Looking Back and Moving Forward - 2014

After have arguably one of my best years ever in 2013, I had no idea what to expect for 2014.  It seemed as though after my post Ironman high wore off, I was left with a mild depression.  Almost a feeling of emptiness.  Now, I totally realize that this sounds absurd and over-the-top, but I have talked about this at length before.  Completing an Ironman had been at the forefront of my mind ever since I became involved in endurance sports, hell, it was the reason I got involved in the first place.  It was the reason I woke up and trained at 5am in subzero temperatures in January.  So anyone should be able to under stand there was going to be a feeling of void after crossing off your top goal.  After taking some time off, I wanted to start planning my 2014 race schedule, but honestly had no idea where to go with it.  What races should I do?  What distances should I race?  I kept telling myself that I wanted to race shorter distance races, but it took me a while to convince myself that it was OK to do sprint distance races.  Regardless of what distances I choose, I knew 2014 would be a challenging year, as we would be adding our 5th addition to our family, baby Harper.  Also, after neglecting my wife and kids for the better part of all of 2013, I really wanted to make the most of 2014 and for a lack of better words, make up for lost time.

Knowing that I wanted to spend more time with my family than I did in 2013, all while continuing to race competitively, I was struggling to come up with a race schedule.  I didn't want to just do 1 or 2 races, but at the same time I didn't want to do too many races.  I tried coming up with some goals for the upcoming season.  First, the goal that will remain in the forefront until I can cross it off, will be running a sub 3:00 marathon.  Now, I just needed to find a goal race for my triathlon season.  I saw post of Facebook about the 2013 USA Triathlon Age Group National Championships, which were held in Milwaukee, that they were voted the best race of 2013.  The post also mentioned that they race would be returning to Milwaukee for 2014.  I immediately had my goal race for 2014.  

After doing a little research I learned that the Age Group National Championships is the qualifying race for the 2015 World Triathlon Championships.  I looked into how realistic it would be for me to qualify for Team USA for 2015 by looking at the 2013 results.  During a normal year, Team USA takes 15-18 athletes per age group, but during a year when the World Championships are held in the United States, Team USA is allowed a few extra athletes as the host country.  The 2015 World Championships are scheduled to be held in Chicago.  This will be the first time the race will be held in the US in several years, let alone the fact that the race will be held within driving distance from my home.  Based on times from last year, I figured that if I were to finish the race in under 1:08:00 I would be sitting in a great position to qualify for Team USA.  And just like that, I had a goal for 2014 - I would focus my training towards qualifying for Team USA for the opportunity to represent The USA at the 2015 World Triathlon Championships.

So, to start 2014 off, Sarah and I planned a final get-away trip to Chicago in January.  This was our last trip as a family of four.  We stayed right in downtown Chicago and planned on just having a relaxing weekend.  We went to Shedd Aquarium, Ed Debevic's, and to Millennium Park to see the "jelly bean," and even did a little ice skating in the park.  It was a great weekend away and something different for the kids.  Both Maya and Delaney still talk about our trip to Chicago.

Before we knew it Harper was born.  As I write this she is just 9 months old.  It's kind of odd, but a part of me feels like she was just born yesterday, while on the other hand it feels like she's been a part of our family for much longer.  I will say this though, a third kid is much more taxing then I imagined.  I had no clue what to expect going from 2 kids to 3, but my free time has dwindled to just about none and our lives seem to be just that much more stressful.  It has been such a change to our family.  Suddenly, simple errands have become larger undertakings, getting ready for bedtime has become a project, and just about everything takes considerably longer.  It's funny because when it came out that Sarah and I would be having our third child, people would joke saying that we would need to switch to zone defense.  Since Harper's birth, life is just not as simple as one parent dealing with one kid, it is now a full team effort.  It is truthfully a zone parenting scheme.

