On that same morning in 2007, sitting in my office in Midtown Manhattan, I was one of the very few who were able to register without the assistance of a golden ticket, helped by an online Active.com registration system that was plagued with glitches, just enough to delay the opening of online registration and making the exact start time somewhat suspect and elusive. During the confusion, I found a more direct hyperlink to the registration site, had all of my data ready to go, and sat at my desk on conference calls while consistently clicking refresh, refresh, refresh on my keyboard. I speculated correctly that the registration would open up a few minutes before the revised stated time, which it did by about seven minutes. And so I was in, a registered and committed member of a selective group of those who began their experience by sticking an entry into their Outlook calendar like a commitment signed in electronic blood from our pricked and still twitching fingers. I was registered for Ironman USA in Lake Placid on July 20th, 2008.

At the time, I was feeling pretty darn good about myself. I had just run a sub 1:25 half marathon, My Half Ironman bike time on a hilly course was under 3 hours, my weight was slightly under 180lbs and I had successfully trained for and did quite well at the Tupper Lake Tinman Half Ironman just a few weeks before.

What happened between then and now can be clearly seen via the race actuals on the right hand sidebar of my blog, but suffice it to say that things went awry. For those who aren’t regular readers of my blog, the short recap is as follows:

• August - November 2007: Training on track, cautiously optimistic
• November-December 2007: Loss of family member
• February 2008 - April 2008: Viral illness
• April 2008: Training resumes
• May 2008: Illness returns
• June 1st 2008: Black Bear Triathlon - Could not generate enough power to get around the bike course without getting off and walking and DNF’d before the run.

Which brings us to late June 2008 and what for many is the beginning of Ironman Lake Placid month. It begins with the Tupper Lake Tinman Half Ironman distance race. In short, after crashing heavily at Black Bear four weeks earlier, I didn’t know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised that at Tupper Lake I accomplished all of my goals. I completed the swim, completed the bike and completed the run. I finished the race, not in style and not in any great time, but given where I was, I felt very pleased and encouraged by this result. That said, the lingering illness was still apparently wreaking havoc on my physiological systems as evidenced by the fact that I found myself during the run shuffling along at a 12:00 min/mile pace with a heart rate at 172 beats per minute. To put this into perspective, 170 beats per minute is reflective of my lactate threshold effort and the same heart rate at which one year earlier I was running 7 min/miles in the NYC Half Marathon. At Tupper, my primary goals was to finish the race and I knew that there was no way that I was going to do that by running at effort levels exceeding my LT. Dutifully, I reduced my pace to about 12:30 min/mile to keep my effort level below that 170 marker and continued to shuffle along taking walk breaks whenever my heart rate exceeded that marker.

Now let’s be honest, it’s hard to shuffle along at that pace. People that regularly run at a twelve to fourteen minutes per mile pace have my utmost respect if only because they take so many extra steps and are out there on hot courses for so much longer. At Tupper Lake, I was one of them. Race with Purpose Wonder Twins, Joshquatch and Holistic Guru made my day and the day for others by coming back out after the Sprint triathlon to run with the rest of us that were still out there on the Half Ironman course. In the end, I finished with a bike split of 3:25 (16.3mph) keeping my average heart rate at 142 bpm, and a run time of 2:49 (12:54), with an average heart rate of 160 bpm. This was the data that I looked at as I considered revising my objectives for Ironman Lake Placid scheduled for just three weeks later.

For the best trained athletes, Ironman is not to be taken lightly. A 2.4-mile swim, a significantly more challenging 112-mile bike course and a marathon for the run make IMLP a race that is to be treated with serious respect. Given that I was still having trouble running 5 miles around my house without having to stop to catch my breath, I new I’d have to revise both my expectations and objectives for this event. The one thing I really wanted to do on Tupper Lake weekend was to ride at least one loop of the IMLP bike course the day after the race, but I was simply too beat up to do it. So at this point, I still didn’t know if I could push my carcass around the bike course on race day. All I had to go on was a 3:35 Half Iron bike time.

