My Last Chapter of the Cadence Kona Challenge

I finally had an MRI on my knee and it looks like there is Arthritis. I now have to take the images to a sports doctor who can fully diagnose the problem and hopefully help me with an action plan to get back running. Its been about 2 1/2 months since I completed the sprint triathlon that seemed to be the breaking point. Since then I have been to see 3 different types of therapists, submitted a lot of receipts to my healthcare plan, and spent a bunch of myown money to try and get this fixed so that I could run and get ready to do Arizona in November.

I thought if I could be running by the end of August then I still would have 13 weeks to prepare. I wouldn't have cared if I had to run slower, just that I could run. Well, that hasn't been the case. I have tried once a week for the last 2 months and each time I haven't made it more than 2km then I'm done. Its not one of those pains that if you walk a bit then you can start up again, its like a knife being plunged into my knee and then I have to endure this as I get myself home. Walking becomes extremely painful. After a couple of hours its gone and I'm back to normal. This has been part of the problem, when at the doctors or physio, they pull and stretch and prod but it usually doesn't cause any pain. I can bike moderately and swim with very little discomfort so I would get excited and head out for a run thinking that its going to be OK but like I said, I have had no luck.

So, I have cancelled my plans to do Arizona, and also the Muskoka 70.3 Ironman next week. But all the news is not bad. I did register for the Ironman Calgary 70.3 and also got an online spot for Ironman Canada. I have almost a year to get this knee figured out and I'll be able to finish what I started. Calgary will be fun as we have family there we can stay with and my wife's cousin has also signed up and this could be his first triathlon. Not too many people sign up for a 1/2 Ironman without previous experience so give him full credit.

Ironman Canada, I believe was the universe consoling me for having to drop out of Arizona. I was trying to think of an event that I could do next year but you're limited to what is not already full, and then I got the e-mail sayiny there would be online registration so I made sure I was at my desk and got a spot at 12:00:01. My sister and my father live a few hours away from Penticton so it will be a good chance to see them next year.

This will probably be my last blog, honestly, who really wants to hear about a guy struggling with a knee injury? I find this boring to write about now but it this can be my closure. I've had a pretty cool year, a few trips to New York, my spot in Triathlete magazine, some pretty awesome prizes, and reaching a level of fitness that I had never experienced. I have had a few problems along the way and this last one put a dark cloud over everything but I still completed the Florida 70.3 and I know that I could have done a full ironman if my knee was healthy.

This has been an interesting interlude in my life. Would I do it all again? in a heartbeat. I might change a few things but for the most part its been a good ride. The mental aspect of triathlon is huge and I believe I did fairly well. I was surprised with myself after Florida that I wasn't overly excited about finishing. I was happy with the finish, glad to be a part of the experience, but I still thought "That was it?" It didn't seem like a big deal. At that point I knew I was ready to do a full Ironman, I wanted to go longer. I wish my brain and my body were on the same page! Cause I'm sure my knee was saying "That is it!".

I would like to thank everyone who read, commented, sent notes, voted, talked to, etc. etc. etc.
Whats more fun than Triathlon? Talking about Triathlon, and I've done my share on the topic this year. This is what helps motivate you.

Oh yeah, I have one final note before I sign off....Al, who rocked the bike in Smith Falls? Yup, it was me!

Scott

Ironman Jealousy

First off, A huge congratulations to Mary Lou, James and Elizabeth for completing Ironman Lake Placid! I was on the computer all day checking in to see where you were at.

I will have to admit though I was a little "pissy" that I was not there racing. A cool rainy day is right up my alley! One of the reasons why I didn't go was because it would have drove me nuts to be there. I've heard people say that you should watch one before doing one, but that doesn't work for me, I would have tried to get on the course and go with everyone. It would have been great to see everyone though and I have often thought it would be great if we could all get together sometime and do a race together.

That being said, I'm in no shape to be doing an Ironman, or a try a tri for that matter. My knee just doesn't want to run. I've just started with a new sports therapist who hopes to have me back training in a week or two, but it will probably be a slow process. Its 4 months until Arizona so I still have time, but there are a couple races I would like to do as lead ups. One is the Muskoka 1/2 Ironman in September, and the other is the County marathon in October. Both will be great races if I can stay healthy.

I bought a new road bike yesterday, a SCOTT CR-1, all carbon beauty! I couldn't pass on the chance to have a bike with my name on it. My oldest son thought they made it especially for me, I lied to him and said they did. I'm sure in one of their ads it says "Imagine yourself riding a Scott". If you think about it, it's funny! I'm hoping to be able to ride this weekend so I will give it a good go.















