The "You don't look like a marathoner" discussion continues

I want to thank everyone for their feedback on the "You don't look like a marathoner" topic from Tuesday. I like reading what you folks think about some of these topics, because  I almost always think "I wonder if it's just me that feels like this?", and it usually turns out that it's not. I got a response last night from George, (who read the site upon notice from his wife Kacie) that I'd like to share with you here:

My wife alerted me to your post. I give you credit for biting your tongue and for trying to understand why she might have said it (i.e. "this is probably the first race she's ever been around . . ."). 

I thought of your blog when I read Ted King's blog today. Ted's a professional cyclist on one of the best teams in the world. He's a two-time Giro d'Italia finisher. He's from NH, and he was in town (taking a break from his living/training/racing in Europe) for the Boston Marathon. In his blog today, reflecting on what he saw at Boston, Ted wrote, "The diversity of runners is phenomenal – all ages, all body types, all with a different reason or story for doing the race." 

Undoubtedly, Ted is in the top 1% of athletes on the planet, but to him, the fact that not everyone looks like him is a GOOD thing. And I think that it takes an athlete to understand this. The lady at the finish line had never actually crossed a finish line, and because of that, I don't think she gets it.

I am fortunate enough to have met Ted King at an event held at Landry's Bike Shop just down the road from my house last fall on weekend Rach was away with the hockey team. He's a good guy, and that's where I disagree slightly with what George had to say. I don't think it takes an athlete to understand that different people do things for different reasons and with different goals. Ted sees this because he's a good guy, not because he's an athlete. Because I've met plenty of athletes who will probably never understand that. It only takes a visit over to SlowTwitch to know there's a reason why triathletes are sometimes seen as Type A "jerks" who think if you're not fast, and don't look almost too thin, you aren't one of them. (Note: I hang out over there fairly regularly and there are plenty of nice people there, but there are absolutely some prime examples

Instead, I think it's about people's nature and experience. I'm making a lot of assumptions about the lady who said what she said to me, and frankly I've been trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she meant it the way it sounded, the way some of the folks at SlowTwitch say it. Maybe though, she's the kind of person whose only exposure to running has been a grandson or daughters track meets and what she has seen on TV, which is almost always the lead pack of uber-athletes. Maybe this lady is a perfectly nice person, but she has a very narrow world view.

Maybe that world view is because of her experiences, and maybe it's because that's what she chooses it to be. The problem is that it's a still too common frame of mind. No, It's not 100% OK to be fat; it's unhealthy, it puts a fiscal burden on our health care system, and an emotional burden on friends and loved ones. But for those of us working to be healthier and stronger and weigh less, being fat doesn't take away the fact that we are athletes.

Plus, no matter what I look like, I will be a marathoner come 9/11.

I like charts and graphs

This past weekend my buddy Dan and I went on our annual gambling trip. It's the last weekend of fun, food, and debauchery before triathlon season heats up. Dan and I had a great time, I won some money, and we went for a fantastic hike on what is marked as a "dangerous/extreme" hiking trail. I figured they were probably overstating, but it turns out they were right, this hike was fairly extreme with some very steep climbs, especially for a couple guys who aren't exactly mountaineers.

Despite the fact that I had on the wrong shoes and that we were high enough that the hawks were circling at eye level, we had a great time doing it. Doesn't really apply as training, but sometimes just doing physical activity is it's own reward. I'll post some pictures once Dan gets them to me. 

I ran and biked on Monday and last night i hit the pool for a solid workout. My original goal was to see where I was for my 1/4 mile swim, because that's what is on tap for Season Opener. Most of my swims lately have been the tail end of a two-a-day, so having the pool as my only workout was going to give me the best gauge of fitness I've had in a mile. Let's just say I was happy with how it came out:

That's right, I'm a badass

So I did a 400 swim in 9:38. The best part? I wasn't even close to going all out. I find there's a very big difference between me at 100% effort and me just swimming strong an even pace. Going all out, I could drop the first 50 yard time by 15 or so seconds, but I'd be a good bit slower on the second 50, and maybe 30 or more seconds slower for the full 400. Doing it as I did last night, I got a time I was happy with, without strong pushoffs and I had plenty of energy left.

When I finished the 400, I set my sights on a mile, which I pulled off 49 minutes, even with a little rest between intervals (1x400, 1x500, 1x600 1x200), I decided to see if I could fit the full Half-IM swim inside an hour, and I managed to, just barely at 57:50. Definitely some major progress.

Oh, and I don't know if I mentioned it, but I didn't gain any weight on my casino trip (even though there were some pizza & cheeseburgers involved). In fact, I've lost weight week over week for the past couple weeks now. It's been a pound here or a half-pound there, but it's been significant forward progress especially with the first race of the season closing in.

Notes:

- Got a lot of positive feedback on yesterdays post both here and on Facebook. Thanks so much for the kind words, and sharing your thoughts. I love comments on my posts, so feel free to share, or ask questions, or tell me I'm wrong awesome... whatever.

