Enjoying the Run

Somehow, my stint in Europe improved my run fitness. All I know is that the week I came home from Europe, I went out for a 10+ mile run, and finished it seeing 6:30 average pace on my Garmin. Since then, I've repeatedly seen numbers that confirm that I am indeed pretty fit on the run. But aside from numbers, I've really enjoyed running lately, mostly because my form and stride feels so much more like it used to back in the day when I was a "runner". But this feeling didn't come back overnight, but rather, something I've noticed improving starting the beginning of this year. I suspect my break from racing the ironman distance (less biking, less long and slow training miles) is a major contributor to my improved run feeling. But I also attribute it to doing more single leg squats. Yes, like everyone else, I too am praising the single leg squat, the "it" girl of endurance sports this year. Supposedly single leg squats both strengthen your hips and increase their flexibility. Over the weekend, I got a clue as to how weak hips affect my running.

I was doing my long run on Saturday, and the weather was atypically warm for San Francisco. I took off my shirt, rolled it up and wrapped it around my waist tucking the ends into my shorts (you know, what you see real runners do). My shirt stayed in place, with the ends tucked neatly in my shorts throughout most of the run. The plan was to run 12 miles thus I didn't carry any water and only one gel. But I got ambitious, tried a new route, and found myself bonking the last two miles of a 14+ mile run. But more importantly, during that bonk, I noticed the shirt jostling, and loosening from the shorts repeatedly, and I constantly had to tuck it back in. It then dawned on me that my hips were fatigued, and as a result, they were becoming increasingly unstable, and bouncing more and more. The increased bounce led to my shirt jostling loose. I focused on stabilizing my hips with each stride, and sure enough, my shirt jostled less and less. And stabilizing my hips during these "bonked" miles not only decreased the jostle of my shirt, it also saw me bring back down my pace per mile. So, if you've got an ironman left this season, you're gonna want some strong and stable hips that last 10K of the marathon.

And finally, I leave you with some pictures from Stockholm and St. Petersburg.

Berlin, Tallinn, Helsinki

After Copenhagen, I made my way around the Baltic Sea visiting Berlin, Tallin (Estonia), and Helsinki. Berlin had a lot of history; the entire city of Tallin is wifi'ed and some of the best computer techies in the world come from Estonia (who knew); and while running in Helsinki, I was reminded of one of the greatest ironman racers when I was in my early twenties, Pauli Kiuru. My favorite way to explore a city is to do a long run. You get to cover so much more ground than walking, and you get to explore trails and paths that cannot be covered in a car. And 10 miles go by so fast when you are exploring a new city. The sunrise picture over the Baltic reminded me of a Rothko painting, and the last picture was taken at the Holocaust Museum in Berlin, where there was an installation projecting names in memory of those killed during the genocide.

København (Copenhagen)

The blog went silent but not because of some perplexing situation like peeing blood, or a parasite. I've been traveling throughout Europe since July 19, and well, since the blog is racingawareness and not travelingawareness, I wasn't sure if the trip is blog worthy. And even if I did, I didn't have much downtime. But I'm on the tail-end of my trip, and post 6 days of open water swimming in Croatia, and finding myself with more time to rest and relax.

København or Copenhagen has been on my bucket list ever since I saw the youtube videos of the amazing bike culture. The placed lived up to the hype and I'm so glad I got to observe the culture first-hand. As much as I would love to see a similar bike culture thrive in the Bay Area, it just can't happen because of the all of the hills. What makes biking everywhere work in Copenhagen is that it is absolutely FLAT! Thus, people young and old, fit or out-of-shape, can bike around. The city's infrastructure is so bike friendly with many bike lanes separated from the road, and often, the bike lanes were as wide as the road. When I first came up from the underground metro station, I was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of bikes I saw. Copenhagen is definitely for bicyclists, but for cyclists, I'm not so sure as I was unable to do any type of formal training. Put Copenhagen on your list and if you do go, here are the things I recommend:

Don't stay in a hotel, instead, rent a rooftop flat in a cool neighborhood, like Nørrebro, and hang and do what the locals do.

Eat at Manfreds. Amazing food, especially what they do with veggies.

