 When I started training for my first triathlon, I treated it just like my marathon training. I had completed several 26.2 mile races with nothing more than a few suggestions gleaned from the Internet and a lot of miles in the log. It only took a short while to figure out that I was going to need more help, at least when it came to the concept of actually running the race.
Shortly after completing that first event, I attended a meeting of the Fox Cities Triathlon Club, or Tri Foxes. Being in a club while training for my second triathlon made a world of difference. Having access to people with a great deal more experience and expertise was a huge benefit. So much so that I went from barely swimming the 220 yards of my first race to completing a 1500 yard swim in the second race without ever breaking out of freestyle.
As with many clubs, the Tri Foxes have several coaches as part of the team. One recent addition to our club is a husband-wife team who lead PRTriCoach. They are wonderful examples of what makes the triathlon community so amazing. They take their abilities, expertise, and passion and share it with others.
Lee combines 20 years of swim coaching with more than 13 years working with American Bicycle Group, which manufactures bikes for Litespeed, Merlin, and Quintana Roo. Brenda, when not making things glow at a local nuclear power plant (from one nuke to another), is busy racking up impressive finishes at everything from triathlon to adventure races. For fun, Brenda commutes to work minus the car. She uses kayaks, canoes, and bikes to get where she needs to go.
For those in northeast Wisconsin looking for a local solution to coaching, PRTriCoach is worth a look. In addition to personal coaching, they offer various clinics and hold training workouts throughout the year. They can also complete blood lactate testing, allowing training to be focused more effectively. And for those outside the area, my experiences from the past year highlight the benefits of having a coach, even if that coach is located thousands of miles away.
Take some time and stop by PRTriCoach if you are looking for a boost to your next season. Lee and Brenda are energetic, enthusiastic experts in endurance events.
Blizzard-like conditions, last night, led to brutal conditions, this morning. It took me over an hour to shovel the snow, and almost that long to get into my car. Yesterday afternoon, it was raining. Late in the afternoon, it turned to hail, then snow.
This morning, it was -15F air temperature, with wind chills in the -45F range. I had to wear two pair of gloves while shoveling. In a tribute to images from my youth, I had ice on my eyelashes and eyebrows when got back in the house.
Between the rain, hail, snow, and sub-arctic temperatures, every door on my Blazer was frozen shut. I tried the back hatch, and the button was frozen in place. I had to get my remote and unlock the hatch so I could get into the car and force a door open. The hinges were nearly froze, too.
And STILL, I passed someone out running as I drove to work. I fully support training. But unless you are training to race the Iditarod as PART OF THE DOG TEAM, running outside in these temperatures is probably a bit risky. If you are one of the die-hards bound and determined to run regardless of the conditions, make sure you are taking the precautions needed for the conditions. Remember that in temperatures such as these, exposed skin can suffer from frostbite in a matter of minutes. Cover your hands, face and ears. Layer well so you can stay warm while maintaining temperature control.
And above all, let people know where you will be headed and stay in well travelled areas.
We've been lucky that past few weeks, in a "snowing all the time" sort of way. Several days of modest snowfall have accumulated to allow a good deal of outdoor, wintry fun. For those of you without kids, that translates to sleds, piles of snow, and sled dogs named "Daddy." Throw in a neighbor kid or two, and you have a great opportunity for kids to work off some cabin fever.
Last night, I called ahead to let Mrs. Pol know I would take the kids out to play as soon as I got home. We had only been out a few minutes when a 5-year old neighbor boy came running out his front door, headed for our house. When he saw we were rebuilding our sled hill, he went and got one of his sleds. The only option we have is a full size wooden toboggan, ill suited for small hills in the front yard.
Soon enough, it was like a ride at Disney, with one child sledding while the other two stood in line for their next turn. And like all children, the most important aspect of any turn was the exact distance they managed to travel. Well, that coupled with finding new and dangerous was to sled down the hill.
My daughter surprised me with her willingness to try anything the boys did. If they went down laying on their back, she went down laying on hers. But the imitation ended when she discovered the joy of laying on her belly, head first, and sledding down the hill. It had to be comical for anyone watching me pick her up and set her into the sled. And the whole time I'm saying, "Okay, nobody tell her mom what she's doing."
