Yes, I Do Race & Not Just Train

"Every paper that you read
  Says tomorrow is your lucky day
  Well, here's your lucky day"
The Universal by Blur

Nothing funny (in regards to commentary) this week but I do get to bore you with a race report! Believe it or not, I do that racing thing once in a while and not just train for the sake of training! 

At least for you, a race report has the potential (maybe, just maybe) to be a little more entertaining than me going on about the countless miles of training I put in during a week, a mileage total that most people don't even drive in a week......

Today started long before the ass crack of dawn.....My alarm went off at 4am! You read the right.....4am! And before you even ask, YES, I often wonder why I do this to myself when in entails getting up at such an ungodly hour.......I guess deep down I like punishing myself.

After loading the car with my bike and essential gear, I headed off to Lehighton, PA (about 90 minute drive) for my 1st triathlon of the 2015 race season. I was on my way to compete in the Black Bear Sprint Triathlon which consisted of a 750 meter swim, 18 mile bike and 5K run. It was one of three races (Olympic and Half also) but I was so glad I chose the Sprint Tri given the warm and muggy conditions this morning. 

Swim - 750 Meters - 72 degree water
By my standards, the swim went very well. Over the past few months, I have been working harder on my technique and workouts in the pool and today felt like it paid off a little. Of course that could have been the wet suit and the extra buoyancy! Prior to the start, I actually debated whether or not to use the wetsuit as 72 degrees is really not that cold.

Swim time - 12:51 (22nd of 223 triathletes)
T1 - 2:15 (not bad for wrestling out of wetsuit and running close to 100 yards to timing mats)

Bike - 18 miles of HILLS!!
I kid you not about the hills! Over this 18 mile course, there was a total of 1532 feet of climbing including two Cat 4 climbs by Strava standards......WTF!!!!! I had been told it was a hilly course by several people but there is no way I expected this. I was also stupid in that I never even looked at the profile of the course to kind of know where I might run into some of these hills. While it may have been one of the toughest bike course I have encountered during a sprint triathlon, I have to admit, I did enjoy it in some sick way, I guess. I quickly passed a bunch of people in the first 8-10 miles moving myself into the top ten but I was more frustrated I could not draw closer to some of the leaders.....Climbing legs not quite where I thought they were. (Work to be done still)

Bike time - 18 miles/ 1532 feet - 54:09/19.9 MPH (8th of 223 triathletes)
T 2 - 1:28 (a little slow)

Run - 3.1 Miles (Mostly trail running)
Surprisingly, my legs felt great coming off the hilly bike! Like the bike, the 1st mile of the bike was hilly as we climbed away from transition along the trail. It was easily my slowest mile on the run. Once the ground leveled off, my legs felt incredibly strong and as I left the woods, I could finally see some runners ahead of me. I was finally starting to see some targets but  I had just under half of the race to reel them in!  In the 3rd mile, I started to really believe I might be able to catch one or two of them and slowly they kept coming back to me. At the same time, unfortunately, the finish line was getting closer to them and not leaving me much time. Needless to say......I ran out of ground & time to run them down abut still moved within 6 seconds of moving up one spot.....

Run Time - 20:27/6:36 per mile (5th of 223 triathletes)
Overall - 1:31:12 -8th Overall/ 2nd Age Group (45-49)

Training continues to go well and with today's result, I am excited for the remainder of the season. Not much of my schedule is set beyond this weekend but I am thinking of racing next weekend (another sprint tri) and then start focusing on a half-ironman distance race in August and potentially an Ironman distance race in the fall to late fall. My training numbers will increase drastically when this plan starts! (More boring post for you ahead!!!)

30 Week Training Totals

Bike - 4147 miles/ 196.74 hours/ 21.07 mph

Run - 694 miles/ 92.22 hours/ 7:58 per mile

Swim - 60 miles/ 28.98 hours

Total - 4901 miles/ 317.94 hours

Per Week - 163.37 miles/ 10.60 hours

So the journey continues...........

"But if you’re all about the destination, then take a fucking flight.
  We’re going nowhere slowly, but we’re seeing all the sights."
"The Ballad Of Me And My Friends" - Frank Turner

That close to 7th overall

Putting A Little Perspective On Things!

The journey continues and what a journey it was this week!

This week I had the privilege of traveling with 3 of my athletes to Upstate New York for the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field National Championships. In addition to watching my current athletes compete, I was afforded an opportunity to watch several of my former athletes coach their athletes at the highest level of Division III athletics! For three days I watched the very best athletes that Division III has to offer in 18 events and 2 relays! 

Over those 3 days, I watched close to 800 athletes compete for 320 All American spots! That means 60% of the field works hard and sacrifices all year to get to the top of their respective events to possibly come home with no hardware. And trust me, regardless of their seed, every athlete goes there with the hopes of standing on that podium as an All American.

You may be wondering how this all ties into my enjoying journey theme of the blog or putting a bit of perspective on things title to this post..... I will get to that now or at least attempt to as you can imagine how a 360 mile ride home can give one a lot of time to reflect on everything they witnessed.