After some contemplation, I decided to participate in IMLP but to limit my participation to completing the 2.4-mile swim and one 56-mile loop of the bike course. My key goal was to complete both before the 1:30pm cutoff. I took my 3:25 bike split and the completion of the Tupper Lake Half along with the fact that my ‘91 Ford Explorer had made it to/from both Tupper Lake and Princeton, NJ as positive signs that my objectives for IMLP would be achievable.

To be continued…

From left to right are super triathletes and TriScoopers Moonpie (I’m ripped), HolisticGuru (Is there quinoa in this drink?), Strouter (I’m not drunk, I used to be), Rambonie (I’m finding about my nature) and CindyJo (Yes, I have multiples of this grateful dead t-shirt, so back off).

To begin this story, let’s work our way back to July 19th when Desiree herself posted this on her blog:

Good morning everyone! I have been a little tardy with my journaling and I still have all the nasty details in my head from Ironman CDA so I will have to come back to that one….

I am about to go jump in the lake out here in Lake Placid, NY. It is the day before the race and I am optimistic that I will come back from the mistakes I made a few weeks ago and have a solid race. There is some great competition up here this weekend and the hilly course is a feat to conquer in itself. We have thunderstorms for the last two days so hopefully those will hold off for us until the run portion. A rain shower on the run always feels nice.

At that point Desiree was looking like this:

At some point between lunch and dinner our mild mannered TriScoopers were innocently day drinking at Charlie’s, a popular hangout on Main Street in Lake Placid, when in walked Desiree Ficker. According to witnesses, Desiree walked up to the host and asked to obtain food, fuel, sustenance and necessary nutrition for her upcoming race. Before Moonpie could jump up to invite her over to the table, the host had apparently ignored this professional triathlete’s pleas for food (Think Oliver holding his bowl out) and sent her on her way. Where she went, no one seems to know but as you can read from her blog entry above, she was still in a very fragile state of mind and the denial of food only contributed to her performance on race day. How poor was her performance you ask? Here is a quote from Ironman Live:

Desiree Ficker gets across the line
“She hasn’t had much luck at this race, has she. Desiree Ficker isn’t one to quit, though — she walked her way across the line here today, as she did three years ago.

Our spotters just told me that when they saw her she was shaking and her lips were blue at the turnaround.

It obviously wasn’t her day, but she certainly toughed this one out!”

In my mind, this couldn’t be any simpler. Charlie’s is directly responsible for Desiree’s poor performance. At the same time, the host was summarily dismissing her, our TriScoopers were being offered another round of drinks ON THE HOUSE. Why, you ask? Obviously to distract them from helping out this poor athlete.

By favoring the intoxicated TriScoopers over this professional athlete, they virtually guaranteed that Desiree would bonk during the marathon the following day. Did Moonpie bonk? NO! Did CindyJo bonk? NO! In fact, Nathan Miller (not pictured here) beat Desiree by fifteen minutes on the run and he clearly has the means to compensate the owners of Charlie’s to act like they didn’t know who she was. Didn’t know who she was? RIGHT! Please take a look at the picture above and tell me that you wouldn’t remember her face. So the question remains, did Charlie’s act on their own, or was there an outside influence that contributed to this unconscionable act?

I’m not saying that there was a conspiracy here but I think that the truth needs to come out. Desiree needs to be vindicated and at the least Charlie’s owes Desiree a pitcher of margueritas on the house.

• 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.

Whoa. I certainly didn’t expect the responses I’ve received both here and at the various social boards where I am an active member. Thank you for the words of appreciation. They mean a lot but I neither expect them and certainly wouldn’t have asked for them. My blog entry wasn’t meant to create a “I need a group hug” response and quite frankly everyone has given me much more than I’ve provided in return, so there is no lack of mutual respect, admiration and friendship there. I have to humbly bow down to my very good friends at TriScoop who responded with great respect, kindness and support. Most importantly, by responding each in their own way, I continue to grow and develop my view of my surroundings and environment. I’ll try to touch on a few of them in this post. What’s most important at this point is to get specific and tactical about what happens now.

