Courage

Joseph Vinciquerra | August 23rd, 2008

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Paces, Places, and Faces

Joseph Vinciquerra | August 13th, 2008

No, I promise The Daily Grind isn’t turning into a “look at how cute my baby is” blog (not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course). But I did think this photo, and the look on Jonas’ face, was pretty telling of our typical Saturday afternoon activities. Here we are in Tar-Jeah after a morning of tough training in our newfound packable seat for J-man to sit in as we cruise around in our big red shopping cart. Notice to the left of him, the essential carry-with-us-wherever-we-go water bottle for apres-training re-hydrating, and of course, over his left shoulder, my stash of organic tortilla chips - which rarely make it out of the store unopened.

While Jonas has been mastering the art of grasping things with his extremely dextrous paws, I’ve been chugging away with marathon training, once again continuing the pursuit of becoming an honest-to-goodness marathoner. Even I’m getting tired of hearing the same story every year, how: I’m focusing entirely from this point in the season onward on running the marathon of my life in October. But, here we are again, and…yup, you guess it: I’m focusing entirely from this point in the season onward on running the marathon of my life in October.

For those interested, here’s a quick recap of my marathon performances:

2005: 3:44:59 MHR Marathon (first marathon ever!)

2006: 3:14:17 MHR Marathon (back for more!)

2007: 3:48:59 Ironman Lake Placid Marathon (after a 114.4 mile warm-up!)

2007: 3:25:16 MHR Marathon (while mimicking a pirate on a peg-leg!)

In 2005 I signed up to do the local marathon because I simply wanted to do a marathon. Simple enough, right? I trained for it primarily as a means to cross-train with the bike, and set a goal of 3:45:00. Addicted to the pull of the long-run, I quietly set out the following year to break the 3:15:00 mark, thinking this was an impossible task. But bringing home a 3:14:17 performance was enough to make me think that Boston was in my near-future. The big game in 2007, of course, was Ironman - and veterans of the sport will tell you that a good Ironman marathon time is roughly one half of an hour added to your open marathon time; so winding up a 140.6 mile day in Lake Placid with a 3:48:59 marathon was right on the money. From here, I immediately shifted my attention to marathon training - specifically, Boston Qualifying training – for the Fall marathon I’d run two times previously. By September, I was probably running the best I’d ever had, but was slowly developing an injury in my right Achilles tendon. Naive and stubborn (two prerequisites for the endurance athlete syllabus), I continued to train through the injury - and worse - raced through a damaged Achilles… Blowing it by the 20–mile mark of the marathon, and awkwardly hobbling through the 26.2 finishing chute with a time of 3:25:16 when I had been on track for a sub-3 finish.

Okay, lesson learned. Running injuries are not to be taken lightly. And so this year I’ve exercised extreme caution with my body while working to an aggressive run-centric training program aimed at qualifying for Boston in October. I won’t bore you with details (well… not in this post anyways) but my intermediate “checks” and weekly training targets have so far played out very well - suggesting that a sub 3:10:59 finish may be within my reach this year.

Every workout comes with pace targets, and this year’s targets are almost identical to last years - which makes the training feel like it’s been going on forever. I’m doing more long runs this year – instead of a rapid progression from a triathlon schedule to a long-run focused marathon-training schedule, I’ve pulled back on the cycling and eliminated swimming altogether for the bulk of the season, and have solely focused on good, consistent run volume. Weekend long-runs will top out at 20 miles, and I’ll do three of those before the marathon. And long runs are always done after a day of long road riding in the hills. During the week, I alternate on 3–week cycles wherein tempo, speedwork, hill repeats and marathon-pace workouts are the norm. I’ve also maintained two–days-a-week weight lifting sessions to keep my muscular endurance high through the season.

Last year I was a blunt instrument, hell-bent on qualifying for Boston even through injury. This year, I’m sharper and more focused, and am taking a slower buildup for the event.

Of course, the simple act of executing the workouts brings me great pride on a day-to-day basis. Integrating a smart training schedule with a demanding job and a newborn is not the easiest thing in the world (duh), which translates to an even greater sense of accomplishment at the end of every training week as I reflect on the success of actually achieving it. Being shuttled around the country almost every other week for work adds an entirely new level of complexity as well – but all it takes is a pair of running shoes and a desire to do something more than the next guy’s willing to do. No matter the place. I guess in the end, that’s what really defines our finishing order in racing and in life; the willingness to do more. At least, that’s what I think to myself as I log the miles alongside the rising summer sun every morning.

