JT's Tri-spot

IMWI race report

2011-09-19T15:13:00.000-04:00

I did my first IM in 2007. It was my second year in the sport. Had an abundance of time and a coach. Then I started residency 2.5 years ago and got lazy. Working 80 hours per week will do that. Signed up for IMWI to get some passion back in my life. However still working crazy hours my prep wasn't exactly as organized as last time...

Prep: Did what I could when I could. There were days/weeks where I did next to nothing. There were good weeks. No real peak weeks because work got hectic 7 weeks out so I considered it a 7 week taper. It's what all the pros are doing these days, right?....

Race plan: No power meter. No HRM. No bike computer. No watch.
Swim: Swim. Not drowning a bonus
Bike: Try not to ever breathe hard. Take the hills easy. Not crashing a bonus
Run: Get to the finish any way possible (crawling acceptable). Not getting carted off on a stretcher a bonus.

Detailed nutrition plan: Drink lots of what the nice people at the aid stations hand out. Eat when hungry and what the nice people give out.

Race report as a list (because residency has made me attention deficit)

1. Swim was mass chaos. Started in the worst possible position (middle). I attribute my survival and lack of drowning completely to the Kung Fu Panda moves I picked up in my year playing water polo in college. Seriously, I could press charges for some of the things that were done to me by super testosterone charged neoprene wearing tri geeks. And who the hell are the people you always see swimming perpendicular to traffic?? Total time 1:13:39. Approximately 3 hours less than it felt.

2. Bonus pre-swim observation. I saw a guy walking to the start wearing 2 (TWO) garmins and a HRM on the opposite wrist. I came SOOOO close to asking him what time it was.

3. Coming up the helix from the swim to T1 was one of the best minutes of my life. I now know how rockstars feel leaving concerts. Minus the sex with strangers part.

4. The first loop of the course was amazing in every way. Except for the 1688 competitors that I'm pretty sure passed me. Maybe it was 1689. Anyway, the hills were the best part. Holy spectators!

5. Loop 2 sucked my will to live. I have a bike shoe problem. I think the nice people who design shoes at bontrager were hired from the company across the street that manufactures vices. Every pedal stroke of the last 40 miles I was pretty sure there were bones in my feet snapping. Note to self: buy new bike shoes next year. Hills however were still the best part. There is one flat straight section that made me want to spray sunblock in my eyes. I don't know how people can stand IMFL.

6. On the way back to town saw a sign that said: "Someday you will not be able to do this". My internal reply: "thank god". Total bike time 6:31:17. Which surprised me since I was sure the sweeper was behind me and they were closing the course.

7. I walked through T2 like a 90 year old woman on her way home from a colonoscopy. Still made it out in 4:15. What the hell do people do in there for >10 minutes?

8. I learned first hand how to do the Ironman shuffle. For those of you not in the know, it's jogging at a speed barely faster than walking and trying to find any excuse to stop. My best excuses were aid stations, hills, wind hitting me wrong, seeing people wearing polka dots, and my internal clock telling me it was probably a time ending in an odd minute. This went on for 23 miles.

9. Mile 23. I turn to my neighbor and ask for the time. 7:30 she tells me. Oh F&%K. Here I was thinking I was going to do a 13-15 hour Ironman. Now you're telling me it's 7:30 and I have 3.2 miles left??? Shit. Like I'm ever going to forgive myself for coming in over 13 hours now. Damn it.

10. The ironman "sprinting" commences. I'm blowing through aid stations, pushing over small children, yelling like Rocky. Every step hurts but it doesn't matter. I was going to break 13 hours goddamnit. Sonsofbitches. Run time: 5:01:06

Total time 12:57:18. A little less than 20 minutes slower than my last one. And way better than I ever expected with my training.

Aftermath: It took 3 days for my kidneys to start working again. Finally today I'm peeing. Probably up 10-15 pounds from race day. Damn rhabdo. Drove 16 hours home yesterday. Miss my family already. The side reason for me to do IMWI was to spend a week back home. It was great.

Best Darn Century That Starts At My Doorstep

2011-07-17T00:37:00.004-04:00

-I may have worn a camelback and consumed the entire thing including my 2 water bottles before we were able to stop

-It may just have required a mile on the interstate

-I will neither confirm nor deny eating enough food to feed a small army tonight

-But that was the best dang century I could come up with leaving my front door.

The general route is here The area between lookout mountain and Evergreen Parkway needs to be on I70 (mapmyride won't map it that way)

Got to about 8,382 feet of climbing when my garmin died here:

And some views from the summit:

If you live in Denver or visit with your bike it's a great ride! And ending downhill is a bonus....

Interview at Tri for Time

2011-06-17T10:21:00.003-04:00

Joseph who runs a blog named Tri for Time wanted a couple words on Ironman training in residency. The interview is

here

Although one of my time management strategies has been to ignore this blog....

One product endorsement while I'm here. My new favorite running product...

Running skirts!

Undershorts that don't ride, pockets for keys and Mp3 players, stylish enough to grab a coffee after a run. And no, I'm not sponsored by skirt sports. I wish!

Happy training!

Jodi

First Race Report in 2 years!

2011-05-23T15:07:00.003-04:00

I thought maybe a race deserved a post here for once. Scheduled this race a couple months ago when I know I had the week of for vacation. Scheduling racing is NOT easy in residency. Was able to get 4 friends and colleagues to make the trip with me and it was a ton of fun! A quick and early note of appreciation to Without Limits Productions who put on a first class race in the face of a bit of adversity.

Given the awful weather I realized on Friday that I hadn't taken my tri bike on the road in 2 years. 2 YEARS! Friday I went out on the Cherry Creek Trail and could only stay aero for about a block at a time before my upper body was screaming. That was not going to work...

So I went out yesterday and did 30 miles with 3 x 10 minute zone 4 in aero position and things were slightly better. Sent a picture to a friend of mine for a position critique and his response was "You look really weird in that position". Awesome.

Last night I did a very formal carb loading dinner consisting of a lot of cheese and 3 bottles of wine between 3 of us. I find the 2am frantic wake up after having a nightmare that I'm dying of thirst aids in pre-race hydration.

Left for the race ridiculously early in the morning per my inner neurotic drive to never be late. Oatmeal wasn't sitting super well, but being my first race in 2 years I was nervous. And a touch hungover...

Notification was made 2 days ago that the swim was cancelled. E. coli levels were such that illness was all but guaranteed to anyone who jumped in the lake. This was the 4th race that I've done with a cancelled swim so I know the drill. Not being much of a runner it's always a big let down. And it would have been a phenomenal day for a
swim. Lake was like glass.

Racing in Colorado observation #1: 99% of the field, including those that could probably stand to lose 50-100 pounds, have sponsors.

Racing in Colorado observation #2 (also the same with racing anywhere): The more expensive your bike, shoes and kit the cooler you are. Or at least the cooler you think you are...

Run #1: I don't run well cold. My triathlon runs are always faster than my open runs. I was in the fourth wave and by the time we left there were already men back and starting the bike. The buzzer sounded and I immediately regretted the intervals from yesterday. Quads felt like rocks. I am also a very awkward runner. Have you ever seen that Friends episode where Phoebe takes up running? Kind of like that. The course is about 3/4 mile flat then a 1/4 mile hill. Going up that hill I already passed some people walking. Looked like a pretty good idea to me. I was in a state of utter hyperventilation at this point.

Coming back down the hill was better. Settled into a bit of a groove. Getting excited to get on my bike in my "weird" position. My time for the 2 mile run was somewhere in the 16 minute range.

Into transition I was sloppy. Didn't bother trying to start with the shoes on the pedals. It's been too long since I've practiced that move and I'd probably end up eating pavement. Took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to clip in, mostly because I was so anaerobic I couldn't seen straight.

Bike: The bike course is fast and flat and goes through a neighborhood. Unfortunately no good excuses to get out of the aero position for the entire race. I don't race with a watch, bike computer or HRM for anything shorter than ironman. I just know I'm going hard enough if I sound like a high school girl running from a serial killer in a horror flick. I guarantee I did not sneak up on anyone today.

It was a three loop course. Coming around finishing the first loop I was pretty sure I was in trouble. Muscles were screaming. Ah well, you don't race cause it's easy. The next two loops were fast. Passed by a lot of people with disc wheels. Passed a lot of people on hybrids. Had a second or two of doubt and fear as I made the turn back to the
transition area. I did 3 laps, right??? Total time 35 minutes (21mph).

Run #2: To me, running off the bike is SOOO much easier than running cold. Feels good. Feels right. But my lack of fitness definitely showed going up the second hill. The only thing that saved me was seeing all of the fast girls gaining on me as I made the turn on the out and back. You may be sponsored but you are not beating me, dammit! I'm quite sure the last mile took half a day. My lungs were starting to burn from the 1.25 hours of hyperventilation. I just wanted it to be over so badly. And then it was. Total time was I think 23+ minutes. I heard the cheers from the peanut gallery (Sankoff, Breyer and Jason) as I went across the mat. And I managed to not puke for once. Not that I didn't want to.

Total time 1:17, Unofficially 4/33 in the female 30-34 age group. So close!

Overall happy with the day. It hurt really bad. It's not my fastest race but I went as hard as I possibly could and have no regrets. And it reminded me how much I absolutely LOVE to race. Congrats to the rest of the crew who raced today. Great times had by all!

A pic of the whole crew after the race:

Me and Dr. Breyer before the race

2010-09-27T22:53:00.000-04:00

Oh, boy.... Here we go again

Camp wrap up

2010-04-07T22:22:00.002-04:00

Back from camp today and I am exhausted! It was a great week with Lanny, Anita, Kathy and Jim. Lots of great workouts (220 miles of hard riding), great wine, great time with friends. We capped off hell week with my own favorite hell swim set:

500 warm up
10 x 50 with 10 situps in between each 50
200 easy
10 x 50 with 10 squat jumps between each one
200 easy
10 x 50 with 10 pushups between each one
200 easy

It is really fun. We told Anita all week that she had to bring an extra towel with her to hell-workout. I think she was quite intrigued. We had each other laughing so hard we almost peed ourselves during the situps. Then in the middle of the squat jumps, which look awfully hot in a speedo with a little extra love handles, Lanny informs me that behind the tinted windows immediately to our left is an exercise class that overlooks the pool. I hope they enjoyed the show.

Hard to thank Lanny and Anita (and Jim) enough for enduring every single workout with me and slowing down when I needed it. And Kathy for the overwhelming hospitality

But now I'm back in good ole Denver. It was nice to see the Mad-Dog and my friends at conference today. Trying to get into a good groove of training because my life is going to be pretty training-free from April 23-May 22. Hard to train when you work from 4am-6pm every day...

And my funny for the day

I'm in no shape for this...

2010-04-05T20:28:00.005-04:00

I'm in Florida for my third annual training camp with my buddy Lanny (and his wonderful wife Kathy). I remember fondly the days when I could come here and hang with the riders here and Lanny and I could kick each others' butts in the pool. Those were the days when I wasn't fat, lazy and out of shape. However, it has been one fabulous week. Riding every single day, running and swimming on opposite days, all of which would have been so much better without bronchitis... but beggars can't be choosers.

The first day we went out with Naples Velo for their 24 hour mph ride. I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth with heart rates north of 190 when Lanny got a flat. I saw him drop back, but with the anoxic hit my brain was taking it took a good 2 minutes for me to figure out what just happened and turn around. I have never been so happy for a flat in my life. The flat happened near the turnaround for the ride. After we fixed it Lanny told me the horrible news: The pack would be back around to "pick us up" soon. Oh shit. And sure enough right when we turned at the light there were 25 testosterone charged pairs of quadriceps heading our way. So we got in line and prepared to be engulfed. And then I noticed something- "Lanny, your tool bag is open..." Within 30 seconds Lanny reached around to close his tool bag, knocked his multitool out of said bag, I ran over it and flatted my rear tire. Yet again, here I sat not exactly broken up not to have to grab onto the fast moving train with my dental floss level of fitness. 2 more guys stopped as they went by to help. With my flat now fixed we start riding home. With my naive brain I figured we would take it easy back to the cars. Oh no. Now that there was no pack to "limit" us to 24mph, why the hell not go back at 26? And that little story of my first workout pretty much sums up the whole week. Me redlining and going to bed at 8:30 so I can get my ass handed to me again in the morning.

I'm tired.

Oh, I am so, so tired.

And maybe it is this level of fatigue that has me thinking about maybe, just maybe signing up for IMWI 2011. But I do realize that it is a pipedream if for no other reason than me completely unable to get to Madison a year ahead of time to register. Grrrrr...

Anyway, other events of my most fabulous vacation week include bocce ball, kayaking, cooking, wine, and way more than my fair share of margaritas. Oh yeah, and there was that vodka night....

It is 8:41 and way, way past my bedtime. I was promised that tomorrow will be "hell day". And after the training is complete I'm getting a pedicure, damn it.

Hope you all enjoyed your Easter. (Code words for: I hope you all ate a ton of yummy chocolate)

Life is good...

2010-03-23T01:38:00.004-04:00

Just sitting here doing laundry and drinking wine at midnight on a Monday night. You learn really fast when doing an emergency medicine residency that weekends don't exist. Neither do good night's sleep or business hours. But it also allows you to go to the pool at 11:30 am when no one is there and enjoy the gorgeous 70 degree sunny days in March in Denver. So no complaints.

Swimming by myself without my team has yet again re-exposed me to the awesomeness that is pool dynamics. I went to "lap swim" on Saturday to find that they had no intentions on putting the lane lines in. I spent 30 minutes dodging a group of kids playing water basketball before a couple of other guys jumped in. I had placed myself near one wall to best avoid being maimed by the round flying death ball. The kids quickly emptied out and the new guys, a couple ex-football players in bermuda shorts and big goggles situated themselves as they thought was appropriate. One jammed between me and the wall, and the other boxing me in on the other side. The great thing about all-muscle, all-testosterone swimmer is their utter inability to let anyone beat them in a sprint. So as I'm struggling to regain my endurance in the water with my flabby, no muscle arms, I have two guys timing their 25 yard all out sprints with when I push off the wall. After swallowing half the pool water from the wake I have now decided that I'm completely ready for another Ironman swim.

In the cycling front, yesterday I had a fabulous ride down to Morrison and through Red Rocks. I have a perfect cycling buddy who's training for Ride the Rockies. She's great and knows a bunch of beautiful routes. Denver is full of off road trails and hitting them, even if just for part of a ride is such a nice break from traffic. So today I went off on my own on the cherry creek bike path and was visited by the Karma police. I passed a middle aged lady who was well endowed from the backside wearing a tight fanny pack, fluorescent clothing and side-ways ponytail. I couldn't help but sing to myself: "You make the rockin' world go round". And for that lapse I have been plagued by Queen all day. All day. I will never think ill of you again, bright colored speed walker lady.

Headed out to Florida in 1 week for my annual- Let Lanny and Kathy (my best friends from Cleveland) kick the shit out of me every day and then get me fat and happy on great food and wine- training camp. I absolutely cannot wait. Riding and swimming every day (and running when I feel like it) surrounded by total relaxation. Maybe a pedicure thrown in, just to feel girlie. Just what an intern needs in April! And I even have another vacation left this year. Thinking of doing a 4 day backpacking trip with a 3 day spa indulgence on the end. Now that sounds faaaaabulous. And I did start looking at the Colorado race calender for the year. I think I will try to do some races this year. We shall see when the schedule comes out later next month.

And now for some ED stories...

I have been working in the pediatric ED for the past couple weeks. It's pretty awesome since I usually don't have drunk people spitting in my face and my weekly load of pelvic exams is greatly reduced. But as I said in my last post, Denver Health has the genius idea of putting the patient's own words on the ED board. Which gives me ample opportunities to take pictures of the chief complaints so that I don't forget them. One of my favorite pediatric chief complaints this week was:

"I smoked a bowl of chronic and picked up a bottle and started drinkin'"

By the looks of this 14 year old, that is something that he was going to regret. And for the record, he came in vomiting his guts out at 2pm on a Wednesday. I'm sure that the the fact that you can buy marijuana "legally" on every corner has NOTHING to do with the volume of sky high teenagers we are seeing. And I'm still trying to figure out what the 18 year old had ingested who came in actively hallucinating after watching the 3D version of Alice in Wonderland on my last shift. It was quite the sight with him still wearing his 3D glasses...

Then one day I walked over when my shift was done to talk to my friend Colleen. She was about to go see: "I am pretty sure there is a condom stuck up inside of me". We have such glorious jobs, let me tell you. I never did find out if she located the aforementioned foreign body...

OK, that is all. A couple of pics of long overdue visits with my Dad (here in Colorado) and my Mom (last week in South Carolina with my most awesome aunt and uncle). I wish I could see my family more often, but am so thankful for the moments that I do get to share with them.

On the Slopes at Breck. Buttering himself up for the mogul run in our future:

Irish bar in Charlotte, a couple days before St. Pattys. My mom, my aunt freenie and I. It was such a nice few days to catch up.

Enjoy this wonderful spring week! Summer is coming! :-)

Climbing out of a funk

2010-03-09T21:51:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted here in about 6 months and still am not sure if I'll come back to it. But things are definitely looking up. I started intern year with about a 7 month stretch of very hard, stressful and time consuming rotations. I completely underestimated how hard it would be on my body (and the mental toll) to spend every third or fourth night in the hospital getting no sleep. I was mentally and physically spent. Didn't do any races after I moved here, and to be honest had very little motivation to train. But on the positive side I have learned so, so, so much. Going into the year I was terrified of how the schedule worked out. But I knew that once February came my life would get better. And here I am!

This past week the weather started getting better and I started to miss cycling (outside). I was feeling sorry for myself because I still didn't have a group of people to ride with. So one day I decided to be proactive about it. I started a cycling group and less than a week later it has 47 members. I went on a fabulous 56 mile ride with a new training buddy up into a canyon, Joined a pool, started running again and booked my flight for the first week of April to do a little training camp with my buddy Lanny in Florida. Not sure about racing this year since I have to see my schedule, but I'm doing the Copper Triangle bike ride in August (three mountain passes in one day). Hopefully some other races including one or two tris. Kicking around the idea of doing a half marathon the third weekend in April. Highly doubt I can get my flabby butt into shape that fast, but it could be fun to try. I didn't reapply to Timex for obvious reasons but I am really looking forward to getting back to doing what I love because I love it and not worrying about anything else. I want to swim, bike and run for the joy of it. Because let me tell you... it ain't gonna be fast!

Ok, to end on a funny note, here are some of my favorite quotes from the past few months...

ED board where patients chief complaints get put up for the docs and nurses to see:

"DOG ate toe"

Yup. Accurate statement, unfortunately

Overheard by chief resident before rounds when he didn't know that the whole department was listening in:

"She had the most perfect vagina!" (The backstory was that he did a speculum exam on a woman that used to be a man without knowing that little fact)

Leaving a patients room with a spanish translator:

Translator: You don't want to know what we just talked about

Me: Oh yes I do

Translator: She asked if condoms would prevent her and her husband from transmitting chlamydia back and forth...because even the XLs are too small for him.

And then I knew why he was sitting back smirking

Hope everyone out there is doing well!!!

Finally room to breath

2009-10-06T15:39:00.013-04:00

After working 3 straight months of 80 hour weeks I am finally back home in the emergency department. We work 4-10 hour shifts (8am-6pm twice followed by 6pm-4am twice) and then have 2 days off. Life is good! I am rediscovering the joy of running with the help of the Mad-dog, and in turn I've been trying to introduce her to the fun of Colorado.

As you can see, she loves climbing:

Me too!

And can't get enough of hiking:

Speaking of Hiking, I got a hold of a new Timex Expedition WS4 watch last month (thanks to my teammate Roger Thompson for the help). I broke in this awesome toy with my favorite hike so far:

This is Spearhead Mountain. A big challenge at about 12 miles round trip and one hell of a steep climb, especially given the fact that you it's done without ropes or support. There are some dodgy sections for sure. But I always knew our exact altitude with the Expedition. So much fun!

