So we went to Barcelona. And then I went to Ontario. And then we went to Long Island to see an Islanders/Bruins game. And then Lisa went to Philadelphia for a conference. And then we both went to Philadelphia to watch baseball and see Van Gogh paintings. And then—last weekend—Mary and I walked 20 miles for charity.
It’s been a busy year.
Long-time readers will know that last year around this time I did my first triathlon. I had been training for months, and I was extremely nervous about the open-water swim portion, which almost turned me off the sport before I even finished. But in the end, it was so much fun, and I’ve been looking forward to doing more of them since last summer.
This morning I competed in the same race, the NE Season Opener in Hopkinton. What a difference a year makes!
Last year I did the 1/4-ish mile of swimming, 10 miles of cycling, and 5K of running in 1:16:34, good enough for 171st of 366. This year: 1:08:57, or 131/438.
As a “newbie” registrant in 2011, we had our own special start time and apologized for bumping into each other during the craziness that was my first open-water swim. This year, in the biggest starting wave, it was all fists and kicks for the first 30 seconds until we got ourselves sorted out. (Next time: start farther out.) I found some feet to draft off through the 58ºF water, did a great job sighting with my optically-corrected goggles, and was surprised at how fast it was over. In fact, it wasn’t until I was about halfway through that I realized my form kinda sucked and that I needed to remember what I usually do in the pool. “Ah right! Less flailing more pulling.” Still, I was almost three minutes faster this year.
Ah, the bike! After a relatively fast transition, I hopped on Speed Junkie (my Cervélo P2) for my first race on it. I must confess that I was nervous in the days leading up to the race. How would I do around other people? Would I be able to spend most of the time in the aero position? Would I be as fast on the bike as I had hoped, or would it be an expensive ride? Could I hold on over the bumpy roads? Would I have trouble with the tight turns? Would I crash? Etc. Etc. Etc.
Let’s remember that last year during my two triathlons as a newbie, I did all of the passing on the bike (and almost all of it during the run, too). I wasn’t expecting that this year, since I was starting among faster people, and there were fewer people starting ahead of me. I’m sure I would pass people, and I’m sure others would return the favor.
Turns out, I’m fast on a bike. And the roads were very well controlled. There was very little traffic, and I was able to ride where I wanted on the road. I spent 85-90% of the ride in aero, worked hard, and only got passed by a half-dozen people, including one woman from BU with longer hair than anyone I’d ever seen on a bike and two of my Landry’s teammates. (That reminds me: must get a Landry’s tri-top so that I can represent . . . unless/until TT1 wants me to wear their colors.) I caught one of the Landry guys when an ambulance was attending to him along the side of the road near a rather rough patch of road. Poor guy.
All things considered, I did very well over the whole course. Small, wiry guys like me do well on hills, and I’m getting better at riding this little bike over open ground. (Almost 5 mph better.) I like passing people.
Finally, the run. I was feeling good today, but I was trying to be smart. I’ve had some IT band pain recently—which I’m watching closely—and over the last few days my right arch started getting cranky, too. Stretching, ice, the foam-roller on my hip and thigh, and self-massage for my foot should (hopefully) do the trick. I’m happy that this coming week is an easy one in my training plan.
So I decided to run hard but hold back a little, try to hold a good pace throughout the whole run, and not feel (too) bad about being passed. It was what it was, which was consistent but just okay . . . the only part of the event (including transitions) that was slower than last year, actually. Strangely, I’m okay with this. I had enough at the end for a nice finishing sprint.
My diabetes strategy most certainly did not work out well. Not well at all. In fact, I’m mystified by how bad it was. Diabetes is what it is, but I was hoping for something better.
In a perfect world, I would eat some breakfast before leaving the house, take some insulin for it, adjust my insulin before the start, and then take nutrition during the event (almost) like I didn’t have diabetes. Unfortunately, I don’t know how much insulin to take before a triathlon—because Insulin + water = scary—so I don’t really eat much, except a Greek yoghurt right beforehand. I don’t even usually need to eat before I swim at 5:45 in the morning, but when starting at 9:15, it seems completely different. It was also different than my normal multi-hour rides and long runs.
