5 days left...

In 'regular' life, when you are participating in a special event, you buy new clothes, new shoes, get a new hairstyle, and so on.  In triathlon, it's the opposite.  You should not do anything in the race that you haven't done before, many times before.  You definitely can't wear anything new, nor eat anything differently, no new sneakers, no new socks.  Sometimes it can be easy to forget and fall back into

6 days left

Today was a good low key swim; faster than the previous two days, and I think I will be able to make the cutoff time if I keep this pace up.  I communed with the fishes today - saw a lot of them as I was swimming - various shapes, mostly around the size of my hand.  As I went stroke by stroke I saw that

7 days left

Went to swim again this morning at Promised Land beach. It was overcast today, but there were still a lot of families on the beach, people watching us curiously as we headed towards the water all decked out. . Today it was 4 of us swimming, two of us in wetsuits, practicing for next week's triathlon. The

8 days left

Feeling doubly sorry for myself today. First of all, I swam at Promised Land today and it did not go well. Second of all, I wrote a blog entry about it that I really liked a lot, but upon posting it, it got lost in cyberspace.

9 days left

Right now, I have a few fears. The foremost fear is panicking in the swim; right behind this fear is not completing the swim in the allotted 1 hour. I know I am going to finish no matter what, so I' m not really afraid of that. I had some anxiety the last time I swam in the pool the other day. I wanted to

review / stressing

This is what I've done so far:

11/25/10    PPTC Turkey Trot 5M            TIME:  :50:35   PACE:  10:07
12/19/10   Ted Corbitt 15k:                       TIME: 1:43:02  PACE:  11:04mm

The Dark Waters of Looking Within

I have been very anxious about going back into the water.  Into the darkness.  Although I felt some redemption after going into the lake the next day after the race; I've been tangled up in knots and anxious thinking about what to do next: should I do the Nav-E Sink or Swim 1.2 mile race on

Swim addendum

After my dismal failure at the swim event, I became a criminal. That Sunday, I went to a lake in the Poconos and swam in it despite knowing that it was closed until Memorial Day. My friend Jennifer and I stealthily drove up with our accomplices , Libby and Theresa.

DNF Swim

The first thing I learned about this DNF swim is that there is nothing funny to write in the race report.  It is really, not a race report when you Did Not Finish.  There is nothing funny to write about because after whatever struggle I went through, I ended by wimping out, giving up, throwing in the towel.  There's nothing funny in that, unless of course you're a mean person and laugh at my expense...

Being cold

No one ever told me that doing triathlons meant being cold so much of the time. Yes, I have trained through the winter, running the Manhattan Half marathon in January in 15 degree weather; yes I biked to that same race; along wih other races - a 15k in December; where my toes felt they would fall off; and yes; I drank the Gatorade slushies that had frozen on the tables. And yes; I took that Computrainer

You are who you practice to be

The only way to get faster is to go faster
The only way to lose weight is to eat less

Cat 3 Ride

I found a Category 3 hill just outside my home in Canadensis, PA. I remember years ago trying to go out for a bike ride and of the 2 routes that I tried, I couldn't go beyond 1/2 mile due to the steepness of the hills. Since that time I had never ventured back out on my bike in the Pocono roadways.

4 weeks left

This weekend, I rode up a Category 3 hill in the Poconos. I had to walk up the last segment, I just couldn't muster up the power in my legs to keep on pushing. The total distance was 25 miles. Although I have gone a little longer distances, this was by far the hilliest that I've done. I was pretty wiped out by the end of it. Maybe I'll elaborate on that ride in a later post.