Here's a pic of us (Deb, me and Anna) at the top with a great view of Long's Peak in the background!

I liked it so much I did the hike the next weekend with Roger and his son Willi. We didn't quite make the summit because we were caught in a bit of a snowstorm when we started climbing the steep part. But here are a couple pics of us at the top of Bierstadt on another ascent:

I had 5 layers on underneath that jacket. BRRRRRRR!!!

And Roger at the top:

Then my Dad was in town last weekend and we went to the Rockies/Brewers game

And then I tried to kill him by taking him from his home at sea level up to 13,000+ feet. We didn't quite make it to the top of Gray's peak because he got altitude sick, but we had some beautiful views nonetheless

And then we celebrated with some hot "Mexican Candy" out with my brother and his family for dinner. Notice the sweat on his head?

So things are good. Doing more running (just got back from 4-5 miles with the Mad Dog) and biking (mostly trainer) and trying to get back in the swing of life. Heading off Saturday on my first vacation of the year. Going to PANAMA! Can't wait!

Best of luck to my friends and teammates racing Kona. You guys rock!

Still working...

2009-09-01T21:08:00.005-04:00

Just hopped off the trainer for a short spin on the Trek. Life has been more than hectic. I grossly underestimated how hard it would really be to work 80 hours per week and try to stay motivated for anything other than sleep! I have survived a month of surgery night float and a month in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at the University. Currently working medicine wards and about to start a 102 hour week working the graveyard shift at the county hospital. The bonus of working nights is the added training you can get in riding your bike to the hospital since it's always when the sun's still out.

Training has been pathetic, I'm afraid to admit. Things will turn around, for sure when I get to my on-service (emergency) months. I can't wait! I just happened to be very front loaded with my schedule. The bonus of that is I should be able to race early next season! I end my year with 4/5 months in the emergency department where we only work 60 hours per week. Yay!!

With my time off (we are mandated to have at least 4-24 hour work free days per month), I've tried to do a lot of cross-training. My workout of choice has been hiking. Two weekends ago Roger and I did 18 miles of hiking, climbing a couple mountains in Rocky Mountain National park. It was awesome!

This past week I had to take Maddie to the vet (found a 24 hour emergency vet) because she had developed what I thought was a swollen anal gland. Turns out it was a solid mass and I'm anxiously awaiting the results of the pathology. I'm terrified it's cancer. So over the weekend I took her out to Indian Peaks on a hike. She liked it so much that I think we're going to climb Bierstadt (14,000 feet) on Saturday if she's feeling up to it. I'm hoping to get ahold of the new Timex Expedition series to test it out. It looks sweet and even comes in orange!

Well, that's all I've got for now. Just trying to keep my head above water as an intern. I never fail to be inspired by my teammates at Timex ripping it up this year. I'll be back to the races eventually!

My Day off

2009-07-18T22:22:00.008-04:00

What I love about Denver:

Being in the mountains in 1 hour

Mountain fed lakes

Climbing to the top of a mountain

And relaxing for a bit

and Watching people ski on a 90 degree July day

Meeting new people every day that like to get out and be active

Things I hate about Denver...

These two not being here:

And missing my friends! Lanny and Kathy sent me the nicest housewarming gift today. I miss my riding, swimming, running, dinner and wine drinking friends!

Back to the grind...

Up!

2009-07-18T08:30:00.003-04:00

Every week I have had the same Friday plan. Get home from work at 7am, take a nap and then get things done! Well, every week the nap gets a little longer. So yesterday the nap was just over 8 hours. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much last night. About 3.5 hours was all I could handle. So now it's 6:30am and I'm already through 2 loads of laundry, a load of dishes, a Monster energy drink, a walk with the Mad dog and I'm about ready to hit the roads for a run! Nothing makes you appreciate a day off quite as much as working your butt off all week. So not to waste a second of my day off I'm headed on a big hike in the mountains at 9am and then cookie making for the most fabulous nurses on earth and then maybe a ride on the trainer to finish off the night. Woohoo!

In other news, our official Denver Health EM scrubs arrived this week. We were told that they run very big, so I opted for the XS. Well, as it turns out all the scrub sizes run huge... except the XS. It's open season on booty when I have those things on. I'm using it as motivation to not gain any weight during residency. Although I have this fear that one day on shift someone is going to bring in treats and I'm going to have to use the trauma sheers to cut my pants off. I will have pics soon of the bootylicious scrubs with my Nathan race belt holding my 7 pagers. It's hot.

Training is a bit on hold lately, but I am getting very good at running through 2 hospital pavilions, 9 floors and a huge emergency department. I could also probably win the "answering multiple pagers at once" division at the local adventure race. I'm also getting much better at filling out the "death packet". Which will come in handy working in the medical ICU starting Thursday...

Ok, I'll try to put up some pics later of the big hike today. But I'll leave you with a pic describing the state of my life lately.

It really was quite organized. Before it collapsed. Ditto for my sweet over the door shoe rack. Before it broke....

All work, some play!

2009-07-11T23:02:00.008-04:00

My life is absolute crazy town right now! My muscles are getting flabby but my brain is getting a little less atrophied than it was 6 months ago. I got on the trainer today and put in an hour. And my legs felt like jello when I was done! So, so sad. But not to worry, My roommate and I are planning a big end of season race to keep us motivated! I almost guarantee a finish line puke...

Work is pretty draining. I work 80 hours between Sunday morning at 7am and Friday morning at 7am. The only thing I do between shifts is sleep! At times it is overwhelmingly stressful, and there are a couple rare moments of peace. I had to send patients to the ICU on two days last week. And another day I started the day with 5 consults (2 neurosurgery, 2 urology and 1 plastics) and ended it with 4 more consults (2 neurosurgery, 1 plastics, 1 urology). In between I tried my best to keep 100 floor patients alive. Ah, the pleasures of being an intern! It's so funny to me that just a couple months ago as a medical student I wasn't allowed to make any decisions... and now I'm the go-to person for dozens of people and am expected to be the front line doc for every guy who gets rolled in the front door with a head full of blood. I find something distinctly wrong with that picture....

I do get 48 straight hours off every week and have been really enjoying that time. Mostly because I love my roommates and my intern class is amazing!

Here is my Emergency Medicine intern class at our picnic:

And last weekend Roger came to visit. It was awesome. We went to Red Rocks for a concert, went to the Cherry Creek Art Festival, went hiking in the mountains and went to a nice dinner. Absolutely milked every second out of the weekend! Here are a couple pics from the top of the hike we did:

And then this weekend I gathered a bunch of the interns and we went out to dinner. The night ended with me, my roommate and my friend Kaite cleaning up after the over-imbibing of a surgery intern who shall remain nameless. We made the best out of the situation. And had a LOT of laughs.

So things are hard, life is stressful, but I am having a good time away from the hospital and learning a ton when I'm there! I have a ton of funny stories, but I'll leave you with one...

Last week I got a page from the Emergency Department to the Neurosurgery pager. It went something like this...

We have a patient of yours down here...

He signed out from the Intensive Care Unit against medical advice this afternoon (one of the many things I don't find out when I start my shift)

The Denver Police found him wandering the streets with his butt hanging out of his hospital gown, his IV still in place...

drinking a beer

Would you mind coming down to see him?

Sometimes I really do LOVE my job

:-)

Welcome to internship

2009-06-27T16:59:00.008-04:00

I started internship with one of the most demanding and scary rotations of the year. I get there at 5pm Monday thru Thursday and have 6 people hand me lists of patients that will be my responsibility for the next 14 hours (24 on Sunday starting at 7am). I carry 6 pagers that go off relentlessly all night with people looking to me for answers. And whenever there is a neurosurgery, plastics or urology consult in the emergency department I am in charge of the initial history and physical. I pretty much spend the night terrified. One day last week I went 24 hours without eating because I was too busy/exhausted. This week I have taken care of, among others, a murderer, a baby with an unexplained head bleed, a couple who rolled their car on vacation, a lady with a softball sized brain tumor, more people with appendicitis than I care to count and a man with the worst aortic dissection I've ever seen. But the beauty of this rotation is that when I leave on Friday morning at 7am I don't have to be back until Sunday morning at 7am. Days off rock!

My residency class is simply amazing. We are going to be a pretty close group. There is rarely a day when just one of us has the day off, so I was able to find a hiking buddy for today. My classmate Kirsten and I went up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a couple hours.

Other awesome things about Denver:

-My bike commute is great. It's mostly on a bike path that runs under the city. Looks like this:

Except when it rains. Because then the whole path turns into a whitewater rapid. I need to get a kayak for those days...

- I have family here. My brother Carey came up last weekend and installed a doggie door for us (our house kind of resembles a dog kennel). Then he had me over for a wonderful dinner. Bonus!

- Roger is coming next weekend! Going to Red Rocks for a concert and then I'm trying to decide between hiking and whitewater rafting for next Saturday. Can't wait! Just have to survive 80 hours of work in the next 5 days and then I'm good to go!

(*training is going to be a bit low this month, but there will be good months, I'm sure!)

Life as I know it is about to end

2009-06-20T11:47:00.003-04:00

I made it to Denver this week. My roommates are amazing as are all the people in my residency program. Just the most laid back, helpful, and fun group of people I could imagine, especially considering how high achieving everyone is. The dogs are getting along well. We have 3 bedrooms, 3 girls and 3 dogs. It's not as hectic as it sounds. Especially since we'll barely see each other this year...

I got my schedule for the month.

I am terrified

On Tuesday night I start a month that will probably be the hardest month of my residency. They changed the way they run the surgery department here because of a hopeless string of work hour violations. I will be the very first night float intern at Denver Health. As far as I can figure, this will be my schedule:

Sunday: 7am to 7am (24 hour shift)
Monday: 5pm-7am (14)
Tuesday: 5pm-7am (14)
Wednesday: 5pm-71m (14)
Thursday: 5pm-7am (14)

This follows the work hour rules to the letter. 80 hours per week with 10 hours between shifts and at least 24 hours off. I'll be carrying 7 pagers and taking care of over a hundred surgical patients and doing all the consults for plastics, neurosurgery and urology.

I am going to learn so much. As terrified as I am, I came to Denver because this is what I wanted. I came to this program because they train phenomenal Emergency Physicians. And it is in large part due to the rigorous training. The Chief resident gave us a talk yesterday. He told us to never lose sight of one thing: "We are lucky to be doing this." So that will be my new motto. As hard as my life will be this year, as little as I will be able to do the things in my life that I have grown to love, I am truly fortunate to be here and to be getting this kind of training and to learn to take excellent care of patients.

And yes, I'm terrified.

But when the going gets tough I have my two loyal companions:

My Maddie and my Trek. My running buddy and my riding steed. The Trek is already set up on the trainer. I do have to get Maddie back into the running routine. She kind of looks like a potato with legs again. But with the small amount of time I'll have to myself we'll spend some quality time and both stay in shape :-)

What TIME is it???

2009-06-09T16:17:00.012-04:00

I am in a jet-lagged stupor at the moment! Vacation was absolutely fantastic. 9 days of complete and total relaxation. This is the first time I have taken 2 weeks off training in the last 4 years and I was totally ok with it! It helps that the heat index was over 100 degrees by 9am every morning. We did a ton of scuba diving and snorkeling but joked that neither of us got our heart rates above 100 for the whole vacation. That is, except the 10 minutes I spent in their smoking hot sauna where my heart rate was probably 150 just laying there. Not sure why you even need a sauna at the equator...

Lessons learned in the Maldives:

- SPF 30 is not sufficient at the equator
- Bumps and rashes are common occurrences on tropical islands. I am on high alert for the onslaught of cyclical fevers though....
- No matter what anyone tells you, scuba diving at night is SCAAAAARY! Especially wreck dives!
- Corona's ad campaign is brilliant!
- Mystery vacations are the best! Being an obsessive compulsive planner it was absolutely liberating to get on a plane with no idea of the destination.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. More later once the brain starts to function again. The time difference was 10 hours!

Short greeting from the Maldives!

2009-06-04T03:17:00.002-04:00

Recovering from the Triple T is best achieved by a surprise vacation to a tropical island and doing the following

- scuba diving with sharks, eagle rays, sea turtles, maurey eels (sp?) and millions of fish
- dinners on the beach
- afternoon coronas on a hammock
- kayaking around a tiny island
- hand line fishing
- lots of sleep
- massages and pedicures

The above also constitute a great way to relax before intern year!

Pics later! It's beautiful here!!

American Triple T Race 4: The Death March

2009-05-25T07:05:00.013-04:00

I finished!!!!

Going into this race I honestly thought my chances of finishing were about 30%. I had been slowly and steadily rehabbing my knee from the injury I sustained during the Cali 70.3 but not at all confident in its ability to take me uphill 13.6 miles and downhill 13.6 miles in 3 days. Miraculously, thanks to ice baths and TP massage, when I woke up on day 3 it wasn't hurting at all! Not to say I wasn't in a world of hurt. I spent the night tossing and turning from the soreness and the sound of my heart exploding in my ears. But that is to be expected coming off back to back olympic distance races in the heat.

We got to transition about an hour ahead of time and slowly got the transition area ready. People were definitely moving slower than the past few days but not quite the zombie walk that I remember from last year. One thing that was obvious, though, was there were not nearly as many people starting race 4 as there were at race 1. Curious to see the numbers...

Here I am putting on my race chip. Hurts to bend down a little. Not the best way to start the journey of 70 miles, but that's life.

The forecast was for rain, but there was not a cloud in the sky. I was really hoping for rain. The humidity was 92% at 5am.

Being goofy before the start:

The start of race 4 is pretty funny. Rather than a full on sprint into the water, most people leisurely walk to the first cone before slowly starting to swim. The contrast from day 1 is hilarious!

Doing my best to run in:

The swim went really well. It's the only discipline that doesn't suffer very much with fatigue. I'm not sure if the course was short or not, but when I looked at my watch on the exit it was under 32 minutes. Which would be a new PR!

Heading out onto the bike is when things get interesting. The course for race 4 is again very challenging. Near the start is a long 1.3 mile switchback climb. My rear derailleur wasn't loving my 27 tooth in the back and was trying to shift down. Making it to the top is a minor victory. It becomes major on the second loop... The descent out of that climb is very technical with several 90-150 degree turns. I am a big big wuss and always err on the side of safety. I'm sure I lose some time on these, but I'm a big fan of skin and collarbones, so it's all good.

Later on during one of the other long climbs on a single lane fire road an ambulance came screaming by. There wasn't room for him and us so I had to jump off my bike. I felt something give in my bottle holder but was more concerned with how on earth I was going to clip into the pedals in the middle of that hill. After walking for about 20 seconds I just gave it a go and was able to get moving again. Towards the end of lap 1 the legs were definitely starting to feel the fatigue. The hills just keep coming and coming. The only saving grace is the last 3 miles which are all downhill. It was getting very hot and I was really thirsty. I made the big mistake of trying to drink some gatorade while descending. So of course at 30 mph with my hand on my bottle in the aero position I hit a bump and the water bottle went flying out of my hand and down a steep ditch. DOH! This race is self supported and I just launched one of my 3 gatorade bottles. crap.

Headed into transition to grab my last gatorade bottle from the special needs table I noticed what gave when the ambulance went by. I managed to break one of my rear bottle cages. Double crap! I took one of HFPs water bottles that they supplied at the turnaround and just wished that it would hold:

And then ate a banana!

Loop two was pretty uneventful besides my rear derailleur having increasing testiness with the 27 tooth. Oh, and getting stung multiple times by a bee that got stuck in my singlet... Towards the end of the loop my legs were so tired I started to doubt my ability to get up over the final hills. It's a very lonely bike course, often going several minutes at a time between seeing another racer, so I was happy to have some company going over the final hill. We were all complaining about having to do that run. One guy told me that he was ok with it since he needed to finish in order to go to the Golden Corral to eat an entire carrot cake. I thought that was hilarious!

Coming back into transition was so bittersweet. Happy to be done with the hills on the bike, but REALLY not wanting to tackle that run course...

This was one of the last smiles in quite some time!

As you can see from the pictures, the rain and overcast day hadn't happened. The humidity was still in the 90's and the temps in the high 80's. At high noon there was no shade on that run course. And being in the middle of the woods there was also not a hint of wind. I simply could not believe how hot it was. I made a decision to allow myself to walk up the steepest hills. The problem was, every time I would walk I would get immediately hot, light headed and I thought I would pass out. Not good. The saving grace was the best volunteers on the planet! They would fill my Nathan bottle with ice and water and were so fast with getting us all the water we needed and even had some salt tablets ready.

I think that if the run course was designed in the opposite way there would be a lot of DNFs. But having the last 2.5 miles before the turnaround be all downhill is a nice boost. Coming into the turnaround I knew that I would finish, but also knew that it was not going to be fast. I told my mom not to expect me to finish quickly and headed back out. The best thing ever happened during loop 2. The clouds rolled in. The temperature dropped (slightly) and I stopped feeling like I was going to pass out every time I walked up the steep hills. To give you a taste of how steep some of the hills are, my heart rate never dropped below 165 walking up them. The run course is so brutal.

Getting to mile 10.5 is HUGE. From that point the rest of the run is downhill. The only drawback is that since you have already run countless hilly miles up to that point, every single step sends shocks of pain up your quads. Running downhill is killer on the quads, shins and knees. But at least it's not uphill...

I was so happy to finish I would have done a cartwheel if I thought I wouldn't faceplant.

The finisher's medals and T-shirts at the Triple T are more coveted than my Ironman finisher's stuff. I really think this race is harder. The courses are harder than any Ironman I know of (except maybe Silverman) and you have to pull yourself out of bed two mornings after racing, sore and beat up to start another tough day.

But although it is a grueling race, it is honestly the most enjoyable race I have ever done. The race organizers are absolutely top notch! HFP and everyone involved with the organization are the most positive, caring, adaptable and fun group of people putting on races. Their attitude is contagious and attracts a truly outstanding group of competitors. Everyone out there cheers on everyone else, regardless of whether or not the person who needs encouragement is your direct competitor or not. This race is a celebration of the sport of triathlon. A race that I think every triathlete should experience at least once. And then promptly say there is not a snowball's chance in hell they will do that race again. And then sign up for next year...

American Triple T Race 3!

2009-05-23T21:08:00.007-04:00

Race three in the series is the first team race for those doing it with a partner (I did it solo this year). They do a time trial bike start with partners going together. The weather was HOT for the start. About 90 degrees with equal humidity. I am a really late seed and all of us late starters thought we were going to wilt waiting in the sun for our chance to go. I was so tired from the first race that I'm pretty sure that I could have rolled up on the concrete and taken a nap right there. I knew I was dehydrated but my gut was pretty shut down from the morning. I drank what I could and we were finally off, around 3:20.

Pic from the start

The beginning of the ride was TOUGH. For those of you who ride, for race 3 you feel like you stopped at mile 90 of a century ride for about an hour and have to get back on the bike. The legs are just so stiff. And contrary to how I remembered this race, it's really really hard! I think it helped that I had Tony to draft off last year. Doing race 3 solo is almost as tough as race 2. The key hill in this race is a 1.3 mile climb that is a consistent 8-10% grade. It's almost exactly the grade of Old Mill Westbound for those of you in Cleveland. I was seriously melting but got a great second wind on the way back and was finally THIRSTY! That is always such a good sign after going through a gut shut-down. There was hope for this race yet!

Coming back into T1

Putting a wetsuit on a hot sweaty body really blows. I bring my old sleeveless for the job, but it was still tough. One of the race organizers was nice enough to come over and help me get it on. HFP is awesome. I will say more of that in the next post, but these guys are top notch.

Wetsuit donning:

And off to the lake!