Here goes:

1. Pick a destination race and travel (drive) with friends. Maybe your trip will not be 1600 miles over 4 days like ours, but that time is great for conversations, jokes, getting to know each other and pointing out things along the drive. Quite often we noticed more of the weird things,  like a cow tied to a tree in a yard in upstate NY...WTF???
2. Respect your fellow competitors - Guess what, we all compete in sports like track & field and triathlons for many of the sames reasons but probably the biggest reason of all - testing our own physical limits and trying to push beyond them. Your fellow competitor is not necessarily out to beat you as they are out to set a personal best and challenge themselves! And sometimes that will mean them beating you and at other times you beating them. It is not always personal! 
3. Get to know your fellow competitors - As mentioned in #2 we are in this for the same reason and in some ways we don't truly compete directly against them as we can only control one thing in a race..... and that is what we do during the race! It was very refreshing to watch many of these athletes interact and get to know each other despite all competing for the limited All American spots. After races, take time to listen more to others talk about their races than always want to talk of your own races. Don't worry, you will get your chance to talk about your race!
4. Don't take take things to seriously - Like the 60% at NCAA's, who walk away with no AA award, we need to understand races are not always going to go the way we want them to! Yeah, we might be disappointed but I assure you the world won't end! Good or bad, we can all learn from our races and put together plan for the next race. As me and a fellow triathlete, who I train with at times, joke about races....they are all "C" races!!!! Like almost all of these 800 athletes, outside of our professions, we won't be making money in the sport of triathlons!
5. Enjoy the journey - Take pictures, Blog, Tweet - who cares - do whatever you want to show others how much you enjoy what you are doing! Just don't over hashtag things!!  Don't just focus on the end results, quite often the greatest pleasure is not in the end result but how you got there! Quite often it is the journey that is the greater challenge! 

Well, my journey is leading up to my first triathlon of the 2015 race season. Next Sunday, I will be competing at the Black Bear Sprint Triathlon (750M swim, 18 mile bike, 5K run). My goal as of now is to see how hard I can push myself over the course and see where the results will fall.  Training has continued to go well and I feel a lot stronger now than I did last year at this time. Here are the latest training totals: (2015 training started on 11/03/2014)

29 Week Training Totals

Bike - 4009 miles/ 189.85 hours/ 21.10 mph

Run - 672 miles/ 89.38 hours/ 7:58 per mile

Swim - 57 miles/ 27.36 hours

Total - 4738 miles/ 306.59 hours

Per Week - 163.37 miles/ 10.57 hours

My ways of enjoying the journey:

1. Drinking my coffee
2. Drinking my beer
3. Eating my ice cream
4. Blogging - helping others keep things in perspective
5. Pictures -  triduath45  (Instagram)
6. Coaching others

"But if you’re all about the destination, then take a fucking flight.
  We’re going nowhere slowly, but we’re seeing all the sights."
"The Ballad Of Me And My Friends" - Frank Turner 

Hello, My Old Friend

"But if you’re all about the destination, then take a fucking flight.
  We’re going nowhere slowly, but we’re seeing all the sights.
  And we’re definitely going to hell,
  But we’ll have all the best stories to tell."
"The Ballad Of Me And My Friends" - Frank Turner

WOW!!!!! It has been a long time since my last post.

To be honest, it is not like you have actually been sitting there wondering..."Hmmmmm, you know it has been quite a while since Marty has bored us with his training totals or one of his silly pointless rants!!!"

But in case you were wondering that exact thought....Have no worries, I am still alive and ready to bore you with more of my mundane training posts and whimsical rants (if you should even manage to read this blog)!!! 

But a little more focus on this go around will be on the journey! As the lyrics for the song above suggest, to often we become to focused on the destination or the end results of our training that we forget that the journey needs to be enjoyed and the journey is quite often the thing that defines us! 

And if you are wondering.....Yes!!! I still have the ultimate goal of getting back to Kona & competing at the Ironman World Championships! Yes, I am going to be training to win races or place very high & I am not talking about just in my age group. At my age, I must admit, there is no bigger ego boost than kicking the crap out competitors half my age. But I also understand, at my age, I am not going to have sponsors knocking at my door offering me free products and money! And just a hint to most of you out there.....those offers won't be there for you either so you might as well enjoy the journey & learn to not take yourself to seriously sometimes!  (ie. drink a beer, have coffee or a soda, eat a candy bar, stay up late, eat something that is not gluten free, eat something that has fat in it!) 

Pictures of my journey can be seen here or can be followed on my Instagram page: triduath45 (Instagram)

This page will include pictures from my training & life! Please as you go along your journey, remember to stop and smell the coffee burning once in awhile!

Oh yeah.....As you go along your journey, remember, don't take yourself too seriously sometimes.....there are not a lot of people making a living off triathlons! Plus you may also find yourself as a topic of one of my silly rants of why people pick on triathletes too often!(We do bring on the ridicule to ourselves too often)

OK....It is now time for the self-promoting boring training totals as I prepare for my season opening race in two weeks! My official 2015 season began on November 3rd (28 weeks ago).

28 Week Training Totals
Bike - 3888 miles/ 188.93 hours/ 20.57 mph
Run - 644 miles/ 85.76 hours/ 7:59 per mile
Swim - 55 miles/ 26.55 hours
Total - 4587 miles/ 301.24 hours
Per Week - 163.82 miles/ 10.76 hours

Beyond the race in two weeks, I do not have much more of the schedule set but I am still committed to doing an ironman distance race this year...so stay tuned for the announcement!!!