You won’t be able to open any of your favorite blogs without seeing something about this weekend’s triathlon happenings. From death and jellyfish at the NYC Tri to the torrential downpours at IMLP, this was definitely a tri-weekend to remember in all of it’s glory, regret, elation and challenges. Here are a few things that I’ll throw up there that I thought about on my drive back to Westchester today, in no particular order:

• There really are tri-stalkers out there; keep this in mind before dating another triathlete that you may not spend the rest of your life with.
• You can drive from Albany all the way into Lake Placid with only 2nd and 4th gears.
• On race morning, I will wake up at 3:30am without an alarm.
• Quinoa porridge is best made in the dark while wearing headlamps.
• While wearing headlamps, etiquette suggests not looking directly at the person to whom you are talking, unless you want to blind them.
• Farrah or any of Farrah’s friends are not to be messed with unless you want to be publicly embarrassed in front of a national audience.
• It’s Bill, it’s wrapped in plastic; I’m not doing it.
• I’m not drunk, I used to be.
• Desiree Ficker got kicked out of a restaurant while Moonpie, CindyJo, Strouter, Rambonie and Guru were offered a round of drinks on the house.
• If you are going to flat with tubulars, do it in Jay in front of a house rented by eight triathlon coaches.
• Fix-a-flat for bike tires will get you about 4 more miles.
• Sherpas need sherpa stylists, given that while the athletes had two transitions and two special needs, the sherpas came back to the love shack four to five separate times.
• Laptops do not like to drink white wine.
• Mile 40 is a great place to begin puking on the bike.
• Jenwilltri must have been going crazy not being up in LP this weekend.
• Texting in the rain is a recipe for electronic failure.
• Apparently a floor in the men’s changing tent would have not been realistic enough, so mud wrestling was introduced as the fourth discipline in the sport.
• Rambo took over North America Sports and fired people during his volunteer post.
• You really can feel pouring rain while you are swimming, but only until you are kicked in the face.
• By the time you reach Ironman, you need to be able to a) swim in a straight line, and b) not have to breast stroke and c) not have to stand vertical to sight causing the swimmer behind your to swim up into your now raising heels.
• Phil never made it to the love shack, but we did leave the light on for him.
• Wearing a USC Trojan rain slicker attracts HACs.
• Many elite athletes leave their bikes in the transition area until the following morning.
• The Ironman cutoffs assume that you can swim the loop in two hours and do both loops of the bike in less than four hours each. Therefore, if you suck on the bike, you’d better get out of the water in under an hour.
• Bring two pairs of boxer shorts to an Ironman weekend.
• If there are tri-panties in the sleeves of my clean shirts, they are not mine.
• Javier, Rambonie, TriBoomer, Nathan, Kristine and the Goose all have vouchers for IM2009.
• Strouter, Jenwilltri, Michelle, ???, ???, ??? will all be looking at 2010 to make their Ironman debut.
• and lastly, peelers is just a glorified term for strippers and North America Sports could reduce the athlete fee by simply auctioning off the right to do this job. Why? Because Ironman weekend is like summer camp for adults. Maybe Race with Purpose should put together the first ever wetsuit peeler training class.

Well that’s about it for now. I’ll come back with more fun stuff. In the meanwhile check out the blogs from other members of our party in the right-hand navigator, except for Strouter’s because she’s still waiting for her laptop to dry out.

So the 2008 Escape from NYC is completed and in the books. Congratulations to Eugene Koenig who is this year’s successful Escapee. For his efforts he received a one of a kind winners certificate that Christine painstakingly created and since we couldn’t afford to give him a car, we got him a card, a $10 Starbucks card to be exact, along with a bottle of Ethos water because we couldn’t resist promoting their brand slogan of “Helping children get clean.” Okay, so it’s actually “Helping children get clean water” but given how nasty and ripe we all were after this run, we liked our version better.

With 66% of the participants not completing the event, this may go down as the toughest marathon ever. Our percent of finishers was lower than Chicago’s in 2007 and they had 90 degree weather and 90% humidity. Okay, so there were only three people that ran our race and two of us came down with injuries that precluded us from finishing but even Eugene, the ultimate champion and Sole Surviving Escapee, arrived in Scarsdale beat up and heavily fatigued from the ordeal. He especially liked the four rolling climbs and valleys that concluded the race over the final five miles. When Michelle and I rode this off a few weeks ago, her quote was, “the runners are going to hate you for the finish to this race”.

The one thing that we all agreed was that you don’t need to spend $70- $130 for a great marathon experience. This marathon is the only race that includes Grand Central Terminal, Times Square, the Westside Greenway, the Little Red Lighthouse, the George Washington Bridge, instances of domestic violence, bathrooms, police support, crack dealers slinging on corners, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, a cab driver named Jim, snowmen spectators, views of the Palisades, cheering spectators and aid stations set up by community churches and it all cost nada, nothing, bupkus except a few hours of time. No matter where you live, if you are a runner, you probably already know the best places to run, so map it out, invite some friends and have at it. Sites like 140dot6.com are great resources for creating your own self supported races.