Perhaps it was the adrenaline from the anticipation of the event. Perhaps there’s something going on with my basal rate. Perhaps it was just sun spots. Who knows? What I do know is that I need to make it better. And I will.
At any rate, I had to take about a half-unit of insulin before the swim, and I didn’t come down much when I was in the water. Or during the ride. Or the run. Fortunately, I didn’t have much of that high BG pain in my legs that I sometimes get, but I could tell that I was high throughout the run. Next time will be better, I hope.
So, all things considered, it was a major confidence booster with some great experiences and a few obvious things to improve. Onward!
Oh, and Lisa took a bunch of amazing pictures.
Lisa and I went through all of our pictures from Barcelona, and here are our favorites. (You can click on any picture to see a larger version. Once there, you can click through to the next one. Nice, eh?)
I’ll write more about the trip itself soon.
I remember seeing the photographer and thinking, “I’m going to try to look good when he takes the picture. Nothing to betray the hurt I’m in right now.”
Yeah.
Sunday, I ran Around the Bay, the 30K race in Hamilton and Burlington, Ontario, that I’ve been writing and worrying about here for many, many months. Let’s just cut to the chase.
I ran the 30K in 2:57:18. [1] That’s a PR for me, partly because I’ve never done a 30K (18.6 mile) race before. In fact, it’s the first time that I’ve run longer than 14 miles . . . ever. I’m happy with the time. I’m happy with how I managed my diabetes during the race. And I’m happiest that I finally met two of my diabetes best friends. (My “dia-besties,” if you will.)
I’ll write more about the fantastic weekend I had with Scully and Céline after this brief race report.
I’d been thinking about how to approach this unknown race during each of my training runs over the last couple months. My thinking involved this rough plan: Don’t run too hard for the first 20K, suffer through the 6K of hills, and then see what I had left for the final 4K to the finish. I was hoping for about 8:30-9:00/mile all while keeping my heart rate around 150 BPM. Several times on most of my recent training runs you could hear me saying (quietly) to myself, “Slow the fuck down!” (I seem to have a potty-mouth when I’m by myself or in similar company.)
On Sunday, the first 20K were actually pretty good. According to my Garmin, I was doing about 8:30/mile but at a slightly higher exertion than I was hoping: about 155-160 BPM. Unfortunately, my Garmin lies, and I did the first 20K at a very, very consistent 9:25/mile. Oh well, I still felt really good. Then the hills arrived, as I knew they would. The first couple weren’t so bad, but by the end of the second kilometer of hills I was hurting. I kept going, but the last four kilometers of hills were just plain brutal. In fact, they were bad enough that the 4K (allegedly) downhill run into the finish was an ongoing dialogue between my brain—which knew that the finish was drawing ever nearer—and my body, which just wanted to walk for a little bit. The last 10K took exactly an hour—which is only 20 seconds per mile slower than my earlier pace—and I made it to the finish with enough left for a good kick. See, always listen to your brain. “Shut up, legs!”
I survived. My joints didn’t fall apart. My conditioning wasn’t as bad as I had feared. And my diabetes regimen was on-track. (I was 200 mg/dL at the start, 180 at 12K, 140 at 24K, and 125 at the finish. That’s 11.1 mmol/L, 10.0, 7.8, and 6.9 for my Canadian friends. Yay!)
That was the race. Now for the good stuff!
Céline and Scully convinced me last year to do this race last October, and I had been super-excited about it since then. I love going to Canada. Heck, let’s just say that I love Canada. Period. It’s the people and point-of-view mostly. So I had hoped this trip was going to be a great mix of fantastic people, beautiful scenery, tasty food, a fun race, a whiff of international intrigue, and—what’s this?—curling.
After a very short flight to Buffalo and a short drive, I was viewing Niagara Falls, a beautiful and impressive force of nature. So much water. So much spray. So much noise. Unfortunately, the short flight messed with my already messed up sinuses, and my hearing was off all weekend. I guess I’ll just have to go back another time (with Lisa, of course) to hear the full rumble of all of the water going over.
