I'm back in action folks!

So yeah, after numerous complaints that this nice blog has been neglected, I've decided to catch you all up to speed on all the cool stuff that I've been up to in the most recent months since Ironman Lake Placid.


Things in the house of "Keep Moving Forward" have been pretty good. Ironman left a slight mark on this triathletes tired legs, but things have recovered and in due time stuff picked back up again and I am now focusing all of my efforts into the Philadelphia Marathon on November 18th trying to acomplish the life goal I had set so long ago to qualify for the Boston Marathon and by chance perhaps break 3 hours. (I always told myself when I was younger that if I was going to run a marathon straight up, I was going to do it and break 3 hours....now I just have to live up to my own standards! - easier said than done! ) That being only 2 weeks away is becoming a bit of a reality that I will be racing my first straight up marathon. (The 20.5 mile run that I went on yesterday with B. Matthews at 6:47 pace seemed to boost the morale too - you need to go 6:50 pace for 26.2 to be able to break 3 hours)

This post is really quick to tell you all that I didn't forget about my blog, work just decided to block www.blogger.com and I cannot do my blogging before/after work anymore so the updates will be a little less frequent. I don't have a computer at home, so that puts a damper on things as well. I have been updating the sidebar regularly when I can and I know I owe myself some race reports from Wilson, Dances, Finger Lakes Tri, Hospice, and many others. So I will try to get those up when I can.

I'm sorry I can't write more, but I will try to get back to this sometime soonish. I'm going to go ride for a little bit on the beast (as she has been ridden like 3 times since IMLP...and she told me she feels neglected) and I will take her out for a few miles today. So I'm out, but I'll hopefully catch you all up to speed shortly! Take care and see you all out on the roads, Cheers.

Fresh ink

So I'm sorry to report that I don't have any photos to share. Well I do, but I don't really feel like saving and copying it in to this post right now because I am kind of tired, so I'll just give you all the link:

http://www.score-this.com/img/tattoos/travisearly2.jpg

Rich spelled my name wrong in the linky, but I'll let that slide because he is such a great guy :)

I'm eventually going to put a band around my ankle and it is looking like it will take about 8 or 9 to do so....so it looks like I have a few more years of IM'ing to go :) - who am I kidding? I'm doing this for a long time!! :)

But year, sorry about all the goofy photos from IMLP in the last post, but I figured I would shoot those out there. I'm sorry I didn't have any time for any words, but the photos needed to get up here. I'll post a race report for Wilson and the Great Race later on, but until then, train hard, rest hard, and enjoy a beer every once in a while (Guinness is good for you I hear!) I know I will. Cheers.

IMLP Photo montage

Dear Travis,

I took something of yours from you this summer. It is likely you will not see it for a while, maybe even not until next spring when the snow melts. That's right, I have stolen your speed...

No more ripping off sub 6 minute running miles in triathlons, no more 23+ mph bike splits either, no matter what the distance. Even in a measly little sprint triathlon or a 5k road race, you won't see that speed anymore. Remember all of those fast twitch muscle fibers that you took so long to build up? Yeah, they are gone, lost for a long time. Oh, and the kick in the nuts is that I have replaced those fast twitch fibers with slow twitch muscle fibers so that you will have the ability to do long distance stuff, but not the lung capacity anymore.

Yep, I've gotten that too. Since you took so much time off after racing me, I decided to jack up your heart rate whenever you workout and make it VERY difficult for you to breathe now. Even if you go out and try to run an easy 5 miles like you did yesterday. I'm going to make you sweat like a fat kid and push your heart rate about 30bpm more than it should be, just for fun!

I know it was a great experience to race me, but you have understand where I am coming from as well. There are sacrifices that need to be made. In that vein, I have stolen your speed for a while. Don't expect it back anytime soon...

Sincerely,
The Ironman

Ironman USA race report (Lake Placid)

Well to just begin things off, I must say that I am EXTREMELY pleased with my performance last week... there were so many things that could have complicated matters or made it difficult to perform at the standards and ability in which I hold myself to, but somehow, some magical way, everything worked out perfectly.

As most of you already know, I am a big numbers guy. I like to be able to plan out what HR I am going to race at for how long, and how many minutes it is going to take me to complete each leg (sometimes even down to the seconds) and I enjoy that guessing and gambling in what I am capable of at a certain point in the year. Its fun to me to try and pinpoint my weaknesses and try to predict a reasonable time to achieve.

2 days before the race, my dad and I were at the expo just walking around and taking in the typical Ironman stuff. (pretty much whatever you wanted to buy with the ironman logo on it for ridiculously expensive prices and anything and everything that you could ever need in case you forgot it at home. We stumbled on a booth that had a "predict your time" contest in which the winner received a pair of Zipp Flashpoint wheels. Previous to this encounter with the booth, I really hadn't planned out just how I thought I would do. The last week I had been sick and was FORCED to take rest. (I was seriously pounding DayQuil on the car ride up to Placid...) and I didn't feel as prepared as I thought I might be (or at least not as prepared as I was for Florida last year) So I marched up to the table and guessed that I would go a 10:32:47. (Anyone who doesn't believe me can ask to see the camera picture in my phone - still don't know how to get those off of the phone...) Just weird to know that after the race, I looked back on that and accurately predicted my time within 5 minutes. (Those 5 minutes are doubly important, I'll explain more later) After 10 hours of racing, that someone could peg it within 5 minutes is just crazy...

Anyway, enough off the blabbing, I'm sure those of you who actually read this blog are wondering what my thoughts are on the certain legs of the race. (probably not really, but I am going to tell it anyway, so in the future I have something to reflect on.) I wanted to wait a little bit before writing this to let everything sink in on how I did and I think I have waited long enough. So without further adieu...

The Swim - 2.4 miles - 58:47
Race day I woke up like a shot. Out of the 7 people that were staying in my suite at the North Country Community College, I was the only one who was racing. I kind of felt like all the eyes were on me, which was weird, but neat at the same time. Dad and I went down to the mirror lake after I had a nice breakfast and dropped off my run special needs bag (decided to go without a bike special needs bag because I had 2 tubes and 2 CO2's already on the bike with tire levers...what else could you need?) We got down to Mirror lake and there was already a buzz, triathletes everywhere and we found a nice little spot to throw on sunscreen and do the usual business. after standing in the portapotty line for a while and chatting with Mary Eggers, I decided to pee in the brush and save myself some time from standing around in line. I had the new Handlebars Cycle Shop uni on and it was looking snazzy. My nose felt stuffed, but I was hoping the cold had cleared out of my head for raceday and it was just general stuffiness.

I got the new Profile Design Metal Cell 2 wetsuit on and thanked my dad for getting up at 4:00am to come to the race start with me. I headed down to the waters edge and looked at the foggy lake for a minute after finishing my bottle of gatorade then got in the water. There were MASSES of athletes and I lined up behind a guy bobbing in the lake with two broken wrists and casts on each hand. I told him I would give him some room and wondered how he was going to make it thru the day. The strength of everyone amazes me. I was about 15 feet to the right of the cannon and about 5 people deep on the line. 7am and the cannon fires signifying the start of the race.

There are legs, arms, fists, and feet flying as everyone transitions from treading water to swimming. The first loop on the swim was VERY physical as everyone wanted the cable lines near the buoy's. Think of 2000+ athletes all swimming towards one buoy and imagine the bottleneck that creates. I thought I would be around 55 minutes in the water and if there wasn't so much congestion, I might have been...who knows. I felt strong on the swim (must have been from raising the training levels this past season from one time a week in the water to twice a week...) I exited the first lap and ran on the beach looking at my watch and seeing the number 28 for the minutes section and thinking I might be able to break 1 hour. I hopped back in and found a female's feet to draft off of for a while but there were so many other men around that people were just fighting for every inch. If you tried to slow down at all you were swam over and I even got an elbow to the face at one point. It happens and it is racing. Oh well.