"You don't look like a marathoner"

I don't know how many of you watched or followed the Boston Marathon yesterday, but both the men's and women's races were absolutely terrific contests, neither of which was decided until the last 2 blocks of a 26.2 mile race. Plus, the USA went 2 and 5 in the women's race, with 5th place finisher Kara Goucher just a few months off giving birth and probably would have won with higher fitness had she had a few more weeks training. In the Men's race, Ryan Hall paced the race for the first half, and finished just off the podium in 4th.

It was a gorgeous day here in Boston, and with the perfect weather came some fast running. Because the Boston Marathon course is a point to point race, and because it's slightly downhill in total elevation; races run on the course do not count towards the world record. If they did, both the Men's and Women's world records would have been set as well as the American record in both races. It was an amazing day of racing all around, and Rach had the day off to watch it while I snook time for updates during the workday.

Which is why I waited until today to post this particular story, because I didn't want to put anything even the least bit negative out yesterday.

My buddy Dan and I went on our annual gambling trip this past weekend, and we spent Saturday night and Sunday in the Boston area. Sunday Morning. we went over to the race expo to wander around a bit, and Dan wanted to see the finish line of the race. Dan asked me to take his picture at the finish line, and while we were in the process of doing so, a woman came up to us and said "Excuse me, are you doing the race? Because you don't look like a marathoner".

I was flabbergasted. What do you say when someone says to you "You clearly don't belong here", based totally on appearance. Frankly, my immediate impulse was to say "Are you a bitch? Because you don't look like one". I bit my tongue and responded that my friend was merely a tourist wanting a picture, and then I tried to stammer out something about being a triathlete and having done a Half-Ironman. I'm sure I sounded like an idiot, and I felt like less than nothing.

I'm sure the lady was the mother or grandmother of someone doing the race, probably a fit young person who has run since middle school, and this is probably the first race she's ever been around where non-traditional athletes participate. But that's another "qualifier", and I don't understand why I have to use one in the first place.

What does a marathoner look like?

Is it this?

Or this?

Or this?

Or this?

Personally, I think it's this

Maybe I shouldn't have let this bother me, because truly, I'm not a marathoner yet. I won't be racing my first until September. But insert "athlete" for "marathoner", and it's a much bigger discussion. If we judged every person by what they looked like, and not what they were capable of, something tells me this guy wouldn't have made quite the impression on the world that he did.

Random Facts about me

I see the facebook lists people make where you do 30 days of pictures or list a fact for every letter of the alphabet, or whatever, and I think those are fun but basically sort of arbitrarily defined. So I'm going to make my own list of facts, most of which are actually indeed true facts about yours truly.

- I wear size 11 1/2 shoes from basically any manufacturer, but I have always had wide feet.

- I can gain 6 pounds in one day without hardly eating. I re-did the 10k time trial lactate test last night out in Springfield and when I got home I had a couple baked chicken legs, and a finger of peanut butter. Got on the scale at the end of the night, and I was up 6 pounds for the day. 3 pounds were gone this morning, but a hard workout and some extra fluids can sure throw off the weight loss numbers pretty easily.

- I love broccoli, like cauliflower, and will eat either cooked or raw. I mostly do not like carrots, though I like them cooked when they're soft. I also developed a love of spinach later in the past few years,

- May favorite movie of all time is Return of the Jedi (I like it when the good guys win). Runners up are all other Star Wars Movies, Indiana Jones, When Harry Met Sally, Notting Hill, The newer James Bonds (Brosnan or the new guy), Mystery Alaska and Miracle.

- I do not like onions in any situation except on McDonalds cheeseburgers, and only flaked or slivered.

- I like peas, and green beans (why is this list mostly about food?)

- I like apple juice, but not apples. The skin gets in my teeth, which is just gross.

- My favorite fruit is Blueberry but I also like strawberry, bananas, Kiwi, and grape.

- I was very interested in flying jets for the Navy as a kid. I went so far as to meet with a recruiter about Naval ROTC following my ACT. I would have had to retake the test raise my math score, and I was too tall to fly the jets I wanted to anyways. (I did however just recently get 7 kills in a flight simulator at the Mall of America, so I feel like I got my revenge).

- The accomplishment I am most proud of is being lucky enough to have gotten Rachelle to be my wife.

- My biggest regret is not taking my health seriously until my mid 30's; all this weight never had to be put on in the first place.

- I someday want to race an actual road bike race. I mean it can't be any harder than a mountain bike race or an Ironman, I just need to get skinnier.

- I loved to read as a kid and I still do, but I feel like there are things I'd rather do. I love to read short articles and the occasional short story.

- My favorite books of all time are The Lord of the Rings and associated books, The Dragonlance Chronicles, and Half Nelson, Full Nelson. No grown up books have captured my imagination the way the books of my youth did.

- If I could do anything I want without worrying about money, I'd volunteer a lot and probably run a hobby shop. I volunteered at a food bank as a kid, and it's one of the things that really made me see how much we as a people should be willing to help each other.