As for IMOO, I’ll say it right now. I plan on participating, but my current condition is beyond difficult. As I mentioned to Jetpack awhile back, I seem to have lost some of the control in my legs and even walking up a flight of stairs wears me out or makes me feel unstable. I’ve done all of the normal stuff I know how to but my physician has suggested that I need a few more tests and more than likely my immune system has simply been beat to hell and needs a good deal of time to recover. Unfortunately, completing an Ironman is not usually part of the prescription. This experience has opened up my eyes to a few prior discussions that I have had with athletes and friends over the years. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a neuromuscular condition for real and I’m hopeful that that is not what is happening here, but I know I’ve often been confused or short of patience when someone has told me that they can’t run faster or they can lift more, or they can’t do another set, interval or whatever it is that I or others have asked of them. Helping people to push past perceived boundaries is a core part of being a successful coach but the last few months have really spun my head around about what it means to physically not be able to accomplish something and it is a real challenge mentally to accept that.

Of course this is where any sane person would look at me and say, “Hey idiot, stop training and stay in bed for awhile. Hang out at Starbucks and help me around the house. How about being home for at least one full weekend out of the 52 you have to choose from you freak’n prima donna.” Oh, a little too much information there.

This weekend is Tupper Lake and I’ll be going up with Rambo, Javier, Phil, Jen and Strouter and a few other TriScoopers and Race with Purpose team members. I have three objectives. The first is to actually get up there in The Basher, my ‘91 Ford Explorer that deserves its own blog and is the topic of many conversations here in Scarsdale, NY. Odds are that I will not make it to Albany but I got an oil change and I have faith, a few wire hangers and a fresh roll of duct tape. The second is to complete the half-iron distance race, which I could not do at Black Bear last month. The third is to see if I can physically make it around the IMLP bike course - not fast, but all the way around the course without having to get off my bike or stop and rest. I’ll start with one loop. SimplyStu got to see first-hand how fragile my body is currently when we ran at Rockies as I struggled to maintain a pace that would have shamed me in the past. He was very gracious about it. Rambo saw it on Montauk last weekend where a little hill, hardly comparable to anything in LP, destroyed me and then caused me to shuffle along afterwards at - what was it Tom an 12 min/mile pace with my heart rate at 179? I could only go a few yards without walking. I got caught by a crab - seriously a crab - that was an all-time first.

Strouter reminds me frequently to have conviction over two things as distasteful and useless in one’s life, the first is selfish people and the second is self pity. It is with this in mind that I look forward to the drive up to Tupper Lake this weekend. Now, a few really valuable observations. The first is in response to a post by CindyJo, who quite frankly has always come off as bullet-proof to me. So if my current condition is a surprise to you, please know that we can both laugh at and take comfort in each other’s slightly altered image of our human condition. Please don’t shoot me and put me out of my misery at IMLP this year. I can only think of one reason you won’t be packing and that’s because even ceramic pistols will add unproductive weight to the bike or to you on the run.

Brett, I couldn’t have said it better myself. I take considerable grief for continuing to embrace people that others would have cast aside. I wish there was some more noble reason for doing it except that I cannot know what it is like to walk in their shoes and I try to treat each interaction with the hope that if this is their last, they will have been met with kindness and compassion. Don’t get me wrong, I personally find sarcasm and indifference to be two very touching and emotionally supportive options.

As for the future, I look forward to that watershed moment when I will transcend my current condition and be provided with an opportunity to look back on this time with kind reflection and admiration for having gone through the experience. In the end, I remind myself, that I can wake up, shuffle my way around my neighborhood, go to work, play with my dog and that is a lot more than other people can do, so I continue to be blessed. At the worst, if I can physically complete the IMLP bike course, I know that I can slowly move my way around the course on race day in under 17 hours. And while that will not be a race under most people’s standards, including my own, it will be an accomplishment that I will be proud of, like an old boxer than knows full well what it is like to throw a punch but simply lacks the muscular control to do so with any precision. I will still enjoy every minute that I am out there. But first things first, I need to see if I can physically get around this Half Iron course and ride the IMLP course successfully at any speed. I’ll let you know how it goes.