Exiting the water at the end of the 2nd loop and looking at my split, I noticed I had done a 58, so I knew that I was headed to a good race. You run up the beach, get your wetsuit stripped off and then run 0.25 miles up the carpeted road to transition while EVERYONE is cheering for you and making you feel like a rockstar! It's just magical to hear all of that support and I'm sure you automatically push your HR into zone 4 or 5 during that minute run or so because adrenaline is high and you are feeling great. I ran thru transition, grabbed my bags and headed to the changing tent.

T1 - 4:37
In the tent, the gracious volunteers do everything and anything necessary to get you out of there quickly. I strapped on Excalibur, threw on arm warmers and was heading to run out the tent in my bike shoes when I was hit from the right side, BAM! A guy just running into the change tent must not have seen the super HUGE bullet helmet running in front of him, he apologized, I told him no worries, I was ok and ran off to get my bike.

The bike - 5:41:03 - 19.7mph
Everyone told me to hang out on the bike and let all the other athletes go out too fast and come back to you later in the bike, or on the marathon. I tried my best to do that, but apparently I need to learn better pacing :) I knew about all of the hills on this course from our recon mission over Memorial Day weekend, and I knew that I had significantly different gearing than most. (I was riding an 11/23 instead of a 12/25 or 12/27 - Just found that out too...) But the new prototype race wheels that Jim at Handlebars was letting me use were working GREAT. They were fast, they looked mean and they were lighter than anything I had, which meant that they climbed well too.

The first loop I tried to dial in and focus on nutrition during the bike. I at a clif bar, had gatorade, and had some hits off the gel flask I had on my top tube. I had some GI issues (as normal) but nothing was debilatating. Things flushed out of my stomach in about 30 minutes tops. It was just one of those days where you could eat a lot and get away with it. This was a good thing. We hit the out and back and there was just a pack of guys drafting behind me and I was just disappointed. Just like in Florida, when the draft motorcycles came by, they dispersed quickly, but it was bugging me and I didn't want to get hit with a drafting penalty. So I decided that the only way to avoid them was to haul ass in front of them. I passed the pack of like 15 riders and starting just going fast for about 3 minutes. After then I realized that I couldn't hold that pace for long since this was an IM and not a sprint race, I looked behind me and they were drafting off of me!!!

I pulled up and let them all fly by, I was going to be damned if I was going to pull them all around this course. So I let them go, just like joe meyers had told me to. And that was probably the best decision I made all day. I hit little cherry and big cherry and we had inadvertantly missed those somehow on our Memorial day recon bike course mission so that was new, but at the top of little bear and big bear, Rich Clark from Score-This!!! was cheering his fool head off like a maniac and it was like you were climbing a hill in the Tour de France with everyone lining the hill as you climbed cheering for you. Oh another thing too, during the entire first loop, I was smiling my fool head off and had this ridiculous grin on my face because I was having a BLAST.

The end of the first loop and beginning of the second loop had you go thru town and I couldn't resist the urge to get everyone to cheer for me by pumping my arm in the air and yelling, "I can't hear you!!" to everyone as I whizzed by. It was cool. Everyone explodes in cheers when someone smiles and blows by you on a bike doing what they love. It was great. The second loop was good too, I was joking with people that I was passing and whom were passing me. People who had went out too hard too early were coming back and I was getting compliments from other riders as I was blowing by them on the climbs. Things like, "man, teach me to climb like that!". I was drinking the 1,000 calorie bottle of CarboPro and it was going down smooth and if I felt odd in my stomach, I just waited to eat for like 15 minutes and it usually went away. It was good. The end of the out and back was great, there was a huge Halloween party going on there with people dressed up at the aide station and all. It was just fun.

I even saw John Fish Hunter on the out and back both loops (you really cannot miss him in that yellow and blue bumblebee striped U of R tri kit.) It was just a good day, there was a lot of sun (which I kept grabbing bottles of water to pour over my head and self at the aid stations) and a decent headwind (which may have contributed to the slower speeds on the second loop) but all in all it was going well. I even peed on the bike while going 31mph downhill!

The last ten miles of any IM course are always hard. This one was especially painful with little and big cherry and the 3 bears in those last 10miles. Those are the worst hills on the course. It was good to know that Rich was going to be at the top of papa bear (right where you needed him) and that you were almost done as you rolled thru town. (I still got people to cheer for me though as I came back into town.

T2 - my namsake - blazingly fast at 1:44
Nothing special to report here. Just raw speed as I flew in, gave my bike to a volunteer and hit the change tent and was gone in less than 2 minutes.

The run - 26.2miles - 3:41:41 - 8:27/mile
It always feels really good to know that you are on the run during an Ironman. You know that you are like 4 hours away from being done and really when you are running the only thing that is dragging on you is the desire to walk. If you fight off that desire to walk, you are going to be in good shape. I hit the run and kept up soliciting cheers from everyone (just how I get myself pumped up) I was seeing friends (the whole Train-This!!! crew) and there is no reason to be upset or unfriendly on the run. It was a struggle to keep my HR down and when I went thru 4 miles in 30 minutes, I knew I needed to pace and slow down. I hit the half marathon in 1:39 and I had vowed to not walk any of the Lake Placid hills (those of you who have done the race know what hill on the marathon I am talking about...those of you who don't know - check the elevation profile on www.nasports.com)

The second loop I was still up to my old antics and was beginning to understand that I would do well. At about mile 15, I caught up to Alexis Spilman who was on her first loop and ran with her for a LONG time. (were were going the same pace and it was encouraging to run with a friend) A big Thank you to Alexis for putting up with my babbling for the 10 miles or so we ran together. We were joined by local marathon guru Dan Giblin who took my mind off the pain by just chatting about my old college roommate, Jason Casey, who is also his cousin... Good times. I ran by all the chaos and signage all over. There were Doug Bush heads up near the Marriot and I knew that was his cheering squad. I ran into (almost literally) Darren Vogt in an aid station going the other way and even saw SkiRough at the mile 6 aid station.

Late in the second loop a lot of people kept cheering for Alexis telling her "you can beat him, just do it!" and I knew they were referencing me, but little did they know, I was on my second loop and she was on her first. :) At mile 23, I took in a gel and coke and drank the entire cup of soda. At mile 24 (the large hill) I attacked and left Alexis behind and hit the hill hard. Halfway up I heard Rich Clark screaming, "Travis freaking Earley is on the hill for the second time!!!!! Whoooo hoo!!!!" and that gave me all the extra energy and motivation I needed to just get up it as quickly as possible. At the top I told Rich to cheer for Alexis, because she deserved it by running with me for so long and he did. Also T$ was coming down the hill and I seriously thought he was going to turn around and push me up it he was going nutz when he saw me. It was just cool. No other words to describe it, thank you everyone too.

The last two miles I tried my hardest to pick up the pace and I think I did. At the last turn around (mile 25) I passed Amanda Lovato and gave her a fist bump (a "pound" if you will) and cheered her on. I did a spin move around EACH and every turnaround I am happy to say and I kept a goofy grin on my face the entire time. The last mile into the finish was a blur, and as I was coming down closer to the track, I realized that I could PR in an IM at a significantly harder course. I hit the track and shut off my watch, I ran past a dude who was grabbing a flag from a fan to run across the line with and I hit the line in 10:27:52 while pointing to the logo on my chest (than ks Handlebars!) and flashing the "hang loose" symbol (this will be my trademark until I get to Hawaii...)

This was good for 87th overall and 5th in my age group. Kona slots went to 2nd and 3rd in the age group and I was TOTALLY ok with that. Only because at the award ceremony, I could barely walk correctly and the thought of doing 3 IM races in 12 months time did not really bode well with me. I still have my dream and ambition and that will make me fight harder for it next time. (side note, the 3rd place kid in our age group - also 24, had missed Kona on 2 separate occasions at IMMOO for the past 2 years, so he deserved it. He paid his dues.) Positions 2-5 in my age group were decided by 5 minutes (there it is again) and it still astonishes me to know that after 10 hours of racing, it can come down to minutes. I mean as 2nd place was finishing, 3rd was getting onto the track...and as 3rd finished, 4th was entering the track and as 4th finished, I was about 1:00 away from the track...That's just sick!