She giggled and laughed every time she went down the hill. And she wasn't afraid to try getting an extra ride, either. Though she's only two and quite a bit smaller than both boys, she can yell just as loud as either. It's funny to watch her standing there with her fists clenched yelling, "MY TURN! NO, MY TURN!"
Fearless. There's something to be taken from that. It isn't a fearlessness of injury. Neither of my kids are overly fond of pain. But they aren't afraid to take risks. And Monster Girl continually proves that SHE'S the one we'll have to watch closely. The risk of injury just doesn't faze her when there's a possible reward of an adrenaline rush.
Just think, only 16 more years until she can move out of the house.
 Early reports out of Pol-Land indicate we may have a casualty on the blogger front. A routine visit to Commodore's site turned ugly when I wound up at a spam site. Where there used to be wonderful human interest stories about Commodore, Mistress, and Mo there is now a spam site dedicated to medical conditions.
Correspondence was immediately dispatched to Commodore's attention, and any updates will be posted as they are received. If anyone has any information, please let us know.
Some of you may recall a while back when Flatman had a similar situation occur. We may, again, need to mobilize the Tri Blog Community to restore the site of the Uncommon Mann to the blogosphere.
Update 3: Commodore's site is now restored to fully functional status. CM!
Update 2: It appears all is well. It will take a bit to get things back up and running. It all revolves around E-mail addresses:
Well it looks like its just expired. The host had my old hotmail contact not my new spiffy Gmail.
Update 1: I received the following from Commodore. Apparently, he was caught as offguard as anyone else.
I am not sure Tom. I found out last night by a phone call. I emailed the company to find out. Haven't gotten any bills from them so not sure what the deal is all about. I hope to have back up today.
There's a saying something like, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then." Today, I feel like the blind squirrel.
After rearranging my workouts to better fit with the rest of life, I took yesterday as a rest day and did a swim/run workout, this morning. Something about the rest day worked for me, as the workout went very well. Perhaps it was time my shoulder needed to recover from playing dodgeball against the eighth graders at The Boys' Brigade. Perhaps it was the "decent" night's sleep (meaning neither child woke me up, and I actually slept in my BED the whole night). Maybe it was the free lasagna I had for dinner (leftovers from a work lunch).
Whatever it was, I had what is perhaps the best swim I've ever had. It was certainly the best swim I've had in a long time. It was a simple enough workout with a 300 yard warmup and 200 yard cooldown. The main set was 10x100 at T-pace - 5" on 20" rest. I've been throwing in at least one good speed workout each week in an effort to maintain my 2'/100 yard pace, or maybe even improve upon it.
I completed the warmup, and realized my pace was already 5" under my t-pace. That's usually a sure sign I'm going to blow up a few hundred yards into the main set, and require outside assistance by the cool down set. Needless to say, I wasn't overly confident going into the 100s.
The stars must be aligned properly, though, because I completed the entire main set with a pace of 1:51/100 yards. That doesn't beat my personal best 100 yards ever, but it definitely beats my best average pace over distance. And when I was able to complete the cool down set at a pace of 1:55/100, the first thing that came to mind was blind squirrels.
I don't expect to have days like this every day. But it gives me a great swim on which I can focus when it comes to races. It's good to know that I can complete most of an Olympic distance swim at a sub-2 minute pace. That would shave a lot of time of my prior best swims.
And now, I have to get back to looking for nuts. After all, blind squirrels only get lucky every so often.
 For the first time in what seems like forever (and is actually probably days, at best), our area should see temperatures on the proper side of zero. They might not hit double digits, but 9F is so much warmer than -5F. And if we see much more snow, the thermometer outside our window may start to look like the one in the picture. Minus the beautiful background. It's tough to find mountains like that in Wisconsin. Snow covered hills, sure. Majestic, snow-capped mountains, not so much.
