OWS at Peconic canal

One loop bike course through Riverhead, Wading River and Calverton

19.2 avg speed 32.8 max speed
87 avg cad 119 max cad

Messed up with my Garmin and lost the HR data.

Two loop run course in Riverhead

3 AM update

How do I feel today? Pretty good even though I didn't sleep much or that well and ready to race. Hopefully all the hard work and training pays off for me today and it is a good debut. One thing I have been thinking about all morning is a excerpt from Scott Ludwig's book about Badwater 2003. It was mentioned in the book by Bonnie Busch while at the training camp for Badwater:

Control what you can, accept what you must. You cannot finish if you quit physically or mentally.

I need to put that into practice today. That will be one of my mantra's today as I know I will need it during the run. It's almost showtime!

Post Race update

I had an awesome time today and I think I did pretty freakin good for my first tri and an olympic no less, 3:10. Not too bad for this 44 year old man. Seriously I was hoping for 3:15 so for me this is just awesome. I think I could have been closer to 3 hours but my transitions were pretty long especially the first one. That is ok I expected that and the key was not to forget anything so I am good with that. I am just so happy that all the hard work and the training paid off. I think I did very well in the swim, all the OWS work at Wildwood paid off. I think it was in the 30 to 35 minute range which is great for me. The bike ride was amazing, I passed so many people I could not believe it. I love my Cervelo P2 that think is like a rocket ship and was worth every penny I paid for it! I had such a blast on the bike it was the most fun I had during the race. Now I am no great cyclist but if you have a TT bike you have a major advantage. I was passing roadie bikes all day and to be honest I really felt bad in a way because it seemed so easy. I was shifting gears correctly like you would not believe, I still don't believe it! I think I really surprised myself on the bike. The other thing was I was riding in a good headway most of the ride so all those rides down by the water have been paying off. The wind did not affect my ride one bit. I think I did great on the run as well, I am pretty slow but I ran a little over a 9 minute pace and was able to pick up the pace on the second loop and I sprinted into the finish. I think I left it all out there today and I am proud of that. I have so much room for improvement but man this experience was just freakin awesome. I'll get the race report up once I get official times and all I can say is I cannot wait for next weekend's sprint tri.

Late evening update

I am posting my official times for the race minus the transition times which I do not yet have. Once I have those I will post the race report. Overall time was 2:58:05, Swim 31:45, Bike 1:20:52 and Run 56:37. Transition time was near 9 minutes between T1 and T2 with T1 be very long. 

How do I feel today? Awesome, great! I got a great night of sleep last night for sure. I think the swim totally wiped me out. I ate a huge italian dinner last night, watched some TV, read a little and totally passed out. I feel great today, totally refreshed. No training today it is final preperation for tomorrow. I will drive the bike and run course this afternoon. I will also walk over to the canal and scope out the swim course. No one is allowed to swim there so that was not an option before the race. I am very familiar with Riverhead and the course but I do want to give it a once over. I will get my packet as well today when I am down there. I will go through my checklist like twenty times today and get all my gear together. I want to make sure I have everything together for tomorrow. I will also inspect all my gear today and get the few things I need while I am out. The nerves have not set in yet and I am hoping to just be cool and stay relaxed. We may also have rain in the morning tomorrow which would really suck but it is what it is and I'll deal with it. The good thing is no matter what happens I am ready.

Well I think I finished up all final prep for the race tomorrow. I did go down and pick up my packet and I did talk to the event organizers and they went over the transition area and the swim. I was able to scope out the canal and it doesn't seem to be to bad. I was worried about the swim but I am good with that now. I am more worried about the weather and the bike course now after driving it. The roads will be opened for limited traffic and alot of those roads have little to no shoulder room which is a little concerning to me. If it is wet out it will be more challenging as well. Unfortunately nothing I can do about either one of those things I will just have to be careful and make safety the priority which is pretty much what the event organizers are stressing. The run course is fine so no worries there. So let it rain all night and get it over with so it can be dry tomorrow. Not much more to do here but get a good night's sleep and check to make sure I have my stuff like 15 more times! I thought I would be very nervous but I have been surprisingly calm all day. I hope that the calmness carries over for tomorrow morning. What more can I say other than I hope it all goes well.

