June Update and Final Month countdown

The countdown to Lake Placid has started with the final four weeks of training. One more really hard training week and then I taper for the last three weeks leading up to the Lake Placid Ironman.

June was another productive month for me, although I encountered a minor setback as I injured my Achilles tendon on a WPR run in Mt. Moriah cemetery. I'm not exactly sure how it happened but all of a sudden I got very gimpy and simply couldn't continue running and could barely walk. I don't think it was an over-use injury, just kind of a freakish event. That's why I don't do trail running. The worst part was that it happened the day before I went to Lake Placid for my Ironman training camp. The beauty of triathlon training is when you can't do one activity, you can focus harder on the other two until you recover. I was able to have my largest training volume months in biking and swimming and was able to squeeze in 100 miles of running despite taking a week off to rest the injury and starting back slowly to avoid re-injuring it. I like that my training volume has been steadily increasing each month with swimming and biking and I've already biked and swam more in six months this year than I did last year.

Here are my training volume numbers since the beginning of the year and compared to last year:
 

	January	February	March	April	May	June
Running (Miles)
2013	115.25	103.89	100.01	99.41	89.81	112.71
2014	112.52	117.22	138.07	102.58	135.44	100.88
Biking (Miles)
2013	201.40	190.26	104.19	217.89	216.29	298.91
2014	309.80	281.37	355.29	410.49	524.37	601.93
Swimming (Km)
2013	13.20	14.20	10.00	14.90	16.10	15.50
2014	22.20	19.70	25.30	27.00	30.40	34.40

I did two races in June, the Black Bear Half Iron Distance (which I posted about last month), the ODDyssey half marathon and also went to a training camp in Lake Placid.  Here is a summary of those events.

ODDyssey Half Marathon (June 8)
This was the third straight year that I have ran the ODDyssey half marathon. The race is held late May/early June where the weather is hard to predict. The last two years the race had very hot and  humid conditions. Luckily this year, we had a very sunny day, but with low humidity and the temperature was favorable this time. The course has a lot of shade which also helps keep the sun off. I started out pretty fast this year (as usual) and was averaging sub-7 minute miles for the first four miles, mostly because the first part of the course is downhill. As I started up the ramp to the Strawberry Mansion bridge and the hill after crossing the bridge, my pace definitely slowed up but was still pretty solid on the uphills (7:28). After coming back down to Kelly Drive and over the Falls Bridge to West River Drive, which were fairly level, I maintained a pace of 7:12 from miles 8 - 12. The last mile of the course features the trek back up the Lansdowne hill to the Finish line. I have definitely struggled on this hill in the past and was trying to save something for it. I was able to keep a good pace up the hill, although it was my slowest paced mile of the race (7:42), which was expected. I finished the half-marathon in my second fastest half-marathon time at 1:34:30 (7:10 pace). A solid finish to the great Spring race season and a nice medal that can be mounted to my wall as a bottle opener.

Lake Placid Training Camp (June 19-22) 
The Lake Placid training camp was run by ETA Coach, Jason Kilderry and something that I signed up for when the registration first opened up. There were 18 people that attended the camp and we stayed in two houses right near one another. The camp and training are so great that you don't even have to be participating in the Ironman Lake Placid to go. Lake Placid is a great location and provides a good challenge to train regardless of whatever triathlon you are planning to do. We had some athletes that were training for Half-Ironmans and some that were doing full Ironmans in other locations. We were definitely treated extremely well at the camp as the houses were well stocked with food and beverages and if something was missing, all you had to do was tell someone and they would go get it for you. There were two bike mechanics on hand that tuned up everyone's bikes, a massage therapist that gave everyone a 10-15 minute massages, and a physical therapist that helped me with my Achilles injury. The staff provided SAG support while we were on the bike course and carried water and Gatorade during the other workouts. There were also clinics about bike maintenance, open water swimming tips, and nutrition strategies during the Ironman.

