Category Archives: Running

Swim. Swim. Run.

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Jeff Mather

There’s just no getting around it: Today’s NE Season Opener triathlon was wet. After what felt like the longest time away from triathlon—August’s 70.3 was my most recent—I had been looking forward to this race for quite a while. It didn’t occur to me until yesterday evening, when we were watching the weather forecast on TV, that it was possible that we would get rain during the event. But rain it did. Sprinkles at first and then a full downpour during the bike portion. There were rivers running down the highway, and Lisa said there were several crashes on the big hill leading to the transition area. Fortunately, the rain ended right as I started my bike-run transition, and I finished with a time that was just off my best time from last year: 1:09:47.

I made a couple of good decisions today. First, I decided to bring Tommy V (my road bike) instead of Chrissie (my tri bike). Over open ground, Chrissie is a couple of miles per hour faster, but I’m a lot smoother and much more agile when out for a ride with Tommy. Given that I could barely see through the rain today and that some of the corners were tight, it was the right choice to pick conservatively. And yet I still was passing lots of people. In fact, my bike split felt good and was the strongest part of the event for me. I started to wonder whether I was pushing too hard given how many people I reeled in, but I had more than enough in the tank for the run. My other good decision was bringing a plastic bag to put my running shoes and socks into to keep them (mostly) dry until I needed them.

On the other hand, I should have started farther forward in the swim. Evidently, I got faster over the winter, and I was constantly swimming onto people, slowing my forward progress. I could easily have been about 10% faster if I’d had fewer people elbowing me in the face or slowing down in front of me. On the plus side, I drafted on the swim! That was a first, and it was pretty cool.

My diabetes mojo is a bit rusty. I decided to try something different today, so that I could eat a bit more before the event. I was doing pretty well keeping my BGs down until just before the start when it started to go higher. Unfortunately, I went all the way up to 274 mg/dL (15.2 mmol/L) by the finish. Something to work on for next time.

It’s good to be back!

Posted in Cycling, Diabetes, I am Rembrandt, Photography, Reluctant Triathlete, Running | 1 Comment

2013 Boston Marathon

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Jeff Mather

I don’t want to inject myself into today’s events, but I can’t ignore them either.


Like every year, I had been looking forward to the Boston Marathon for quite a while. Patriots Day (a.k.a., Marathon Monday) is my favorite day of the year, and for good reason. It’s the day that I go to work and am largely allowed to shirk a good deal of it. Walking from my office to the center of town through idyllic suburban neighborhoods is refreshing and often full of cheery conversation with coworkers. The weather in mid-April is usually beautiful, and—at 10 miles into the race—Natick Common is early enough that the lead runners are still together, and most runners are looking strong and fresh. I try to arrive early so that, before the elite women and men run through, I can watch most of the push-rim wheelchair, handchair, and mobility impaired athletes. Each year, my appreciation for what they’re doing deepens a little bit more, even as I simultaneously become more certain that, for a true athlete, it’s far more unnatural not to do the thing you love no matter how great the challenge.

This year, like previous ones, I left the marathon feeling inspired and eager to do something. In 2010, even though I had been running for about a year, I knew I needed to start racing again. In the three years that followed, I’ve had events events to look forward to, and the marathon gets my competitive juices flowing. Over the last few years there’s been a growing feeling inside of me that I want to run this race—my race, the one I’ve been watching for fifteen years, the one that everyone loves whether they run or not. Sometime last year while running the course, I started to say “yes” to the thought of a marathon as long as I someday qualified for and ran Boston. Today, as I walked back to the office, I was really eager to put my lingering cold behind me and get outdoors, to have a good run, and to get back to training.

Like last year and most of the rest, I counted the number of buses on the Mass Pike between the I-495 and Natick exits on my way to work. There were 95, including the police-escorted VIP bus. I like seeing those flashing lights, because I love the idea that (for at least one day) elite athletes are treated like the extraordinarily talented, hard-working people that they are.

Like last year, I had some great conversations while waiting for the elite runners to arrive. This year, instead of being with complete strangers, I hung out with some of my coworkers. Five people from my group showed up, including Mr. 2:22 himself, who decided it would be nice to be with us this year instead of right downtown in the midst of the action. I learned that one of my coworkers got a Southern Baptist education from pre-K to 12th grade because there were a lot of bomb threats in her part of Florida at the public schools, and her parents (both Buddhists) felt better about the odds of giving her a culture shock instead of an actual jolt.

Like most years I watched the finish of the race online at my desk since the office cafeteria crowd was deep into the Red Sox baseball game, and I’ve fought the battle before to switch from the Sox game to the marathon and just barely made it out alive.

But this year, as we all know, was a little different.

Around 1:00 a coworker from another group called to ask if one of my peeps was running Boston this year. He had taken the day off to go down to the finish and hadn’t seen him come through yet. No, I said, he watched the race with us from Natick.

Later in the afternoon, a couple of coworkers stopped by, interrupting a code review, and nervously asked if I had heard about the “explosion at the marathon finish.” Surely it was just an electrical explosion in a manhole or something like that, I thought, and went back to my work. After finishing the code review, I checked a slow-loading news site, and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. When Lisa called a bit later and asked if all my coworkers were okay, I got choked up for the first time, thinking about what might have happened to them and to the other people I know who watched the marathon at different places on the route or were running it (including Pat, my swim peep).

On the commute home I watched all of the unmarked cars and special detail units with their flashing blue lights speed down the turnpike toward Boston in a bizarro inversion of my drive into the office nine hours earlier.

I really needed to go for a bike ride or a run when I got home. Even if it couldn’t help me make sense of what happened, it would at least clear my head or wear me out enough to not think about it for a while. But I knew that getting “worn out” was exactly what I didn’t need to do while recovering from this cold, which seems to be about 80% better, so I took it easy and got to work downloading and editing my photos from the race.

As I was looking at the photographs I realized something quite vividly. Regardless of who did this and why, it won’t change a thing about how deeply marathon fans love this race. Even though most of us will probably never run it, it’s our race. It’s my race.