By the looks of it, I was one of the only ones delighted to go in the water. I love to swim and it was ungodly hot. Getting in that lake was such a breath of fresh air. I swam nice and easy and just enjoyed every second of it. It was a great break to cool down the core body temp. I felt so good when I got out that I had to let my mom know, who was on the side taking pics:

When I started this run I knew that if I made it the same sufferfest of the morning it would be a very long day tomorrow. So my plan was to Ironman race pace the uphill section and if I felt ok, I would Oly pace the last half, which is downhill. It worked so well! I got such a runner's high on the way back to the finish line. There was about a mile where I was just so happy I was beaming. The finish line looked so good!

Coming into the finish:

Unlike the first race, where I couldn't speak and had to find a chair immediately (this is pretty typical, unfortunately), I felt awesome after this race. I had anticipated my knee to give me a ton of problems this weekend and truthfully thought I would be limping by now. But it has (knock on wood) been remarkably good to me.

Chip removal:

Tomorrow will be a very tough day. Everyone will wake up really sore and wonder why on earth they signed up for this. Getting on the bike is brutal. The half iron course is hellish. But if all goes well, finishing is absolutely priceless.

Race 2- Hardest Oly Course ever!

2009-05-23T12:14:00.011-04:00

When I finished this course last year I proclaimed it the hardest course of any distance that I had ever done. Now I can proudly say that it is the hardest course that I have ever done at any distance... twice. The bike course is sick, and the run... well the run is the same for the two races today and the Half tomorrow, and it's just a cruel, cruel joke.

So here is my photo race report for race 2/4 of the Triple T

Here I am donning the wetsuit. This race definitely merited the full suit.

And off to start the hardest race ever...

The swim was great. I love this course. The time trial start makes it relatively contact free and the lake is like glass. The consistency is a little nasty, but as long as you don't mind swimming in pea soup it's all good. I think I took around 24 minutes for the 1500 meters

Coming out, SOOOO excited to hit this bike course (NOT!)

The bike was hilly. Big Thompson hill was grueling as always. You start the hill at 18% from practically a standstill after a 160 degree turn. The first 50 meters are 15-18% and then the remainder is about 9%. It's not a fun thing to do when you know you have a hilly run in your future. But the field is much stronger this year. Last year I saw several people walk up the hill. This year most people took it with no difficulty. The bike course took me in the ballpark of 1:25. Close to what it took me last year.

Here I am starting the run:

The run was really, really tough. It is never, ever flat and quite steep for much of it (all trail). The humidity when we started was 88% with a high of 87 degrees. I absolutely wilted in the heat. There were several times where I took 10-20 step walk breaks up the steep hills. My HR stayed around 180 for the majority of the run. When I started to get the chills towards the end of the run it made me a little nervous. But the last 2.5 miles is all downhill, so it is quite the mental boost after the crazy climbing.

Here I am coming into the finish. I think I did the race in around 2:46, a couple minutes slower than last year, but for this course and conditions it's fine with me!

One of the toughest part of this race is trying to recover between races. There isn't much time with the starts at 7:30 and 3pm. This is my strategy...

Step one: Ice bath

With Peanut butter bagels (I choked down 2 between races):

Then step two is sitting with my legs in the air for 10 minutes. Lets the blood flow out:

And finally TP massage! I can't say my legs feel awesome, but I think I'll survive the afternoon. No telling about tomorrow though...

The next race is in a couple hours and features a Bike - Swim - Run. It's always fun getting the wetsuit on in transition. I bring a sleeveless for this race because it's easier to get on. I can't believe I have to do that run 3 more times. This is a sickness....

Triple T Race 1!

2009-05-22T20:49:00.012-04:00

We arrived today in Portsmouth Ohio, Home of the American Triple T, otherwise known as:

It was very hard to leave the dogs at home, especially when they looked at us like this:

But alas, with 4 races waiting we headed down and picked up the outfit that I will be wearing for 3 days of races (yeah, it will stand on its own by Sunday). That's one neat thing about this race. Everyone wears the same thing. Makes it feel like a big team. Very cool and unique (I did wear my Timex visor, though!)

Then time to set up transition for the first of four times in the next 3 days.

And it was time for the prologue- 250 meter swim, 5 mile hilly bike and 1 mile run. Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to resist going out a little too hard for a race of this distance. Here is the start. It is a time trial start with 2 people leaving every 3 seconds.

The water was WAY, WAY warmer this year. Most people, myself included did the race without a wetsuit. Just easier for a race of this distance. And it was very hot tonight. So standing around in a wetsuit for 30 minutes before the start would have been grueling. Here I am headed to T1

The bike went by fast. It's just basically 2 big hills within the park. I took it way more conservatively this year (downhill) because it's just not worth crashing on the first day. But it was very fun. Here I am coming back into T2:

And then off to the run:

Being only 1 mile it's over before you know it. I think my heart rate maxed out around 190. Oops...

All in all a total adrenaline rush! I had a great time and saw a bunch of old friends and met some new ones. Then it was off to carb load and then now to BED! Well, after I spend about 20 minutes doing Trigger Point Massage. 2 very challenging Olympic Distance races tomorrow. 7:30 am and 3pm. Forecast is for 86 degrees and very humid. I'll be wearing my Nathan hydration belt on the run. The results of getting behind in hydration this weekend are NOT pretty.

Talk after the next race!

Two huge weekends in a row!

2009-05-18T11:32:00.012-04:00

I've been absent from blogging lately, which usually means my life has been crazy town... but in a good way! I just sent off my parents who were in town for graduation. It was an absolutely wonderful weekend and I enjoyed every minute of it. Training was a little neglected, but you only graduate from Medical School once! It was so fantastic to have my parents (from Milwaukee) and my aunt and uncle in town (they drove all the way from South Carolina!). Roger was gracious enough to open his house up to my family and we had a great BBQ and bonfire on Saturday, and Sunday was a marathon day of two graduation ceremonies (whole-school convocation and the med school diploma ceremony). Some of my favorite pics from the weekend...

The yard looked fabulous for the dinner on Saturday:

It was definitely a bit chilly

But we kept warm by singing some campfire songs and eating marshmallows

Then came graduation day. The day started with breakfast followed by the class photo. My dad snapped this one when the photographer was taking the pic of the whole group

We also got some pics before the ceremonies. Here is one of me with my aunt and uncle:

And here is my "Supreme Court" shot.

Then it was time for 2 ceremonies followed by a nice lunch reception for all of our guests. I love this pic that Roger snapped of my parents and I:

Later that night was dinner at my favorite Indian Restaurant. Here is a pic of me with my family away from home (the Solomons- Lanny, Kathy and Daniel)

And here is Roger and I. Not sure I can be happier :-)

And finally, a family shot after dinner.

Next weekend is another HUGE weekend. My mom had been super bummed that she couldn't make it to Triple T. It was just too much driving to come out here two weekends in a row. So I went onto my frequent flier site and got her a ticket to Cleveland on Thursday so we can have some mother daughter bonding as she sherpas me through 4 races in three days at the Triple T! I am excited but a little nervous for the race. It's absolutely hell on the body and I'm only about 90% recovered from the knee problem at Cali. But the good news is I am now running pain free for up to 9 miles! We'll see how 27 miles in 3 days after climbing 10,000 feet on the bike is, though. Only time will tell. My one and only goal for this race is to have fun. Finishing would be super sweet too....

Riding heaven!

2009-05-04T14:36:00.005-04:00

I am going to miss this place a lot once I leave. Every year in the spring I am just blown away by the cycling in this town. Now that I'm on a bit of a vacation I am taking advantage of every opportunity that I can to hit the roads. In the past week or so I've done...

-An 80 mile ride starting with Lanny, Roger and former roomie Matt (Roger and I finished) to the Holden Arboretum and then through Chagrin Falls (Hills!)
-A 50 mile ride with Roger and Lanny down to Geauga Lake and back
-Hill repeats with Lanny- 5 times up Sherman + 1 time up Old Mill
-A short but very nice 18 miles with Roger in threatening weather conditions
-33 miles with Matt- tour of Chagrin Falls
-Hill repeats on my own- 5 times up Berkshire plus once up Old Mill

Things of note...

1. Cliff Shot Blocks come in much better packaging now. And they are delicious!
2. I made it down Old Mill for the very first time WITHOUT touching my brakes. Hit 40.5 miles per hour
3. Sherman Hill repeats are evil in every way. Hit 43.5 MPH WITH my hands on the brakes. I am told the next time we go there it will be 6 repeats. I am going to call the local EMS in advance so they have the defibrillator ready.
4. Road bikes are just way more awesome than tri bikes. My love affair with Red was rekindled. I'm sure it just might have SOMETHING to do with the fact that I have a compact crank - 11/26 on that 650 wheeled beauty and it's my only carbon fiber bike...
5. Tri saddles and Road saddles are different beasts. My butt is thanking me for finally buying a road saddle for Red.
6. As many hills as I ride in the next 3 weeks, I unfortunately know that they will pale in comparison to the hills that I will encounter at the Triple T. Those are just sick. Especially on day 3...

Time for a run. Keeping my fingers crossed that I can make it longer than 4 miles this time!

It's been awhile!

2009-05-01T14:07:00.004-04:00

So much has happened since my last update, where do I even begin??

Oh yeah...

I FINISHED MEDICAL SCHOOL!!! Yahoooooo!!!!!

The family is coming in to town in 2 weeks for the graduation and I've already hyped up my mom's ukulele campfire songs. Should be good times! It's all very surreal to me though. I started my MD/PhD 8 years ago and it seemed like this day would never come. Now that it's here it's all so... weird! What do I do with myself?

The past few weeks I've been busy finishing up my last elective. I spent the month working with local fire departments, the ground critical care transport team, and MedEvac. Here is a pic from my first day with the flight crew. I think the flight suit is damn sexxy.

And now I'm free to train my little tush off for the next few weeks. And train I will. I plan on hitting the roads to ride every day that the weather allows because Triple T is just around the corner. I'm a bit worried about my knee still. It's finally to where I can run 4 miles without any pain. But 4 miles and 26 miles in a weekend are very different things. I will keep plugging along, every other day and slowly building it up.

In other news, I got my schedule for intern year. Let's just say... me racing this summer or fall will be a bit of a stretch. Here is my schedule:

Surgery wards (80-100 hours per week, lots of call)
Medical ICU (80 hours per week, lots of call)
Medicine wards (80 hours per week, lots of call)
Emergency (YAY!!!!!!)
Burn ICU (More hours than I care to think about, every other night call)
Anesthesia (YAY!!!! practically a vacation month)
Medical ICU (Christmas/New Years. Ouch. Big ouch)
Emergency (YAY!!!!!)
Emergency (YAY!!!!!)
Emergency (YAY!!!!!)
Neurosurgery (Heinous. Get to wear the intern pager belt of justice every 4th night or so)
Emergency (YAY!!!!!)

So the good news is I'll get the hell months out of the way early. Bad news is that it is summer. Triathlon season. If I make it to the start line of Boulder 5430 awake, it will be quite the interesting day!

One final note for the day-

Go check out the new Timex website. They have all of our new pics up and profiles. The age group woman page is here. They've worked a ton on the new site and I think it looks pretty awesome!

Timex Mania!

2009-04-12T10:11:00.005-04:00

Team Timex mania has taken over the household. My dog, Maddie, has been known to pick through my clothes from time to time (see this post here), however I was still a bit shocked to come home yesterday from the market with the Mad Dog prancing around in my team kit

The kicker, however, was turning around to the sight of her best friend, the Mookster, running around with my new Rudy Project sunglasses.

I seriously have to do a better job of hiding stuff around this place. Although the thought of the dogs out hiking with hydration belts and coming home to work out those muscles with TP rollers makes me chuckle....

About that market trip... So I have decided once and for all to clean up the diet and try to follow the guidelines from May's Bicycling magazine. Cleveland's West Side Market is an enormous farmer's market with fruit and veggies around the perimeter and meat, cheeses and specialty foods on the inside. It's truly a sight to behold and you have to come prepared to weave through hundreds of people holding up money and trying to get the attention of the vendors. The place rocks. I tend, however, to show little purchasing restraint. I mean, I'm eating healthy, right? That means I need a TON of healthy options....right?

I can't wait to see how much weight I am going to lose this week eating 2 avocados, 2 mangoes, 2 pineapples, 2 pounds of grapes, a cucumber, box of spinach, fingerling potatoes, a cantaloupe, broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes, a bunch of bananas, garlic, basil, strawberries and a spaghetti squash (there was a watermelon, but I ate that already...). By the end of the week I'm sure my agent will be getting calls from the Victoria's Secret swimming suit catalog for their upcoming photo shoot...

Lots to talk about...

2009-04-10T10:01:00.004-04:00

Where do I start?

Timex camp!

Highlights...

- Watched presentations from our most amazing sponsors (Timex, Trek, Bontrager, Trigger Point, Gaiam, Nathan, PowerBar, Power Breathe, ARX and Aquasphere

- Did 36 pushups on a balance ball at the first ever Team Timex pushup contest, sponsored by Gaiam

- Watched Will - "Hey Guys Watch This - Kelsay perform hilarious antics all weekend as himself and as his alter ego, captain obvious. Here he is teaching Rachel the ins and outs of being a super hero:

- Had the pleasure of driving about 10 members of the team to dinner the last night while taking directions from Bruce who was sitting the farthest from the driver's seat. An hour. 5 U-turns and several very hungry and cranky triathletes later we arrived at the restaurant. Learned that Margaritas actually DO cure everything! :-)

- Met 40 members of the team who are all just jaw droppingly talented, unbelievably fun, and all around super cool people. Profiles should be up soon on the Timex Blog.

In other news, I read a very motivating article in the May's edition of Bicycling magazine by a nutritionist to many pro cyclists. If you get a chance, take a read. It's on page 50 and my efforts to clean up my diet will pretty much follow that scheme.

And lastly, a little whine for the day. I got up at 4:30 to go to masters this morning. I got there early and waited. And Waited. Apparently the pump in the big pool broke and masters was canceled. If only I was on that dang mailing list! I've only been swimming with them for 4 years now... Anywhoo, the lifeguards were very nice and let me swim in the "small pool". It's a 6 lane 25 yard pool off to the side of the big pool. I hate making up my own workouts, which is why masters is so nice for me. So I ended up with this:

Warm up
400 swim
400 pull buoy
400 paddles (no pull buoy)
400 kick

Main sets
4 x (10 x 50) on :55, every other one HARD
First Set- swim
Second Set- Pull Buoy
Third Set- Paddles (no pull buoy)
fourth set- Kick
(extra 15 seconds between sets)

4 x 150 (100 stroke, 50 free)
4 x 50 under / over (25 underwater no breaths, 25 breastroke)
100 cool down

Total 4500. Boring! But at least I still got a workout in.

Enjoy the weekend everyone! I'm going to sit outside in the 40 degree rain at the Indians Home Opener. Hope they can pull off a win for us!

Sometimes you just need an old fashioned A$$ kicking...

2009-04-07T19:25:00.004-04:00

I was long overdue to have a good old-fashioned triathlon death march. The kind of race that you finish and want to just walk away from and pretend it didn't really happen. But the thing is, turning your back on a bad race is also walking away from a prime opportunity to learn and grow. Analyzing exactly what went wrong is the key to preventing it in the future. So here goes some race analysis of Oceanside...

Swim: My favorite triathlon swim ever. I felt strong from the gun to T1. I was confident. I found feet to follow, avoided contact and just really, really enjoyed the entire thing. I'm not sure what my official time was (which includes a pretty longish run), but the swim portion itself was just a tad over 32 minutes. Which I believe is a PR for me. Very happy with the start of the race.

The good: This was the first season that I took a break from swimming. I didn't swim at all for 6 weeks and then gradually worked up my yardage until I was comfortable with 20,000 yards per week. I really think the break allowed me to come back regenerated and work on my form. It was also the first time I lined up in the water and didn't allow myself to feel intimidated by all the fit people around me.

The bad: As always for ocean swims, I ended up with the nastiest, ooziest case of wetsuit rash on my neck. Gross.

Analysis: Keep doing what I'm doing. Focus on good, quality, long sessions with focus on form. Use more body glide...

Bike: I actually really enjoyed the bike portion of the race as well. It's one of my favorite courses. Challenging and scenic. Big hills and some technical turns. Lots of wind on the return. I was much slower than anticipated though and got off the bike pretty disappointed. I think I averaged 19mph and I really thought I was capable of 20 on that course.

The good: I followed my heart rate race plan pretty well (possibly too conservative) and kept a positive attitude for most of the race. Really had fun with the other competitors.

The bad: By the halfway point it had become obvious that I had just monkeyed with the bike fit too much and still wasn't totally dialed in. I did one long ride where the seat was too high and it flared up my IT band. Then I overcompensated and lowered it a tad too much. By the middle of the bike my knees were starting to feel very uncomfortable. I also felt like I wasn't really putting out the power I should be capable of.

The ugly: I have always flirted with disaster with my hydration and nutrition and gotten away with it. Well every year as I train I have noticed that sweat more and more. I started the bike with one water bottle and still had a bit left when we hit the aid station right before the hills. At that moment I must have been shunting way too much blood away from my brain since I decided to skip it so I wouldn't have to carry an extra pound of gatorade into the hills. BAD IDEA. By the time I got to the next aid station I wasn't just a little thirsty. I was parched. And catching up on hydration on a warm day during the run just isn't such a prime idea.

Analysis: It's time to take hydration more seriously. Bontrager has a new front aero drink system that puts the Profile Design system to shame. I will give it a shot as soon as it's available and stop trying to cheat my hydration. I will do another sweat test to dial my needs back in. In the next couple weeks I am going to tweak my bike fit until the Trek feels like a second skin. I will ride that beautiful bike every chance I get.

The death march... errr I mean run

I really think that the Oceanside run course is one of the most fun courses out there. The aid stations are just awesome, the fan support is second to none and the views of the ocean are spectacular. That being said, this was the most painful run I have ever had, and the slowest triathlon run I have ever done. I think when all was said and done I finished in 1:55. My goal was under 1:45. Yikes!

The good: I finished and didn't walk...

The bad: My heart rate was jacked from the dehydration (never dropped below 170 for all 13 miles even though I was running 1 minute per mile slower than goal) and I was really hot. I started taking as much fluid as I could from each aid station and felt like I was just keeping up but never filled up the tank. I was probably running on the edge of a bonk as I look back. I only took in about 5-600 calories on the bike and went all liquid for the run. Because I was so dry it was hard to use my heart rate to guide my calorie intake (I usually know I need to eat when my HR dips down a bit)

The Ugly: I started at a good pace although I felt pretty bad from the thirst. But when I got to about the 3 mile mark the right knee started to hurt. IT band. By the turnaround for the second loop it was starting to lock up on me and as I went through the sand portion of the run coming up to the turn I really considered whether I should just pull out. I knew the knee was not going to get better. And that when ITB pain gets really bad you don't have much choice but to walk. Pulling out probably was the smart thing to do. But for me, the mental damage from pulling out of a race is way, way worse than the physical damage of 6.5 more miles on a bum knee. I headed back out. The left knee actually started to hurt at about mile 9 but never got as bad as the right. I kept looking at my watch and telling myself that I had to break 5:30 to save my pride. I had to. I ran as fast as I could with a knee that didn't want to let me extend. I finished just a tad past 5:30, largely incoherent from the thirst, hunger and pain, but I really wasn't as upset as I thought I would be. My best friend, Justine was there, my amazing cousin was there, and I had my new teammates who just dominated that course. And I was done.

Analysis: A couple things contributed to my disappointing run. I showed up to this race way over race weight. There's just no excuse for that, especially since I'm now a sponsored athlete. I owe it to my sponsors and teammates to show up, not only prepared from a training standpoint, but also to ensure that my body is prepared. Light is fast. Light is healthier on my joints. The next race will be different.

I also truly believe that screwing up nutrition and hydration can make you more susceptible to injury during hard training. The only time I ever truly bonked on a training ride I ended up with nerve damage so bad in my left hand that I couldn't open doors with that hand for months. Your body needs fuel to stay healthy. Needs volume to stay lubricated. This will be different at the next race.

