Finger Lakes Tri Review

So this past Sunday I Finished my second Finger Lakes Olympic Distance Triathlon. Going into the race I had very low expectations due to my lack of training. I had knee pain related to an IT Band issue that didn't clear up until August. Unfortunately the first run I put in post hip injury caused some other problems that I have tried to work through. Take it from me, the term "no pain no gain" should really be rethought. I vote to change it to "some pain equals negative gain. I tried to put in small runs all year when I felt better but that always set me back. In the future I will wait until I have felt better and then wait another week or so and then go for a run on the track first because I always push to hard on the road.

Back to the race. Rose, Bella and I left the house at 5:30 AM because I got so busy on Friday and forgot to pick up my race packet. This didn't turn out to be as big of a deal as I thought it might. I showed up on Sunday and spent an extra five minutes picking up my packet and then walked over to transition and got my area all set up. I wanted to make sure I didn't make the same mistake I made last year and forget to take my nutrition on the bike portion of the race so I put it in my shoe. Now that I was all set up I had time to mill around and chat with other athletes before the race or just bump into people I know and haven't seen for awhile. I found my good buddy Jim Bassanno and David, one of his three sons handing out race bells. Thanks Jim!  Now my almost 3 year old has 6 cow bells to ring at home!  I also saw Tim from the Y volunteering this year and not racing because of an injury. Thank you volunteers for pointing us in the right direction, handing us water and keeping cars from running us over at every intersection.  With out them the race could not happen

All things considered I am pretty happy with my swim time. I didn't really train and I was only a minute slower than last year.  I did feel a little bad for the first time racer getting ready for the swim next to me and the total and absolute look of terror I could see in his eyes.  I know a swim in the lake doesn't sound that bad but when you are doing it in a pack of about 70 men that will mix in with two other waves that went off before you that can be a little nerve racking.  Add fact that you are going to swim a half mile out into the lake with arms, elbows, legs and feet all around hitting and kicking you and the prospect of drowning I totally understand why I see people throw up before the swim. The worst part about the swim at this particular race is the run from the water to the transition area.  I am going to say that it is about a 500 meter run that doesn't offer a lot of grass or any type of soft surface for your cold wet bare feet.  We must run on s stone path and then across a paved parking lot to your bike.  It isn't the worst thing I have ever had to do but I don't look forward to it.

The bike course was changed up this year due to road construction and this turned out to be a good thing because the new course was a little easier.  I expected to have a terrible ride this year based on how I felt my last ride before the race.  To my surprise I had a pretty good ride.  It certainly wasn't what I am capable of but I averaged about 2 mph faster than I thought I would but still about 1 mph slower than what I could have done with out the injury.  I am also about 10 lbs heavier than I should be.  A tip from me to you is if you can't train for a triathlon than don't eat like you are training!  The only thing really notable about the bike course was the detour through FLCC to add some distance to the ride.  The FLCC portion of the ride offered up about four speed bumps.  Speed bumps are the last thing I expect to see on the road race course.  It wasn't the end of the world and I did get a laugh out of it.

The six mile run went much better than planned!!  I had zero hip pain and kept a faster pace than I though I thought I could averaging about 7:45 per mile.  The longest run I have been able to put in over the last 2 months has been 3-4 miles and I ran 6 miles only a handful of times earlier this year.  I love this run course because it is a 3 mile loop that you need to complete twice so you get a chance to see who you might know out there and see people you didn't expect to see.  I saw Chris Leonardi, Van Travis, Rich Voci and Mitch Ball.  That right there is one of the great things about this sport.  You always bump into people you don't expect to see and didn't know had the same sickness for the sport as you do.  I haven't seen Mitch in at least four years so that was pretty cool.  Last year I saw a friend I hadn't seen in about twelve years.  I worked with a kid named Dan back in 1998 that ended up joining the Navy, becoming a Seal and getting hurt in the line of duty.  Last year he came out of the water about a minute behind me even though one of his arms doesn't really work all that well because of a road side bomb that blew up his Hum V and then passed me about halfway through the bike course.  The Navy Seals are no joke!