Seeing the vans full of SWAT police in the past hasn’t ever made think twice about why they’re part of the event preparations and decide that I want to stay indoors on a glorious spring day (or even a miserably cold and drizzly one for that matter) to watch the race. And today, when I saw the SUV full of bomb squad officers drive by ahead of the elite runners, it didn’t change an iota about how much I loved the race or whether I want to be part of it some day. Just as I’m sure that, despite the actual bombings, there will be just as many people working their hardest to attain a coveted Boston qualifying time or raising as much money as they can to justify their charity entry.

This race—the oldest marathon in North America—has been run 117 times and will be run again. We love this race because of its history and because it tells us something about ourselves. New Englanders are flinty, contrarian, history-bound, and stubborn. This is probably the surest way to make sure that the marathon will be held long after humanity has given up on the idea of competitive road running. I mean, just think about it: The marathon happens on the Monday closest to the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, an event steeped in the notion that a free people choose not to live under threat of coercion or fear and the belief that our nation is what we actively make it.

Someday, hopefully soon, we’ll know more about what happened today and why. As a result, we will grow and adapt. But our love for this race and this day will never be diminished.

Posted in General, Photography, Running, This is who we are | 8 Comments

Cold

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Jeff Mather

It all started a few days after the half-marathon. I had already decided to take a couple days off running following the race, although I’m not sure I could have actually gone for an easy run on those days without hurting myself. That very cold but fast-ish race really beat me up. On the Monday and Tuesday of the conference I was hobbling around, and sitting still comfortably for long periods of time was a challenge. But by Wednesday I was feeling fine, so I went for a short run around downtown San Jose.

It was colder than I had expected, and I had only packed a couple of short-sleeve running shirts—it’s California, right?—so I was a little chilled for the first ten minutes or so. The same thing happened Saturday morning, when I put in seven flat miles from my hotel to the airport and back along the excellent Guadalupe River Trail. In the days between those runs, I got a case of the sniffles and a sore throat, but it went (mostly) away, even after a nice (but chilly) hike with friends along the coast at Half Moon Bay.

I could hear on the other end of the phone line that Lisa had a bit of a cold, too. I assumed that we both got chilled in New Bedford—me running and her waiting around for me to finish—and then compounded it with a cold outdoor run or bike ride (in Lisa’s case). The day I returned home from California—a week after the race—Lisa was flying to Oregon, and we passed somewhere over the middle of the country. When she returned home the next weekend, her cough had progressed to something more menacing.

While she was gone I did my usual thing. Swim in the mornings three times a week. Run after work a few times. Ride my bike a few times. The weather was gradually warming up, but these workouts were all a bit cool. The bicycling and the swimming felt difficult, which I attributed to not having done much of them recently, but the running was good . . . almost easy. The day before Lisa arrived home I went for a decidedly difficult seven-mile run. It was hard partly because it was chilly and the route I picked had a 2.5-mile hill in the middle of it. But really it was tough because I had given blood the evening before.

Last week the temperatures finally warmed up a bit. I was still coming home from a ride with a runny nose, but at least the temperatures were in the sixties and seventies. Monday and Wednesday I did some incredibly hard (for me) swim sets and was coughing a bit afterward, but I didn’t think anything of it. My swim paces were still off my best times, but I was feeling strong. Wednesday I went for a run.

All last week my BG readings had been terrible. Terrible as in: high all day except immediately after I exercised, during which they dropped 150+ mg/dL (8.5+ mmol/L). In general, I seemed to be insulin resistant. I loaded myself up with insulin and my blood glucose barely moved. 180 (10) was the “new normal” where my body seemed to want to stay. Except that I had finally gotten myself down to 130 (7.2) on Wednesday before my run, which had me feeling incredibly nervous. Because I’m stubborn, I went running anyway, and ended up walking the third of four miles in a bit of a stupor. When I finally started running again, my hypo sweat had me almost shivering. That evening Jess had to talk me down—which I admit was quite easy—when I expressed feeling that I totally sucked at diabetes.

That night and the one before I slept in the guest bedroom because Lisa’s coughing prevented me from sleeping. Even the cat abandoned the poor girl.

Thursday, I finally started to put things together. The ineffective 115-120% basal rates, the slow swimming, the coughing, the sniffles, the copious amounts of Mucinex D that I was taking to loosen up my congested chest, . . . I didn’t suck at swimming or diabetes. I was getting sick. Not (hopefully) the same bronchitis crud that I had last year (and that Lisa seems to have now) but definitely something. I went to bed early.

Friday, I skipped the pool. It was tough for me to do. The coming week is spring break for the town’s kiddos. And as Pool Lady used to say, “No school. No pool.” I didn’t want to take an extra day off swimming before a full week hiatus. But I needed the rest, and I think the chlorine was messing with my already fragile sinuses. Midmorning, I felt like I was in a haze. “I think I’m going to go home early,” I told Lisa, who had been given an antibiotic prescription by her doctor the previous afternoon. By noon I canceled my afternoon meetings and went home to lie on my sofa. I watched a fascinating episode of “Nova” about Australia before falling asleep to wake up more than an hour later with the cat asleep atop me.

Lisa and I had planned to go to New York on Saturday to see “Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity,” which are three of my favorite things. But Friday evening, as I was laying around sounding pathetic, Lisa (easily) convinced me that we should go another weekend and concentrate on getting well. Which is what we did.

I concentrated—I really did—but the jury is still out on how well I am. I did the dishes yesterday, and we shopped for groceries today, and that was about it. Well, I did read 150 pages to finish The Romantic Revolution: A History. But mostly I slept and sat around. And coughed. And sniffled. And coughed a bit more.

The good news is that I slept better last night than the previous. My head also isn’t pounding the way it has been the last couple of days, nor is my skin quite so crawly. And while I’m still coughing and sniffling, it’s a little better than before (I think).

The hardest part—perhaps worse than actually feeling like crap—is knowing that my first race is only a month away and that I haven’t been training much recently. But I’m trying not to worry, because usually when I come back from an illness, I end up doing better than before.

Anyway, tomorrow is Patriot’s Day, the best day of the year. I just need to make sure that I dress overly warmly so that I don’t get chilled again.

