Dave’s Triathlon Journal

This weekend I continued to work on maintenance doing a couple of long steady workouts. Friday consisted of a two hour ride and I covered about 40 miles. It was a gorgeous fall day perfect for a ride.

Saturday I took off because of a wedding my wife and I attended but then somehow dragged myself out of bed on Sunday morning to run 7 miles after dancing all night.

I wonder if I could count dancing as base maintenance?

This week is kind of a down week for me. I'm going out when I feel like it and going for however long I feel good. So when I woke up this morning and felt like going for a run, I did just that. I felt naked as I ran without a heart rate monitor, without a distance monitor and even without a watch. I just went out to run for the fun of it.

I hadn't done that for a while but every time I do is such a great experience. I really should do it more often. Training for me is such a freeing experience. I'm busy like everyone else with a family, work and other responsibilities and training with no phone, deadlines and other worries is a great escape from the day to day stresses. Well, taking that feeling of freedom a step further by not training with any particular goal in mind was inspiring. I felt like a kid just running around the neighborhood.

So even though I have no idea how far I ran, what my heart rate was or really even how long I was running for, I have realized I need to put these unstructured days into the schedule to keep me inspired to enjoy the exercise for the sake of exercise.

After just over 200 miles, 36 legs and 33 hours of running, our team of 12 made it from Bretton Woods to Hampton Beach.

For almost all of us it was our first time competing in this event and we all treated it as such, taking in the experience without worrying too much about our finishing time. It was pretty easy to forget that we were in a race as we all were having too much fun and laughing too hard.

Our team started at 9 am. The first leg consisted of a three mile leg up Bretton Woods ski area and back down the other side. After getting a few team photos we made our way over to see our team mate complete leg 1 and pass the baton onto another team member.

Our team was split up into two vans with runners split up so that while one group was running, the other could go ahead to a transition area and get some food and rest. We soon realized that the food wouldn't be a problem, but the rest would be pretty much non-existent.

We were fortunate to have a teammate who lived near the start so we were able to go to her house and get a little rest and have a little food. Of course, we hadn't run yet but it was still nice to get to know our teammates as we would be spending 33 straight hours together in a single vehicle with no sleep!

Our vehicle started with runner number 7 in the early afternoon in the Conway area. This is where the race began for us as we would drive ahead to the next transition area, drop off one runner and pick up another and repeat the process until the last of our runners finished their first leg.

What made this experience so great was the people. One of the reasons I'm hooked on triathlons is the opportunities I get to be around motivated and inspiring people. Even though this race was a little different, there was no shortage of people who inspired me and motivated me.

Runner number 8, who was in our van had probably the most difficult legs that not only ran for close to 8 miles but also had two hills with an elevation gain of 450 feet and 550 feet respectively. When he finished the leg he was shuffling in as his legs were severley cramping. Seeing how much pain he was in and still finished was inspiring to see, but what was even more so was that he completed his next two legs also. And with a smile on his face!

The runner who preceed me is primarily a trail runner so running on pavement began to get tough on her knees. After her first leg, it was evident that her knee was going to give her a hard time. Every time she handed off the baton to me you could tell that her knee was in pain, but she never failed to have a smile on her face.

My first leg was a hilly one but only about 5 miles, a distance I cover regularly on a morning training run. The 2nd leg was on a gently rolling course was again around 5 miles. What made it difficult was that it began around 4 AM and I had been up for 23 hours at that point. I actually don't remember much about it other than finishing. Maybe I slept! The last leg I felt great! It was a 5 mile run on the coast. It was overcast skies, comfortable temps and mostly flat. I had my best per minute time on this section, not to mention it was the last leg which felt pretty good.

So, at 6:00 PM on the button, our last runner crossed the finish line with the rest of us crossing with her. For as tired and sore as we probably all were, you could never tell by watching us. Between the hugs and high fives, it was great to see that everyone enjoyed their experience and believe it or, there was already talk of next years race!

