Cap Tx Tri Weekend

This weekend didn't quite go the way I'd envisioned it would when I signed up for the Cap TX Tri but overall I think it turned out as good as it could have.
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After returning from Albany I went to UT to attempt to get some work done and then went to the tues night run practice. Let's just say my right ankle wasn't too happy about that decision. It had been feeling a bit sore for the past few days and Tues night was even worse. Best guess is that the tendons connected to my peroneous muscles were strained during the bike crash and they are not in good shape now. Tues run practice turned out to be a 15 min warmup, a couple minutes of drills and a walk back to the car. To say I was struggling mentally and physically would be a bit of an understatement. Tues night was rough!
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So... as the week progressed I went to visit Dr Sellers a couple of times and tried to determine a plan for the weekend. I had a big weekend of training and I was going to train through Cap TX. Thing is, I couldn't run. That left me with three choices: risk it, DNF, or DNS. I struggled with this for a few days; I've never DNF'ed but CdA is more important and it wasn't worth risking it for Cap TX. But that dang race was uber expensive and I could use the swim practice so it just seemed for logical to do part of it and DNF... what to do???
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Friday - my long 'run' day. Uh... yeah... so this turned into a long water jog. 3 loops around the quarry at Pure Austin up North. It took 2:18:00. I have learned that I swim about 3x as fast as I water jog. ( I verified this by swimming 2 loops later in the day) There I was Friday morning, water jogging around the bouy's all by myself. This gave me plenty of time to think. Mainly I wondered what a 2+ hour water jog would equate to in regular running. It just seems so hard to stay at your upper aerobic level while water jogging.
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Saturday - long ride. Michael joined me for almost 5 of the 6hrs. (He's so good to me). The biggest surprise of the day is the fact that we were actually able to ride on the road. The weather forecast had not looked promising the night before and I had prepared myself for the long and mentally challenging trianer ride. But... we lucked out and it was dry in the morning. My spanking clean bike made it about 2 hrs into the ride before it got caked in mud and water, oh well. At 3 hrs into the ride Michael chugged the sample of 5hr energy that I'd got from the shop. Let's just say it didn't work as expected. I think I actually lasted about 45 minutes before his head started to hurt. No worries, this didn't seem to effect the progress on Michael's creative power meter ideas. He spent the majority of the ride trying to invent a cheaper, more stable power meter than the one I'm currently testing. Details on this will have to remain a 'secret' for now ;) After dropping Michael off at home I finished off my ride and then we went to the neighborhood pool to swim a few minutes with Joe and Ali. Note: "with" = at the same time, not the same pace
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Sunday - a swim. I went down to Barton Springs to test out an Xterra wetsuit. I liked it but I didn't really swim long. I was feeling pretty darn tired and the dark clouds overhead didn't get me too excited about the swim. So I went back home and ran around the block to test my ankle out... Not good. Michael came up with a brilliant idea... see if you can switch to relay and I'll do the run. This made me happy b/c I was still having a hard time getting my head around the idea of a DNF. I got everything switched up and we were good to go. I instantly felt a huge cloud lifted from my shoulders and the hype around the race became a lot easier for the rest of the day. I was pretty relaxed about the race but did wonder how the rain was going to effect things. I was happy when Matt and Amy B. said they'd rack my bike for me... that meant I'd be more likely to get a spot that wasn't in the flood zone.
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Monday - Cap TX Tri... Cancelled due to rain. To be honest, I'm not really upset about this. I hadn't tapered for the race and wasn't even going to be able to do the entire thing. The biggest discomfort about the entire situation was the guilt I felt for wishing it would just get cancelled once it started to rain. I felt guilty b/c I have friends who were considering this an important race, there were people who traveled from out of town for it, and there were a lot of people I met in the past few days who were doing this as their first triathlon. But... the rain had it's way and after everything got totally soaked we loaded back into the car and were leaving the race cite over an hour before the relay wave would even be sent off.
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Bye-Bye Blazer

It's official, Michael's '99 Blazer has been sold. The guy who bought it drove up with his mother at lunch time. For the next 6 weeks we'll be a 1-car couple, testing out what happens when you try to force yourself to commute a bit more often.

Learning to walk

These are some pictures I took while I was in Albany. They're from my grandparent's basement.

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I took the picture of the stairwell b/c the stain humored me. If you take a look you'll notice something a bit odd about them... there is no stain in the middle of the stairs. This is because my grandfather stained them with 1 leg missing and he had to sit on the stairs and stain beside him. The wood framing along the walls is an unfinished project he was working on.