Posted in Cycling, Diabetes, Running, Swimming | 2 Comments

1:42:42

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Jeff Mather


Editor’s note: I wrote most of this post on the plane ride to California mere hours after my race, and it turned out a bit longer than I intended. Here’s a summary. I ran 13.1 miles in 1:42:42, a personal best and more than ten minutes better than my previous fastest. The race had its up and down moments, starting with a 44:00-ish 10K split before I unexpectedly ran out of gas in the last four miles. While I’m not disappointed with my results, I had hoped for a little better, and I have a decent idea where to go from here, which is good because the racing season has now officially started.


The New Bedford half marathon and I have unfinished business. Still.

I first ran this race two years ago, and I had a really tough blood sugar day, going hypo for the last five miles or so. Today was better, and there are whole sections of the course I remember for the first time. (Those were the parts I walked in a stupor back in 2011.) In fact, my 1:42:42 time today was my best ever at this distance. It’s just that my race was very uneven.

So what happened? First, here’s a little story.

Some of you probably noticed that I haven’t written much here recently. There are a lot of reasons—I’m definitely prone to going through periods of intense activity followed by droughts in many areas—but this time two factors stand out. First, I’m trying to get more stuff done during my days: at work, around the house, on the bike, on the sofa with a book in hand, with my head fast-asleep on a pillow, etc. Last triathlon season I was pretty sure that I didn’t help out enough with the housework, and it caused me a good deal of anxiety. This year, I’m trying to build up a reserve of goodwill (and good habits) that will get me through to October. Life is choices, and in an effort to get all of my stuff done, the dozen-or-so dispatches that I wanted to post here kinda shuffled to the bottom of the list.

But perhaps an even bigger reason for being quiet here is that I really only had one thing I wanted to talk about, and it seemed a bit neurotic to say, over and over, “Hey y’all, there’s this race I’m doing on Saint Patrick’s Day, and I’ve never been more unsure about how an event is going to turn out in my life . . . or even how I should approach it.” Beyond neurotic. Perhaps even a bit needy and insecure. But there it is: I spent most of the last 2-3 months thinking about today’s race and not wanting to talk about it.

Let’s head back toward the main part of our story.

It’s been a snowy, snowy winter. Last year, when I trained for Around the Bay, we had almost no snow all winter. Finding a place to train was so simple; just head up the bone-dry trail and out onto the suburban roads. This winter started like last year, but after Christmas all frozen hell broke loose. Before the New Year I was already doing speedwork on a snow-covered track or on the treadmill in the basement. I was moving my long run day around to get it in before the next snowstorm hit.

Then came January. And February. And early March. It snowed and snowed but never really melted—mostly because it was ridiculously cold. When the snow wasn’t too icy or rotten, I would put some miles in on the snowy trails; otherwise I did snowy loops and dodged snowplows on the state highway. Not only were these outings difficult, they kinda sapped my confidence.

I built my training plan around the 21:11 5K I ran last September to close out the season. That plan, which seemed aggressive to me, relied on a fairly normal set of distances each week run at some rather aggressive times: a 4-mile tempo run at 7:05/mile (4:24/km) pace, 4x1600m in 6:48 (4:13) each, 13 miles at 8:30 (5:17) pace. Ironically, I didn’t have much trouble hitting my marks at the shorter, more intense distances. But over the snowy, slushy, or icy roads, I quickly learned that I was going too hard on the early parts before getting to the dry roads, where I was a bit worn out. (I was very well-hydrated though, since I carried and drank lots of water.) Having one difficult long run after another kinda dragged me down and left me wondering if I had peaked too early in the season or if I would be capable of transferring my track speed to the roads over longer distances. Would I be able to run 13.1 miles at the 7:08/mile pace my plan said I could do?

Today proved that the answer was, in a word, No.

There was no real snow accumulation in the forecast for the week before the race—which of course didn’t stop us from getting a half-inch overnight on Friday—and the bike/run path taunted me by being invitingly snow-free for the first Sunday since the middle of January.

On the other hand, it was still a chilly 30F (-1C) when we left the house race morning. What to wear . . . Pants? Probably a good idea. Jacket? Probably not necessary, although I did put on a base layer below my long-sleeve shirt. By the time I was done with my warm-up, I knew I should have opted for shorts and short-sleeves. It was perfect running weather. (Although not perfect spectating temperatures. Poor Lisa.)

I got a good luck kiss from my sweetheart, settled myself into the starting corral by the 8:00/mile (4:58/km) sign, and tested my blood glucose during the national anthem. 252 mg/dL (14 mmol/L). My best efforts at having a quality BG race were derailed around 7:30PM Saturday by a low that caused a high rebound and an early morning bolus, a pre-run snack, and an 11AM race start that had me wondering how much to eat for breakfast and what insulin-on-board was appropriate for my high. I decided that the 0.8 units IOB was probably okay, but my nutrition plan of eating every 30 minutes needed modification. Basically, I was going to be a bit hungry.

The first half of the race were good. Everyone around me was running decidedly faster than I was, and I felt no qualms about watching a stream of people slowly run past me through the first few miles. I was watching my pace closely, so I wasn’t surprised to see a 6:45 show up after the first mile. By the third mile I was cruising along at 7:30/mile (4:40/km), which had been my plan coming into the race: run slower than the “official” plan called for and hope for a negative split, running the second half stronger than the first.

My (unofficial) 10K split was a new personal best just upward of 44:00. I was feeling good. A run at this pace is never easy, but it didn’t feel bad.

Then around the ninth mile, when we got to the seawall, I hit the wall. I had been battling a side stitch that felt like a collapsed lung—I imagine—for the last couple miles so I decided to walk for a minute to catch my breath and check my BGs: 152 (8.4). Much better than before. Knowing that I didn’t have low or high blood sugar gave me a bit of a second wind. The big hill for the last mile was cruel—just like last time—but the crowds were huge and so supportive.

