The Banter's Journey

Every once in a while, I get asked the question, "Banter- what keeps you going year after year?" (Okay, no one actually asks me that question other than the voices inside my own head.) It's a good question. I just concluded my 20th season of triathloning and I'm just as motivated as ever. This is in light of the numerous failures at achieving the goals for which I have set. On paper, I have more failures than successes. Year after year, I trudge on when many smarter lesser individuals have given up. The biggest factor that gets me up in the sport morning is... Unfinished business.

Here's the thing- for the past few years I've been performing subparly, especially when parred against myself. The last time I can remember being satisfied with my sport performance as a season was 2012. Most of my current tri-family hadn't received their birth in sport and I was starting to fizzle. So for the past 7 years, I've done nothing but mediocre sport. That's going to end!


Have you ever heard of the Hero's Journey? It's a literary device for the dozens of us who still like to read. Basically, the main character goes on a journey for some unknown reason, has an adventure, experiences a crisis, still manages to win, and returns home a changed being.  

There are several different versions of the Hero's Journey. One has 17 steps. Another has 12. They're all basically the same, with some being more verbose than others. I'm going to present to you the 8 step version (ya know, 'cause I'm the lazy type). 


The Hero's Journey- Step by Step Instructions
Step 1- The separation. Taking the hero from the ordinary world. Yeah, for those of you who've met me, you'd know that ship sailed a long time ago, destination unknown. I'm not even sure the ordinary world would accept me back.

Step 2- The call. A problem is presented, and the hero could not remain in the ordinary world. This one's easy. I have this delusion that I'd like to be good at sport. It seems that just when it's starting to look up, I get smacked in the face with this thing called reality and the ordinary world just comes crashing down. Something's gotta give.

Step 3- Threshold. The actually crossing over, the journey begins... This is the exact stage where I'm currently sitting. I've signed up for Ironman Mt. Tremblant, which will take place on August 23, 2020. That's just over 9 months time, or a slightly long, Banter-esque gestation (yes, I was 2+ weeks late). Base training has officially begun.

Step 4- The Challenges. See, here's the thing, I'm a big pansy. Most of the aspects of sport that make one successful I lack. This list includes, but not limited to: intelligence, the desire to go out in the elements at the wee hours of the morning, the determination to trudge on even when the trudging doesn't want to go on, the will to do it over and over and over again, the ability to fuel adequately (<-- okay, this one I actually have), and so much more. 

Step 5- The Abyss- the death and rebirth of the hero. Historically, my abyss comes in one of two forms. The first is due to injury. Injuries have plagued my last few seasons in such a way as I'm beginning to think I'm injury prone. I still think that I'm wrong though. The second form is a lack of motivation come late spring/ early summer. The reason for this form is that the area in which I live doesn't normally get the memo that winter has ended until mid-June. This zaps my will to live and continue to train indoors. I traditionally pick life. 2020 might toss something new at me. Who knows?

Step 6- The Transformation- a sudden, dramatic change in the way the hero thinks. I, too,  am patiently awaiting how this plays out. Stay tuned.

Step 7- Atonement- the hero becomes at peace with himself. I have resigned myself to go sub-11, meaning that anytime of 10:59.59 or faster will suffice. My previous best was an 11:33. Even if I fail, I'll still be at peace for at least the next 7 days or so, which is how long it takes for me to relearn how to walk after a 140.6 event.

Step 8- Return with a gift. This one's not so difficult to understand. Everyone who finishes the race gets finisher's gear. A medal. A hat. A shirt. A chance to spend even more money on pictures, plaques, jackets, your own airline, etc. 

The next 9 months are going to be an adventure and I plan on enjoying every at least a few steps along the way. I'll keep you updated. Welcome to my Journey.

Throwing in the Towel

Any boxing fans out there? Doubtful. Boxing, as a sport, is dying quickly. It's being replaced by more manly sports like Kickboxing, MMA, and watching other people play Fortnight on YouTube.

Any Rocky fans out there? Hell yeah! Everyone enjoys a good underdog story where, eventually, the hero faces a long-fought battle (complete with an impossible running scene) only to lose at the end. The story was so good that they had to make a sequel to let the hero win.

Well, this post doesn't start with Rocky I. Or Rocky II. Or Rocky III, which featured Mr. T as Clubby Lang (a fricken' great name for a antagonist if ever one was invented!). It begins with Rocky IV.