As I mentioned, I got to Lake Placid with an injured Achilles tendon which put me on the sidelines for all running activities during the camp. I did get 3 swims in Mirror Lake and I rode the full Ironman bike course (2 loops) and got another loop in on Sunday morning while the other athletes were out on their long run. I'm excited for the swim portion of the Ironman as the lake was very clear and features an underwater tow rope for the buoys. I don't think that I will use the underwater tow line to guide me during the swim as I've heard it gets pretty crowded near the rope since it eliminates the need to site the buoys. The water temperature was in the high 60's while we were there and it felt great in a wetsuit. The bike course preview was one of my main goals for the camp to get a feel on the elevation changes, especially the Keane descent and the climbs from Jay back to Lake Placid. My first time on the course, I was able to complete 109 miles in 6:20 in some windy conditions. I noted my 100 mile time which was 5:45 which was the fastest time that I've ever done a century ride. I left the training camp feeling a lot more confident about a good biking time in the Ironman now that I have ridden the course a couple of times.

Based on what I did at the training camp and my training plan, I think that I should finish the Lake Placid Ironman in 12 to 12:30 hours. I figure a 1:15 minute swim, 15 minutes of total transition time, and a 6:30 bike. I feel like if I have a good day my marathon time should be between 4 and 4:30 hours, hopefully closer to 4 hours if everything goes right.

I'm hoping that my next blog entry will be about how I had a great race and achieved all of my goals at the Lake Placid Ironman. Good luck with training and have a great race to everyone that is doing the Ironman Lake Placid. I hope to see the many people that I've met during this adventure and wish everyone the best race possible. It's been a great journey. 

Less than Two Months to go!

May continued to be a busy training month for me. I increased my training volume in all three sports. I was able to get five open water swims in before the Black Bear triathlon and three of them were longer than the full Ironman distance. I also did my first century ride and a few long bike-run brick workouts. Here are my monthly distance numbers for the current year compared to last year:

