Podcasts about f2c

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 25, 2020 79:06

Listen to episode fourteen as Jack (@Jack.F2C), Luke (@Daily_Snell), and myself talk about the games of the week, what surprised us most about week 15, and more! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

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Run it like a girl with Angela Lilly, Triathlete: Season 3, Episode 4

Run it Like a Girl

Play Episode Play 19 sec Highlight Listen Later Nov 23, 2020 36:34

Angela Lilly is an amateur elite triathlete - competing in a grueling sport that involves swimming, running and cycling. She’s also competed in 7 Ironman events over the course of a decade, achieving 7th in her age group and a ranking of the 12th overall amateur woman at the Ironman World Championships in 2007.Angela says she’s had her share of setback, something that is part of the journey for every athlete. Angela, who is a high school teacher by day, has a husband and two children, known collectively as Team Lilly. On this episode of Run It Like a Girl, Angela tells us how she manages to be included in family events, while maintaining her training schedule, and the unique ways she makes sure that she's there for the moments that matter. Angela is currently an ambassador for the MultiSport Canada Triathlon Series, and F2C, a Canadian nutrition company

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Episode 9 ft. Jack and Jason (@TitanzDaily)

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2020 44:05

Listen to episode nine as Jack (@Jackz.F2C), Jason (@TitanzDaily), and myself talk about the games of the week, what surprised us most about week 9, and more! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

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Episode 8 hosted by Andrew (@Field2Court) ft. Jack (@Jackz.F2C) and Jonas (@RavensDistrict)

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 5, 2020 46:24

Listen to episode eight as Andrew (@Field2Court), Jack (@Jack.F2C), and Jonas (@RavensDistrict) talk about the games of the week, what surprised them most about week 8, and more! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

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Episode 5 ft. Jack and Jonas (@RavensDistrict)

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 15, 2020 45:21

Listen to episode five as Jack (@Jackz.F2C), Jonas (@RavensDistrict), and myself (@PeterF2C) talk about our games of the week, what surprised us most about week 5, and more! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

f2c

Episode 4 ft. Jack and LJ

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2020 49:08

Listen to episode four as LJ (@CHawksSzn), Jack (@Jackz.F2C), and myself (@Peter.F2C) talk about our games of the week, what surprised us most about week 4, and more! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

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Week 2 ft. Jack and Drew (@field2court).

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 23, 2020 50:57

Tune in to episode two as Jack (@Jackz.F2C), Drew (@Field2Court), and myself (@PeterF2C) talk about our games of the week, what surprised us most about week 2, and more! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

f2c

Week 1 ft. Jack (@Jack.F2C) and Henry (@JetsIsland).

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 16, 2020 36:05

Tune in to episode one as Jack (@Jackz.F2C), Henry (@JetsIsland), and myself (@PeterF2C) talk about our games of the week, what surprised us most about week 1, and more! Credit to @KickerCentral for the kicking stat. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

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MorsePills #57 | Quem dá mais pelo TikTok?

MorseCast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2020 33:48

Semana explosiva no mercado de Mobile e Big Data: Microsoft está discutindo a compra do TikTok com a ByteDance, mas quem mais poderia entrar nesse deal? Magazine Luiza compra startup de “F2C” (você sabe o que é a tendência? A gente explica!); receita com Ads do Google cai pela primeira vez em 26 anos. E muito mais...

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MorsePills #57 | Quem dá mais pelo TikTok?

Morse Pills

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2020 33:49

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The Importance of Recovery

The Bek and Siri Show

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 9, 2019 35:08

This week Bek talks about the 70.3 World Champs in Nice. She also goes deep into the importance of Recovery and we introduce September's sponsor Normatec.Bek rounds up the events the team members did over the past 2 weeks and recommends going to a mechanical gear shift to avoid any problems during a race as experienced by two of the members. She also discusses her favorite recovery techniques that may not have been mentioned last week.Bek's favorite recovery tool is the Normatec compression and you can do it anytime, anywhere.Muscle soreness and stiffness? Do the F2C pharma green in the morning. Aside from it working very well, it is organic and tastes good. At night, you can do a magnesium powder and you can sleep well. You just need a teaspoon and you'll be good.Epsom salt baths are also a favorite.Rollga works great for thorasic and plantaphasia. Also the theragun works amazing.When it comes to inflammation, get rid of dairy, gluten, sugar. Intermittent fasting is also good for losing weight. For triathletes, you can have 1 day off, but have an active recovery day.Do you know what grounding or red light therapy is? Listen to Bek explain how you can be pain free.Our sponsor for the month is NormatecNormaTec is the ultimate athlete recovery.https://www.normatecrecovery.comNormaTec's technology delivers a powerful and patented compression massage that helps athletes recover faster. It is used for a pre-workout warm up, and as a post-workout recovery. The NormaTec PULSE 2.0 Series increases circulation, and reduces pain and soreness. In addition, studies have shown the NormaTec recovery massage can help boost the pressure to pain threshold, clear lactate and metabolites, and increase range of motion. There are attachments for the legs, arms, and hips which allow athletes to rejuvenate their muscles, stay in top form, and maximize their training.Go to https://www.teamsiriustriclub.com/normatec for a $50 discount on Normatec recovery products. Available to all listeners of the podcast.Or Join the club to access a 25% discount https://www.teamsiriustriclub.com/team-sirius-tri-club/All members can also go into the draw to win $500 towards any Normatec product, by listening to the Podcast during the month of September. Listen to find out how to get in the draw.