Thanks for reading.

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Race Report: Boilermaker 15k

Joseph Vinciquerra | July 19th, 2008

Though the blog posts have been few and far between, rest assured that the training - and more importantly, the racing – continues.

This summer has been largely about the run as I begin to turn my attention to the sport of ultrarunning. In particular, ultramarathons on the trails of my beloved mountains. But as they say, one needs to walk before they can run - and though I bring to the table a relatively strong background in running as a triathlete, there’s still a long way to go before I can consider myself a powerful, pure runner – especially in distances over 26.2.

The Utica Boilermaker is one of the largest and most challenging 15k road races in the country. And every year, thousands of runners descend upon this small river town to tackle the hills under the boiler-like conditions. My goal going into this race was 1:01:30 over the fifteen clicks… Very specific, I know. To run a 3:05 marathon in October, however, my target on the 15k is what I stated. To you and me, that’s an average of 6:33 min/mi pace for the 15k. Probable on a flat course, but very challenging on this monster.

Race days with Jonas are really no different than they were before he came into our life… With the exception that we now need to get up even earlier, and pack the car full of loads, and loads, and loads of baby stuff. With Liz earning the mom-of-the-year award already in her relatively new role as mother, we all handled the 4:00am wake-up call without problem. With a quick shot of coffee and my usual pre-race breakfast, we carefully transitioned Jonas from his pre-morning round of “hey, look at my feet” in his crib, to his car-seat, where he switched to his other favorite game of “hey, look at my hands.” As far as babies go, I have to say, ours is by far the cutest (I know… just let me have it).

On the way to Utica, the rain was coming down in buckets. We may have even seen a cat and dog or two. But by some miracle, the rain completely stopped just as soon as I picked up my race packet, and before I knew it, I was toeing the line in the second group, just behind the elites and surrounded by nearly 11,000 other runners. Meanwhile, Liz and Jonas went to mile seven, and met up with our very good friends Brent and Adrienne where they would watch the race unfold.

One thing about having a son is that race nerves are sort of a thing of the past. With all the coordination necessary to get said kid and all his paraphernalia ready for a day at the races, the actual prospect of racing is exciting, but the pressure always seems strangely minimal. Love it.

At 8:00am the cannon boomed, and we were off. To be honest, there’s not a whole lot of detail to report for a race as hard and as fast as a 15k. Basically, you go out hard, and you stop after you cross the line. There were plenty of hills, and each took their toll on runners as hills often do. My pace was strong right from the start – averaging around about 6:40 minute miles. It’s hard to say if I could have squeezed out any more speed – I doubt it. On a course like this, you’re either going up and chugging along, or going down, trying to turn the legs over just a fast as you can. At times, I was running 7:30’s up, and at other times, I was seeing sub-6’s down. I just worked the course as best I could, and “kept on” – my mantra for when the going gets tough.

Anaerobic, but in a good rhythm, I hit the base of the final major climb at around about 10k. With a long gradual ascent to mile 8, I started to shift it into over-drive and run towards the seven-mile point where Liz and the rest of my cheering section stood. Coming up and over the rise, I kept a lookout for them, and was able to spot them before they did me. I pumped my arms - feeling good - and pressed on… Up… And over the final climb, before the roads turned down and approached the 15k finish line.

The crowds were amazing - there wasn’t a single kilometer along the course that wasn’t flooded with spectators. Amazing. By 14k I was definitely feeling the strain of the ups and downs, but pushed through to the finish in 1:02:49 according to my watch time. Just a bit outside my goal, but still very strong considering the course - and a finish I’m very proud of. Jonas, Liz, Adrienne, Brent and I spent the rest of the day at Adrienne’s parents for a fantastic home-cooked Italian dinner, reminding me of the old days. My legs felt the effect of the hard effort in the days that followed, but the running resumed quickly, and the remaining schedule of races for this season continue to look very good.

Official results here

Photos here

Jonas’ “Race Report” here

Every night I talk to Jonas about my new athletic endeavors that loom over the horizon. My insatiable need to push through my own boundaries - to do the things that seem entirely unconquerable. But I hope by involving him early in this lifestyle of endurance training and racing – just taking him to the races so that, even at this early age, he can enjoy the myriad of colors, scents, and sounds that make-up race day – he’ll grow up knowing that he can do absolutely anything. No matter the odds.