January February March April May Running (Miles) 2013        115.25        103.89        100.01        99.41        89.81 2014        112.52        117.22        138.07        102.58        135.44 Biking (Miles) 2013        201.40        190.26        104.19        217.89        216.29 2014        309.80        281.37        355.29        410.49        524.37 Swimming (Km) 2013          13.20          14.20          10.00          14.90          16.10 2014          22.20          19.70          25.30          27.00          30.40 Million Dollar Bike ride I signed up for the Million Dollar ride as a supported training ride and to take a different route than I have been used to riding with some elevation (3,700 ft gain). I felt they did a good job with directions marking the course and the rest stops were located at great places along the course. We had some elevation to tackle to get out of Philadelphia. The ride headed up to the Plymouth Meeting area and around Evanburg State Park in Montgomery County. I was able to complete the 76.4 mile course in 4:49:34. The ride had some great swag as I got a new bike jersey, t-shirt and the post-ride refreshments included pizza, hoagies, noodles and free Dock Street beer. I stuck with carbs since I was doing Broad Street the following morning but had a couple of beers to get me nice and sleepy for an early bed time that night.  Broad Street Run A lot of people told me that I was crazy to run Broad Street after doing the Million Dollar bike ride the day before. I tend to agree with the sentiment, but my rational was treat Broad Street as a hard training run and if I PR'ed fine, but I wasn't going to worry about it if I didn't because I was sure that I would still run a solid race. Plus it seemed to relax me more not having to worry too much about actually racing. I got up to the Start very early this year, maybe a little too early. With the crowds and everything, I felt it was better to be able to get into my corral this year than to be stuck in the track like I had been the year before. The race was cool and cloudy with a cross-wind from the west, which would have been ideal without the wind. I got off to a good start, sub 6:30 for the first two miles. I knew that if I wanted to break 70 minutes that I would need to bank as much time in the first five miles with the biggest elevation loss. Mile three I started to feel like I had ridden a 75 mile bike ride the day before and my legs were getting heavy. I worked through it and kept my form up to get a second wind about a mile later when I took my gel. That lasted until Mile 8 when I felt really rough again. The race had been going so fast for me that I knew I just had to gut it out. I was tempted a couple times to walk through the aid stations but decided against it as I found those precious seconds had always worked against me in other races. Luckily, I did skip walking because as I crossed the Finish line, I looked at my watch and it was 1:08:02 but the official time was exactly 1:08:00. My original goal was to break 70 and I thought that I might have 68 in me on a good day so it was great to set a new PR and beat my goal time. Afterwards, I met up with some of the other West Philly Runners to share stories of our Broad Street successes and the West Philly Runners Broad Street after-party was at my house.  Black Bear Half Ironman The triathlon gods smiled upon us as we were blessed with perfect weather for the Black Bear Half Ironman. I got up to Jim Thorpe on Friday night and we stayed in the cabins where the Philly Triathlon Club had the training weekend in April. Saturday afternoon, Chris and I went over to the Beltzville State Park to get our stuff and do some pre-race workouts. Chris did 20 minutes each of a swim, bike and run. I took advantage of having open water to practice and swam for just under an hour. The lake was very choppy from the wind and boats. Going in the one direction, it felt like an ocean swim as it was rough but going the other direction was really fast. The water temperature was absolutely perfect for open water swimming in my wetsuit and was quite refreshing. The weather held up for race day and at the Start the lake was calm, there was no noticeable wind, and it was sunny. I was put into the first of two swim waves for the half iron distance which went off after the Sprint and Olympic distances. I just wanted to have a smooth swim with no issues or cramps. I positioned myself on the far side of the buoys and in the back of the pack. That really enabled me to get up to speed quickly with little bumping and splashing. My heart raced a little at the beginning but I quickly settled down and got into a nice groove. The swim was pretty much uneventful outside of some guy drafting me and hitting my foot every 3-4 strokes. I completed the swim in 35:48 which was solid, but I thought I could have done it a little quicker based on my previous half swim when I did 37:30. Overall, the goal was to make the swim irrelevant and conserve energy for biking and running which was accomplished. I had a slow T1 which I need to work on a little bit. Granted the timing mats were pretty far apart and I basically ran through the whole bike area with my bike because our bikes were close to the swim exit. The bike course is a two-loop course with quite a few of hills, some are pretty steep. The elevation gain on the Black Bear is almost the same as the total elevation gain on the full Lake Placid course so it's a great workout for the full Ironman. I also used the bike course to work on my nutrition plan which consisted on a bologna sandwich on white bread, Gatorade and two Clif bars. I was able to take in about 250+ calories per hour and I ate every half hour on the bike course. I felt fine without being hungry or feeling bloated during the ride. I completed the bike course in 3:16:32 (17.1 mph) but again had a slow T2. The run course was more of a trail run as we ran on trails in the woods and rock filled roads in the park. It was definitely challenging to find flat spots to run on. My legs basically felt numb for the entire run but I was never in any trouble and I only walked on two of the hills and through some of the water stations. I just took it one mile at a time. The course goes through some woods and behind the Beltsville Dam into a steep decent and then an equally steep incline to get back out and it felt like we were climbing through a lava field. We got to run on top of the dam and then back through the trails to the turnaround point and Finish. This was probably the point were some clouds and a breeze would have been nice as it was getting pretty warm and when we weren't in the woods, we had the sun beating on us. The only issue that I slacked on was not taking any calories in during the run. I had two Gu's with me but just didn't feel like eating them. Luckily, I had eaten enough on the bike that I didn't bonk during the run, but I do need to be aware of this as my volume continues to increase. My final run time was 1:51:44. That was also an improvement over my previous half but I had hoped to be under 1:50.  My final time was 5:55:31 which was under my goal time of 6 hours. It was slightly slower than the previous Pocono Half-Ironman which was expected because this was a tougher course. I placed 40th overall out of 194 finishers and 7th in my Age group. I consider this race to be a good gauge of my Lake Placid Ironman training and I accomplished everything that I wanted to during this race.  June Goals The next five weeks will be the biggest volume of training for me. My goals are to continue increasing my long runs and bike rides while continue to progress with my bike-run brick workouts. I think my swimming is where it needs to be and I'm just in maintenance mode at this point. I don't want to chance cramping during a swim by trying to push my pace faster since it won't lower my time much. My training program calls for me to cycle down the strength training over the next few weeks to completely stopping all together for the final three taper weeks. All things said, I'm right where I want to be and am getting excited as my training program winds down and the actual race takes place soon.  Race schedule Phillies 5K - 3/22 Finished 24th place out of over 4,700 runners. Time 19:32, Pace 6:18 min/mile Bucks County Half-Marathon - 4/12 Finished 21st Overall, 2nd Age Group, Time: 1:36:34, Pace 7:24 The Fleche Buffoon 75 Miles Bike Ride - 4/19 Completed in 5:10:37 Million Dollar 73 Miles Bike Ride - 5/3 Finished in 4:49:34 Broad Street Run - 5/4 Finished in 1:08:00, Pace 6:47 min/mile WPR 26x1 Relay - 5/17 Black Bear Half-Ironman - 6/1 Finished 40th  Overall, 7th Age Group, Time: 5:55:31 ODDyssey Half-Marathon - 6/8 Lake Placid Training Camp - 6/19 - 6/22 Lake Placid Ironman - 7/27

3 Months to go...

As I sit here on the third anniversary of my knee cap breaking, I've been reflecting on how far I've come since the injury.

