Big milestone today

Posted on April 24, 2011 by rickcolosimo

Easter morning turned out to be great weather in NJ.

I grabbed the bike and went out on literally my fourth ride. Ever. What milestone?

Over 50 miles on the bike!

That’s right: the Go The Distance ride on 5/15 just became a training day.

Don’t get me wrong: 50 miles wasn’t easy; it was a good long workout. But it wasn’t tough.

Tough was getting off the bike, changing clothes and shoes, and THEN going for a run. That was tough. But it’s why I’m here, why you’re here, and why folks are donating to REED Academy to support the school and these efforts.

I’m just getting started.

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Tough Mudder — muddy and fun

Posted on April 9, 2011 by rickcolosimo

Summary

Tough Mudder race today was a lot of fun, plenty of mud and COLD water. Obstacles were a lot of fun, and the “event vs. race” mindset had everyone in a good mood (considering!).

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Today was the Tough Mudder Pennsylvania, at Bear Creek ski lodge near Kutztown, PA. I started with my friend Matt at about noon. We took off in a wave of about 150 or so.

We headed down the first slope, where I quickly went face down in the mud. It was not particularly tasty; mud further up the slope was better :-) About 10 steps later, my right show was swallowed up by the muck. I’m not one to give in so easily, and so I pulled it out, put it back on over my now creamy tan(!) sock. My foot was immediately chilled.

–more race details to follow tomorrow –

Matt’s gal Haley was able to follow us from place to place and get a number of shots. Once they make their way to me, they’ll go up here and on facebook. In the meantime, here is TM’s album from today‘s event.

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First fundraiser finishes tomorrow!

Posted on April 8, 2011 by rickcolosimo

ToughMudder PA is tomorrow: please donate now to help me support REED Academy.

There are pictures of the course up on TM’s page at Facebook: here’s the album. Doesn’t it look like fun?

Who’s up for a challenge bet that I won’t make it? That I’ll quit like the apparently 30% who do? Your donation will be matched by mine to your charity of choice if I quit or you get double your $$ in free legal advice :-)

I’m looking forward to posting the race report tomorrow.

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Second bike ride – much improved!

Posted on April 6, 2011 by rickcolosimo

It turned out to be great weather on Monday, 4/4. The thunderstorm and rain stayed away, and at 5:30 it was pleasantly warm. Bike ride seemed like a great idea.

I grabbed everything quickly, remembering last minute to fill my tires, which seemed like a good idea since I haven’t figured out yet how to actually fix a flat if/when I get one.

I had a route north on the roads to NY and over the border, but I wasn’t sure of the exact distance and didn’t want to find myself on the road after dusk: no lights, no reflective gear, first time on long road ride. All that seemed bad.

So I headed out to the Duck Pond/Saddle River bike path, which was the same route I ran on Sunday (home to the end and back 15.4 miles). But I figured that I needed to push farther and so did another loop on the bike path.

GPS killed my iphone battery (started out at 50%, which lasted 2:06:58 (memo to file on that one!)) but it stopped about 1/2 mile from home. This puts me at about 27.2 miles total. Measured time works out to about 12.6 mph (4:45/mile) overall (not bad including my time in the dark!).

I will actually sign up at the website to see what richer data I can get. I would like to know at what point my pace slowed and be able to graph that consistently against earlier training sessions.

My thought is that as I improve, the length of that steady pace period should increase, or my pace should become steadier — I seem to think that my early miles were too fast, both here and on the run the day before.

What tools do you use to analyze GPS training data?

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Photos from the first bike ride

Posted on April 5, 2011 by rickcolosimo

As an aside, this was taken with the front-facing camera on my iphone. Not too shabby.

Does this helmet make me look fat?

Rick's Trek road bikeYou’ll note that I have toe straps; I haven’t yet moved to the clipless pedals/shoes that everyone talks about. Soon. Soon.

 

This ride turned out to be 12.06 miles, acc’g to MapMyRun. (Can you tell I’m new at biking?) I covered that in a total of 59:13, giving me an average pace of 6:32 per mile (for reference, and I’m almost ashamed to write it, that’s about a 2:51 marathon pace. And yes, the folks who win Ironman championships run in that ballpark. I guess I really, really have a long ways to go.

 

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Tough Mudder update!

Posted on April 5, 2011 by rickcolosimo

First off, here’s the link to my fundraising page for this event: Crowdrise/watchricktrain is where I’ll be posting all the events between now and the Ironman in November.

