Something is wrong with me, aka 5:27 at Soma 70.3

There is something wrong with me and I cannot figure out what it is. I’ve been in a migraine cycle for over a week. It came on last Friday night at dinner with my wife and father-in-law, one day after having three hours of dental work done. That migraine was classic – visual precursors of strobing, tunnel vision, then a brief calm before the crushing right side pain. Did a full 4 hour treatment of medication, yard sale Saturday, bike time trial, then felt like crap again and had to cancel going to a friend’s birthday party. Sunday killed the final milestone run with a 1:35 ½ marathon, then I had another migraine two hours later. Monday was off, Tuesday I swam and then had bodywork that helped a bit, then Wednesday I was supposed to run but had another migraine and a cycle of medicine instead. Thursday a long swim, and Friday drove to Tempe, Arizona for the Soma weekend. I drove to Arizona feeling like boiled crap and had no clue what to expect from a weekend that was kicking off my “Helloween” week of epic volume training.

2009 Nautica Malibu Triathlon

You remember what I was saying before about being tired? Turns out sleep fixes that. Much to my surprise when I backed off training, caught up on sleep, and then ramped up again quickly I was able to have a great race. More importantly, I was able to enjoy a full weekend of racing, support my teammates and friends for their Olympic distance race on Saturday, and then set a PR on Sunday for my own race. To cap off the victory the event raised over a million dollars for Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Personally, my friends, clients, and cohorts donated over $11,000 to my fundraising efforts making me the second highest fundraiser for the CHLA team and fifth highest overall fundraiser for the entire event!

2009 Boise Ironman 70.3, HTFU

On the phone with coach Brian the morning of the race he asked if I could figure out how to do this race just for fun to let him know. He’s doing Vineman soon, “just for fun” and has serious doubts that he can get his head away from the numbers to focus on the joy of the journey. Here’s a way: do your swim in a lake that slaps you around the way Jack Nicholson treated Faye Dunaway at the end of Chinatown, do your bike inside a car wash during a tornado for 56 miles, and then do your run in a kiddie pool. After a while you’ll stop caring about the numbers, your watch, the race clock, and you’ll just think one thing: HTFU. Harden The Fuck Up.

Two out of three isn’t bad – Oceanside 70.3 race report

Oceanside 70.3 2009 is the race where I learned what it means to set tough goals and how it feels to miss some of them. It became about managing expectations while not changing the rules to feel better, and learning how to cope with dissatisfaction to find the positive moments in an otherwise difficult day. And by difficult I mean bad, painful, highly visible, and ultimately very emotional.

Just deserts.

Depriving the brain of oxygen strips away the delicate intellectual constructs of our personality leaving us in a purely reactionary state. I think our true nature is exposed when we are exhausted because our filters are gone, the reactions we try to have are suppressed, we revert back to our primary responses, and we have no ability to detach and examine ourselves abstractly. At least, this is my experience with fatigue. I know that when I am exhausted it takes tremendous effort not to respond to people from a purely emotional state and so I try not to engage or make decisions when I’m wiped out. I also try very hard to get enough rest while doing hard work so I can maintain those precious constructs that I feel define who I am as a person. At some point in an endurance race, everyone hits that mentally depleted point. I think this is what people talk about when they say that somewhere on the Ironman course you go a little crazy. Just like threshold training it’s possible to move that point further and further out, but inevitably it will come. Without knowing it, this weekend became the first mental threshold training.

3rd Annual City of Angels 1/2 Marathon and the secret of happiness

I have become the person who forgets he’s running half marathons. The constellation of things going on in my life in the last few weeks certainly has taken priority over many things, evidenced by my lack of blogging but continuance of training. I’m busy doing life rather than documenting it. But by forgetting to document it, I stopped reflecting on it and as a result I forgot to note that I was going to run a half marathon on Sunday. And yet, even with the chaos of life around me I still managed to run it coming off two months of rest and maybe three or four running sessions since starting training again. While I have become the person who forgets he’s running a half marathon, concurrently I have become the person who can crank one out with a halfway decent time with little to no warning. This will be handy when I have to hunt a mastodon for dinner.

What’s next?

What do the words “off season” mean? And what does it mean to be off season, anyway? For me it means that I’ve raced my last triathlon of the year, it’s time to focus on setting next year’s goals, and creating a periodized schedule to achieve those goals. Periodized what?

Photos from 2008 Malibu Sprint Triathlon

Photos taken by my wife and father-in-law, and thus heavily focused on yours truly can be seen here. And yes, there are a few photos of Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, and Eliza Dushku.

Malibu Sprint Triathlon Race Report

First and absolutely foremost, a gigantic thank you to everyone who made a donation to Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles. Team CHLA raised $157,000, second only to Team Disney, for an incredible debut fundraising effort this year. The overall total exceeded $950,000 raised for CHLA, with money going towards pediatric cancer research and treatment. I am honored beyond measure to my friends and family, clients, and cohorts who donated on my behalf. Any physical or mental performance is secondary to the amazing participation of these people who supported my charity of choice. Thank you, all of you, because it made my personal victory that much sweeter. And I was victorious, indeed.

LA Triathlon Race Report

Regardless of my feelings towards multi level marketing pyramid schemes like Herbalife or HMO monstrosities that are focused on profit over healthcare, the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Triathlon sponsored by Herbalife will always have a soft spot in my heart. You never forget your first (heavily branded, corporate sponsored, logo infused) triathlon. One year ago I did my first sprint distance event in 2 hours and 17 minutes. I had an ecstatic time start to finish. One year later and I’m heavily invested in the sport because it consistently brings me joy on a daily basis, and doing the Olympic distance in just a little bit more time than the Sprint just a year ago makes it all the more enjoyable.