It was shortly after Harper's birth that I realized that my training and racing would take a hit.  I knew it was going to take extra planning in order to get in my longer workouts.  Either way, I was still determined to train just as hard as I did in previous years.  I jumped right into training in January with hopes of finally nailing my sub 3:00 marathon at the Green Bay Marathon in May.  Unfortunately, my training took a huge hit in February when my calves started to give me issues.  I had no idea specifically what the issue was.  I even saw a sports medicine doctor thinking it was a possible stress fracture in my right calf.  After my appointment he assured me that it probably was not a stress fracture.  I took a couple weeks off from running and started back up easing my mileage back to where I wanted it.  After my break I was able to ease back into training and ran in the Oshkosh Half Marathon in April, finishing 12th overall and 2nd in my age group with a time of 1:24:31.  It was the day after the Jailbreak 5k (one week following the half marathon) I suddenly had a new issue in my left calf.  It was right in the belly of the muscle and felt like a giant knot, almost like a painful cramp.  This occurred during an attempted long run the day after the Jailbreak 5k in April, just a few weeks before the Green Bay Marathon.  The good news is I, once again won the Bloodhound Challenge as the fastest Cop in the race, for now the 3rd year in a row.

With hopes of still toeing the line at the Green Bay Marathon, I was desperate for just about any quick fix to help my calf heal.  I made an appointment to receive some Dry Needling treatments at a local physical therapy office.  It definitely helped, but I think the damage was done just a little too late.  I was able to at least try finishing the race, but fell just short and pulled out around mile 17.  This was my first ever DNF (Did Not Finish).  It was hard, but I think know it was the right decision, regardless of how much it sucked walking off a marathon course.  My choice to walk off proved to be the right decision, because after just a few days of rest and recovery from the marathon, I slowly eased back into running with sprint triathlon specific training.  Even though I was unable to finish the marathon, I still think the Dry Needle treatments helped immensely.  You can read more about my experience with Dry Needle treatments here.   

Once I started my triathlon specific training I was getting used to being a father of three.  Sarah and I were starting to figure things out.  Basically, for the two of us, I would generally take care of the older two girls, while she focused on caring for Harper.  It seemed to be working.  As for my training, it didn't take me long to realize that just because I was training for a much shorter race, the training didn't necessarily become any easier.  Yes, the training was shorter, much shorter, but it in no way was it any easier.  I feel in love with this style of training.  Majority of my weekday workouts were between 45-90 minutes and pretty much always included some intensity.  My weekend workouts were anywhere between 1-2 hours.  It was perfect.  I enjoyed the balance of intensity and duration.  My weekend workouts fulfilled my love of going long while the weekday workouts were challenging enough that I was glad they were shorter than my usual workouts.

My first multisport race of 2014 came in June, with the High Cliff Sprint Triathlon.  I was a bit hesitant going into this race since it was just a few weeks after I pulled out of the Green Bay Marathon.  I was worried that the intensity of the 5k run would bring back the issues in my calf.  I was especially concerned because the first half mile of the run was straight up a steep hill.  The race went great and I had no issues with either calf.  I finished the race in 1:22:14 and placed 10th overall, 1st in my age group.  The best part of this race was my age group award of a screen printed pint glass!  This race was held over Father's Day weekend and to take advantage of the opportunity, we camped right at High Cliff State Park for the weekend.

The very next week I scheduled a race in Pleasant Prairie, WI.  It was going to be my longest triathlon of the year.  I raced in the Olympic Distance race and would be my first time racing this distance since 2008, when I was first getting started in triathlon.  I was excited to race this distance as it is very indicative of your ability as this is the most competitive race distance out there, IMO.  The race ended up being postponed about an hour or so due to dense fog.  Once the race started, I gave it everything I had with hopes of placing in my age group.  I ended up falling short placing 5th in my age group but 14th overall.  It was a competitive race at the top, but I was extremely pleased with my race.  I finished in 2:04:39, but the bike course was cut a mile or two short due to road construction.  Here is my race report.

My third race was my last race before Age Group Nationals and was going to be final tune up race.  The race I scheduled was the Ripon Medical Center Sprint Triathlon.  The race was 2 weeks before Nationals.  My hope was to literally go 110% throughout the entire race with hopes of having no energy left at the end.  I wanted to use this as a practice race to see how hard I can go and how it will feel having the throttle wide open for an entire race.  My biggest concern was how hard the run would be after mashing on the bike.  Turns out, the race went WAY better than I ever imagined.  I ended up placing 1st overall and it honestly wasn't even close.  I won by over 6 minutes!  At no point in this race did I ever take it easy.  This was my first ever overall win in a triathlon.  I was stoked!  You can read my race report here.