April was a very productive month for me. My goal was to continue to build my bases and since the weather has started to clear up and get warmer, I wanted to start getting some work outdoors in, especially on my bike. I signed up for three events over the month that provided a lot of hill work on my legs in a half-marathon race and bike ride. Lastly, I joined the Philadelphia Triathlon club's weekend trip to Jim Thorpe, PA to preview the Black Bear Triathlon course.

Bucks County Half-Marathon
The Bucks County half-marathon was held on Sunday, April 13th in Tyler State Park. The course consisted of a figure 8 pattern for the first eight miles and then there was a second loop on the bottom loop of the figure 8. The first five miles were pretty much downhill and fast (good Broad St prep) and I know I was doing a sub 7:00 minute pace. Then the hills started, they seemed long with a few plateaus but I got through them fairly well between miles 6 - 8. There was a nice downhill towards the Finish line which also was the start of the second loop so the downhill started again from miles 8 through 10. Then it was back up the hills again. The hills definitely slowed me up the second time around and I walked through two of the aid stations on the plateaus. Since I know what they looked like, they seemed shorter the second time around even though I ran them much slower. I cruised the final downhill to Finish and completed the half-marathon in 1:36:34 which was about a minute under my goal. The bigger surprise hit me later when I checked my result and found that I was 21st Overall and 2nd in my Age Group. I got to stick around for the awards ceremony to get a small plaque.

Fleche Buffoon Bike Ride
The Fleche Buffoon was another ride that I had targeted because of the elevation climbs during the ride. It had like 14 steep climbs in the 73+ mile route. Here's the course elevation profile:

Luckily the weather was great and I met a couple of guys that I rode with from the Philadelphia Triathlon Club. I think my first hill workout went really well as I tackled most of them fairly well on my tri-bike and there were two climbs (Miles 30 & 42) that I felt were much steeper than the rest, but I was able to make it up both of them on my bike. The second steep hill, I couldn't figure out which way to go at a small plateau and I ended up tipping over on my bike and spraining my wrist. That was the only downside to the ride so I had it iced and wrapped for a few days. We completed the 75 mile route in just over 5 hours and then headed over to the Triumph Brewery in New Hope for some good food, conversation and beers.

Jim Thorpe Weekend
Lastly, I signed up for the Philadelphia Triathlon Club's Jim Thorpe weekend to get a preview of the Black Bear triathlon course for the Half-Ironman that I am doing on June 1st. We camped out in cabins in a state park along a lake. They scheduled two rides for us while we were there. The first ride started on Saturday morning and was a 28 mile out and back near the park and people could do as many laps as they felt like. The course included a large hill which was fun going down but brutal going back up. I rode the first 28 mile lap with Chris and Michelle. It took us about 1:44 to complete the lap. Chris and Michelle weren't doing a second lap so I went back out on my own. I got a little lost at one point but ended up doing the second lap in 1:50 so I was happy with the ride. Upon getting back to the campground, I laced up and went for a six mile run on a trail in the park that ran along a stream. It was a nice gradual downhill on the way out which helped get my legs underneath and the uphill return wasn't too bad either. I felt like I got my first solid brick workout in.

Sunday morning we headed over to Beltzville State Park to ride the Black Bear course. I have to admit that I really didn't have my legs under me on Sunday after the brick workout on Saturday. Since Black Bear is also a two-loop course, I planned to do a single loop and try to do a longer run. The bike course is much hillier than I expected and the 28 mile route took us 1:55 that morning. It was much cooler and windier than the previous day and I think that contributed to our slower pace. I dropped my stuff off at my car and suited up to go for a run. I was hoping for an eight mile run but ended up only doing 4.5 miles. My legs were drained and part of the run course was closed so I packed it in. Two brick workout in one weekend was certainly a lot. My understanding from both bike routes that weekend was the total elevation gain is about what I should expect when I get to Lake Placid, just over a longer distance.