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VT 2019 – The French Farce

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2019 37:06

VT 2019 – The French Farce (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/Vermont2019.mp3] Link Farce. A farce is a comedy that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, and thus improbable. Farce is also characterized by physical humor, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense, and broadly stylized performances. … Covered in dirt, sweat and sawdust. There I was, laying on the table in the emergency room at my local hospital. A nice thick maroon swell of blood blobbing out of the gash on my shin. Waiting for the doctor-lady to come back. You might think this would make me cranky. But, on the contrary I was having a pretty good day. It was, ironically, Memorial Day. A long weekend and I had gotten a lot done, including running the marathon in Vermont. I was relieved to have that off my agenda, be done training and back to working on other stuff. Like cutting up the trees I had felled in the yard. Then the machete glanced off a branch and I whacked myself square on the shin bone with that long, heavy, sharp blade designed for slicing. Right on the shin bone. Nothing serious just a bit of a rent on the protective covering of skin that keeps the red stuff in. Editor's note: “Rent”, to divide, usually violently or abruptly from the middle English Renden and Old English Rendan. I staunched it with a rag from my chainsaw box and hobbled inside for some awkward first aid. I flushed it out with Bactine and taped a bunch of gauze to it, wrapping the tape around my calf, ending up with something that you might see in an old war film or maybe an even earlier mummy movie. That held it in place long enough for me move enough trees out of the driveway to get my truck out. I drove to the emergency room. I wasn't looking forward to the emergency room. On a major holiday it was sure to be filled with drunken yahoos, with “hold my beer” accidents. I brought along a book and was going to start working on this report for you in the hours of waiting that I anticipated. But, I was positively thrilled with service. I barely had a chance to sit down in the squeaky, vinyl, institutional seat when I was called. I was attended to by no less than 4 or 5 charming, enthusiastic and competent medical professionals. It turned out that the doctor-lady on duty's favorite thing was stitches. We had a great chat and I was in and out in 45 minutes! They were impressed that I could tell them exactly how much I weighed. They were almost as impressed with me having run a marathon in Vermont the day before as I was impressed with myself for, well…just being me. It's a curse. I drove home and finished chopping up my trees. … The next night I went to the local Red Cross and tried to give blood. I see you rolling your eyes. Chris, what the hell? You run a race Sunday, your put yourself in the Emergency room Monday, why are you trying to give blood on Tuesday? In my defence they really want my blood. They are on me serval phone calls and emails a day about how much they want my blood. But, I'm usually in the middle of a training cycle and can't really afford to tapped of my basic circulatory life essence. Consequently, I try to schedule blood donations for after my target events. The nerve of them. After begging me for weeks and putting me through all the preliminaries, they turned me away when I told them of my recent forestry mishap. Apparently there is have some silly rule about ‘no open wounds'. I mean, you're after my blood, wouldn't this be a positive proof point that I've got some to spare? … No worries. On to my next thing. I like to be tightly scheduled. I'm happiest when I have a nice pile of tasks in my que. That's how my weekends go in the spring and summer. A yellow sticky pad list of chores in my pocket that I try to get done to have that warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment from washing the car or folding the laundry or … maybe even running a race. … Teresa had come home from the City to pick up some stuff Friday. We had to do a bike swap. I had procured a new city bike for her. A city bike is a bicycle that is perfectly functional but has a low value and low probability of being stolen. The 40-year-old Schwin I had previously procured was broken. She had managed to crank out the bearing, which is not something I'm going to fix on a bike where the tires are worth more than the bike. I procured a ‘new' old bike, cleaned it up, got most of the gears working, and transferred the rack from the old-old bike Saturday morning. As we are all destined to do, I have turned into my father. I had to drive her back into the city on Saturday. I had to be in Vermont Saturday night as well. … I had packed up my race stuff. Since I was driving, I didn't need to be picky. A little of this, a little of that. I opted to go back to my old Brooks baggie shorts with the bike short liner, because they have enough pockets to carry all my standard race stuff. A couple gels, a baggie of Endurolytes, a small thing of lube. I was trying to make the 7:00PM deadline to pick up my bib in Vermont. Burlington is about 3 hours and change from my house. After the side trip to the city it was going to be tight. … The weather forecast called for clear skies Saturday slowly changing to rain in the evening, then into thunderstorms through the morning. I try not to think too much about the weather when I'm approaching a race. There really isn't much you can do about it. No sense wasting your energy fretting. It was starting to drizzle when I pulled into the race expo hotel in South Burlington with 8 minutes to spare. I was able to get my bib and pick up a couple Expresso Love Gu's – old-school nutrition. In a change of pace, I got a medium shirt, instead of a large due to my current waifish deportment. Then I wandered off in the strengthening showers to find my campground. My comfy rustic home to pitch my lonely tent for the evening. … To get to my camp I was routed right by the race start/finish area. Which was nice. The college town of Burlington sits on the edge of Lake Champlain. The race course for the marathon is a sort of figure 8 that goes out north of the city, turns around and runs back through the city, turns again and comes back by the park again to go north, again, then comes back south along a bike trail at the edge of the lake to the finish. Eyeballing it on the map I thought I might be able to walk to the race start in the morning from my camp. The bike trail that the race finishes on runs right by the edge of the campground. I measured it to be over a mile by the road. I figured I probably wouldn't want to hike that, especially in a storm, in the morning, and definitely wouldn't want to hike back after the race. I called Brian to see what his plans were. He told me he wasn't racing. He was running with his son Chris. Good for him. That completes something special for him. Running a marathon with every one of his kids. But, for me, I wouldn't be able to pace with him. Did I mention I was racing? Yeah, I had a goal. I was trying to spin that fitness from my Boston training cycle into a qualifying race. I thought it would be a no-brainer. I was in good shape. This was supposed to be a more reasonable course. I'd just hang on to the back of the nearest pace group to 3:30 and be done with that. Piece of cake. … Checking in to my camp site it was raining fairly hard now, and of course, as I unrolled my tent it started pouring. I was trying to hurry but that just made things slower. The way these tents work is that there isn't a real roof. The roof part is a screen, a mesh, to I suppose, let your foul camping breath and farts out. But that let the rain come right through. The way you make it watertight is to string another bit, called a fly, over the open part, which was giving me trouble in the wind. Picture ma trying to do all this in the pouring rain and wind. I must've looked incredibly pitiful. Hold that picture in your head next time you think hiking the Appalachian trail is a good idea. Some guy even ran over from a neighboring camp site to help me. At least it wasn't dark out yet. The good news was that I was right next to the shower & bathroom facilities buulding. The bad news was that I was right next to the shower & bathroom facilities building. Lots of traffic. Lots of lights. People wandering around. I took a few minutes to pump up my mattress. This all seemed like a great idea when I set it up last month. Not so much now. Soaking wet. Pumping away in my little tent with the rain beating on the sides. … Now I'm thinking I should have some sort of meal before I crash out in my soggy hidey hole. I did what any sentient 21st century droid would do and asked Siri for a grocery store nearby. I was thinking maybe a Wholefoods or something similar. But, Burlington, being an old New England Town, is filled with corner grocery stores. Basically, one room affairs with beer, chips and lottery tickets. I was getting tired at this point, so I gave up and bought a turkey sandwich and a beer. I returned to my campground and sat in my truck, thinking how sad a spectacle I was soggy, in my truck with the rain pouring down, chewing on a gas-station sandwich. Having paddled my canoe through these types of adventures before and thought to myself, smiling a bit, ‘this will make a great story'. I was worrying a bit about logistics for the morning. I didn't want to hike the mile plus to the start in a rainstorm. I decided I would drive in early and find a place to park. They said there was municipal parking, but after my ‘grocery store' adventure I wondered what that would be like, or if it even existed. Ce'st la vie. Time for beddy-by. … In normal conditions my tent, mattress and sleeping bag are pretty darn comfy. These weren't exactly ‘normal'. It was storming hard, with blowing wind and driving rain. I could hear the waves crashing down on the lake shore with a steady roar. The spotlights on the facilities lit up my tent like an operating theatre. I crawled into my tent, dragging mud and water with me. Crawled into my sleeping bag and wrapped my throw away shirt around my head like a bandage to block the light, put my phone on airplane mode and set the alarm for 5 AM. That should give me plenty of time to get ready and find a parking spot. Now, on a normal night, in the campground, hard up against the communal bathroom, I probably would have been kept awake by the noise of the park denizens coming and going and recreating. This was not a normal night. I considered my good fortune. The roar of the waves and the wind and the steady drum of a hard rain was like a meditation track, right? White noise. The song “The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was running slyly through my head. “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they called 'gitche gumee' The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy” That's when I realize that I had to pee. At the same time I realized I would rather have my bladder explode and die of sepsis than go out int o this storm. Then I fell asleep. A couple hours later I woke up to an eerie, (no pun intended), silence. I was woken up by pause in storms. It was a bit before 11:00 and I thought, now would be an excellent time to make a run for the facilities next door. As I started moving around I realized that there was a fair amount of water inside my tent. Whether it was from me bumping the sides or the rain coming sideways under the fly, I don't know. My sleeping bag was wet. As I extracted myself and went to the rest room I thought that this might be a problem if the storms returned and temperature dropped a bit more. Woke by quiet after 10. Goodtime to pee. Sleeping bag wet. So, we held an executive meeting in my head and decided to sleep in the truck for the rest of the night. It was surprisingly comfortable with my sleeping bag and the seat all the way back. I slept great. … My 5 AM alarm woke me to a humid, cool morning with scattered, pudgy clouds. I was still worried about parking so I got my stuff on and drove into town. Not only was the parking garage available and deserted, I'm pretty sure it was free. The gate was open and the display had some sort of non-descriptive announcement. I didn't have too many options for breakfast so I ate one of the SpringEnergy gels I had brought. They're more like baby food than race gels. My next mission would be to find a cup of coffee somewhere. I took $5 with me and went out to walk around the start area. After a few laps I found a gas station with some coffee and checked that box. That left me with another problem. Now I had $3 left over that I didn't know what to do with. I could just drop it on the ground. I could try to carry it. In the end I just handed to some guy in a Bruins shirt. He was confused. He was pretty sure I was up to something nefarious. … Then I just hung out in the park and stretched and relaxed. It was partially sunny, very humid with a bit of wind and lots of puddles. The race starts at 7:00 now, ever since the heat incident of 2 years ago. Looking out over the lake there were towers of blackish clouds. As I wandered about someone called my name and it was Brian and his son. I was glad to see them. Glad to have someone to chat with. We hung out and listened to the race announcements. Bart Yasso was saying something to the assembled throng. There were maybe 3,000 people in the race. Lots of 50 staters. A nice size for a race. About 15 minutes before the start the announcers came on and told everyone to leave the park and take shelter in the parking garages. Apparently one of those black clouds out over the race had us in its sites. The crowd filed out of the park across the street and down the road. Brian, his son and I went into the Courtyard Hotel lobby. We chatted with some of the folks in there, but basically stood around for 45 minutes while another small storm cell passed over. That's a first for me. They let us go back to the race start after the danger had passed. Speaking of passing, I got passed by Bart Yasso leaving the hotel. I said hi but he was in a hurry to get back to the announcing. We found our corrals. I hunted down the 3:30 pace leaders. And we were off and running about 7:45. It was a bit humid but nothing terrible. I hung close to the pace leader and we were quickly up to pace. There were two pacers for 3:30. They did a good job. They kept us within 5 seconds of the pace even with the rolling hills, the hard lefts and rights, and the slight wind. They did something really useful. Instead of running together one guy ran about 50 to 100 feet behind the other guy. I started out with the lead guy but then filtered back to the second pack. The effort was steady but not hard. I felt fine. … It was hillier than I had surmised from Brian's description. There was one long hill back into the city that wasn't steep but was a nice long pull. There was a pretty good head wind in one direction. It was useful to be in the pack and I was able to draft the pacer. There were some good crowds in the city but not much as you got out of town. When the sun came through the clouds it was a little hot. I was staying on my nutrition, taking enough water and sipping from my bottle of F2C. The gels they had on course were maple syrup gels. Which is fitting for Vermont, but basically, you're drinking pancake syrup. I knew the “big hill” was coming up at mile 15ish. As we turned back towards that hill I put a little extra fuel in the fire and dropped the pace a bit. I knew, from my training I had some faster miles in me. I figured I'd put a little buffer between me and the pace group in case I struggled on the hill. I thought that once I got over the hill, I could relax into the rocking chair and just glide home. … Up to this point I was pacing well. Not easy but not hard either. Race pace. The hill was a monster. For some reason it really knocked me back on my heels. I had to grind it out. I lost some time but stayed ahead of the pace group. I was suffering badly as I neared the top, but I got over it. On the back side of the hill I was trashed and focused on finding a recovery pace. My hips were tight. My stride was painful. That high hamstring tendonitis was biting me in the ass. Remember when I said I “had some good training runs and some not so good since Boston”? Remember how I said I had somehow managed to give myself tendonitis in the ass? Well, one of those workouts was a 20+ mile tempo run. And what happened on that run was I got to about 16 miles and this tendonitis flared up. It hurts. Like some monster biting your ass. It makes it hard to lift your legs and makes running up hills really hard. It makes it hard to keep your stride length. I ended up doing a fair amount of walking at the end of that workout. This showed up again at Vermont after the big hill about 16-17 mile in. It wasn't the ‘wall' I had plenty of calories. It wasn't cramps, I had plenty of salt. It was this pain in my ass that kept me from holing my pace. And that's where I stopped racing and started limping in. In a few minutes the 3:30 pacers went by me. I said “That hill was a bitch.” He said, “Yeah, but it's done now.” I said, “Yeah, but so are my legs.” At this point I still had about a 2-1/2 minute cushion but I could race anymore and had 8-9 miles to go. There were still some rolling hills and each of those little rises hurt like hell. I threw in the towel and started walking and jogging, just to get it done. I ran by my camp ground a couple more times and thought about just leaving, but my truck wasn't there, it was downtown. I was depressed and having dark thoughts. I thought to myself “Now I know why those people cheat. You can put in the work and do all the right things and what do you get? Nothin. That's why they cheat.:” I might even have had a thought or two about how I'm just getting slower and what's the point of staying in a world that's just a constant loss of ability? Such is the death march. When you get into the death march late in a race you notice there are people there doing the same death march pace you are. You see them walking, stumbling, summoning the strength to run a bit, walking some more. The comradery of zombies. It wasn't awful physically. I was fit enough to not be physically suffering. Not like a calorie crash. Not physical exhaustion. My HR was fine. I just couldn't get my legs to turn. And my mind had left the building. I was done. Done with training. Don't with chasing unicorns. Done with it all. At one point the course cuts through a wooded section in the high miles. Just a short bit of trail to connect to road sections. With the rain and the runners it had turned into a mud hole. I felt bad for the runners who were still racing. Also, late in the race, in one of the neighborhood sections, there was a bunch of people, a couple neighborhood families handing our Budweiser pony cans. I had no desire for a can of beer but one of the guys in front of me took one, took a sip and immediately dropped it in a big splash of foam. The guys handing out the beers yelled at him for dropping it. It was a bit surreal. Finally we found our way onto the bike path for the last couple miles back to the finish. I came upon a guy clutch his calf, hopping around and screaming with a cramp. I dug out the rest of my Endurolytes, gave him two and said “chew these, to get the salt into your system.” Hope he had some water with him. With the late start it was pretty hot and really humid. It didn't impact me. I was out of the fight before any of that would have hit me. As I was pulling into the finish, I was trading places with an older, grey haired woman wearing a singlet from one of the regional running clubs I know. I thought to myself, ‘great, my finishing photo is me being out kicked by this lady!” I wasn't in a good place mentally. I managed to find a pretty fast last mile heading into the finish. It didn't matter. I had turned a 2-1/2 minute buffer into a 12 minute hole with a 3:47 finish. I got my medal and a bottle of water. I stood around waiting to see if maybe Brian and his son weren't close behind me since I lost so much ground. I had passed his daughter out on the bike path and she hadn't seen them yet. I saw the club singlet and congratulated her. She turned around and said “Chris?” Turns out it was Linda one of the Goon Squad runners. We had a long talk catching up. She was coming off AFib surgery and starting her recovery. The doctors had told her to quit running and it took her a long time to find a doctor who could give her a correct diagnosis and fix it. Now she's on her way back. I got my truck and made my way back to the campground. I didn't see any reason to sleep over another night, so I broke it down and loaded up. I stopped to tell the kid I was leaving early and he insisted on giving me my $36 back. Good Karma. … I drove the sunny, warm day home to get back onto my list of chores. I must tell you I was relieved to get this race over with. But, now I'm out of qualification and I don't have the time or the energy for another campaign this summer. Maybe I can't make the standard? I don't know. I kills me to give up, but I'm not having fun anymore and my body is talking to me. I need some time off. It took me a few days to come to grips with not running Boston. I'm not making any proclamations. But, I'm ok with letting it go after 21 years. I'm not saying I am. I'm saying I'm ok with it. That's the best I can give you coming out the back of this farce of a long weekend. I'm ok with it. … “To be alive: not just the carcass / But the spark. / That's crudely put, but … / If we're not supposed to dance, / Why all this music?” – Gregory Orr

