Dead Battery

I am ready to give up. I went out today for a 10 mile run, but after two miles I ran out of energy like an old battery. I felt like a toy that starts to move slowly and then eventually stops altogether. Then when you open the toy you find forgotten and corroded old batteries in it. It’s like my body has forgotten how to move. Perhaps it’s due to interrupted sleep over the past couple of nights. I had a work project going on and I was on my computer late into both nights checking on its progress. Fortunately the project went well and I didn’t have to deal with much fallout.

Despite the crazy work hours, I did manage to get in two reasonable workouts on Saturday. I managed a 90 minute bike followed by a 2000 yard swim. Both were done easily and I was glad I completed them. The best part of the swim was that I had my kids with me in the next lane as they took their swim lessons. It was fun for me to be swimming and seeing my own kids swim by my side. They are ambivalent about continuing them though as I think they prefer to relax on the weekends for the next couple of weeks. They have been busy with basketball, soccer and swimming and I think they just want to relax on their weekends for a while. To tell the truth, I will be happy for this break from activity. Perhaps without these obligations, I can get a little more focus on my training and enjoy it, instead of feeling like I have to rush through it to take care of my fatherly duties.

I was also able to get in two decent workouts on Friday. I had taken the day off from the office and managed to get in an ok 7 mile run followed by 2000 yards in the pool. It’s great when I can be a fulltime triathlete; I just wished I enjoyed the workouts more.

I do really not understand what is going on with my body right now. Every workout just seems so difficult. It is like some sort of malaise has infected my body and mind. I am not looking forward to the workouts and when I go, they are such a struggle. I am not sure which problem comes first. Am I not looking forward to the workouts since they are a struggle or are they a struggle because my mind is not into them? Maybe it is just the cold and dark winter dragging me down. Spring is fortunately on its way.

Skiing

I feel as though I am at a standstill as far as my journey towards competing in the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon Championships. I am just not putting in the effort to reach such a goal. It’s been an effort just to do any training at all. I guess after putting in 4 hard years towards the goal its time to slack off a bit. I guess that is why in the upper right hand corner of my blog I called this my journey. Any journey worth taking is bound to be filled with delays, detours and other obstacles. This is apparently what is happening to me now.

I refuse to completely quit though. I am going to do enough training to at least get me through this year’s IMLP. I am going to place no expectations on myself whatsoever. I am not going to care about my time. I am not going to worry about lining up in front of the swim, only to get my ass kicked during the start. This will be strictly back of the pack kind of stuff. Who knows, maybe I will surprise myself.

I guess I have come to this conclusion while skiing with my family this past Presidents Day weekend. I took my family up to the Berkshires and took my kids skiing for the first time. My wife was very worried that this would turn out to be a disaster of a trip. She was afraid that the kids would just be complaining about the cold, not liking skiing and generally complaining the entire trip. Nothing could have been further from that. The kids not only enjoyed the skiing, they really excelled at it. I can honestly say that I was very surprised. I thought they would have a lot of trouble, but after a short lesson they were both skiing down the slopes with carefree abandon. Neither my wife nor I could keep up with them.

The first day skiing we spent at Bousquet. We liked that place a lot. They were very efficient, helpful and attentive when it came to fitting you with rental skis and getting you on your way. They clearly knew how to get you sized for boots and skiis and it was completely painless. The instructors were very nice and spent a good amount of time with you. It was a great place to go for beginners. I just wished they had a few more and longer beginner trails.

Our second day skiing was a bit rougher. This time we went to Butternut. We had to wait over an hour to make it through the ski rental place and the equipment we received had clearly seen some hard use. It was also much older equipment. The rental area was very congested and chaotic. It was a major relief to get out of there and out on the slopes.

Once we got skiing, we started off on one of the small hills. We just wanted to warm up and make sure the kids remembered the basics. After a couple of these easy trips, we decided to take the Top Flight lift to the tallest and longest beginner course on the mountain. Stupidly on the way up on the life, I dropped my glove. I wouldn’t have even realized it if it weren’t for the people behind us yelling out to let me know.