- I love model trains and sports cards. I have a tendency to spend too much in the stores related to those hobbies so I have to be careful with them. I'm slowly building my train layout that I plan to be the layout of my lifetime.

- I used to be a computer programmer before I do what I do now, and I miss it sometimes. There are times when I've thought of writing a computer game or creating software for a task I need to do. The amount of time it would take to do that is something I just don't have these days.

- I really love the upper peninsula of Michigan and if I had my druthers we would already live there. Probably on the southern side, close to Mackinac.

- I want to do a really long bike ride, over 100 miles, and I'm getting that wish fulfilled this fall.

Notes:

- I'm going on my annual casino trip with my buddy Dan for the next 3 days. I may or may not blog this time depending on how busy we are. We're definitely planning some new things for this trip, and I'll be working out each day.

5 months until the Ironman

Yesterday was 5 months until Rev3 Cedar Point. Last year, I was training a little better than half-assed until after I DNFed at MA State Triathlon, when the fear of god set into me that Timberman was only a month away and trained really hard. Not to be braggy, but I feel like my training is going pretty well.

Aside from the fact that I need a few more outside rides to transition my bike fitness from indoor to outdoor ready, I feel like I'm close to the place I want to be in terms of fitness for the NE Season Opener. Sure I'd love to be a super fast runner and swimmer, It's going to be a little while before those things happen. Based on where I started the year, and the training reset in February, I am pretty thrilled with my progress.

I mentioned yesterday that I didn't lose any weight this weekend, but following last nights hard run followed by what turned out to be a slow swim, I woke up this morning down another 2 pounds. I still have a little ways to go to reach where I started the year, but I still have almost 4 weeks to keep working my weight down.

Last nights run isn't fast by most peoples standards but I was pretty thrilled. Without the warm up or cool down included in the distance, I ran as far as I had including warm up and cool down the week before. I was still pretty tired and as the image below attests, my speed drops off quite a bit in that last 5 minute run. My stamina is getting better though, and I'm hanging pretty regularly around the 11 min/mile mark on the first 2/3rds of the run.

My expectations are not that I'll be able to run all of the Rev 3 marathon, or even run all of the Patriot Half-Iron run. But I will be in better shape for every race I enter than I was for the same distance race last year. Obviously I didn't do a full-Iron distance race last year, so any shape I'm in (round is a shape, people) is still better than not doing it.

In fact I'm feeling so good about where I am with a month left until Season Opener, I'm ready to put some goals in place for the race. The distances are the same as last year (1/4 mile swim, 10 mile bike, 5k run), and here is a reminder of how I did last year:

Swim: 18:59
T1: 6:32
Bike: 56:50
T2: 3:22
Run: 45:33
Total: 2:11:13

I freely admit to not training very well leading up to last years race, but the only one of these that is excusable is the T1; because I was significantly worried my wife could be in an ambulance trying to fight off hypothermia. The rest of that was either poor training or poor preparation for a race that I knew was likely to be very cold.

Here's what I expect for this years times:

Swim: 12:00
T1: 3:00
Bike: 40:00
T2: 1:30
Run: 39:00
Total: 1:35:30

That still won't put me on a podium, but its a lot better than last year, and I hope I'm being conservative on both the bike and the run.

Notes:

- 5 months til Rev3 Cedar Point means I'm only 4 1/2 months away from the fundraising deadline. Derek Hill, winner of the raffle I did a few weeks ago sold some of the prize items he didn't need and made an additional $67 donation to the cause. On top of being a generous human being, he's also working on some weight loss of his own, and a major league sports card junkie. It's an understatement to say we have a lot in common, and I was happy to know him even before he started donating towards my fundraising. 4 1/2 months might seem like a while, but right now I'm more concerned about hitting this goal than the preparation for the race itself.

- Tomorrow afternoon, I'm going on my annual casino trip with my buddy Dan. We're visiting the Foxwoods area again, hitting the 3 casinos there and enjoying some "dude time", though not in a Brokeback Mountain kind of way (not that there's anything wrong with that). Now that I am familiar with their gym equipment I'm coming better prepared to train while we're there. The weather is expected to be quite good, so I'm looking to run outside. My bike will be in the shop beginning tomorrow, so I'll be making use of the indoor bikes for my riding. Sadly their pool isn't big enough to do much with, so I'll have to make up a swim this weekend.

- If you haven't heard Lance Armstrong has sworn off Kona for this year. He's looking to race the Chicago Marathon not long before that time, and it's pretty hard to do both of those events. He's certainly doing all the training necessary to make the transition to full-iron triathlon. I still think he'll do a race or two before the end of 2011. Love him or hate him (or anywhere in between) his appearance in big time triathlon is good for everyone (except maybe the people waiting until the last minute to register for races he enters) in the sport. And then there's this new YouTube channel related to Armstrong twitter handle @juanpelota under which he posts triathlon related stuff.  Pretty funny.