Boston Marathon (non-race report)

So this is labeled as a "non-race report" as I will not get into the nitty gritty details of the race, but the above is a snapshot of the results page. The race was good, it obviously was not my "A-race" for the year (Ironman Wisconsin is in September...)

I had an initial goal of breaking 2:50 there, but sometimes things don't go as planned and you come thru the half point faster than you have EVER ran in your life for a half, and you think to yourself, "I'm either going to have a breakthrough race, or I'm in for a WORLD of pain"... this time around I was in for the world of pain and the last 5k was really rough. (also the same time that the Lance Armstrong freight train BLEW by me...)

Now I'm not saying that I'm not pleased that I ran a 2:53! I'm EXTREMELY pleased that I ran that quickly at such a hard and prestigious course, I just know that looking back on things, if I had held back in the early miles, things might have been different at the finish. Rookie mistake and I'll know better for next time! :o) I'm stoked at the result and it was a nice 2 minute PR from Philly.

Thank you to everyone who wished me well in the days/hours leading up to the race and for everyone that was checking up on me throughout the day online and at the race site! (you know who you are!!! Thanks so much!) It definitely carried me thru the last few miles. I'll get a proper race report up here soon, but until then thank you again to everyone and I'll see you out on the roads and in the pool. I'm on to drink a victory beer. Cheers.

100th Post!!!!!

Yeah, so I know you all have called me out on it, but the whole "not having a computer at my apartment" thing is cramping my blogging style by not allowing me to post every awesome thing that is going on in life.

Things are going really well here in the land of "Keep Moving Forward". This year has been good thus far, last week ended a 14+ hour training week and I am ultimately training for Ironman Wisconsin in September, but I obviously am doing some other really fun stuff along the way. (Musselman, Boston, etc.)

First things first, I'm running the 112th edition of the Boston Marathon in less than a month, which I'm pretty stoked about. We got bib#'s issued earlier this week and yours truly is bib # 1991. (so feel free to track online if you so desire. Bib#'s for amateurs start at 1001, so I guess it's a pretty low #, which will be nice to try and hit my sky high goal of breaking 2:55 at Boston. (ran a 2:55:17 at Philly to qualify) But it will be fun. This is the first year I am actually running it and have actually registered for the race. I've run it several other times, but only by jumping in for a few miles and running alongside friends. I got a chance to experience the volume of Wellsley college last time, so I'll know what to expect there :o)

But yeah, Boston is what I am gearing up for right now and after that is a wedding in PA for my good friends John and Theresa, then a bunch of other local races which I'll try to update when I get a chance to the 2008 schedule on the sidebar (I've been negligent recently, I know!)

Good news on the sponsorship side, Handlebars is still with me and they are stoked that I'm doing IMmoo and Boston and other local races so they are hooking me up and pimping my bike in prep for Wisconsin. (thank you so much Handlebars!!!)

But yeah, it's a rest week for me and I just downed about half of a pizza and 2 sodas so I'm gonna relax, hang out a bit and then it's to bed in prep for an easy 16 mile run tomorrow in Mendon. (9am, meet at the beach parking lot if anyone local is interested and reading this in the next 12 hours...)

So take it easy, train (and rest) hard and I'll see you on the roads. Cheers.

Calling all IM podium finishers!!!!

So I haven't been on this in a long time, but that doesn't mean that I have forgotten about it. Just been busy.

So I'm putting a call out to anyone who has been on the podium at a Ironman distance race to come to Lake Placid this memorial day weekend for a heavy training weekend. I want to get anyone who would be interested in coming up to the mountains and hammering out a few good long rides on the LP course and also sticking in a good few long runs in there as well.

If you are interested, email me whenever you can (sooner the better) at travisearley at spherion dot com (my work email) and let me know if you want to attend. I have to run (not literally) but I will hopefully hear from you all soon! Cheers.

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