I was so happy with my time and to be done. All things considered, it was a good race: a solid, relaxed 10K followed by a tough part that I pushed through leading to a PR. I told Lisa that it’s good that I signed up for the Baystate Marathon (in mid-October) on Friday rather than waiting until afterward, because I’m not sure I would do it if I hadn’t. But that was pre-shower. It’s amazing what some hot water and soap will do for your point-of-view.

Between now and my first marathon there’s a lot of running and swim/bike/running to do. I have new training paces and a clear need to work on hills. (I think trail running will help with pacing and strength more than anything, not to mention being lots of fun! :^) And . . . I wonder how close to 1:42 I can get during a half-Ironman. I’ll also come back to New Bedford someday to get the satisfaction I deserve.

Now if only spring would get here.

Posted in Diabetes, Life Lessons, Running | 6 Comments

January 2013 Recap

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Jeff Mather

We can close the books on January:

  • 31 workouts (8 swim, 8 bike, 13 run, 2 Nordic ski)
  • 215.9 total miles
  • 26 hours, 34 minutes
  • 16,700 calories
  • Farthest swim: 1.3 miles
  • Farthest bike: 44 miles
  • Farthest run: 12.6 miles

Plus, one shoulder injury that had me away from the pool for a week. (More about that later.)

Posted in Cycling, General, Historical Record, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 1 Comment

Shill… I mean “chill”

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Jeff Mather

It was pretty cold yesterday when I went out for the long run of the week: 12ºF (-11ºC). So I bundled up in the warmest running clothes I have.

I realized about half-way through my run that I looked like a total shill for Salomon, since I was wearing Salomon pants, jacket, hat/toque, and running pack. In fact, if it weren’t for the shoes—I wear Saucony these days— and gloves, I might as well have stepped right out of a catalog.

But the gear worked out exactly as I’d hoped: I didn’t get too cold, nor did I feel like I was carrying around extra bulk. The only downside to the weather and gear combo is that the water froze in my hydration pack a few times. Whenever I went longer than four or five minutes between drinks, the mouthpiece would start to ice up. Oh well. Such is winter in New England.

Posted in I am Rembrandt, Running | 3 Comments

Run of the Mill

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Jeff Mather

Today, I ran. It was 12ºF (-11ºC) and dark outside. And windy. Cold, windy, dark. And it snowed a couple days ago, so there was snow on the track and bike trail. Although I like to run outside, my plan called for a four-mile tempo run at 7:10/mile pace, and it’s difficult to hit these marks in the dark on a snowy track and even harder on the trail.

So it was down to the basement for a run on the treadmill.

We have an unfinished basement, and it’s been so cold outside that I needed to wear a jacket for most of the first mile until I warmed up. There’s not a lot to look at down there, just lots of concrete and exposed insulation and infrastructure. The main electrical panel is directly in front of the treadmill along with the water meter, and the forced hot water burner was just to my left. It’s very spartan.

I don’t mind the treadmill, but—unlike the bike trainer— I don’t really like it either. Mainly it’s just plain difficult. I can push hard on the bike trainer, but then I also have the freedom to slack a little from time to time. On the treadmill, there is no easing up. You set the speed and have to keep up with the belt, which usually isn’t a problem on recovery days, but a tempo run is fast. A lot of it is mental, too, and a couple times in the past I’ve had trouble believing I could hold on for the whole duration. The last mile is always the hardest, but I know this now, and I can usually push through.


For a while though, I just couldn’t get it done. I’d have good treadmill runs, but then a bad one would come along and I’d be left wondering how I was ever going to get through a half-marathon at a slightly slower pace. Then I learned two things.

First off, my treadmill is a lying liar-pants hellbent on my destruction! If I tell it to give me a 7:10 pace (i.e., 8.4 mph), it will actually give me something in the range of 6:45-6:55/mile. No wonder I couldn’t finish a 4-mile tempo run before; I was trying to run close to my 5K PR pace for longer than 5K distance! Now I back off the speed about 0.2-0.3 mph, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but (according to my Garmin foot pod) it gets me back to the manageable speed I should be running.

Secondly, I simultaneously need help with my motivation and some distraction. I need to focus on something less abstract than a race in a couple of months and something more inspirational than an electrical box that I can use as a touchstone to help me get through the last mile or so. I can’t watch TV when I’m running. I’ve tried, but it just doesn’t work for me. On the other hand, still pictures do. I’ve already taped up one photograph near the treadmill, and there are a couple more I plan on adding once I find them again (including this gem from a while ago). I like being able to look over at the people treading water in Kailua Bay, waiting for the Hawaii Ironman to start, and think about being one of them. It seems silly, but it really works. The picture helps get me moving and keeps me going. I need mental toughness to give everything I can during a race of any distance, and I feel like I’m building it on the treadmill; the picture helps remind me why.

Nevertheless, I still can’t wait for it to warm up enough at least to get the snow off the track, because I really feel like I get more out of speedwork outdoors, but it’s nice to know that now I can at least do the workouts I’m supposed to in the basement.

How about you? Do you run on a treadmill? How do you approach it?

Posted in I am Rembrandt, Running | 4 Comments

The Announcement

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Jeff Mather

This morning I did an extra-long, pre-holiday endurance swim of 4,000 yards. For the curious, that’s 2.27 miles and just short of an Ironman swim distance. Had I known beforehand, I might have done the extra 250 yards to get me to there. When I was heading back to the locker room, Pool Guy called out, “Great Swim!” It was indeed.

Speaking of Ironman, it’s been years since I rode 112+ miles on my bike, but I rode over 100 miles twice this year (in the Twin Cities and Death Valley) and they felt pretty good. Just like this morning’s swim, they were shorter than the full Ironman distance and they weren’t races, but the distance is in my legs for sure.

One thing I’ve never done is run a marathon. I have run a couple half marathons and 18.6 miles around Hamilton Harbour, but I always balked at running a full marathon. At first my thinking was “26.2 miles is a long way, and I’ve never raced half that.” During my first half-marathon, I distinctly remember thinking midway through that “two hours of pain is more than enough, thankyouverymuch, and I can’t imagine racing hard for a full marathon.” After my first half-ironman, where I raced hard for almost six hours, that complaint doesn’t hold up very well.