Coming off my first ever overall win, I was feeling fast and confident.  The week before the USA Triathlon Age Group Nationals in Milwaukee, we had a family vacation in Rhinelander with the Nissen's.  I went into the race feeling fresh and fast.  On race morning I was the most nervous I think I had ever been for any race.  No, it wasn't going to be a long grueling race, but there was so much at stake.  This was my first race were there was no real joy in simply finishing.  I had a very specific time goal in mind and even if I achieve my time goal there was no guarantee that I would qualify for Team USA.  My strategy for the race was to do the same as I did in Ripon and give 110% the entire race and never let up.  The race went well, it was one of my favorite events I've done to date.  I stuck to my plan and felt pretty good all day.  I ended up finishing with a time of 1:07:08, nearly a full minute faster than my optimistic goal of 1:08.  I was most impressed with my effort on the final home stretch of the run, where I had an average pace of 4:52/mile throughout the final tenth of a mile.  My race report can be found here.

Unfortunately I did not qualify for Team USA.  I finished 28th in my age group and missed qualifying by about 30 seconds.  Evidently my estimate of finishing with a time of 1:08 would leave me sitting pretty fell a bit short.  But after thinking about it after the fact, I think this year saw a much more competitive race for several reasons.  First, I think the success of last years race lead more people to racing it in 2014.  Secondly, the 2015 World Championships are held in the USA for the first time in several years, bringing out a ton more athletes.  And finally, I truly think the proximity of the 2015 World Championship (Chicago) to the National Championships (Milwaukee) brought out more people too.  This is due to the belief that if you're able to race in Milwaukee, you should be able to race in Chicago the following year.   Comparing the two years, 2013 had a total of 55 finishers in the M30-34 age group while 2014 had 114, over double!  So in short, I am not at all bummed with my finish.  I am actually pretty proud of myself.  I know that I did the best I could and gave it my all.  I finished just outside of qualifying for Team USA and was the first guy from Wisconsin to finish in my age group....for what that's worth.  

Initially, my race season was going to end after the Age Group National Championships.  But, as I mentioned, I pulled out of the Green Bay Marathon, therefore obviously, not achieving my goal of finishing a sub 3:00 marathon.  So, immediately getting home from the Green Bay Marathon, Sarah jumped online to find a redemption race for me to complete sometime down the road.  She found a race in Ashland, WI in October.  Conveniently, her parents have a cabin in a small town about 20 miles south of Ashland and I was already off the weekend of the race.  She gave me the almighty blessing to register for the race that day, literally just hours after walking off the Green Bay Marathon course.

Coming off the National Championships, I took a few days off to just kick back and relax at my family's cottage and then jumped into my marathon training plan.  My training plan was very run heavy (imagine that!).  My training better than expected.  More than ever, I felt like this was going to be the time I would run a sub 3 hour marathon.  I was hitting all my predetermined marks in training and feeling great throughout.  We had made arrangements to spend an extended weekend at my in-laws cabin the weekend of the Whistle Stop Marathon.  The race was on Saturday, so we would then celebrate my daughter's birthday that weekend with our families on Saturday night.  It was a great plan and everything was all shaping up to be a perfect opportunity to meet my #1 goal.

Once again, unfortunately I did not achieve my goal.  For one reason or another, I once again blew up in the later miles of the race after sustaining an appropriate pace for more than half the race.  I finished in 3:16:28 and placed 4th in my age group.  I was left with a feeling of confusion.  I honestly do not know what I need to do, or what I need to not do.  I do know that I want, more than just about anything, to run a sub 3:00 marathon.  The race itself was a great race and was extremely scenic, especially during that time of year with the fall colors at their peak.  

2014 was a much better year than I had expected coming off the year I had in 2013.  I was able to experience some great new races and found new ways to challenge myself without sacrificing a bunch of hours away from my family.  I have become even better with my time management skills.  Our family took some great trips both short and long.  So, with no doubt, I would say 2014 was a great year, even when I thought it would be impossible to even come close to the year I had 2013.  

In the next week or two, I will be writing Part 2 of my Looking Back and Moving Forward.  My next post I will look ahead to my plans, goals, and resolutions for 2015.  I have huge plans for 2015 that I have been working out the details for.  I want to really work on not only becoming a better athlete next year, but more importantly a better father, husband, and person.  So, until then, I hope you all have a great holiday season!