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VT 2019 – The French Farce

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2019 37:06

VT 2019 – The French Farce (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/Vermont2019.mp3] Link Farce. A farce is a comedy that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, and thus improbable. Farce is also characterized by physical humor, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense, and broadly stylized performances. … Covered in dirt, sweat and sawdust. There I was, laying on the table in the emergency room at my local hospital. A nice thick maroon swell of blood blobbing out of the gash on my shin. Waiting for the doctor-lady to come back. You might think this would make me cranky. But, on the contrary I was having a pretty good day. It was, ironically, Memorial Day. A long weekend and I had gotten a lot done, including running the marathon in Vermont. I was relieved to have that off my agenda, be done training and back to working on other stuff. Like cutting up the trees I had felled in the yard. Then the machete glanced off a branch and I whacked myself square on the shin bone with that long, heavy, sharp blade designed for slicing. Right on the shin bone. Nothing serious just a bit of a rent on the protective covering of skin that keeps the red stuff in. Editor’s note: “Rent”, to divide, usually violently or abruptly from the middle English Renden and Old English Rendan. I staunched it with a rag from my chainsaw box and hobbled inside for some awkward first aid. I flushed it out with Bactine and taped a bunch of gauze to it, wrapping the tape around my calf, ending up with something that you might see in an old war film or maybe an even earlier mummy movie. That held it in place long enough for me move enough trees out of the driveway to get my truck out. I drove to the emergency room. I wasn’t looking forward to the emergency room. On a major holiday it was sure to be filled with drunken yahoos, with “hold my beer” accidents. I brought along a book and was going to start working on this report for you in the hours of waiting that I anticipated. But, I was positively thrilled with service. I barely had a chance to sit down in the squeaky, vinyl, institutional seat when I was called. I was attended to by no less than 4 or 5 charming, enthusiastic and competent medical professionals. It turned out that the doctor-lady on duty’s favorite thing was stitches. We had a great chat and I was in and out in 45 minutes! They were impressed that I could tell them exactly how much I weighed. They were almost as impressed with me having run a marathon in Vermont the day before as I was impressed with myself for, well…just being me. It’s a curse. I drove home and finished chopping up my trees. … The next night I went to the local Red Cross and tried to give blood. I see you rolling your eyes. Chris, what the hell? You run a race Sunday, your put yourself in the Emergency room Monday, why are you trying to give blood on Tuesday? In my defence they really want my blood. They are on me serval phone calls and emails a day about how much they want my blood. But, I’m usually in the middle of a training cycle and can’t really afford to tapped of my basic circulatory life essence. Consequently, I try to schedule blood donations for after my target events. The nerve of them. After begging me for weeks and putting me through all the preliminaries, they turned me away when I told them of my recent forestry mishap. Apparently there is have some silly rule about ‘no open wounds’. I mean, you’re after my blood, wouldn’t this be a positive proof point that I’ve got some to spare? … No worries. On to my next thing. I like to be tightly scheduled. I’m happiest when I have a nice pile of tasks in my que. That’s how my weekends go in the spring and summer. A yellow sticky pad list of chores in my pocket that I try to get done to have that warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment from washing the car or folding the laundry or … maybe even running a race. … Teresa had come home from the City to pick up some stuff Friday. We had to do a bike swap. I had procured a new city bike for her. A city bike is a bicycle that is perfectly functional but has a low value and low probability of being stolen. The 40-year-old Schwin I had previously procured was broken. She had managed to crank out the bearing, which is not something I’m going to fix on a bike where the tires are worth more than the bike. I procured a ‘new’ old bike, cleaned it up, got most of the gears working, and transferred the rack from the old-old bike Saturday morning. As we are all destined to do, I have turned into my father. I had to drive her back into the city on Saturday. I had to be in Vermont Saturday night as well. … I had packed up my race stuff. Since I was driving, I didn’t need to be picky. A little of this, a little of that. I opted to go back to my old Brooks baggie shorts with the bike short liner, because they have enough pockets to carry all my standard race stuff. A couple gels, a baggie of Endurolytes, a small thing of lube. I was trying to make the 7:00PM deadline to pick up my bib in Vermont. Burlington is about 3 hours and change from my house. After the side trip to the city it was going to be tight. … The weather forecast called for clear skies Saturday slowly changing to rain in the evening, then into thunderstorms through the morning. I try not to think too much about the weather when I’m approaching a race. There really isn’t much you can do about it. No sense wasting your energy fretting. It was starting to drizzle when I pulled into the race expo hotel in South Burlington with 8 minutes to spare. I was able to get my bib and pick up a couple Expresso Love Gu’s – old-school nutrition. In a change of pace, I got a medium shirt, instead of a large due to my current waifish deportment. Then I wandered off in the strengthening showers to find my campground. My comfy rustic home to pitch my lonely tent for the evening. … To get to my camp I was routed right by the race start/finish area. Which was nice. The college town of Burlington sits on the edge of Lake Champlain. The race course for the marathon is a sort of figure 8 that goes out north of the city, turns around and runs back through the city, turns again and comes back by the park again to go north, again, then comes back south along a bike trail at the edge of the lake to the finish. Eyeballing it on the map I thought I might be able to walk to the race start in the morning from my camp. The bike trail that the race finishes on runs right by the edge of the campground. I measured it to be over a mile by the road. I figured I probably wouldn’t want to hike that, especially in a storm, in the morning, and definitely wouldn’t want to hike back after the race. I called Brian to see what his plans were. He told me he wasn’t racing. He was running with his son Chris. Good for him. That completes something special for him. Running a marathon with every one of his kids. But, for me, I wouldn’t be able to pace with him. Did I mention I was racing? Yeah, I had a goal. I was trying to spin that fitness from my Boston training cycle into a qualifying race. I thought it would be a no-brainer. I was in good shape. This was supposed to be a more reasonable course. I’d just hang on to the back of the nearest pace group to 3:30 and be done with that. Piece of cake. … Checking in to my camp site it was raining fairly hard now, and of course, as I unrolled my tent it started pouring. I was trying to hurry but that just made things slower. The way these tents work is that there isn’t a real roof. The roof part is a screen, a mesh, to I suppose, let your foul camping breath and farts out. But that let the rain come right through. The way you make it watertight is to string another bit, called a fly, over the open part, which was giving me trouble in the wind. Picture ma trying to do all this in the pouring rain and wind. I must’ve looked incredibly pitiful. Hold that picture in your head next time you think hiking the Appalachian trail is a good idea. Some guy even ran over from a neighboring camp site to help me. At least it wasn’t dark out yet. The good news was that I was right next to the shower & bathroom facilities buulding. The bad news was that I was right next to the shower & bathroom facilities building. Lots of traffic. Lots of lights. People wandering around. I took a few minutes to pump up my mattress. This all seemed like a great idea when I set it up last month. Not so much now. Soaking wet. Pumping away in my little tent with the rain beating on the sides. … Now I’m thinking I should have some sort of meal before I crash out in my soggy hidey hole. I did what any sentient 21st century droid would do and asked Siri for a grocery store nearby. I was thinking maybe a Wholefoods or something similar. But, Burlington, being an old New England Town, is filled with corner grocery stores. Basically, one room affairs with beer, chips and lottery tickets. I was getting tired at this point, so I gave up and bought a turkey sandwich and a beer. I returned to my campground and sat in my truck, thinking how sad a spectacle I was soggy, in my truck with the rain pouring down, chewing on a gas-station sandwich. Having paddled my canoe through these types of adventures before and thought to myself, smiling a bit, ‘this will make a great story’. I was worrying a bit about logistics for the morning. I didn’t want to hike the mile plus to the start in a rainstorm. I decided I would drive in early and find a place to park. They said there was municipal parking, but after my ‘grocery store’ adventure I wondered what that would be like, or if it even existed. Ce’st la vie. Time for beddy-by. … In normal conditions my tent, mattress and sleeping bag are pretty darn comfy. These weren’t exactly ‘normal’. It was storming hard, with blowing wind and driving rain. I could hear the waves crashing down on the lake shore with a steady roar. The spotlights on the facilities lit up my tent like an operating theatre. I crawled into my tent, dragging mud and water with me. Crawled into my sleeping bag and wrapped my throw away shirt around my head like a bandage to block the light, put my phone on airplane mode and set the alarm for 5 AM. That should give me plenty of time to get ready and find a parking spot. Now, on a normal night, in the campground, hard up against the communal bathroom, I probably would have been kept awake by the noise of the park denizens coming and going and recreating. This was not a normal night. I considered my good fortune. The roar of the waves and the wind and the steady drum of a hard rain was like a meditation track, right? White noise. The song “The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was running slyly through my head. “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they called 'gitche gumee' The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy” That’s when I realize that I had to pee. At the same time I realized I would rather have my bladder explode and die of sepsis than go out int o this storm. Then I fell asleep. A couple hours later I woke up to an eerie, (no pun intended), silence. I was woken up by pause in storms. It was a bit before 11:00 and I thought, now would be an excellent time to make a run for the facilities next door. As I started moving around I realized that there was a fair amount of water inside my tent. Whether it was from me bumping the sides or the rain coming sideways under the fly, I don’t know. My sleeping bag was wet. As I extracted myself and went to the rest room I thought that this might be a problem if the storms returned and temperature dropped a bit more. Woke by quiet after 10. Goodtime to pee. Sleeping bag wet. So, we held an executive meeting in my head and decided to sleep in the truck for the rest of the night. It was surprisingly comfortable with my sleeping bag and the seat all the way back. I slept great. … My 5 AM alarm woke me to a humid, cool morning with scattered, pudgy clouds. I was still worried about parking so I got my stuff on and drove into town. Not only was the parking garage available and deserted, I’m pretty sure it was free. The gate was open and the display had some sort of non-descriptive announcement. I didn’t have too many options for breakfast so I ate one of the SpringEnergy gels I had brought. They’re more like baby food than race gels. My next mission would be to find a cup of coffee somewhere. I took $5 with me and went out to walk around the start area. After a few laps I found a gas station with some coffee and checked that box. That left me with another problem. Now I had $3 left over that I didn’t know what to do with. I could just drop it on the ground. I could try to carry it. In the end I just handed to some guy in a Bruins shirt. He was confused. He was pretty sure I was up to something nefarious. … Then I just hung out in the park and stretched and relaxed. It was partially sunny, very humid with a bit of wind and lots of puddles. The race starts at 7:00 now, ever since the heat incident of 2 years ago. Looking out over the lake there were towers of blackish clouds. As I wandered about someone called my name and it was Brian and his son. I was glad to see them. Glad to have someone to chat with. We hung out and listened to the race announcements. Bart Yasso was saying something to the assembled throng. There were maybe 3,000 people in the race. Lots of 50 staters. A nice size for a race. About 15 minutes before the start the announcers came on and told everyone to leave the park and take shelter in the parking garages. Apparently one of those black clouds out over the race had us in its sites. The crowd filed out of the park across the street and down the road. Brian, his son and I went into the Courtyard Hotel lobby. We chatted with some of the folks in there, but basically stood around for 45 minutes while another small storm cell passed over. That’s a first for me. They let us go back to the race start after the danger had passed. Speaking of passing, I got passed by Bart Yasso leaving the hotel. I said hi but he was in a hurry to get back to the announcing. We found our corrals. I hunted down the 3:30 pace leaders. And we were off and running about 7:45. It was a bit humid but nothing terrible. I hung close to the pace leader and we were quickly up to pace. There were two pacers for 3:30. They did a good job. They kept us within 5 seconds of the pace even with the rolling hills, the hard lefts and rights, and the slight wind. They did something really useful. Instead of running together one guy ran about 50 to 100 feet behind the other guy. I started out with the lead guy but then filtered back to the second pack. The effort was steady but not hard. I felt fine. … It was hillier than I had surmised from Brian’s description. There was one long hill back into the city that wasn’t steep but was a nice long pull. There was a pretty good head wind in one direction. It was useful to be in the pack and I was able to draft the pacer. There were some good crowds in the city but not much as you got out of town. When the sun came through the clouds it was a little hot. I was staying on my nutrition, taking enough water and sipping from my bottle of F2C. The gels they had on course were maple syrup gels. Which is fitting for Vermont, but basically, you’re drinking pancake syrup. I knew the “big hill” was coming up at mile 15ish. As we turned back towards that hill I put a little extra fuel in the fire and dropped the pace a bit. I knew, from my training I had some faster miles in me. I figured I’d put a little buffer between me and the pace group in case I struggled on the hill. I thought that once I got over the hill, I could relax into the rocking chair and just glide home. … Up to this point I was pacing well. Not easy but not hard either. Race pace. The hill was a monster. For some reason it really knocked me back on my heels. I had to grind it out. I lost some time but stayed ahead of the pace group. I was suffering badly as I neared the top, but I got over it. On the back side of the hill I was trashed and focused on finding a recovery pace. My hips were tight. My stride was painful. That high hamstring tendonitis was biting me in the ass. Remember when I said I “had some good training runs and some not so good since Boston”? Remember how I said I had somehow managed to give myself tendonitis in the ass? Well, one of those workouts was a 20+ mile tempo run. And what happened on that run was I got to about 16 miles and this tendonitis flared up. It hurts. Like some monster biting your ass. It makes it hard to lift your legs and makes running up hills really hard. It makes it hard to keep your stride length. I ended up doing a fair amount of walking at the end of that workout. This showed up again at Vermont after the big hill about 16-17 mile in. It wasn’t the ‘wall’ I had plenty of calories. It wasn’t cramps, I had plenty of salt. It was this pain in my ass that kept me from holing my pace. And that’s where I stopped racing and started limping in. In a few minutes the 3:30 pacers went by me. I said “That hill was a bitch.” He said, “Yeah, but it’s done now.” I said, “Yeah, but so are my legs.” At this point I still had about a 2-1/2 minute cushion but I could race anymore and had 8-9 miles to go. There were still some rolling hills and each of those little rises hurt like hell. I threw in the towel and started walking and jogging, just to get it done. I ran by my camp ground a couple more times and thought about just leaving, but my truck wasn’t there, it was downtown. I was depressed and having dark thoughts. I thought to myself “Now I know why those people cheat. You can put in the work and do all the right things and what do you get? Nothin. That’s why they cheat.:” I might even have had a thought or two about how I’m just getting slower and what’s the point of staying in a world that’s just a constant loss of ability? Such is the death march. When you get into the death march late in a race you notice there are people there doing the same death march pace you are. You see them walking, stumbling, summoning the strength to run a bit, walking some more. The comradery of zombies. It wasn’t awful physically. I was fit enough to not be physically suffering. Not like a calorie crash. Not physical exhaustion. My HR was fine. I just couldn’t get my legs to turn. And my mind had left the building. I was done. Done with training. Don’t with chasing unicorns. Done with it all. At one point the course cuts through a wooded section in the high miles. Just a short bit of trail to connect to road sections. With the rain and the runners it had turned into a mud hole. I felt bad for the runners who were still racing. Also, late in the race, in one of the neighborhood sections, there was a bunch of people, a couple neighborhood families handing our Budweiser pony cans. I had no desire for a can of beer but one of the guys in front of me took one, took a sip and immediately dropped it in a big splash of foam. The guys handing out the beers yelled at him for dropping it. It was a bit surreal. Finally we found our way onto the bike path for the last couple miles back to the finish. I came upon a guy clutch his calf, hopping around and screaming with a cramp. I dug out the rest of my Endurolytes, gave him two and said “chew these, to get the salt into your system.” Hope he had some water with him. With the late start it was pretty hot and really humid. It didn’t impact me. I was out of the fight before any of that would have hit me. As I was pulling into the finish, I was trading places with an older, grey haired woman wearing a singlet from one of the regional running clubs I know. I thought to myself, ‘great, my finishing photo is me being out kicked by this lady!” I wasn’t in a good place mentally. I managed to find a pretty fast last mile heading into the finish. It didn’t matter. I had turned a 2-1/2 minute buffer into a 12 minute hole with a 3:47 finish. I got my medal and a bottle of water. I stood around waiting to see if maybe Brian and his son weren’t close behind me since I lost so much ground. I had passed his daughter out on the bike path and she hadn’t seen them yet. I saw the club singlet and congratulated her. She turned around and said “Chris?” Turns out it was Linda one of the Goon Squad runners. We had a long talk catching up. She was coming off AFib surgery and starting her recovery. The doctors had told her to quit running and it took her a long time to find a doctor who could give her a correct diagnosis and fix it. Now she’s on her way back. I got my truck and made my way back to the campground. I didn’t see any reason to sleep over another night, so I broke it down and loaded up. I stopped to tell the kid I was leaving early and he insisted on giving me my $36 back. Good Karma. … I drove the sunny, warm day home to get back onto my list of chores. I must tell you I was relieved to get this race over with. But, now I’m out of qualification and I don’t have the time or the energy for another campaign this summer. Maybe I can’t make the standard? I don’t know. I kills me to give up, but I’m not having fun anymore and my body is talking to me. I need some time off. It took me a few days to come to grips with not running Boston. I’m not making any proclamations. But, I’m ok with letting it go after 21 years. I’m not saying I am. I’m saying I’m ok with it. That’s the best I can give you coming out the back of this farce of a long weekend. I’m ok with it. … “To be alive: not just the carcass / But the spark. / That’s crudely put, but … / If we’re not supposed to dance, / Why all this music?” – Gregory Orr