Rocky IV spent half of the movie following the previously beaten Apollo Creed (a fricken great name for a protagonist if ever one was invented!) in his quest to beat that commie Russian Ivan Drago. Well, Ivan (apparently) was on a better drug regime than the American (hard to believe). Rocky Balboa was watching the champ get pummeled by the great Red Hook. Other members of the entourage were calling for Rocky to throw the towel, which was a call from someone who's supposed to be on the good guy's team to end the match.

Spoiler Alert: Rocky never threw the towel and the champ died from his beating. Sad. On a happy note, it did leave the series a convenient opening to reboot the money machine several decades in the future, featuring the champ's son.

How does this relate to the Banter? The reigning champ (and I'm being generous here) is me and the commie bastard on high levels of steroids and giving me a beating that hits where the hurting's good is the 2019 race season. The season hadn't even started before I got my first big punch to the face, which manifested in a nice hamstring injury. Pow. Then I raced without adequate training. Bif. Then I raced again without adequate training. Sok. Then I raced again without adequate training. Blap.

It's taken its toll. Specifically it's smacking where it counts for me, in the run. Seriously, I haven't had  decent run since the day before the injury. That's going on nearly 6 months now. And when I mean a decent run, I feel like I've been digressing even more so than normal. Allow me to explain...

Take a gander at a recent run that clocked in a just over 4 miles for 33 minutes of running averaging an 8:14 pace. On paper, this looks promising, right?  When you look at the forest, you have to remember that there are trees. Glance at the data.

If you look at the elevation, you can see that it's stupidly flat. If you look at the pace, you'll notice that the pace is relatively consistent. Spoiler Alert 2: That's the ego talking there.

If you look at the heart rate and match it with the pace chart, you'll notice a few obvious anomalies. To count, you should see 6 of them, some closer to each other than others. Those are times when I stopped running. If I'm not running, the Garmin isn't running either. Those drops in data aren't really drops, that's the pansy taking over the body while the ego refuses to let me slow down. This was not a good run.

But, but, but... you should slow down. Yeah, no sh** Sherlock. I though of that. Here's a more recent 4 mile run for your viewing displeasure.

This run was also just over 4 miles. It took 36.5 minutes. It was also stupidly flat. It featured less incidents of pansy, only 4 of them this time. The average pace for this run was 8:53. I suppose that's a running step in the right direction but the notes on the run said that it felt like I was running directly into a heart attack, if the heart attack was announced with an asthma induced hyperventilation. It was not a good run under an aspect other than it was better than not running. This has been the norm of pretty much all of my runs for a very long time now.

This up and coming weekend, I have a race. I won't do well at this race, at least not according to my standards. On the digital paper, should you look at the results, you think that things didn't go so badly. That's okay. You and I can have different perspectives as to what is a good race for me. There's not much either of us are going to do to convince each other differently.

Upon conclusion of that race, I will be officially throwing in the towel on the 2019 race season and start my offseason prematurely.  A few honored and respected individuals immediately know what this means. Let me expand for the rest of you: I have another race in a couple of weeks at the 70.3 distance. I will not be doing this race. I have no desire to die a slow death. This was not an easy decision. In fact, it was one of the hardest decisions I've made in my triathlon career. I don't think I can handle yet another hard fought, painful race to be met with disappointing results. My psyche would rather recoup the losses than experience the what-ifs.

I plan on taking the time off. Regather my energies. Spending time with the Wife and the doggies. And coming back ready to rock to triathlon world with some performances that will make even the Banter proud. 2020 is the Ivan Drago rematch. I must break you.

Race Report- Keuka Lake Triathlon 2019

A word about my training lately= _____________. See there are no words to describe my training since there really hasn't been a lot of training lately. For all you kids out there, this is not the most ideal way to prepare for a competition. If one wishes to see results, one must put in the work. Shocker- I know.

Well, fresh off my successes at Ironman Connecticut 70.3(ish) formerly and currently known as Quassy, if I were to be open with you, I wasn't in a great place athletically. I had learned from that race that I was clear to start run training again. I had also learned on that following Monday that I really couldn't walk. Muscle soreness was immediately apparent. Couple that with DOMS and I had a double helping of chaos in my quads and my calves. Of interest, my hamstrings were still as fresh as could be. The discomfort in my legs led to several sleepless nights where I was just battling to lie down without whimpering.