And then came January 2008 during which I came down sick. Yes, I know everyone gets sick but this consisted of twelve weeks of flu then sinusitis and finally an extended battle with viral pneumonia. Being stubborn, I chose not to take any antibiotics, first because knowing it was viral, I knew they wouldn’t have helped anyway, but also because I felt that all the antibiotics would do is successfully kill off the weakest elements leaving the stronger one’s inside of me waiting to regroup and attack again in a more resilient manner. The affect on my training was astounding - not being able to breath, focus or even walk around the house without falling down in a heap can do that to me. I didn’t lose twelve weeks of training, I lost all of the benefits from last year’s hard work. Gone! Bye-bye! See ya later! Riding to meet JetPack 11 miles away at the White Plains airport left me out of breath and weak as a newborn. At the same time, my work situation became, how does one tactfully put this, tenuous at best, and all of my efforts went into redefining myself into a new role amidst declining company revenue growth and significant lay-offs. Throughout this time, I was being attacked by friends who seem to have adopted this heightened sense of entitlement and loss of gratitude, no, not not even gratitude but a complete lack of acknowledgment or appreciation for the efforts I have put in on their behalf to improve their own experiences. I’ve unfairly written this off as a New York thing because in my over 40 years of life, I’ve never experienced this with people from California, Texas or Ohio, the three other geographies where I have the greatest interactions both professionally and personally. I know that all New York people are not like this but I have come to the conclusion that whatever is in the water that makes great bagels may also contribute to heightened insecurities or self deprecation that leads to less constructive behaviors. By the way, it isn’t just me, I’ve witnessed how these same people have taken other so-called friends’ efforts for granted and treated them as basically refuse to be disposed when it is no longer convenient to have them around.

Lastly, we lost our beloved family member Wally under horrific circumstances and too many of our friends around us began to drop lies flies, or experienced tragedies of their own creating the very odd situation of attending more funerals than dinner parities. In short, it’s been difficult and challenging and every other hackneyed adjective that goes along with life’s sarcasm. As my good friend Rambonie reminds us “Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.” OK so he quoted from Samuel Johnson but often we need a reminder of the basics if nothing else to remind us of our blessings and to give us some sense of clarity or hope in the darkest of times, and let’s be clear as dark as it may seem, it’s a brilliant basket of God’s gifts to people who have so much less.

To be continued…

It turns out that “biological engines” — which is what the muscles in your body are — are pretty amazing in terms of efficiency. To find out how efficient, let’s look at how many calories a person burns while riding a bicycle.

If you look at a page like this calorie chart, you will find that a person riding a bicycle at 15 miles per hour (24 km per hour) burns 0.049 calories per pound per minute. So a 175-pound (77-kg) person burns 515 calories in an hour, or about 34 calories per mile (about 21 calories per km).

A gallon of gasoline (about 4 liters) contains about 31,000 calories. If a person could drink gasoline, then a person could ride about 912 miles on a gallon of gas (about 360 km per liter). Considering that a normal car gets about 30 miles per gallon, that’s pretty impressive!

To be fair, keep in mind that a car generally weighs a ton or more, while a bicycle weighs only 30 pounds. Cars also travel a lot faster than 15 mph. But it is still an interesting comparison. Note also that people cannot drink gasoline. However, people can drink vegetable oil, which contains nearly the same number of calories per gallon (if you look at How Fats Work you can see that fat contains long hydrogen/carbon chains just like gasoline does).