That's all for now, hope everyone is doing well,
Scott

I Haven't Got time for the Pain

This will be quick, as for the last 2 1/2 weeks I have only completed a few training session.
Its been a difficult go with my right knee with not a whole lot of progress, I am able to walk around almost pain free, but it is stil there.

Last week I did a couple swim sessions, mostly with the pull boy, and I tried to to go for a run after having a good day but only made it about 500m and had to turn back. This morning was another attempt and I made it about 3km and was running down a hill and felt a little jolt of pain so I immediately stopped and walked home. After doing a good stretch, my knee feels a little tender, but not bad. I'm hoping to test it on my road bike tonight and if that goes well I will try to get out for a good ride this weekend.

I never thought I would be one of those people you see running or cycling at an ungodly hour, and justified my recent early/late training sessions to the commitments of the contest, but I am actually jealous seeing other people training at 6am on my way to work. That being said, I am also jealous of the people at BBQ's who are scarfing down burgers and drinking beer with no guilt as well. Somewhere in that is a happy median.

I would really like to thank everyone for their votes last month, I've had a few notes from people who not only voted, but passed it on to others as well.

Hopefully I will have a better training blog soon, cause I really don't have time for the pain!

Take care,
Scott

Smith Falls Race Report and Other Stuff

Its been a few weeks since I last blogged so I thought I'd better give a little update.

On Sunday I was in the Smith Falls Classic Triathlon, a sprint tri with a 500m swim, 26km bike and a 5km run. This is Canada's oldest triathlon in its 29th year. Last year I did this as my very first tri, and I did the try-a tri and I won. Smith falls is home to a Hershey's chocolate factory and the winners in each group received a 5lb bag of chocolate. Other than my kids being born and meeting my wife, getting 5lbs of chocolate for winning was one of the happiest moments of my life. Smith Falls is a nice course, fairly flat bike with a nice 5km run portion.

I'll start my excuse right now before I get in too deep. On Tuesday I was doing a brick workout and had my bike on the trainer to do some overgear work and as soon as I went out on the run my knee started to hurt. It was in a spot that I hadn't had trouble with before so I kept on and thought it was more of a cramp than anything. About 3km out I had to stop and couldn't run at all, walking was tough and a 3km run isn't that far, but walking it with a sore leg seems like a marathon. I took it easy the next couple of days and things got better, so much that I did an 80km ride on Saturday and had no problems. I was already registered for the tri and didn't want to miss out on my shirt so I headed up to Smith Falls, alone, as my son had his championship ball hockey game at the same time in the morning, which they won! OK, back to me, I did a little pre-race warm-up run with a co-worker and everything felt great, no worries. I had an OK swim, about what I was capable of doing and a decent transition and got on the bike and gave it all I could. My HR was in the 150's and I was going about 25-26 MPH on the flats. I kept this up until we hit a corner and hit a pretty good head wind, it was all I could do to push 20mph. About 20km into the bike I felt a little discomfort in my knee but not enough to slow me down. I had passed a few people in my age group so I knew that I had made up some time on the better swimmers, but I wasn't sure of my time as I have lost my watch and was going "naked". My bike computer has a HR monitor so this was the only time that I knew what my bpm's were. As soon as I got off the bike at transition I knew that something was wrong. I decided to try and run anyways to see if was the same problem as before or just something else. I got about 2km in of poor running before it really got bad. I stopped and tried to rub my knee but that didn't help so I knew I was done. I tried to walk but that hurt even more than running and I knew I had another 3km to get back to transition so I did a kind of run/limp/hobble back to the end. My fitness was excellent and I was ready to lay it out there to see how fast I could run after giving my best on the bike so it was very disappointing to have this happen but the best part was having people cheering for you to just hold on and finish. The cheers of "You can do it", "It's just a little farther", "You're doing great, just keep going" were starting to drive me nuts. I was running like a person in a three legged race, but with no partner. I appreciate their enthusiasm but at this point I was not in the mood, my knee hurt really bad and I knew I shouldn't have run so I was a little pissy. I did finish with a time of 1:19:01 and good for 6th place in my age group. I couldn't believe that I still finished fairly well. Coming into T2 I was right beside the guy who finished 2nd in our age group and was still able to hold on to 6th. I knew I had a good bike split but I still thought that the good swimmers were still ahead of me so I really wanted to run hard and try to catch them. This wasn't possible but it wasn't until about 3-4 km in that I began to get passed by other guys in my group. I still finished the run in 25:54 when I thought I would be around 30 min so apparently I hobble pretty quick. When I checked the results and realized that I was racing for second, that perked me up a bit. I know that if I could have run properly I would have been on the podium. The winner in our age group would have kicked my butt even if I had my best day, but I would have been happy with second. Oh well, I did get the shirt though.