26.2 car decalAnnouncement #1 — the small announcement: After years of saying that I didn’t want to run a marathon—all of those protestations were true, by the way; I wasn’t just being coy—I’ve decided that next year I will run my first marathon. For one thing, I’m pretty sure that I’m at the point in my conditioning where I could race one and not just run it. I mean no offense to the people who run marathons with the primary goal of finishing them, but when I toe the line at the start of any race, I’m in it to finish as high in the standings as my body and mind will let me. I wasn’t in the right place mentally to do this in the past, but I am now.

I’m still mentally preparing myself to run uncomfortably fast for an entire half-marathon next March. I’ve been changing how I talk to myself during my tempo runs and mile repeat workouts on the high school track. Gone is the self-doubting question “Will I be able to hold this tempo for 13.1 miles?” In its place during each lap is “Here’s another quarter mile at 7:00/mile pace. I can do ten seconds slower than that for ten more miles.” Even if my brain is not completely sure I can do it now, I know that my body can. I’m going to fake it ’till I make it, and I’m going to keep visualizing success over the next three months until it’s time to do it for real.

Also, there are a couple of marathons that I would like to do someday (“bucket list” stuff, if you will, although I hate the term). One of them is the Boston Marathon, which I’ve watched every year but one since 1998. (Here some photos and reminiscences from 2006, 2007, 2011, and 2012.) The day of the race is my favorite of the year, and each time I watch it I get a little twinge of envy, wishing I were running with that crowd. But usually, it’s just that: a twinge. That all changed one day after work last summer during my long run, which took me along the Boston Marathon route. As I was running past the Natick Common, which is where I almost always watch the race, the church bells started ringing. Instead of drawing everyone outside as the lead runners approached, they were simply announcing the hour, but they might as well have been tolling for me. I’m pretty sure that was the moment when I actually decided to make the jump to a marathon. (The other is Big Sur, which just looks ridiculously beautiful.)

Despite a few people trying to convince me to run Boston next year for charity, I knew that I didn’t want Boston to be my first marathon. I want to enjoy Boston when I do it. Well, as much as you can enjoy a multi-hour throw-down. I also kinda want to see if I can meet the qualifying standard. Plus, I plan on doing more triathlon next year, and I want to focus my training appropriately. So I’ll be running the Bay State Marathon in October—a couple months after the end of triathlon season—in “scenic” Lowell. (Why do I sign up to do long-distance running events in blue-collar, post-industrial cities? Why not?)

Ironman M-Dot logoAnnouncement #2 — The BIG announcement: Now we come back to the beginning of this post. I have improved my swimming. I have a solid base for cycling. I’m moving up in distance to marathons. Moreover, I had a good half-ironman experience; my diabetes is in a pretty good place; and the idea of doing triathlon for 12+ hours doesn’t really bother me.

I’m going to do an Ironman . . . in 2014.

As much as I would love to do a full iron-distance event next year, I’m just going to have to accept the fact that the age on my calf will read “40″ when I finally do my first. I’ve thought long and hard about when to try it. As with the marathon, I want to do well. That’s going to involve some additional endurance and strength work over the next two years. I will be racing next year, and those races will mostly be longer distance events, but I’m saving the big one for a bit longer.

Who knows what will happen after that?

Well . . . I have goals. . . . But that’s all I will say on the subject. Let’s get through one Ironman first.

Posted in Cycling, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 4 Comments

Going Nowhere

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Jeff Mather


It’s here again. Yes, it is the holiday season, but I’m talking about the time of the year when those of us who love cycling (but also have day jobs) put the bike on the trainer and do a lot of our riding indoors. For some of us it represents a fundamental, existential crisis. “I love riding my bike for hours outdoors, but I hate spinning away for hours inside. How do I survive a winter on the trainer . . . or of no riding? *shudder*” Victoria—who has convinced me to do another JDRF ride next year in Nashville—recently posted her lack of love for the trainer, and it occurred to me that I have the solution, since riding inside never seems to bother me.

Nothing is ever going to replace the amazing feeling of the air flowing around you as you push through it under your own power. You’re never going to have that thrilling feel of speed when you’re not moving at all. There’s never going to be same sense of accomplishment from climbing a mountain or going up and down little rollers when you’re staring at a wall or electrical circuit box or television or iPod or whatever might be directly in front of you. When there’s no need to change your pace, of course it’s going to feel monotonous. Two hours of not going anywhere might have same physical effect as riding outside, but it can be rather soul crushing.

Since nothing is going to compare to the real thing, change the kind of riding that you do indoors.

Tell yourself that outdoor riding is for the pure love of the bike, while indoor riding is solely to make yourself a stronger cyclist. On the roads you have fun, inside you ride with a purpose. Outdoor rides might go on for hours, but indoor training should be limited to 30-60 minutes. Indoors you do the hard work to make riding outdoors easier.

If you’ve been riding for a year or two, you should already have a solid endurance base, and you don’t need to do more workouts to target that inside. What you want is to build some strength and speed so that your outdoor rides in the coming year feel easier. Hills will feel shorter and less steep. You’ll comfortably spin along at a faster rate. (Not that speed is necessarily your goal, but it’s nice to have anyway, since you can go farther on your weekend rides in the same amount of time if you have the ability to ride a little faster, and you’ll feel fresher when you’re done.)

Here are a couple of workouts you can do indoors in under an hour and not feel like you never want to see your bike again. These are sessions that I do myself.

Every workout (indoors or outdoors) starts with 10-15 minutes of easy riding. I mean easy. By the end of the warmup, you’re probably going to be a little bored and eager to do something different, and that’s just what we’ll do. On “speed” days, you do a lot of short intervals, while “strength” workouts have fewer intervals, but they last a little longer. After the hard work, it’s time to cool down with another 5-10 minutes of very easy riding. The point is to clear the burn and give your heart a chance to settle down before you hop off the bike and get on with the rest of your day/evening.