Here's a summary of my training mileage to this point:

	January	February	March	April
Running (Miles)
2013	115.25	103.89	100.01	99.41
2014	112.52	117.22	138.07	102.58
Biking (Miles)
2013	201.4	190.26	104.19	217.89
2014	309.8	281.37	355.29	410.49
Swimming (Km)
2013	13.2	14.2	10.0	14.9
2014	22.2	19.7	25.3	27.0

May Training Goals
Now that the weather is warming up, my goals for this month are to ramp up my training volume, mostly on the bike and some running. I plan to be doing one solid brick workout per week that includes my long ride followed by a 6-10 mile run. In addition, I plan to start open water swimming at Camp Ockanickon again which is timed nicely with the Penn pool closed for a few weeks. Lastly, I'm also starting to practice my nutrition plan while on long rides. I'm told that I should be taking in 300-400 calories and hour during the Ironman so that's going to take some practice to see what I like and how easy things are to carry while I'm riding.

Upcoming race schedule

Phillies 5K - 3/22 Finished 24^th place out of over 4,700 runners. Time 19:32, Pace 6:18 min/mile
Bucks County Half-Marathon - 4/12 Finished 21st Overall, 2nd Age Group, Time: 1:36:34, Pace 7:24
The Fleche Buffoon 75 Miles Bike Ride - 4/19 Completed in 5:10:37
Million Dollar 73 Miles Bike Ride - 5/3
Broad Street Run - 5/4
WPR 26x1 Relay - 5/17
Black Bear Half-Ironman - 6/1
ODDyssey Half-Marathon - 6/8
Lake Placid Training Camp - 6/19 - 6/22
Lake Placid Ironman - 7/27

That's all for this month. Next monthly update in early June after the Black Bear. Happy training!

Four Months until the Lake Placid Ironman and two months until the Black Bear Half-Ironman! Holy crap it’s coming up quickly.

I know that I had started this blog to give monthly updates on my training and experiences but I had forgotten that work is usually pretty busy in the fall and winter months with teaching and writing grants.  If all of the grants come through, my employment will continue for at least two more years at the university. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to write updates as much as I would have liked. 

To start, I just finished the eighth week of a 24 week training program from a book that I purchased on Amazon.com:

Start to Finish: 24 Weeks to an Endurance Triathlon Paperback
by Paul Huddle, Roch Fey, T.J. Murphy

http://www.amazon.com/Start-Finish-Weeks-Endurance-Triathlon/dp/1782550232/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1395616937&sr=8-4&keywords=ironman+training

The program is divided into four phases that each takes six week: Adaptation phase, Aerobic Base, Ironman-Specific Base, and Race Phase. The first two phases are about building the endurance necessary to start handling the larger training volume later in the program.  I felt like I already had good endurance bases when I started so the first two phases have been pretty easy for me. I’ve worked my swimming up to easily swimming two miles in one hour’s time. I use an indoor trainer to work on cycling at home until the weather warms up and I can start riding outside. I generally do long rides of 2-3 hours on the trainer and some shorter tempo rides following a video that came with the trainer. I’ve been trying to get about a one-hour run outdoors after my long training rides. My weekly long runs are generally from 10-15 miles. I include speedwork and six mile tempo runs weekly as well. The main other thing that I’ve gotten consistent with is doing strength training twice a week using exercises in the book.

I've compared my training mileage at this point in time last year and I'm currently way ahead of where I was at this time last year which gives me confidence that my training bases are developing nicely. 

	January	February	March
Running (Miles)
2013	115.25	103.89	100.01
2014	112.52	117.22	138.07
Biking (Miles)
2013	201.40	190.26	104.19
2014	309.80	281.37	355.29
Swimming (Km)
2013	13.20	14.20	10.00
2014	22.20	19.70	25.30

New Tri Bike - http://www.quintanarootri.com/_bike.asp?content=CD0.1-i2-2013

I knew that I would need to upgrade my road bike to a true tri bike to help with the bike portion of the Ironman. After a lot of research, I concluded that I should purchase a Quintana Roo CD0.1 tri bike because I felt it gave the best value for the money and has a lot of features that will help with the Ironman. I found a bike shop in Bryn Mawr, Cycles ByKyle, which sells Quintana Roos and has a good reputation for working with cyclists and triathletes. I made an appointment in November and was measured to get the bike fit to my body specifications and discussed what I was looking to do with Kyle. We both agreed that the QR model that I wanted should work and the bike was adjusted to my body measurements and off I went with my new tri bike.I’ve only been able to ride it a few times so far and it seems like each time I ride it has either rained, very wet paths, or cool and windy. I had to get some mileage on the bike and then brought it back to the bike shop to tweak it based on my riding tendencies I’m still waiting for that perfect ride and will hold off riding it again until the warmer weather sets in and the trails dry out from all of the snow that we received. 