The downside of all the cold is the challenge of training outdoors. The upside is that I see more of my kids. I also spend more time in the pool. And let's face it, while I am far from an elite runner, I can at least finish a half-marathon before any professional finishes a marathon. My half-IM swim time is well over the best IM swim times out there.
All the snow has given me the opportunity for "alternative strength workouts." I'm not quite sure of the correction factor, but shoveling certainly counts as a strength session. At least in my training log, it does.
Dodgeball does not. In fact, dodgeball should probably be prohibited when trying to improve swim times. But when there are so many young men (8th graders) just begging to be beaned, I have to answer the call. The kids in my group were loving it, until I switched to the opposing team. And my body was dealing with it until this morning's swim. Still, it's a price I'm willing to play for the opportunity to clobber the kids in my group.
So, a quick recap. It's cold. It's snowy, and all my training is indoors. Shoveling should count as training, and dodgeball is a bad idea.
I guess I'll just have to round the week out with a trip to Red Robin for dinner and a huge training weekend. It's all about balance, after all.
To anyone it may concern,
We can all agree that gyms around the country might FEEL like home. Many of us spend a great deal of time there. Often, we take more showers at the gym than at home. For those of us training in the morning, it occassionally feels like we don't wake up until we've been working out for a while.
We can probably also agree that it is both guaranteed and acceptable that some amount of exposed skin will be seen in the locker rooms. With some many people in relatively confined spaces, nobody expects to get through a day at the gym without seeing at least a bit more than they may have wanted to see when they woke up in the morning. We're all adults, and we've been through gym class in school. We can deal with it.
As someone who spent 10 years in the US Navy, I've lived through more confined, less private circumstances. In fact, open bay showers and bathrooms without stall doors are a fact of life in boot camp.
There are, however, some lines we should consider drawing. Common decency, really. Just a few little courtesies we can show others using the same facilities.
Because let's face it, few people sharing the locker room with you are really keen on seeing your ________ body hanging out there for everyone's pleasure (please insert your favorite: fat/hairy/sagging/perfect/bulging/etc). And this applies to everyone, from the completely out of shape to the completely perfect.
When you exit the shower and head right over to the sinks to complete your morning routine, you walk right by the lockers and your clothes. You're usually carrying at least one or two towels. And yet, somehow, you manage to stand there, completely naked, and brush your teeth, shave, style your hair, trim your nails, and perform any number of other number of hygiene tasks. And just to keep things interesting, you sometimes wander around the locker room, still naked, while brushing your teeth. The time you brushed your teeth while making a pit stop at the urinal was particularly disturbing.
Yes, you pay to use the facilities. But let's be realistic. The building cost millions to build, furnish, and staff. Your monthly payment probably ranges from $50-300/month. How do you manage to gain access to a multi-million dollar facility for such a low payment? Because I also pay to be there. So do lots of other people.
If you want to complete your entire morning ritual in the buff, perhaps you can pay the millions of dollars needed to build your own gym and locker room. Until then, a bit of humility (or at least decency) will go a long way. I'm not asking for a lot. Wander from the locker to your shower (and perhaps back) naked all you want. But the other 20-30 minutes of the morning, consider donning your underwear, or at least a towel.
Sincerely,
The rest of us
As endurance athletes, we are accustomed to taking care of our bodies. Our clothes are designed to be lightweight and wick away moisture. Our shoes are engineered to correct a variety of gait issues, minimizing injury. We wear hats, glasses and sunscreen to protect our heads, eyes, and skin. Heart rate monitors and power meters provide feedback regarding our effort. And we listen to our bodies when training and racing.
And still, the odd injury can crop up.
I've completed a dozen half and full marathons. I've logged thousands of miles pounding the pavement training for those races. While my triathlon resume is a bit shorter, I completed two half and one IM distance race in 2007. For the most part, I've been injury free, and I've NEVER had a blister on my feet.
The closest I ever came to injuring my feet was in my first triathlon. That's the one where my chain broke half-way through the 15-mile bike and I ran the rest. Barefoot. Sore feet? Yes. Blisters? No.