I was a little late getting to the curling rink to meet with Scully and Céline because I had to sit in the rental car for a little while waiting for my blood sugar to come up after it went over the falls in a barrel. [2] I knew next to nothing about curling on Friday morning, except that Céline does it and that I would meet her and hang out with Scully while she did her slippy shuffleboard-thing with stones and brooms. Fortunately, one of their common friends came along to explain the whole thing.
Afterward Céline’s Doug posed an innocent question: “Would you like to throw a stone?” (He might not have said “throw.” I made up a lot of descriptions about what was going on, to everyone’s amusement.) When in Canada, do as the Canadians do, eh? Yes.
Let me tell you, it’s a lot more difficult than it looks. Coordination and balance are not my best attributes. Plus, curling ice is literally more slippery than a hockey rink because it’s all bumpy and stuff. And it’s all because of this guy:
Anyway. The rock stone weighs 20 kilos (44 pounds) and takes a bit of work to get moving. Well, not so much work if you know what you’re doing. Then you can make it look easy. Eventually, I actually got one all the way down into the box on the other end of the ice. Before going out on that high note, though, Doug had to chase one down before it went into a neighboring lane. And I looked like this a lot:
But look! I think I’m ready, Céline. Just don’t ask me to go out and scrub sweep.
The rest of the weekend I spent with my Dia-besties. After picking up our race numbers and swanky “Older Than Boston” shirts, we set out to do two very important things: buy chocolate and buy cheese. We drove all over the Niagara region, chatting the whole time as if we’d known each other for years.
Even though I’m home now—and it’s time to give my passport a bit of a rest for a while—I think it’s worth saying again: I had such a great time this weekend!
Stay cool, Canada.
1 — Fortunately I’m mostly fluent in converting between metric and ‘merican for all the important measurements: temperature, distance, weight, diabetes, etc. [Back . . .]
2 — Plus, I got a little confused getting back to the QEW. [Back . . .]
Lisa makes the best T-shirts! This Christmas gift might just be perfect.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .
Yesterday, my work group went into Boston for an outing: lunch at Legal Seafood’s “Test Kitchen” and then a guided tour of the Institute of Contemporary Art. I had a great time. The food was delicious, and the art was “interesting.”
I know! Two contemporary art museum visits in three weeks. Crazy! It’s hard spending so much time thinking about art (mostly) on a meta-level: “What is the art saying about art?” But there were a few pieces that really spoke to me, and I got to spend part of the afternoon with my girlfriend, Maggie Cheung, while taking in Isaac Julien’s film nine-screen installation TEN THOUSAND WAVES. Fun fun fun!
We’ve had a great day in Montréal. It started with crêpes, ended with a ridiculously delicious, two-hour meal, and was full of a leisurely stroll around the Ville-Marie and Vieux Port sections of the city. We visited three churches, shopped a bit, and took in the Musée d’Art Contemporaine. Tomorrow, we’re planning even more adventures (although with slightly subdued meals compared to today, I suspect).
Here are some pictures from our adventure.
Dear Internet Friends:
I’m busy working on a post right now, and I’ll get back to you soon . . . as soon as I can get myself out from between these rocks where I’m trapped. I hope I won’t have to cut off my own arm or anything.
It’s finally here! International DiabeTees Day, which conveniently coincides with World Diabetes Day this year.
I hope you’re wearing a diabetes-themed T-shirt today. If you are, take a picture of it and post a link to it in the comments below. Here’s my design: “America Runs on Insulin.”
Velociraptor #1: “I’m sorry, but Jeff can’t come to the blog right now. Umm . . . he’ll be right back. But he left these pictures for you. Won’t you stay for a while?”
This post is a mishmash of odds and ends about September’s cycling trip in Provence.
The Roads: French roads come in different flavors. From major, controlled-access, interstate/autobahn-type autoroutes to the single-lane chemin, barely wide enough for one car. We rode the smaller ones. There are also some really nice bike paths. (Trivia: In France, if there’s a bike path parallel to a highway, cyclists are obliged to use it.) Here are some photographs of the roads we traveled.
