Life of an Age-Grouper

Damn, it's been a long time and thousands of miles since our first interview. A ton has happened in your life since we last spoke or should I say since I last interviewed you? Last time we talked you had just left your job as a teacher to start something new....working at a bike shop. Is working at a shop everything it's cracked up to be? Ha. Well, I will focus on the positives here and say that I was able to meet and form great friendships with some really awesome people. It was good to spend a year in the bike industry and get a glimpse into how a shop is run (and realize more about how a shop should be run); in addition, my friend/ co-worker Paul taught me a lot about basic to intermediate bike mechanics and really the importance of understanding how things work, Without that time in the shop I probably wouldn't have ever had the opportunity to be an athlete ambassador for Liv/Giant- an experience that also afforded me the opportunity to meet more awesome pe...

When establishing a race schedule there is a phrase that comes up very often among triathletes, "A Race". One's A Race is understood as the main focal point of the season. More times than not this race is what the entire season is built around. At one's A race the athlete expects to have their best result as an anticipated and expected response from being in peak fitness. Most pro's build their season around Vegas or Kona. Age groupers will usually establish their A race around a new distance or at an opportunity to establish a new PR. As an age group triathlete living in the Northeast the triathlon season is extremely short. The window to race is just a few months long starting in late May/early June and usually ending around September. This only permits four months of potential racing. How many races can one effectively cram into four months? Personally, I would love to race every weekend but that is just not feasible. Four months of racing means that...

Yesterday was the first big training session of my "stay-cation training camp". This session was planned for weeks in advance. It included a 56 mile bike, at race pace, followed by a 6 mile run, slightly below race pace. What made this long brick workout special was the fact that it was to be done on the Harriman racecourse. I spent the days leading up to the race planning and preparing. Was my bike in proper working order? Did I have my race kit? What would I use for nutrition and how would I carry it? How hard could I go on the bike and still have a very strong run? I better not mess this one up like I did the last big triple brick I had! Matt and I made it to the park by 9:00 and had our kickstands up by 9:30. We briefly discussed my wattage and the race course before we embarked on this highly anticipated smashfest. The first loop of the course I really payed attention to the lay of the land. I wanted to be able to push harder and intelligently take advantage o...

It has taken some time and overcoming being too confident, excited, ignorant, naive and a noob but I have reached a point of enlightenment (not absolute enlightenment). Since Matt has started coaching me he has preached building aerobic fitness and that without a sound aerobic base your body will not be able to endure the high intensity and volume needed to be successful in long course racing. Fortunately I just came to realize was the true importance of aerobic fitness based on my recent reflections on my swimming. I have made steady progress with my swim that has become a catalyst for motivation. Every swim session I have schedule I go into it with the expectations of killing it, and there in lies the problem. I do the prescribed yardage and drills but I tend to swim faster than I should (at times way too fast). I obviously thought there was no problem with this since my muscular, aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels were increasing and my splits were decreasing. With in the la...

There are only a few things in life that get me really pissed off and in a bad mood. The first is being stuck in traffic. It makes me go crazy and think horrible thoughts. I could be in the best mood ever but the second I hit traffic my mood does a 180 and I'm ready to rage on anyone or anything. Secondly, I hate being sick. While I'm sick I'm only thinking about how much fitness I'm loosing and that I can't train, exercise or do anything productive. Here is the worst, most annoying and aggrevating feeling in the world, being tired. I'm not talking about feeling tired because you stayed out all night partying or because you had a bad night sleep. I'm talking about being physically tired to the point where you can't hit your marks while training. I hate, hate, hate having to rest or having a recovery week or having to, dare I say it? Take a day off. I want to be able to go as hard as I want, for as long as I want, when I want. It pisses me off when my b...

I was finally able to string together a solid week of uninterupted training.  This marks the first week where I felt solidly strong.  I'm not saying I'm in race shape but, I'm slowly getting there.  I had a big swim session on Friday that I crushed and was fired up about. For the first time ever I swam a few hundreds without thinking about my stroke.  This is huge because all that I think about while I swim is my stroke. It was very relaxing just to swim in a mentally relaxed state. One question that did pop up while swimming was in the middle of my main set.  I swam the first half of them with a Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) of 3-4.  I thought I was working too hard and shifted my focus to my form and technique.  Amazingly my RPE went down and my splits decreased.  I was working less and going faster!  So the question I have is how to judge my pace while racing.  Obviously I'm not going to be able to check my watch while in the ...

There have been a few small things bouncing around in my head that I would like to stop thinking about so here's what they are; 1. Triathlete Magazine: Caitlin Snow was on the cover of Triathlete Magazine this month and I was stoked for her (like I actually know her). She receives little to no attention or media coverage so it's only fitting that she finally gets some praise, or so I thought.  The caption to her cover shot reads something along the lines of, top American female finisher at Kona for the past two years.  With that introduction I figured she would have a few pages of shine,  NOPE! She had one page of B.S. interview.  I could have done a better interview than TM.  How can one of the top US females triathletes get such poor recognition and coverage? 2. I gnite Naturals : After blogging about I.N. I reached out to them and shared my blog.  To my surprise they responded.  They asked if they could link my blog on their Twitter feed and ask...

What was the biggest or most embarrassing noob mistake you have made? "What mistakes haven’t I made really? It wasn’t even a noob mistake, well I guess it was. I should have learned this along time ago. It happened to me at the Carl Hart Fall Duathlon, I was having a great race. I had a great first run, first onto the bike, I was coming off the bike in second with a very manageable gap to Brian Wolf, this guy is a fantastic cyclist, a complete monster. I figured if I could get off the bike within 45 seconds I could run him down on the last run.  So I came screaming in off the bike, it was kind of rainy that day, transition area is grass, I hope off my bike, and immediately hit the ground. The bike goes one way and I go the other. It was just a matter of not doing the basics; I didn’t slow down into transition.  I just thought I would save some time and come screaming into transition, hop off the bike and be gone. Slow and steady in that situation always wins the races. ...