Having never done a race of this type before, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. But what I walked away from was one of those experiences that I will never forget. Between the friendships that were formed, the conversations we had and the accomplishement of running 215 miles as a group, this was an experience that will last a lifetime for me.

The Reach the Beach race starts today and it looks like it will be a wet one. Just two or three days ago the weather looked dry, sunny and cool. Now it looks like it will be wet, cloudy and cool.

Oh well, it should make the weekend that much more interesting! This will be my first time taking part in this 210 mile relay race and I'm looking forward to meeting my 11 other team mates. I've met a few of them but many of them I only know by e-mail. We'll see how planning a race by e-mail goes.

The week training wise has been pretty unstructured. I've basically done what I feel like when I wake up. On Tuesday I got a one hour run in, Wednesday I hit the gym in the morning to get a weight workout in and then went for a one hour bike after work. I'm feeling good, rested and ready to run!

Stay tuned for an update on Sunday!

I officially have begun my quest to raise $60,000 for Southeast NH Habitat for Humanity through the Janus Charity Challenge and it is off to a great start.

After just a few days of sharing my fundraising goals with family and friends we are at just over $1,500 with commitments for a couple thousand more. Where I live in southern New Hampshire, the increase in housing prices has been astronomical over the past several years and I think people are really connecting with the mission of Habitat for Humanity to provide high quality, low cost housing to deserving families.

I'm always looking for more donations so feel free to visit www.JanusCharityChallenge.com and look for athlete David Criswell. We are also raffling off a 2006 Harley Davidson Road King Classic this fall to help raise money. There are only 300 tickets available at $100 a piece. We have titled the effort the Homeless Harley campaign and hope to have www.HomelessHarley.com up later this week.

If there are any past Charity Challenge particpants out there, I'd love your input.

Now it is time to get off my soap box and go out to train!

I'm back to basics with the long slow base building distances and pace. I did 10 miles yesterday at a ridiculously slow pace with a couple of friends. It was a great Sunday morning run; bright skies, cool temps and great conversation.

I'm doing the Reach The Beach Race this coming weekend with my Granite State Tri Club team and looking forward to it. RTB is a 36 stage 210 mile race from the white mountains to the seacoast with 12 members per team (or less for the crazier teams). We'll all do three legs and it's looking like mine will be 4 PM, 3AM and 1 PM! How do you train for that one?!

I'm looking forward to it, mostly for the camaraderie and new experience of running at 3 in the morning in the middle of NH.

Just used my profile design aero bottle for one of the first times. While it was convenient having water accessible between the aero bars, I learned a lesson for next time.

I also have a bento box that sits on the top tube. Since it was going to be a hot day I also brought along some Endurolytes but didn't want to have to mess with a plastic bag so I just put them in my bento box loose.

Well apparently the aero bottle sponge that goes in the top doesn't keep in all the water when going over a particularly bumpy road. The interior of my bento box got plenty of water splashed on it the first few minutes of my ride. The water worked it's way through the vegetable capsule of the endurolytes and 12 little tablets proceeded to leak into the bento box.

I probably looked pretty pitiful trying to lick the powder off of my fingers as I rode. Note to self: packing the endurolytes in a plastic bag is probably worth the effort!

As I've told friends and family that I intend to compete in the 2006 Ironman Lake Placid race I get as many responses as people I've told. Some think I'm crazy, my Mom is worried (that's what Mom's do, right?), and some people wish me luck having no idea that I'm going to try and travel 140.6 miles in less than 17 hours.

One questions my Mom asked me that caught me off guard was why I wanted to do it? Seemed like a fair question. While I couldn't answer immediately I think it is because this sport has meant so much to me that it needed a little thought before answering.

