The Table and the Watching Eye

There's a table that sits in your office hallway. You know which one I'm talking about. The table that your encouraging co-workers leave candies, snacks, and homemade [read: store bought] treats. Yeah. That one.

Everyone in your office knows you as that crazy one who climbs mountains, skydives, rides 100 miles on Saturday mornings before anyone else is awake, or flips tires in the driveway for fun. You know who you are. You're the one who keeps a full meal on your desk at all times, hummus spews from your file cabinets, and you've spilled your coconut water on your keyboard more times than the IT team cares to remember. You're the one who your co-workers come to for a stretching routine and workout advice. Somehow, you're the one who only eats healthy and is held to high standards, never touching the donuts, cake, and Turkish delights on the table.

But you want to.

I think I'll race this morning - Snapple Half Marathon

Miyamoto Musashi, on 10 October 1645(ish), took up his brush to explain his way of zen in his acclaimed Book of Five Rings at the Hour of the Tiger - around 4am. Fast forward a few centuries and decades and you find me at that same hour (however, a different month and day) beginning my journey... of reaching for the snooze button. On the twenty seventh day of the first month of the year, I took to my trail shoes to begin a cold, yet fruitful day.

It was around 0407 and I stared bleakly into the greyish purple of my ceiling in the early light. My planned race season was supposed to start on 6 April down in North Carolina at a triathlon, and these early months were intended to acclimate myself to training in the cold and start shedding my winter coat brought on by sweet porters, dry wines, and stinky cheeses. This morning I was getting up early to volunteer at the High Cloud Snapple Half Marathon along the C&O towpath, with no intention to start my race season in the first month of the year. It was cold, but not bitterly so, at a dry 22 degrees when I listened to the weather report from my radio. Good thing I’m only volunteering, right? The long run that my coach had planned for me that day could be fit in afterwards once it had warmed up.

As I pack my training gear I couldn’t help but reason to myself, “maybe I could use the race as my long run.” It’s always at this point I know I’m boned - the thought sticks in my mind and I helplessly let it manifest into a decision that I come to regret and enjoy at the same time. Easy ten mile run, or push it for 13.1?

Yep, I’m a sucker.

Tussey Mountainback 50 Miler Race Report

"If it's going to happen, I have to earn it."
-my thoughts on DNFing

In the middle of June, during a wine night with some good friends and my running partners, my friend Sonja (fresh off an ultramarathon high, having just completed - and placed- at the North Face 50K) suggested that we all do a race together. There was one particular race that was close to her home in central Pennsylvania near Tussey Mountain and hey, it wasn't until October! What? It's during my birthday weekend, too? Sign me up.

Coming to the intertubes near you...

It's been a little crazy my way over the last couple weeks, sorry for the lack of more stories.

Up and coming:
-Trevor and Debbie bust a bicycle theft ring
-Trevor goes a car window
-T-Bone gets t-boned
-It's ultra season
-By early Oct: Will Trevor's milk mustache be hovering over a smile or frown?

What do you want to hear about? Let's make some adventures and tell the world what kind of dumb/awesome thing we did :)

Got Milk?

More specifically, chocolate milk.

mmmm.....

Let me tell you two two major reasons I care:

First, if you train with me, live with me, eat with me, or are even loosely familiar with me, then you know I effing love chocolate milk.

Chocolate milk, over the last couple years, has been touted as one of the most effective recovery drinks to follow a workout when you compare it to other recovery drinks. And I agree. Without getting into the weeds, here are a couple reasons* why it's a great recovery drink:

  

1) 3:1 carbohydrate to protein (in both casein and whey form) ratio (around 30g:11g) - optimal for muscle recovery

2) Packed with electrolytes (lots-o-potassium!) and Omega-3s 

3) Economical (less than $0.50 per serving, compared to other recovery drinks that are $1.00-$3.00 pre-made, or recovery drinks like Endurox, etc which, even in bulk, can be about $1.50 a serving).

*list not inclusive

And it friggin' tastes awesome.

The second reason I care is because chocolate milk may lead me to sponsorship for my athletic related activities. Yes. Milk - it does a wallet good.

Recently, I was selected as a finalist for Team REFUEL Sponsorship and it's going to take a little extra help from my friends to get me to the end.

What I need help with (and I'm sorry if this sounds silly) getting votes so that I can get selected.

There are two benefits of you voting:
1) Every vote earns $1.00 for Challenged Athletes
2) It helps my chances of winning

What do I get out of this? A little cash to help me buy more chocolate milk, some training gear, and a chance to race in either Scotland or Spain.

What do you get out of this? Love, kittens, eternal gratitude, and chocolate milk if I win. You also just helped raise money for athletes with disabilities!!!

How do you do it?

1) Go to: http://gotchocolatemilk.com/applicant/trevor-albert and click on me to vote when September voting opens (today, Wednesday 5 September at 5:00pm EST)

2) VOTE EVERY DAY <--also a clicky :-)

3) Have your friends, family, strangers, hobo's outside your office with iPhones, senators, PMs, mistresses, etc vote for me!

4) See #2

5) you may have to do a search for my name. Easy enough?

Don't worry about registering for anything, just click. No cost to do it.

Hopefully one day I can be as fast as Miranda Carfrae and get a cool commercial like her.

You all, as my friends and readers, are my biggest supporters. You make me train. You keep me encouraged. And I only hope that I can give back the same to you.