The people riding in a race like the Tour de France are riding more like 25 mph. Because air resistance rises very quickly with speed, they are burning about three times more calories — something like 100 calories per mile. In a 100-mile stage of the tour, a racer might burn something like 8,000 to 10,000 calories in one day! So they are getting only about 300 miles per gallon. The only way to replace those calories is to eat a lot of food

So I’ve arrived at Cunningham Park with the group just about to leave on their 85-mile ride. At about the rubicon of my drive, I decided on a plan of attack. As long as I kept the car moving, the battery wouldn’t die so I’ll continue on to Queens, not stop the car, grab a cue sheet from Dennis our ride leader and then head back up to Westchester to find my wallet and deliver my car to Harstdale Mobil, which is where it should have been fixed the first time. In my imagination I figured that I could turn around and do the ride on my own. By now I’m pretty disturbed, so when I make the left turn into the parking area and the car dies, I realize that my plan isn’t going to work out the way I thought and getting the car jumped is not a viable solution because the car feakn’ died WHILE I WAS DRIVING IT! I’m no auto expert but I’m guessing that this is an alternator problem and I’m a little perturbed that this wasn’t addessed when they had the car for the past 4 days. I try calling Cindy to have her read me both the phone number for AAA and our membership number, but by now Cindy thinks I am the devil incarnate so she’s not even answering her phone. Ben, who in the photo is wearing a NYRR race backpack offers to lend me his AAA card and suggests that we ride and deal with this when I get back. Now maybe that is a viable option as an individual, but I’ve already gotten Cindy up to go hunt through a parking lot for my wallet, so calling her up and telling her, hey I’m just going to ride for six hours and I’ll have you come and get me later in Queens isn’t a viable option, unless I want to be coming home to an empty house. So I do the responsible thing and call AAA from Ben’s card and this is where the technology story really begins.

Adam: Good morning, my name is Adam Krajchir and my truck has broken down and before we go any further I need to let you know that I do not have any identification on me nor do I know my AAA membership number.

ACSC Operator: That’s no problem Mr Kraeycherr we have all of your information right in front of us. You’re calling from 310-991-XXXX and we show that you are a AAA Premier member.

Holy crap, I think to myself. I remember in years past when I’ve locked myself out of my car, I’ve called AAA to let me back in and they wouldn’t come because I didn’t have my AAA Card on my person when I called. I remember vividly trying to persuade them by logically suggesting that if I had access to my car keys or AAA card, which were both inside the car, I wouldn’t need to call them, now would I? After a few similar situations, I simply learned how to pick locks and open car doors with a slimjim - I think this is a prerequisite of any solid youth upbringing in Southern California.

But it wasn’t to be an issue this time, the operator I spoke with was a Southern California operator, which means my own phone was used to route the call to the specific region, even though I dialed a number that was on Ben’s NY-AAA card and then she routed me to a NY operator who took down my information, as my phone began to chirp that it was running out of juice - I usually get about 20 minutes of talk time on a full charge - go figure, it means I saw more with less time.

Voila, a tow truck arrives and The Basher is delicately loaded up onto the flatbed for its trip back home to Hartsdale. Pretty cool.

So as blown away I was at how efficient and effective the technology was at AAA, Cindy calls me back and tells me: “Adam, you’re not going to believe what happened at CVS.” She goes on to explain that she looked around the parking lot and then went inside and talked to the manager and the security guard. The security guard promptly went back into the back and came out saying:

Security guard: “He was in here at about 10:00PM last night?”

Cindy: “Yes”

Security guard: “He was wearing a plaid hunters shirt, over a grey t-shirt and blue jeans?”

Cindy: “Yes”

Security guard: “He bought two bottles of Gatorade and a bottle of water?”

Cindy: “Yes”

Security guard: “Well, I watched him pay for the items. He swiped his credit card and then put it back into his wallet and then put his wallet back into his right hand pocket of his pants. He then picked up the bottles without taking a plastic bag and walked out of the store.”

Holy crap! They saw all of that? Cindy asked him if they knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding. The security guard laughed. Big Brother strikes again, but this time he scores one for the good guys. I felt like Will Smith in a Disney version of Enemy of the State. What’s the tag line in that movie “It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you.”