220 – Expert Series – F2C Nutrition Owner Greg Cowan

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 2, 2019 83:34

220 – Expert Series – F2C Nutrition Owner Greg Cowan-Over the first 200 episodes of talking with athletes, I noticed a large trend in the specific nutrition company that athletes use. This company is F2C Nutrition out of Canada. F2C is an athlete focused, science driven company and in this episode I talk with Greg the owner. We discuss the products his company makes, how to effectively use them, and most importantly the quality control. The product line that F2C nutrition produces are all Inform Certified and some are even Inform Sport Certified as well as NSF certified. Basically, if you use their products you can know that there are absolutely no banned substances in their products. They do so much testing on quality, taste, absorption, and much more. I learned quite a bit through this interview and I think anyone who wants to know more about fueling during races can benefit from this episode.-Follow F2C Nutrition,Facebook: F2C NutritionInstagram: @F2CnutritionWebsite: www.f2cnutrition.com-Follow Coach Terry:Instagram: @PerfectRacePodcastWebsite: www.CoachTerryWilson.com

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220 – Expert Series – F2C Nutrition Owner Greg Cowan

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 2, 2019 83:34

canada training race owner nutrition run pursuit iron man marathon racing endurance bike swim triathlon triathletes nsf expert series 70.3 f2c greg cowan

64 – IRONMAN© 70.3 Wisconsin – Novia Plummer

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 17, 2018 78:29

My friend Novia just recently completed her race at IRONMAN© Wisconsin 70.3 and she sits down and talks more about the mental side of things. Due to some of the conditions she mentions the sports psychology and how she leverages her thoughts for a better performance. We laugh quite a bit and I wouldn’t have it any other way. If you were at Wisconsin this year you know the conditions were less than favorable and she mentions how to adjust things on the fly for your day.-Enjoy the show. To see pictures from her race, go to https://www.coachterrywilson.com/perfectrace/64 -Weather that day: 60 - 67Water: 74ish-Age Group: F 45-49Height: 5’5”Weight: 150Calories per hour: PSI for this course: 110Swim – 1:05:23T1 – 7:48Bike – 3:35:20T2 – 4:32Run – 3:14:01Total Race Time: 8:07:04-Gender Rank: 441Division Rank: 47Overall Rank: 1543-Follow Novia,Instagram: @TexanTriatleteFacebook: Novia Plummer-Mentioned on this episode:Mike Blankenship: https://www.facebook.com/irontex TriShop: www.Trishop.com F2C Nutrition: https://f2cnutrition.com/en-us/ Base Salt: https://www.baseperformance.com/products/base-electrolyte-salt-4-vials -To learn more about me, go to www.CoachTerryWilson.com

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64 – IRONMAN© 70.3 Wisconsin – Novia Plummer

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 17, 2018 78:29

race wisconsin nutrition run pursuit iron man weather base bike swim psi plummer novia ironman wisconsin 70.3 f2c