OWS at WWL

How do I feel today? I am tired this morning. I have not been able to catch up on any sleep and I did not sleep very well or enough for that matter last night. I will head in early tonight and I will sleep late tomorrow. For today I am not sure what I am going to do. It is suppose to rain and there is a chance of thunderstorms so if the weather holds out and we are swimming at the lake this evening I will do that as I would like to get one more swim in before Sunday. If not then I think I will probably spin for an hour on the bike indoors on the trainer. That will be it for this week tomorrow is an off day. I will pick up my packet, scope out the canal where we are swimming and I will take a drive around the bike and run course. I will also get my stuff together and ready today and tomorrow. I will go through my checklist as I don't want to forget anything for Sunday's race.

Looks like we are on for a lake swim this evening at Wildwood weather permitting. I hope I didn't jinx us

It turned out to be a beautiful evening out at Wildwood Lake. It was a little hot there this evening but the water was nice and cool for the most part. There were some really nice cold spots as well. I got to swim with Wynn and Bobby this evening and it was great to be out there with them. Wynn is in final preparation for IM Tremblant and Bobby is preparing for IM Louisville. No way I can keep up with those guys but it is great experience for me to swim with them. Tonight we did and out for a 1/2 mile then back to the other shore for a 1/2 mile then back to shore for another 1/4 mile. So we did a 1 and 1/4 miles for the first leg. Bobby had to take off so Wynn and I did the 1/4 mile out and back so all total we did 1 and 3/4 miles this evening. I will definitely sleep well tonight my arms feel like they are going to fall off. This was really good for me as I wanted get one more OWS before Sunday. I believe I have done all I can do to prepare myself for my debut race and I feel really good about it. I can't believe that I have been doing all this stuff for the last 9 months. It's showtime, time to go out there and have fun this weekend.

Indoors on trainer
18.5 avg speed 22 max speed

How do I feel today? I am pretty tired today and I did not sleep well last night even though I am tired. This has not been a good week for me. I have been very busy at work and I have been doing a lot of running around this week. I have also been trying to pick up the slack since my wife has had to do a lot of running around so trying to get my training done this week has been challenging to say the least. I was hoping to get a 2 plus hour/40 mile bike ride in today but it is looking like I may only get an hour/20 mile ride on the trainer during lunch today. I need to take my daughter to a doctor's appointment this evening and my wife is taking my son to his soccer game tonight. That has been my week pretty much so I will do what I can today.

I got in an hour and 5 minutes in on the trainer during a late lunch this afternoon. That was good for 20 miles wished I could have done another hour today but that is the way it goes. I probably could've taken her out for a ride today as it is not raining. I really would like to get one more short ride in before Sunday just to make sure everything is cool with my bike. I may take a quick spin during lunch tomorrow and hopefully the weather holds out and I can meet Wynn and Theresa for one more lake swim before this weekend's race. That would be great if not I may even go to the pool tomorrow just for a quick swim. I think that would be it I have done all I can do to get ready for this hopefully it is enough.

83 degrees 37% humidity
10 mph wind

How do I feel today? I am very tired this morning. I slept great last night though and probably could have slept until noon if I didn't have to get up for work this morning. I am going to try to get to bed earlier tonight though. I really do need to get some more rest for this weekend. I am going to do a long run this evening. The weather is not looking good for tomorrow so I will do the run tonight this way if it's not so good tomorrow I can do the long bike ride on the trainer indoors. Friday is looking like a swim at the lake in the evening so I may just do a quick spin on the bike for lunch on Friday. Saturday will be a rest day this week and Sunday will be go time - race day, finally I have been waiting 9 months for this! I can't wait!