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The parallel beams are his exercise apparatus. He build this setup to practice his walking. Every day he'd go down to the basement to work on his walking. He was learning to walk for a second time, at age 77. This weekend I was sure to tell him how proud I was of his efforts to walk again after the amputation. Last summer I did a lit review of amputee gait studies and I knew he would be among a very small crowd if he ever learned to walk with his prosthesis. Elderly diabetic patients who receive a trans-femoral amputation are very unlikely to learn to walk again. Many of them never get a leg or throw it out after they give up on it.

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Today my family heard from the VA... they said my grandmother could donate the leg and they'd use it as a teaching tool. I'm very happy about it, I'm glad it'll continue to get use.

The Rookie Triathlon

The Rookie

May 12th 2007

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This post a bit late but I just got these pic's from Julia and decided it might be time to write something up about the day.

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The rookie may have been a sprint race but I'd like to think of it as more of an all day event...

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Michael & I got up before the sun to head off to the TX Ski Ranch for this year's rookie. Keith met us at our house so we could carpool down and ride home (more later). We left early enough to get ourselves prime transition space. Those of you who have ever done a triathlon with me should not be suprised by this.

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Michael & I were both volunteering for the race and we were assigned to the mount / dismount line. This was a bit tricky for me since I was also a participant in the race. So... I moved into the open wave to allow myself the ability to race and get back over to my position before most people got off the bike. This seemed like a great idea at the time.

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After getting my race gear ready I went for a warmup run and helped arrange a couple of cones to be sure they were orientented in exactly the correct location. When I got done I had just enough time to stand in line for the bathroom and get my things together before the start.

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Swim - somehow I managed to get disoriented during this swim. This really sent a message home to me... I really need to visualize the swim before hand b/c my eye sight isn't going to help me out during the race.

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T1 - dangit... I hate being a slow swimmer. Oh well. Grabbed the race belt and put that on since Adam had announced we needed it & ran out. I was not too efficient getting my feet into my shoes and Zane was yelling at me from the side to wait until the flat to do it. Of course, I was so engrosed with getting my feet into my stupid shoes that I didn't really comprehend what he'd said until afterwards.

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Bike - the bike leg was kindof odd, almost lonely for a while. Since my swim was so slow and I'd started in the first wave I didn't really see anyone... until I started to get passed by a couple of my TX teammates and Keith. Keith later told Michael it seemed like I was just out having a good time and not going hard enough. I was feeling a little offended by this b/c I wanted to think I was working hard. But... the pictures above are starting to make me think I was just out there having fun... ooops. The end of the bike mainly consisted of my speedy dismount that had Michael convinced I was going to wipe out.

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T2 - Dangit JIM!! - why is your bike taking up my space on the rack... After the race I saw how I'd managed to shove my bike into this tiny space at the end of the rack - Michael laughed about it.

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Run - This run was really tough for a 2mile run. I was putting a lot of effort in and managed to catch up with Keith but it got real hard during the 2nd half.

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After I crossed the line I ran over to the dismount line to help with that. Hopefully it went okay. After dismount was over Michael & I were assigned to man Watkins lane to direct traffic. From there I got my things ready to ride home.

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That is where the 3rd and longest part of the day was. Keith managed to complete his longest ride ever and in the process I managed to drain myself pretty good. We stopped a couple of times for water, food, and discussions about the correct direction to take. After ~72mi of riding we rolling into my driveway and I was exhausted.

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Keith had really impressed me. It was his longest road ride and he seemed to have more endurance than I did. I think he's going to be in great shape for IMFL in Nov. I'm really glad he was there to ride home with, made it a lot easier when I was getting tired.

Tom Brennan

As I type this I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport, on my way home from Albany. I have a great photo of my grandparents dancing at my wedding which I intend to attach to this blog entry. But that will have to wait b/c the free internet at the Atlanta airport doesn't seem to be agreeing with my ideas to upload the picture.

This weekend was very draining, mentally an physically. I went to Albany with the knowledge that it would be the last time I saw my grandfather. He had diabeties and over the last few years he's gone through a number of tough spots. There have been many times when we were told he might not make it through this surgery or that one. This time was different though, his liver and kidneys had failed and there was nothing that could be done. So I made the decision to head to Albany for the weekend.

When I arrived in Albany at lunch time Saturday we went directly to the hospital. My grandfather was happy to see me but told me, "I don't think I'm going to make it this time." He was fully aware of what was happening to him. My grandfather was an engineer at GE his entire career, and his mind continued to function in the same capacity until this weekend.

I had a good amount of time to sit with him over the weekend and to watch a relatively drastic transition from day to day. My Sunday he was fading, this was by far the most exhausting day of all. Everyone in the family was there to say goodbye and it was definetely tough. On Monday he was "sleeping" peacefully. Colin arrived via the work of Scott and Michael (thank you!) and he was able to talk to grandpa.

He passed away late last night. I was at the house packing for my trip home when it happened. My brother and mother picked me up and brought me back to the hospital to say goodbye. That was something I sure I will never forget.