I got to get up on the podium for the first time at an Ironman distance race (won my age group at Timberman 70.3 - but that was a half) and I got to raise my award over my head and got on the jumbotron as 2000+ people and their families cheered for me. I have never been that proud of all my hard work. I have pictures that I will add later, but just wanted to get all of my thoughts down on paper. Thank you to everyone who had faith that I would do well, and wants to see me succeed. I'm glad I did not let anyone down and it has still taken a while to sink in, but I now know that I can do better and go farther later on. Thank you all and thank you for all of the kind words. Cheers.

The results are in...

NAME TRAVIS EARLEY
BIB NUMBER 240
AGE 24
PROFESSION RECRUITER
STATE/COUNTRY ROCHESTER NY USA
SWIM 58:47
BIKE 5:41:03
RUN 3:41:41
OVERALL 10:27:52
POSITION 87th overall
AGE GROUP 5th in age group

TOTAL SWIM
DISTANCE 2.4 mi. (58:47)
PACE 1:32/100m
POSITION 98

FIRST BIKE SEGMENT 56 mi. (2:42:16) 20.71 mph
FINAL BIKE SEGMENT 56 mi. (2:58:47) 18.79 mph
TOTAL BIKE 112 mi. (5:41:03) 19.70 mph
POSITION 117

FIRST RUN SEGMENT 13.1 mi. (1:39:38) 7:36/mile
FINAL RUN SEGMENT 13.1 mi. (2:02:03) 9:19/mile
TOTAL RUN 26.2 mi. (3:41:41) 8:27/mile
POSITION 87


TRANSITION TIME T1: SWIM-TO-BIKE 4:37
T2: BIKE-TO-RUN 1:44


PENALTY TIME TOTAL PENALTIES --:--

Night before the race

So everyone, I'm up here in the North Country, hanging out the night before the race and I must say there is a lot of nervous tension in the air. We are all staying at the NCCC (north country community college) in Saranac Lake and at about 8pm there was hooting and hollering in the dorm rooms and now at 8:40pm, it's pretty silent...

I'm nervous...I'm not going to lie, but I just have to sit back and remember to "race my OWN race" tomorrow and not really worry about what everyone else is doing and keep my own tempo. I have to remind myself that I just have to do the best job possibble and see where that lands me after all the cards fall to the floor.

This Ironman kind of snuck up on me and it was weird because before IMFL, I had the solid year of anticipation and wait before the race day. But maybe because I just signed up a month ago for this race in Canada, or maybe because it is my sophomore effort that this one just is feeling a little different.

I feel a little wiser, maybe a little faster (maybe) and just a little bit more indifferent on this race. Don't get me wrong, I want to do my very best and hit some of the goal times I had in my head, but this one just kind of came out of nowhere...

I will say this though, just for accountability's sake...I would like to break 11 hours tomorrow.

There, I said it. Now I have to go back to the dorm and get a good nights rest and drink up on the fluids and kick some major butt tomorrow. :) Just do what I do. :) So take care, sleep well all and thank you to each and every one of you who has wished me luck via a phone call here in Lake Placid for my quest to get to Kona and have a good race tomorrow. (Cason Jasey, Sammy P, Kelbo, Erwin Varls, Brother Meyers, Philly Cream Cheese, and anyone else whom I forgot, thanks!) I can only hope I do not dissappoint. Cheers folks. Sleep well.

Race wheels have arrived!!!

Yep, those are them....but first, there's a back story

So I woke up yesterday feeling ok and I went to work as per normal. Half way thru the day (shortly after running some errands on lunch to get some more CarboPro and Salt pills and socks for the marathon) I came back to work and felt like someone had hit me with a truck...

I went home from work.

I'll repeat that...I went home from work. For those of you who know me, I don't generally enjoy taking medicine, or seeing doctors for that matter and I rarely get sick. So when I went home from work, the people knew something was wrong. I tried to sleep at home, but only managed to rest in bed and toss and turn for about 3 hours before needing to head an hour west to Buffalo to pick up these bad boys:

A very large shout out (HEY!) goes to Mr. James Costello for letting me ride on a prototype pair of Bontrager Aeolus 5.0 wheels. These are deep dished OLCV carbon wheels which are SUPER light and should help on the hills of Lake Placid.

I'm still feeling a little under the weather, but I think it has just been from running around all over creation to make sure that everything is set for IM#2 coming up in less than a week. The bike is primped and set and I found out last night (unfortuantely) that I have been riding an 11/23 cassette on the rear wheel since I bought the bike....

I thought it was a 12/25.

Oops. No wonder those hills of Placid seemed to break my legs. I will not break the cardinal rule of racing however, don't race on anything you have not trained on! So I'm sticking with the 11/23. But anyway. For those of you who wanted some bike Pr0n, here is a full shot of the beast as she will look up in Placid.

Here's to hoping that everyone is resting well and to hopinng that I can shake this little cold/flu/bug/whatever ASAP and be ready to roll come raceday. I'm leaving Thursday morning and will be back to Rochester around Monday evening. Take care everyone and I'll report after I get home. Cheers.

Boilermaker 15k run race report

This was a good race, I was supposed to do this one at IM pace, but I kind of got carried away with pace of it all and being in the middle of 12,000 runners. Oops.

I went out with the intentions to try out the new Handlebars uniform (which worked great and felt uber comfortable by the way! Thanks Jim!) and see how that felt on a good long run in addition to getting in some ironman paced miles. (I'll post some pics of the new uni when they come in...haven't gotten around to it yet, but it is quite snazzy)

The race was good, I went thru the first mile and saw Mr. VP and he said 7minutes as I go thru. I went thru 5k in about 20:40 and was right on pace. I hit 10k in 41:00 or something and then started to feel good so I picked up the pace unknowingly.

Ran with some good friends and this was the 7th year I ran it. I actually met up with Matt Klausner at about mile 8 and he asked me, "what are you doing back here??!?!" in reference to the IM pace that I was keeping... we all had some Saranac pomegranate wheat afterwards while standing in line for the massage and it was good to be able to run comfortably and hit a 62:22 while I ran 3 miles to the race start and about 3 miles home making it a long run of the week. It was good, and a fun run.

But that's all I got. :) Rest hard folks. I'll post more interesting stuff later...I told you this blog was more for me, than it was for the readers as I just post to be able to remember the race when I need to think about it next year. Talk to you soon.

A Tri in the Buff race report

So I told you that I would get to this race report when I had the chance and since things have been super hectic here (leaving for IMLP in less than a week) and here it is. This race was 3 weeks out from IMLP and I couldn't have asked for a better result.

Overall, I was 4th place (first in the 25-29 male age group) and was less than :30 seconds away from the podium. I was closing in on J. Niezgoda in the final miles and if I was given an extra 5k to run, I might have caught him...Ironman training has sapped my speed. But first, before I get into all of that, let's start from the beginning.

The swim. The waters in Lake Erie were MIGHTY choppy the morning of the race and once into the mix, it was reminicent of being on the inside of a washing mashine. I, of course, was talking a lot of crap before the race even started to Mr. Johnson and he was starting in a wave 5 minutes behind me and absolutely loves swimming in that type of water. Gun goes off and it's a mess. We are getting rocked all over creation, after 2 quick loops, I hit the beach in 24:06 and wasn't ready for the uphill on the paved part of the beach to the transition area. The pictures in the sidebar don't do it justice....it was steep after getting the breath knocked out of you via the washing machine called Lake Erie...

I made a quick T1, (as most of you know, the 2nd transition, or my namesake, T2, is my favorite and is much faster) but I embarked on the bike with a purpose...to pound it. I went out with a purpose on the deceivingly hilly 2 loop course. The first lap was nice to get into a rhythm and after haring my sponsor Jim from Handlebars on the beach, I knew I had some ground to make up. I got pedalling good, hit the 2nd lap and started smoking it. On this lap though, I got a surprise around a turn, J. Niezgoda passed me on the bike and immediately began climbing while tucked in his aerobars.