My last race, the Timberman 1/2 Ironman, solidified my answer. I co-own a real estate company and every week I send a newsletter to my employees and agents with pertinent real estate market information and sometimes my view of various topics. The newsletter is usually just a couple of paragraphs, but I began to write my newsletter after finishing the Timberman race and before I knew it, I had written almost three full pages on Why I Tri… I've included what I wrote below:

This past weekend I participated and completed the Timberman 1/2 Ironman, my 2nd this year. It was a weekend that was a learning and life changing experience in a lot of ways. I hope that my comments and description of what I learned will help to inspire you to discover some of the same things I did.

To put this day in perspective you need to know that after my 1st 1/2 Ironman I passed out and had to receive 6 liters of IV fluid before being released from the hospital. Needless to say, that day in June was not a good day, physically. However, the race this past Sunday felt even worse, physically speaking. It took me almost an hour longer to finish this race than it took me to finish the first one.

I felt “off” almost the whole day. The 30 minute swim felt like it took an hour. Several times on the bike I felt like I was going to fall over from dizzy spells. On the run (which was my worst ½ marathon time) I went through bouts of nausea, dizziness, and stomach pains. There was a 1/2 mile stretch of highway on the run with absolutely no shade, no clouds, and it had gotten very muggy. The course went out and back on this road, twice. Every time I came to this 1/2 mile stretch of road it looked about 5 miles long. After the first time by I asked myself how the hell am I going to do this stretch three more times! I lost count of the number times I wanted to climb into one of the support vehicles and call it a day.

But I didn't. After 6 hours and 48 minutes as I approached the finish line I began to tear up. I saw Amy (my wife) standing on the side of the course near the finish line and lost it, I couldn’t keep the emotion in any more. I haven’t seen the finish line photos yet, but I’m sure they will show me wiping tears from my eyes.

I’ve been fortunate to experience a lot of things in my life, some of them a little crazy. I’ve climbed a 50 foot pole (thankfully tethered to a safety rope!) looking out over the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii (trusting that the rope was working as I took a leap of faith!). I’ve done several fire walks crossing hot coals in bare feet at various Tony Robbins events. I’ve been fortunate to witness the birth of my son. But, one of the most powerful experiences I have had was crossing the finish line on Sunday. Even though the day was so physically horrible, I learned as much about myself from this experience as all the other powerful things I mentioned above.

What I learned that day was a reference point that I will be able to use for the rest of my life. I learned how far I can go, how bad things can get, and what I can pull myself through. People go through their whole lives and not get to have that kind of experience. Even though I told myself several times during the race that there was no way I was going to do another race of this distance again, since finishing, I can’t wait to do another one and learn more about myself and what I am capable of.

Why did I want to tell you all of this? Because I want each and every one of you to experience the same thing. Let me clarify before you call me crazy. While I don’t wish upon any of you the level of physical suffering that I felt that day, I would like to suggest that a milder form of physical exertion is healthy and can impact you for the rest of your life.

I’ve learned that people can have two very different levels of knowledge and understanding. One is intellectual and the other is emotional. For example, intellectually everyone knows that one shouldn’t smoke. There is too much information out there about the dangers of smoking to think intellectually that smoking is good. However, smokers don’t have an emotional understanding of how bad smoking is. The physiological attraction of that next drag is too strong. Otherwise, they wouldn’t smoke.

You could apply this same concept to lead follow up. All of you know, intellectually, that if you follow up on leads right away and consistently, you will get more appointments, sell more houses, and make more money. However, we know that doesn’t always happen for everyone. The reason may be that, emotionally, the connection or understanding isn’t there. However, if you make the connection that not making the next call means that you won’t make your next mortgage payment or be able to buy food at the grocery store, then the emotional connection begins to be made on a physiological level.

So this begs the question, how do you create an emotional understanding of something? Sometimes it is done out of necessity. When I first got into real estate, I had a mortgage and a wife who was in grad school and a new career that was commission only. When you need to pay your bills and put food on the table, an emotional connection is created on its own.