Thanks for reading.

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Now & Then - Part II

Joseph Vinciquerra | June 30th, 2008

When I was in graduate school, life became – for the first time that I can remember – over bearing. Much of the workload was self-induced; a desire for perfection in every bit of research and every word in my literature. Racing the big multi-day stage races on the bike was something I had been doing for several years previously, but with the stress of school, something that seemed only to add more stress. Perhaps it was the amount of training required (about 5000 training miles on the bike per summer) combined with the mediocre results I would see despite the huge effort. Whichever way you cut it, I was craving “something different” at the time.

Road riding soon become a form of cross-training, and as a direct consequence, something much more enjoyable than when I felt compelled to do it for the sole purpose of training for racing. Weekends were filled with long rides that meandered through the hills at a fast but manageable pace - not a sufferfest of twenty riders sprinting for town lines at every chance – and during the weekdays I slowly started up a new sport…

In the early mornings I would take Ginger (my fearless, four-legged training partner) and head over to the local trail system where which I cut my teeth in the early years of competitive mountain biking. Oh yeah – side note – that’s how I broke into endurance sport… through mountain biking. On the trails, Ginger and I would run for a few miles at a time. It tired her out, and it made my days seem more manageable. Right about this time, mp3 players were making it big… And so with music and dog, I ran. Our 5k loop quickly turned into a 10k loop. When - after only a few weeks of trying – I plateaued with speed improvement around the 10k, the loop become 15k… Then 10 miles. Then 12…

(This was seven years before I raced Ironman)

Trailrunning was to me a newfound therapy. A mystical combination of serenity and brute force. I would run a good tempo, carefully choosing my lines and minding my footfalls through the winding singletrack, while at the same time, pushing myself to my aerobic limits as my running routes incrementally got longer and longer. No problem was so big that it couldn’t be worked out on the trails. Stress fell away like a pastry crust. And no distance was long enough to satiate my need for those rolling trails.

Over the past few years I’ve revisited the art of trailrunning in the form of cross-training. Mostly, though, I stayed on the road. Train your weakness, they say. I’ve become a pretty decent runner from the effort – with a Marathon PR of 3:14 and a half-Mary of 1:28. Fighting through injury last year, I tried to break 3 hours on the marathon course and failed magnificently, though this year I’ll be back at it again in October, and hopefully toeing the line in Beantown next Spring. But that’s road running, and this year, I’ve begun to get back to the basics which, really, is what this post is all about.

In April of this year, The North Face put on a race down in the Catskills as part of their 2008 Endurance Challenge. This particular trailrunning race offered 10k, Half-Mary and 50k running distances - all mountain-running – which are swell distances, but it was the main event - the 50 mile trailrunning race - that came to my attention. This 50 mile race yielded only about a 20% finishing rate due to the incredibly technical course and the cruel Northeast weather. Suddenly, trailrunning was not simply something I was interested in “picking up again” - but a newfound imperative.

Ultrarunning is something I once laughed at, thinking: “those people are crazy.” And when people read about races where only 1 in 5 can actually expect to finish… Well, that may be perplexing, but that’s just the kind of thing I’m made for.

When I thought about Ironman from three years out, I was dazzled most by the success stories of those who finished in the final minutes of the 17 hour cutoff. Sure, the pros are amazing with their sub-9 records… But that’s their job. My amazement comes from those who stick it out through thick and thin, committing themselves to the distance, and stopping at no point along the way. It’s this pursuit of total accomplishment that made training and competing in Ironman mean what it did to me. Just as I sit here daydreaming about all the hard work that is yet to come in training for a 50 mile trailrunning race. An ultramarathon. My endeavor to demonstrate my tenacity and grit as I push for relentless forward motion no matter what the circumstances.

—————

It’s been about two months now since I first started redirecting my training to a schedule that is more directed toward running. There are of course, tempo and speedwork runs, easy and long runs. And now there are also short, fast runs on the trails, and long, epic runs on the trails. My race calendar is filled with road and trail races throughout the remainder of 2008, and my big plans are already starting to line up for 2009. These days – now with a startling amount of weekly run-volume – constantly remind me of my first year writing on The Daily Grind; then, as I broke into the sport of triathlon, now as I break into the sport of ultrarunning. And when I think of all I’ve done in the days since I first started writing on this blog, I can only begin to imagine what may be waiting over the hilly crest, as the singletrack twists and turns its wooded way into the setting sun.