I experienced a lot this weekend but I was lucky to have years to prepare for it. I made it almost 30 yrs before seeing a dead body or loosing someone close to me. I recall being very scared of the concept of death when we had to discuss it during 6th grade. That was a long time ago and I have obviously gained a lot of persepective since then.

My grandfather lived to be 77 and was surrounded by his family all weekend. Like all of us, he had his flaws as well as his characteristics that we looked up too. For me, the most impressive aspect of my grandfather has been what I've seen him do during the past couple of years. Last summer I visited him at the hospital when I went to do IMLP. He had just recieved a trans-femoral amputation on his right leg. I read papers on the subject and knew of the few people who ever manage to gain the ability to walk 200m with their prosthesis. My grandfather knew this too but didn't seem to care. He built himself a training space in the basement to practice walking and went down there every morning to work on it. The effort to practice and his determination to keep pushing himself as long and hard as he could was impressive.

He was a stubborn Irishman who didn't want to be told what to do. That made him hard to deal with at times but it also made him stronger than many others.

I'm glad for the oportunity that I had this weekend. Being given the opportunity to say goodbye is something we won't always get. If you have that chance, don't let it pass by.

CMP Lunch

WHICH ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS?

Today was a CMP group lunch. CMP, Chemical Mechanical Planarization, is the group I used to work in at Samsung. Over the years we built up a couple of traditions, one of which was our March Madness pool. We'd make our picks and at the end of the competition the person at the bottom had to pay for the group lunch.

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You might laugh that it's over a month since March Madness ended but I think this is actually the earliest we've ever had the lunch. My picky eating and training schedule usually seems to mess up the schedule (big suprise).

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Today we met at EZ's for lunch and got to update eachother and our jobs, engagements, kids, people quiting Samsung, Tan's graduation for UT Business school, and other useless things.

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As you can see from the picture above, the Biomechanics student / Bike shop employee / Triathlete doesn't really look like the other semiconductor engineers. Even so, these guys became my family while I was at work. Although I have no regrets about my decision to return to school I still miss my friends and enjoy the opportunity to spend an hour with them.

Crash

The goal for the day was a 5hr ride at base pace. That wasn't the initial plan for the day but my schedule needed to be tweaked due to a trip to Albany to be with my family this weekend. Andrea moved the long ride but warned me to be careful. She didn't want me to do anything 'crazy' since I had loaded up the middle of my rest week.
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Michael and I set out for our ride just after sunrise. He'd agreed to join me for the majority of it since his schedule was free of meetings until 2pm.
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My goal for the ride was to set a solid base pace, to enjoy the ride with my favorite person in the world, and to test out my brand new Shebeest tri shorts. The plan seemed doable and the morning seemed great, a bit of a chill and sunny... just the way I'm envisioning CDA.
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Well... as I'm sure you can guess... it didn't really happen according to plan. Just before 8am, we were making a left turn onto a road in P-ville (en-route to Elgin) and I befriended a large group of pebbles in the middle of the turn. My superhuman vision allowed me to spot these rocks just as I hit them.
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Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I was going into the pebbles, made it the majority of the way, and slid down. That's all I could think about was how slowly I seemed to be getting up and out of the road. I just needed to get out of the road and it seemed to be taking to long to stand back up. The minute I got to the side of the road I sat down and grew very dizzy and disoriented. The lady in the mini-van behind us stopped to help, she was very concerned that I'd fallen b/c I felt she was rushing me through the turn. I started blurting out, "I'm okay," as quickly as I could be sure didn't feel that way. I felt as if I was about to pass out and just wanted to lay down but Michael was about to let me do that.
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The lady in the mini-van brought over some wet wipes and I cleaned off a bit. We then inspected the bike and realized my arm rest was completely bent and my shifters were turned to the side. Michael bent the shifters back but he wasn't quite strong enough to bend the aluminum back to place.
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He asked if I wanted to keep riding and I reluctantly said I'd try, I could already feel the pain. After about 1/4 mile I pulled over to the side. There was no way I was going to ride this bike for the rest of the ride. I said we should head home and if I felt okay when we got there I could break out the Merlin for the rest of the ride.
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The ride home was painful and slow, there was no question in my mind that I was done for the day when I rolled in. I sat down on the front step and looked at my watch, 9:32. "Okay, Mich... you've got 3 minutes to feel sorry for yourself and that's it." I let out some tears of frustration and anger, my body was just starting to recover from the car crash last month and now this. Just as my poopy time was over Michael came out and asked if I wanted a hug. It made me feel instantly better and we began to joke about my brand new shorts. "If you wear them in the Ironman people will think your hard core." Then we took a couple of pictures and I went upstairs to inflict more pain by attempting to clean the wounds.
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Andrea and I spoke later in the day. "It's just a bit of a speed bump," she told me. I guess she's correct. Ironman training isn't about wining it's about facing what you're given and overcoming it. The training is said to be the hardest part and getting to the start line means a lot. There is a lot of truth in that. We do this training to make ourselves stronger and to discover who we really are. Hopefully when I toe the line in 6 weeks I'll know I did everything I could to get there in the best condition possible.