Just to set the scene, Niezgoda is a top level Rochester triathlete who was the winner of the Score-This!!! series last year. He consistently places on the podium and I thought he was in front of me. We begin about a 1.5 mile climb and I'm behind him and notice that he is going like 17mph while cranking a LARGE gear in his aerobars. Me, being the dumbass that I am, enflamed the beast as I blew by him on the uphill and said, "who taught you how to ride a bike? Don't you know that you aren't supposed to climb in your aerobars?" as I past him. He must have been pissed off and about 90 seconds later, absolutely TORE by me and just pulled away for the rest of the bike leg.

I hit T2 with a purpose and I didn't know how I would do as I had just split a 23.6mph average for a 40k and was 3 weeks out from my 2nd IM in 8 months...I began the run which was a double looped run as well. Not a single mile into the race, I hit a turn around and see Mr. Carl Johnson behind me and yelled out, "you have GOT to be kidding me..." and he just shrugged and ran towards the turn around. I held him off for another 2-3 miles, but the catch was inevitable. He started 5 minutes behind me and caught me by the run. Ridiculous. Looking back, he only ran 60 faster than me over the whole 10k. He's good folks, a straight up LEGEND in the Rochester area... (he actually forced me to say that)

But, after he passed, I began to see Niezgoda fading back to me. I was gaining and gaining and then the finish line just came up. I ran a 38 minute 10k at approximately 6:09 pace and was 4th overall when the final results rolled in. I was pleased and happy to be done. This was the last hard fast race before IMLP...

So all in all, good race at the end of a massive 16 hour training week and I was pleased given that result. I went home and then went out for a 15 mile run to top out the week. Good times. Anyway, I have to run, but I'll get up the Boilermaker report soon enough. Rest hard everyone.

Ironman Lake Placid role call

Ok folks, I jsut wanted to get a post out there to see who would be dropping in for that small quaint little tri next weekend up in the north country...

So far from the Rochester area, we have the following people racing next Sunday: D.Vogt, A. Spilman, T.Earley (me), T. Money (T$), J. Hunter, M. Eggers, and D. Giblin.

Does anyone else know who else will be in attendance to the race? Please feel free to respond with a comment if you will be racing up there. Talk to you soon.

Bib #'s all set for IMUSA

So a quick check of the site today on lunch reveals that the bib #'s have been posted for Ironman Lake Placid.

Drumroll please.......

I am bib # 240!

Who-hoo!

(not quite as good as #169 - which I had in Florida '06, but great to hear nonetheless)

I gotta run, but rest hard and I'll see you in the north coutry. Cheers

It's here!!!

I don't have enough time to fully post an entry right now, so I'll throw up (not vomit) some good news here. Ironman Lake Placid is 11 days away and the Athlete Guide is finally up on the website (the IMLP '07 bible, if you will.) along with the Spectator Guide.

Feel free to peruse them and let me know if you are making the trip to the ADK region next weekend. Talk to you soon, no bib #'s yet. Hope everyone is resting hard! Cheers.

It's been a while

Just like the title of the post says, it's been a while since I last blogged. I apologize that I haven't been able to hit you up with a good long post recently or update you with race reports from the last two. But things have been a little hectic with IMLP coming up in less than two weeks (HOLY CRAP! - It's LESS THAN 2 weeks away!!!) and all the prep that is needed for a race of that size and length

I am needing to get these done for the blog at least: (maybe this week?)

1. A Tri in the Buff race report - good race - missed the podium by less than 30 seconds to an old nemesis...details later

2. Utica Boilermaker 15k run race report - Training run that I had fun at, I'll throw up a race report soon

3. Blog including pictures of the new uniform that I have gotten from Handlebars Cycle Company. It's so nice to have someone have such blind faith that you will do well, amazing, thank you for everything! Including the support!

I am officially in the TAPER and it is great. I am down to 7-8 hours of training this week 9from a max of over 16 for several weeks) and I am starting to absorb everything I have done. (I'll update you all on this soon too) But it is nice and good to feel almost rested.

I can't type a lot now, but I have updated the race results section with links to the race results and there are some goofy "a Tri in the Buff" photos in the sidebar for you to enjoy. I'll add more stuff later and until then, train (and rest) hard. See you out on the roads. Cheers.

~Travis

PS- if anyone asks - Carl Johnson is a LEGEND in the Rochester area. A freaking LEGEND ladies and gentleman. People should BE so honored to race alongside him. :) - And he's almost double my age (how'd you like them apples old man? - hah!)

Muskoka Race Report - good/bad

So, I'm sure those of you that haven't contacted me already are wondering how the weekend in Canadia went… and for those of you that checked out the results already, some of you may have seen what happened. But without further adieu, here is the race report for the Muskoka Long Course triathlon:

Sunday at 7am, departed from Rochester and drove the 5.5 hours north to Huntsville, Ontario to compete in the Muskoka Long Course triathlon to try and nab a slot for Ironman Lake Placid this year. (I have been training all winter like I was going to Placid without actually being registered for the event...some may have called that stupid, but I just figured if I didn't get in, I would just do a few marathons and maybe a really fast half ironman...)

I got up there and toured the course after going thru check-in and race kit pickup. (which ironically was in an ice rink...Imagine that, an ice rink in Canada, hah!) I toured the brand new for 2007 bike course Saturday night and my first thoughts were, “HOLY #@*%!, it was hilly….” It was about as bad as Lake Placid, but a much steeper version Kind of a cross between Canandaigua and Lake Placid. It was a tough as nails bike course. (I'll tell more about it later) I took a photo of this on the bike course, just thought it was cool...
Anyway, I got done with the bike course and it just seemed to climb throughout the entire thing and just went downhill for the last 10 km's (of 55 km's total - which translates to 34.15 miles for our non-metric, imperial unit folk...) It was looking to be a beast of a course. The run course had a nice hard uphill right out of transition which just showed how hardcore these Canadian's were about the triathlon. (on a side note, I have NEVER seen THAT MANY REALLY nice bikes, like Cervelo's with Zipp wheelsets and bullet helmets, in one place... just seemed like everyone had a nice bike with nice wheels and a LARGE disposable income...I don’t know how they do it…crazy)

The alarm clock buzzes at 5:45am on race day and I get up and am rip roaring ready to roll. Amazingly though, I’m calm inside. I get to the race site with all of my stuff and en route to setting up my transition area, I see Craig Alexander and wish him good luck (by the way, he is the 70.3 WORLD CHAMPION) and I shook his hand and then saw Samantha Maglone (also a world champion...) and it was nuts how many pro's were there... cool to see that they were just chillin before the race and all. (Sorry I didn't want to geek out and get photos with them, just because they seemed so down to earth and I didn't want to be the typical "tourist"...)

The race swim start and exit were like 500m away and I thought it would be a good idea to swim to the start as a warm up, I got into the new Profile Design Metal cell 2 wetsuit that was given to me by Handlebars Cycle Company and it was a tight fit, but a SPEEDY wetsuit to boot. I started swimming down to the start and was apparently going up river in the outlet there and took me much longer than anticipated to get to the start. I got to the start and 2 minutes later we were off... It was VERY physical. There were about 160 people in my wave and it was males and females under 30 years old. (20-24 age group and 25-29 age group)

The swim was nice and it was in a really beautiful lake up there with pine trees lining the shores. If I had stayed a few extra days, I would have just spent days kayaking the inlets and exploring these pristine lakes. But for now, I was racing. I caught up after the first buoy to the lead group in our wave and we were all swimming in a reverse V shape (perfect for catching the draft off those elusive fast feet in front of you…) and I hit the shore in less than 30 minutes. (first time I have EVER done that in a 1.2 mile swim. - I’m attributing most of that to the new wetsuit!) By the time I crossed the timing mat, the clock had ticked over 30 minutes and the official time for the swim was 30:16. Still not half bad.