I had a really good run tonight. Very easy paced, the weather was great it was not hot and the humidity was low with a nice little breeze. I have been stressing the last two weeks with work as there is too much going and not enough time to get it done. I'll be honest I have been a little worried to about the upcoming tri's as well. Not so much about what I need to do but just a little bit of the fear of the unknown thing. No matter how much you read or how much someone explains it to you until you actually go out and do it you just don't really know. So I thought my run was very theraputic this evening. I didn't really think about anything I just went out and got lost in the run. It's great to do that every once in a while and it was pretty nice to get in a 12 mile run in since I really need to be running more. I'm not going to worry about it this week but I have to start getting more miles in for that Nov. marathon.

OWS at WWL - The water was pretty rough tonight!

87 degrees 61% humidity
13 mph wind

How do I feel today? Very tired this morning. I had to pick up my daughter from the train station last night and of course the train was over an hour late so I went to bed at 1:15 AM. That is typical of the LIRR, they suck so bad I don't miss having to ride the train. Even though I am pretty tired today I think I will try and get a run of 5 or 6 miles in this morning and then I am supposed to meet up with Wynn and Theresa for a swim over at Wildwood this evening. If we don't swim today I will probably run some more this evening.

I got my run in this morning and could only get 5 miles in. I had to kind of rush it since I had to pick my son up at noon from the high school. He is volunteering for the Soccer camps the school is running and since he plays on the varsity team he has to help out. I will say it is freakin hot out there today and thank goodness for some wind otherwise it would have been a little more brutal then it was. I need to get running more. I am hoping to swim this evening and I looking forward to it. The OWS' at the lake have really helped my confidence and I have rediscovered the joy of swimming. I think I was coming to hate it when at the pool because I felt I was struggling so bad but since I have been doing most of my swimming at the lake I feel like I have been able to turn it around and I think I am doing better. I am enjoying swimming again and looking forward to another session this evening.

Wow where do I start with the swim tonight? Man it was rough tonight for a while. I went out with Wynn and Theresa this evening and we started the 1/2 mile out and back. On the way out we might have gotten halfway out in the lake and the water got very rough very quickly. We decided to stop and head back. It was very humbling to how quickly the conditions turned on us. I can see how you can get yourself into a lot of trouble if you panic which is very sobering when that realization hits you. Fortunately I did not do that I was able to keep my head and swim. Instead of heading directly back I headed towards the shallower water to the left of the shore and then headed back to the beach where the water was not as rough. It was a good test for me tonight the fact that I did not lose my cool and panic is a big deal. I need more experience swimming in those conditions. We did swim though we did the 1/4 mile out and back and it was not as rough so we had fun anyway. I am already looking forward to Friday the next swim day.

OWS at WWL

How do I feel today? I am tired today. I need to find a way to catch up on some sleep this week. I need to go to bed earlier especially with the first Tri coming up this weekend. I know I will be getting more anxious and nervous as the week goes on. For today I will probably run during lunch only because my afternoon schedule will make it tough to go swim today. I will get a swim in tomorrow then either at the pool or possibly at WWL with Wynn and Theresa. He was thinking either Monday or Tuesday and since I did not hear from him today it will probably be tomorrow.

Well change in plans looks like we are on for a swim at the lake this evening barring no thunderstorms so I will skip the lunch run. If the swim gets scratched due to weather then I will ride the bike on the trainer or possibly run. I will definitely train today regardless of the weather.

I had a great swim at Wildwood lake this evening with Wynn and Theresa. The weather held out so no rain tonight and it wound up being pretty nice although it was windy out and it was a little rough out in the middle of the lake. That was great though as I got an opportunity to experience those conditions and I did a good job, no panic just relaxed and just swam through it. I am getting more comfortable and confident swimming in the lake. I like swimming in the lake much better than the pool. We did the 1/2 mile out and back but went to the right toward the other shore then went back to the beach for the 1/4 mile so we did approximately 1 and 1/4 miles. Going back the 1/4 mile it got very rough but I did a nice job and actually swam back pretty quickly which was somewhat impressive to myself. I am slow as all hell but I am getting a little better and hopefully it will help me for that first tri this weekend. The other thing is I am not so much worried about the swim and am more worried about the transitions and forgetting things there. That's probably not a bad thing, my strategy for the swim is to not think and just swim I hope it works.