was held in twenty some cities around the globe. The course on Randalls Island was in no way suited for the thousands of participants. And I never had to wait several minutes to cross a footbridge while running a 10K. Guess thats what happens when a huge marketing ploy goes wrong. But, whatever, as I said, it was a fun evening.