After a short T1, I was off on the bike on the course. For the first few miles I was playing cat and mouse with this 16 year old kid who was obviously a pure cyclist who was trying out a triathlon. He was whizzing up the hills and I was catching him on the flats. I dropped him and then about 40k into the course I noticed there were dudes just pulling away from me on the bike. I was in a major gap and at some points in the race I was wondering if I was going the right way after I couldn’t see anyone like 300m up the road. Turns out, I was going the right way, but just getting shelled by these hills. Apparently no one in Canada is affected by mass elevation gains…

I split a 1:34:xx on the bike and that was good enough to pull me back to T2 in one piece. It was an average of like 21.7 mph for the 34+ miles. It hurt. I was pleased to be onto the run course, but it was getting REALLY hot out and I had some cramping issues that I was still working out from Keuka and I was worried about how the abs would hold up. I came out of transition like a bat out of hell and I was on a plan to split 4:00 per kilometer to get a 60 minute 15k. I hit the first Km in 3:43 and I knew I was hitting it too hard. I made it thru 5k in about 19:40 and then began to go backwards. My 10k split was about a 40:45 and then I went into survival mode.

I began to reprioritize my goals as several people were passing me, I was thinking that there was NO WAY I was going to be able to grab an IMUSA slot at this pace and I came up here for nothing. I was getting discouraged and pissed and couldn’t pick up the pace because I was cramping in my abs and just not running well. At 12k I kind of blew up. 13k hit and I knew I just had to focus for the last 1.2 miles and I just went at it and focused on finishing. 14k hit and there was a climb back into town (which was rather mean, pictured below, my form is terrible) and I got thru the chute in 3:08:43.

2 people passed me in the last 5k that were in my age group and I just couldn’t get them. One blew past me and one was within reach, just couldn’t get up to him in time. I was a little disappointed in the finish (not that I did poorly, but that I didn’t race smartly…blowing up like that means that I just didn’t pace myself correctly) These were odd distances to race and I had apparently gotten too comfy with the 1.5k/40k/10k Olympic distances. I finished the 15k off in 62:15 and it was good enough for 54th overall out of 790+ and it was 7th in the male 25-29 age group.

The awards ceremony was in the same ice rink and it took forever and it was hot as anything inside… I wasn’t getting up for any awards so it was a waiting game until the Ironman slot distribution occurred. It was a nail biter, I went up when they called the age group and the 2nd place kid in the group took a Florida slot, the 4th asked for another Florida slot and was out of luck, and then there were 2 people who weren’t there and they called my name and asked me what I wanted; any of 2 IM Canada slots or 1 IM USA slot. I got into Ironman Lake Placid. Nuts, right? So I’m doing Lake Placid as Ironman #2 in a little more than a month. Needless to say the car ride home was better than I thought it was going to be.

I’m just so stoked to be given the opportunity to compete in another Ironman race so soon. I seriously thought that I would not be nabbing this slot after I got back into T2 from the bike so I am just thankful that it was rolled down to me. Now comes a short little 2-3 week build and a little taper down for game day on July 22nd, 2007. It’s time to hit the hills again and I’ll let you all know how the training is going after this week. This was a rest week and about 9.5 hours of training so it’s getting hot and heavy over here, but it’s only a few weeks until the infamous taper, so that’s a plus.

I hope everyone is getting out and enjoying the warm weather that we are having in upstate NY now days. See you on the roads everyone and thank you all for your kind emails and support that you’ve given me. I hope I can make you all proud in Placid this year. Believe me, I will do my best. Take care and enjoy the ride. Cheers.

New Title Sponsor!

So I have kept most of you all in the dark about the BIG NEWS that happened after the Keuka Lake Triathlon this past weekend, but the information has leaked out a bit too. Without further adieu, I will announce that since the 2006 season (after getting dropped by TriSports.com for budgetary reasons) I have been racing "sans-a-sponsor". That all changed after I crossed the line at Keuka on Sunday....I finished and the lady that was cutting off the timing chips from everyones ankle looked at me after she removed my chip and handed me a business card from Handlebars Cycle Company in Buffalo, NY. (this is the same place where I purchased THE BEAST and I have had a good relationship with the tri guru over there named Jim Costello) The lady told me that Jim wanted to speak with me when I got a minute.

So I hung out for a little, visited with some friends, went on a cool down with Carl Johnson and then en route to my car, Jim passes me and says, "so when are you going to start letting me sponsor you?" Jokingly, I answered, "How about right now?" and he said to come see him when I had a minute...

So before the awards, I went over to the Handlebars booth and started talking shop with Jim and chatting about where I can improve in the race and what my strongest/weakest legs of the tri were. He asked what my height and weight were and I thought that was weird, but answered and he went over to a rack of really nice wetsuits and I thought to myself, well maybe he's going to let me borrow one to race in the future in...

He pulls out a Profile Design Metal cell 2 by Aquaman. He tosses it to me and says, "here you go"... I was shocked. I thought to myself, "are you serious?" and was trying REALLY hard to keep my jaw from dropping to the ground. Jim then mentioned that my uniform probably wouldn't be ready for this Sunday at Muskoka in Canada, but it would be here in the next week or so along with my racing kit full of clothes, goodies and stuff... He then, just simply said, "Don't worry about it, we'll take care of you from now on..." and we then chatted about the future for me and where he thought I was going to go and how I would place at certain races, etc...

I told him about my 5 year plan to get to Hawaii and he agreed that it could be done and of course I thanked him like a million times. I was seriously stunned as I walked back to my bike and drove home. The wetsuit still had the TAGS on it and I already HAD a decent wetsuit and I was just shoked that he pulled it off the rack and just gave it to me! It's soaking right now in my tub and I'm going to go to Kershaw tomorrow and test it out before Muskoka, but it was SO COOL and weird at the same time. A handshake was all that was needed for our "contract".

I'm just still in shock. Jim said he would call this week and I gave him all of my information including name, address and phone number and the like and this is the same store that sponsors Curt Eggers (a triathlon legend in the Rochester area - everyone knows Curt. He was a national age group champion in both triathlon and duathlon in 2006!) I was just astonished that Jim took an interest in what I was doing and how he thought I would be good investment to sponsor for 2007. (apparently I am in good company :) ...)

Believe me, I will race often and I will do my absolute best to race well and show my sponsor that they are not wasting their time on me and that I am worth the $500+ wetsuit that was just handed to me. So, Handlebars, thank you SO VERY MUCH for giving me the opportunity to race for you and I hope I won't dissappoint. Just knowing that someone else is counting on me to do well in a race gives me that extra drive and motivation to not let anyone down. Thank you very much and I hope this is the start of a great mutually beneficial relationship!

Cheers everyone, thanks for reading. See you tomorrow night at Kershaw in my new blue armed wetsuit.

Keuka Lake Triathlon race report

Yesterday was the Keuka Lake Triathlon in Penn Yan, NY. As discussed on the last post, this was my very first triathlon... I love this race and for most it is the season opener (as the water around here in the Finger Lakes generally doesn't warm up to be bearable to swim until about now in the year....)

This year I was gunning for a good time and wanted to do well there. I wouldn't say it was an "A race" considering I am heading up to Canadia (yes, I spelled that correctly- just say it out loud. No offense Bold..) for the Muskoka Loung course triathlon to try and grab a slot for IM USA.

The swim was cold, but not as cold as in year's past. (and by not as cold, I mean that this year I didn't put my face in the water and get instant "brain freeze"...) The swim was good though, it was a little bit chppy which made us all inadvertantly eat a lot of lake water in the 0.93 mile swim. There was a dude that drafted off of me the entire top leg of the swim and was touching my toes and that is the WORST feeling in the world. It wasn't until I realized that I could lengthen my stroke and get a little distance on him before I got some reprieve. I was the first one out of the water and up the stairs, as depicted below. My time in the water was a 23:57 which also takes into effect the run up the stairs and to the transition area (where the timing mats were) so I can only assume that I was faster than what was listed on the results...

I had a MUCH faster transition than last year and was basically the only one in transition (which made it really easy to find my stuff...) I was out on the bike course in a flash and ready to tear up the infamous hills of Keuka.