Running With John

One of the best things about the Texas Iron workouts is having friends to push you harder than you want to go. It's funny what we 'enjoy' sometimes.
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Last night's workout was a good one for me. I went to practice with the goal of trying to push myself during practice. Pushing during the shorter workouts is one of the toughest things for me. Now that we're getting closer to CDA I really have to focus on pushing hard during the interval workouts. Andrea has been doing a good job encouraging this by advising me to push hard at the rookie and reminding me that I need to go to a new place... one of pain.
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This concept of pain is a bit daunting to me. I feel like I can go on for hours and hours but the idea of willingly putting myself into a harder zone scares me a bit.
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The workout for last night: 10 min warm up run then 2 x ( 2 x 1 mile with 2:00 rest , 1 x .5 mile with 2:30 rest). Just after getting the assignment from Jamie John told me he'd be pacing off me. Translation: I'm going to stick to your heels on the flats and crush you on the hills. John is about the same speed as me on flats but his hill running is something from a completely different world. I mere 5% grade will send me into anaerobic pain if I try to keep up with him. That is exactly what happened... John stuck to my feet and pushed me to my limits.
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Okay, so there is a bit more to that story... John pushed me for 2/3 of the workout but then I had to make an emergency stop at the bathroom and did the last mile and .5 mile alone. This is when determination set in. I told myself I was going to hit the same times I'd done with John. I hit the mile split. Then I told myself I needed to beat the .5mile time... I got it by 3s. Might not sound like a big deal but it certainly was for me. I'd pushed hard to keep up with John and managed to push myself just as hard at the end of practice.
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Result: Happy, tired, and very glad that John had been at practice to kick my booty to where it needed to be

The Final Exam

Right now we're finishing up spring semester at UT. This semester I was one of the TA's for Biomechanics, the final for that class was yesterday morning.
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Proctoring a final exam is quite a different experience from taking one. It was interesting to observe all the fears I faced the night before from the opposite side of the table. I had taken a Stats exam on Monday night. I'd arrived early to the room and sat down for some last-minute attempts to cram; just like everyone else in the room. I was frustrated by the increased no ice level minutes before the exam and felt worried that I had not studied enough. While taking the exam I flipped around the pages, skipping over questions and sections I did not want to concentrate on yet. I checked over answers multiple times and had a sense of apprehension when I turned it in.
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Obviously, my feelings are not too unique but it is quite different to watch similar things unfold on the faces of other students. As we watched the biomechanics class taking their exam you could see the near panic on some people's faces as the turned the page to see a fictional equation they'd have to use to solve one of the problems. It was a tough exam and many of them were very concerned about their grades when leaving the exam sight.
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When you are watching from the other side it is very easy to say, "don't worry about it too much right now." I honestly wished I could say something to relieve some of them from the level of stress they sustained after the exam was over. For some of them, this grade is going to effect their ability to graduate next week. If I were in their shoes I'd feel the same way and I couldn't help but wonder if that's the most productive perspective to have.
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Sure... we all need to have some sense of responsibility and concern for what we do but sometimes the stress we inflict upon ourselves will outweigh the benefits of being concerned about the task at hand. I've often been told that I am intense. This is a hard characteristic to change. Maybe watching others and seeing the stress they put themselves under will help me understand it would be easier if I could just lighten up a bit. Sometimes people watching is good... you can learn a lot from the manorisms of others because we are all very similar in many ways.

My turn to blog

6 weeks away from IM CDA... time for me to start a blog.

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I've been thinking about setting one up for a while and finally decided to jump on the band wagon and post my own blog.

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The picture at the left was taken just before the finish line at the Great Floridian last fall. That was my 5th Ironman, I am 6 weeks away from my 6th and starting to get pumped.

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CDA 2004 was my first Ironman and I'm looking forward to going back. This trip will be a lot different, your perspective for your first Ironman is different. The concept of Ironman seems crazy when you first hear about it, it's seems crazy and scary when you're getting ready to do it for the first time, and just scary every time after that.

My focus for the next few weeks will be to get enough sleep and push hard at practice. I'd say I'm also focused on cutting back on chocolate but that would be a bad thing to write b/c I'm just too weak to accomplish that type of goal.

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Okay... time to get ready to push hard... tues night TX Iron run is in 1hr... I'm secretly hoping for Wilke repeats ;)