Lake Placid Training Camp - http://www.etacoach.com/lakeplacidcamp.php
Another thing that I had heard about was an Ironman Lake Placid training camp that the ETA Coach, Jason Kilderry, organizes in June. I signed up for the camp which takes me to Lake Placid for four days in June to check out the lake, bike and run courses. The cost of the camps was $550 which includes all lodging and meals, along with instruction from Jason and his staff on the courses at Lake Placid. I’m excited to get up there and preview everything and see what I got myself into. ETA Coach also rents a lake at a YMCA camp in Medford Lakes, NJ where triathletes can practice their open-water swimming prior to their events and I’m looking forward to getting back out the lake this spring. 

Philadelphia Triathlon Club - https://www.facebook.com/groups/PhillyTriClub/
Another group that I signed up for is the Philadelphia Triathlon Club. The club organizes social and educational sessions for triathletes. They have a tent (with their own porta potties) for their club members at most of the major races and triathlons in the Philly area. I’m going to join the club for a course preview of the Black Bear triathlon at the end of April since I will be doing the Half-Ironman distance at that triathlon. The club has a house for Lake Placid, which I could have joined in on and saved a lot on lodging fees, but I’ve already got a hotel room. They also have their own Lake Placid training weekend which is not as informative as the ETA and more of a do-it-yourself training weekend. I recently attended a club social at the Bryn Mawr running club and the speaker was from Mid-Atlantic sports. I got a lot of good tips, especially about a nutrition plan, to help with my training preparation and strategy for the Ironman.

Fall Race Recap
My Fall races went really well, although I was mostly focused on running and did very limited swimming and biking. I was trying to run a Boston marathon qualifying time which I did at the Steamtown Marathon in October. I ran the Steamtown marathon in 3:23:49 so I just got under the 3:25 that I needed and was a marathon PR. I was cruising along and on pace for 3:15 until I started experiencing hamstring and calf cramps that forced me to stop. I ran two half-marathon in Philly, the Philly Rock 'n Roll and the Philly Half Marathon. I crushed the Rock 'n Roll to a new PR of 1:33:05 for new half-marathon PR. The Philly half-marathon went well too and I finished in 1:35:37 which was my third fastest half-marathon. I did a couple of 5K on back to back days an placed 3rd overall in the Chicken Run 5K with a time of 20:03 (very hilly) and then ran the next day and completed the Parkway 5K in 19:34. Lastly, I was talked into running the Rocky Run 50K and ran the entire route (and a little extra when we missed a turn) in under 5 hours.

Upcoming race schedule

Phillies5K - 3/22 Finished 24^th place out of over 4,700 runners. Time 19:32, Pace 6:18 min/mile
Bucks County Half-Marathon - 4/13
The Fleche Buffoon 75 Miles Bike Ride - 4/19
Million Dollar 73 Miles Bike Ride - 5/3
Broad Street Run - 5/4
WPR 26x1 Relay - 5/17
Black Bear Half-Ironman - 6/1
ODDyssey Half-Marathon - 6/8
Lake Placid Training Camp - 6/19 - 6/22
Lake Placid Ironman - 7/27

Inspiration Triathlon story of the month:
Near-blind triathlete's new outlook.

That's all for this month. Hopefully I can get back to monthly updates  at the end of April. Happy training!

11 Months to go!

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged (http://paulamosracing.blogspot.com) about my training. It got a little hectic last Fall when I ran three half marathons, a full marathon, the 206 mile Ragnar Relay race and the Pocono Half-Ironman -- all within a two-month period. I set distance PR’s in the Philadelphia Marathon and the Myrtle Beach Mini-Marathon. As the winter months began, I focused my efforts again on preparing for the Tri-Rock Philadelphia Olympic Distance Triathlon in June, 2013. I had recorded all of my swim, bike and runs in 2012 which gave me a good idea on the mileage that I would need to be doing in order to prepare for the Tri. As the winter months dragged on, I was in the gym mostly using the exercise bike, treadmill and swimming in the pool. I did start a Monday night speedwork program which has helped tremendously. 