The first half of the bike course is basically ALL up hill and is a beast. For me, I was in the lead with a nice escort truck leading me around (so I wouldn't go the wrong way, thanks Rich at Score-This!!!) I knew that Carl Johnson had started in the wave 5 minutes behind me and I was thinking he was going to just TEAR by me on the bike (like last year) and I was just BOOKING it hoping that he wouldn't catch me. There were 2 turn arounds in the course and I saw him and talked trash to him mid race ("Hey CJ, looks like your back tire is flat!"...it was all about respect though, he's blazingly fast!). Carl never caught me on the bike and looking at this years results, I had the fastest bike split of the race with a 1:07:00 for a 40k and that averaged to 22.4mph on THE BEAST.

I had a quick T2 and was ripping off on the 10K run and heard the announcer Rich advise over the loudspeaker that I was "going to have to run a blazingly fast 10k to hold off the guys in wave 2" and I groaned as I exited T2 becuase I knew this wasn't going to be a walk in the park. I dropped the first mile in 5:43 according to my watch and immediately got the BIGGEST side stitch/cramp in my 2nd abdominal muscle on my right side and was really worried after that. I was still the first guy on the course and I slowed considerably before the turn around (it was an out and back course) and I was just waiting again for Carl to blow by me because I thought it was inevitable at this point. I held on thru the 5k turnaround in 19:04 and when I turned did the pattented T. Earley spin move around the cone (always goofing off, even in the lead of a race) You have to make things fun :)

I tried to surge several times on the way back to the finish line in the next 5k and must have negative split it, but it felt slower. There was no one in sight for a while and I was astonished and beginning to think if I put 5 minutes on Carl that I could win this... I was determined, but there was no one to run down in front of me so the whole time I was just running scared. I crossed the line in 2:10:07 and didn't look at my watch in the last mile (otherwise I think I might have been able to pull off a sub 2:10 because I didn't kick too hardly - I just kind of forgot about the time aspect of the race) I crossed with a 37:36 10k and split my watch to see if I had put 5 minutes on Carl.

He crossed 3:20 later and he was the winner of the Keuka Tri. I was 2nd overall and it was a single place better than last year andmore than 4 minute PR from last year which was nice. The best thing is that Carl beat me by 7 minutes last year and only 1:40 this year (so I am catching him!) I got a nice new plaque for the office and it was all in all a great race. I was pleased and it was comfortable racing weather too (although the awards were REALLY hot)

I have other GREAT news about stuff that happened later after the race, but I will keep you all in suspense right now. (just think, sponsorship...) and I will post on this later this week. (with LOTS of pics!) But for now it is a rest week and slight taper going into Muskoka on Sunday to try and nab a slot for Placid. Wish me luck as this Sunday's race decides my whole summer! See you out on the roads and I'll keep you posted on the BIG NEWS later on. Cheers. :)

Weekend in Placid

So, the weekend in Placid over Memorial Day went a little better than anticipated. I came into the weekend with horrible images in my mind about the infamous “hills of Lake Placid” and was even thinking about changing the gearing on THE BEAST because everyone was telling me horror stories about these hills.

To sum it up, this course was not as bad as everyone told me it was going to be...

Now I do not fancy myself a climber. I do not climb well on the bike and I think this stems from my physique from years past (three years ago I was pushing a DEUCE on the scales. Almost 200 lbs…) Good climbers are generally rail thin and scrawny little guys that can bounce up the hills just because they have monster quads and have no weight up top to slow them down. I have slimmed down a bit since college and lost some of my bulk from up top but I think I had preconceived notions in my head about the course and it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Saturday we headed out for two loops on the bike course and most everyone in our 6 person group was just going to do 1 loop. I did the one loop with them and even had on Excalibur, but in retrospect, X will probably not be worn for the race. IT was too hot and the decent into Keene was a little hairy as I felt like the Rocketeer (see below) going down the hills and at one time when I looked over my shoulder going about 45 mph, I felt like I was going to fly off the bike. The second loop I rode with T$ and J. Fish-Hunter, and after like 3 miles, I began feeling really good and wanted to see how fast I could do the entire course. I finished the 56 mile course in 2:50 and was feeling good about it. I was sitting for almost every climb and since the hills are long and very gradual, it was much easier than Canandaigua Lake . All in all, this was a nice and very scenic bike course. I even went out for a 2 mile T-run after the ride and it felt ok…my legs were a little shelled at that point though…

Sunday started at 7am when everyone decided it would be good to get up REALLY early and get the long run over with. Most people were hitting up 1 loop of the run course (13.1 miles) – I, of course, wanted to do 18 miles…
There is one LARGE hill on the run course, that you have to do twice, coming down from transition and it will hurt the quads in the race, but it is do-able. (My HR was 142 going up it during the run…my hill training must have paid off!). The run course will be a little different than IM FLORIDA, but it is do-able.
I’m getting stoked about doing this race as the scenery is AMAZING. It is SO much nicer than Florida and will be a blast to do as a bunch of my friends are going to do it this year too.

We all ended up climbing up Porter and Cascade on Sunday as well after my 18 mile long run and that was a challenge. I will have pics of the summits of those in another post later on this week.

This past weekend was more monster miles with a 113.12 mile ride to Buffalo, NY and back from Rochester, NY and Sunday was a 21 mile run in Webster, NY. I have the Keuka Lake Tri this upcoming Sunday and that should be a fun little speed workout. (My 10k there last year at the end of the Olympic tri was a 37:29, so I’m hoping to repeat that) Last year was also my very first podium finish overall in a triathlon so Keuka holds a special place in my heart. (It was also the very first TRI I ever did….thank you Philly VP for creating the addiction!)

I will report on that later after the weekend and I will let you all know how I do. I’m shooting to break 2:10 there and I think it MIGHT just be do-able considering the results from last year (2:14:26 finish) so we’ll see what happens. It will be a good show-down.

I hope you all are hitting the roads hard and they are not hitting back too badly, see you out there, the season is finally here :)

Just call me SUPERMAN :)

So this has never happened before. I went out on Monday evening after work and drove to Kershaw Park on Canandaigua Lake to take a nice and leisurely 56 mile ride around the lake. I thought nothing of it, had all my nutrition that I needed, enough gatorade and water to weigh down THE BEAST until she was like 20 lbs. I was set.

I depart and its a nice, cool, calm, balmy night and I embark to kick some ass around the lake. (I've been told that the course around the lake is about as tough, if not worse thatn the IMLP bike course, so it's good training.) - I'll report on my findings after I come back from Placid this weekend - we're doing a recon trainign weekend which I'll tell more about later.

So I'm there 8.61 miles in to the 56 mile ride and cranking up a larger hill in Canandaigua and all of the sudden, the tension is not on the cranks anymore and I spin free. I figure I slipped the chain somehow and I look down to find something dragging behind my bike....it was my chain. Apparently, you can refer to me as Superman from now on as my legs are strong enough to rip metal apart.

That's right, a 2 year old chain was completely torn in two on my cervelo P2C on Monday night and as I stood on the side of the road in disbelief, I realized that by the time I call someone and have them drive the 40 minutes to the lake from Rochester, I might be able to make it back to my car, so with a greasy bike chain in one hand, the beast in the other, and bike shoes still on my feet, I began the 8.61 mile trek back to the car on foot.

I coasted the downhills and walked the flats and uphills and 5 miles later, this REALLY nice guy who had just come back from coaching little league with his 2 sons, offered to drive me back to my car. His name was Curt. Thank you Curt. I know you likely will not read this blog, but my 3 hour ride was cut short and I was pissed enough as is and Curt made life a little easier. THANK YOU so much.

So today, I have to get a replacement chain for the Cervelo before I head to Placid tomorrow after work. 6 of us are heading up there and I am planning on riding 112 on the bike course on Saturday followed by a 2 mile transition run and then Sunday is an 18-20 mile run on the run course. Of course with beers in between and maybe a day hike afterwards on Sunday after we do the long run and we'll head up one of the 46er's in the Placid region (one of my life goals is to climb all 46 peaks that are above 4000' in the Adirondak region...)

Sorry there are no pictures in this post, I hope people read this far. I'll report on the Placid bike and run courses after the Memeorial Day weekend. Take care all, train hard and have a good beer or two on the holiday and relax. See you on the roads.