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Now & Then - Part I

Joseph Vinciquerra | June 30th, 2008

I suppose a comparably good alternative title for this two-part blog entry would have been “Then & Now,” as it’s my aim to reflect on the three years I’ve kept this corner of the internet as my personal journal for becoming an Ironman athlete.

Indeed friends, it has been three incredible years that I’ve taken you along with me as I started here as a modest cyclist with a slight knack for running and barely a concept of how to swim. Yet, in May of 2005, I distinctly recall coming home from a long road ride to sit down on the sofa and log into Blogger. Everyone else was doing it, so why not me? The Daily Grind - the title of my blog – was in reference to my newfound triathlon-training lifestyle that, even after a series of short months, seemed riddled with monotony. Early morning swims gave way to daily lunch-time runs. Afternoon bike rides flowed directly into runs – or what we veterans of the sport call “bricks.” Alongside this routine, this grind, was my long-time penchant for coffee which – understandably – goes hand in hand with endurance training. Training. Coffee. Me.

The Daily Grind – The place to find your regular cup of Joe.

Ironman is a big deal. Really. Over the years I’ve read countless blogs and heard numerous stories of everyday athletes going into the 140.6 sufferfest completely under-prepared and, to be perfectly honest, it’s always been a topic I’ve stayed away from commenting on. To me, Ironman was more than just another race. It was to be - from day one – a defining moment for me. An extension of my core personality characteristics. And as such, I respected the distance and the endeavor of training for Ironman USA in my true perfectionist way. While it appears so many sign up on a whim these days, I silently committed and patiently worked for three years on becoming a triathlete before toeing the line in Lake Placid. Slow. Committed. Steadfast.

Without a whole lot of surprise, I completed Ironman perfectly to plan… And I can validate what you’ve all heard: It is every bit as amazing of a life event as they say it is. In the short, blurry moments of running down that final quarter-mile in Lake Placid and into the finishing chute, a myriad of thoughts and memories passed before my minds eye; from recollection of my very first triathlon, to thoughts of my first open marathon, to standing on the shore at Tupper Lake for the first time, realizing what a Half-Ironman swim course actually looked like as I stared out to the horizon at the long line of buoys, to setting a Half-Ironman PR on one of my most challenging race days. I came across the line in Lake Placid, and all of these things instantaneously summated and fused the open-end of a journey into a clean, self-contained story of becoming Iron. At the finish line, I allowed my endorphins to rush in. My wife Liz was there, buried in the immense crowd of spectators; and my son Jonas too, growing. What seemed like a lifetime of focus and scientific structure to training, had suddenly culminated within the final moments of my most perfect endurance endeavor to-date.

Ironman means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And now, as I write this one year later, I can look back and realize for sure what it meant to me. Initially, I had the immediate desire to sign up and do it again… But I purposely held off, thinking that I should at least give myself a year of reprieve from Ironman-specific training and allow myself a bit more freedom in training and racing. In that year, I’ve successfully worked my way through the off-season and into the 2008 race-season, racking up my first multisport age-group win this past May at a race I started competing in three years ago. My son was with me at the finish line and on the podium, marking the uniqueness of life these days and the contrast to those from earlier posts on The Daily Grind. A wonderful addition.

But as Ironman fever has started to heat up around here in Upstate, NY with the approaching race in Lake Placid, I have found myself thinking less and less about doing Ironman again in the near future, and more about new challenges. New chapters, if you will. If you’ve been following my blog for any significant amount of time, you’ve probably come to realize my introspective nature… And in the early days of summer, as I’ve found myself on the bike far, far from home in the quiet hills of our countryside, it’ll probably come to no surprise to you that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. A lot of examining. What’s next? Another Ironman? More half-Ironmans? Running races? Swim improvement? Really? After Ironman - after a perfectly executed race day for Ironman – where do I go from here? Where do I want to go from here?

Those early days of triathlon now seem so distant to me. So long ago. I seemed like such a novice back then – even with such a strong background in cycling – the whole sport seemed so new and intimidating. In fact, it was that intimidation factor, I think, that made it so appealing to me. That risk of failure. That factoid that not everyone can do it – that most cannot. It’s about those who say “impossible”, and those of us that laugh in retort, thanking them for adding fuel to the fire. Triathlon is an amazing sport, and one that I’ll never leave entirely… But deep down inside, I’ll be honest, I have a new flame beginning to flicker.

To be continued…

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