When you match the inability to walk with the inability to sleep, most of your energy is focused on surviving through the day and not get fired from your day job. After the day job is complete, you get to do what you want, which in my case was returning to a drooling vegetable. If only drooling on yourself counted as training.

It wasn't until the next Saturday that I actually felt like I could do something athletically. The major problem with this feeling was that I had a backlog of chores that also didn't get done while drooling and I had the Keuka Lake Triathlon Olympic distance race scheduled for Sunday morning. Honestly, I didn't want to do the Olympic distance race because:

1. I'm still way out of running shape
2. I want to start run training soon and the longer the race, the longer the delay
3. Oly distance races are the devil

I contacted the race director and asked if he wouldn't mind me switching from the Olympic distance to the sprint distance, or halfway to the goal. This is a welcomed request for the RD since the Oly is more expensive than the sprint. They get all my money for half the work. The request was approved.

Race morning arrived and I got to campus early for the Banter; T-minus 30 minutes before they close transition. Most people have already been there for an hour. I sincerely have no idea what they do to pass the time. I went through packet pick-up, bike set-up and placed all of my gear in transition in about 20 minutes. They weren't kicking me out for another 10 minutes and I didn't know what to do with myself. Even worse, the sprint tri gets started about 45 minutes after the Olympic people. There's something special about the 'hurry up and wait' mentality of sport. I flirted chatted with Pants and several other hotties athletes that were racing in the later heats.

My race strategy for today was going to be similar to last week's half-iron. Swim hard. Bike hard. Do something resembling running.

Above is a profile view of my wave. Seriously, I'm the guy in front. I won my heat by over 30 seconds and was 2nd overall in the swim. I got beaten by some high school boy, who edged me by about 15 seconds. He was in the 1st wave of the race to my 2nd wave. Neither of us knew anything about each other.

The HS boy took 2 minutes 28 seconds in transition while I took only 56 seconds. In years past, I been even slower than this kid. My transitions weren't pretty. It was one of the major improvement areas I identified and worked diligently to correct. So I started the bike in 1st place. The data suggests that I passed him on the bike. Weird wording, I know. The kid beat me out of the water by :15, lost transition by about :90. Therefore, I was winning by time. But because he started the race 5 minutes earlier than I, he was physically further down the course than me. He was in front but I was in the lead.  I have no idea who he was when I passed. (Aside: Of course, I knew exactly zero of these stats, including my placement in the race until much, much later. /End Aside 2)

I started the bike not caring where I was in the race. That's because there were a lot of races happening at the same time. The Olympic distance losers racers were in full swing. There was an aquabike race happening. There was a duathlon happening. There was the 1st wave of the sprint tri happening. That means there was a steady stream of people out in front of me all for different reasons.  The only course of action was to hammer the bike.

The bike course is a semi- out and back. You go down this clunky lakefront road. Turn right onto a main highway. Go up a hill, down a hill, turn around and go back up and come back down. You turn off the main highway just shy of the clunky lakefront road. I posted the 2nd fastest bike time of the sprint triathletes. Because of our differing swim skills, I was able to finish the bike 2 minutes ahead of the guy who posted the fastest bike time. Not that there were any spotters or stats-giving people on the course. I was pretty sure that I was near the front. I didn't know that I WAS the front. I have never been here before, being in position to win the race.

The problem with my current skill set was that I had no legs to run on. As recently as 2 days ago, I didn't have enough health to go for a jog. In the prior month, I had only done 1 total run, and that was a 13.1 mile run leg of a race. Sprint triathlons are poorly named in that there is no actual sprinting involved. There is, however, some much harder efforts than all of the other distances. In my visions of the race, I was gunning to hold 8 minute mile paces (<-- not champion-type speeds). I came out of transition giving it my all.

Possibly the best race pic ever taken of me.

What most people don't tell you about taking a hiatus from running is the burn in your lungs when you restart the discipline. Did I take up smoking and not know it? Your alveoli seem to shrink with the lack of effort. So, not only were my legs on fire from trying to outrun my fitness, my lungs were on fire from trying to outrun my fitness. The run was also an out and back with the turn around 1.5 miles away. I clocked the first mile at a 7:29. That was 30 seconds faster than I thought possible. With the sensations emanating from the legs and chest, I didn't think it was sustainable. I made the decision to stay on the throttle until biology forced me to slow/ stop. I hit the turn around and the volunteer in charge of that location wasn't expecting anyone yet. That should have been a pretty good sign. I didn't have the brain capacity/ oxygen to adequately analyze her reaction.