This was my first race with Team Timex and I really wish I could have represented the team better. But the great thing about having the race I did right before camp was that it really allowed me to go into all of our sponsor talks eager to learn about ways to make myself better and faster. I can't wait to use the Trigger Point products to heal these legs, Nathan Hydration products to help work on training and race nutrition, my new Timex Race Trainer kit that integrates directly with Training peaks to log my training and diet progress, information from our nutritionist from Power Bar on daily nutrition, use the Gaiam core strength products to tone my body and get more flexible, and to really use all the incredible resources of our other sponsors to get better as the season goes on. I do really realize what a truly fortunate and unique experience being on the team represents. And I will not take it for granted.

There goes that "Bad Weather" excuse...

2009-04-03T10:03:00.003-04:00

Apr 4 Tomorrow
Sunny skies. High 67F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.

Sounds like a most perfect day for racing!

I picked up my awesome transition bag from the Timex truck last night and it was filled with the most excellent goodies!

Timex Race Trainer Kit and 2 watches

Sunglasses and helmet from Rudy Project

More hydration equipment than a girl could ever use (thanks to Nathan)

And SO many clothes from Sugoi

(in total, 2 trisuits, 2 two-piece tri outfits, cycling shorts and shirt, cycling jacket, sweater, arm warmers, leg warmers, t-shirt, and sleeveless t-shirt. All ORANGE!

(If I didn't feel so fat I'd model them)

They even sent 2 pairs of Timex Yankz!

So tomorrow I'll be sporting some great new clothes (going with the one-piece trisuit and arm warmers, hopefully I won't be spotted by the fashion police) and hopefully the full kit will make me FLY through those 70.3 miles.

Today is super busy. Need to get in a ride, and OW swim, get the bike ready for tomorrow, pack everything up, pick up teammates Lindsey and Bruce from the airport and enjoy a nice dinner with the posse. Then a very early wake-up call!

Antsy

2009-03-31T09:38:00.002-04:00

Today I woke up feeling all wound up. Kind of early in taper for this antsy pants feeling, but it certainly makes the workouts better. Taper is one of the times that I try to do EVERY workout as described. If it says zone 5, I do zone 5. Zone 4 is ALWAYS zone 4. If my heart rate doesn't cooperate, I go harder. Yesterday was a 4k swim with a main set of 2 x 400-300-200-100 (zone 2,3,4,5) slid in at the end. The beginning of taper is not exactly the most fresh and energetic time, so I forced myself to hold to 1:35, 1:30, 1:25, 1:20 pace per hundred. Thankfully the paces kind of helped me to block out the fact that the pool was so cloudy I couldn't see 5 feet in front of me and it didn't smell like there was a drop of chlorine in it. The guy who shared a lane with me kindly pointed out that he just wished they would fish out all the used bandaids on the floor. GROSS! I am just hoping it doesn't make me sick before I leave. Two more swims in that thing before I catch the big bird tomorrow. It kind of looks like this:

I'm thinking of heading to the pool in this today:

I could always go to CSU with the masters group, but that means I have to get up at 4:30 and since they are long-course now there is unlikely to be an extra lane for me to do the taper workouts. The rest of the year I just swim masters. But my psyche dictates that I always follow the same taper schedule. This is Half Iron #5 with the SATW (super awesome taper week) and I'll be damned if I'm changing it now!

Ok, time for me to continue trying to diffuse this extra energy. Can't swim until this afternoon. The water aerobics ladies get to wash off their lotion and hairspray with the pool this morning...

TAPERRRR!!!!

2009-03-30T07:15:00.003-04:00

Definition of taper - 9 results in Dictionary.com

ta⋅per
1 /ˈteɪpər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [tey-per] Show IPA
–verb (used without object)
1. to become smaller or thinner toward one end.
2. to grow gradually lean.
–verb (used with object)
3. to make gradually smaller toward one end.
4. to reduce gradually.
–noun
5. gradual diminution of width or thickness in an elongated object.
6. gradual decrease of force, capacity, etc.
7. anything having a tapering form, as a spire or obelisk.
8. a candle, esp. a very slender one.
9. a long wick coated with wax, tallow, or the like, as for use in lighting candles or gas.
—Verb phrase
10. taper off,
a. to become gradually more slender toward one end.
b. to cease by degrees; decrease; diminish: The storm is beginning to taper off now. I haven't stopped smoking entirely, but I'm tapering off to three cigarettes a day.

Unfortunately, #2 isn't what's happening, and hopefully not #6. But #4 and 10B certainly hit the spot right now.

In related news, these are also called tapers and are used for body piercing...

Yikes....

My body is tired and sore. I love the new bike, but I'm pretty sure there are little fists that punch my hamstrings with every pedal stroke. I couldn't even sit down without wincing the other day. It's getting gradually better and lowering the seat helped a bit for sure. I'm just hoping the adaptation to the new position will be rapid enough that I'm all set to have a good run on Saturday. I took her out in the hills the other day for 50 miles and 3000 feet of climbing and she actually climbs pretty awesome, so I'm looking forward to testing it out on the hills in Camp Pendleton!

A big plug for one of my favorite new items:

I hated the bottle launcher on my Cervelo. HATED it. Constantly launching bottles and it was positioned so that the bottles were hitting my butt and I had no end to problems getting them in and out. Once at a race I gave up and held the darn bottle for about 4 miles and just dumped it at an aid station because I couldn't get the darn thing in. The Bontrager Race Lite system is like a breath of fresh air. Never launches and it is SOOOOO easy to access. Love this thing!

Oh yeah, and I'm back in Cleveland (hence the ability to find hills). It's really nice to be home for a couple days to recharge and start the SATW (Super Awesome Taper Week). I head out on Wednesday and am sooooo excited for the race and camp. In California I will get to see my best bud Justine who is doing her pediatric oncology fellowship in LA, my triathlon buds Lauren, Matt, Lindsey, Danny, Marky, Paulo, Tracy and Shawn, Sergio, Andrew, Rachel, and all the new teammates, and hopefully my most awesome cousin Brienne and my aunt. And there is that little race to do...

My main goals for this race are to be much faster than last time, while still crossing that finish line just as happy

With the awesome support that will be out on that course, both goals should be achievable. If you're following at home, my race number this year is 2004 and I start about an hour after the pros in the last female wave. Which is awesome because I'd much rather have a bunch of people to pass than have a bunch of people whiz by me!

Now it's time for SATW workout #1. Time to get ton that trainer!

I am officially a Trekkie!

2009-03-25T20:31:00.006-04:00

Bike companies all have their own reputations. Trek has always been known for its outstanding customer support. I realized this week that its not just their main office, but also the Trek franchise stores.

I planned my trip to Florida with the Trek in mind. I wanted to get the new bike on the road before racing Oceanside. Well, since I ordered an Equinox and not a TTX, my frame came in a little bit late. I got the call that the bike was ready to ship on Friday, after already arriving in Florida. I knew I needed to have the bike shipped here so I could still ride it, but how on earth was I going to fit this bike, which is a different size and shape than the one I was already riding??? On a whim, I walked up to the Trek store and asked for some information. I figured all I really NEEDED was a trainer to set up the bike and maybe I could fumble my way through the fitting if I could have the Cervelo set up next to it. They gave me the email address of the owner, so I sent him a quick email to see if I could use their shop after the bike arrived. I am not exaggerating- I got a reply 2 minutes later! Not only could I fit my bike in their shop, but he had me set up an appointment with their best fitter.

Yesterday, less than a day after receiving the bike I spent 4 hours at the shop going through every aspect of the fit of the Trek. We had to swap out the stem, cut the bars, and make dozens of minute adjustments. I picked up my bike today and spent 32 miles tucked in the aero position of the new bike, enjoying every second of it!

Here is the Beautiful Little Miss Bigwheels, fresh off the press!

And here are the wonderful people who helped me- Joesph Du Bois and Alex Saputo of Trek Naples/Estero Thanks so much, guys! You're the best. If anyone out there finds their way to South Florida, stop by their shop and say hi!

And the obligatory riding pics

I love my new bike!

:-)

It has been reconfirmed!

2009-03-24T21:52:00.007-04:00

I still have absolutely no rhythm! Every once in awhile I deem it necessary to test whether or not in some miraculous event I have managed to find an ounce of rhythm. Usually the test comes after quite a bit of free alcohol and the celebration of a wedding, but today it took the form of...

Yes, I did a Zumba class today. And no, it wasn't pretty. Not one bit. But it was fun...

To update on anaerobic camp, I have been getting the living crap beat out of me on a daily basis. There was a 2 hour bike ride on Sunday where my heart rate max was 185 and I'm pretty sure it stayed there for a good half hour. Then later that day I did 40 x 200 on a "track" I made for myself. My AVERAGE heart rate for that escapade was 178 with a max of 198. And no, I didn't stop my watch for the 15-20 seconds between intervals. There was a 5 mile time trial where I'm pretty sure I left my left lung on Saturday, and today I did a very tough 5000 meters in the pool. But no bike ride today.... because the most beautiful box was delivered to Florida yesterday!

Isn't it beautiful?!

And there's STUFF in it!

And... RACE WHEELS!!

And what is this beautiful piece of Orange metal??

MY NEW TREK!!!!!!!!!!!

I will talk more about it in my next post, but I was able to find the most amazing people at the Trek store in Estero, Florida. They got me right in to get fit on very little notice and spent 4 hours tweaking the bike to make it absolutely PERFECT! The only hitch was the circus side-show length aerobars that needed to be cut. So tomorrow I will pick up Little Miss Bigwheels for good and take her on a test ride.

Anaerobic training camp day 2

2009-03-20T12:47:00.003-04:00

My pathetic legs during the ride yesterday had me pretty worried about my bike fitness going into my first race. Yes, we were sustaining 28 mph, but getting dropped -ever- isn't the best confidence booster. So today the agenda was for a harder ride. The supposed max speed for this ride is 24 mph except for 3 sprint zones, but since it's 5 loops there are a lot of turns. And this group takes speed seriously. It's zero to 24-28 mph in a matter of seconds. To a girl who doesn't have 500 watt quads that equates to a lot of really tough anaerobic sprints. But for some reason, I do better on this ride. It was a lot of fun riding with a group of about 20 cyclists and hanging to Joe Bonness' wheel. I didn't get dropped until the final sprint, but that was the plan because we were bricking the ride so I just tucked into the aero position and grinded it out to the car.

The run was very nice and I felt strong. It was a slow build to zone 3 and we went about 7 miles. I've switched shoes for the moment from the Avi Lite 2 to the Avi Lite Guide to try to ease some new shin pain and it seems to have done the trick.

Exciting news for today...

My bike is being built as we speak!!! Yahoo! I should have my new Trek Equinox on Monday to fit and get on the road in the hopes of getting her race ready for Oceanside. Little Miss Bigwheels might make an April race appearance yet! Many pictures will, of course be posted once I set it up!

*edit*

And here is a pic of my fit on my NEW BIKE!

Happy Friday!

Match Day Madness!

2009-03-19T15:08:00.011-04:00

Today was my first day in Florida for the second phase of camp (I call it, the anaerobic phase...) with Lanny and the crew. I knew that I was going to be super nervous for the match so we filled up the morning with some amazing training. The morning ride wasn't exactly what I had planned, as Lanny said it would be an "easy" 22mph ride. On the way out I said to Lanny- I don't know if it's my nerves or my fitness, but this ain't easy! He assured me it was my nerves. The fact that the roads were soaking wet and I was getting pelted with rocks in the face from the tire in front of me didn't help...

Then on the way home I figured it would get easier since it wasn't against the wind. Then I realized that I was clicking into bigger and bigger gears until I was maxed out. And cars weren't really whizzing by us as fast as they had been. I asked Lanny how fast we were going (which is a fun feat when your heart rate is 178. We were traveling at 28.5 mph. On the freaking flat. This went on for about 15 miles. I almost died. Seriously. And TOMORROW is the hard ride. Lovely.

Anywhoo, I didn't die, but we all did get absolutely COATED in grime. Sometimes getting dirty can be fun

:-)

This is me after the ride, posing how I felt- as though I had been run over by a truck

Lanny:

My friend Anita, who hosted me on her boat at Steelhead last year:

Lanny and I, posing in our matching, grime covered jerseys

Then after the ride we went to the pool for 3000 meters (again, to keep my mind off the match..) I felt really bad on the ride, but felt like a million bucks in the pool. Every once in awhile there is a day where it just feels like I'm flying over the water instead of in it. That was today. A former collegiate swimmer was in the pool and told me that I have a great stroke. What a compliment!

Unfortunately the swim had to end and I had to do the inevitable. Wait for the match results. We counted down the minutes to noon waiting for the big email (my whole class was sitting in a big room celebrating together). At noon, no email. 12:05 no email. Classmates were excitedly posting on facebook their match results. Still nothing. So my great friend and former roommate Matt walked over to the big room where they have their ceremony to find out where I"ll be spending the next 4 years of my life and gave me a call....

DENVER!!!!!

I was so excited and relieved I can't even really explain it. It was such a tough decision for me. I changed my rank list twice in the last week before the deadline and ended up ranking Denver first. There are a multitude of reasons, but here are a few:

One of my very best friends and former roommate of 4 years, Colleen and her most amazing husband Eric. Colleen will be my colleague once again as she is blazing a trail as an intern in Emergency at Denver General right now. She was an amazing mentor and support person throughout this craziness

My brother and his family. We aren't related by blood but we grew up together just the same. He and his family have been in Denver for years and years and I can't WAIT to spend more time with them!

Fast Will and Stephanie are up in Denver. Just awesome people

Big Will (on the right of the picture) and his family are also up in Boulder. I haven't seen him in years and hope to be able to pop up there to visit the crew.

And rounding out the Boulder gang (although I think about half of Team Timex is up there and I'll soon have even more semi-local peeps!) is MarkyV, self proclaimed king of the camera self-portrait. But of course, I'm posting a pic that he actually DIDN'T take of himself!

So all in all, I am completely thrilled with the day and the match. Lanny bought a nice bottle of Champagne and we are having a dinner party in a couple hours. Then of course, that "hard" ride tomorrow. yippeee.....

Now that my fingers hurt, I can officially say that I'm sore everywhere!

2009-03-15T18:31:00.002-04:00

Here I was, leaving Performance bike the other day just beaming at my find. Pro3Race tires in 650. It was like Christmas! I couldn't even find these suckers online. It was clearly my lucky day!

Fast Forward to this morning... The battle

I pulled off my old worn out tire from my front rim at 9am this morning expecting to be done with the all that needed to be done to my bike to make it road ready by about 10am.

9:15 Finally get one edge of the tire round rim

9:20 Cursing begins

9:30 Decide this is futile. Need to take off tire and try that clothes drier trick

9:40 Finally get the tire off rim

9:45 Realize the drier has outsmarted me. It knows there is nothing wet in it, therefore will not heat

9:46 More cursing

10:05 Finally got the tire on. TRIUMPHANT!

10:05.30 Hear the air leaking out of the punctured tube

10:06 More swearing

10:15 Get a new tube in. Thankfully the damn tire is now stretched

10:16 Hear air once again coming from tire

10:16.30 Cursing like a drunken sailor

10:40 Third tube in, so far so good

10:45 Friend tells me to put other tire in oven first

10:47 Smell of freshly baked tire emanates through the house

10:50 Burn already very sore fingers on freshly baked tire

11:00 Rear tire successfully installed

11:00-1:00 Decide since I'll probably be racing this steed to swap out the seat, all the bottle holders, and re-tighten all the screws. Eat a lot of pasta. Shower. Get Ready for the ride.

1:30-4:30 RIDING OUTSIDE!!!! It was all so worth it. Of course, after 50 hilly miles in the east of Cleveland capping off a 24 hour training week I hurt- EVERYWHERE. But it's a good hurt.

Quote of the day

By having the will to do what others don't today, gives you the ability to do what others can't tomorrow.

I think I'm gonna go bake cookies now. At least that won't take much energy

Peer Pressure

2009-03-15T08:09:00.003-04:00

I'll admit it. I am a complete sucker for peer pressure. Thankfully this is a late development in my life or I'd be passed out in an alley somewhere covered in needle tracks. But no, the peer pressure I'm susceptible to is completely from the training buddies. And it's good. It makes me faster. Twice this week I was pushed way harder and way faster than would have even been possible on my own (call me a big wuss if you want to, I can take it).

The trainer...

The dreaded trainer. I have been on that thing for 8 straight days. And it's March, which means it has now been 5 full months since I have taken a single pedal stroke on the road. It is starting to shrivel my soul. And in a build week (I'll put in about 24 hours this week), there are days when I just can't push the watts on that thing. And don't get me started about how much my a$$ hurts. Well Thursday is always the day that I do my zone 4 workout and the thought of pushing zone 4 by myself was just inconceivable. Well, Roger and I have been doing a lot of training together lately because he has been trying to get in top shape for a 2-week hiking trip in Patagonia (he landed in Santiago today). Thankfully he was off work early on Thursday and agreed to hop on the bike with me (he has a really sweet Trek Madone that has been keeping my Cervelo company on their trainers). The plan was to do the workout that I put on the blog the other day which has 1,2 and 3 minute zone 4 intervals. Well after the first 3-minute interval he turned to me and said- I really enjoyed that one. Kinda wish it was longer. I wasn't sure whether to give him a big kiss or to strangle him, but we went on to do 4- minute AND 5-minute zone 4 intervals. When all was said and done we had a 100 minute workout that included 25 minutes of zone 3 and 25 minutes of zone 4 intervals. Peer pressure...

The Run...

My training buddy Lanny and I routinely kick the living crap out of each other in the pool and on the bike. That's what happens when you get two competitive people with equal skill level together. It's awesome. Well Lanny gave up running after doing the The Great Floridian Ironman in 2000. Like, didn't run a step in 8 years. Well, for some reason he decided to get back on the road this year and has slowly worked his way up to a long run of about 1:15. I had never run with him... until yesterday. He came over wanting to do 60 minutes. He told me that his usual Florida pace is about 7 mph. I was already a bit concerned since I've been such a baby this year and have held to about a 6.5 mph pace on all my runs over 50 min. As we took off Lanny set the pace and I'm pretty sure someone lit a fire under his a$$ because he was shot out of a cannon. When we got to the 10 minute mark and my HR was already in the 170's he said that I could set the pace. Oh great...

See I have this problem with setting the pace. It makes me feel responsible for the quality of the workout. And the last thing I want is to make someone run slower than they want. So I pushed on. The route we chose was hilly. REAL hilly. This is not your typical Florida run. As we are running (racing) breathless and speaking in single word phrases we were able to mime to one another that maybe we should hold that pace for 50 minutes and then do a cool down. Thankfully he agreed, and as my heart rate sailed into the 180's on the hills I knew it was practically a necessity.

Finishing that run was awesome. There is nothing really comparable to the feeling of that adrenaline kick after a really hard run. We managed to run just over 7.5 hilly miles in that hour, including that last 10 minutes of cool down, which makes the 50 minutes of tempo in the sub-8 range. I haven't run that fast since Steelhead. And since that's the pace I hope to hold at Oceanside (thankfully it's not hilly on that course), I need to train at that pace. Need to feel that pace. Need to not be afraid of it.

So now I'm headed to Florida on Wednesday to train with Lanny and the Florida crew. If it doesn't kill me, I guarantee it will make me stronger.

Some other notes

* Lanny would like me to point out that the smoothie recipe was indeed his personal recipe. I take no responsibility for it. However, I wanted to add that if you can afford powdered Glutamine, put some of that in your smoothies too.

**I am going to put my new Michelin Pro3Race tires on my bike right now. Know what that means? NO MORE TRAINER!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!! Temps predicted to be >50 today, tomorrow and Tuesday. So that trainer is history, at least until March 27th. Woot!

