Hunger

I love to eat. I eat 4 meals per day plus 3 light snacks between meals. If you bake it, grow it, or grill it, I'll eat it.

According to the Harris-Benedict or Schofield formulas my Base Metabolic Rate falls within the range of 2093 - 2231 calories needed per day to simply exist. Including those calories burned during the normal activities of the day (walking, talking, tooth brushing, etc) I am in a deficit of:

(2162 BMR + 1103 daily activities cal) x 7 days = 22855 cal/week

Add in the average number of calories depleted during exercise:

4016 avg training cal/week

And the total deficit becomes:

26,871 cal/week

or

3,839 cal/day

Now where did I put that take-out menu...

Culpeper Sprint Triathlon
750m swim - 15mi bike - 5k run

Located in the Appalachain foothills, Culpeper, VA is a small community with a great view of the mountains. I awoke at 3:45 AM and left by 4:30 arrive at the race site by 6:15. Traffic was very light so the journey was quite relaxing. The swim was located in the man-made lake, bike course on rolling hills (not much flat at all) and the run included three hill climbs as well. Here's the run down:

The Good:
5/10 in division on swim: 18:20

The Bad:
Bike mount/dis-mount was a good 100 yards from transition. What, run in my cycling shoes? I think not!

All the liquid consumed pre-T2 was ejected - at full force - after the major hill climb on the run course. This is becoming a trend...

The Good (part 2):
I felt MUCH better after the spewing and turned on the running legs. I must have passed all those who passed me. It wasn't that I was overworked, but had way too much volume in my stomach after the bike. It doesn't help that the temperature maxed at 80 and not the 90 they were predicting. That is, I didn't need to replace e-lytes and water that would be needed on a hot, humid day.

The Ugly:
A woman I passed on the bike was wearing her helmet backwards. I wasn't going to slow down to tell her, it's a race after all.

My feet held up very well for not wearing socks on the bike. I could feel hot spots but nothing that lead to blisters.


I could have kept going but they made me stop. I could have raced 2 loops per event that day. They gave out a cool shirt so it was a good race and one I'd do again. This race was a good confidence builder for the Olympic distance in September.

I needed a cleaner look. That green was just too...pond scum.


Como se dice, the cat's out of the bag? I wore the Yorktown Triathlon shirt to work today. Imagine Clark Kent sans tie, shirt unbuttoned, glasses off after a hard day tracking down the daily beat, all the while exposing the slightest blue hue from his superhero suit, still on underneath it all - enough to warrant inquisitive looks from co-workers, but not enough to provoke questioning. Yes, I am mild mannered, soft spoken engineer by day - endurance enthusiast by night, complete with gadgets, gizmos and technical clothing that would make even Batman jealous.

As you will notice, this blog not only has a new look, but now a purpose.


Ironman.


No, not him:

What I am referring to is 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking and 26.2 miles of running. Consecutively. Without stopping. I've been meditating on this notion for some time now. The night I went for 1600m at the pool I knew what must be done.

This journey, well...whatever it is, will last 2 years, ending Fall 2010.

Join me as I rant, rave, ramble or otherwise waste time (both yours and mine) on this pursuit that will most likely end with by being administered an IV by an under-paid EMT in a medical tent late at night.

And the inevitable why? you ask.

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

...Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

President John F Kennedy
Rice University - Houston, Texas
September 12, 1962

On Running

The caption: "Me and running don't always see eye to eye. Some days it hurts more than others. But it doesn't mean I don't do it. I deal with it and I keep running because not everything that is good for you always feels good for you."

"We are different, in essence, from other men. If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon." -Emil Zatopek

"Dream barriers look very high until someone climbs them. They are not barriers anymore." - Lasse Viren

"If the hill has its own name, then it's probably a pretty tough hill." - Marty Stern

What makes an Ironman?

140.6 miles at Kona?
140.6 miles in a sanctioned WTC Ironman event?
70.3 miles in a sanctioned WTC 1/2 Ironman event?
140.6 miles in an Iron-Distance event?
140.6 miles self-supported?

Metric Century. 100k. 62 mi. Epic:


Yesterday, I completed a 1.2k swim/4-mile run brick workout with some 3:20:00 marathoners, one of whom is an Ironman from CdA and competing this year at IMKY, and some off-road multisport athletes. We met at the Huguenot Flats and completed 2 crossings, sighting off a white chair and a "pile of dirt" for the return. The water was 82 deg.

Yorktown Triathlon:

Rock and Roll!