We’ll post an entire report complete with pictures and audio on this event later but the reason why I bring it up here is because it represents a validation that there is no way that I am ready to compete in the Los Angeles Marathon next weekend. This flu beat me up in so many ways and today was validation that my muscles and my supportive structures are in full on melt down leaving me entirely exposed. Specifically, I ran fairly easily for fourteen miles and then my left knee tightened up and the left ITB fired and that was all she wrote. I ran/walked/skipped/stretched/limped for another three miles trying to work it out and then I simply called it a day. I walked with Christine who as having back issues of her own until the 23-mile mark just to put time in and then we hopped into a cab to take us to the finish area at the Starbucks in Scarsdale. Over the past four weeks, I have run three times and cycled five times. To those who think, what an idiot, how would he think he could just show up and throw up a marathon with such little training, please understand that up until I got sick, I had one heck of a base going with multi-hour rides and 18 to 30 mile runs as the norm. And these runs weren’t survival runs but, hey let’s pop off a 23-miler and the go teach a Spinning class afterwards, runs. Additionally, I wasn’t looking to compete in this Escape, simply to complete it and let’s be honest, if I can’t complete 26 miles in some combination of running, walking or crawling, I’ve got a long way to go to get back.

So Los Angeles is officially off the list and in the crapper and more importantly, I lost probably two months of training, a month of being sick and a month to make up for all of the gains made in January that I no longer have. With 146 days until IMLP, I now am faced with returning to base when I really should be starting to build. What’s worse is that as crappy as I have been in getting in runs and rides, I’ve been even worse with my weakest link, the swim. Because I had that lovely upper respiratory thing going on, I have been really gun shy about heading back into the pool, which I desperately need to do.

Getting back on track isn’t rocket science, just revising the plan and expectations a bit, getting back to frequency and consistency over performance. Hopefully next week will be my first full week of training where I am “healthy” and it would certainly be great to do something as simple as get in three rides, three runs and three swims without winding up back in bed with a thermometer in my mouth.

As Erin says, here’s to Better Days Ahead.

Coach Adam accelerates to finish the 2008 Boston build-up 10K

Reversing the trend of recent years, I finished my first diagnostic race of the year, the Boston Build-up 10K in 42:32, a 6:51 min/mile pace. While I’m still almost a full minute off of my targeted running pace, I’m pretty encouraged given two factors. The first is that the prior two years I’ve run this hilly 10K course in times of 43:23 and 45:08 in 2006 and 2007 respectively, and the second is that I ran this race at 196 lbs, so using the pace to weight indicator, It’s not a horrible result.

The other thing I’m pleased with this morning is that I did not consume any refined sugar last night before going to sleep. To provide a little bit of context, I’m a total sugar addict, and specifically chocolate makes me absolutely crazy. I’ve had periods where I have not eaten chocolate for years because of how it affects me both physically and mentally. With all of the stuff I went through with Wally, I’ve been completely binging from Halloween through the new year, so going to sleep with the shakes, while not fun, was a pretty positive activity for me. Of course it doesn’t make me a very fun person to be around right now but that’s temporary and it’ll be well worth it. I have 20 pounds to drop to effectively compete in July and September and changing my nutritional habits and behaviors is critical.

Back to the Build-up, I was extremely pleased to see that our Race with Purpose athletes were close to the top of their games following the holiday break finishing in a fairly tight little group near the front of the field. As usual, Josh was the first to finish and got a little bit of a wake-up call that he needs to increase his volume and consistency to start preparing for Boston in April. That is going to be one heck of a race and I’m looking forward helping those folks succeed there as they have everywhere else.

Tom Storey resisted every terrific reason not to show up and race, including having raced a 50K the day before and put in a terrific performance of his own, finishing closely behind me. Way to go, Tom!

Lastly, I was so excited to meet Cara from In Transit Duo, a terrific podcast and website hosted by two triathletes from Arkansas and Connecticut. In Transit Duo provides a look at the triathlete lifestyle from the women’s point of view. It also focuses on the travel aspects of multi-sport racing and provides really valuable take-a-ways for the listener. Cara came up to me after the race and introduced herself. She also took a picture of a bunch of RwPers which was really sweet because we didn’t have a camera of our own. Cara and I have met virtually through TriScoop and given that we live about 90 minutes from each other, I’m hopeful we’ll find times to connect and train or race together this season.

I think that’s it for now; the next Build-up will be in two weeks in Ridgefield, CT. It’s my favorite race of the series and includes an out and back course with a steep climb going into the turn around that really will give me a sense as to how strong my legs are and if all of the cycling I’ve been doing has helped my leg strength and power. My plan is to actually ride my trainer for 60-90 minutes prior to the start of the race which means I’ll be racing pre-fatigued but isn’t that what Ironman is all about?

Cheers