Our VBT tour leaders said that their main consideration for picking roads is traffic, which means that occasionally we were mostly on a network of teeny-tiny roads and made lots of turns. We had cue sheets for every ride, and some of them ran for 4-5 pages. I wonder how long my regular rides would be if I had to describe them for other people. Of course, we also saw a lot of rustic French scenery because we were on said tiny roads.
“There is a rumor that French drivers are bad,” said Pascal, one of the tour leaders. “This is not true. French drivers drive quickly, but we are not bad drivers. We will always wait to pass cyclists until it is safe.” This certainly seemed to be the case—except for that one delivery van driver.
The French also love rotaries/roundabouts. So do I! They’re much better than traffic lights, and they really help keep traffic moving. They present new challenges when you’re on a bike, but by the end of the trip, even Mom was getting used to them.
Basically, I liked riding on most of the French roads, but I wouldn’t mind using the slightly more traveled roads. After all, what’s a little traffic? This leads us to . . .
The Crash: I don’t know why people say that “everything slows down” when you crash. In my experience there’s usually very little time—mental or actual—between when I think, “Oh, Shit!” after I realize I’m likely going to fall and when I groan as I’m picking myself up off the deck and checking the damage. Sometimes it’s just the space between the sensation of the tire losing traction in the rain and the moment of realization that the ground is approaching too fast. All that “time slows down” business just seems like wasted decision-making time that I could be using to keep myself upright.
On the first real day of riding—from St.-Rémy-de-Provence to Arles—I had just enough time to realize that the slow-speed characteristics of the bike were different than the one I ride at home and that I wasn’t going to get my feet out of the pedals in time before falling. It happened as Mom and I rode into Arles on a suddenly busy backroad. I had glanced down to check the next direction on the cue sheet, and I looked up to see traffic stopping at the same time that the road narrowed. Now, while I like the Shimano SPD pedals I bought so that I could simultaneously have clipless pedals and shoes that I could walk in, I didn’t have much practice with them, and they have different “clip out” tension than my Speedplay pedals (which I love—seriously, best pedals ever). So, yes, I saw it coming, but not in slow-motion. If anything, it felt accelerated. I was still working on getting unclipped as I fell, cursed, immediately got back up, dragged myself out of the street, checked for any damage, and continued on.
I don’t fall very often—*touch wood*—and I’m kinda glad that (if it had to happen) I fell on Monday. I knew one thing going into the trip: I was not going to wear shorts in Paris. It just wouldn’t be fair to the Parisians. (See “fashion,” below.) Open wounds might put a kink in my sartorial prerogatives, though. Fortunately, a couple days later I was healing nicely. By the time we got to the City of Light on Saturday, I only had a wee bit of discomfort whenever I sat down. By the time we went home, everything was fine, if not completely healed.
On the trip I learned that the French don’t really understand bandages. You can get small, “Zut alors! I cut my finger” bandages or the larger “Oh, mon dieu! I seem to have cut my thumb” size. That is to say, you can’t really get anything big enough to cover an open wound on your knee . . . at least not at the pharmacy I went into. I ended up using some of the Tegaderm dressings that I usually put over my CGM sensors, which had the benefit of (a) being flexible and (b) not sticking to the wound, but it also was (c) transparent enough to induce winces when my fellow riders saw them.
This was also the trip where I learned why men who race shave their legs.
Laundry: The key to not overpacking for any trip lasting longer than 5-7 days is to do laundry. Unless you feel like spending a lot of money—or are in India and are totally fine with other people doing everything for you—you, my friend, will need a laundromat. By the way, the way to say “laundromat” is «laverie libre-service».
As with American launderettes, it’s best to bring something with you to keep yourself entertained. Books, magazines, iPads, other people, and stray kitties are all reasonable choices for accompaniment.
Fashion: “France” the very word exudes style. [1] Paris Vogue makes American Vogue look like a Macy’s catalogue. Walking down the street is a fashionista’s delight. And then there are the shops. Everyone says Rue St.-Honoré is the place to window shop—or actually shop if you have money—but I recommend Avenue Montaigne. Seriously.