Speed: After the warm up, ride very hard for one minute before taking an easy spin for one minute. The hard part should feel ridiculously hard, as hard as you can go while turning the pedals at 80-90 times per minute; you don’t want so much resistance on the pedals that you have trouble turning them. (Imagine sprinting rather than climbing hills.) The recovery part should feel very, very easy . . . even easier than the warmup. You should barely be working at all, since the whole point is to try to get your heart rate back down from the stratosphere. Do 5-10 intervals, and you will have done a good 30-40 minute workout. Start with fewer intervals and eventually work your way up to a full ten.

Strength: While the speed workouts are done at an intensity level that leaves you gasping for breath and bargaining with yourself to be able to finish them, the strength workouts—while still hard—are easy enough that you could imagine carrying on very short conversations. Hold back a little on the first intervals so that you can finish the latter ones at the same pace. After the warm up, ride at about 70% intensity for 2-4 minutes and then ride easy for 3-5 minutes. Do three or four, starting short and then building to longer intervals as the weeks go by.

Hopefully these workouts will get you through the long indoor months during the week and that you can still find a way to get outside on the weekends. Let me know how they go for you!

Now, if only someone could tell me how to make the best use of the treadmill.

Posted in Cycling, Life Lessons, Running | 5 Comments

Triathlon Tools for MATLAB

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Jeff Mather

Recently I got tired of continually writing the same equations at the MATLAB command prompt to convert my swim, bike, and run times into paces in the format we’re used to seeing. Temporarily putting aside my laziness, I wrote a handful of tiny helper functions to do the conversions and display them. Voilà, Triathlon tools for MATLAB (ver 1.0). In the ZIP-file you’ll find a bunch of basic functions:

  • Convert swimming times to 100m or 100 yard paces
  • Convert a running time to pace/mile or km
  • Compute cycling speeds from time and distance
  • Pretty-print the output of these functions
  • Convert running paces to treadmill speeds

Each one comes with help and examples. As you can see below, these pretty much dwarf the actual computation code.

function [m100, s100] = swimPace(distance, varargin)
%swimPace   Convert swimming lengths and times into 100 pace.
%   [M100, S100] = swimPace(DISTANCE, M, S) computes the "100 pace" (time
%   per 100 yards or meters) given a particular DISTANCE and the number of
%   minutes M and seconds S needed to swim it. M100 is the minutes part of
%   the 100 pace, and S100 is the seconds part. DISTANCE should be either
%   in yards or meters, and the pace will be in the same units.
%
%   [M100, S100] = swimPace(DISTANCE, TIMESTR) computes "100 pace" given a
%   DISTANCE and a string representing the time needed to swim it (for
%   example '5:18'). It is more natural to use this syntax to specify times
%   longer than one hour (for example, '1:10:37').
%
%   Examples
%   --------
%   % Example 1 - Pace for a 300 yard swim.
%   [m,s] = swimPace(300, 5, 10);
%   paceString(m, s, '100 yards')
%
%   % Example 2 - Michael Phelps's 400m IM world record time at the
%   % 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
%   [m,s] = swimPace(400, '4:03.84');
%   paceString(m, s, '100m')
%
%   See also bikePace, runPace, paceString.

% Copyright 2012 Jeff Mather
% This code is licensed under a Creative Commons "By Attribution" license
% (CC BY).  See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ for more details.

[m,s] = getTimeParts(varargin{:});

totalTime = m + s/60;
unitPace = totalTime / distance;

pace100 = 100 * unitPace;
m100 = floor(pace100);
s100 = (pace100 - m100) * 60;

By the way, here are the answers from MATLAB for the examples shown above.

ans =

1:43/100 yards

ans =

1:01/100m

Happy swim/bike/running!

Posted in Cycling, Fodder for Techno-weenies, MATLAB, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 3 Comments

Los Angeles

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Jeff Mather

As I mentioned yesterday, I spent a little time in Los Angeles recently. I arrived Sunday afternoon and had a few hours of daylight to sightsee. Monday, the day of the developer conference, I was wide awake at 4:00AM. While I was able to fall back to sleep for another hour, eventually the jet-lag won. I spent some time in bed with Facebook before getting ready for an early morning run through downtown LA.

I brought my running shoes with me because (a) there was so much room in my bag that I had to bring them, (b) I have a running plan to keep up with, (c) running keeps me centered, and (d) I’d run in so many other places this year that I thought it would be fun to run in one more city. (Let’s see . . . I’ve run in Milford and nearby towns; Barcelona; Hamilton, Ontario; Philadelphia; Vinton, Iowa; Minneapolis; New York City; Casper, Wyoming; Colorado Springs and Denver; Cincinnati; Old Orchard Beach, Maine; and Los Angeles. Whew!)

Downtown L.A. felt safe to me—and I certainly didn’t have anything on me to steal—but all of the homeless people on the street at 6:00AM definitely made it a different place than anywhere else I’ve run this year. At one point as I was going through an interchange, a couple of guys on their way to work (I presume) were using the crosswalk perpendicular to me. They had the right of way, and one of them called out a friendly “¡Ay, perro!”. I responded with an “¡Hola!” before I realized that he was talking to someone coming down the sidewalk from the other direction. He pretended to run a few yards with me. Sometimes I miss how friendly places other than New England usually are.

The conference itself was pretty good, but that’s a story for another day. I wish I’d had more time in the city, since I think I’m finally starting to see it in a new, less pessimistic way.

Here are some pictures, mostly from Sunday afternoon and evening.

Posted in NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2012, Running, Travel, Western Adventure | 1 Comment

Racing into New Territory

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Jeff Mather

Halloween is over, but I’m still kinda scurred.

Yesterday, I updated my running plan to account for the fact that I haven’t really done many of the long runs that my plan said I should. I could probably manage the 10 miles slated for this weekend, but the longest I’ve run recently was the 7+ miles a couple weeks ago when I went hypo on the trail. Ten miles might be slightly too big of a jump to do without risking an injury. The 8 miles prescribed in my new plan seems more reasonable.

