CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

I just wanted to Congratulate my friend, Nancy Cattabiani, for finishing "The Canadian Triathlon" today, August 30th. The Canadian is an Ironman-distance event held in Ottawa, Canada. Nancy finished the race in 15:34!! After many hard years of training, mixed with ups and downs, injuries, and personal events that have prevented her from competing in or finishing Ironman, she got to the race with fierce determination and she finished in an awesome time!!!!! I'm so proud of her...I wish I could possesss the mental toughness that Nancy does and I just had to share this accomplishment!

Back in the Swing of Things...

I am almost through with my first week of training for “Phase II” of the 2008 season. I just started getting “back in the groove” mentally today. It took me this whole week to transition back into being a professional triathlete. Today I felt really psyched to be training while completing intervals on my long ride. I must say that training was a bit of a shock to the system on Tuesday when I started off with a hard track session. Wednesday was a moderate long ride (3.5 hours) with some big gear work in the hills, followed by a pretty quick run off the bike. Thursday was an interval session in the water, followed by bike intervals. Friday was a short swim followed by core and the remainder of the day was recovery. After “chilling out”, going out on the boat almost every day, eating ice cream almost every day, and having a Corona or a glass of wine here and there (If you know me now, you know I rarely, if ever drink) and completing no more than one work out session per day, you can imagine what a shock it was to get back to work! The “vacation” was the longest and most aggressive break that I have taken in years. I always take 4 weeks of “downtime” at the end of each season, but my downtime in the past, while unstructured, usually included 3+ hour rides on the bike(without a specific workout) and a decent amount of running. My “downtime” in the past was largely the freedom of not having a schedule to adhere to. This time my downtime was “for real”. While I find that many folks who do what I do have a hard time really chilling out (myself included), this time I enjoyed every minute of it!

Of course all good things must come to an end. George is back to work and so am I. I should probably put it in perspective though. My “work” is training hard and taking care of myself the best I can…how lucky am I? Now I can’t say that I am bringing home the big bucks (or even much of the little bucks for that matter), but I guess you can say that I am “rich” in all other aspects of my life, so there is something to be said about that, right?! Hopefully the greater financial rewards will come later…Hey, maybe after I win Ironman Arizona! ;-) OK, maybe not then either, but if you follow what you love, the rest will come…I think. ;-) So, back to today: A four hour ride, split up nicely as I rode the first 1:30 of it with some local cyclists on George’s cycling team (Babylon Bike Shop), then the rest of the ride solo with some intervals mixed in (they felt GREAT, by the way), then a 30 minute run off the bike descending to “fast” for the last mile (fast is a relative term, eh?). Now I am relaxing outside on the chaise lounge resting my body for a moderately long, but fairly difficult run tomorrow (oh and some beach time…guess there is still time if you want it badly enough, and with cooler weather on the horizon I’ll take the beach when I can get it!). Oh and how can I forget?! The Olympics is on and I think my favorite girls are on tonight, Beach Volleyball Super Studs: Kerrie Wash and Misty May-Treanor (photo upper right, because I am in awe of the two of them...), and of course we can’t forget Michael Phelp’s last swim for Gold and Dara Torres's 50 freestyle either. The women's marathon is on tonight too! I’ll be staying in tonight to watch it…it only comes around 4 years, so I try not to miss it.

So, I’m back in the swing of things and it feels good! My downtime is over, but I find experiences like the past 3 weeks are most special when you can reflect back on them and realize how great the time spent was. If it wasn’t over, I wouldn’t be reflecting on how great a time it was! Also, if I didn’t take the break post-Placid, I may not be reflecting on how lucky I am to be living the life of a Professional triathlete right now, and I know for sure that my body and mind wouldn’t be feeling as refreshed and ready to go either! So now I look forward to the next few months of hard training and fast racing!

Downtime...

So it is just about 2 weeks out from IM lake Placid and I have been “laying low” as far as training is concerned. Instead of dragging myself to the pool early in the morning, or getting psyched up for a hard ride or a long run, I have been going out on the boat with George; getting together with friends and family; and enjoying some “non structured” riding, open water swimming, and short easy running (when I want to). It’s funny, but something as simple as going on a leisurely group ride (like I did last weekend) or meeting a couple of friends for an open water swim and staying in as long or short as I want to, is liberating to me! I have really been enjoying the lack of a schedule and trying to take in as much of the summer as I can (before I am back to “work”). It’s been really nice…summer on Long Island is so great and I am almost sad to see the end of the “carefree days on the water and at the beach”. By next Monday (August 11th), I will be back to training, starting “Phase II” of my 2008 season. While the weather will still be nice and there will still be some opportunity to get out on the boat or to the beach and enjoy it, my “vacation” as I like to refer to it, will be over.

I have officially decided on my race schedule for the remainder of the season. So far, I will be competing in the new “Austin 70.3” race on October 5th and Ironman Arizona on November 23rd. I have just about four months to really train hard and make some gains in my training before I race my next Ironman. It’s a long time! 2008 has so far been an interesting year for me. It started with a lot of travel in the colder months. I got to meet some fantastic people that have become great friends, while escaping the cold New York weather. I had some injuries that forced me to make many changes in my racing schedule, which was frustrating at times, but in the end worked out OK. I started my 2nd pro season in a non-impressive way, with my first race being a total flop and my second race being “mediocre”. Then I found myself in a situation of being 6 weeks from IM Lake Placid with no runs longer that 14 miles under my belt (due to injury), a lack of enthusiasm and confidence, and the daunting task of coaching myself going into the race!

I see athletes leaving and changing coaches so often in professional sports, but the prospect of it was a bit intimidating…after being coached for almost 4 years by the same person (and being training partners and friends as well), I found that, while it seemed clear that the decision was best for both of us, it left me in a somewhat scary situation. Going into Lake Placid, I decided to coach myself, but quickly realized that I have had a coach for almost 20 years of my life! From 7th grade swimming, throughout high school and college and then into my triathlon career I have always had a coach to turn to for my training. Soon, I recruited help from Bobby McGee for my running and Matt Dixon for overall guidance, but it was more of a “hands off” approach. This ended up being good for me, as it helped provide guidance and feedback, while enabling me to still make a transition from the last few years and keeping myself in control of what I would ultimately be doing. I have been very used to constant communication and feedback with regards to my training. Going into Lake Placid, it was basically up to me…and it went OK!

After Lake Placid, I decided to go ahead and “sign on” with a new official coach. I will be working with Matt Dixon, who is based in San Francisco. I am excited about Part II of the season and feel that I have a lot more in me as an athlete. I want to thank Mike Monastero for working with me for the past 3 and a half years and wish him luck in his new endeavors (a growing coaching business, training camps, etc…) You can check out his blog at: http://mikemonastero.blogspot.com. As for myself, I will be really enjoying this last week “off” hopefully getting out on the boat some more, enjoying the sun and the water, while completing modest “workouts” when I want to. I want to be totally recovered and refreshed to start off the next 4 months of what seems like very focused and hard training before heading to Arizona!