Welcome 2011 !

      Happy New Year!

      I was raised with the belief that everything you do on the last day of the year will be repeated throughout the next year. And as an endurance athlete, I live by the motto that happiness requires sacrifice.

      I wish I could run a race today, but with the bad shape I am right now I probably would bring a very frustrating 2011. Right after ten days in Brazil, eating delicious home-cooked meals and killing my homesickness, my current weight is about 5 pounds higher, and my muscles are stiff of many hours of airplane trips. But my spirit is the same, and over the last week I have spent hours on planning the next season, and pondering the near-misses of 2010.

      I cannot complain; I was able to finish my first Ironman distance triathlon (Full Vineman), and did not have any major injuries. I have discovered Yoga, low-carb diet and Total Immersion, successfully started a new and promising job, and I live in a beautiful place, with blessed weather. Oh, and I was able to register to Ironman Arizona this time!

      Still savoring the bitter taste of my first DNF, I am carefully planning the new season, now taking into account the new job. Of course, the goals are to improve my personal records, and for that probably I will not be able to race as often.

       Right now I am cleaning my desk, catching up on the Yoga routines, and tuning up my bike. Just bought my first formula at Infinit, and renewed my contract with Sugoi Brand Champions. Finally had time to post in my blog and check my racing plans. Yeah, 2011 will be an awesome year...

Half-racing

      I am officially declared out-of-shape for this rest of the year. Today I just ran the inaugural Dodge Rock'n'Roll Los Angeles (you know, this is the first, I had to do it...), and suffered as much as in a marathon, running a half-marathon AT MARATHON PACE. Not just that, but I had to walk few hills, felt sick and hit the wall at Mile 6, and, for the third race finish in a row, medical volunteers came to ask me if I was OK.

     

       Emergency measures are required, specially because I have a marathon in three weeks, the year still has two months to go, my training was jeopardized by my new job, and I want to have big endurance plans for 2011.

      First Step is start including my training on my written daily schedule. Even if it is a 30-minute run or a 15-minute Yoga session, something EVERYDAY, of course alternating intensity and listening to my body. Anything is better than nothing (current status).

      Second Step is to go for a medical check-up, as now my gastrointestinal problems got me to believe I may have Irritable Bowel Syndrome: my frequent toilet visits start now the day before the races, and not only on race morning, causing me to become dehydrated even before the races start.

      Third Step is to start again taking better care of myself; my weight is still the same, but I've been drinking way too much coffee, eating erratically, delaying Yoga for more than a week long, and sleeping poorly.

      After my DNF disaster two weeks ago, I thought an easy half-marathon in less than two hours would be a nice workout. I am happy I had this wake-up call just in time for Thanksgiving.

      By the way, my unofficial time was 2h07min; and I am working on Thanksgiving.

Good News, Bad News

      Pardon me my transient disappearance. I just started a new job one month before my first Ironman distance triathlon on July, and I am still catching up. As a miserable age grouper, I kept following my race schedule without adequate training after recovering from the big race. Happy to say I did not get physically injured. But naturally you can imagine what happened: I had my first Triathlon DNF.

      First the good news: I have completed my first Ironman distance race in less than 16 hours, a lifetime experience that I am sure I will repeat multiple times. In my trainng for it I learned to adjust my metabolism to burn fat, to trust Yoga for all my physical needs and build a stronger body, to disassemble my bike and pack it for flights and to swim longer distances (even though at the same slow speed...). After Vineman I did Malibu Oly and Malibu Sprint Relay, and finished my fastest Sprint race at the Los Angeles Triathlon.

     

      It took me almost two months to feel back to normal after Vineman; I had a skin infection on my right index finger, and then five weeks of diarrhea after taking antibiotics. I felt like a pro when I got diarrhea again on the night before LA Triathlon, sleeping only about four hours, and still being able to achieve a PR. On the week before Magic Mountain Man 70.3 I was working 12-13 hours a day, and started again with gastrointestinal problems on the night before the race. Even without having rushed visits to the port-a-potty on race course, I had to stop after biking 16.6 miles in 1 hour and 58 minutes at 90F degrees, not sweating for about 40 minutes. I would have continued after a break at the first water stop if it was a flat bike course, but that is a very challenging one, and I knew I would not make the time cut-off, not talking about crashing.  

      Talking about good and bad news, my hero Macca became the World Champion again, and Chrissie Wellington got sick and did not continue her championship streak.

      Just a week before I was questioning the value of a finisher's medal, but a DNF makes you relearn your priorities. Maybe I am getting older and recovery is taking many more weeks, maybe I am working too hard, but this is Endurance life...

      I need to schedule my next races, more road work ahead.

Birthday, and a book review

My 38th birthday was last Monday, and, of course, this whole month will be a month of reflection and contrition. As a personal rule, I never regret past acts, as I cannot change them, but I always try to learn from each days' mistakes.

I have been happily busy, as work is going well, opening opportunities for the future as I continue devoting huge efforts in order to build them. That is awesome if you are not trying to train for an Ironman distance race.

For the Full Vineman in July 31st, my goal became to be able to complete it despite less-than-optimal training while building my future. Part of the job description of being a working young adult... And my wife is already complaining I am always away training for the race.

