Jon's Jibber-jabber

My first week back training is done.  It is also my first week of officially training in my new home, Florida.   I will say one thing about Florida.  It is hot.  We witnessed the state's transition from winter (referred to as "not hot" around here to summer, hot). When we arrived in Florida in late February, the high temperatures were around 65-70 degrees with lows in the 50s and occasionally in the 40s.  This seemed very warm to us coming from -10 at some points.  About two weeks ago, March came and with it went winter.  Temps rose overnight to near 90 and have stayed there with highs hovering in the 85-90 mark each day.   Nights do get down to about 65-68 (the previous highs).  So that's it.  Now it is hot and there doesn't seem to be end in sight.  Today is a cool 80 degrees with a nice breeze.  I will say that it is pretty interesting to look at the 10 day extended forecast and see the same symbol and numbers for nearly the...

This week I started back to training after taking basically three months off.   During that time, I needed the break mentally, physically and socially.  My wife and I transitioned jobs.  Oh and we moved nearly 1,000 miles to the sunny shores of the Tampa Bay.  Hello Florida.   Since we basically do most of our races here anyway, why not just move.   With that, it became extremely hard to manage the work situation, moving and a full training schedule.  I could barely get in a run or find the motivation to train.  The unusually cold winter also made it more unappealing to be indoors on the trainer/treadmill for months at a time.  Because of the move, I didn't really sign up for any early season races.  So with no goals, bad weather and stressful moving, resistance was futile.  I just needed to stop.   This year, my schedule is pretty light on races in quantity but does include some serious quality races that I need to not...

Pre Race This past weekend I raced TriRock Clearwater. I planned the race because my wife, who works for Team Challenge of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, had to work the event with her team. I had been assisting with coaching the National Capital Region team and so it made sense to tag along and do the race. I signed up for the sprint as this was theoretically a vacation and I didn’t want to deal with the longer distance. I had also never done a true ocean swim before. I know that technically Clearwater is not on the ocean but on the gulf. However, it’s still a large body of salt water with waves, rip currents, marine life, etc so it’s an ocean swim. We did a practice swim with the team  on Saturday morning . I was working with one of our newer swimmers in the water getting used to the swells and waves. We were about 200m or so off shore when I saw a fin in front of us. Being me, I grabbed her and we swam back toward shore. I was 100% sure we’d be attacked by a shark. ...

Pre-Race Earlier this year, my wife and I signed up for this race.  My wife grew up in the area around Hammerman beach at Gunpowder Falls State Park so it was a good local event.  Unfortunately, due to being busy at work (I work in infectious disease epidemiology -- so just look at the news and you'll see why), I was not been able to train much in September.  This week I focused on just doing swims.  I'm still riding off of the Ironman fitness from the summer so I've been doing maintenance work but not really focusing on any training to build speed or specifics for the Olympic distance.   I went to pick up my packet on Friday.   The water at the swim course was choppy with whitecaps on the river.  We were expecting storms overnight and rain in the morning.  The forecast also called for coastal flooding and storm suge from the bay so I was nervous about what conditions would longer into the morning.   Race Day We left home at 5am and arrived a...

This post took longer than I wanted to get this review up.  Two Sundays ago, I participated in the 5th Annual Ft Ritchie Triathlon.  This is a local triathlon nestled in the Cactoctin Mountains of Maryland between Frederick and Hagerstown.  It is very close to Camp David, the presidential retreat also in the same mountain area.  The grounds used to be an Army institution but it was closed in the mid 90s and the community has been trying to revitalize the grounds ever since.  It is a great venue for triathlon since it has a limited access lake, very little traffic, a huge field for parking and a community center complete with showers for after. A portion of Lake Royer at the Fort Last year, I did the Olympic distance race as my second triathlon ever.  This year, I opted for the Sprint distance as I would be only four weeks after my full Iron-distance and didn't want to commit if I didn't recover properly.  That being said, it was also my first...

One week post-Ironman and I am feeling good.  Physically, I felt good all week.  Looking back I keep thinking "that was it?".  I set myself up for much more physical strain and a longer recovery than I experienced. Perhaps it was that I took recovery seriously this time: getting a post race massage, watching what I ate to ensure recovery, taking off of work, using active recovery swims and runs during the week, etc.  Whatever it is, my recovery is going well.  This is an area in which I historically struggled. Now, I reset.  I have my first sprint distance triathlon coming up in four weeks.  Ft Ritchie is a very hilly course with a long category 3 climb in both the sprint and olympic distance but realistically it's only a dozen miles on the bike.  I have never done this distance and I am looking forward to the short but intense sessions of training.  The temptation is there to do another IM.  IM Maryland is only an hour from my house...

This past Sunday I completed my first Ironman-distance race, the inaugural Challenge Atlantic City.  I had heard great reviews about Challenge Family events.  They are a huge series outside of the United States and this was their first event in the US.  I consider them probably the only major competitor to WTC in terms of Iron and half-Iron distance races. This was an inaugural event so one has to enter with the expectation of a few glitches.  The key was "a few glitches."  I was not impressed with this race at all, nor was I impressed with Atlantic City.   To be completely honest, AC itself is a disaster. Maybe it is from doing too many races in Disney or Florida but AC is not a very nice city.  Even the casino and Boardwalk area looks as if it hasn't been updated in years.  They still permit smoking inside the casinos so the entire public areas of the casinos smell like smoke.  Stained carpets, falling apart rooms and outdated decor wer...