It is a few days later and I am feeling really good.  I didn't really have any sore mussels after the race other than my hip but I knew that was going to hurt.  Even though I didn't really train and I didn't place in a race I know I can place in I still had a great time.  I am not sure if I am going to do any other races this year.  I might just take care of my hip but you never know.  There a few events I would really like to do that I haven't done before so I might race if some of my tri buddies do them.

I am out!  Train smart and safe!

Bad News Good News

I will start with the bad news first. I went out for a ride a few months ago. I didn't plan on anything to long. Maybe 40 miles or so. The weather wasn't the best but that wasn't stopping me. A little rain never hurt anyone as long as you stay on both wheels and keep yourself off the deck. At about 30 miles I said to my self, self you are flying today! At mile 31 I said, self you have just BONKED. I thought it must be the nasty weather getting to me or the cocktails I drank last night, but I was wrong. It was my back wheel...again! I broke a spoke along the way and that caused wheel to bend a little and rub my breaks. That explained why I was feeling slow all of the sudden.

I wasn't excited about the spoke because it was my forth broken spoke and SRAM had already replaced two spokes and sent me a new wheel in the last year. I took the wheel into Park Ave Bike and called SRAM to let them know how I was feeling about my S40 wheel set. That is the bad news.

The good is that SRAM is a great company! With in 5 minutes of being on the phone the customer service tech decided to upgrade my wheel set and send me a new set of S60's! That is what I call great customer service. They could have done what most companies would have done and sent out a new spoke and put a band aid on my bullet wound, but they didn't do that and for that reason I put them at the top of my good list for going above and beyond for a little guy like me. I have been out on the new wheels for about a month and a half now and they are AWESOME.  Thank you SRAM!

I have put a number of good rides in on the wheels and I haven't heard any of the POPS and CRACKS I would hear while riding the old S40's, so I am hoping my days of breaking spokes are behind me.

This has been a terrible year for training.  I have been working 60-70 hour weeks and not getting out to do much of anything related to training.  I had an injury that kept me from running more than a few miles at a time since January.  I think the injury has finally healed up and I am back on the road running again.  I have also made some significant changes to my work so I expect to be training a lot more.

The Finger Lakes Tri is coming up in about 3 weeks.  I am hoping to train enough now that I am feeling better and have the time to train like I need to. 

Be safe and have fun out there!

Give A Little Bit

Yesterday I attended a Compeer event and got the opportunity to meet Kareem Abdul-Jabber.  Did you know that he is REALLY tall.  I mean wow!  I knew he was tall but until you see the guy in person you just don't get it!  Check out the picture of him behind the podium speaking to the crowd.  When he first came up to the podium to talk his jacket was open and you could see his belt buckle about 5 inches above the top of the podium.  In comparison the podium was about rib to chest level for the other speakers.

He told his story about growing up in Harlem and having the opportunity to get a great education because of basketball.  Kareem talked a lot about today's young MBA players who have come into the MBA directly from high school with out going to college and the difficulties they have adjusting to the life style that comes with being a highly paid professional athlete and how most of them today have very little of the millions of dollars they made as professional athletes.  I think what he was trying to say is programs like Compeer allow young people to spend time with people who will help point them in the right direction.  That direction may be college or why is it a good idea to stay out of trouble.  I am glad I took the time out of my day to donate money to a good cause and listen to someone who has used his good fortune to help others get ahead in life.

Kareem yelled across the room to me when I first arrived at the convention center.  He said, Scott come over and let me get my picture taken with you...  Okay, that's a lie.  I showed up at 10:00 with the rest of my friends and stood in line to buy a picture of Kareem and then stood in line a little longer so he could autograph it for me.  None the less, it was a cool experience.

I can tell he has been reading my blog because he did talk about the power to weight ratio that I wrote about in my last post.  He mentioned how some of the larger players today get injured more than he did during his career.  These new guys are just as tall as Kareem but they out weigh him buy as much as 100 pounds.  The extra weight fatigues and beats up your body.  Kareem signed this picture just for me because the advise I gave was so spot on.  Again... that's not true.  I am sure has has never read my blog or even knows who I am.

Next Year Build Up

During the two minutes per day I have to myself I have been thinking about what I did this year that made me faster and where can I make improvements.