Go to the Kastrup Strand by the airport and jump off the deck at the "snail" or just relax on the lawn.

Buy t-shirts, they've got some great designs.

Bruises by Chairlift

This song pretty much inspired me to make an accompanying video. After almost nine months of not working, I'll be starting back up in two weeks, yikes. Summer is also coming to an end, and the sun/heat finally decided to make an appearance here on Sunday. I think it was Mark Twain who said something like: The coldest winter I spent was the summer I lived in San Francisco. On tap is a half ironman in Santa Cruz in September and maybe one more olympic distance race to close out the season. Ironman Cozumel is not happening, but Silverman? It's official, I'm in Ironman CDA for 2011 and if all goes well next Monday, I'll be in for Ironman Canada 2011 as well.

Make A Different Mistake, Sheesh!

This was the thought running through my head during the second loop of the marathon and at the finish (well, maybe not the "sheesh" part). My last three ironmans have gone like this: great swim, decent bike, horrible run. There are a handful of people who have watched and supported my ironman quest for the past 12 years, and I feel like I owe them an apology. I'm embarrassed that I keep making the same mistake over and over; and I wish I would just make a different mistake-maybe a decent swim, horrible bike, and great run? I feel like we have the exact same conversation after every ironman, and I question how much longer they can (or should) continue to support me in this ironman thing. But, I came up with some reasons to continue.

I've only done 6 ironmans, not much, and in the span of 12 years so it's not like I carried the fitness from one to another. I only started racing the distance again this past March after a 4-year hiatus. The best advice I've gotten thus far is that it takes 1.5-2 years of consistent ironman training and racing to nail down a PR. I'm currently at month number eight, thus my PR should come some time next summer/fall. I'm positive that I'm on track. Physically and emotionally, I'm ready to go again, and I'm currently trying to find a way to squeeze in Ironman Cozumel. And I know what went wrong on Saturday. I focused on nutrition every 20 minutes on the bike and this worked really well. However, the last 45 minutes, I lost all my fluids because the bottles did not fit on my cages, and this in turn caused me to stop eating food. I arrived to T2 with about 800 unconsumed calories still in my jersey pocket, calories that were meant for the run. This is why I slowly faded on the run and crashed hard at mile 7. I learned that there is no hard and steadfast rule as to when to start taking coke. Coke should be taken when you feel absolutely depleted, and not just at mile 18. I was absolutely depleted at mile 11 and should have started on coke rather than waiting. My third loop split was solid and equally as fast as my first loop, and this tells me I can run a marathon under 3:30 as long as I stay on top of the nutrition. Nutrition is a lot easier to fix than lack of will/desire or lack of talent.

And speaking of talent, I keep some fast company, and many of these athletes had instant success at the ironman distance. I think watching these athletes gave me an unrealistic sense of how long it would take to nail down an ironman PR. I now know this ironman quest is solely about me and my own pace. I'm not about to quit anytime soon so sit back, be patient, and enjoy the journey. Guerneville was a great trip and I think it would make a great location for a training camp. I'll leave you with some images from the trip.

Revisiting the Sabbatical

The purpose of the sabbatical was to satiate the restless part of me: the curiosity to live abroad, the obsession to race an ironman under 10 hours, and the romantic notions of traveling, meeting new people, and living a different lifestyle. Post-sabbatical, the plan was to retire from racing, be sensible and buy a home, and slow life down enough to make room for a pooch. During my long ride yesterday, I realized that the sabbatical pushed me further away from these post-sabbatical plans. I find myself even more restless, and I want to race more ironmans, visit the friends I've made abroad as well as meet even more friends, and I definitely don't want to be tied down by a home-I need the cash to travel, race, and live. And so the adventure continues.
I have to admit that pre-sabbatical, I was starting to feel my age, in other words, a bit old. I felt like I lost the spunk I had in my twenties and early thirties. Living and traveling abroad required me to meet new people on a daily basis. Unlike old and familiar friendships where you rarely need to define yourself, new friendships require you to "sell" yourself a bit; and in the process, you are reminded of who you are. I learned that I still have spunk, maybe not as much as I did when I was in my twenties, but I've got enough spunk to try new things and have a grand 'ole time. I highly recommend traveling as a means to learn what you're made of and who you are. The following are videos and images of my most memorable days during the sabbatical. I'm looking forward to viewing these videos and images when I'm much much much older.
On tap this Sunday is a speed session in the form of an olympic distance race. It's in the hood and I get to run across the Golden Gate Bridge; but I'm not looking forward to swimming in the SF bay. The focus is my ironman at the end of July so this has been a volume week. I'm not too worried as I've raced well in the past on tired legs. Also, the race looks low-key and very grassroots triathlon-love those, they always remind me of my early years in the sport.