I went to therapy on Monday and found out it is a problem with my knee cap and it moves around a bit too much. I hobbled in and after 20 min of rehab and laser treatment I was able to put pressure on my leg and walk out almost normal. Its still sore, but way better than it was. I'm going to take it easy for a bit to make sure it's completely healed before trying anything too strenuous.

This leads me into the Online voting for the 2 spots at Lake Placid. I wasn't one of the two chosen, Ccongratulations to James an Mary Lou!! I must admit that I am a bit relieved that I don't have to train like a madman for the next 4 weeks to get ready for an Ironman. I know I could have done it, but I also know that I need to let this knee problem work itself out and it might not have been pretty. Both James and Mary Lou will do great and hopefully I will get to go down and watch. I've heard that its a good to watch one before actually doing one. Thanks to everyone who sent in a vote for me, it is greatly appreciated!

Well thats about it.

Cheers,
Scott

Post Race Funk

Here it is 3 weeks since the Florida 1/2 Ironman and I'm just getting back into the swing of things. Getting out of vacation and training mode and back into real life was a big letdown. I could easily be a kept man and stay at home, one problem though, I need money. Triathlon is not a cheap hobby and its taken its toll on my finances. We might have to flip a coin to see which child gets to go to university.

I really struggled with my workouts, especially keeping my focus. Coming into racing season and not knowing whether I'm going to do Lake Placid or not doesn't help either. I need something in front of me to keep me motivated, like a carrot in front of a donkey. I would really like to do Lake Placid mainly because I don't want to wait for Arizona. November is a long time away and I would rather go hard for the next few weeks, finish the race, and then take a break for August, then decide whether to do Arizona or not. If I don't get a spot then I think I will scale back on the longer workouts and do a bunch of sprint tri's in the summer. Voting ends on June 15, so there is still time to "VOTE SHARPE".

Here's my update,

Swim
Nothing new, just plugging away.

Bike
Did a 5 hour ride on Saturday on a windy day, so half of it was fun......the part where the wind was at my back.

Run
Had some good runs, and one really bad one. The bad one involved me walking 2 miles to get home. I tell everyone about the importance of proper nutrition, but I apparently forgot to tell myself.

That's basically it. Its been a very busy couple of weeks as the boys are now into soccer season, plus Alexander has ball hockey and Karate. Throw training on top of that and it all adds up to a lack of sleep, for everyone. Summer is finally here as well and so is the humidity. As cold as it gets in the winter, its almost as bad in the summer. I'm not sure what I dislike more, the intense cold or the heat with high humidity. In the summer you can only remove so much before it becomes offensive, and triathletes hover on that line.

One last note, my dedication hit a new level this last weekend as we had neighbours over on Friday night and one of them brought a big bucket filled with alcoholic beverages on ice. I stared for awhile but didn't have any, a true Ironman!

Cheers and stay cool,
Scott

First Half Ironman Post Race Report

Well, I'm back and am an official Half Ironmanner!

Here is my recap of how the race and the week went down.

We got in to Disney World on Wednesday night about 8pm after a long day. I was up early to get a swim in before we left for the airport and the rest of the day was spent hauling luggage and kids around on various forms of transportation. The next couple of days were filled with touring Disney and doing some light training. Looking back, I probably should have relaxed more but its hard with the kids as they were raring' to go. Saturday was mainly a rest day with a light swim/bike/run early morning as a final preparation.

Race Day

Up at 3am to have a breakfast of cold Penne pasta with olive oil, yummy! Remember when waking up after a night of drinking and having cold pizza was the best thing you could eat? This was nothing like that! My nerves were all over the place and it was extremely difficult to get it down. The day before we had ran into another competitor who had rented a car to get from the resort to the shuttle ( we found out a week before that they would not be providing one) so Amy and I hitched a ride with her to save cab fare, Thanks DEE (Congratulations on a great race!)
So we were off at 4:30 am and got to the race site at around 5am. It was a nice morning with good cloud cover and not too warm. I set everything up and stretched and waited for my wave to start.