The distance isn’t what has me nervous, though. It’s the speed. After running a 5K in 21:11 in the middle of September, the computer is predicting a 1:33:26 for my next race, the New Bedford Half Marathon in mid-March. [1] That’s a 7:08/mile (4:26/km) pace. Dang! I know that I can run that fast over shorter distances—it’s 20 seconds/mile (12 sec/km) slower than my 5K speed—but it still seems pretty aggressive for a long-distance race. [2]

Nevertheless, the plan is actually quite reasonable, with one speed session/week at paces I can already manage, one long run, and two or three other recovery runs—which I might substitute with a bike workout and/or some exercise to improve my running form. Along the way, it gradually increases both the distance and speed. I’m just having a little trouble believing the idea of running so fast for so long.

But that’s the whole purpose of speedwork and training: to get faster, know what it feels like, and be ready to give a similar effort during a race. A good coach—even a virtual one like mine—is supposed to provide a plan that spurs an athlete into territory where he or she had always hoped to be but wasn’t sure it was possible to go. And that’s definitely where I am right now; I can run the speed I need to, but will I be strong enough (mentally and physically) to do it for 13.1 miles? The plan says, “Yes.”

Off we go!


1 — I also ran a slower (but equally intense) trail 5K a few weeks after setting my post-high school PR. It rained before and all throughout the race, and the air was windy and cool, too. Basically, it was perfect cross-country running weather. The wind had blown lots of leaves onto the trail, and the rain made them quite slippery. I had an exciting moment early in the race when the lower half of my body started sliding to the right as I was trying to lean into a left-hand hairpin turn. I don’t know how I didn’t fall down, but I’m sure it looked amazing as my arms flew up into the air for balance. [Back . . .]

2 — My target pace of 7:08/mile is about 0:10/mile faster than Boston qualifying pace for someone my age for a full marathon, after all. Just saying. (Not that I’m looking…. *ahem*) [Back . . .]

Posted in Life Lessons, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2012, Reluctant Triathlete, Running | 1 Comment

Just Do It… No Matter What

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Jeff Mather

For some reason, stories like this one about BethAnn Telford, who ran the Marine Corps Marathon with brain cancer yesterday just two weeks after competing in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, are really getting to me lately.

I guess I’m just a big softie after all.

Posted in Reluctant Triathlete, Running, This is who we are | Leave a comment

All Aboard the Fail Train

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Jeff Mather

You know how I rode through Death Valley with great blood sugars? And how I did a half ironman triathlon with no diabetes problems? And how I had an amazing ride to the top of Mount Wachusett and back with lots of power and great diabetes mojo? Yeah, the outings aren’t all like that.

This is the story that proves that—no matter how easy being an athlete sometimes might look—diabetes can be a tricky disease to manage. Worse than being difficult, it’s occasionally dangerous. The line between A-OK and disaster is a fine one. (This dispatch isn’t meant to scare anyone, and I apologize in advance if it does.)


I’m proud of the fact that diabetes doesn’t keep me from training. I’ve had high blood sugar (but no ketones) before exercising, and I’ve used the outing (along with some insulin) to bring my BGs back to a happy place. I’ve also been lower than what makes me comfortable and had to delay exercise a bit to let the food I ate kick in. I exercise at these less than ideal times because hitting the pool/gym/road/trail/treadmill and putting in the time, miles, and laps is the only sure way to get better at what I do.

Just because I don’t let diabetes keep me from starting an outing doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily going to finish it the way that I would like. Recently, as I’ve fiddled with my insulin settings and nutrition, I’ve had hypoglycemia bad enough a couple of times to make me call it a day. On my last long run before the 70.3 triathlon in Maine, I had to walk the last mile back to the office in a bit of a stupor.

Then there’s what happened last week. Lisa was in Nevada, spending some time with her mother and grandmother, and I was home alone. Being alone doesn’t really bother me, diabetes-wise. (Not having Lisa around is another matter altogether). Since I have Spanish class on Wednesday and was heading to Death Valley on Thursday, I decided to make Tuesday my long run day. I prefer to run on a weekend morning, since I find it easier to manage diabetes and exercise when I haven’t been bolusing insulin, but I’ve been doing workouts after work for years now, so I didn’t think too much about it.

And, boy oh boy, had I been bolusing insulin on Tuesday. I’m gradually feeling more confident giving myself all of the insulin that a very high carb meal requires, but I’m still kind of chickenshit. As a result, I went through a good part of the afternoon with high blood sugar after eating delicious Indian food for lunch. Because of the highs, I gave myself a small bolus just before running, and when I started what I intended to be a nine mile run down the paved rail-trail in town, I had multiple units of insulin still working their way through my system.

The beginning part of the run from my house to the trail—about 3/4 of a mile—is always enjoyable; it’s downhill, and I have to hold myself back from setting the bar too high for the rest of the run. It was just warm enough to go running in shorts if I also wore a heavy long-sleeve shirt. The shirt was was vivid yellow, and I wore a headlamp because it was going to be full dark by the time I got home.

I was having a great run through the late evening light and the twilight. I had to turn my headlamp on just before the turnarond point, 4.5 miles in. My pace was good as I ran through the tunnel of light I was throwing onto the trail. There were still a couple people on the trail on my way out, but by the time I turned around the trail was deserted.

About three miles from home something didn’t seem right. Despite having eaten a couple of times, I felt a bit lethargic. My view of the world started to look off, and I couldn’t tell if it was due to the headlamp or the darkness or something else. A half mile later I was in the deepest, darkest part of the woods on the trail. The temperature had dropped quickly when the sun dropped, and little clouds of steam shone in my light whenever I breathed. That’s about when I started seeing flickering lights whenever I blinked, a sure sign of hypoglycemia for me, and I realized that I was listing a little bit, too.

Cold, dark, alone, hypoglycemic . . . I knew I wasn’t going to die on the trail, but it was still a bit scary. [1] For one thing, I was still two miles from home and one mile from where the trail intersects a road, and I didn’t like the idea of trying to hold off the “I’m going to pass out” feeling so far from possible help. Plus, hypoglycemia triggers the fight/flight, adrenaline response, which makes me feel a bit nervy. Immediately upon stopping I ate a full tube of glucose tablets, which I admit was probably overkill, but I knew that I was already pretty low if I was seeing The Spot. All the while I was walking my baby giraffe wobble down the trail. It was too cold to really stop moving, and I just wanted to get the last two miles home out of the way. For good measure, I ate the extra energy gel that I had in my pocket.