Taking the tallest lift was a mistake as my son suddenly forgot how to keep his pace slow by going from side to side and instead kept barreling down the mountain until he made himself fall because he was going too fast. After a couple of times of falling he refused to ski anymore and just wanted to walk down. We couldn’t coax him to continue on and I finally had to get help so the ski patrol could bring him down the mountain on a sled. My wife and daughter then skied on and I went down a more advanced trail in search of my fallen glove.

Fortunately, I found my glove (it was really cold outside) and even more fortunately, I found my son sitting in the Ski Patrol lodge eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate. Eventually my wife and daughter joined us to complete the family reunion.

I then took my daughter on some of the bigger trails, while my wife took my son back to the small slopes. After practicing some more on the small slopes, my son rebuilt his confidence enough to try a bigger hill. He figured it out this time and all of us spent the remainder of the day skiing down the Cruiser trail. We would have kept this on all day, except it started to get late and they closed down the lifts.

On our third day the weather turned really cold, getting up to only 12 degrees. We decided to go Snow Tubing back at Bousquet. My son wanted to form a big train of snow tubes going down the mountain and got several other people to join us. It was a wild ride down. We spent 4 hours tubing before we finally got hungry, called it a day and went out to get lunch. We ate lunch at a small place in Lenox and then went to Pittsfield to do some shopping for new ski jackets.

We went to a store called Ski Fanatics, which was having a clearance sale. My wife and I both bought new ski jackets and my son got a snow skate – basically a skate board for the snow. While we were in the store, you could hear some sort or racket going on from above. I don’t know how the people who worked there could stand it, but they said that they don’t even hear it anymore. It turned out their upstairs neighbor is a candlepin bowling alley. This is some strange form of bowling where you throw balls the size of Skeeballs down a bowling alley that has 10 thin white pins. It is much harder than regular bowling. You had to manually reset the pins by pressing a button, which meant that we could take 3 turns (or more) to try to knock down the pins. I wound up with the high score of 83. We finished off the day by going to a nice restaurant called Dakota. It was very crowded, but the food was very good. Fortunately, the people at Ski Fanatics recommended we make reservations. After dinner we spent a few hours in the pool at our hotel – The Yankee Inn. A very nice place and moderately priced.


On our last day we went back to Butternut Mountain. It was in the direction of how we had to drive home, so we figured that we may as well go back to it. My son remembered his lessons this time and had no trouble going down the bigger hills. Soon he was asking to go back up Top Flight to do the really long trail that he couldn’t do a couple of days earlier. He liked it so much this time that he insisted on doing it several more times. We all had a great day. I alternately skied with just my son or daughter or the whole family together. In each case, my son was the first one down the mountain. I just couldn’t keep up with him. Perhaps he will be an Olympic skier.

After a while my wife and son had enough and just wanted to rest. My son played with his ski skate while my daughter and I finished off the day skiing. It was very nice having her just to myself. We skied for so long that we were literally the last people off the ski lift before it closed. As soon as we got off the chair the lift stopped and the attendant confirmed that we were the last ones. I couldn’t think of a better way to end the day, getting in the last run of anyone for the day, just me and my girl.

Sitting on my Ass

2/14/07

For being an active person, I lead a very inactive life. I’ve spent the last two days sitting on my ass, which is certainly a bit worse off from the wear. I sat through two days of 4 hour company meetings and followed each meeting up with 3 hours of Real Estate Salesperson classes. Maybe I can get some cortisone shots in my butt cheeks to alleviate the pain.

The weather has been below freezing for the last week or so, which means I’ve been spending my time training indoors. There was a time when I’d go outside no matter how nasty the weather, but lately I just want the safety and comfort of my basement. I guess I’ve been out too many times in Prospect Park to find it interesting and instead have been captivated by my TV while working out. I suppose once the weather gets warmer and it is light out when I wake up, I’ll more easily find my way outdoors. For now I am content to wear nothing but a pair of shorts and work up a sweat indoors; even though it means I need to wipe up a small puddle every time I finish.

I am feeling a bit tired today and I fear it will be a struggle to wake up tomorrow morning. I’ve got the winter doldrums and just feel like hibernating. I guess I am going to have to challenge myself to keep going.