As I was waiting for my wave to go to the beach, I was really relaxed, my nerves had settled (even after a close call of almost dropping my swim cap down the port a potty) and I was very comfortable. It didn't last long. Our horn went off and I held back a bit so that I could draft the faster swimmers and after high stepping a way I dove in and immediately swallowed a big gulp of water. Then I panicked. It was horrible, my heart rate went through the roof and I could not breathe properly. I dog paddled for a bit and even came to a complete stop a couple of times. I was actually thinking that I would need to get to a kayaker for help. Then the next horn blew and looked back and the next wave was coming. This made me feel even worse. I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and tried to relax. After that I just went forward and slowly worked my way back into form and was started to calm down. Great! I'm in form and I'm relaxed. What a relief. I had looked back and saw that I was still not last in my wave so I took some comfort in that. Now onto my next problem. Although I was swimming well, I was not swimming straight. At least 5 times in the next 1000m I was yelled at for being off course by an official. I'm not sure what I was doing, I would look up and see the buoys and start swimming then the next time I looked up I was all by myself. At about the halfway point I looked at my watch and I was at 24 min. I was not happy. Coming down the last 700m was as bad as the beginning. I finally was swimming straight but then ran into the slower swimmers. It was very congested and I had to stop numerous times as people hit me from all sides. I got out of the water and I was at 42 min and couldn't believe that it only took me that long! I didn't swim the fastest but I probably swam the farthest! One bright spot was that I came out of the water with no dizziness or feeling wobbly.

A 6 min transition?
What the hell! I could have learned a new language in that time! My feet were covered in sand and mud so I had to clean them off, I also had to put on my HR monitor, go to the bathroom and then as I'm running with my bike I realize my computer is up side down. I don't have a lot of room with my aero bottle so I had to pull it off to get my computer out to turn it around. I learned a lot in those 6 min, mostly to be better prepared!

The bike was just what I needed to rid my mind of the previous 2 events. It was perfect weather, mostly cloudy and only about 78F. It rained a couple of times and I was slowed a couple of more times due to course conditions but other than that I stuck to my plan which was to hold back and save my legs for the run. I kept my cadence at 90rpm and didn't let my HR get above 145 BPM. There were a few times when I was passed and I wanted to pick it up but I held back and made sure I took in enough fluids and calories to get me through. I finished the bike in 2:39 with an avg speed of about 21mph. I got off the bike knowing I could have been faster, but I was in good shape to run.

T2 was better at 3:30 min, but I did wait about 1.5 min to use the port a potty.

The run was my big worry. I hadn't done any long bricks leading up to this and the heat would be a big factor as well. As soon as I got off the bike, all the clouds disappeared and it got hot! My strategy was to walk through the aid stations and get as cool as possible and then run the course. It was a 3 loop course with 3 aid stations. I used them all every time! I put sponges in my visor as well as down my back, ice on my head, and took a drink at each one then ran to the next one. It went by fairly quick and I actually enjoyed it! Coming down the finishing chute and having my family there was the highlight of the day! I finished strong and came in at 1:58. Not bad considering a month ago I was having trouble walking!

Overall time 5:29:12, good for 481 overall and 95 out of 351 in my age group.

Although I was a little disappointed in my time, I thought holding back a bit I could still do 5:15, I was happy with the race. I recovered from a bad swim, had a good ride, and was able to handle the heat. I saw quite a few people who had to walk the course, a few people in the medical tent and a huge line up for massages. I rode my bike back to the hotel and had a little rest and was back at Magic Kingdom for the nighttime parade. My legs were sore the next couple of days but other than that I felt fine. Hopefully I will be able to use this race to go harder next time.

We spent a couple more days at Disney, which is pretty much out of my comfort zone as I don't like crowds, and I don't like crowds of people wearing cheesey shirts and hats! I enjoyed the resort and the pool and the kids had a great time.

Overall it was a good week.

One last note, voting is now online, if you want to send me to Lake Placid, just send an e-mail to this address triathletemagcontest@gmail.com and type in Sharpe. Good luck to all of my fellow Cadence Kona Challengers - we have all worked very hard!!

Time to Fly

I have to keep this short as we are almost ready to leave for Florida.

I've had a pretty good taper week with some shorter sessions in all three sports, doing them at a relaxed pace with some pick-ups in between. My leg and foot feels pretty good so hopefully no problems there. It looks like the temperature for Sunday is going to be 96 which is a long way from from where we are at. With proper hydration and nutrition I should be OK.

My bike is tuned up and packed, I've got all my gear, kids are getting crazy, Amy is stressed out about leaving work, we've triple checked for the second time......OK, I think were ready!

See you at the finish line,
Scott