What this told me is that my wallet had to still be somewhere at the house because I never would have gotten to the car, reached into my pocket with my hands full and placed the wallet on top of the roof. And as we later found out, iot was in my office, only it was in a place I never would have thought to look. Apparently, in my thoroughness to make sure I had everything ready for the next day’s ride, I put my wallet down in the bookcase by my Garmin 205 when I had to reach down and charge it back up.

Riding back to Hartsdale in the tow truck, I was inspired by the productive uses of technology that I had experienced today. The perfect storm of personal technology had revealed a great swell of ridable waves of confidence in the stuff that I often take for granted. At the same time, don’t be surprised if I cover my head with a hoodie any time I go into a CVS, just in case I’m back on camera for the wrong reasons.

Sorry Kai. No Osama, but this one was as close as I could get. My name is Cornholio, I need TP for my bunghole. Because after all, It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you. Oh, and by the way, I never did get the cue sheet. Dennis, I’ll leave that to you.

So you could imagine my surprise when what was to be an enjoyable yet hardworking Saturday morning consisting of an 85-mile ride from Queens to Lloyd Neck on Long Island turned into a series of activities that illuminated the positive side of Big Brother surveillance intelligence. But here I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning.

I woke up this morning around 6:00am with great expectations of throwing my cycling clothes on and jumping into my 1991 Ford Explorer that I had just gotten back from the car hospital because she had the equivalent of mono - no energy, the battery kept draining and she simply wasn’t holding a charge. The Basher, as she is described by many, has over 200,000 miles of service so we should expect a few creaky joints and aches, but recently she’s been having more than her fair share. So all of last week, she was a resident in Hartsdale and I was thrilled on Friday when I was able to pick her up, which I did by running hills for five miles until I found my way over to that side of town. When I drove off of the lot, I noticed that the battery indicator was on the low side of normal, but since it was still in normal, I figured it must be ok, clearly the mechanic knew more than I about this sort of thing. So it was this morning that I found myself fifteen minutes before I was supposed to leave hunting around for my wallet, well sort of a wallet, it’s a plastic card holder held together with black athletic tape, in which I keep he necessities - drivers license, metro card, a few dollars in cash and my Metro North bike permit. I looked everywhere for this thing and my fifteen minute cushion disappeared and in no time turned into a 15 minute deficit. Knowing that the leader of the group I’m riding with has the only cue sheet and if I’m late, I have no idea where to go, I grabbed a fifty dollar bill and ran out the door with no wallet, no drivers license and no credit cards. As I begin to drive down to Queens, I begin to reflect back to where I used my wallet last, which I determined was the CVS in White Plains, where I bought Gatorade and water for today’s ride. I knew I paid for the drinks and knew that right before I threw the drinks into the back of the car, I placed at least one of the drinks up on the roof of Cindy’s truck and all of a sudden, that sinking feeling fell across me. Having already looked everywhere I would expect this morning - my office, the desk, my car, Cindy’s car, the driveway, the jeans and plaid shirt i was wearing - I surmised that it was indeed possible that I left my wallet on the hood of Cindy’s truck and it found its way at best to the wet and rainy ground of the parking lot and at worst to a random trash bin after a concerned citizen removed the cash and credit cards.

While this self reflection was taking place, I began to watch the battery meter in my dashboard drop lower and lower and the more I drove, the further it dropped into the red; even I figured out this was not a good thing. I called Cindy up and old her my situation and as I did, I realized that even though i had charged my cell phone all night, there were only two bars remaining. I had a feeling I was headed for the perfect personal technology storm - no battery in my car, no drivers license or credit cards to pay for any service and my cell phone is about to die so I won’t be able to call for assistance.

Now a normal and rational person would have just turned around, but given that I’m supposed to be training for Ironman, I really needed this ride as I’ve just gotten back into my training and I’m going to be spending a week in an Orlando Conference Center, so I probably won’t be getting a productive ride in for quite some time. Cindy jumps out of bed and heads to CVS and I head to Cunningham Park in Queens to meet up with the combined riders from the 5BBC and NYCC, two cycling clubs in New York City.