2/15/07

Well I woke up this morning to train, but my heart really wasn’t into it. My alarm clock woke me up which is a good sign that I am tired. Usually, I am up at least 30 minutes before it goes off. I still forced myself out of bed, stood around my kitchen debating whether or not I should go on my treadmill and finally decided to give it a try.

It was a major struggle. I ran just short of a mile at a slow pace of 6.5 miles per hour and was struggling badly. I decided to just end the torture and to go back to bed. I fell asleep almost instantly. Of course, when I woke up later on and started to get ready for work, I was feeling all depressed and out of sorts. If only I didn’t have to go to work, I could have slept in and did a run later. Now once again, I am stuck on my ass at this Real Estate class. Ugh.

2/16/07

I had another early morning meeting today, which combined with me getting in late last night from work, found me too tired to get up and workout this morning. I am not going to worry about it. I’ll get enough exercise this weekend when I go skiing with my family. It will be the first time that my kids will go skiing. It’s been many years since I have gone. Hopefully I won’t break my leg. At least I won't be sitting on my ass this weekend.

Frozen Water

I felt like a frozen stream today when I went out for my run. I don’t know what happened to have made this so, it just felt like I had no energy and no desire to continue. I took a couple of walking breaks within the first two miles and flirted with taking a shortcut home instead of completing a loop around Prospect Park. I decided to go for the full loop to see if things improved by just pushing on.

If anything, my pace only got slower and I couldn’t get my HR up to acceptable levels. I tried not to be discouraged at my apparent lack of strength. I am trying to tell myself that this isn’t happening because I don’t feel like training anymore. I feel better when I have a good workout; I am just having trouble getting started lately. Maybe it is just the winter blahs. I wished I had someone to run with this morning. Perhaps I would have perked up a bit more and not felt so bushed. I completed a pathetically slow loop of the park and then called it a day. I wasn’t running fast enough to keep myself warm, despite the many layers of clothes I was wearing.

How does a person recapture the drive and fire they once felt to train? On a deep down level, I want to continue. But there is also a level inside me that is saying enough for a while. Take it easy, kick back and relax. Really though, this is not an option. I know where this alternative will take me and its not a place I want to go back to. I refuse to become one of the overweight and out of shape Americans that you see walking all over the place. I can’t do that to my body again. I want to live a very long life and that can only be achieved by taking care of your body. Signing up for races is a way to keep my focus and train towards a goal. Maybe I will feel better once the weather turns warmer again.

Change in Schedule

Lately, I seemed to have gotten my training routine back together and have successfully woken up early enough to get in morning workouts. I’ve been getting up early enough so that after they are finished, I can still wake my family up and sit down to breakfast with them. With everyone just waking up, it’s like the workouts never happened. What proof do I have of accomplishing them except for the data on my Polar Heart Rate Monitor. This is the second time I’ve felt like that this week. Maybe I am just dreaming I am working out.

Anyway, so I had a nice run yesterday and I was planning on a swim in the evening and then heading home for a relaxing evening with my family. That’s when my schedule for the next 6 weeks became suddenly complicated. As one of my job requirements I am to take the Real Estate Salesperson licensing course and exam. A coworker of mine told me that a course has just began and that she was going this evening. This was at 4pm in the afternoon and then by 6pm I found myself sitting in an extremely boring 3 hour real estate course. I’ll be doing this for three nights per week (T,W,Th) for four more weeks over the next 5 weeks.

I was kind of freaking out that I somehow committed myself to this course of action with so little time to contemplate it. Being in this course was the last thing I expected to happen when I woke up this morning. While not nearly as extreme it was like I was suddenly taken from home and sent to the war in Iraq. Yes, I should probably be ashamed of myself for comparing going to a real estate course to going to Iraq, but it will serve for the purposes of letting you know how suddenly out of sorts I felt.

