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Showing posts from November 8, 2015

The preparation starts now

The triathlon bug hit me hard when I finished graduate school in Dec 2005. Over the next 11 months I became a first-time Boston Marathon finisher, a Half Ironman finisher and an Ironman finisher. People would tell me "Marni, you are a natural for endurance sports!" My first year of endurance sports was perfect. No injuries, no sickness,  no setbacks. It was smooth sailing for all of 2006 and I had many great accomplishments to celebrate by 2007. Nobody likes setbacks when they happen but I often wonder how my life would have been different if I demonstrated weaknesses during my first Ironman journey? When we are aware of weaknesses, we can strengthen them. But when we have strengths, this brings an element of confidence to our training. Confidence is great but for a type-A athlete, confidence is like adding fuel to a fire that is burning too quickly. As a beginner, I wasn't aware of my weaknesses. But now, looking back, I had a lot of them. From t...

Hello from the Big Apple!

New York City is everything we are not. (And I'm talking about the touristy segments of NYC.) NYC is big, there are a lot of people and there is a lot of traffic. We like quiet, small and being able to get to places quickly.  NYC is stimulation overload with bright lights, non stop entertainment and media overload. We like nature, wild-life and mountains.  NYC is expensive. We like affordable living, eating and traveling. NYC is not triathlete friendly. We like being able to bike or run out of our front door.  NYC is busy. Everyone seems to be in a rush. We like slow-paced, enjoying the moment.  But.... We are loving NYC!!  One of the best parts about traveling is experiencing a way of life that is not your own. Learning, exploring and immersing yourself into a different lifestyle. Sometimes traveling makes you miss home and what is familiar but many times, traveling opens your eyes to a different way of life th...

Hypoglycemia in athletes

As athletes, sometimes we joke about low blood sugar. We associate it with being HANGRY (Hungry  + Angry) where we get very moody and upset until food gets inside our belly. I'm sure you (or someone you know) have joked about a bonk that occurred while swimming, biking or running and how horrible it was when it happened but you had a funny story about how it was relieved with a massive amount of sugar/carbohydrates.  Perhaps you have felt this experience before as the symptoms are very uncomfortable (and can be dangerous), while working out or racing.  Hypoglycemia is an abnormally low level of glucose in your blood  When your glucose (sugar) level is too low, your body is too low on energy to make your body function normally.  Low blood sugar is serious and it is not a joking matter if it is occurring regularly. The occasional "bonk" is accepted when you are a high-performing athlete (and then you learn from it so you try to prevent it from happeni...

2015 IMFL (spectator) race report

Spectating is not easy but we absolutely love watching our athletes in action. My alarm woke us up at 5:30am on race day morning and Karel started the water in our electric kettle (that we brought) to fill the French Press (that Karel brought). Campy stayed snuggled in bed (with one eye opened to make sure we didn’t leave him) as we had a snack before heading out the hotel door to watch our athletes start the bike. The race started at 6:15am so we watched the live feed on Ironman.com until the athletes started their second loop of the swim.  From experience, it was always hard to spot our athletes coming out of the water with so many people so we decided to spectate on the corner of Front Beach and Thomas, less than ½ mile from where the athletes started the bike.  We were able to spot all our athletes and many of our friends racing so it was the perfect location for cheering. Plus, it’s always nice to surprise athletes when they don’t expect us to be th...