When it became pretty clear that I was going to be okay, I ran the last half mile. In the end I arrived home about 30-40 minutes later than I had intended and pretty chilled. Perhaps the worst part of this experience, though, was the hit my confidence took. What’s going to happen the next time that I go for a run in the afternoon? What will happen the next time I exercise with high blood sugar? Should I go running on the trails after work anymore? Should I just stick to the treadmill?

Well, I’m pleased to report that today, for one reason or another, I had higher blood sugar than I would like to admit . . . and I went for a run . . . on the trail . . . (but not in the dark) . . . and nothing bad happened. Granted, I only ran four miles because it’s a recovery week, but my BGs didn’t move more than I wanted, despite the very small correction bolus I gave. Whew! Confidence restored.


1 — This is not the first time I’ve written “I knew I wasn’t going to die . . .” on this site. Unlike this time, I have some nice pictures from that first not-near-death experience. [Back . . .]

Posted in Diabetes, Life Lessons, Running | 6 Comments

How the Race Was Run… and Planned… and Practiced…

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Jeff Mather

I’ve been working on this post in one form or another for almost two months. That’s how long it’s been since I did the Rev3 Maine triathlon, my first 70.3. In an earlier post I wrote about the event itself: how it went, what I felt, how I pushed myself, and my happiness with the result. This one is about the journey and the practical parts of the tri.

Literally minutes before leaving for the airport to go to Barcelona with Lisa last March, I signed up for an 18-week training plan with TeamWILD. Previously I had been my own coach, mixing swim and bike training sessions around a standard 5K, 10K, or half-marathon training plan. The running plan was sensible, but everything else was quite ad hoc. I was eager to try something a little more holistic and which would provide a bit more structure in my bike and swim workouts. I also knew that I was going to need to have my nutrition and diabetes management dialed in as I upped the distance, otherwise four months of training would be wasted and leaving me wondering “what if?” The TeamWILD plan looked like it would give me what I needed.

I’m so pleased with how everything turned out. I trained hard, worked on developing a race plan, experimented with different nutrition and insulin dosages, and ultimately executed my plan almost exactly as I had hoped. I also learned some important lessons from experience (i.e., mistakes) during races last year and earlier in the season. These are the kind of things that you don’t expect to happen but still have to prepare for. Sometimes I was better at working around the problems, but I always tried to incorporate what went well and what didn’t into my next race plan.

On the big rides I did during the summer, I had been lowering my basal insulin rate by 30% about a half-hour before heading out, eating right before starting, and giving a tiny bolus of insulin along with it. This seemed to work. I didn’t manage to follow this plan for the Olympic-distance NYC Triathlon, and the experience left me with high blood sugar, dehydration, and a tough run at the end. In Maine, I was actively patient on race morning, watching my CGM and waiting to eat, bolus, and give Lisa my pump until the very last moment before my swim wave went out. (My backup pump was waiting for me with my bike in transition. I used it during the rest of the triathlon.)

The swim was tough; it’s definitely my weakest discipline of the three. There was a lot of churning water and bumping swimmers. Someone next to me almost knocked off my goggles with his elbow. The waves didn’t really bother me, but not being able to see very well because of the small swells had me anxious. Halfway through the swim I had that recurring, whiny thought: “I don’t really like swimming.” But then I reminded myself that I was only twenty minutes into the race, it was a bit early for those “Are we there yet?” thoughts, and it would be a long day if I kept up that line of thinking. So I thought about my form and buckled down.

A bit more than 45 minutes after dashing into the water, I was high-stepping my way out, unzipping my wetsuit and running up the main street of Old Orchard Beach into transition. I tested my blood sugar before hopping on the bike, and it had actually fallen a little bit. I wasn’t low, but I was heading in the direction where I knew that I needed to start eating right away.

The bike portion was pretty good. My training consisted of longer, low-intensity rides eventually up to 56 miles, which is the distance of the bike leg of a half-ironman triathlon, along with shorter high-intensity interval and tempo sessions. I had gotten pretty used to what it felt like to ride at my target heart rate during training, so it was easy to get into groove. In fact, it felt a bit too comfortable, and I go back and forth in my mind about whether I should have been a little more aggressive. During the race, though, I was worried about saving enough for the run, so I held back. It was probably the right decision, but it was hard to do.

I tested my BG on the bike, which is something that I had been practicing on my afternoon and weekend rides. What I didn’t take into account, though, was that my jersey would be a bit wet when I went to test. Water is the enemy of BG testing. It makes it hard to get a nice droplet of blood, and it fouls the test strips. I was only able to get one good test in, but it told me that my nutrition plan of eating about 25 grams of carbs every half hour in the form of energy gels and blocks was working well. 2:57 after heading out on the bike, I was back.

The run was the toughest part of the day for me. After almost four hours of swimming and cycling, I was starting to get tired. But it was at this point that I started to think about whether I was in a place to achieve my stretch goal!

My primary and easiest goal was to finish. Next, I hoped to have a good diabetes day and have a smart race where I executed the plan that I laid out in the previous couple of weeks. Then there were the time goals that I hoped to meet. Conservatively, I was estimating 6.5 to 7 hours to complete the 70.3, but I knew that if everything went right, I might be able to go under six hours. Having had an okay swim and a solid bike performance and seeing good blood sugar numbers, I was in the place to start pushing myself for that sub-6:00 finish.

All things considered, the run was quite difficult. By itself, running a half marathon isn’t too hard, but after swimming and biking, it took on a life of its own. Having the time goal really helped. It kept me motivated and prevented me from walking a few times where it would have been easier to relax for a bit. I ran hard but not fast (for me) as I plodded through the 13.1 miles.

But in the end I finished with a combined time of 5:58:36!

Training for the Rev3 Half was incredibly rewarding. Even though it took up a lot of time, I feel much stronger physically and mentally, and my diabetes skills are much better, too. I am definitely going to do more 70.3 races in the coming years.

Posted in Cycling, Diabetes, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 2 Comments