The 2018 Boston Marathon

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2018 34:32

The 2018 Boston Marathon The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast– Boston 2018 (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/Boston2018.mp3] Link We are near the ‘one-mile-to-go' marker. Eric says something about one more hill. The crowds are thicker and more enthusiastic than they should be, but this is Boston. The spectators take it as seriously as the runners. A multi-colored sea of umbrellas lines the road and the encouragement is loud enough to rise above the storm. Because it is the Boston Marathon, and this is our race. I am slowed but not walking. Eric has those ultra-marathon legs and is pulling me. If he wasn't there I might, I just might, take a walk break. But I don't. And we grind on. … This race has ground me down but has not beaten me. The rain continues to come in sheets and stand-you-up blasts of cold wind. It is a din of squishing footfalls and the wet-plastic scrunching of ponchos, trash bags and rain coats. All cadenced by the constant buffet and roar of wind-driven rain smashing into humans. That one more hill Eric is talking about is not really a hill. But I know what he means. It's Eric's 10th Boston and he has decided to run it in with me even though my pace has deteriorated in these last 2 miles as my legs lose the battle to this Boston course. I will not stop. It's my 20th Boston so I remember when they added this underpass to avoid a road crossing many years ago. I remember the old days of looking ahead and wishing with all my heart to see the runners disappearing to the right onto Hereford Street. Now we looked ahead to see the moving tide of storm shattered humans jog left and dip under and out the other side. We don't walk or slow our grimly purposed grind through the storm. We rise out of the underpass. Shifting to avoid the walkers or stumblers, or just having to jostle through yet another weaving, wet, exhausted, human-trash-bag blasted into our personal space by the gusty rain. There is not much antipathy left for these wayward castaways. An elbow, a shoulder, a tired shove and we all keep moving. It's like being inside a washing machine filled with ponchos and rain gear with a cold firehose turned on you at the same time. We all just want to finish. Ironically I feel a tail wind slap me on the back as we grind up Hereford. The only tail wind on the course. Maybe a bit insulting. Too little, too late. Eric says his family is in the crowd somewhere up by the turn onto Bolyston and I grudgingly grind a wide tangent as he searches the crowd. Nothing against his family but I don't think I'd stop here to see God if he were behind the barrier. The pull of that finish line is too strong, and I'm exhausted from 3-plus hours of pummeling rain and wind and cold. Typically, in a rainy race people will strip out of their protective clothing in the first few miles as they warm up. Not today. They never warmed up. But now, as they approach the finish line and the anticipated succor of hotel rooms and hot showers they begin to shed their rain carapaces en masse. For the last 10 miles I have been looking out the 6-inch circle of my found poncho's hood. Now as I pull it back and look down Bolyston it is an apocalyptic scene. Usually in high wind situations the discarded rain ponchos and trash bags will blow across the course like dangerous plastic tumbleweeds to tangle the runners' legs or lodge in the fencing. Not today. The cold rain is so heavy that it plasters the detritus to the pavement like so many giant spit balls. Through this apocalyptic landscape we grind out the last ¼ mile of this storied course. There is not much of a sprint in my stride as we push through the timing mats. I pull up the found poncho so the timers can see my number. I'm still clutching my bottle in one cold-cramped claw. I never finished my drink. I'm not sure I could let go of it if I wanted to. My hands ceased to function as hands more than an hour ago. Grimacing we finish. Around us runners throw their arms up in celebration. The look on their faces is a combination of triumph, relief and disbelief. They have survived the worst weather that Boston has ever offered up. They got it done on a day that was at once horrible and at the same time the most epic journey in a marathon most will ever experience. And not just any marathon. The Boston Marathon. They lived to tell the tales, and this one will be talked about for decades. … I was wrong. I thought I had seen everything and raced in every type of weather. I have never seen anything like this. The closest I have come was the last leg of the Hood to Coast Relay in 2016. I had the same 30 mph head wind with the same driving rain. But the difference that day in Oregon was that the rain was a few degrees warmer and I wasn't going 26.2 miles on one of the hardest marathon courses. I have experience. I ran my Boston PR in '98 in a cold drizzle. I rather enjoyed the Nor'easter of '07. I had a fine day in the rain of 2015. Friday , as the race was approaching, when we knew what the weather was shaping up to be I wrote a blog post to calm people down. In that post I said not to worry too much, it's never as bad on the course as the hype makes it out to be. I said that the cooler temps were good for racing if you could stay out of the wind. I mollified the nervous by noting that in the mid-pack there are thousands of people to draft with. I cautioned against wearing too much rain gear as it would catch the wind and slow you down. Instead, I recommended, wear a few layers to trap the heat. I was wrong. I have never seen anything like this. … Most races would have canceled or delayed in the face of this type of weather. Not Boston. This type of weather at Chicago would have resulted in a humanitarian crises on the scale of an ill-timed tsunami rising out of Lake Michigan. This weather at New York would have driven the runners and spectators into emergency shelters. Not the Boston Marathon. This old dame of a foot race has been continuously pitting the best runners in the world against each other for 122 years. This race is part of our cultural fabric. It's special. We don't stop for weather. It's too important to us to stop for anything. I remember emailing Dave McGillivray from a business trip in the days before the 2007 race as the Nor'easter bore down on New England. I asked him if the reports were true, that they were considering canceling the race? He responded matter of factly that he didn't know about anybody else but he was going to be there. It's not bravado or false courage. It's a mindset that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. The organization, the athletes, the cities and towns and the spectators are all in it together. Together, on Monday, we all screwed up our grit and ran our race despite what wrath nature decided to unpack for us. The athletes who run Boston are not the type to give up. They have earned the right to be there. Either by qualifying or working to raise thousands of dollars. This is not the one-and-done bucket list crowd. This is a cohort of seasoned endurance athletes who have trained hard and long over many years to get here. If they skipped runs for bad weather they would never have made it to the start in Hopkinton. … For the first time ever I decided to skip the Athlete's village in Hopkinton. From past experience I knew it was going to be a mess. Based on the reports I have from other runners it was like a medieval battlefield scene. The athletic fields turned into ankle deep mud under the marching of 30,000 runners. Athletes struggled to find shelter under the tents. Some crawled under vehicles in the parking lot in an attempt to get out of the elements. It was already raining and blowing hard as the day broke in Hopkinton. The temperatures struggled to find 40 degrees. There was no good place to be. It was a mess. There was no way to stay dry. Waiting around to be called to the corrals runners started to accumulate a core temperature loss that would haunt them throughout the race. The organization did the best they could but it was miserable and chaotic. I avoided it. My youngest daughter offered to drop me off in Hopkinton and I took the spectator bus downtown (instead of the athlete bus to the Village). Seeing what the conditions would be, I took Eric's offer of safe harbor at Betty's place. It's a long story, a Boston story, and it goes like this… A long time ago, a family from St. Louis owned a home in Hopkinton. They started a tradition of hosting the visiting Missouri runners in that home. Eventually that family from St. Louis sold the home to Betty's Family. They continued the tradition and this is where Eric, one of my running buddies, who is from St. Louis, has been sheltering before his Boston Marathons. This year, Betty has sold the house and moved into a senior center, right next to the start. She arranged to have the center's hall open to the Missouri runners. I joined a dozen or so gathered there in the warmth, replete with food and drink and good nature to wait for the start. We didn't know how lucky we were to have this safe harbor. Around 10:30 Eric, another runner and I made our goodbyes and started walking to the corrals. We walked out into the storm. We were ostensibly in wave 3 corral 3 but were soon to find out that much of the rigorous Boston starting procedure had been blown out the window. I made them stop at the big porta-potty farm on Main Street. I took my dry race shoes, socks and hat out of their bag and wiggled into them in the cramped plastic box. Ready to race. I tossed the sweat pants, old shoes and ski hat to the volunteer who was stuffing soggy cast offs frantically into a rattling plastic bag. I have raced and run in all kinds of weather. I generally know what to do and how to dress. Monday I dressed for racing in a 35-40 degree rainy day. I had trained in much colder weather. I wasn't expecting this day to be too cold, especially once we started racing and warmed up. The only real risk was at the end of the race. If we were forced to walk or slow down we might get chilled. I dressed based on my experience from 19 previous Boston Marathons and 60+ marathons over the last 25 years. And I was wrong. I wore a new pair of high-cut race shorts that I bought at the expo. I have a rule of thumb, especially after a winter training campaign, 35 and above is shorts weather. We were close to but above that line. I slipped on a thin pair of calf sleeves in deference to possible wind chill and rain. Calf sleeves are good compromise between shorts and tights if the weather is on the line and add additional protection against cramping on cold days. For the top I added a layer to what I would usually wear. I had a thin tech tee shirt that I had made into a tank by cutting off the sleeves as my base layer. On top of that I wore a high-quality long sleeve tech tee I got from Asics for the 2014 NYC race and on top of that my Squannacook singlet with the bib number. People forget that the bib number is waterproof and wind proof and helps keep your core warm. Three layers plus the oversized bib should keep the core warm. I wore a pair of tech gloves that were designed for this in-between type weather. You wouldn't want to wear these when the temps got below freezing but they usually work well in the in-between temps. I topped it off with a simple Boston race hat from 2017. That's the same scheme I've used in countless 35-40 degree rainy runs. I was wrong. Mentally I was prepared. I've been doing this too long to worry about things I can't change. I was happy to not have another hot year. I had had a decent training cycle and my fitness was good. I had avoided injury except for a minor niggle in my high left hamstring. I was ready to race. I slept well. I was ready to respect Boston. I was wrong. This was a different thing. This was different than anything I had ever raced in. … 65 seconds. That's how long Eric said it took me to poop at mile 9. I knew those porta-potties were there in the parking lot across from the reservoir. I have used them in previous years. I told Eric I wanted to stop. We had come to the conclusion that today wasn't the best racing weather by that point. We had been holding race pace fairly consistently up to that point down out of Hopkinton and into the flats of Ashland and Natick. I didn't feel horrible, but I didn't feel great either. I was worried about spending too much and getting caught at the end. My effort level was good, but a little high. My heart rate was good. But I weirdly felt like I was burning energy faster than normal. I could feel the energy I was expending fighting the storm. Our ability to draft had been minimalized. With the gusting wind and driving rain runners were having trouble staying in their lanes. Even if you could get on someone's shoulder that just meant you were in the wettest part of the road. The runners you were trying to draft stuck to the dry crown of the road and in order to get into their shadow you had to run in the water filled wheel paths. Even a veteran like me, who knows the course, couldn't make good tangent decisions as runners weaved and wobbled in the storm. My watch says I ran an extra ¼ mile. People were running in all kinds of rain gear in an attempt to stay the effect of the tempest. Shoes wrapped in bags tied at the ankles, runners clutching space blanket fragments, trash bags, ponchos and even shower caps that they had stolen from their hotels. All bets were off. I wanted to slow down and drop off of race pace to conserve energy I knew a forced break was a good psychological way of doing this. Anyone who has raced with me knows that I will keep repeating things like “we have to back it off” but for some reason struggle to put this sentiment into execution. A potty break would be a good reset. Once we had the race monkey off our backs Eric and I settled into a reasonable pace and looked up ahead to anticipate the girls and the hills. I wasn't feeling great but it wasn't critical. I didn't really know if I needed to be drinking more or how nutrition should work in this weather. I told Eric it was now a fun run and he said “Anything under four hours is good”. We ran on through Natick and Framingham. Eric turned to me and asked, was that the ½? I said I think it was. They hadn't put up the arch that has been there in recent years due to the wind and we almost missed it. Eric kept marveling at the spectators. He kept repeating ‘these people are the real story'. He was amazed that they were still out in force lining the course and cheering. The spectators at Boston take it as seriously as the runners. If I could turn my head in the final miles I would see the incongruent, multi-colored sea of umbrellas lining the. route The spectators at Boston are not spectators, they are partners, or rather part owners, with the athletes. Coming down the hill out of Hopkinton there were a couple of kids in bathing suits frolicking in a front yard. One guy was wearing a mask and snorkel. There are countless stories of spectators tying shoes and helping runners with food and nutrition when the athletes hands were too cold to work anymore. One out of town runner, in a fit of hypothermia went to the crowd looking for a spare rain poncho and got the nice LL Bean rain coat freely off a mans back so he could finish the race. In some ways it reminded me of 2013 when the people of Boston came together to help each other overcome adversity. It's been five years but our spirit is still Boston Strong. We ran on through to Wellesley staying on a good pace but trying to recover enough for the hills. Other years you can hear the girls at Wellesley College screaming from a mile away. This year the hard rain damped the sound until we were almost on top pf them. They were out there. They were hanging over their fence imploring the shivering runners with kisses and high-fives. Eric and I ran through smiling as always. Even though my energy was low I drifted over and slapped as many wet hands as I could. … Coming into mile 15 some combination of our slower pace and the increasing ferocity of the storm started to get the better of me. I could feel my core temperature dropping. I was working but I couldn't keep up. How did this happen? How could someone with my experience get it wrong? Why was this different from any other cold rain run? It was, in a sense, the perfect storm. The perfect combination of physics, fluid dynamics and temperature conspired to create a near perfect heat sink for the runners. The wind, on its own, was just a strong wind. The rain on its own was just a hard rain. The temperature on its own was just another spring day. But the combination pulled heat out of your body faster than you could make more. The volume of rain driven by the winds penetrated through my hat and washed the heat from my head. The same cold rain drove through the three layers of my shirts and washed the heat from my core. My gloves filled with cold water and my hands went numb. When I made a fist water would pour out like squeezing a wet sponge. The rain and wind was constant but would also come in big waves. We'd be running along and a surge in the storm would knock us sideways or backwards like being surprised by a maniac with a water cannon. I would stumble and lean into it and mutter “Holy shit storm!” or “Holy Cow Bells!” Really just to recognize and put words on the abuse. The wind was directly in our faces. The rain was directly in our faces. The whole time. We never got out of it. There would be lulls but then it would return with one of those smack-you-in-the-face hose downs. My shoulder and back muscles were sore from leaning into it. I was having difficulty drinking from my bottle because I couldn't squeeze my hand hard enough. I resorted to holding it between two hands and pushing together between them. People reported not having the hand strength to take their nutrition or even pull their shorts up after a potty stop. I was starting to go hypothermic and my mind searched for a plan. Eric knew I was struggling. I started scanning the road for discarded gear I could use. The entire length of the course was strewn with gear. I saw expensive gloves and hats and coats of all descriptions. We passed by an expensive fuel belt at one point that someone had given up on. Eric knew I was suffering and I told him I was going to grab a discarded poncho if I could find one. As if on cue a crumpled orange poncho came into view on the sidewalk to our left and I stopped to retrieve it. Eric helped me wriggle into it. It was rather tight, and that was a good thing. It was probably a woman's. It clung tightly to my torso and had a small hood that captured my head and hat without much luffing in the wind. It's at this point that Eric says I was a new man. I may not have been a new man but the poncho trapped enough heat to reverse the hypothermia and we got back to work. By now we were running down into Newton Lower Falls and looking up, over the highway at the Hills. Eric said, “We're not walking the hills.” I said, “OK” and we were all business. We slowed down but we kept moving through the first hill. I focused not on running but on falling. Falling forward and catching myself with my feet. Hips forward. Lift and place the foot. Not running just falling. The hood of the poncho was narrow. I had an enforced tunnel vision, but it was somehow comforting, like a blinders on a race horse. I could see Eric's blue shoes appear now and then on my right, or on my left. I settled into my own, little, six-inch oval of reality and worked through the hills. Other runners would cross my field of vision and I'd bump through them. I was in the groove. I don't know why but people's pacing was all over the place during the race. It might have been the wind or the hypothermia addled brains but they were weaving all over the road. I had to slam on my brakes for random stoppages the entire race. Eventually I just ran through them as best I could. I didn't have the energy to stop. This kind of behavior is unusual at Boston in the seeded corrals, but the whole day was unusual. I think the relative chaos of the start may have had something to do with it. When we got to the corrals they had ceased worrying about protocol and were just waving runners through. If you wanted to bandit Boston this year or cheat, Monday would have been the day to do it. But you also might have died in the process, so there's that. We got through the chutes and over the start mats without any formal starting ceremony. The flood gates were open, so to speak. Because of this I think the pacing was a bit strange at the start and we passed a lot of people. I was racing and Eric was doing his best to hold me back. We chewed through the downhill section of the course with gusto. Given the conditions we were probably too fast, but not suicidal. Both of us have run Boston enough times to be smart every once in a while. We were holding a qualifying pace fairly well and trying to draft where we could. Eric had to pull off and have someone tie his shoe but I stayed in my lane and he caught up. We rolled through the storm this way until I realized this was not a day to race and we had to conserve our energy if we wanted to finish. We metered our efforts and this budgeting process culminated in the voluntary pit stop at mile 9. … In Newton between the hills we'd focus on pulling back and recovering enough for the next one. Eric had a friend volunteering at mile 19 who we stopped to say ‘hi' to. We were slow but we were moving forward. We reached a point of stasis. Every now and then Eric would pull out his video camera and try to capture the moment. I was thinking sarcastically to myself how wonderful it would be to have video of my tired, wet self hunched inside the poncho like a soggy Quasimodo. I had brought a bottle of a new electrolyte drink called F2C with me. It was ok but because of the cold I wasn't drinking much. I knew my hands couldn't get to the Endurolytes in my shorts pocket. I had enough sense to worry about keeping the cramps away. I managed to choke down a few of the Cliff Gels they had on the course just to get some calories, and hopefully some electrolytes. Eric and I continued to drive through the hills. I miss-counted and thought we'd missed HeartBreak in the Bedlam. With the thinner crowds I could see the contours of the course and knew we had one more big one before the ride down into Boston. We successfully navigated through the rain up Heartbreak and Eric made a joke about there being no inspirational chalk drawings on the road this year. Eric was happy. He had wrecked himself on the hills in previous races and my slow, steady progress had helped him meter himself. With those ultra-marathon trained legs he was now ready to celebrate and took off down the hill. I tried my best to stay with him but the hamstring pull in my left leg constrained my leg extension and it hurt a bit. I was happy to jog it in but he still had juice. I told him to run his race, I'd be ok, secretly wishing he'd go so I could take some walk breaks without a witness, but he refused. He said “We started this together and we're going to finish together.” OK Buddy, but I'm not running any faster. I watched his tall yellow frame pull ahead a few meters though the last 10K, but he would always pull up and wait for me to grind on through. And so we ground out against the storm and into the rain and wind blasts through the final miles. In my mind I never once thought, “This is terrible!” or “This bad weather is ruining my race!” All I was thinking is how great it was to get to be a part of something so epic that we would be talking about for years to come. The glory points we notched for running this one, for surviving it and for doing decently well considering – that far outweighed any whining about the weather. This type of thing brings out the best in people. It brought out the grit in me and the other finishers. It brought out the challenges for those 2700 or so people who were forced to seek medical treatment. That's about 10% of those who started. It brought out the best in Desi Linden who gutted out a 2:39 to be the first American winner 33 years. In fact it brought out the best in the next 5 female finishers, all of whom were relative unkowns. The top 7 women were 6 Americans and one 41 year old Canadian who came in 3rd. No East Africans to be seen. The day brought out the best in Yuki Kawauchi from Japan who ground past Kenyan champ Geoffrey Kirui in the final miles. It was an epic day for epic athletes and I am glad to have been a part of it. I am grateful that this sport continues to surprise me and teach me and humble me. I am full of gratitude to be part of this race that pushes us so hard to be better athletes, to earn the right to join our heroes on this course. I am humbled to have friends in this community, like Eric, who can be my wing men (and wing-ladies) when the storms come. I am thankful for that day in 1997 when a high school buddy said, “Hey, why don't we run the marathon?” Those 524 miles of Boston over the last 20 years hold a lot of memories. This race has changed me for the better and I'm thankful for the opportunity.