Training induced coma

2009-03-11T10:08:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting here in a bit of a water-logged training induced coma right now. I know I need to get on that trainer soon but I'm in deep, deep denial. Plus, there's still water in my ears from this morning. I'm sure if I search the literature I'll find a horrible and irreversible deadly disease that will entrap me if I get on the trainer with water in my ears.

We have a new swimming coach at masters. It's actually the brother of our old swimming coach. I love his workouts, but I'm pretty sure he is on a one-man mission to ensure that I can no longer dress myself or wash my hair ever again. He has this magic number that makes the perfect workout length. This magic number seems set at 5300. Yes, 5300 yards. That is over 3 miles. That is an acceptable RUN in my book. So now I sit at day 6 of swimming with >24,000 yards in the bank (I swim on my own every other day and my magic number is much more human). In order to take my shirt off I have to invert myself into an upside down "V" and use gravity to my advantage. Sports Bras are my own personal hell. This would all be fine and dandy if I wasn't showering three times per day. It's ugly....

I would like to share with you my key to muscle recovery. It's the very bestest smoothie recipe in the world.

Get one of those Single serving blenders (like the Bullet)

Fill 1/3 with Frozen Strawberries
1/3 frozen blueberries
1 scoop whey protein powder (I like vanilla flavored)
1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
top with Orange Juice
Blend

It will be thick, and amazing! Seriously, I notice a huge difference in recovery when I get one of these in my system ASAP after a hard workout. Plus, they are delicious.

OK, nap time.

Bring out that SUN!!!

2009-03-10T08:04:00.004-04:00

Cleveland has been very good to me. It's an amazing town, great cycling, wonderful people, yummy restaurants, spectacular park system. But for crying out loud, people, no one should be expected to live through a Cleveland winter. This is number 8 for me and I'm about to pull out my nose hairs one by one to distract from the pain of the endless cloudy days. However, it was SUNNY yesterday. Of course, it couldn't come out until after my gloomy run, but I did get to feel that hint of maybe, just maybe some warmth yesterday evening. In celebration of the event I took out my bike (still the Honch since Little Miss Bigwheels probably won't make an appearance until April), and gave him a full spring cleaning (with new bar tape and everything!). Granted it was so cold that I was wearing my winter coat and mid-calf length Sorel boots. A clean and freshly lubed bike is really something to be admired. It pedaled so smoothly and shifted like butta.... when I did my trainer ride later that day. Grrrrrr.... Thankfully, I'm pretty sure that I'll be headed somewhere significantly sunnier and with a much longer outdoor training season. Not that I'll have time for that...

Just a couple days into camp and I'm already sore. I'm currently trying to arrange my day so as to avoid the water aerobics ladies at the gym.

My pool is just 3 lanes so a carefully planned workout is key. I had to share an end lane with Mr. can't backstroke in a straight line one day and ended up with a very bruised right hand from hitting the wall and ladder over and over trying to avoid a concussion. On the topic of swimming, it's remarkable how much easier it is to get the yardage in with the team compared to by myself. I get to about 3000 yards on my own and am completely and utterly bored out of my skull. I can swim with the team for 5000+ and it's still bearable.

With cycling every day indoors I'm starting to run out of ideas for trainer workouts. I suppose I should put in a couple of steady zone 2 rides, but with no TV for entertainment that's kind of like asking me to rearrange my closet alphabetically by color and store of origin. Sure it may seem like a good idea when you start, but by the time you get to the B's you're looking for a less painful thing to do... like maybe a self lobotomy.

OK, enough complaining for one day. I'll be doing all my workouts outside under the hot sun in just over a week. Ahhhhhh....

Training Camp!!!!!

2009-03-09T12:55:00.008-04:00

Ok, so it's not going to be the- go to New Mexico and kill myself trying to keep up with the pros kind of training camp this year. But I do have 4 full weeks off of clinical duties and have an intense desire to kick my bootay into shape for Oceanside! I'm going to enact a 3 hour minimum daily training quota and try to get in the water every day. I'm on day 4 of swimming and my arms haven't fallen off yet, so it's all good.

The grand plan is 10 days in beautiful Cleveburg training mostly indoors, then off to Estero, Florida where I can hang with two of my favorite people

Cycle OUTSIDE every day with my Cleveland Buddies

Trying to keep up with THIS guy

And then just MAYBE finishing off with some of these...

This year we even have some open water swims planned. Which will be awesome since Oceanside is an Ocean swim (duh..). However, I plan to do my best to avoid this guy...

Very busy early season schedule planned since internship is not going to be pretty. Oceanside 70.3, then Kinetic half, then DeSoto Triple T (ouch), and then I'm throwing around the idea of CdA if I can get a slot at Oceanside. But we have to see how the ole body holds up this month.

In other news- New swimming suit from Splish! Woohoo! Wonder Woman's straps are getting a little stretched and I'm giving my swim team a free show on a daily basis. So I logged onto splish and designed a new hot suit for this season!

They are just an awesome company with great customer service. You can buy their standard suits, design your own, or buy a suit that anyone else has made. It's so fun!

One last thing...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

Training update

2009-02-28T15:03:00.002-05:00

Training has been going pretty well. I feel a bit random this year, as it is truly a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of season. I determine how much time I have to train and then make my training plan, sometimes the same day. Despite this, my swim has definitely come around, but that is attributable to my masters team. I was feeling pretty darn pleased with myself when I came in at 5:52 for my 400 the other day until I looked at the board to see the sendoff... 5:30 I should be able to make that sendoff by.... never. But I can still be pleased that I managed about 17,500 yards (10 miles) in the water this week. Take that speedsters!

Being that it is a self-coached year I have tried to avoid gauging out my eyes with a pencil eraser out of boredom by making up some new and interesting bike trainer workouts. My favorite new one is called- Up and down pain mountain. It is:

10 minute warm up

Set 1
5 minutes zone 3
2 minutes high zone 2
1 minute zone 4
2 minutes high zone 2

Set 2
4 minutes zone 3
2 minutes high zone 2
2 minutes zone 4
2 minutes high zone 2

Set 3
3 minutes zone 3
2 minutes high zone 2
3 minutes zone 4
2 minutes high zone 2

It ends up being

Warm up
Set 1 - 2 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 1
Cool Down

Or any combination of the sets. It's freaking hard. Zone 4 is basically an all out effort on the bike trainer for me. I shoot for a heart rate between 172-180. It's sick. Almost as sick as spending 6-10 hours per week on a bike indoors for 6 months out of the year. I think all of us northerners need our heads examined...

The run has been ok. I'm still struggling to run more than an hour at a time without something starting to bother me. My ITB flared a touch this week but it seems to be fine. I'm starting to think I'm just big pansy and need to HTFU. I have been able to do all my speedwork treadmill runs, so that's progress. One the subject of running, I have to put a plug in for the free podcast Podrunner.

I am not a fan of running to music because of the variability in cadence. Podrunner makes its mixes by RPM, so you can choose your running cadence. I run to the 180BPM mixes. They are phenomenal!

That's about it for training. I bought my tickets to spend a week with my bike (hopefully the new Trek who will be named Little Miss Big Wheels, or B-dub for short) in Florida. Then I come home for a week before heading out for Oceanside and Timex camp! It's coming up so close- Scary!

As for the big career change, the list is in and the wait is on! I hear where I spend the next 3-4 years of my life on March 19th.

And I also chopped off about 6 inches of hair!

Sorry for the boring post, hope everyone is having a great week!

The Dreaded Rank List

2009-02-20T22:53:00.002-05:00

Residency is probably the most important period of intellectual and career development of a physician's life. And no matter what specialty you choose, it's hard. Damn hard. You work long hours for little pay, are responsible for the lives of hundreds, more likely thousands of critically ill patients, and have dozens of attending physicians constantly expecting more and more of you. And through that process, you grow, mature, and develop the confidence that you will need when the day comes when there is no one looking over your shoulder; when you have dozens of people counting on you to lead the ship, when it's your decisions that determine whether a patient lives or dies.

This Wednesday is the day that thousands of future physicians all over the country have to turn in their "rank list". This is a numbered list of where they want to go for residency, from the top to bottom. On the same day, all residencies have to put in a list of who they want to see fill their residency positions. 3 weeks later a computer spits out the "match". Like it or not, the hospital on that little computer generated sheet is your future.

Needless to say, I'm freaking out. I've already gone in and changed my list once. Before Wednesday it will happen again. What it has to come down to is where I think I will get kind of education where I will be competent and confident to manage any medical emergency or trauma that can be wheeled in the doors of my emergency department when I'm the only attending on staff in the middle of the night. I have to keep telling myself that this decision is not about location. It's not about triathlon. It's not about where the best cycling is. It's about my career. After spending 8 post-graduate years in school busting my tail to publish papers and be the best clinician I can be, I owe it to myself to find the best training opportunity to continue my education.

Damn, this is hard...

All will be revealed by the magic computer on March 19th. Unfortunately I'll be on my bike in Estero, FL... hey, I'm not in residency YET!

One ticket to Bonkville, please...

2009-02-07T21:05:00.002-05:00

It is the time of the year when you look back on the training and achievements of the past and think...

How the F&%$ did I ever do that???

Today was a big, 4.5 hour training day. It started with a big bowl of oatmeal before 4400 yards in the pool with a different masters squad. It was just ok (actually, it was super frustrating and I was grumpy for most of it because of how crowded and unorganized the lane was) until the last set. I stepped forward and asked if I could lead the 2 x (2 x 200) on 3:15. 200's are my favorites and I was feeling pretty good. It was the very first set I have done since September where I felt at one with the water. And I hit them all on 2:55. Progress!

Then I downed a powerbar and headed to the gym. Did :40 on the elliptical and :30 on the treadmill (still slowly moving up my running mileage). Then as I was leaving, absolutely abs was just starting. Couldn't miss that!

Then home to eat some scrambled Egg Beaters, 2 pieces of peanut butter toast and a cup of fruit salad. As soon as that had digested it was time for my 2 hour trainer ride with 5 x 10 minutes big gear. Let me tell you...you know you should have probably eaten a bit more, or had more than G2 on the bike at hour 4.5 of training on the day when...

1. You push and push and push and that heart rate falls and falls and falls
2. You begin to hallucinate that you are being chased by giant gummy bears
3. Finding something to grab onto in the likely event that you collapse off the trainer becomes a priority
4. You begin to pity the unfortunate soul that finds your dead, sweaty and stinky body still clipped into the pedals.

Seriously, there was a time that I knocked off 8 hour training days like they were my job. I am now sitting on the couch, nearly comatose. I'm only blogging because my computer is right here in front of my and the bed is down the hall, approximately 10 miles away in my current state. It might be a sleep on the couch kind of night...

In other, training related news... I still feel like a big fatty, so I resolved to lose my excess weight. I mean it this time, damn it. Found the coolest iPhone application called "Lose it!" that I am using to track everything that goes into my body and all my training. It's pretty sweet. At 126 pounds this week (Ugh), I only need to lose 1.5 pounds per week to get to race weight by Oceanside. Can I do it? We'll see.... it's the red wine- gets me every time!

Chasing the feet of my lost fitness

2009-02-04T18:34:00.003-05:00

I will be the first to admit it... I totally neglected the pool for 3 months. Traveling all over the country for interviews I decided that I couldn't fret about finding a pool when my mission was to find a residency. So week upon week I lost a little bit more swim fitness. My shoulders atrophied, arms wilted into amorphous fatty blobs and I seemingly lost all semblance of off-land coordination. It was sad. And I was very scared to get back in the water. But I forced myself in the pool, more often by myself than with my CSU masters team, who had all but forgotten who I was. I was avoiding the Monday masters distance/pull session like the plague. But I could avoid the torture hour no more. Lanny called me Sunday and asked if I was going. Once I make a commitment I don't break it. I would hitch-hike there with two broken thumbs if I had to. So just a few short hours after enjoying beer, chili and football I headed out the door. (As an aside, it's pretty hard to crop dust at the pool)

Now the thing about swimming with Lanny is that we are dead even in the water when we are both in shape. And having a second home in Florida, he is in quite good shape all year. The main set was 10 x 200, first 5 pull, last 5 swim. Needless to say I not only couldn't keep up on the pulls, but I ended each 200 nearly drowning, taking on water, red as fresh summer tomato and panting like a black dog in the desert. It wasn't pretty. But then the 5 x 200 swim came around and it stopped being Lanny's feet that I was chasing. It was my feet. It was the feet of in-shape Jodi. And then it all became so much easier. Getting back into my old swim form is totally achievable. The 3400 yards cruised by. So now I am expected in my lane every MWF. A 4:30 wake-up call. 45 minutes of driving. $40 per month. Priceless.

Just a Short Note

2009-01-31T07:51:00.004-05:00

Did another stupid move this week. Turned my ankle and strained a muscle in my leg. It's almost 100% but it set me back a couple days since I'm so anal now about letting injuries heal. But I am so excited that my dog is back! My Dad is in town and brought Maddie with him. I haven't had her in Cleveland since September. She met the Mookster and they are getting along well. Pics in a bit!

The real reason for the post is to direct you to a friend's blog. I thought he had a great entry today. Check it out if you have a minute!

Family

2009-01-25T08:47:00.008-05:00

In the next month it is my responsibility to come up with a rank list of places that I want to go for residency. I interviewed with 10 programs. In the order that I interviewed (so as not to give anyone out there an idea of my current preference) they are:

Orlando Regional Medical Center
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Indiana University (Indianapolis)
Vanderbilt (Nashville)
Maricopa Medical Center (Phoenix)
University of Arizona (Tucson)
University of New Mexico (Albuquerque)
Carolinas Medical Center (Charlotte)
Denver Health
Metro Health / Cleveland Clinic

I think that I have figured out my top 3 choices but am having a very hard time ranking within them. Two of the three programs are in cities that I have family or family and friends. One of the places that really loved, however, I don't know anyone. Initially the thought of going somewhere that I don't know anyone was really scary. However, yesterday I came upon a realization. When I moved to Cleveland 8 years ago, not only did I not know anyone in the city, I didn't know a soul in the surrounding STATES. I was a complete orphan.

The reason it took me so long to realize that is because in the past 4 years I have developed not only the best group of friends I could imagine, but a group of people that I really consider family. In the past 5 days I was invited to two of my best friend's places for family dinners. Never a day goes by where I don't feel like I could just walk into one of their houses and make myself at home. I train with these people, vacation with them, and talk their ears off about life's problems. The comfort I get from my Cleveland family factors into my decision in two competing ways. On one hand, it's hard to even imagine moving to a place where I don't have "family". But on the other hand, just knowing that I moved here a complete orphan and now have such a great group of people around me gives me hope that it could happen again.

Some pics of me with the "fam" over the past few years:

Oh, man this decision is going to be SOOOO HARD!!!!

If anyone out there has great opinions on the above cities I would certainly be happy to hear them!

Don't even know what to do with myself!

2009-01-24T08:54:00.005-05:00

Now that interviews and two more medical board exams are in the books I don't even know what to do with myself on a Saturday morning! Just getting back into training I don't want to overdo it, so I don't want to start too early- I already have about 4 hours planned for the day. So I figured it was time to give the blog some love. Let me tell you, that is not the easiest task for the computer challenged. If you have any suggestions, let them fly!

Some random thought diarrhea...

- The weather here blows. Like really, really blows. It snowed constantly and we had sub-zero windchills for about 2 weeks. Then yesterday the temps hit 40 only to have our hopes DASHED today. Cold again, snow again. GRRRRRR. I joined a gym just so that I could always have a place to run. Can't run in this crap most of the time since there aren't many sidewalks around and running in the street in the snow is not so safe. Ah well, at least I now have a backup place to swim and a place to go today for Absolutely Abs and Urban Iron. Fun! I haven't really done any strength work in the past, but I really want to work my core this year. And there is always that hidden motive to look good naked (come on, admit it. It's a hidden motivation for everyone...)

- I miss my Maddie! My parents have had my dog during the interview season since I don't have a reliable dog-sitter in Cleveland. But now I'm totally ready to have that mutt back. I have been puppy sitting all week, so that has eased the pain a little bit. And I can't wait for Maddie to meet one of my new favorite doggies, the Mookster. I think they will get along just great. What do you think?

My Maddie

Mookie, aka the Mookster

At least they share a common favorite pastime...

- Sports medicine tip of the day:

Many triathlete knee injuries can be attributed to poor bike fit, or at least partially relieved by bike adjustments. This comes as a big surprise to most, since they rarely have knee pain when cycling. As a very general rule, a bike seat that is too low will tend to cause anterior patellofemoral (kneecap) pain, and one that is too high will cause IT band inflammation and posterior knee pain. There are other injuries that can be aggravated by saddle fore/aft and cleat position, but I won't get into that...

I bring that up because I have been riding my road bike on the trainer because the tri-bike is still in Wisconsin. I noticed that ever day that I would run after riding I would develop pretty severe posterior knee pain over time. It never came on bike rest days or when it had been more than 24 hours since my last ride. Time to drop that seat down 5mm... I just need to find my multi-tool!

Happy Weekend everyone!

Back at it!

2009-01-21T16:36:00.005-05:00

This is the first time in my four years of triathlon that I took a bona fide off-season. I've always been a big proponent of off-season training, but this year my schedule made it pretty much impossible to maintain consistency, especially in the bike and swim. So when I got back from interviews last week, I knew that it was go time. I was totally fine hitting the bike like my ass was firmly glued to it (7 hours last week), and I had never stopped running. It was the swimming that is just painful. It had been 3 months since I had consistently swam and I just didn't want to go at all. I had managed to go on my own twice since I'd been back, but couldn't bring myself to go to masters. I just felt like it would be humiliating and very, very painful. The extra 5 pounds don't help either. Thankfully, my good friend and training buddy Lanny had me over for burgers last night and gave me a subtle reminder about practice in the morning. Then he and Tony were there this morning at the butt crack of dawn and I think it went something like this:

I brought these:

And Although I felt like this:

And looked like this:

I ended up..

Although I think there should seriously be some sort of law outlawing any psycho from waking up at 4:30am when they don't have to be at work until 10:30....

Other notes from my second week back:

Last Friday I went to the store to pick some things up for a party we were having. This was about 5 days into real training. I was hit like a ton of bricks by this insurmountable fatigue and stupidity. It took me more than an hour to get out of that place because I kept forgetting what I was there for. I circled that damn grocery in its entirety no less than three times

The very random appetite pattern has started. Train hard for 3-4 hours? No appetite. Easy day for 1 hour? Eat like a labrador loose in a garbage factory. How does that work?

I ordered my new bike this week! I seriously need to start redesigning this blog now that Team Timex is official. Anyone out there know a good program to use to redesign banners? Has to be free and Mac friendly...

I am too chicket $hit to look to see how many weeks I have left before Oceanside/Timex camp, but I'm already getting nervous. I feel like a slug for all my workouts. Better come together fast!

Hope everyone had a great week!

An Open Letter to the Genius Sidebar of iTunes

2009-01-12T10:03:00.002-05:00

I want to preface this letter by saying how much I truly appreciate the service that you provide. At first when you magically showed up when I opened iTunes I was suspicious. Who are YOU to be telling ME what kind of music I should check out?? But I soon became a believer. At the touch of a button, and with the input of just one song, you have repeatedly blended together a mix of songs that I couldn't have mixed any better myself. It's like you are able to crawl inside my brain to figure out exactly what I want to hear. In the airport and about to explode because yet another flight is cancelled? "Here", you say, "listen to this mix of Norah Jones, Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, and Ben Harper, it should sooth your nerves". Magic!