As I headed for home, I was able to see that I was being followed. Some of those athletes were going to turn around, others were going to continue on to the Oly course. Some were duathletes, for unknown reasons. Most were going faster than me. My only option was to work as hard as possible. I got a few pick-me-ups from seeing my most excellent tri-peeps. The Boy was heading out on his Olympic tri bid. One of the guys on my tri club, the Grim Reapers Fitness NorthEast, was closing in fast. Pants, who gave out a high 5, was doing her best to run down Mr. Pants (she almost made it!). My second mile clocked in at a 7:32. Still way speedier than any metric would have predicted.

At mile 2.5 out of 3.1, I got passed. A very tall and very speedy athlete went by as smooth and as graceful as a runner could be. A quick glance down at his calf and I saw that he was in my race but not my age group. Honestly, at this point, I was gunning for an age group win, meaning that I didn't think I was directly competing with this bloke. Even if I was directly competing with him (which I was), there was absolutely no way that I could have ran with him. Perhaps if he was running 3 while I was running 1 mile, I might have had it in me. The Banter tank was nearly depleted. At mile 2.9, I passed the Wife and dogs who were spectating and cheering. I was so happy to see them. Between the pass, the Wife, the doggies, and the prospect of finally being done with this race, I managed to speed up for the last mile which beeped in at a 7:20. I crossed the finisher's line about a minute later.

I went up to the guy who passed me and congratulated him on an excellent run. He outran me by roughly 3 minutes and crossed the line 34 seconds in front of me. He asked me the same question that I wanted to ask him, "Where are we at in the race?" Neither of us had any idea.

A few minutes later, they posted the preliminary results. The tall runner guy was in 1st place over all. The Banter took 2nd! I was sincerely surprised and dumbfounded. The highest I've ever finished overall in a race was 4th place. This was my first time on the overall podium. Ever! My GRFNE teammate took 3rd.

Special shout out to the excellent accomplishments of the mini tri-family:

The Outlaw- 1st place overall (in dominating fashion) in the Oly
The Boy- 12th place overall/ 4th in age group in the Oly
Pants- 22nd place overall/ 4th amongst the womens/ 1st age group 

As I reflect on the race, I'm still relishing in the effort on the day. I executed as well as I could have hoped for. Second place in the swim, second place on the bike, and 23rd place on the run was good enough for 2nd place overall. (Aside 3: The champ was the guy who posted the fastest bike split and the fastest run split. He's the real deal. /End Aside 3) I can't help but wonder how I would have fared if I had been able to do any run training in the past couple of blocks of training. I use those thoughts to fuel the next block. I've started running again.

IMCT 70.3(ish)- The Run

This is the conclusion of a 3 part series where I recap the shenanigans of my weekend at IMCT Connecticut 70.3(ish), formerly and currently known as Quassy. Part 1- The Swim can be found here. Part 2- The Bike can be found here.

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Allow me, if you will, to paint the daunting picture of the challenge that lied ahead. In mid April, I developed a hamstring injury. At first I thought it was something I could run through. Nope. At second I thought it was something I could take a couple of days off and get better. Nope. At third I thought I could take nearly 2 weeks off and get better. Nope. At fourth I thought I could take an entire month off and get better. This race was going to be the test that decided if the 4th hypothesis would be validated or refuted. To sum up, had only run twice in the past 45 days, for a grand total of 7 miles and my last run was roughly 1 month prior, to the day. To make the picture even worse, I wasn't much of a runner to start with.

In case you were brought here against your will but for some reason decided to stay anyway, allow me to explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up... 70.3 races typically feature a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run.  IMCT Connecticut 70.3(ish), formerly and currently known as Quassy did not feature a 1.2 mile swim (in their defense, they really wanted to but Mother Nature had better ideas).  IMCT Connecticut 70.3(ish), formerly and currently known as Quassy did not feature a 56 mile bike. It was closer to 53.5 miles, which was pretty okay due to the ridiculously challenging hill profile. Well, IMCT Connecticut 70.3(ish), formerly and currently known as Quassy finally did something right in the form of the run distance. Just my luck.

When asked about my race goals, I had a clear picture of what I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to run without hamstring pain. That was it. I had predicted that I was going to be in a significant amount of discomfort on the run due to attempting a half marathon on no training. I was allowing myself to hurt pretty much anywhere with the exception of the back of my left thigh. And I had a strategy in place towards that end.