I’m pretty stressed out as I get off of the highway in Queens and just as I’m making my left turn into Cunningham Park’s parking lot and see the group of cyclists congregating, my steering goes stiff, the brakes get thick and the car dies. I roll to a stop in the entry way of the parking lot blocked by signs announcing that my car has now ceased to work in a blocked entrance reserved for today’s Big Apple Circus.

to be continued…

Get ready Los Angeles because there may be 2,000 students that have a better idea as to what healthy living is all about after tomorrow morning’s field trip to the California Science Center in Exposition Park.

KJLH radio will be broadcasting live from under the Robert H. Lorsch Pavilion increasing the awareness of the kids access to this event and to the exhibit which provides an inside look into the effects of unhealthy and completely preventable behaviors that result in shorter lives and long-term medical conditions such as Type-2 diabetes, heart disease, depression and other chronic illnesses. Race with Purpose team members complete endurance events while raising funds for the Robert H. Lorsch Foundation and this is yet another example of the commitment of the Lorsch Foundation to the betterment of our children and the amazing impact that can be achieved through innovation, collaboration and a shared vision for a future that is filled with healthy, active and educated children and adults.

Listen to the KJLH Promo here:kjlh_largefieldtrip_bw3la

Tomorrow morning KJLH radio will be broadcasting live at the Science Center for LA’s Largest Field Trip - an event coordinated to share the BODY WORLDS 3 community tickets. Nearly 2,000 students will be here to see BODY WORLDS 3 and the KJLH on-air radio personalities.

The KJLH mobile will be stationed in front of Lorsch Pavilion. The Lorsch Pavilion is the entry gateway into the California Science Center and is passed by thousands of runners during the Los Angeles Marathon.

CSC’s very own Jeff Rudolph will be interviewed on the air by DJ Guy Black at 6:20 a.m. to welcome everyone. There will also be a program for these students in the IMAX Theater, featuring a Galaxy player and the on-air personalities in shifts from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

The promo that has been playing hourly for the last two weeks and here is the announcement on their website http://www.kjlhradio.com/

They have been generating a lot of excitement for BODY WORLDS 3 in their morning drive-time programs, including going through the catalogue and giving details on their favorite parts of the exhibit. If you are an early bird tune in tomorrow!

So like every good coach, I submersed myself in data until I found the data that I liked the most and here it is. Forget Avi’s stellar 2:51 Boston Marathon finish where he knocked off 19 minutes from his former personal best, while at the same time setting two half marathon PR’s in the same race, with a 1:26 in the first half and then a 1:25 in the second. I have found out that I will die when I am 89.9 years old, barring getting hit by a car while running or cycling. More importantly, I’m going to be healthy until I’m 74.1 years old which means that I can almost walk the marathon and still qualify as the qualifying time for a male between the age of 70 - 74 is 4 hours 30 minutes. Whoooohoooo. I might even get JetPack and Rambo to run it with me at that pace.

This test also told me that I’ve banked 11.4 years although I’m not quite sure how that works since it says that I am right now the equivalent of a 37.5 year old, which is roughly 6 years younger than my actual age. They also tell me that I can add 5.5 more years to my life, but since I’ve already banked 11.4, I’m saying “No Deal” Mr. Banker. I can get more than that 5.5 years all on my own just by watching less reality television. I firmly believe that watching The Hills sucks life out of you. Rock of Love, on the other hand, can only help to stimulate healthy living.

My one concern is what will I be like between age 74.1 and 89.9? Will I be drooling or in a wheelchair? That’s a long time for my life to suck, which is another reason, I’m not anxious to live longer, I’m anxious to live healthier longer. I guess the moral of the story is that as long as I stay under 5 hours for a marathon, I’ll once again be able to run in that great race. Time to go swim with the BQers at the JCC. There’s probably a few wrinkly guys over there I can coach down to that 5 hour time limit.