Ian and Charisa

I wish I had been there when Charisa told her husband that she invited some guy she met on the internet to stay with them for the weekend. And I wasn't the first, she did the same with Ian when they first met in the blog world. But I think Bree's Kona coffee mac nut carob chip cookies made a good introduction. Too funny. For those of you unfamiliar with these two, they are newly minted pro triathletes. But because they both still have full time jobs, I see them more as age-groupers who aren't scared to race with the pro's, and that in my book is HK (hard core). Their work ethic is inspiring, and I credit these two for pulling me out of my retirement from ironman racing. The original plan was for me to join in on one of their ironman volume training blocks...and suffer. But their coach changed things around and instead of volume, the theme was now SPEED, and we all know speed kills. Everything felt fast this weekend, even the warm-up and warm-down. Whereas I exercise, these two train. Every workout has a purpose and parameters, like a specific pace or heart rate. Me, if I feel good, I go hard. And if I feel bad, I do what I can on that day-no rhyme or reason really. It was a blast to be a part of this type of training again, and by the end of the weekend, I think I found some speed. I also found some new training venues, some good eats, and some new and old friends. New friends Nick and Carla prepared one of the best post training brunch I've ever eaten...for 13+ people. We're talking food like: banana coconut pancakes, vegetable eggs benedict, asparagus frittata with smoked paprika, and homemade cinnamon rolls and blueberry muffins. And during a ride, I ran into an old college acquaintance, Mari Holden, who also happens to be an Olympic Silver Medalist. I will definitely be back...but only after I am over the psychological scar from sitting in LA traffic.

Day 122: Last Week's Training

The original title of this post was "This Week in Training", I never got around to posting it in the proper week. It seems like everyone and their grandma is in Kona this week. I have over 15 friends from the mainland U.S. and Australia over here, combined with new friends and the Kona crew, the social calendar is quite full. I arrived in Kona last Sunday and in the span of five days, I moved and slept in three different places. On the third (and final move), I remember laying in bed and thinking how normal it all felt to be living out of suitcases and moving from place to place. I wanted to live life as a pro, and after 4 months, I finally am used to the lifestyle.I got straight to business once I got to Kona, putting in close to 32 hours of training last week. Each day, I feared the workout thinking, is this the day my lack of fitness will catch up to me? Somehow I made it through. Actually, I know how I made it through, good company and lots of laughter. On my fifth straight day of riding, Bree and I had a 6-hour ride post swim. The first hour was so tough mentally and physically. But then I whipped out the camera and we made these stupid videos and we started busting up laughing. Who knew the laughing would be better than a gel or salt tablet, and it totally got us into our groove. The next four hours were copacetic. At the five hour mark, Bree and I died our second death. We tried pace-lining, but we ended up separating, each of us with only our thoughts on the Queen K. The last hour was definitely ironman-pace effort, which coincidentally we were supposed to try and do if we felt good. How ironic. After a run off the bike, we had 20 minutes to get back to my hotel to move me into my new place. I first saw Bree at 6:00 AM that day, and we finally departed ways at 4:30 PM...only to meet up again 2 hours later for a movie. What a day. The above video chronicles some of the week's activities.
Sunday will go down as one the most memorable days of my life. After we nailed our 90-minute run, we had a splash in Kailua Bay. We swam to the 1.2 mile buoy and that's where the magic happened. A pod of 50+ dolphins came out to play with us. I've never seen a dolphin in the wild, let alone swim with one. I wish everyone could experience this at least once in their lifetime. And if not, I captured it all on video for you. Mahalo Kona!