Thanks for stopping by, and please, vote every day for me through September. I'll let you know if our campaign has worked!

What's your AFTER? Leave a comment and tell me what you drink or eat after a workout!

Ironman U.S. Championship Race Report - New York City

"I want to wake up in that city 
That doesn't sleep 
And find I'm king of the hill 
Top of the heap" 

I thought this race report was going to start with something along the lines of heading off to Madison, WI or Louisville, KY. I even toyed with the idea of flying up to for IM Canada! Which Ironman race I’d be doing in 2012, my FIRST Ironman, was an absolute mystery. Why did they all have to be so far away?! In May of 2011 it was announced that a new race would take place here on the East Coast in the Big Apple. Ironman U.S. Championship in New York City! Or, more affectionately known as IM “New Jersey” since the greater part of the race takes place on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.

Most of the tabs on the race web page were mere placeholders until more information was available. Okay... what do we know about the race? Takes place on 11 August 2012. And it’s almost $900. Hmm. Being Captain Decisive, I tabled the idea for a day or so to think about dropping some serious cash on this. After a little thinking, it was decided, and with luck, I was one of the many who squeezed in during the 11 minute window it was actually open for general registration.

In the early spring season, I had a few good races and some close friends of mine recommended that I start thinking about getting a coach to help me. For anyone who knows me, I’ve always just made up my training willy-nilly and hope for the best. While I’ve had success using that method, it seemed like it would be a pretty smart choice to bring on someone who knew much more about an Ironman and how to train for it. I certainly didn’t know where to start other than to just go out in train for it by volume.

Four months of solid preparation (save, a few weeks off for a revisit from an injury earlier this year) might seem to some as too much training, especially when the hours varied from 12-20 hours. To me, it almost didn’t seem like nearly enough. Back in June of 2011 when I signed up for the race I told my friend Tuan how excited I was to have gotten into the sold out race and he gave me one very wise piece of advice which I really didn’t pay much attention to at the time: Budget for food. Lots of it. I’d soon come to realise just how true Tuan was that once it came time to get down to real training business that I’d have to seriously budget for a staggering food bill every week. I was eating more and more every day and felt completely unsatiated after each more, craving snacks, extra helpings, and even supplemental meals throughout the day. I was burning through more and more calories and more and more cash with each week that came closer to the race itself. Wow! I need to write to Chipotle to sponsor my after training meals, and to Harris Teeter and Wawa to help me with the 2-3 gallons of chocolate (and some white) milk I drank every week. My survival depended on several cases of Honey Stinger waffles and gels every other day, and almost entirely every Saturday on my long rides. I was sick of the pool. Sick of running. Sick of biking. Sick of waiting.

Before I knew it, the realization that I was doing an IM started to sink in when someone asked me when the race was and I answered without thinking first, "oh hey, it's next weekend.... oh shit..."

Having arrived a few days early, I had some downtime and spent it relaxing and keeping trying stressing out. Well, trying to, until I got an email alerting me of recent developments in a massive sewage spill upriver. Oh, and then there were 70% chances of rain and thunderstorms. It literally came down to 4:30 Friday afternoon before we got official confirmation that the swim portion of the race would even be held. Whew. I didn't want to have to make my own "138.2" sticker. It was on.

Racking my bike was scary. The skies didn't look friendly at all.

The storm before the quiet?

Ferries taking us to Ross docks for bike racking.

A downpour greeted us at transition and gave a cold introduction to Ross Docks. Amazingly, the sun popped out within minutes of putting my bike to bed and gave me a slight sunburn as I waited for the return ferry. The rest of the day was fairly low key, dinner with friends and a few hours of wondering if everything was in the right place. You reach a point where you just stop caring and just go with it. To bed.

Morning
My first alarm went off at 0256. I’m hating life at this point. Get up, Trevor! I wasn't going to hit the snooze button. Not even once, no matter how much I wanted to. There were three more alarms set in case that one didn’t get me up, as I’ve slept through a few before. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much to do before I was out the door. I slipped into my race kit, made my peanut butter and banana sandwich and coffee for breakfast, and headed out the door by 0318. In the lobby was a gaggle of people gently scurrying about to be sure they made it in time to the shuttle that departed from the host hotel. We were all zombies loading into the bus that would convey us across Manhattan to the Docks where our ferry to transition waited. I was a bit surprised, yet not surprised, how alive New York City was at quarter to four in the morning. New York is a living beast, only slowing down for a few hours between dusk and dawn, but never coming to a stop.

2012 Kings Mountain Marathon - Racing in the southern hills

Misty sunrise in my hometown
Rows of cotton 'bout knee high
Mrs. Baker down the dirt road
Still got clothes out on the line

Over a beer with Jefferson and Jared it was decided that running Kings Mountain Marathon was a terrific idea. Why this decision was made still escapes me… This seems to happen to me a lot, and I never learn. There are worse choices to make, right? At least that’s what I tell myself.

Through the winter Jared helped our friend Jefferson, the race director for Kings Mountain Marathon, do some advertising for the race. They carefully crafted a challenge for participants to try and beat Jared as he attempted his first marathon at Kings Mountain, and by the middle of January it was written in stone and live on the interwebs. Speaking quite honestly, I had agreed early on that I'd race, but hardly expected the whim to come to fruition. I secretly hoped for injury or something to come up to preclude me from racing that weekend, but nothing came. Dammit. On the first day of February I conceded defeat and told Jefferson that I would in fact come down to Clover, South Carolina and race.