god american new york family new york city chicago japan americans canadian holy oregon missouri shoes shifting new england falling athletes village lift heartbreak hood newton hills main street 10k boston marathon kenyan lake michigan hips ashland bedlam calf asics wellesley college wellesley hereford quasimodo framingham natick ll bean hopkinton boston strong dave mcgillivray podcast boston grimacing coast relay f2c desi linden yuki kawauchi hereford street runrunlive newton lower falls

21 - IRONMAN© Texas 70.3 - Rachel Olson Professional Triathlete

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2018 54:41

In this episode we wrap up Ironman Texas 70.3 series with my friend Rachel Olson. Rachel raced her first professional race in Galveston this year and the compilation of Galveston 70.3 race experiences would not be complete without her knowledge. While she has nearly a dozen 70.3s under her belt, every race is different and every race day is unique. Texas 70.3 was no different this year as it brought colder conditions than expected. The big take away from this episode is to never change things mid race, such as a plan to wear or not wear specific things. She is being coached by world renowned triathlete and motivational speaker Siri Lindley. For this race she chose to step out of her comfort zone in every way possible and just go for it. From the kit she wore to the times she posted up. -Rachel, Digital Knight Productions, and Scott Flatthouse provided me some awesome pictures, check them out at: www.coachterrywilson.com/perfectrace/21 Weather that day: 40s-50sWater: 69.7-Age Group: F 25-29 [PRO]Height: 5’2”Weight: 125lbsSwim – 25:27T1 – 2:13Bike – 2:32:05T2 – 1:12Run – 1:24:59Total Race Time: 4:25:56 (PR)-Gender Rank: 11Division Rank: 11Overall Rank: 82--Follow Rachel,Instagram: @RaceolsonFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/raceolson Website: http://www.raceolson.com/ -Mentioned on this episode: Team Sirius Tri Club: https://www.teamsiriustriclub.com/ Siri Lindley: https://www.teamsiriustriclub.com/Peaks Apparel: https://peaksapparel.com/ Quintana Roo: http://www.quintanarootri.com/ F2C Nutrition: https://f2cnutrition.com/en-us/ Shama Cycles: http://shamacycles.com/ Verr Info Crank: https://vervecycling.com/ Air Relax Boots: https://air-relax.com/ ISM Saddles: https://www.ismseat.com/ Erin Carson: https://ecfitboulder.com/coaches/ Trislide: https://www.amazon.com/TRISLIDE-TSLIDE0001-Anti-Chafe-Continuous-Lubricant/dp/B0017I532E Profile Design: http://www.profile-design.com/ Digital Knight Productions: https://www.facebook.com/DigitalKnightProductions/ Scott Flatthouse Photography: https://www.facebook.com/ScottFlathousePhotography/

texas run iron man weather bike siri swim qr olson triathlon triathletes galveston bek ism quintana roo professional triathlete ironman texas siri lindley erin carson f2c