Things are getting better - swim lesson#1

So I promised you all a post yesterday and I apologize, but I had to get 4 new tires on my little 4 banger Honda last night because THIS happened when I walked out and was ready to roll on my 77 mile bike ride on Saturday afternoon. When the guy in the street said “hey buddy your tire’s flat” I instinctively looked at my bike and looked back at him confused, then he went on to say, “Isn’t that your car?” and pointed to the bright blue civic with TRI stickers PLASTERED all over the back end of it.

I’m the only kid on the block with a $4k bike and even aerobars and I know this guy was just ASSUMING that it was my car, but he was right….and correct that I had a flat tire. Some drunk @$$hole decided it would be funny to slash about 5-6 cars tires on my street on Friday evening/Saturday morning. So last night after work, I was getting new tires on my car (to the tune of $400+) rather than posting a blog entry…

Other than that, this week has been great. I’m moving away from the squirrels, the rain that POURS from my ceiling when it rains, slashed tires and parking tickets from leaving my car on the street. I’m moving into a nice complex that’s about a mile down the road from these guys…

These are my new nephews Jakob and Noah, they are 10 months old now and are cute as hell. When I was unemployed, I saw them everyday and helped out with my sister, now I get to see them like once a week and it sucks a little. They still laugh and smile when I enter a room because they know I am just there to play with them and thrown them in the air, but it takes them a little bit to recognize me now…hopefully we can get the instantaneous smile and laughter back soon.

Training wise, it has been great. I just logged a 14+ hour week and I had some MONSTER workouts. Most notably and the reason I am writing this post was the swim workout I did recently. 4 x 1km with :60 rest in between 1,000’s. I love this workout because it teaches you good pacing and endurance and I like to try and negative split the entire thing. This time with the help of coach Erin, I was able to hit some REALLY good times…here is coach Erin imbibing after a night of boozing at a friends house (it was a champagne party, so that’s why we are all classed up…)

Erin is a national level swimmer who swam all 4 years for SUNY Oswego and was a fantastic backstroker. She was an All-American her senior year and swam in high school as I did at our alma matter, Churchville Chili. Halfway thru the set, she told me to lengthen my stroke and do more “DPS” distance per stroke. I did and boy did the times go down.

This set is always done with no warm up, or cool down, just straight 4km’s in the pool. The first one ripped off in 15:09, the next was a 14:59, then Erin told me to concentrate on DPS and I initially complained, but then thought better and hit a 14:55…the next one was the shocker. After thoroughly concentrating on lengthening the stroke, I hit a 14:22 for the last 1,000. So this is it, props to coach Erin for reminding me of a valuable lesson. Listen to whomever can give you advice, lengthen the stroke and you will see dividends. This is a rest week now (so I can enjoy the late night pizza as depicted above....) so it’s nice and easy recovery for the next week before one last push of training in preparation for Muskoka in June. Keep getting those miles in. IMLP is right around the corner. Train hard folks and I’ll catch you on the flip side. Cheers.

Medved madness "15 mile" trail run race report

Would I lie to you? I told you I was going to try and write each week and it definitely makes it a TON easier to post when you have a race report to recap. This week is no different.

Sunday May 6th (el seis de mayo - if anyone was wondering....it's an old college joke, no worries) was the inaugrial Medved madness 15 mile trail run and relay at Mendon Ponds Park.

The trail run was put on by the guys at Medved Running and walking and was a great event, albeit a little hairy out on the course.

I was stoked about another trail run as I absolutely LOVE getting out on the trails and slopping thru the muck and the mire. I love it. This race was no exception as they had about a 15 yard dash THRU part of the lake. The only beef I had with the race was that the course was not really well marked in the middle leg.

The race was being marked by these little multicolored ribbons in trees and placed at strategic locations on the "trails". You may have noticed from the title of this race report that the distance of the event was in quotes. That is simply because everyone got lost SO much that we each ran a different distance of race. It was originally slated to be a 15 miler, but people with Garmins on had a rance from 13.3 miles all the way to over 17 miles, so it was a little hairy.

The first really bad section was where the first 10 guys were strung out about 200 yards between them all (I was in this section) and we lost the trail while going thru a field. Everyonne kind of stopped so there was 10 guys just standing around, then after a minute or two, there was 20, then 30...and we had been looking for the trail for about 3 minutes now. There were like 5 different ways it could have gone and no one wanted to go down a path because we were all worried that it might be the wrong one and everyone else would take off. Long story short, all the work we had put in in the previous 6 miles to gap the people behind us was gone and we were a pack of 30 now. We found the trail and I guess you could say the race started from there.

The course was brutishly hilly (as it was in Mendon) and the mud was ankle deep in some sections. It was a good muddy fun race to do and there was a BBQ afterwards before the awards so that was always fun. The finish was gnarly as my buddy Greg B. blew by me in the last 1/2 mile and I tried to chase him down at the finish and THIS was the result. I'm on the left gritting my teeth. We both finished same time, but he was like a FOOT in front of me for 6th place. Greg's got some good speed and it showed in the last 150 yards of this race. I was just happy to have a good race to the line.

All in all, it was a fun time and a little cold, but good racing conditions. I was stoked to have a lengthier distance of race to do rather than the 5k every weekend in town. I'm liking the whole "race for more time than you spend driving to and from the course" deal... my finish time was 1:42:10 and it was good for 7th overall and 2nd in the age group (Greg edged me out for #1 spot...) Results are here and I look forward to mashing the trails again. Cheers folks, I'll report during the rest week next week. Train hard.

A little catching up

Well everyone. As I described in the last post, things have been shaken up a bit in the land of Travis Earley. Like I said before, I got a new job and my official title is a "staffing consultant" and I work for a national recruiting company named Spherion:

And as we all know, a post without pictures is worth nothing at all (or at least is really boring to read) so I decided to spice this one up and include some candid shots.

Things work wise have been going really well. I still work in a cubicle, but it is no longer in a living hell. The last company that I worked for (whom I will not name at this time because of some grudges that still are held) was completely and utterly negative. I used to adjust automobile claims for an insurance company and constantly had to deliver bad news to people. (ie. we cannot pay for the damage to your car, you are at fault for this accident, you are getting sued by the other party you hit...etc).

But in contrast, this new job at Spherion has been incredibly positive! Every facet of this position is extremely positive. I interview people and screen out potential candidates for jobs and get to deliver news to people like, "XYZ corporation wants to hire you!" or "I found you a job!" and it has been so rewarding it is incredible. I love it. I've referred to this job as extremely anti-Safeco...(oops, I guess I did drop that company name) But to make a long story short (too late!) my new job is great and I'm loving it.

Training wise, even though there have been some set-backs this season (getting dropped by my main sponsor TS.com...) I was able to pick up a new sunglasses company to sponsor me and keep those UVA and UVB rays out of my precious eyes. Tifosi Optics is the new official sunglasses sponsor of Keep Moving Forward. They are a snazzy new affordable sunglasses company that has been keeping me happy to date and I can only hope to do the same for them in the near future. The sunglasses retail for around $60 and they sent me two promotional pairs (one being the ever good looking Q2 model) and here is a shot of the stuff I got from them in the mail a while ago:

The pair in the foreground are the Q2 and the model behind is known as the "slip" and they will be my racing glasses as they have three sets of interchangeable lenses for various light and racing conditions.

They are all REALLY comfortable and I've never had a real good pair of shades and you can REALLY tell the difference between good and not-so-great lenses. Tifosi's are excellent!!! (I know, I'm a little biased, but they are great!). So, yeah, it was nice to grab another sponsor in the mix after the loss of a major one. You may notice their logo in the sidebar.

I've changed around the 2007 race results section as well, since landing a new position and getting that steady paycheck again, I've had the opportunity to get out and register for several more races in the community, which is GREAT. I was going to do a post with a Spring Forward 15k road race report and title it, "Go out hard and die like a man" for that because that was my game plan for that race, but it turned out ok.