However, Genius, I can't let what happened this morning slide. As good as you have been to me this year, I will not let you mock me. Sure, I am dreadfully out of shape. I get it. But I really counted on you to take my choice of "It Began in Afrika" by the Chemical Brothers and turn it into a mix that would get me through 90 minutes on that trainer with 50 minutes of intervals. At first, I thought it was going to be yet another song mix of perfection. Aphex Twin, Kings of Convenience, Moby, Boards of Canada... Right-O, Genius! But then you had to go and do the unthinkable. In the middle of my hardest interval, when I was at a moment of pure, sweaty desperation, you did it. I still can't believe the nerve. I mean, I do appreciate you teaching me that I can persevere in the face of adversity, but really, that is not your job. At first when it came on I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I thought- this must be a different mix of this song. She is totally going to bust out her dance moves and give me a new side of the genre. But no, Genius. You actually put the Country Ballad "How Do I Live?" by Leann Rimes smack dab in the middle of my techno workout mix. Although I probably did need a reminder to thin my iTunes collection, this was totally over the line.

I expect an apology. Until I see that this mockery has come to an end, I will be proofreading your work. I am happy to sit down and discuss this at length if you so choose.

Sincerely,

Jodi

One More Week!

2009-01-04T07:50:00.002-05:00

Before this off-season can officially get deep sixed and I can start training again. I feel so very gross. The travel has left me feeling really chubby and super out of shape. January 12th I will get back in the pool and my struggle back into shape begins. But for this week I am enjoying spending 3 days with my aunt and uncle in Charlotte (and interviewing), One night with my former roommate of 4 years in Denver (And interviewing), and 2 nights with another former roommate of 3 years in Los Angeles (and taking my oral boards).

It's not that I haven't been exercising at all. This week I spent about 5 hours on the trainer and got 5 runs in (with one being 7.5 miles). But the lack of consistency isn't helping me build anything resembling fitness. The food, wine and beer aren't really aiding the situation either. So Monday it's back to disciplined life. I have a race in 3 months. That's a very scary thought....

In other news, this week I took my written boards and turned 30 (on the same day). People asked me if taking a 9 hour exam was a way of denying the milestone birthday. The reality of the situation is that I am a professional procrastinator and December 31st happens to be a popular deadline. But if anyone asks this year, I'm 29 damn it.

OK, time to have breakfast with my favorite aunt (and one of my biggest fans). We are hitting the Y today for a long workout session after stopping by the Apple store to pick up my birthday present from Mom. Watch out world, I'm getting an iPhone!

Really, I haven't fallen off the side of the earth...

2008-12-28T00:28:00.006-05:00

I had quite the series of travel nightmares (3 straight canceled flights in 3 cities) which resulted in me landing at home sweet home a day early and without appropriate luggage, a computer, or a single book or study aid for the Board exam I am now taking in 3 days. Despite the mishaps I've had a wonderful couple of weeks. I am a little fatter, but totally ready to stop this traveling nonsense for awhile and do some training. Here are some pics of Christmas week (My brother and his 2 precious kiddos). I'll be back, I promise...

8

2008-12-17T13:24:00.002-05:00

I was thinking about numbers today and thought I would try to figure out some things about my year

22- Emergency Medicine Residency programs where I applied
11- Programs where I will interview
6 - Programs West of the Mississippi
5 - Programs East of the Mississippi
1- Place I will match

5- Planes I will be on in the next 48 hours

5- Times I have been at Phoenix Sky Harbor International this year

But what got me thinking about all these numbers was my intense desire for coffee. In my 5 trips to PHX, I have never had a hard time acquiring a cup of the highly addictive Starbucks coffee. Why is that?

There are eight, EIGHT Starbucks at PHX. I blame this airport for single handedly feeding my addiction for the black stuff. Bastards.

On the positive side, they have free wireless and the most convenient rental car center in the country. So they aren't all that bad.

Some other numbers that I have been pondering...

23- Number of planes I will have boarded between November 11th and January 11th
7- Rental cars this year
3- Christmas presents I have purchased
7- Shopping days left

And now for something relevant to the blog...

0- Times I have been in a pool since November 15th
2- Places I have bikes set up on trainers at the moment
0- Times I have been on either of them since Saturday
100- Times I am trying to run in the next 100 days (slow base miles)
0- injury pains of any sort I have had in the past 1.5 months
3- Pounds I have gained in the past 2 months

Ok, enough of this foolishness. I have a plane to catch.

10 Cities in 15 nights....

2008-12-14T15:51:00.011-05:00

So there really is a reason that I've been so sparse around here. It's mid-interview season and I'm traveling around the country like a woman possessed. Last week after returning from Vegas I spent a couple nights in Cleveland, one in Indianapolis one in Nashville and one in Louisville. This week is Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Chicago then off to the Big Apple (but that is for fun!). The interviews are going really well but I'm starting to get tired of being "on" all the time. When I picked up my car today in Phoenix and started heading to the hotel room a migraine aura smacked me in the face. So I'm sitting in my room hiding from the headache. I think I may have foiled it with a couple aleve and a big cup of coffee. Unfortunately not a good combo for a girl with an ulcer, but at the moment I'll take a tummy ache over a migraine, so it's all good.

All the traveling has made me feel like an out of shape chubster. On the bright side, I'm injury free and running with no problems. Riding only when I'm in Cleveland and no swimming in over a month though. Things have to turn around soon if I want a successful 2009 racing season. I'm not worried though, since I should have tons of time to train soon.

I am also way behind on my Christmas shopping and my apartment will likely be condemned by the health department before too long. Traveling is a lot of fun, but it will be nice to spend more than 2 straight days in home sweet home!

Here are some pics from Vegas. My cousin and Dad both rocked the half marathon. I decided to sit it out because I didn't think it was worth aggravating the shin. I can run an hour with no pain, but just too afraid to push it right now. Hope everyone is doing well and excited for the holidays!

Turkey Trotting

2008-11-27T21:24:00.006-05:00

In preparation for a day of disgusting consumption, my Dad and I partook in what has become a US tradition among those who own running shoes. The Thanksgiving Turkey Trot. So instead of doing a 2 hour trainer ride or long run to burn the thousands of calories that will be consumed in record pace, we set out to spend all of twenty minutes (give or take) of intense effort followed by overzealous satisfaction of the 300 calories burned on the way to the feeding trough.

My running has been going very well. I've done nothing but very slow running but I've gotten to where I can run 4 miles with consistency with no pain at all. I certainly have not been doing any speedwork, but I desperately wanted an excuse to use my new Avia Bolt racing flats!

I think they are dead sexy:

It didn't take too much convincing to get my Dad to join me, even though he did his long run yesterday (I joined him for the last 4). So we got up early, saw it was <20F, bundled up and headed down. You know you are in the right place when you see this:

We did a little warm up jog, hit the restroom and were in time to line up for the race. There were a ton of eager runners there to do the low-tech race. No chip timing today, so we tried to start near the front (but not right up there because I'm not a big fan of being trampled.)

We started and within about 5 minutes I remembered why I don't do a lot of these races. They hurt! It's such a fine balance between running the right pace, puking, having a heart attack, or just plain sucking. Any time it's below freezing there is always that hint of reactive airways that kicks me in the butt too. But it felt so freaking good to run fast.

It was a liberating experience, this low-tech race. No chips, but also no mile markers, no people yelling splits, a town I had never been to, and me without a watch (which is something I will never say again after I officially join the Timex squad). So basically I was running on the verge of puking for a completely unknown period of time. Good stuff.

There was a guy running very near me pushing his two kids in a running stroller (which gives you some idea of how speedy I'm not). When I had been running for a completely unknown period of time I heard him tell his kids that there was less than 3 minutes to go. SWEET! I tried to kick it a little harder to try to catch some of the speedy girls ahead of me. I passed one but was repassed in the final kick. I need to work on that.

At the finish line I saw that my official time read 21:36 (PR - my last 5k was a year ago at 21:50 on an easier course) and someone tore my tag off the race bib as I stood there completely mute while trying to determine the best way to both swallow the vomit that was trying to make its way out and get a decent breath in so I didn't pass out. I was reminded once again why I am an endurance athlete.

I ended up 3rd in the 20-29 age group (goodbye 20's, I will miss you), and 9th woman overall. I have no idea how many people where there. Definitely hundreds but I doubt a thousand. I went back to watch my Dad cruise on in under 26 minutes. What a rock star the day after a long run (and he's 62!).

Post run pics:

That last pic is to highlight my coolest piece of running gear. My running jacket with the build in hat with PONYTAIL HOLE and build in mittens.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I had a lovely day and had time to reflect on how truly fortunate I am to have such a great family and truly wonderful friends and to be involved in a sport that I am so passionate about.

I'm still alive!

2008-11-19T08:44:00.007-05:00

I just called one of my best friends (Lanny) this morning and he told me he was worried about me because I've dropped off the map. I'm still around but just super duper busy! I interviewed in Orlando last week and spent some time with Lanny's wife Kathy down near Naples. We had an absolute blast. Went Kayaking, had a couple nice dinners, went for some runs and had lots of girl talk. Now I'm back but not for long. Have spent almost NO time on my computer lately since I've been working and studying for boards. The next month isn't going to get much better. Here is my schedule for the next month...

Arizona this weekend to finish out the IronSpectator world tour (Go Danny, MarkyV and Miranda!!!) then I'm heading to...

Cleveland-Vegas-Cleveland-Indianapolis-Nashville-Cleveland-Phoenix-Tucson-
Albuquerque-Cleveland-New York-Cleveland-Milwaukee-Cleveland-Charlotte-Denver-LA-Cleveland-LA

So yeah... I'm going to be a bit jet lagged (not to mention broke)

But here are some pics from my trip to Orlando

The Sandbaggers rule the WORLD!

2008-11-10T07:59:00.018-05:00

What a day in Clearwater! The ultimate sandbaggers, Lindsey and Lauren both destroyed the competition, winning their respective age groups (20-24 and 30-34). A great cap to a very successful season for both ladies and a fitting good-bye to age group competition as both of them turn pro next year. Here are some pics of the day:

The HTFU crew before the race

And with Lauren's husband, Matt, who is a total riot and became my partner in crime all day

Thanks so much to Andrew's sister for giving me my very first piece of Timex swag. It has become glued and firmly sealed to my head. Here I am posing with Lauren pre-race

And with Lindsey

We had a nice glamour shot session before Lindsey went off. This is one of my favorites shots

After the ladies went off we went to see the people coming in from the swim. I saw a boat coming into shore with a person in it and was afraid that someone was having a medical issue. But then the person towing the rope came into view and it was a very familiar face. Dick Hoyt was finishing the swim leg with son Rick in tow. These two are the reason I did my first triathlon and forever such an inspiration to me and thousands of others. Here is a great pic of a father's love:

Then it was Lauren coming out of the water

While waiting for Lindsey we saw the cutest set-up for a picture ever. Meet M-dog

And Purse emerges! (Lindsey's nickname since camp in March where she brought a purse to the pool)

Here Matt and I relocated to the hot corner. He owns a production company and carried around a HD camera all day. The movie he makes is going to be completely hilarious! We had an absolute blast out there. There was dancing, cheering and color commentary galore!

And here comes Lauren leading her age group and coming in before the draft packs. Her wave started early so she rode a clean race (which can't be said of many people who started in later waves)

And here comes the World's Fastest Handbag, finishing up her gatorade, also leading her age group

Lindsey SMOKED the run, with a end time of 1:27. Holy moly!

Here is one of my Cleveland peeps and teammate on my swim team, Jim. He and my other teammate Andrea are new parents and he took third in his age group. SMOKING FAST!

I had to be Paulo's stand-in, so when I saw Lauren making the turn to finish I said: "KEEP IT TOGETHER, LAUREN!!!!"

The Sandbaggers after the race, celebrating their victories

And all of my Cleveland peeps

Me with my ladies

And Lindsey after the race. This says it all

A HUGE congrats to the ladies and big thank you for allowing me to be part of your day. Few things in life make me happier than watching my friends succeed. You guys are my inspiration. Now Lauren, get that pro card and get the hell out of my age group! See ya in Oceanside!!!

:-)

On the mend

2008-11-06T23:45:00.007-05:00

Thanks for all the well-wishes for the Mad-dog. She is doing better. Not completely healed yet, but is getting back her spunk. Here is some photo evidence:

Maddie playing with a new neighborhood puppy:

Playing with my nephew:

And doing what she does best with her co-conspirator... begging! You gonna finish that, ma?

And as a bonus, upside down maddie!

The neighbor whose dog attacked Maddie payed for the vet visit. It's a little disconcerting, though because we found out that he has attacked numerous other neighborhood dogs. Apparently they have an electric fence. Seems they need to turn up the voltage...

I'm off to Florida tomorrow morning to go cheer on some good friends racing the Half Ironman World Championships in Clearwater, then spend some time with a good friend in Estero then up to interview at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Going to be a very hectic weekend! I'll take tons of pics!

Accidental bits of wit and wisdom

2008-11-01T10:35:00.002-04:00

I haven't posted much roommate wit and wisdom for the past few months because, well, I haven't had roommates. But thankfully there is still facebook.

Matt's facebook status a couple weeks ago:

Matthew just did something awesome.

Jodi at 5:54pm October 21

Did you just fly across the English Channel on a body rocket? Cause I just saw that on youtube and that was pretty awesome....

Matthew at 3:33pm October 23

That was pretty awesome! You're close. I actually just sat down. It was awesome. See, if you're like me and you can just piss awesome, awesome happens all the time.

I was going to tell you a story about how I crossed the english channel on a different kind of rocket, but the story sucked more than my illustration of how the story could have happened:

Click here for awesomeness illustrated

An excerpt might have read: "...was cloudy that day. The wind blew in off the channel not unlike a taunting mistress. I looked down at my steely companion between my legs and laughed at my own insecurity, for I knew that this long monster of mine had gotten me through much hairier situations..."

Poor Maddie!

2008-10-31T15:30:00.004-04:00

Since I've been at home, the coyotes have been crazy. Out at night making kills (they scream and make the most horrific noises when they kill something) and during the day they have been hanging out by our house when the dogs are out. And they are very big!

When I was walking the dogs the other day I heard them rustling in the woods and following us. So I decided it wasn't safe to walk them by the woods. Today I thought I was being pretty clever by walking her around the other block instead. Towards the end of our walk I heard some rustling and before I knew it Maddie was being attacked! BY A DOG! Apparently there is an irresponsible neighbor who doesn't tie their dog and it roams around. It came out of nowhere and just began mauling Maddie. I was completely terrified. I couldn't get the dog off her! Maddie kept herself between the crazy dog and me, so I wasn't able to do anything. I got one kick in and soon the dog was gone. But not before it did some damage. Maddie's hair was all tuffed up where the dog had tried to make her dinner, and I saw that she was bleeding. She immediately crawled over to me and laid down right on my feet. After giving her a big hug I was able to get her to limp home

Here is a bad picture of her paw. The dog had bitten her foot and separated her pad from the foot. A big deep gash:

She was so sad. Just laid down and wouldn't come inside

I took her to the vet to get some antibiotics and to clean the wound. The location of the wound wasn't amenable to stitches, so we will be doing warm water soaks and amoxicillin twice per day.

Here is sad wounded Maddie

I'm just hoping that this doesn't make her timid or aggressive. Maddie is the most social dog I've ever had. I've never met another dog or person that she doesn't love. It just sucks!

AVIA!!! I'm like a little girl at Christmas here!

2008-10-28T21:16:00.004-04:00

I met the Avia people in Kona at the Sports Medicine Conference. I told them all about my muscle strain that had been nagging me. They looked at my gait and set me up with an awesome pair of their Avi Light II trainers and made some suggestions for insoles. Since then I've been running pain-free and have continued talking to them. Today I got the most awesome care package in the mail. I'm pretty sure I'm the luckiest girl in the world!

Pictured here is pretty much their whole line of shoes for slight pronators. Bottom left are my current shoes, the Avi Lite II. They are a lightweight neutral trainer with light motion control. Love them so far. Upper left is a trail shoe. Water proof with a stiff base for running on rugged trails. Top right is their Avi Lite Guide. This is a step up in the motion control department but without the huge heal/toe height difference of the average motion control runner. And bottom right is the shoe to play in. Their racing flat. It feels like you're running barefoot. Can't get these things on and NOT go fast. Can't wait to try everything!

And of course I had to try on the new clothes!

Between Timex and Avia, I am set for 2009. But I'm afraid with all this awesome stuff I'm jinxing myself to some sort of clumsy disaster like another broken patella. No running with ipods this year!

A HUGE, HUGE thanks to Avia AND Team Timex! I feel like a little kid again.

Dreams DO come true!!!

2008-10-27T21:45:00.004-04:00

I haven't stopped smiling for hours now! I am just totally speechless (I know, crazy...)

Next year I will be racing in Orange!!!!

Logorrhoea

2008-10-21T20:21:00.005-04:00

I have so much to talk about and no solidarity of thought so this blog is yet another version of word diarrhea (Which I learned from endurancegirl is actually LOGORRHOEA!).

***My current life:

I have officially turned bum and moved back in with my parents. I'll be spending the next 3 months in Milwaukee. It's really, really nice to be back home for awhile. I've been in Cleveland for 8 years and my trips home have gotten less and less frequent over the years. Now I have a large block of time to have dinners with my parents, take my nephew to the movies, go to a Packer game with my brother, see the Badgers at homecoming and take a family vacation to Vegas. It's such a wonderful opportunity. While I'm here I'll be doing a self-made Sports Medicine elective with some highly talented surgeons in the area, and then will be flying around the country to INTERVIEW for December and January

***INTERVIEWING!

Yes, residency interviewing season is upon us. I will be applying to Emergency Medicine residency programs all over the country. My first stop is Orlando Florida, which I have, by complete coincidence, scheduled for the Tuesday after Clearwater. So.... I'm going to the HALF Ironman World Championships!!! Wooohoooo, it's the Ironman double. Which would be so much more impressive had I raced either one....

Anywho, I have interviews currently scheduled in Orlando, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Nashville, Phoenix and Cleveland. I am EAGERLY awaiting hearing from programs in Davis, Tucson, Albuquerque, Denver and Charlotte. Come on, give a girl some love!

***Body image

Why is it that I am constantly battling this inflated image of my body size? I'm sure I'm not the only one out there, but being in Kona made me feel like a fat pig. This is not anything new to me because unless I am <115 pounds I feel huge. The weird thing is, whenever I see a pic of myself I think I'm fat, but then 6 months later I look at the same pic through a completely different lens. WTF??? Don't worry, as I told Paulo I don't have nearly enough will power to develop an eating disorder....

***They try to make me go to rehab, I said yes, yes yes!

I am officially on the full blown rehab trail for my shin problem that has been nagging me on my right leg. I took 2 weeks off running, have been doing core body strengthening and balance exercises and am now running 5 whole minutes every day (with a 55 minute elliptical warm-up). Watch out, though, next week it's moving up to 10. Hopefully the leg will cooperate because I really want to run the Vegas Half marathon in December

***More sports medicine blogs coming, I just need a little bit of motivation and time. Thanks for all the comments on the Kona blogs!

Tales from the Med Tent

2008-10-19T21:05:00.004-04:00

Yes, the guy I am standing next to is in fact Andrew Baldwin (The Bachelor). He was leaving his shift as I was coming in. Not a big TV fan so I wasn't star-struck, but I did recognize him. Seemed like a really nice guy. Probably too nice to be subjected to the nastiness of that awful TV show. Blech.

OK, onto the report!

My shift was the 8pm-midnight. At Kona that is pretty much closing time from the get-go. If you're in Kona you're likely <13 hour finisher so it wasn't the busiest shift of the day. I didn't get a doctor's smock because I don't have a medical degree yet, so I was a "runner" for the night. My job consisted of running to get soda, water, crackers, barf bags, blood samples, test results, and anything else the athletes or docs needed.

I'll just talk about 2 of our athletes in the tent here, as examples of two completely opposite ways to mess up your nutrition and end up needing medical assistance: Underhydration and overhydration.