The 2018 Boston Marathon

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2018 34:32

The 2018 Boston Marathon The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast– Boston 2018 (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/Boston2018.mp3] Link We are near the ‘one-mile-to-go’ marker. Eric says something about one more hill. The crowds are thicker and more enthusiastic than they should be, but this is Boston. The spectators take it as seriously as the runners. A multi-colored sea of umbrellas lines the road and the encouragement is loud enough to rise above the storm. Because it is the Boston Marathon, and this is our race. I am slowed but not walking. Eric has those ultra-marathon legs and is pulling me. If he wasn’t there I might, I just might, take a walk break. But I don’t. And we grind on. … This race has ground me down but has not beaten me. The rain continues to come in sheets and stand-you-up blasts of cold wind. It is a din of squishing footfalls and the wet-plastic scrunching of ponchos, trash bags and rain coats. All cadenced by the constant buffet and roar of wind-driven rain smashing into humans. That one more hill Eric is talking about is not really a hill. But I know what he means. It’s Eric’s 10th Boston and he has decided to run it in with me even though my pace has deteriorated in these last 2 miles as my legs lose the battle to this Boston course. I will not stop. It’s my 20th Boston so I remember when they added this underpass to avoid a road crossing many years ago. I remember the old days of looking ahead and wishing with all my heart to see the runners disappearing to the right onto Hereford Street. Now we looked ahead to see the moving tide of storm shattered humans jog left and dip under and out the other side. We don’t walk or slow our grimly purposed grind through the storm. We rise out of the underpass. Shifting to avoid the walkers or stumblers, or just having to jostle through yet another weaving, wet, exhausted, human-trash-bag blasted into our personal space by the gusty rain. There is not much antipathy left for these wayward castaways. An elbow, a shoulder, a tired shove and we all keep moving. It’s like being inside a washing machine filled with ponchos and rain gear with a cold firehose turned on you at the same time. We all just want to finish. Ironically I feel a tail wind slap me on the back as we grind up Hereford. The only tail wind on the course. Maybe a bit insulting. Too little, too late. Eric says his family is in the crowd somewhere up by the turn onto Bolyston and I grudgingly grind a wide tangent as he searches the crowd. Nothing against his family but I don’t think I’d stop here to see God if he were behind the barrier. The pull of that finish line is too strong, and I’m exhausted from 3-plus hours of pummeling rain and wind and cold. Typically, in a rainy race people will strip out of their protective clothing in the first few miles as they warm up. Not today. They never warmed up. But now, as they approach the finish line and the anticipated succor of hotel rooms and hot showers they begin to shed their rain carapaces en masse. For the last 10 miles I have been looking out the 6-inch circle of my found poncho’s hood. Now as I pull it back and look down Bolyston it is an apocalyptic scene. Usually in high wind situations the discarded rain ponchos and trash bags will blow across the course like dangerous plastic tumbleweeds to tangle the runners’ legs or lodge in the fencing. Not today. The cold rain is so heavy that it plasters the detritus to the pavement like so many giant spit balls. Through this apocalyptic landscape we grind out the last ¼ mile of this storied course. There is not much of a sprint in my stride as we push through the timing mats. I pull up the found poncho so the timers can see my number. I’m still clutching my bottle in one cold-cramped claw. I never finished my drink. I’m not sure I could let go of it if I wanted to. My hands ceased to function as hands more than an hour ago. Grimacing we finish. Around us runners throw their arms up in celebration. The look on their faces is a combination of triumph, relief and disbelief. They have survived the worst weather that Boston has ever offered up. They got it done on a day that was at once horrible and at the same time the most epic journey in a marathon most will ever experience. And not just any marathon. The Boston Marathon. They lived to tell the tales, and this one will be talked about for decades. … I was wrong. I thought I had seen everything and raced in every type of weather. I have never seen anything like this. The closest I have come was the last leg of the Hood to Coast Relay in 2016. I had the same 30 mph head wind with the same driving rain. But the difference that day in Oregon was that the rain was a few degrees warmer and I wasn’t going 26.2 miles on one of the hardest marathon courses. I have experience. I ran my Boston PR in ’98 in a cold drizzle. I rather enjoyed the Nor’easter of ’07. I had a fine day in the rain of 2015. Friday , as the race was approaching, when we knew what the weather was shaping up to be I wrote a blog post to calm people down. In that post I said not to worry too much, it’s never as bad on the course as the hype makes it out to be. I said that the cooler temps were good for racing if you could stay out of the wind. I mollified the nervous by noting that in the mid-pack there are thousands of people to draft with. I cautioned against wearing too much rain gear as it would catch the wind and slow you down. Instead, I recommended, wear a few layers to trap the heat. I was wrong. I have never seen anything like this. … Most races would have canceled or delayed in the face of this type of weather. Not Boston. This type of weather at Chicago would have resulted in a humanitarian crises on the scale of an ill-timed tsunami rising out of Lake Michigan. This weather at New York would have driven the runners and spectators into emergency shelters. Not the Boston Marathon. This old dame of a foot race has been continuously pitting the best runners in the world against each other for 122 years. This race is part of our cultural fabric. It’s special. We don’t stop for weather. It’s too important to us to stop for anything. I remember emailing Dave McGillivray from a business trip in the days before the 2007 race as the Nor’easter bore down on New England. I asked him if the reports were true, that they were considering canceling the race? He responded matter of factly that he didn’t know about anybody else but he was going to be there. It’s not bravado or false courage. It’s a mindset that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. The organization, the athletes, the cities and towns and the spectators are all in it together. Together, on Monday, we all screwed up our grit and ran our race despite what wrath nature decided to unpack for us. The athletes who run Boston are not the type to give up. They have earned the right to be there. Either by qualifying or working to raise thousands of dollars. This is not the one-and-done bucket list crowd. This is a cohort of seasoned endurance athletes who have trained hard and long over many years to get here. If they skipped runs for bad weather they would never have made it to the start in Hopkinton. … For the first time ever I decided to skip the Athlete’s village in Hopkinton. From past experience I knew it was going to be a mess. Based on the reports I have from other runners it was like a medieval battlefield scene. The athletic fields turned into ankle deep mud under the marching of 30,000 runners. Athletes struggled to find shelter under the tents. Some crawled under vehicles in the parking lot in an attempt to get out of the elements. It was already raining and blowing hard as the day broke in Hopkinton. The temperatures struggled to find 40 degrees. There was no good place to be. It was a mess. There was no way to stay dry. Waiting around to be called to the corrals runners started to accumulate a core temperature loss that would haunt them throughout the race. The organization did the best they could but it was miserable and chaotic. I avoided it. My youngest daughter offered to drop me off in Hopkinton and I took the spectator bus downtown (instead of the athlete bus to the Village). Seeing what the conditions would be, I took Eric’s offer of safe harbor at Betty’s place. It’s a long story, a Boston story, and it goes like this… A long time ago, a family from St. Louis owned a home in Hopkinton. They started a tradition of hosting the visiting Missouri runners in that home. Eventually that family from St. Louis sold the home to Betty’s Family. They continued the tradition and this is where Eric, one of my running buddies, who is from St. Louis, has been sheltering before his Boston Marathons. This year, Betty has sold the house and moved into a senior center, right next to the start. She arranged to have the center’s hall open to the Missouri runners. I joined a dozen or so gathered there in the warmth, replete with food and drink and good nature to wait for the start. We didn’t know how lucky we were to have this safe harbor. Around 10:30 Eric, another runner and I made our goodbyes and started walking to the corrals. We walked out into the storm. We were ostensibly in wave 3 corral 3 but were soon to find out that much of the rigorous Boston starting procedure had been blown out the window. I made them stop at the big porta-potty farm on Main Street. I took my dry race shoes, socks and hat out of their bag and wiggled into them in the cramped plastic box. Ready to race. I tossed the sweat pants, old shoes and ski hat to the volunteer who was stuffing soggy cast offs frantically into a rattling plastic bag. I have raced and run in all kinds of weather. I generally know what to do and how to dress. Monday I dressed for racing in a 35-40 degree rainy day. I had trained in much colder weather. I wasn’t expecting this day to be too cold, especially once we started racing and warmed up. The only real risk was at the end of the race. If we were forced to walk or slow down we might get chilled. I dressed based on my experience from 19 previous Boston Marathons and 60+ marathons over the last 25 years. And I was wrong. I wore a new pair of high-cut race shorts that I bought at the expo. I have a rule of thumb, especially after a winter training campaign, 35 and above is shorts weather. We were close to but above that line. I slipped on a thin pair of calf sleeves in deference to possible wind chill and rain. Calf sleeves are good compromise between shorts and tights if the weather is on the line and add additional protection against cramping on cold days. For the top I added a layer to what I would usually wear. I had a thin tech tee shirt that I had made into a tank by cutting off the sleeves as my base layer. On top of that I wore a high-quality long sleeve tech tee I got from Asics for the 2014 NYC race and on top of that my Squannacook singlet with the bib number. People forget that the bib number is waterproof and wind proof and helps keep your core warm. Three layers plus the oversized bib should keep the core warm. I wore a pair of tech gloves that were designed for this in-between type weather. You wouldn’t want to wear these when the temps got below freezing but they usually work well in the in-between temps. I topped it off with a simple Boston race hat from 2017. That’s the same scheme I’ve used in countless 35-40 degree rainy runs. I was wrong. Mentally I was prepared. I’ve been doing this too long to worry about things I can’t change. I was happy to not have another hot year. I had had a decent training cycle and my fitness was good. I had avoided injury except for a minor niggle in my high left hamstring. I was ready to race. I slept well. I was ready to respect Boston. I was wrong. This was a different thing. This was different than anything I had ever raced in. … 65 seconds. That’s how long Eric said it took me to poop at mile 9. I knew those porta-potties were there in the parking lot across from the reservoir. I have used them in previous years. I told Eric I wanted to stop. We had come to the conclusion that today wasn’t the best racing weather by that point. We had been holding race pace fairly consistently up to that point down out of Hopkinton and into the flats of Ashland and Natick. I didn’t feel horrible, but I didn’t feel great either. I was worried about spending too much and getting caught at the end. My effort level was good, but a little high. My heart rate was good. But I weirdly felt like I was burning energy faster than normal. I could feel the energy I was expending fighting the storm. Our ability to draft had been minimalized. With the gusting wind and driving rain runners were having trouble staying in their lanes. Even if you could get on someone’s shoulder that just meant you were in the wettest part of the road. The runners you were trying to draft stuck to the dry crown of the road and in order to get into their shadow you had to run in the water filled wheel paths. Even a veteran like me, who knows the course, couldn’t make good tangent decisions as runners weaved and wobbled in the storm. My watch says I ran an extra ¼ mile. People were running in all kinds of rain gear in an attempt to stay the effect of the tempest. Shoes wrapped in bags tied at the ankles, runners clutching space blanket fragments, trash bags, ponchos and even shower caps that they had stolen from their hotels. All bets were off. I wanted to slow down and drop off of race pace to conserve energy I knew a forced break was a good psychological way of doing this. Anyone who has raced with me knows that I will keep repeating things like “we have to back it off” but for some reason struggle to put this sentiment into execution. A potty break would be a good reset. Once we had the race monkey off our backs Eric and I settled into a reasonable pace and looked up ahead to anticipate the girls and the hills. I wasn’t feeling great but it wasn’t critical. I didn’t really know if I needed to be drinking more or how nutrition should work in this weather. I told Eric it was now a fun run and he said “Anything under four hours is good”. We ran on through Natick and Framingham. Eric turned to me and asked, was that the ½? I said I think it was. They hadn’t put up the arch that has been there in recent years due to the wind and we almost missed it. Eric kept marveling at the spectators. He kept repeating ‘these people are the real story’. He was amazed that they were still out in force lining the course and cheering. The spectators at Boston take it as seriously as the runners. If I could turn my head in the final miles I would see the incongruent, multi-colored sea of umbrellas lining the. route The spectators at Boston are not spectators, they are partners, or rather part owners, with the athletes. Coming down the hill out of Hopkinton there were a couple of kids in bathing suits frolicking in a front yard. One guy was wearing a mask and snorkel. There are countless stories of spectators tying shoes and helping runners with food and nutrition when the athletes hands were too cold to work anymore. One out of town runner, in a fit of hypothermia went to the crowd looking for a spare rain poncho and got the nice LL Bean rain coat freely off a mans back so he could finish the race. In some ways it reminded me of 2013 when the people of Boston came together to help each other overcome adversity. It’s been five years but our spirit is still Boston Strong. We ran on through to Wellesley staying on a good pace but trying to recover enough for the hills. Other years you can hear the girls at Wellesley College screaming from a mile away. This year the hard rain damped the sound until we were almost on top pf them. They were out there. They were hanging over their fence imploring the shivering runners with kisses and high-fives. Eric and I ran through smiling as always. Even though my energy was low I drifted over and slapped as many wet hands as I could. … Coming into mile 15 some combination of our slower pace and the increasing ferocity of the storm started to get the better of me. I could feel my core temperature dropping. I was working but I couldn’t keep up. How did this happen? How could someone with my experience get it wrong? Why was this different from any other cold rain run? It was, in a sense, the perfect storm. The perfect combination of physics, fluid dynamics and temperature conspired to create a near perfect heat sink for the runners. The wind, on its own, was just a strong wind. The rain on its own was just a hard rain. The temperature on its own was just another spring day. But the combination pulled heat out of your body faster than you could make more. The volume of rain driven by the winds penetrated through my hat and washed the heat from my head. The same cold rain drove through the three layers of my shirts and washed the heat from my core. My gloves filled with cold water and my hands went numb. When I made a fist water would pour out like squeezing a wet sponge. The rain and wind was constant but would also come in big waves. We’d be running along and a surge in the storm would knock us sideways or backwards like being surprised by a maniac with a water cannon. I would stumble and lean into it and mutter “Holy shit storm!” or “Holy Cow Bells!” Really just to recognize and put words on the abuse. The wind was directly in our faces. The rain was directly in our faces. The whole time. We never got out of it. There would be lulls but then it would return with one of those smack-you-in-the-face hose downs. My shoulder and back muscles were sore from leaning into it. I was having difficulty drinking from my bottle because I couldn’t squeeze my hand hard enough. I resorted to holding it between two hands and pushing together between them. People reported not having the hand strength to take their nutrition or even pull their shorts up after a potty stop. I was starting to go hypothermic and my mind searched for a plan. Eric knew I was struggling. I started scanning the road for discarded gear I could use. The entire length of the course was strewn with gear. I saw expensive gloves and hats and coats of all descriptions. We passed by an expensive fuel belt at one point that someone had given up on. Eric knew I was suffering and I told him I was going to grab a discarded poncho if I could find one. As if on cue a crumpled orange poncho came into view on the sidewalk to our left and I stopped to retrieve it. Eric helped me wriggle into it. It was rather tight, and that was a good thing. It was probably a woman’s. It clung tightly to my torso and had a small hood that captured my head and hat without much luffing in the wind. It's at this point that Eric says I was a new man. I may not have been a new man but the poncho trapped enough heat to reverse the hypothermia and we got back to work. By now we were running down into Newton Lower Falls and looking up, over the highway at the Hills. Eric said, “We’re not walking the hills.” I said, “OK” and we were all business. We slowed down but we kept moving through the first hill. I focused not on running but on falling. Falling forward and catching myself with my feet. Hips forward. Lift and place the foot. Not running just falling. The hood of the poncho was narrow. I had an enforced tunnel vision, but it was somehow comforting, like a blinders on a race horse. I could see Eric’s blue shoes appear now and then on my right, or on my left. I settled into my own, little, six-inch oval of reality and worked through the hills. Other runners would cross my field of vision and I’d bump through them. I was in the groove. I don’t know why but people’s pacing was all over the place during the race. It might have been the wind or the hypothermia addled brains but they were weaving all over the road. I had to slam on my brakes for random stoppages the entire race. Eventually I just ran through them as best I could. I didn’t have the energy to stop. This kind of behavior is unusual at Boston in the seeded corrals, but the whole day was unusual. I think the relative chaos of the start may have had something to do with it. When we got to the corrals they had ceased worrying about protocol and were just waving runners through. If you wanted to bandit Boston this year or cheat, Monday would have been the day to do it. But you also might have died in the process, so there’s that. We got through the chutes and over the start mats without any formal starting ceremony. The flood gates were open, so to speak. Because of this I think the pacing was a bit strange at the start and we passed a lot of people. I was racing and Eric was doing his best to hold me back. We chewed through the downhill section of the course with gusto. Given the conditions we were probably too fast, but not suicidal. Both of us have run Boston enough times to be smart every once in a while. We were holding a qualifying pace fairly well and trying to draft where we could. Eric had to pull off and have someone tie his shoe but I stayed in my lane and he caught up. We rolled through the storm this way until I realized this was not a day to race and we had to conserve our energy if we wanted to finish. We metered our efforts and this budgeting process culminated in the voluntary pit stop at mile 9. … In Newton between the hills we’d focus on pulling back and recovering enough for the next one. Eric had a friend volunteering at mile 19 who we stopped to say ‘hi’ to. We were slow but we were moving forward. We reached a point of stasis. Every now and then Eric would pull out his video camera and try to capture the moment. I was thinking sarcastically to myself how wonderful it would be to have video of my tired, wet self hunched inside the poncho like a soggy Quasimodo. I had brought a bottle of a new electrolyte drink called F2C with me. It was ok but because of the cold I wasn’t drinking much. I knew my hands couldn’t get to the Endurolytes in my shorts pocket. I had enough sense to worry about keeping the cramps away. I managed to choke down a few of the Cliff Gels they had on the course just to get some calories, and hopefully some electrolytes. Eric and I continued to drive through the hills. I miss-counted and thought we’d missed HeartBreak in the Bedlam. With the thinner crowds I could see the contours of the course and knew we had one more big one before the ride down into Boston. We successfully navigated through the rain up Heartbreak and Eric made a joke about there being no inspirational chalk drawings on the road this year. Eric was happy. He had wrecked himself on the hills in previous races and my slow, steady progress had helped him meter himself. With those ultra-marathon trained legs he was now ready to celebrate and took off down the hill. I tried my best to stay with him but the hamstring pull in my left leg constrained my leg extension and it hurt a bit. I was happy to jog it in but he still had juice. I told him to run his race, I’d be ok, secretly wishing he’d go so I could take some walk breaks without a witness, but he refused. He said “We started this together and we’re going to finish together.” OK Buddy, but I’m not running any faster. I watched his tall yellow frame pull ahead a few meters though the last 10K, but he would always pull up and wait for me to grind on through. And so we ground out against the storm and into the rain and wind blasts through the final miles. In my mind I never once thought, “This is terrible!” or “This bad weather is ruining my race!” All I was thinking is how great it was to get to be a part of something so epic that we would be talking about for years to come. The glory points we notched for running this one, for surviving it and for doing decently well considering – that far outweighed any whining about the weather. This type of thing brings out the best in people. It brought out the grit in me and the other finishers. It brought out the challenges for those 2700 or so people who were forced to seek medical treatment. That’s about 10% of those who started. It brought out the best in Desi Linden who gutted out a 2:39 to be the first American winner 33 years. In fact it brought out the best in the next 5 female finishers, all of whom were relative unkowns. The top 7 women were 6 Americans and one 41 year old Canadian who came in 3rd. No East Africans to be seen. The day brought out the best in Yuki Kawauchi from Japan who ground past Kenyan champ Geoffrey Kirui in the final miles. It was an epic day for epic athletes and I am glad to have been a part of it. I am grateful that this sport continues to surprise me and teach me and humble me. I am full of gratitude to be part of this race that pushes us so hard to be better athletes, to earn the right to join our heroes on this course. I am humbled to have friends in this community, like Eric, who can be my wing men (and wing-ladies) when the storms come. I am thankful for that day in 1997 when a high school buddy said, “Hey, why don’t we run the marathon?” Those 524 miles of Boston over the last 20 years hold a lot of memories. This race has changed me for the better and I’m thankful for the opportunity.