Looking Back and Moving Forward - Part 1 : 2013

My plan is that this will be a 2 part post.  I want to use the new year to be an opportunity for me to not only reflect on this past year, but to also look ahead at 2014.  This will be part 1 of my "Transitioning to 2014" post.  Because, I believe that you cannot successfully move forward, change, or improve, without examining, assessing, and learning from the past.  So here we go...

Yet another year has come and gone leaving me looking back at my year in 2013.  Just simply looking back at this past year, it was one of the greatest years I can recall.  My entire year revolved around Ironman Wisconsin.  Good or bad, literally everything else in my life took a back seat to the Ironman.  I put so much energy, focus, money, and time into preparations for the race.  I will touch on those sacrifices later in this post, but I would like this post to be a full encompassing review of 2013 and not just be another IM recap.  Also, I would be completely foolish to forget about my other races that brought me to Ironman Wisconsin and all the other experiences I was able to share with my family and friends throughout the year.

A few weeks prior to ringing in the new year, I found out that I was selected as a member of the inaugural TheTriShop.com Triathlon Team.  Over the past couple years, I have applied for many sponsorships with triathlon websites and nutrition companies only to get the, "thanks, but no thanks" letter.  This year, though, was different.  I was ecstatic to be selected by The Tri Shop and felt honored to be one of about 50 other triathletes across the country.  From the get go, I established a new goal along with my already ambitious endurance goals.  My new goal was to represent The Tri Shop the best I could and be an enthusiastic ambassador not only for The Tri Shop, but the sport of triathlon.

To start, Sarah and I were fortunate enough to bring in 2013 with our good friends from Minnesota, Dave and Liz, who came to the Fox Valley for Sarah's sister's wedding which was a couple days before the new year.  As we do each and every winter in Wisconsin, we just strive to survive the brutal months of January and February.  March 2nd was my 29th birthday this year and we spent the evening with Pat and Melissa and had dinner at Titletown Brewery in Green Bay.  I can still remember exactly what I ordered, since it was a rare choice.  I ordered a Peanut Butter and Bacon Burger (the PBB Burger).  The burger was soooooo good, The combination of the greasy salty bacon with the sweet nutty flavor of peanut butter matched perfectly with their high quality beef.  March is usually the turn-around month in Wisconsin for the transition from winter to spring.  March was also my first race of 2013 with the St. Pat's Day 5k which was bitterly cold.  My feet were numb in my light weight racing flats at the start of the race and never really unthawed.  I don't recall my exact race time, but remember it was nothing to go home and brag about, most likely due to a relatively poor, early season fitness and the bitter coldness of the race, but was still good enough that day to finish 3rd overall.  This was my first race which I placed overall.  

I was left with a new sense of motivation coming out of the St. Pat's Day 5k which propelled my training into the warmer weather.  I started to bring my cycling training outdoors on a more regular basis toward the end of March.  This was the earliest I have ever forced myself outside to ride my bike. I was going out for rides longer than 40-50 miles.  It was cold, some days were miserable, but I stuck with my plan and kept my eyes on the prize.  I then followed up my St. Pat's Day 5k with a new first for me at the Jailbreak 5k in April.  I won the race outright with a time of 19:07.  Regardless of the number of finishers that day, I was the fastest that day at that race, which I am still proud to say.  After the Jailbreak 5k, I raced my first multisport race with the Paper Discovery Duathlon in Neenah in early May.  After the duathlon, I started to focus on the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon which was just a couple weeks after.  The marathon had beautiful weather in the morning but got hot quick.  I didn't reach my goal time of finishing under 3 hours, finishing in 3:10.  I still remember driving home from the race and getting a text message from my brother saying that I had placed 3rd in my age group.  I couldn't believe it.  Not to down play any other place in a previous race, but to place in my age group at a larger scale race such as the Green Bay Marathon meant just a little bit more.  Immediately after getting home and showering, I headed down to Milwaukee to join up with my in-laws for my brother-in-law's graduation dinner.  He had his graduation ceremony earlier in the day, shortly after I finished the marathon.  

The spring continued and eventually turned to summer.  As the triathlon season got into full swing across the country, I started to form "friendships" with other The Tri Shop athletes.  We created a group online to interact with each other to give us a forum to motivate each other, ask questions, and just get to know one another.  As the season continued, our friendships continued to grow and we shared in successes, frustrations, failures, injuries, and life experiences.  It was special to have a group of people who share the same passion for triathlon and endurance sports as you.  There are team members who are younger, older, brand new to triathlon, experienced athletes, and are found all across the country from Alaska to Florida.  I have meet some great triathletes that I plan to stay connected with for years to come.  