That race I hadn't run more than 5 miles under 7:00/mile pace for 2007 and I was worried as we hit the first mile marker in 5:50...I felt like I was going to explode as we passed by mile 7 but held on thru 9.3 to finish 7th overall and 3rd in my age group holding 6:12/mile pace thru the entire race. I thought I was going to blow up but was able to hold on strong and even edge a guy out at the line in a sprint finish. I guess good old base training pays off...

This Sunday, I'm signed up for a 15 mile trail race run thru Mendon Ponds Park in Mendon, NY. It's the Medved madness trail run and I'm stoked because I'm doing the solo division to get ready for IMLP (hoping I get a slot at Muskoka). They offer a relay for those people who like the shorter stuff, but I have been bitten by the endurance bug and I want to keep it that way.

I'll write up a report probably on Monday, so I'll get back to that once a week posting schedule again. I hope everyone is training hard and long. The season is upon us. I'll leave you with a quote I saw the other day that I am using as my new mantra, "Excellence is not easy, it is a decision you make every day". Train hard folks, Cheers.

Leave of absence

So folks,

It's been a really long time (I think a month plus) that I have written and for that I apologize. I tend to set some goals in my life that sometimes I cannot reach. I set a goal a long time ago that I would write at least once a week, and this month I have not.

Things have been really crazy here lately. I recently got a new job (after several months of "living the dream" and being on unemployment and just training as much as I could - it was nice, just like a pro triathlete I would imagine...) So it's been the new job, I'm looking for a new apartment (because the ceiling has been POURING water on me when it rains...) and admist all of that I have been ramping my training levels to unspeakable hour-age in preparation for Ironman Lake Placid and Muskoka LC tri in Candada.

I don't have long to write today, I'm on my way to go to the laundromat to wash the 1.5 weeks of dirty work/training/comfy clothes that are in my apartment right now. Afterwards, I'm heading on a 16 mile (2 hour - 7:30 pace) run, which should round out a nice 13 hour training week.

I'm out for now...I'm planning on coming to work earlier this week to write more, but today is jam packed. Take care for now and I will update better later on. Cheers. Train hard.

~Travis

He cut me!!!

So as of the last post, most of you all know that I recently got more ink on my left ankle. What I neglected to tell you all was probably the funniest part of the whole experience.

When you get a tattoo, they have to shave the area you are getting inked so that there is a clean and clear canvas for the tattoo artist to work with. This time for me it was the trickiest part of the leg to shave (and as a triathlete, I think I know a thing or two about shaving legs...) it was the ankle.

So I explain what I want and the artist looks at me and makes me roll up my pantleg and takes out the single bladed razor. It might as well have been a pink lady BIC razor. He shaves a small patch on my ankle and CUTS me!!!!! Seriously, let me repeat that, HE CUT ME WITH THE RAZOR AND SAID, "oops!"

Now a little background to the story is that I have taken pride in the fact that I haven't cut myself while shaving my legs in the last TWO triathlon seasons.... You may notice the little red mark under the inking in the pictures below. That actually hurt more than the whole tattoo and still is sore and red today (a week later) seriously the tattoo stopped bleeding before the cut did.

And the worst part is that he didn't even give me a discount on the price of it....after he cut me...

So anyway, it's healing. I did my first swim with it and the chlorine didn't affect it (you were right Erin...) and last week was a rest week and it's doing ok. Peeling a little, but overall I'm really happy with it. Anyway, that's all I have to say, just wanted to add that story. Take care all, cheers and I'll see you on the roads (now that the weather is better here in NY!) Cheers.

Sorry mom, it's permanent...

So everyone, I hope things are going well. Those of you that know me well enough, know that I have several permanent inkings on my body (I'm not going to disclose how many, because that would take the fun out of it! ) Yesterday, I added another. Yes, I caved in and now bear the mark of iron on my ankle.

I wanted to do this at a date closer to IMFL, but just didn't get around to it. Right now it is just a sole IM logo with a palm tree on the inside to represent my time in Florida, but I hope to add to it and eventually get a band around the ankle with subsequent IM finishes. Kind of like war medals around my ankle if you will. I figure each IM is significant and merit's some kind of "reward" and place in the history of one's life. So without further ado, here it is. It's still healing, so I apologize for the "glossiness" of the photo. (and for the "hair-pants"....it IS the "offseason" up here in NY and is STILL quite cold. I need all the warmth I can get!) The funny thing is that I haven't told anyone about it yet. I like to think that a tattoo is for you, if you get it just to tell other people about, then you're not getting it for the right reasons. As long as it means something special to you, it's ok in my book. I don't think any of my close friends or family actually read this blog, so that it why I am posting it here to begin with. I absolutely love it and can't wait to add another inking after the next IM finish. Take care all and I hope everyone trains hard. Cheers.

Ok sorry about that....

So the title of this post kinda tells it all. Sorry about that last post, that was a Mr. Negativity poking into Blogger and rearing it's ugly head. Since I got that out of my system, there have been a few "wins" in my world lately and I'd love to tell you about them.

First off, triathlon. Just saying the word makes me smile because I love it so much, and I love the training too. When you feel down, it's easy to let everything consume you and just wallow in your own misery for ever, but I think in triathlon's bigger meaning and purpose, it teaches you that you can do things that you thought impossible and you can get through those tough times. (sometimes it just takes a little mental fortitude...)

So in training this week (and I'm going to steal a bit from a blogland friend and fellow IMFL finisher, Bolder) we are going to start this post out with the numbers...last week was the first week of 2007 that I finally crested the 10 hour mark for training hours per week. Last year I think I was still cranking out nice 8-10 hour weeks at this time of the year and I bet it was slower than what I'm doing now (while keeping a moderate heart rate thru training of course.)
This graph above is how I kept track of my total training hours in preparation for IMFL. The first week of training was obviously January1st, 2006 and that is why there are 52 weeks listed on this graph. Week 44 was Ironman week and that is why is is GREATLY reduced afterwards.

The key was unfortunately cut off in this picture, but Blue is bike hours, red is running hours, and yellow is swimming hours. I came from a strong swimming and running background from high school and college sports and I decide the bike was my limiter and that is why there is a TON of bike hours put in to get me up to speed.

And all in all, I think it paid off. 2006 was my second competitive season of triathlon and I was able to do okay and finish an Iron distance race. I was pleased. Although in my narcissistic mind, I'm always thinking of ways to get faster and better and train more, so this year after a hard few weeks I had some "wins" in my training.

First off this week was a 90 minute bike session on the trainer indoors. Not an ideal ride, not my endurance ride, but just a nice spin, keeping it in HR zone 1 (the lowest recovery zone) I was spinning watching the Tour of Qatar on Versus and 60 minutes in I noticed I was holding in the middle of my HR zone (right on, yeah!) and averaging 23.2mph. Wow, I was kinda floored, but I could feel it in my legs. I have never averaged more than 22 on the trainer last year and I didn't mess with the resistance from year to year, so this is a HUGE win, because I was at the same heart rate, but going MUCH faster. Free speed eh? For those of you who wonder, I ended the 90 minutes averaging 23.4mph....not too shabby.

Second workout win for me was a pool workout. Before I had only done one session a week and I could get by on that. This year I'm trying for 2 sessions a week. I decided to do a short 2k workout with 2 x 1000's. no warm up, no cool down, just straight schwimmin. I hopped in and hit the wall in 13:47 after my first one. Not bad. The second I knew I would struggle to get under 14 minutes and decided to pick up the pace the last 200 yards and brought it to the wall in.....you guessed it 13:47. Pretty cool, it was nice to swim fast and not fade. I was again excited.

The last win for me was a hill workout that I have been doing at least twice a week for the whole year in the snow at a local park. Each week it is hard to run under 8minutes with all the slush and ice and crap around. This week, I made it back to my place in 44:47 (which translates to sub7:30 pace....)

So I guess the moral of the post is this, when life is getting you down, stick to what you know and love, it can only bring you joy. Keep at it, consistency is key and just know that your hard work will pay off soon enough. Take care and train hard everyone. Cheers.