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21 - IRONMAN© Texas 70.3 - Rachel Olson Professional Triathlete

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2018 54:41

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Getting Intense With Nathan Killam

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2018 1:35

We are excited about bringing you our most recent interview with professional triathlete Nathan Killam from Vancouver. In Fitspeek 33 we go deep with one of the favourites to perform well at the world famous Wildflower Long Course Triathlon next month. Be listening to the interview for your chance to win with F2C and Dynamic Race Events. http://www.fitspeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Teaser-2-to-upload.mp3

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2 - Ultraman Florida - Jamie Harris

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2018 32:23

In this episode, I talk with Ultraman Athlete Jamie Harris. We go into detail on how she pulled off a 6th place finish at Ultraman Florida this year. We discover what type of training she was doing prior to the race, how she felt this year compared to her previous experience at Ultraman Florida last year. She goes into detail of how she made the race director and her coach Chuck Kemeny very proud by her performance. We talk about her nutrition plan that she uses from F2C. Which metrics she uses on the bike and run and the course as well as her teammates from Big Sexy Racing that came out to help support her, and even some of the training days and workouts she went in to. We talk about her lead up into the race, the race itself and then discover what’s next.

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2 - Ultraman Florida - Jamie Harris

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2018 32:23

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Fitspeek 28: Going Long(er) with F2C

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2018 37:43

As all of us get back into our serious racing and training sessions with the start of a new year, Mission’s F2C Nutrition is launching a new endurance formula product. Greg Cowan from F2C is our guest. He’ll be telling us about the science behind the product, the F2C pro athlete line up (featuring THIS … Continue reading "Fitspeek 28: Going Long(er) with F2C"

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Oct 14 Goodness Me! Podcast - Clean Sports Nutrition is Hard to Find!

Goodness Me Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2017 26:43

In this episode, Janet speaks with Greg Cowan from F2C--a great new product line at Goodness Me! Learn about one of the first companies to get a “banned-substance free” designation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and since then, has helped set the standards used for drug testing done today on sports products.

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Fitspeek 18 is here: Fear Not – The Vertikiller has Arrived!

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 1, 2017 33:13

Although the Abbotsford Trail Running Club has only been around for a few years, they have been making a positive contribution to the community. This week’s feature interview is with Mike Thomas from the club. He will tell us about the big trail race they have planned called the Vertikiller. It’s crazy the amount of local support they are receiving from sponsors like Kintec, Old Abby Ales, and F2C. Also in this episode, we find out about the health benefits of peanuts, the results from the Dynamic Race Events Cultus Lake triathlon, and Kevin Watt has his Instagram shouts outs. Hear all about it by pressing PLAY below . http://www.fitspeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Fitspeek-18-Vertikiller-2.mp3

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Fitspeek 15: Summer’s here and the racing is easy (not)

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2017 48:51

In our newest Fitspeek we have our Wenting’s word of the week, a recap of the Oliver Half Ironman, a Fit Tip of the Week that focuses on going long in the heat, and feature interviews with Matt Campbell from United Velo and Greg Cowan from F2c. As always we will also hear the latest installment of Bob’s Bitts and have our upcoming events schedule. Press play below to kick start your summer training and racing season. http://www.fitspeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/program-15-to-upload-to-web-site.mp3

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“The Man”, “The Grip,” and F2C Nutrition – Fitspeek 14 is here!

Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2017 55:56

Fitspeek is getting older and wiser…thanks to the youngster Zack Neufeld and his most recent “Between The Ears” segment on positive reframing. Our newest podcast also features an old friend, Bob Babbitt, as he tells of his times spent interviewing triathlon legends Dave Scott and Mark Allen. We also have an interview with local upstart sports nutrition company F2C. As always, we have our race results including the love in that was the Westwood Lake Triathlon, Kevin Watt’s shout outs, and our upcoming events schedule. Hear it all now, by pressing play below http://www.fitspeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Program-14-to-upload-as-an-Mp3.mp3

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From Gainesville to Pitt Meadows

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2017 36:31

It used to be, the only sports nutrition game in town was Gatorade. Times have changed. Now a growing local company out of Pitt Meadows is making a full-range of products to help out those folks who need something better. What do I mean by better? Press play below and hear the story of F2C Nutrition in this Fitspeek Express interview with Kevin Heinze and F2C founder Greg Cowan. At the end of the podcast be listening for a teaser that involves our newest partnership between F2C and Dynamic Race Events. http://www.fitspeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/F2C-Express-to-post.mp3

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Local triathlete does well – we have the scoop!

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2017 57:18

Over the weekend in Lima, Peru local triathlete Nathan Killam competed in the 70.3 Half-Ironman distance race. In a race stacked with international talent including the likes of Jessie Thomas, Ivan Rena, and Andy Potts, Nathan carved out a very respectable 3:55 clocking to place 7th overall. Needless to say his sponsors over in Pitt Meadows at F2C and us at Fitspeek are overjoyed with the good result. By pressing play below, you can hear about Nathan’s penchant for going fast downhill on his bicycle, his triathlon heroes, and the heavy-duty (mechanic) work ethic that helped him become one of our fastest long-distance triathletes. http://www.fitspeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/nathan-killam-interview.mp3

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Fitspeek Eleven: It ain’t no April Fools Joke.