I continued to race throughout June with a few more triathlons until my last triathlon before Ironman Wisconsin.  My last race was the High Cliff Half Ironman in mid June.  I had a great race and surprised the hell out of myself with a 2:30:48 bike split, or a 22.3 average MPH.  I finished in 4:45:06 coming in 18th overall.  Coming off this race I was left confident and excited for Ironman Wisconsin.

The remainder of my summer was filled with long training, longer training, and even longer training.  I missed family camping trips, nights out with friends, weddings, and family day trips that we have usually made in past years.  We had one big weekend which we got together with all of our old high school friends.  We got together on a Friday night for dinner and then spent the night around a fire sharing memorable stories from high school and college.  We then got back together on Saturday for a Timber Rattlers baseball game (Class "A" affiliate to the Milwaukee Brewers).  It was a fun weekend away from the usual weekend full of training. 

In August, Sarah and I each took a week's vacation from work and spent a full week at my family's cabin on Lake Poygan with my parents.  It was fun to get away from work, but still was not away from my training.  I spent over 22 hours that week either swimming, biking, or running.  I was even stung by a bee while I was biking early in the week and had a nasty localized reaction on my lip.  I was forced to cut a huge day of training short, but instead of a long bike and run brick workout, I just pushed my run back to a day that was set aside for rest.  Coming off of the week of vacation with my family, I was refreshed and re-energized.  

Shortly after our family vacation, I found myself down in Madison for the event I had been dreaming of for literally years - Ironman Wisconsin.  The entire extended weekend, Thursday through Monday, is an experience worth seeing, regardless if you are racing or not.  The entire weekend went by in the blink of an eye and was an experience I will never forget.  Race day was such a fun day.  It was long and challenging, but with out a doubt, it was literally one of the coolest days of my life.  I don't want to downplay my other big life events such was my marriage or the births of my children.  But as far as my selfish, racing life, racing my first Ironman Wisconsin will go down as the best day of my life.  The best part of it was the fact that I got to share that day with my family and friends who all came down to support me that day.  It still gives me chills thinking of that day.  

The Monday following race day, Sarah and I brought the girls to the Milwaukee County Zoo and then flew out to Mexico on Tuesday for a true family getaway.  Our trip to Mexico, although rainy, was much needed and extremely enjoyable.  It was the first time we brought our daughters out of the country and all 4 of us had an absolute blast.  The girls loved being able to swim every single day for the entire day. The trip was really all about them.  

After coming back from Mexico, it was back to reality.  I did continue to run, swim, and bike, but nothing anywhere near the volume I did the months prior.  Pretty much from September through December, I really let myself go.  I ate what I wouldn't before, ice cream, candy bars, chocolate, backed goods, doughnuts, you name it, I ate it.  I went through various states of what I called "post Ironman depression" shortly after returning from Mexico.  I had gone the entire year with a very strict plan to follow and followed it to a T.  I had a huge goal to keep me focused, but after coming home from Mexico, I had no goal.  I had no plan.  I had a rather large empty feeling inside.  I was different, I hated it.  But soon those feelings would subside, and I found a new joy of spending a lot of time with my daughters and Sarah.  It was great to spend so much time with them, especially considering all the time I missed out on the past year.  But much of my "depression" was cured when I was able to watch Maya run her first every real kids' race at the YMCA Freaky 5k in late October.

Just before the holidays came, we were able to get up to the Twin Cities and visit our good friends, Dave, Liz, Erik, and Dana along with their kids.  It was a much needed trip, as the last time we were able to get together was on New Years almost a full year ago.  The holidays had come and gone, as they so often do.  The 2013 holiday season will go down as one as the best I can remember.  Both Maya and Delaney are at that right age that makes the holidays so enjoyable.  I honestly think I enjoyed doing the "Elf on the Shelf" this year as the girls did.  I was lucky enough to get both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off from work this year, which allowed me to spend the entire holidays with my families for the first time since I stared working for Winnebago County.  With out a doubt, 2013 will go down as one of my best years yet.  At the same time, even though I accomplished my biggest goal to date this year, I promise 2013 will not be a peak.  I still want to accomplish many other things and want to use all my successes from 2013 to learn from and build on in the future.