As the Spring months began, I ran a 5K PR but just missed running a sub-20 in the Phillies 5K in March (20:01) and followed that up a week later with a 20:35 in the Wharton 5K on a hillier course. I ran the April Fools Half-Marathon in Atlantic City a day after the Wharton 5K and finished in a faster than expected time of 1:36:11, probably because the course was flat and there wasn’t any wind off the ocean that morning. I followed that up with another PR in the Broad Street Run distance at 1:10:18, another solid Half Marathon time of 1:38:30 at the ODDyssey half-marathon (it was Hot that day!), and then blew away my 5K PR at the Esri 5K in San Diego with a time of 19:03.
 

The Tri-Rock Philadelphia Olympic Distance Triathlon went as I expected and I posted a 10 minute improvement over my previous years’ time coming in at 2:36:17. I made the most improvement in the swim portion while my bike, run and transition times improved slightly as well. I did cramp up a little in my hamstrings on the run which caused me to walk a little and lose some precious time. All in all, I was very pleased with my time and effort in the Tri.
 
I never really thought much about trying to do a full Ironman, even after completing the Pocono Ironman 70.3 last Fall. The defining moment came for me when I started my open water swim training at the lake in late April. I went out to the lake, which was in the high 60’s, and proceeded to swim a mile in 25 minutes with my wetsuit on. Since that went so quickly and I had paid to swim that morning, I figured I would do a few more laps for some extra practice. Four laps and another mile later, I still felt great. As I ran the calculation in my head, I would only need to swim another .4 miles to be at the full Ironman open-water swim distance, which seemed very doable at that moment. I called it a day at that point because I wanted to do some biking, but the seed had been planted. 

I began researching what I would need to do to sign up for an Ironman. My mind kept going towards the Lake Placid Ironman since it’s relatively close and is scheduled in late-July in the Adirondacks. The Lake Placid Ironman is the longest-running American event aside from the Ironman World Championship Hawaii. It’s also considered one of the top venues for a full Ironman, similar to the Boston Marathon is for running.  The registration opens up the day after each Lake Placid Ironman takes place. The registration is like a rock concert and sells out pretty quickly after it opens. I planned to register when it opened at noon on July 27^th. I wasn’t sure if I would get in so I wouldn’t have been disappointed if it sold out before I tried to register, but I wanted to make a serious attempt at it. As luck would have it, I registered without any problems, paid the $700 fee and am now an official entrant into the 2014 Lake Placid Ironman. The registration sold out within three hours and there are only charity spots available now.

Now the process of developing a training plan has started for me. I’m still focusing on my fall race schedule which includes three half-marathons and a full marathon in Scranton, where I am trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon.  I’m also doing a century bike ride in October to get myself familiar with the Ironman biking distance. I’ve been bumping up my running and bike mileage which should help me gain confidence with the distances that I’ll need to complete in the Ironman. My goals are to have a solid Fall season before I am forced into indoor training at the gym during the dark winter months. I’m also researching Tri bikes as I will need to get a better bike to tackle the elevation on the bike course in Lake Placid. Some other things that I plan to do with my training are to sign up for the Black Bear Half-Ironman on June 1, 2014 and a Lake Placid four day training camp sponsored by ETA Coach a few weeks before the full Ironman takes place.

I plan to update my blog once a month regarding my training progress. Currently, I have been doing two long runs per week to prepare for the Steamtown Marathon, a 13-14 miler during the week and 16-20 miles on weekends. These runs are in addition to my Monday night speed workout (5 X 1000’s) and my Wednesday night WPR 6 mile runs. I’m swimming just once a week, added a Plyometrics workout, and doing a long bike ride once a week. I recently rode 75 miles on the Schuylkill River trail and Valley Forge Park and plan to continue to increase the mileage in preparation for a century ride in the Camp Hill Challenge  in October.

In the meantime, here is a link to a YouTube video of the 2013 Lake Placid Ironman which has really inspired and motivated me for this event.