As part of my efforts on trying to renew energies and recover out-of-work reading, I joined http://www.booksneeze.com/ as book reviewer, and I gladly came across with The Map, curiously very opportune for a birthday month (or maybe I am biased...).

Below is my book review:

The Map: The Way of All Great Men, by David Murrow

Every book has equal chance to influence the reader, but it will all depend on reaching the reader at the right opportunity. Even an award-winning bestseller depends on that golden moment in the reader's life to best deliver its message. This book has hit me at the right moment, and I recommend this book as a challenge to readers in order to dare to question the author’s diligent work.

Murrow is an award-winning television producer and writer, and employs all his skills to describe an elaborated story of suspense and drama about the search for a mysterious ancient map hidden in the Bible that would lead men to a life of greatness. Using this exciting tale as a parable, Murrow brings his findings and conclusions of many years of studying the Bible.
More than just the first bright of suspense book that the editorial reviews advertised about, I was interested in learning Murrow’s message, as the author of the 2005 bestselling book Why Men Hate Going to Church, and director of Church for Men, an organization dedicated to restoring the masculine spirit in Christian congregations. I wanted to see how an engaged religious man could write a suspense book, or even a self-help book, for that matter.

The Map is an interesting book with a bold proposition, in two parts: a fictional suspense story and a non-fictional argument presenting Murrow’s proposition. It showed me a different way to understand and live my faith, and maybe it will really serve as a guide to greatness and living life to the fullest.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”



"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose." - Lyndon B. Johnson

Love your bike, part II

I have already written about how much I love my bike, but this post is about tough love. On March 7, 2010 I went to San Diego to once more take part of the Gran Fondo Colnago San Diego, on his second presentation.

Of course, I registered for the century, 101 miles with about 4157 ft of ascent on a beautiful course around San Diego, outstanding organization, and this year offering a 53mile and a 32mile courses. And, of course, it was raining the whole course. Sorry, no pictures this time, the Iphone was in a plastic bag.

Instead of skipping to the shorter courses, I tried to complete the century, as it was the only one to offer a challenging KOM segment that killed my body last year. Unnecessary to say I paid for my audacity. The ride started under pouring rain, with 10 minutes delay waiting for the Amtrak train to pass, with all riders soaked to their underware. The extent of the damage was just felt at the first stop at mile 15: my computer had died, and I was uncontrollably shivering at lower efforts. I even took a wrong turn going into the shortest ride, when I decided to continue the daring enterprise.

I happilly did the KOM segment: 6.75 miles, grade 3%-12% (averaging 5.2%), total vertical of 1,858 feet, in 1:10:37, still very slow for a real ciclist, but about 20 min faster than last year (of course because of multiple rest stops...). But right after the KOM I noticed that my breaks weren't working properly, and when I had to stop with a flat rear tire, I saw my break pads were almost complete worn down, probably because of the sandy wet course.

At mile 67 I had to stop, as I was going to face more downhills, and I couldn't trust my breaks. That, and I had to wait for an hour in the rain for my wife to come to pick me up. At least I was able to complete a metric century, and do the KOM once more.

Now I know why, even if it is fun, the pros don't like to ride in the rain. And my love for biking killed my computer (now working again after drying for a week), my break pads (switched to higher quality ones) and my drivetrain (now switched to a real Shimano Ultegra).

My tough love to myself upgraded my bike, and taught me new lessons. Waiting for the next year's new lessons...

Nursing 2010

I am happy and proud to say I'm busier than ever. Work is productive, the new apartment is comfortable, I am in control of my diet, and I am doing Yoga every day, all following my own schedule.

With the commitment of doing my first Ironman-distance race, the Full Vineman race in 07/31/10, I have since last December started Yoga practice, what became a basic daily need of my body and soul. Together with periodization of my diet following the principles taught by coach Bob Seebohar, I lost about four pounds, feel better and have more energy. Burning more fat, I can stand longer periods of time without food (5-6h instead of 2-3h), and I don't have the highs and peaks of blood sugar. My core is stronger, I don't have back or neck pains, and I sleep beter. I don't need daily doses of Ibuprofen anymore.

Of course, training time and activities have to increase. I am still working on setting up my training slots adapting myself to this new reality, but comparing to last year I am already more active. I bought a cheap hybrid bike to be able to bike to work and swimming workouts without being afraid of losing my beloved tri-adapted bike.

I am posting from my Iphone, so then I can post on the go, but unfortunately I cannot add pictures and make it prettier. But I really had to update my blog, after thinking about this post for over a month. I know this is probably a prolonged honeymoon with my improved me, but this has been my reality for two months. Just ran Pasadena Marathon last weekend, and suffered a good bit with poor training and gastric upset, but I felt good over the first 15 miles, finishing about the same time as the average time for previous marathons.

I am happy with myself and know what to do. Ready for more road work ahead.

Proudly announcing I'm a BookSneeze reviewer.

Sorry for the delay on my posts.
Thank God I've been very busy, very productive and happy.
Ramping up the training, of course, preparing for Full Vineman on 07/31/10.

To catch up on my reading, and get another incentive to write blogs more often, I joined BookSneeze as a reviewer; I will share my book reviews, read during my rest hours.

Posting soon!