As I came out of transition, I was surprised as to how well I was actually feeling. I expected to be a bit more stiff due the crash while entering transition. I also feared that I over-biked. My bike plan allotted for about 215 watts (normalized for those who understand what that means). What I achieved was 229 watts. This translates to about 8% harder than I wanted and the 215 number was already at the top edge of what I was supposed to bike and feel good, according to science. As I started to run, I honestly felt like I could run, ya know, relative to myself anyway.

My run strategy was simple. Don't run too fast. (That was a joke and you were supposed to laugh. Running fast is never an option for me.) The concept remains, I needed to control the effort especially early on.

The hill profile was against me. The first mile was a nice, extended downhill. Downhills are good for speed, bad for leg injuries. The problem is that as you stride, your leading foot lands a couple of inches lower than it launched. Not only does this extend your leg a little further than normal, which can exacerbate a tight muscle, the extra vertical distance results in higher impact forces as your foot lands on the asphalt. I made it a point to stay nice and relaxed without attacking that section of the course.

It was obvious that I was the only one on the course with this strategy. As I controlled my descent, I got passed. And passed. And passed. The stream of people who ran by was relentless. I smiled anyway. Because I was running!

Now, before I got ahead of myself, I still had to remember that during one of those failed healing hypotheses, I felt good for about 3.5 miles before the injury popped up. Therefore, I was looking for excuses to slow myself down and not race the run part of the course. At mile 1.3, I stopped to go to the bathroom. At mile 4, I had a conversation with the girl handing out gels so that I could get a flavor that wouldn't make me hurl. At mile 6, I mixed a nice batch of ice and water so I could get something cold to drink. When the water was gone, I dumped the ice down my pants. There's nothing like a numb crotch to keep the pace at bay. And, the main point of this part of the story is just to brag that I was still running!

The course featured a lasso-shape. You ran down the handle and out to the loop. You did the loop twice, including the annoying out and backs designed to regulate the distance and ensure that we did the expected number of miles for at least one of the disciplines for the day,  and hit the handle again for the trip to home base. As I started my second loop, there were still swarms of people passing and passing. And there were even more swarms of people entering the course. The passing parade was going to continue. It didn't matter. I was still running!

Right around mile 9, my lack of run training started to rear its ugly head. Fatigue was settling in and building a house to ensure permanency. I was searching for some kind of encouragement. As I crested one of the hills, a small crowd of people started cheering for me by yelling, "Go Kristy, go!" I didn't have the heart to tell them that my name wasn't Kristy because it was the perk I needed. Shortly thereafter, a woman ran by who was clearly struggling too and I felt bad since no one was giving her any attention. I was still running!

At mile 10, the hurt locker was officially opened. It was at this point of the run where the aforementioned yet highly predictable pain made an appearance in my legs. It started with early warning signs in my lower quads. I ran on. By mile 11, I had stepped into the hurt locker completely. Both legs were starting to cramp. Every once in a while, the right one would attempt to seize. I entered negotiations with my legs. I agreed to walk for 30 seconds out of every 2 minutes and the legs agreed to not fall off at the hips. My previous pace was now slow shamed as I made the turn off the loop, onto the handle, and headed for home. This is the time when most runners would get a boost and the end simply feels near. Not this guy. The passing parade was in full force. I was still running(ish)!

To add insult to potential injury, the hill profile was conspiring with my legs to work against me. Remember that 'problem' I was discussing at the beginning of the post about the dangers of running downhill? Yeah, well, running up that hill wasn't much of a picnic. (Aside: Come to think of it, at my pace, I could have busted out a picnic without too much of a dent in speed or dent in the picnic. /End Aside.) To put this in perspective, my pace for mile 9 was 8:40. Mile 10 was 9:39. Mile 11 was 10:40. Mile 12 was 11:26. Mile 13 was 12:22. My average pace fell from 8:45 to 9:30. You could watch the misery unfold just through the numbers.

At the end of the day, my official run time was 2:05.00. This was the 108th fastest in my age group, 634th fastest versus the boys, and 825th fastest overall. All of that swimming, biking, and plodding left me with an official time of 5:05.15 for 370th place in the race, 47th in my age, and 319th in my gender. And, my legs hurt everywhere, except, ironically for my hamstrings. I'll call that a win!

For your effort in making it through the series, I'll reward you with the many race faces of the Banter. Thanks for reading.