Here I am, already three weeks into Tri and Tri.  I should mention that this doesn’t imply that I have been training for only three weeks.  I have been trying to keep decently active for the past three years; doing anything I could to stay moving.  I've played on multiple soccer leagues, both social and competitive, flag football teams and lots of time spent in the gym.  I have been specifically Tri training for about four months now with the past two being much more intensive.  If I have learned anything, there is something completely different between playing sports like soccer and training to go in a relatively straight line for very long distances.  I don’t want this to sound like I am down playing triathlon; in fact it is the complete opposite.

You would be hard pressed to find someone that would say soccer is not an athletically demanding sport.  It takes a lot of endurance with intense bursts of speed and agility.  I loved it.  I am a pretty simple guy, give me something to chase and I will be a happy man.  However, it also requires delicate footwork and finesse, something I have grown to lack as the years pass me by.  It was never more apparent then earlier this spring.  It was a crisp spring evening and I was happy to be back out on the field.  Our team looked great; lots of potential and incredibly good people.  Looking around, I realize that I have reached the point in life where I am close to the oldest, if not the oldest, person on the field.  I am by no means old, but I am playing on a social league comprised of players in the average age range of 20-25 years old.  This is where my competitive nature got the better of me.  Not five minutes into the second game of the season, I receive a pass around mid-field and there is a defender closing in on me.  In my head I think, “I am going to fake right and pull the ball left with the outside of my left foot, I’ll leave this guy tripping over his feet”.  I didn’t.  It was a thing of beauty in my thoughts but real life is not always the same case.  I faked right and went to pull the ball left but my mind forgot to communicate with my body.  Instead of lifting my foot first, I just went over and “pop” dislocated my ankle… Season over as quickly as that.

My fiancée came and picked me up from the field.  She did everything a thoughtful and caring person could do but I found myself facing a pretty difficult realization. In my mind I had three options:

1. Heal and get back out there

2. Heal and play but with a lower intensity

3. Retire

Now, number three sounds pretty dramatic but let me explain.  The first option was immediately my “go to” option.  This has always been my answer during injuries.  Get better and go out there harder than before.  The only thing is, I find I don’t bounce back like I used to.  For example, I still have dramatically reduced mobility in my left ankle.  I also have a busted up shoulder, with a collar bone that looks like it is an inch higher than it should be and reduced mobility there too. When do I call it quits?  When all of my joints have 10% of their mobility and I am the modern day tin man?  Ok, option 2.  Heal and play but with a lower intensity.  I know me, and I know this isn’t possible… moving on.  Retire. Not that I will never play soccer again but temporarily step away from a sport that requires a lot of quick changes in direction… maybe.  I can’t just call it quits; sports have been a part of my life for way too long.  What else is there for me to do though?

If you have been following my posts, you will know that last year I ran the New York City Marathon. This was not something I had ever imagined I would do.  Cue Tiffany.  I will try to keep this short but when I first met Tiffany, it was on a commuter train.  I had noticed her long before but being the awkward science guy I am, had never approached her.  One day, she approached me to ask a question about the train schedule.  This was my opportunity and I had to take it, we sat across the aisle from each other and spoke for the whole ride home.  In that conversation, she mentioned that she was an avid runner… an ultra-marathon runner to be exact.  I had no idea what that meant, but I knew that was my chance.  I got home, threw on some running shoes and headed out the door. The next morning, I saw her again and didn’t hesitate to boast about my 3 km run… I didn’t learn what ultra marathons were until a few days later. Needless to say, running became a bigger part of my life after that.  It changed from something I dreaded and thought monotonous to something I craved.  I could choose to run with music and drown away in rhythm or without music and drown away in thought.  I had never been so level headed and I am a pretty levelheaded guy.  After many minutes, hours, and months of training, we got a spot in the NYC marathon running for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, an organization I am actively involved in supporting.  My result was far from glorious, 5h03m, but I finished.  The feeling I got from that day is indescribable and if you haven’t noticed, I really like to describe things.  The atmosphere, the people, the volunteers, the support, and the runners… it was all so surreal.

This year, Tiff and I decided that we wanted to challenge ourselves again; the marathon wasn’t much of a challenge for her.  Last year, I had mentioned my desire to run a triathlon in passing and had no idea it stuck.  Well maybe it didn’t.  Come June, I get a text message: “my friends and I just signed up for the Nation’s Triathlon”.  These are two of Tiffany’s extremely close friends that ran the Great Wall of China Marathon together and are making a habit of accomplishing pretty cool athletic challenges with each other.  They allowed me to tag along only if I was the designated “camera guy”.  There was even talk of a t-shirt being made to say that.  As soon as the training started, I fell hard for the sport.  Running was a little rough on the ankle at first, but I could swim and bike for a few weeks to give it some extra time to heal.  When you have three completely different sports to train for, you can always do something!  Not to mention the toys and data.  In a world with technology at your fingertips and fitness apps galore, you can follow distance, power, cadence, speed, pace, heart rate… you name it.  It is a nerd’s wonderland out there. Unfortunately, the Nation’s Tri was not a true triathlon due to the swim being cancelled.  So, we ran our first bike-run race.  The thing I took away from it was “you thought you were in shape… you aren’t”. Try running after an intense bike, they call these workouts bricks because that is what your legs become.  I crossed the finish line with cramped legs and sore kidneys (among other things), I saw that I placed 58th in my age group and 382nd out of approximately 2500 competitors.  Cue my competitive attitude… I can do better than that.