Day 115: Things I Need to Unlearn

Now that I'm no longer in Australia, here are some things I need to unlearn now that I'm back in the good ole U.S. of A:

• Swimming, cycling, and driving on the left-hand side.

• Stop greeting people with "G'day", saying goodbye with "Cheers", and calling my friends "mates". This type of talk is way too eccentric for the U.S.

• Expecting all the pools to be 50 meters in length.

• Being as comfortable as I've been in a speedo on the beach and in the city (need I say I'm joking about the city part?).

• Expecting pumpkin to be in my salad, my sandwiches, and basically in all of my foods.

• Thinking that bus and train rides will be full of sane, middle class, white people.

• Not tipping or tipping very little at restaurants, and ordering food with capsicum and rocket.

• Hang drying my clothes...no wait, I won't unlearn this.

There's more but I am tired after only getting 2.5 hours of sleep last night. I stayed up all day and denied myself a nap in order to acclimate to the time change and get myself to sleep tonight.

Today was an amazing start back to training and back to getting in shape. I woke up early to get to a 6:00 AM masters swim workout, and then it was immediately on the bike for a 38 mile ride with 10 X 2 minute hard efforts. It's so easy to get out the door and train when you have to spend no mental energy to overcome cold and rainy weather. It really is paradise here when it comes to training. On the books for tomorrow is a 3-hour ride starting at 5:50 AM, a 50-minute brick run with some pick-ups, and a 6000 yard workout with the Kona Aquatics age-group team. Oh, and Bree got me to add another race to my schedule, the Kukio Challenge (0.5 mile swim, 3 mile run, 2 mile paddleboard) the day after Hawaii 70.3. 2-mile paddleboard?

Day 100!: What I learned in New Zealand

• IT'S DAMN COLD and HILLY, thus, it's the Kiwi triathletes that usually say HTFU!

• You don't meet any Kiwis in Queenstown, but you do get to know lots of English, Scottish, and Malaysian people who are on working holiday.

•Dunedin is just as beautiful as Queenstown and Wanaka, the Chamber of Commerce just does a bad job of marketing the town; and you have to pass through a lot of crap before you get to the beauty.

• Some new vocabulary: heat pump (electric heater), post shop (post office), log burner (woodstove), right-o (okay)

• The Kiwi version of the news show Nightline is much more crass than the U.S., we're talking an episode where they had 69 sex positions (including full on naked pictures) in 69 seconds.

• The country has absolutely freakin' beautiful views while driving or running.

• The Top Twins (google them).

• The radio was actually pitching a CD called "Music for Cougars" and it went something like this: "You are a cougar and you know what you like and you know how to get it. So listen to music that reflects you like Olivia Newton-John, Meredith Brooks (I think she is the one that sings the I'm a Bitch song). Makes a great gift for Mother's Day." The Kiwis love their humor.

• I got to see lots of sheep up close and personal and well, the entire back side of a sheep is covered in sh!t, makes you want to reconsider wearing wool. And there is an actual name for it, dags.

• My money went a lot further in New Zealand than it does in Australia.

• After 22+ years, it's good to know that Maggie and I still have a lot of common interests: extreme hikes, mt. biking, swimming, and eating tons of food.

Day 98: New Zealand is for Runners

If Paris is for lovers, then New Zealand is for runners. I've been treated to some amazingly beautiful running trails. And did I mention the hills? I love hills, whether it be running or biking, because you are always rewarded in the end with a great view (and downhill). My favorite run thus far is the Mt. Iron trail toward Albert Town, then along the Clutha river, and finally back into the town of Wanaka; where coincidentally, there is an ironman in mid-January, hmmm...

I fly back to Sydney tomorrow afternoon where I will spend my final two weeks in the southern hemisphere. No more holiday state of mind for me as I try to get back into shape for the Sydney Half Marathon on May 16th and the Hawaii 70.3 on June 5. I'm excited to get back on the bike after being away for exactly one month. My sabbatical is winding down and thus, I try to remain in the present and savor each day. Life is good.