She walks into the med-tent and doesn't want to sit down. She paces back and forth for several minutes and then sits down, a little disoriented and starts to vomit. She's fidgity and can't keep anything down. We weigh her and she is up 13 pounds from her pre-race weight

**NOTE**

(rant on)

Someone really dropped the ball this year with athlete weights. Rather than make everyone weigh-in, they let athletes write down their weight if they knew it. DUH! Come on people, do you really think that a triathlete woman is going to choose to step on a scale? No freaking way. And they will also underestimate their weight when asked. They didn't institute the weigh-in rule for intellectual curiosity, they did it because it is extremely helpful to the medical staff after the race. This blunder made weight pretty useless to us.

(rant off)

We took a small sample of the athlete's blood, concerned about her sodium level. I waited for the test results because we were all a little concerned about her, especially given the presumed weight gain. Her sodium level was 121 (normal 135-145). She was very hyponatremic. We have her lay down and start an IV of hypertonic saline (concentrated salt). She is a little bit disoriented and agitated and can't stop moving her legs. She says she feels like if she stops her legs from "running" her hips and butt will cramp. We give her some Benzodiazepines which stop her legs for a minute, but then she starts again.(*one indication for benzos is to abort or prevent seizures, a serious side effect of hyponatremia) A repeat sodium was taken 30 minutes after her salt infusion and was just mildly improved. Another IV of hypertonic saline is started after giving her some magnesium for her cramping. Another dose of benzos settles her down. She has stopped vomiting and is starting to clear up. She sits up and is feeling better, finally. A couple hours after entering the med tent her kidneys kick back in and she starts using the bathroom. Regardless, given how serious her condition was, she is sent to the hospital for observation overnight.

Why does this happen? The biggest contributer is over-drinking of free water. People think they need more fluids than they actually do and force drink throughout an event. The longer the event, the greater the risk. Gatorade endurance would definitely help with this since it has a lot of sodium, but not completely foolproof. Another culprit here is excessive sodium loss. People who have one copy of the recessive gene for cystic fibrosis (I think it's about 1/32 in the US population) lose excessive salt in their sweat. These people are more susceptible than average to excessive free water intake during sports events because in addition to diluting their blood with water, they are taking more salt away through sweat. Thirdly, there are hormones released when the body is stressed or in pain that actually reduce the clearance of free water from the kidneys. Some think that the pain of an Ironman is enough to induce SIADH , which in itself can cause hyponatremia.

What is the big deal if your salt is low? Well, the big deal is that it forces water into your brain down the salt gradient. Your brain is in your skull, so there's not much room for expansion. People are at risk for brain herniation and death. Did anyone here read about the radio station that was having a "hold your wee for a wii" contest? A woman in the contest, which was to see who could drink the most without peeing, died in her home a couple hours after the contest. Hyponatremia is a big deal.

Scenerio #2

Man walks into the med tent about an hour after the race saying that he started to feel dizzy in the food tent. He weighs in 3 pounds under pre-race weight. As he sits down and is talking to us he says it seems like he is blacking out. His blood pressure is 70/40. His face has no color. A 1 liter IV of fluids is started and he briefly passes out. He drifts in and out as the first liter goes in and still doesn't feel steady to stand after the first liter. As the second liter of fluid goes in the color comes back to his face. He is given a third liter before feeling back to normal and has a normal blood pressure.

This is a pretty classic case of hypovolemia. When you see this in the Emergency Department you immediately think that the patient is bleeding somewhere and losing blood volume. At the Ironman, it's much, much, much more likely to be fluid loss from inadequate fluid intake and excessive sweating. Most people who finish an Ironman are going to be slightly fluid depleted. Immediately post-race you will see many, MANY people cross the finish line, stand around, and then get dizzy and pass out or nearly pass out. This is because they are dehydrated and then when they stop moving and pumping those leg muscles blood pools in their legs. All you really need to do for these people is put their feet up for a few minutes until their body re-equilibrates. That is why the Ironman medical tent has a "weak and dizzy" area.

When people get into trouble like the athlete mentioned above is when they have lost more than the normal amount of fluids and also don't feel well enough after the race to replace the fluids they lost during the race by mouth. Maybe they are sick to their stomach from all the sugar, or just completely exhausted. These people will need IVs to get back that fluid volume. Most likely that will perk them right up and they can limp home

So these are two athletes that I saw at the race that were sick for opposite reasons, but both were able to be brought around by the great medical staff in the tent with no serious complications.

Oh, and all you athletes out there- GET ON THE SCALE BEFORE THE RACE! No one is going to look down on your for being over your race weight (I've been there. I weighed in at 130 at CdA which is pretty huge for shortie me). And it will help YOU out if you get into trouble on the course.

As the night went on the tent got quieter and quieter. We could hear Mike Reilly doing his countdown to midnight and then call in the last "finisher" (in quotes because it was after midnight) who finished several minutes later. The ambulance was called to take a few people to the hospital and the crew was already taking down the tent. There was a SUPER sweet nurse who was a native Hawaiian who gave me a big hug and told me she would see me next year. I left the tent, 20 hours after waking up that morning, totally exhausted!

In all, working in the med-tent was a great learning experience and a ton of fun. The athletes were very gracious and happy and there were a lot of smiles to go around. I WILL do it again, and next time I will be wearing a doctor smock!

Totally forgot about this!

2008-10-16T21:05:00.006-04:00

My interview came out a couple weeks ago!

Here it is!

And here are some photo books from my trip:

Race day 1

Race Day 2

underpants

Early Kona

Las Cruces

And a couple from Tracy's camera:

Me, Tracy and Hillary Biscay

Me, Tracy and Rachel Ross

BEACH DAY! (Paulo, Tracy, Khai, Danny, Misha, Jonny and me)

Kona 2008- Race Day

2008-10-15T12:53:00.037-04:00

Race day snuck up on us quickly, as we all knew that it would. Everyone was up and full of nervous excitement by 4am and ready to head down to the pier. Our faithful Chauffeur Khai took the helm and drove us all down to transition, dropping off Will and Danny before parking. We snapped a quick pic of Danny and Misha before leaving and then were off to start a long and successful day in the Kona heat:

When Khai and Stephanie (Will's most awesome fiance) and I got down to transition we ran into Sergio and I gave him a big good luck hug (I should have known better than to think that I would be good luck)

We then found a spot on the stands that would thought might allow us a glimpse of the swim start:

Then a guy came around handing out COWBELLS!

We had all thought that we had seen the last of our athletes, when Will found us! We were all very excited to see him. This was his very first shot at Kona. He had never raced here as an age grouper or pro and had been super nervous all week. He's a great cold weather racer and the heat is his enemy. My only words of advice were to start freebasing salt early in the week and keep it going to the finish line.

We had a little joke going with Will all week that he needed to win the race. But the race we were talking about was the women's race. We had a short list of people for Will to focus on and Chrissie was at the top of the list. It was no disrespect to Chrissie- quite the opposite. We knew she was going to race like a rockstar and it would be a tough battle to cross the line before her, man or woman. So we left him that morning with one last "make us proud Will, don't be second woman!".

And a very cute picture of Will's family and friends having a pre-race pow wow. He had quite the entourage in Kona!

Then it was time for the pre-swim ceremony by the local musicians

Boom goes the cannon!

After the age-groupers went off I ran over to the hot corner so that I could get some good pics of the athletes starting the ride. Here are some of the pics that I took. I missed most of our crew. I saw them, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera.

First to the hot corner:

Then the SECOND bit of bad luck on the day for Sergio. First, his chip fell off in the water and that held him up in T1, then just as he went by me we all heard something that made our hearts sink. A flat. It was Sergio. Unfortunately when he went to change it, the new tube burst as well. So 10-15 minutes later and a new wheel he was off to try to make up some ground:

While Sergio was fixing his flat, Chrissie came screaming by!

And then Will! Go get her Will!

I saw Jacqui, Tracy and Danny ride by looking strong and then took a break back at the condo waiting for them to return.

We watched the online coverage until the cyclists made it to about mile 100 and then Misha and I rode our bikes to the 1 mile marker of the run. When the helicopter made it back into town we knew they were back.

The first to reach us was Sinballe. He was not looking very fresh and it looked like he wouldn't be in the lead for that much longer.

Stadler wasn't far behind...

And Faris was a bit farther back in the field

Oh my gosh, is that Shawn from NUUN?

:-)

And there comes ANDY POTTS! (SUPASTAR). As he went by he asked Shawn what place he was in. He was completely stoked to hear he was near the top 10. It was cool to see him so happy.

Then... who is that coming up the road??? Is that WILL?????

It is!!!

And he's being CHASED!

Looking strong, he came back the other way!

But she was catching up!

And here comes T-racer!

And now for some comedy relief...

Coming out of the energy lab, she has taken the lead!

And Will is starting to look a bit rough....

Next up, Sergio enters the energy lab

Followed by T-racer

Followed by Jacqui

Then Sergio is out. And this is where I got a glimpse of why Sergio was so far back in the pack. Not only did he lose his chip in the swim and flat twice in the first 2 miles of the bike course, but he also crashed in the wind. Look at his shoulder here. Despite all that had gone wrong, he pulled himself together to finish the race. Sergio, you are my new hero :-)

Then Rachel Ross headed into the energy lab:

Then Tracy came out. The volunteers there were not really stellar and ended up stopping her in her tracks with little warning:

But she was quickly off again and headed home

Then it was Danny heading in!

And Jacqui was closely behind headed out to chase Tracy:

Then I jumped on my bike and headed to the finish to catch everyone (except Will, who was already done) finish.

When I got there I saw Will and Stephanie. Turned out that Will sucked it up and gave chase in the last 4 miles, repassing Chrissie with a mile to go and finishing with an awesome 31st place finish with a 3:01 run at his first Kona! The funny thing is that when Chrissie got her flat, Will was the guy who stopped to give Chrissie CO2 to fill up the new wheel. I guess when she passed him in the energy lab, he told her that she better win the race! Good stuff.

The post-race glow:

Tracy and Jacqui both had awesome races as well, both with PRs for the run. Tracy took 21st place at her first Kona as a pro. And Danny had very solid day out there too. A great day in all for the crew.

I'll post later some reflections on the race and on the med-tent.

:-)

Taken during our morning swim

2008-10-12T22:14:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was amazing. More on that later. Now, I'm going for another swim!

Swimming with Dolphins, Running with underpants and riding 112

2008-10-11T01:06:00.008-04:00

The last 3 days have been super busy, jammed pack with fun activities, conference stuff, and preparations for the big day.

For starters, on Wednesday the whole crew went down to the swim course for our first open water swim. Khai, Joel and I went right for the Coffees of Hawaii boat where that you can swim up to and get a hot espresso shot while bobbing in the ocean. When we got there we started noticing pure awesomeness- Dolphins! They were everywhere! We're not talking a couple. There were dozens of them all over the swim course swimming with all the athletes. For the next 45 minutes we followed the dolphins around as they played and frolicked. I picked up my head for awhile and saw that there was one who was doing tricks- he was jumping out of the water, spinning a couple times and falling back in. Totally amazing. The Coffees of Hawaii peeps got some pics of the fun!

Then on Thursday it was the long awaited Kona Underpants Run! Khai, Will, Tracy and I put on our best attire and went down to do a killer loop around the Kailua, with calisthenics and our 300 or so closest friends. What a blast! Here are some pics:

The whole crew taking over town:

T-racer showing off her special made NUUN bikini:

And the crew after the race showing off our outfits (Khai LOVES his compression socks):

And showing off our HUGE muscles!

Then today I headed off on my own to tackle the bike course. It's a one-loop out and back from Kailua to Hawi (pronounced Ha-vee). The first (and last) 35 miles or so are pretty baron and windy and through miles and miles of lava fields. Then you make a turn towards Hawi and get to face strong headwinds AND a long climb up to town. The climb isn't that bad in itself and it's actually very pretty. You go from black lava to lush green in the span of 10 miles. It was my favorite part of the course. One very important message about this bike course that I learned today, though is:

- No matter what direction you go, you ALWAYS have a headwind. ALWAYS.

The way back was a bit brutal. It's windier on the way back than the way out, especially from miles 75-90. And for someone who hasn't ridden > 40 miles in seemingly forever, my neck and butt were killing me! But I made it back, and now we are all chilling before our early appointment with bed tonight. BIG RACE TOMORROW!!!!!

Day 3/4 Kona

2008-10-08T02:29:00.012-04:00

I'm sleepy! Things are getting pretty crazy here. The expo opened tonight and we all went down to see the revealing of the Cervelo P4 and see the exhibits. I got the hookup for a free pair of Zoot compression socks, so that was pretty awesome. Saw Norman Stadler at Lava Java, so I got my celebrity sighting out of the way. So anywho, here is a pictorial of the last 2 days

Yesterday we went down to the energy lab to get a run in. I ran with Khai on the way out and Joel on the way in. Here is us coming back, energy lab in the background. The vog was heavy yesterday!

Here is trouble sitting together. Joel Filliol and Paulo Sousa.

And the whole group post- run:

Tracy's husband Shawn works for NUUN and we are all big fans of the product. Will was such a big fan that he put 4 tablets in his mouth at once. I think the regret was instant..

Today I did zero training, but we did have a very fun ocean session where we played in the water behind the condo. I found Nemo, I swear! Here are some pics of us hanging out:

And then some silliness ensued. We decided to take stupid pictures mocking some new and old slowtwitch threads. Watch out when a bunch of tapering athletes, coaches and support crew get together!

KONA- Day 1/2

2008-10-06T02:14:00.014-04:00

Arrived in KONA last night after a very long day of travel. I arrived with Jonny, Danny, and Paulo at the airport early in the morning and tried to change to their flight since I didn't leave until noon. No dice. Orbitz booked me through 2 different airlines so that wouldn't work. So I went from El Paso to Phoenix to Maui to Kona. I arrived in Maui and checked to see what gate I needed to go to. Funny, my flight isn't listed... hmmmm... I asked a security guard and he said that my airline left from the other terminal. Ok.... So I walked over there and saw my plane to Kona:

It had 9 seats. And they charged me AGAIN for my bike since it was a different airline. But it was pretty cool since the bike was actually ON the plane with me (as in, it wouldn't fit under the plane so they strapped into the back seat). You know the plane is small when the pilot can open the window. And when he has to apologize to you for needing to move his seat back. Good stuff.

I was thrilled to get to Kona and see how truly awesome our condo is. Khai put up some pictures here
How freaking awesome is this place?? Here is the view from our balcony (self portrait day 1):

We went grocery shopping, where we spent our life savings on Oatmeal and bagels and then passed out.

The conference today was really great. Learned tons of great stuff. Looked completely gross from my 1 mile walk to the conference hotel which landed me at registration covered in sweat. It wasn't a big surprise that no one sat by me. Damn it's humid and hot here! And no AC anywhere.

After the conference the guys were nice enough to wait for me to ride. I went out with Will, Jacqui (both pros) and Danny (an awesome age grouper) to ride on the Queen K. I"m not exactly sure how long I thought I would be able to hang with them.... I think I have delusions of grandeur every once in awhile. I"m lucky to have great friends who humor me from time to time

Danny ready to ride:

I hung with them about 10 minutes into the ride once we landed on the Queen K before I started feeling pretty sick from the heat and lack of anything but water to drink. I soft pedaled and got off the bike at one point to try to eat something. It didn't really help me feel any better, but I got some cool pics of the Kona bike course:

Lava fields:

Awesome signs:

Back at the condo I gave Will his birthday present. If you've ever been to a city Ironman week you know how people act. Well multiply it by 1000 at Kona. That's why when I saw this shirt I knew he had to have it, since Will is probably the most humble pro in the sport:

Then it was off to LAVA JAVA! The coffee shop where people go to see and be seen. Here is some of our pro contingent hanging out (Tracy, Will, and Jonny):

Then Will showed me how to make a chicken out of a napkin at dinner:

And my self portrait of day 2:

And here are some blog links to the other members of our group that will be showing up in pictures and blogs for the rest of the week:

Paulo Sousa
Jonathan Caron
Will Ronco
Danny Montoya
Jacqui Gordon
Tracy Robertson and Shawn Frack
Sergio Marques
Joel Filliol

Packing a bike for shipping - a tutorial

2008-10-03T18:28:00.001-04:00

What you will need:

Multi-tool
Pedal wrench (will vary depending on your pedal)
Pipe insulation (can get this at Home Depot. Get a couple sizes of 6 foot long strips)
Long zip ties
Scissors
Bike box (I use a Serfas and it is just fine. Your LBS probably sells used ones)
Plastic thingamabobs for your wheel axle and bike frame (comes with box)
Masking tape (blue painters tape is ideal)
Ziploc bag

Step 1: The F&%%#ing pedals!
This is by far the most frustrating part of the whole experience. A pedal that has been on for a long time can be a serious pain to get off. Twice I have just taken my bike to the LBS to have them take them off. (I have never been charged for this) But with the proper tool you should be able to do it.

!Important! Pedals are designed so that they will not loosen by riding. Subsequently they are threaded in opposite directions. The right pedal is a normal thread. Lefty loosey applies. The left pedal is threaded opposite. So in order to remove it you have to turn it to the right

Non-drive side (finger pointing in direction of loosening:

Drive side- again, finger pointing in direction of loosening

KEEP IN MIND: If you have Look pedals they remove from the inside using a Hex wrench. Buy a long one with a handle- you will need leverage. Pictured above I am using my multitool. This will work if your pedals have been removed recently and/or tightened by hand. Don't let the fact that you are unscrewing from the inside of the pedal confuse you. Just look at the above pictures for the correct direction.

If you have a trainer, remove the pedals when it's on the trainer. It will help stabilize the bike if you need to put extra torque on the tool.

When pedals are removed, put the pedals and washers into the ziplock bag

Step 2: Remove seat

Remove the whole seatpost. There should just be 1 or 2 screws to loosen on the frame. Loosen by a few turns and lift the whole seatpost out of the frame. Set aside.

Loosen the screw on the "collar"

Pull seatpost straight out:

Step 3: Remove Headset

There are 2 parts to this. There are 2 screws on the side which tighten the headset down, and then one long screw that goes through the spacers into the fork. Take the long screw all the way out and put the screw and any spacers you have on top of the headset into the ziploc.

Loosen the 2 on the side. Don't take the headset off yet.

These are the 2 screws I'm talking about:

Step 4: Take off your wheels.

If you have a rear wheel drop out make sure your chain is in the big ring up front and smallest ring in the back. This will make it easier on you. Remove the skewers first and put in the ziploc.

Take off the wheels and set aside. Place frame in the bike box on top of one layer of padding (put the other 2 layers aside), drive side up.

Step 5: Pull off the headset and put any spacers from under the headset into the ziploc.

Tape the brake levers down.

Step 6: Remove your rear derailleur. DO NOT FORGET THIS STEP. A bent derailleur hanger is a ruined frame. It is just held on by a single hex screw. Completely unscrew the derailleur and remove from hanger. Tape it down to the frame when you are done. Don't worry, it just screws right back on when you get to your destination- no adjustment necessary (I will do another post on putting a bike back together)

Step 7: PADDING!
Cut pieces of pipe insulation to fit on each piece of your bike. Pipe insulation is great because it has a slit and you can pop it right over your frame. Secure each piece with a zip tie. I use 2 pieces together to cover my downtube since it is a wide aero tube.

Step 8: Put on the plastic frame protectors where your wheels should be. These should come with the bike box.

Step 9: Put the multi-tool into the ziploc bag. All the necessary parts to put the bike back together are now in the bag. Close the bag and tape it to the side of the box so it can't roll around and hurt your frame.

Step 10: Tape your seatpost and handlebars to your bike. Put your helmet and water bottles in the box. That's all I will put in my box because of weight, and also because anything heavy could damage the frame if it comes loose. Make sure your fork is oriented as shown in the pic:

Step 11: Cover the bike with insulation piece #2

Step 12: Put plastic protectors on the wheels. This prevents the axles from going through your frame

Step 13: Lay down the wheels, overlapping in the box. Put an old shirt between them where they rub. Make sure the wheel axles are not directly over a piece of your frame

Step 14: Put the third piece of insulation over the wheels

Step 15: Put the top of the bike box on. It should be tight. This is what keeps things from rattling around.

