February 20, 21, & 22

February 20: Went to Central Park along with my son Kieran and Kieran's Dad (a.k.a. Stuart) to cheer on the FTERs in the Haiti Run. It's amazingly difficult to spot a dozen unmarked teammates in a field of 9,000. I first parked myself on the East Drive at about 97th Street. I saw Tommy run by but didn't manage to see anyone else from Full Throttle. Then the three of us jogged back to the West Drive at 93rd Street. I missed Tommy this time (he must have been running so fast, he was just a blur) but Bobby spotted me and called out my name; then I was able to give him a cheer. Congrats to all the Full Throttlers who ran--and sorry I didn't see you. Maybe we need to think about team singlets if we're going to keep this road racing up.

Saturday afternoon I competed in an indoor triathlon at Equinox: 500-meter swim, 10-mile bike, 5K run. We got 10 minutes transition between each event; guess Equinox didn't want any legs or necks broken in the interims. I did the swim in 7:55, the bike in 23:30, and the run in 20:17 for a total time of 51:47. The top 75 finishers nationwide will be offered spots at this year's Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. Getting a spot was my goal. I should hear today or tomorrow if I made it but my chances look very good.

February 21: Long run day. Had to hit the treadmill again; there's still way too much snow in Philly. I did 15.1 miles at 8:30 pace.

February 22: Back in the pool with FTE. This is our "easy" week in the periodization cycle. Can't say the swim felt easy to me; it was challenging in new ways. I never new "hypoxic" meant breathe-every-fifth-stroke. The stud of the day was Don--booted to lane #2 thanks to me--who did a full 50 meters underwater with only one breath. Whoohoo!

I finished the morning session with a 10K treadmill run starting at 8:30 pace and then gradually taking it down to 7:47 pace. Felt kind of tired. Scott came back from his run (he went outside); he did 6.5 miles. So by his calculations, he's precisely .3 miles better than I:)