The most obvious thing to do is keep on training so that I don't lose to much over the winter, but being consistent is only a small piece of the puzzle.  I came up with a few additional goals for the off season that will hopefully improve my overall times next year.  Some of my goals may apply to other triathletes and then again, they may not.  You decide what works and get it done.

The first thing I want to do is lose about 15 pounds.  I lost about 20 ponds this year and I could really feel it on the bike and during my run.  I wasn't fat at the beginning of the season but I didn't look like I could finish a half iron man.  I am almost as lean as I would like to be now but extra lost lbs will make a big difference.  The hardest part of losing weight right now is finding the time to train with all the responsibilities that come with having a new business.  For example, I wanted to go run today in the afternoon but stuff came up and I felt guilty about trying to break away for a 45 minute run.  I need to work on taking time for myself once in awhile.  I don't really need to change my diet at this point I just need to make sure that I burn more calories that I take in.  Mark put it best when he said, "during the season I eat to train and during the off season I train to eat".

Second, I need to improve my power to weight ratio.  If I increase my strength and lose the 15 pounds I think I can lose, I will be much faster than this past year.  This is another challenge because I need to fit this into my routine.  Most of the articles I have looked at (yes I can read) say that you should do at least two days of strength training each week.  My plan is to cut my run back two days a week to leave time to put in about 45 minutes of intense weight training.  I am not power lifting here.  I am going to work on putting up 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps.  This activity will also aid in my weight lose because strength training will burn fat for a longer period of time after the work out compared to running or other cardiovascular activities.  I am not suggesting that you stop your cardio, but to cut it back two days a week and add in 45 minutes of strength training at the gym.  I have been using a program I found online that is used by Craig Alexander that includes 12 exercises that takes me about 45 minutes to get through.

Last but not least, I will continue to work on my swim, bike and run technique.  I saw my biggest gain this year in the water.  I got a small tip during a pool workout one day and shaved a huge block of time off of my swim.  My plan this year is to learn more and practice the things that will make me more efficient.  I am not looking forward to putting my bike on the trainer but that is a great time to work on some drills to improve your peddling technique.  As far as the treadmill is concerned, I am not a big fan.  I plan on putting in some good temp runs with the occasional semi speed work out.  I will take advantage of every day the temperature gets above 35 and go outside and run.  I think most of my running injuries have come from the treadmill.

That is my basic plan for the colder months that can help keep all of us inside and out of the snow.  Please comment with any of  your thoughts.  Keep up the hard work and train smart.

What Next

The off season is a hard time for me.  At this point all of my aches and pains are finally gone and I really miss training and racing with my team.  If you are a triathlete you know what I mean when I say I love what I do for a living but the thing I look forward to the most is getting together with my friends to put in a long tough workout on Saturday or Sunday.  Now that the temperatures outside have dropped and the rain falls all the time we don't get out together as much.  I got together with Mark this week for a few minutes and realized that we hadn't seen each other since late July!!!  I couldn't believe it.  It had been about two and a half months since I had seen Mark.  Mark is one of my favorite training partners because he is a competitive freak just like me.  Sometimes when we are taking off on a long ride Mark will remind me that we are going for a long ride and that we are not going to race but it always turns into a race no matter how hard we try not to race. 

As I watched this video I thought of all of the things I achieved this year and the things I want to achieve next year.  I can't wait to get started.

Good But Not The Best

Musselman 2010 is complete and in the record books for team Crank Skins. Mark, Adam, Manuel, Mike and I all set person best times and finished with out any hick ups. I have to admit that the entire race seemed to fly right by this year. I have been training my butt of since January to make sure I was better prepared for this year than I was last year. Last year I felt like I was out on the course all day long. I am sure the THREE flat tires I had last year contributed to my agony post ride during the run but this year just felt so much better. Also, being more familiar with each part of the race helped me mentally get through the race a little faster. I finished about 40 minutes faster than last year, so I am happy about that but I still think I could have done better.