But it’s not just the well-heeled who look good. Many more French people look more put together more of the time than anywhere I’ve ever been. That’s the way it should be. Of course, as with anywhere else, there are exceptions, and women always tend to look more with it than men. (We first noticed this in Australia, and now I can’t help but see it everywhere.)
Food: I will confess that I ate a lot on the trip. I’m not a foodie—well, not yet—but I appreciate good food. And I like the way that traveling gets one out of a rut by forcing you choose something different. The food on this trip makes me want to learn how to cook. Maybe. I’ll keep you posted.
French food isn’t always perfect, but the things that I managed to pick off the menu were (almost without an exception) fantastic. Turns out, I’m a big fan of bistro fare and café culture. I wish France were closer. Although Lisa and I have been known to go to Montréal for a food booty call, Paris (or London for that matter) is just a bit too far for the weekend food splurge.
The thing that struck me most about the food on this trip—the Provençal part, in particular—was the freshness of the ingredients. I love going to the weekly (or daily) market to get a few things, and I love that France has a culture that values the market and food enough to rearrange the opening hours of other shops to make it possible for the market to continue to flourish.
Just in case you weren’t hungry enough yet, here are some pictures.
À bientôt, muffins!
1 — Although, seriously people, why do we have to mispronounce “France” so badly? We worry that we’re not saying Qatar the same way a Qatari man does, but we’ll pronounce France like a hick. What gives? [Back . . .]
Lisa is my sports psychologist. While she’s not a licensed mental health practitioner, she’s a good listener, asks probing questions, knows me pretty well, and has a basic philosophy I can get down with: “Snap out of it!”
So I kinda knew where the conversation was headed just after I started it while we were making dinner this evening.
“I need to talk to you about how I can feel better about my time today.” I ran a 22:57 at the Mayor’s Cup 5K race in Franklin Park, Boston.
“Well, it’s only about a minute off your best, right?” It’s true. I set my (most recent ten years) PR of 21:48 in Holliston over Memorial Day.
“And you weren’t that far behind your most recent race.” It’s true, in September I did 22:26. Of course, it’s on local roads that I’ve covered (easily) a hundred times, where I know each crack in the sidewalk, not to mention every uphill and downhill. But . . .
“But I know you feel like your times are going the wrong way.” It’s true. That’s part of it for sure.
“Today was a cross-country race, right?” Yeah. There was grass and mud and short, steep uphills and downhills to bomb and tight turns. It was glorious! At one point, a runner started to squeeze me toward a mud hole to keep her feet dry; a little (I mean tiny) shove from my arm kept everybody where they needed to be. I had forgotten how much I love the click-click-click sound of running spikes as they cross a road or cart path. But all that grass, mud, uphill/downhill, and turning certainly counts for a little time.
“It’s the diabetes, huh?” Yes. I couldn’t seem to bring my blood glucose down below 200 mg/dL (11 mmol) overnight, and it totally messed up my race-day plan. The plan was to lower my basal when I left home, eat a banana when I started to warm up, and run with happy BGs during the race. Instead, I left the house in the low-200s, got to the event in the mid-200s, and started the race at 318 (17.6). I ended up eating and bolusing for something small just before the start, but I was hungry and also a bit dehydrated from all the peeing that I’m sure was related to the highs.
“It’s tough, but you’ll get it figured out soon.” That’s my goal for this off-season. I want to learn how to run while eating and shooting insulin, but (honestly) it scares the bejeezus out of me. But nothing ventured, nothing gained; I’m just going to have to suck it up, eat something like what I hope to eat before a race or triathlon, and then go for a run. If I can’t really race over the winter, I can pretend.
“You’re too hard on yourself.” It’s so true. We all are in our little house. Well, maybe not the cat. He thinks he’s perfect.
Here are some pictures from my race today. As always, there are captions that you can see by clicking on an image, which also makes the pictures bigger. So why not start by clicking on the first and going through ‘em?
So we took a day trip to New York City to see Simon from Australia again. And meet people from the DOC. And bowl. And eat cupcakes. Good times!
(Click any photo for a larger version. But why not start at the first one and click your way through so that you can read all of the captions?)
Three days later, I still have no words for last weekend. So here are some pictures until I can find them. Why not just start with the first one and click your way through?
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