So you can understand my shock when I took my shoes off yesterday and found not one, but two blisters on my toes. Somehow, the two biggest toes on my left foot (I guess that would be "the big toe" and, what, the "pointer toe?") rubbed together leading to these blisters. Extremely odd.
The worst part is that these did not occur during training. My feet were fine, yesterday morning, after my seven mile run. No, these blisters developed at work. In my dress shoes. And remember, I'm an accountant.
So, thousands of miles of running, no blisters. And I somehow manage to get TWO blisters while sitting at a desk. Doing accounting things. Apparently closing is far more demanding on my feet than the thousands of miles I logged in training, last year.
I need a rest week.
 (Picture - Corey Wilson/Green Bay Press-Gazette)
Sometimes, "bad" weather can lead to a lot of good. This weekend, we were hit with a lot of snow in a fairly short period of time. Those watching the play-off game between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks witnessed one positive outcome of all the snow. In all his years at Green Bay, Brett Favre had never played a game in conditions like those they faced Saturday.
Another good outcome of all the snow was The Pol-R Express finally making it into the basement and onto the trainer. Since Ironman Louisville, my workouts have been focused on swimming and running. Very minimal effort has been put in on the bike. And by minimal I mean very few rides. And by very few rides, I mean one. For 20 miles.
Hey, some people stay out of the pool forever, some stayed off the bike.
Sunday, that changed when two days of off and on snow made running a bad option. So, I grabbed the bike, put it on the trainer, and threw "The Matrix - Revolutions" into the DVD player. I didn't know if I would watch the whole movie, but figured two hours would be the most I would go.
After 60 minutes at an average heart rate of 138, I was ready to call it a workout. Once I replace the pedal magnet for cadence indications, I'll be better able to monitor workouts. For this "first in a long time" ride, I just cycled through gears and maintained a decent cadence.
Snow has a lot of downsides. But sometimes, good can come of it. Just ask the Green Bay Packers, or look at my training log. Who would have guessed that the NFC playoffs and spinning would have anything in common?
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
 The thought "at no point" has crossed my mind so frequently, it would almost certainly be the title of any book about my endurance "career." That's because so much of what's been accomplished in the past half-decade falls well outside the realm of anything I had ever considered. Or believed I could accomplish.
At no point in the first 30 years of my life did I contemplate running a marathon. Yet somehow, prior to my 35 birthday, I became a marathoner. At no point in the first 35 years of my life did I consider becoming a triathlete, let alone an Ironman. And somehow, prior to my 39th birthday, I did both.
Somehow, "at no point" is likely to end before my 40th birthday. The accomplishments of the past few years have drastically changed how I view things. The Boston Marathon, a goal long considered unattainable, is something I now consider as a possibility. Ultramarathons I used to consider out of reach are now in play.
There are two people (groups) that can take credit (blame) for this evolution in my life. First? The youth that challenged me to complete a triathlon, and an occassional training partner named Bill. The kids put me up to the attempt. Bill gave me a single suggestion that turned my swim around.
Second? Roman and the rest of the raceAthlete founders. When they came up with the "Train Like a Pro" theory, Ironman was something I considered as "a possibility, years down the road." The chance to be on that team led me to shoot for IM Wisconsin. When that failed and IM Louisville was announced, that distant pipe dream became a driving force.
And now, several members of that 2007 team are starting another journey. And while I am excited about what opportunities might be offered, I am equally excited about what will happen regardless of those opportunities. While I was unable to officially participate in the 2007 Ironman Wisconsin, I went along for the ride, and accomplished some amazing things, anyway. Because it's all about team, friendship, and the Tri Blog Community.
 I started evolutionary change in 2000. That led to dramatic results in 2007. And in 2008, a new evolution begins. Led by several members of the 2007 team, new opportunities will come into play. And this time, "at no point" will not be a factor. Just like last year, I'll be there to support the team in whatever capacity is needed. And just like last year, we will all benefit from the friendships that will form and grow. If you haven't already stopped by the site of Iron Wil, Simply Stu, Chris Sweet, Rural Girl, or Bolder, visit one of them and stay up to date on all that's happening.
|
RSS Feed