If I had to make any changes I would start with getting up earlier. I got up at 5:00 and got dressed, ate a bagel with peanut butter and left the hotel to ride my bike two miles up the road to the race site. I had plenty of time to get my transition area set up but I didn’t have a chance to get in the water and warm up. I wasn’t worried about the swim but I really wanted to get my body physically ready to go hard from the start. I swam faster than last year but finished about four minutes later than I had wanted to. In regards to the run, next year I will ask the spectators with hoses in their front lawns to spray my upper body only because by mile 6 my sneakers were soaked. This didn’t really slow me down but I would have preferred to run in a dry pair of shoes. I did pick up a tip from my friend and training partner Mike regarding running down hill when your legs get super tired. He said try running back words. Mike said this will stretch your calves out and take some of the pounding off of your legs. I don’t think I need to tell you what my biggest concern is about running down a hill back words during a HIM (half ironman). Maybe I’ll give it a try on a training run in a populated area so someone can call 911 after I fall down and get knocked unconscious.

I was really happy with the bike portion of the race this year. Last year I got three flat tires during the ride at about miles 24, 30 and 44. This year my overall bike time was better due to the fact that I didn’t get any flats and my average speed went up over a full mph. I also maintained a more consistent pace this year. Believe it or not I have a bit of a competitive streak in me and last year I was trying to race every rider that I went by or that went by me. I am pretty sure that contributed to my burn out last year. Also, anyone who has done the Musselman HIM in the past knows about Sampson State Park. If not, I’ll tell you about it. Sampson State Park is an old Naval base that is now a state park. The road going through Sampson State Park has seen better days. The race director said the road hasn’t been resurfaced in about 20 years so you can only imagine how rough the ride was. This was the portion of the course that gave me my third flat tire last year. This portion of the course also caused some problems this year that I didn’t see until I got home. I had a broken spoke on my back wheel that fortunately didn’t negatively affect my ride. Just so you know this is the second spoke I had broken on my new SRAM S40 wheel that I had just purchased about two months ago. The good news is that SRAM is sending me a brand new wheel.

I got off my bike and ran into transition feeling pretty good. I took my time putting my shoes on and guzzling the rest of my sports drink and started to run out and notice my fellow Crank Skins teammate Mark raking his bike. Part of me said AWESOME we can run together and the other part of me said get moving he might out run you. Did I mention I have a competitive streak. The run started off better than I expected it to. I settled into a very comfortable pace within a few minutes and kept looking over my shoulder for Mark because I know he runs at about the same pace I do. As I closed in on mile number 3 I was running up hill that allowed me to look back about a half mile and I didn't see Mark so I was feeling pretty good about coming in before him. At around mile 11.5 I heard some say come on Scott! I turned around to see who it was and saw Adam another member of team Crank Skins running up from behind me. I didn't expect to see him. I am not saying Adam is slow. I think he we are pretty even when it comes to the run and very close on the bike and the run. I ran with him for a couple of minutes and then let him go. My quads were spent and screaming at me to slow down. At the end of the day Adam finished four minutes ahead of me Mark finished one minute behind me. Manuel and Mike both had a good day but finished about a half hour or so behind Mark, Adam and me.

I am looking forward to next year and the next race this year. Musselman was only two days ago and I am already to jump back into training at full speed but fortunately my wife keeps talking sense into me.

Happy training and stay healthy!

Trainer Fever

Do you ever feel like you a hamster running in a wheel because you are working hard but you aren't going anywhere.  Today I have a 2 hour and 15 minute ride and I am not looking forward to it. It’s not the time I am dreading. It is the fact that I have to look at the same wall in my basement for over two hours. The only bonus to riding in the basement on my trainer is that I never ride into a head wind. The down side is that the view never changes and it just doesn’t stack up to getting out for a real ride.


I will run outside during the winter but you must be crazy if you think I am going to take my bike out on the salt covered roads. Maybe one day I will buy a winter bike but at the moment I don’t have one. I could go to the gym and spin with some friends but that is getting a little old as well. Not to mention the seats on the spin bikes look more comfortable than my seat but the comfort factor ends at how they look. After a long ride on the spin bikes at the gym I feel like the kid getting paddled in the movie Dazed and Confused.

I was going to ride this morning and talked myself out of it. I decided that if I have to ride and run today I will wait until this afternoon. The temperature outside will be about 40 so I can do my ride in the based and avoid the treadmill and head outside for my run.

I keep hearing people say that winter is almost over. I hope they are right because I am ready for spring.