The course is deadly boring. Three hours of pure torture. New York State requires that every student must spend 45 hours in class. Actually 40.5 as you are allowed to miss up to 4.5 hours. Since I missed the first day I only have a 1.5 hour cushion. The material that is covered in 3 hours could easily have been covered in about an hour. The instructor fills the remainder of the time with stupid jokes, comments about student’s clothes and stories of him golfing and playing the guitar. We spent at least 15 minutes on one student’s shoes and a shopping mall where the student could have purchased them for half of what he paid. I spent most of the time playing online poker on my computer (thank goodness for WiFi Internet access) and chatting with friends over IM.

Fortunately, the instructor decided to let us out of class about 30 minutes early. That was until he had the bright idea of offering to the class the opportunity to watch a video of him playing a guitar solo of Freebird on stage with a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band on my computer. So instead of going home I had about 10 other students gathered around my computer watching a grainy video of him playing the guitar. I thought I would puke right then and there. Only 39 more hours.

My New Friend

I saw this little guy walking around my feet while taking a crap in the men's room of my office. I understand he is homeless due to the building demolition next door.

Mental Health Day

I took yesterday off from training. I just didn’t feel like it. I was tired, had a stressful day and I was home alone with the kids when I got home after work. All I felt like doing was playing games with them or having them lean up against me as we watched TV on the couch. Once I took the pressure off myself to train, I started to relax and felt much better.

I did make myself go to bed early though so I could wake up in time to do my scheduled 10 mile run this morning. I contemplated running outside in the 9 degree temperatures, but I really didn’t feel like running in the dark. It just seemed too depressing to do. Instead I opted for the comfort of my basement treadmill and cable TV. I was lucky enough to have a couple of good movies playing, so the time went by quickly enough and when the run was over, it was like it never really happened. I guess that is a good sign, when you can wake up, run 10 miles and still feel like you are just getting out of bed to eat breakfast. Perhaps I should have run harder.

Two Bridges Run

It has been a good weekend of working out. Saturday was a 35 mile indoor trainer ride that I did while watching the movie Munich and playing online poker at Fulltiltpoker.com. Munich is a rather long movie and I was able to complete my 35 miles during the duration of it. Unfortunately I lost a couple of thousand points while playing poker. It was entertaining though. At first I didn’t think I was going to be able to complete this ride. It seemed like a long time to be on my bike indoors. I’ve done longer, but not in a while and I questioned my desire and motivation. In the end I felt good throughout and perhaps is a sign that I am coming along with doing long rides again.

After my ride, I headed to the pool with my kids for their swim lessons. Normally I swim during this time, but not today as some kid puked in the pool. Therefore it was closed due to contamination by hazardous materials. I had neither the time or inclination to try to do this swim later on.

The highlight of the weekend was the run I did today with Larry. I wasn’t sure about doing it when I woke up since the temperature outside was only 17 degrees. My coach recommended that I stay indoors during the colder temps since I am just getting over a cold. I called Larry at 8:12 this morning to see if he still wanted to do it and his comment to me was simply “of course” and “dress warm”. I figured what the hell, as it’s been a while since I trained outside and there was a time when I liked being out in the bitter cold. I dug out all of my cold weather gear and met Larry on my corner at our appointed time.

Larry took me for his two bridges run. This means heading down Flatbush Avenue to the Manhattan Bridge, followed by a short trip through Chinatown and back to Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a bit windy at times, but spectacularly clear and sunny. In fact, when the sun was shining in my face I was practically blind from the glare and fog on the lenses of my eyeglasses. The bridges and streets were mostly deserted as I suppose everyone decided to stay indoors and avoid the cold temps. Here is a picture of us from the Manhattan Bridge looking south to the Brooklyn Bridge.

I guess I was dressed properly for the run, as I never felt cold during it. I always loved that feeling of being outdoors and properly protected so that you can’t feel the elements. It gives me the feeling of moving around in a spacesuit - Isolated from the elements but in the middle of them at the same time.

After returning to Brooklyn, we made our way back to Prospect Park by way of Bergen Street, 3rd Avenue and then 3rd Street. We made a left into the park and then ran out the Southwest exit over to McDonald Avenue and the Greenwood Cemetery. This served as the final leg to the run and one last long climb. Total stats for the run was 13 miles and 2 hours, 3 minutes.