But do we need to put that kind of pressure on ourselves to understand what an emotional connection to ourselves feels like? I don’t think so. I believe that pushing yourself physically to a point where you didn’t previously think you could go has the same effect. Another way to understand an emotional connection is to think in terms of understanding with your heart and your head, instead of just your head. In other words, the understanding is physiological rather than mental.

So what does all this mean? The impact of physically pushing myself to new limits has been so powerful that I suggest you do the same thing. Create new reference points for yourself that you can access the rest of your life when things get tough or you approach a problem that you intellectually think is impossible. I’m asking you to push yourselves beyond where you think you can go. Jump outside of your comfort zone. That doesn’t mean that you need to go and sign up for a marathon or an Ironman. It may mean doing a 5K walk, then maybe a 5K run and then who knows? You may discover that finding new limits within yourself becomes addictive. I can tell you from experience that this is entirely possible!

Why a physical event? I have read and seen endless examples of people’s lives changing at the peak of a physical experience. When you get your whole body involved, you can’t help but look at things from a different perspective. Physiologically, you increase your oxygen uptake, you get more blood pumping through your body, you think more clearly, and you feel better about yourself. The list goes on and on.

I can’t force you to do anything. If I had that power over you, I would do it in a heartbeat. However, I know it is possible that some of you may not even try to create this new experience for yourselves. Resist that temptation. I urge you to go out and find an event that you never thought you would be able to do and sign up.

I will be happy to point you in any direction necessary and support whatever effort you want to make. I have become somewhat obsessive about physical training and have a few tips to offer for a beginner.

I know this was a lot and more than I usually put in our weekly newsletter. If you are still reading, I thank you. I hope that the description of my experiences will inspire you to create some new limits within yourself.

On Tuesday morning I had every intention of getting up in time to get a run in, however, it was also the first day of school and timing just wouldn't allow it. After all, I didn't want to miss dropping off my son on his first day. He is in 2nd grade but in a new school so it was important for me to be here.

I was able to get to Master's on Tuesday night. We moved back to the indoor 25 yard pool after being in the 50 meter outdoor pool all summer. The shorter distance pool made me feel as though I was really moving along well.

On Wednesday, I was able to get myself out of bed in time to run to the gym, get a weight workout and run back to bring my son to school. I wanted to get an afternoon run in but an appointment came up and I had to miss that.

I did get a run in this morning. It was a beautiful morning and I was able to see the sun come up over a misty field. It had an early fall feel which is my favorite time to run.

I tried to finish up at the office today early enough to get to master's tonight but it just didn't happen.

This is the first week in a while that I've had to really adjust my workout schedule to give myself some balance with my family and work. I should have expected it as the fall routine gets going. There is a beautful weekend forecast so I hope to get a good long run and bike in to get my volume up to where I would like for the week.

It's days like today that I realize how lucky I am to live where I do. I rode 50 miles today in 70 degree weather with low humidity and bright sunshine.

I headed over toward the coast of Maine since I hadn't ridden up that way before. It only took about 40 minutes from my house to reach the coast and then I had a beatiful ride along the Maine coast. Labor Day on the coast made for a crowded beach. It was high tide and funny to see all of the beachgoers squeezed up toward the road because there was so little beach left.

I left just after noontime so my lunch for the day was my Sustained Energy and Hammer gel mixture along with a few Endurolytes. However, I was tempted to stop several times as I passed the smell of fried seafood for what seemed like every mile and it felt as though I passed every ice cream shop in York. But, I was good and only stopped to refill my water bottle.

I felt good for pretty much the whole ride, and even though I felt like I took it easy with a few stops at the beaches and Nubble Light, I was able to average 18 MPH. I felt good enough to go for a two mile run when I finished.

I'm afraid I'm getting spoiled with this perfect weather. Before you know it I'll be putting on layer after layer to keep my extremities from freezing. Until then, I plan to enjoy it while it lasts.