Since the Tough Mudder course is about 10 miles, plus up and down the hills, I have eased off on the swimming and focused more on running and good old pushups the last two weeks.

I ran 15.4 yesterday in about 2:20. That was a pretty slow 9 min pace, and I’ve got to see if my iphone app will give me better splits. I think I was at 7 min through the first 5 or s0, and at 8 through the turnaround. But I have to see. I guess maybe there’s a good reason to do a running/biking GPS app shoot-out!

My knees are a little creaky today going down steps, and I realized that this might be why the run is at the end of the triathlon rather than the beginning. Wise choice!

 

 

 

 

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Biking update

Posted on April 3, 2011 by rickcolosimo

Since the Ironman has a substantial bike component — I don’t know what other adjective describes 112 miles — I knew I needed to start learning how to really bike. My plan was to swim through the winter and start biking in the spring. Weather’s slowly changing, and that time is now.

I picked up a road bike two weeks ago. Went out that afternoon for 12 miles on the bike path that runs from my town north. Short and sweet, my goal was really to just try it out.

First thought: it didn’t suck. That was my big fear. But it was also true that swimming was much better than I’d feared. So good all around.

Second thought: it might be bad for me to say, but a couple miles in I realized that as long as I put in the time and the work and the hours and the miles, I can do the Ironman. I mean, I always thought I could — plenty of people do, even as plenty of people fail and even more never consider trying. But I felt like it was really real.

My 12 miles and change took me a little less than an hour, putting me at 12-13 mph. I have to look up that segment of the ironman and look at last year’s times to see where I should be aiming. Working backwards, though, is tough: 12 mph into 112 miles is over 9 hours; that is too darn long!

 

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Swimming update

Posted on March 15, 2011 by rickcolosimo

My swimming progress has been decent: the last few swims have been a long consistent one-hour or so, and I find that I am dramatically less tired than when I started lessons in the winter. But I have to get some more time in the pool, which means I need to really start aiming at the early morning swim slot — it’s 1 1/2 hours at the Y rather than just an hour. That extra work should help me build my endurance for the long swim.

Reality check: I’ve been told, and am now looking up, that there is a time cutoff for the swim that is shorter than I’d thought. Yep, 2h 20min. Excellent. That’s actually good news because it will push me to swim a bit faster rather than thinking I can go nice and easy over a longer time period. (Easy? Hah! Still doesn’t sound like “easy” to me.)

Still coming: review of my swim gear for listening to music in the pool.

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Tough Mudder fundraising page is up!

Posted on March 14, 2011 by rickcolosimo

 

The first event of the training season, the Tough Mudder at Bear Creek, PA, is coming up fast. Donate here to REED Academy via Crowdrise.

You can also show your support by signing up for my Facebook event. (No, that doesn’t mean you have to come to PA, but you’re welcome to!)

Check out the awesome course map, and let me know what obstacle you think might break me. I remind you of two things: (a) I did earn a Ranger Tab, and (b) I lived in France for a year. (I’ll see if I can generate a poll quickly and soon.)

There are plenty more updates coming, too! More races, more chances to see me tired, cold, hungry, and sore. And happy — always remember that!

Thank you for supporting me in my efforts to do something substantial for REED Academy. It’s been a long, hard, heartfelt road for the founding parents of REED and all the teachers and staff that have helped all of the students along the way. This year-long series of events is my way of trying to do something meaningful.

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Upcoming events

Posted on January 26, 2011 by rickcolosimo

Here’s my event schedule.

Confirmed:

  • Tough Mudder PA, Bear Creek / Allentown PA, April 9, 2011
  • NYC Triathlon, NY, NY, August 7, 2011 — I will be participating as part of a team for Drive for Rebecca, and the funds I raise through/for them will be donated in their entirety to Reed Academy.
  • Ironman Florida, Panama City, FL, November 5, 2011

Some other things I’m considering:

  • The Triathlon for Autism, Belmar NJ July 31, 2011 (I’ve invited someone to be a run partner for the race to make it more fun)
  • West Point Triathlon, West Point, NY August 14, 2011
  • A marathon sometime before mid-late September (to run with someone who’s newly de-injured); I just need to have time to recover before the Ironman
  • The Dam Tri, Meadville, PA June 26, 2011

Probably not on my list:

I’ll update this post from time to time, and I think I may have a plugin to show the events calendar more easily.

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