Main principles:

Tape everything to the frame or to the box. Your box is likely going to be opened. You want TSA to be able to life your bike out of the box and not disturb any of your hard work. If everything is taped together, it can't be screwed up when it is put back in by a non-bike person

Don't put a bunch of crap in there. It just increases your likelihood of scratching your frame and being overweight. Staying under 50 pounds is the key to not being doubly charged at the airport. The only other things I put in the box are my water bottles and helmet.

Don't lock your box without a TSA approved lock. TSA will just cut it.

Once you've done it a couple times it will only take you 10-15 minutes to pack and unpack. Give yourself plenty of time the first time. ALWAYS make sure that you can loosen your pedals on your own a couple days before your plane leaves. You need to give yourself enough time to get to a bike shop if you need assistance or don't have the right tool.

That's it! Let me know if I've missed anything. I hope this helps someone!

2 days to KONA!

2008-10-02T09:54:00.006-04:00

Not much to report here other than....

GOING TO KONA ON SATURDAY!!!!

Actually I would be much more excited to go if I wasn't having such a great time here in Las Cruces. I just love this place. I did my one of my favorite climbs Tuesday and yesterday (yesterday I did it twice). It's a 1500 foot climb into a canyon. What makes it brutal is that most of the climb is a (VERY) false flat. This is the garmin readout from the last time I did it in March (for my repeat yesterday I went farther down before turning around)

And this is the view from the top (You can kind of appreciate it if you click it and make it bigger)

The second time up it yesterday I almost passed out and had to sit on the side of the road for bit. Had a nice conversation with a 60+ year old guy who climbs it on his MTB routinely. SUPASTAR!

After sitting around in a stupor for a couple hours we went out to Lorenzos Italian restaurant with the remaining crew. It's just me and the locals now, and all of us are going to headed to Hawaii. Some pics!

Misha and Danny are the cutest and nicest couple on the planet! Stop by Danny's blog to wish him a big good luck at Kona!:

Me and Paulo. I needed a pic to prove that I do, in fact, shower and brush my hair on occasion:

Danny and Jonny. Jonny has recently, on top of his Crohn's, developed a gluten allergy. If you have any great tips for gluten free foods to eat, stop by his blog to help him out!:

And finally, a group picture. I was given the assignment by MarkyV to take as many arm length self shots in Kona as possible, so this is one of my warm- ups. Speaking of MarkyV, he's racing at Longhorn this weekend, so stop by his blog to send some love!:

I'm hoping to get the bike box blog up tomorrow after I pack Mike Honcho away.

Oh, and to the person who commented asking what is the right way to rack your bike in transition: Your front wheel has to be on the side where your stuff is. Once you do it right you won't go back. It's much easier to exit T1 like that

:-)

Elephant Man Tri Race Report

2008-09-30T10:50:00.010-04:00

I was super excited to race again. I don't know what it is about racing, but I really thrive on it. But that doesn't mean that I don't get nervous about them. The day before the race Paulo and I spent accusing each other of being grumpy. We were probably both right...

Race morning I woke up at 4am, ate oatmeal, drank coffee and Misha picked us up at 5am to head to the Butte. It was a chilly morning, but beautiful as always. Gotta love the desert.

Arrived at the race site with plenty of time to spare and a bladder the size of Texas. We both sprinted to the porta potties only to find them locked. NOOOOOO!!!! Thankfully there were more on the other side of transition to save us from certain death by internal bladder explosion. After that disaster was averted we checked in and set up transition. They had these awesome transition racks that someone had hand made. They were made of plywood with a slot perfect for a tire. They should totally patent that- they could make some serious money. No more of those flimsy metal bike racks where only half of the people rack the right direction with the occasional bike rack collapse with the overzealous T2 racker.

Will and Mark showed up before the swim and we got some fun pics in:

The race started late, but I don't think that bothered anyone. The waves were nice and spread out (which made for an awesomely spaced out bike course). I was in the last wave and Paulo in the second to last so we stood up on the hill and watched the first waves go out. In the first wave there was a guy in the FOP who out of nowhere took a 90 degree turn and swam out into no man's land. I felt a little guilty for laughing at it, but it reminded us all of a pic from our friend Khai's race a few years ago. I will try to find it!

After Paulo's wave went off the girls poured into the water. Not quite sure what it is, but women are always the most aggressive group to start a tri. Everyone seemed to want the front row. I just took a spot in the back to the right and figured I could swim on the inside past the slower swimmers after the first couple hundred yards passed.

The swim was pretty uneventful. I felt really good and had a great line on the inside of the buoys. Sighting was very easy because they put up plentiful buoys and it the lake was like glass. Best conditions for a swim I've ever had. I kept wondering when the yellow cap that I passed was going to be Paulo. For awhile I would bob up my head to see if I could recognize the smartass, but alas I never did. Coming out of the water I felt good, but my time was a tad long. I think the swim was possibly closer to 1.1 miles than 1.0. Official time was 29:20 which included a run up the beach.

T1: Couldn't get the darn wetsuit off (story of my life) so it was slow. 1:23

Bike:

Coming out of T1 I saw MarkyV and he cheered me on. Actually he said "funny, I haven't seen Paulo!". That made me laugh. Then in the first mile I ran into Will who was in the middle of his run. We cheered each other on- that made me laugh again. The bike course itself was fabulous in every way. The first 15 miles were very challenging with a ton if steep short hills and several longer climbs. I was thankful to have put on my 11/26 before the trip because the 11/23 would have made for a serious suffer fest out there. The locals were fantastic and out in force cheering us through town. Once we got out of town the course was stunning. Not a car in sight for miles and miles. Just the desert hills, the sun and the occasional racer. I passed quite a few women from the first wave and quite a few men (the hills are my friends, it seems) throughout the 26.5 miles. I think I was only passed once- the benefit of being in the last wave. No major issues on the bike. Took in 1 bottle of gatorade and 2 gus (1 probably would have been better). Kept the intensity in high zone 3/low zone 4. Came into transition feeling pretty decent. Still no Paulo sightings.

Me climbing out of T1

Smartass out of T1

Bike 1:21:45 (19.4 mph ave)

T2

Not much to say about T2. Came in, took care of business, got out. 0:38

The Run

Looking at an elevation profile does this run no justice. The elevation profile fails to mention the 2 miles of soft sand. And for some reason, hills look so much SMALLER on paper! Needless to say, the run was challenging. Started and ended with 1 mile of sand running. The end of the first mile was a steep hill of quicksand leading up to the bridge. I was feeling like a bit of garbage and anyone within 50 feet of me could hear my stomach sloshing (did I mention that I should have only taken in 1 gel on the ride???). Nonetheless, I had a race to win. A race against one person, and I had no idea where he was. I just knew that he was faster on foot than me. By, like... a lot.
So I had to grin and bear it.

At the turnaround I grabbed some gatorade and looked down the hill. I saw a familiar sight. NOOOOO!!!! There he is! GOOOOOOOO!!!!!

What transpired looked much like this, circa Kona 2006

And I commenced running like I stole it.

I ran right by aid stations, turned down water, gatorade, sponges. Barely noticed the beauty of the Elephant Butte damn that we had the pleasure of running on. I wasn't going to go down without a fight. I started having visions of him stalking me, just to surge past me at the last minute to get photo evidence of him "beating" me. Since he started 5 minutes before me I knew that he couldn't make that up in 3 miles. But by god I was going to cross that line first.

I have to admit I did let the fourth place woman go screaming past me. Honestly I wonder if it had been Paulo if I would have given more chase. But the quicksand was pulling me under. I just couldn't get a good grip. Then I saw Misha. WHERE IS HE?????
"I don't know... behind you, I'm sure". Relieved that he wasn't breathing down my neck, I pushed on with slightly less fire to the finishline, not unhappy to be done with that killer course.

Run: 47:27 (7:55)

Run pics:

Me, running like I stole it:

Paulo, running like his pride is on the line:

Total time (1 mile/ 26.5 / 6) 2:40:31 5th OA, 1st AG (really 2nd AG but the 1st was in the top 3 so I was bumped up)

I went over to the table, grabbed a muffin and walked back to watch for Paulo. All of that effort and the negative split run of my life was totally worth seeing Paulo's finish-line spew. It was classic. CLASSIC!

In the end we both had a really great time and were glad we went. The organizers and volunteers at Elephant Man were amazing and put on a first class event. If I ever have the opportunity to get down here again I'll do it in a heartbeat.

I'm thinking of trying to get the smartass himself to put up a guest race report here. That would be fun

;-)

4 days 'till KONA!!!!!

Smackdown at Elephant Butte!

2008-09-28T18:56:00.004-04:00

Had a very fun and tiring day! End result was 5th OA woman and 1st AG 30-34. But, of course, more importantly was the matchup with this guy:

I won the smackdown by 6:45, most of it on the swim (not surprisingly since Paulo has been in the pool about 1 time in 3 years). I narrowly took the bike and he narrowly took the run. Oh yeah, and he would like to spin it that he actually won, since he had a faster run, T1 and T2, while I just beat him in the swim and bike. Good try ;-)

Smiles all around after the race!

A couple notes about the race (because I'm too tired for a report)

- Paulo achieved the ultimate goal for any triathlon. Puking at the finish line. How great is your timing to be able to leave it all on the course and still finish strong BEFORE losing the past 3 miles worth of gatorade in the sand after the timing mat?? Priceless I tell you!

- Racing at 5000 feet after training at sea level is HARD

- I love racing with an aerohelmet! THANK YOU WILL!!!!!!

- Misha is the greatest race sherpa in the whole world. Thank you!

- Elephantman triathlon is the best run race that I have experienced. Top notch, especially for such a small event (225 competitors).

- That course is FREAKING HARD. Yes. HARD!

Quote of the day:

Paulo (before the swim): "I think maybe this would be a good time to tell you that the farthest I have ever swam in open water is 1500m" (Race was a tad over 1 mile)

More pics and full report to follow...

I love New Mexico!

2008-09-27T14:06:00.010-04:00

I am so happy to be down in the land of sunshine and outdoor pools! Could totally do without the thorns in the road flatting my tires, but I guess if it was perfect there would be a ton more traffic down here ;-)

Training has been light. I have my final race of the season tomorrow and have been babying some minor injuries so that I can have a solid day. I was very pleased with my final swim workout today. It was super short with just 2 x 150 (50 fast 100 race pace) as the main set. I was able to hold 1:20 pace so I'm stoked that I was able to get back into swimming form. The trade-off is a minor case of rotator cuff tendinitis, but it's not so bad. Bring on Elephantman!

Here is a short pictorial of my trip so far:

Swimming outdoors in my awesome Splish Wonder Woman suit:

Then it was off to Andele, my favorite mexican restaurant!

Paulo trying to win the biggest taco contest:

Three tools (MarkyV, Jonny and Will) and a cool dude (Danny):

Then the next day was DQ night!

I-SCREAM

MarkyV's dental check-up:

Jonathan isn't nearly happy enough to be eating ice cream:

The dirty mirror self portrait:

And the CAPTION CONTEST!

Some of my favorite captions from Slowtwitchers:

"The P5Carbon will have integrated hydration *and* evacuation systems"

"They've been drinking so much of the Cervelo Cool-aid at PS camp, they are actually starting to shit out parts. In Paulo's never ending quest for scientific research and validity, he records the phenomenon and documents it's every nuance. Touch it Jonnyo, TOUCH IT!!!"

"It was a million to one shot, Doc. Million to one."

" After three hours and trying every tool in the garage, they gave up and took him to the hospital. "

" Broke Back Biker "

" SMACK!! Ride that nose! Work it, work it! You know you like it like that! Riiiight there, oh yeah! Little to the left.... perfect! "

" Visual evidence of the impact on everyday athletes due to the financial crisis. "

Ok, who else out there can beat those?

And I have the text written for my bike box packing post, but I'm going to take detailed pics when I pack for Hawaii next week before I post it.

Up next, Race Report!!!!

How to pack a bike to travel so you never have to worry

2008-09-23T19:29:00.003-04:00

And (for Brian) the wheels on the top!

If anyone out there thinks they would benefit by a step-by-step tour of packing a bike for shipping, just leave a comment. I feel like I could do it in my sleep at this point, but remember when it gave me cold sweats to think about putting my baby in a box!

Sports Medicine Series #1

2008-09-23T10:16:00.002-04:00

Since I'm stuck at the Denver airport on my way to the triathlete paradise that is Las Cruces, NM, I thought I would start my sports medicine series! The plans include a 3-part series on injury prevention for the swim, bike and run and maybe a short one on sports nutrition, but that will most definitely be a do as I say, not as I do editorial. My nutrition stinks, unless you consider living on Cliff bars and oatmeal proper nutrition. But for today a blog about Supplements!

Do you need supplements? Heck no. I would have keeled over long ago since I have a bit of a problem remembering to take them (maybe I need one of those memory boosting herbals....). But I do believe that there are a few winners out there with some decent evidence behind them.

In no particular order...

A good strong multivitamin

As triathletes were tend to be a bit obsessed about our weight (free speed). In doing so, with a heavy training load it's easy to get behind on some of the building blocks. ESPECIALLY the vegetarians and vegans out there. If your nutrition is suspect and you think you probably live on a bit of a deficit, get a multivitamin that provides a strong dose of all the B- vitamins

Downfalls: Fluorescent pee.

Iron

This is a bit individualized. Men with good intake of red meat will probably not need any additional iron (and it could be dangerous). However, iron is one of the many nutrients that we tend to lose in sweat, so it is not entirely uncommon for athletic men to be iron deficient. Of course iron is lost in blood as well, so the women among us could probably benefit from a low dose supplement. If in doubt, the next time you see your doc ask for a CBC and iron panel to see how you're doing. A note for vegetarians- many vegetables are high in iron. But don't let that fool you! Iron if veggies like spinach have a very low bio-availability so most of it goes right through and doesn't get absorbed. If you eat no meat, a low dose iron supplement is probably a good idea. *Hint* If you are going to supplement with iron, buy "Gentle Iron" or iron bisglycinate. Unlike iron sulfate, it is easy on the gut and does not constipate. Look for a formulation with vitamin C, because this aids in absorption.

Downfalls: Iron is dangerous in high doses. If your diet is rich in iron and you have never had a problem with anemia, you can skip it.

Fish Oil

My favorite of the supplements. I think fish oil is the magic pill. Shown to decrease inflammation, heart disease, arthritis, and for us athletes there are several studies showing its efficacy in reducing exercise induced asthma.

Downfalls: Fish burps, some minor bruising. Discontinue before surgery unless you want your surgeon to call you bad names in the OR since it is a mild anti-coagulant

Glucosamine

Glucosamine is thought to decrease progression of osteoarthritis and joint pain, although some of the studies are still a bit conflicting. One thing that is true, though is that the supplement doesn't interact with other medications and has virtually zero side effects. The only caution is for people with shellfish allergies. So if you are someone who is running with joint pain due to cartilage damage, this might be a good choice for you. Give the supplement a few months of use before making a decision on whether or not it works for you.

Downfall: Can be spendy, but there are cheaper options at the large wholesaler-type stores.

L-glutamine

When I first heard that people supplemented with glutamine I thought it was ridiculous. What good could a single amino acid do? So I hit pubmed and was totally shocked at what I saw. Glutamine is a primary fuel source for our immune cells. It is also among the first amino acids to be depleted when the body is under stress. Supplementation with glutamine has been shown to boost immune function and insulin activity in hospital patients. Studies on the effects of glutamine supplementation in athletes are still a bit controversial. But my take is that it is worth supplementing with some glutamine in your recovery shake after particularly hard workouts and races. Anything that can prevent the dreaded build week colds is worth trying!

OK, that's all I have for now. If I think of anything else I'll be sure to add it. For now, I have to figure out where my flight to El Paso departs from. I have some training to do this afternoon!

Some thoughts on swimming...

2008-09-15T09:58:00.003-04:00

Since I decided in a random statement of lunacy to swim until arms come out of their sockets, I have come up with some thoughts about swimming.

- I am intellectually incapable of thinking of anything noteworthy while swimming laps. The second that my mind wanders I lose count. So my time in the pool, almost 9 hours last week, was essentially a water lobotomy. Here is my thought process for those 23,200 meters:

1,1,1,1,1,1,1 (repeat for a total of 44 times) flip
2,2,2,2,2,2,2 flip
3,3,3,3,3,3,3 flip

Unfortunately, during my set today, which was remarkably brutal, it went like this

1,1,1,1,1,1,1 flip
2,2,2,2 I need to do some serious packing for my trip, 1,2,1,1,2,2,3????
2,2,2 am I really on 2?, or is it 3?...
Oh damn

And so it went for my 600, 500, 2 x 400, 2 x 300, and 3 x 200 of the main set. I was amazingly able to count the 3 x 100 (LCM) to finish out the set.

- With the state of my rotator cuff right now, I could be a teaching mannequin for first year medical students. Every muscle of my shoulder is undergoing swelling and hypertrophy. My only wish is that all of this discomfort will result in sexy bikini arms in Hawaii. Oh, and a fast swim at Elephant Man would be a bonus.

- Buying a super cute swimming suit makes you faster

- I would give my left arm to be sponsored by Splish if I didn't think it would slow me down so much

Since the last ancient update....

2008-09-12T14:33:00.010-04:00

My life in a nutshell....

1. I started my first sports medicine elective. It is as awesome in every way that I had hoped it would be. I'm setting up another one in November and am hoping to get in on some college and pro sport action. Fun!

2. Decided, in all my brilliance, that after an entire summer of dismal swim training I would attempt to swim 45,000 meters in 2 weeks. I am now 19,600 meters into my idiocy and have to budget an extra hour into my day to change my clothes since I can no longer lift my arms over my head. In related news, it is somehow impossible to satisfy my ravenous hunger.

3. I am in the middle of an interview with John at TheOutdoorJourney. We should be done soon, so stock up on your red bull and pick up some toothpicks to hold your eyes open. It's a long one ;-)

4. I'm going to become a featured blogger on wellsphere. I'm hoping that as my knowledge of sports medicine grows I can start writing blogs with more of a medical slant. I'm thinking a good starter should be: 45,000 meters in 2 weeks: why this is a stupid idea

5. I leave for VACATION in less than 2 weeks! Heading out to Las Cruces for CAMP on September 23rd and then for KONA on October 4th. Expect to hear way more from me than you ever feared possible.

6. With the help of ProTriathlete and professional self-photographer MarkyV I was able to take and develop my very own picture for my residency applications. Where most people go and get pics taken professionally, I took my camera on a walk with my dog, took a picture of myself and spent 99 cents at Walgreens to get my fabulous self- portrait. Smile!

While in training for the pinnacle of my self portrait career, I took some pretty awesome ones that just didn't quite make the cut for the job application

7. Maddie and I have been spending some awesomely quality time together. My 2 weeks of ortho trauma were tougher on her than they were on me, so I've been trying to make it up. Here is a photo journal of last weekend:

Where's Maddie?

Going into the woods, yay!

Over the bridge...

Come on, ma- let's go SWIMMING!

Want this?

Happy puppy!

Tired puppy...

8. Undies are in the mail! You didn't actually think that I would travel all the way to Kona and not participate in the underpants run, did you??? I think not! So my new funny undies are being shipped to Milwaukee to be packed away for the big run. Paulo has already volunteered to come take pics. What a guy! ;-)

Yes, I am a SPECIALIST!

2008-09-04T19:51:00.003-04:00

My good friend Jonathan Caron was interviewed for Triathlete Magazine recently and I just about fell over laughing when I got to the middle of the article. Not only is he an amazing athlete and role model for people all over the world with Crohn's disease, he's freaking hilarious!

:-)

Enjoy!

Thanks for the shout-out Jonny!