Big Announcement, my Blog has moved.

I've moved my blog, it's an all NEW BLOG at http://trainingpayne.com/  Don't worry, I moved over all the posts from this blog as well. You'll be automatically redirected...

I'm officially in the next age group...

Today's my birthday. I'm 45 years old and I'm smarter, wiser and in better shape than I was when I was 25 years old.

The smarter and wiser I could have predicted, but I'd never have thought I'd be fitter at 45 years old than 25 years old. I must say, it's a great feeling.

Not a lot to report today. I spent the entire day learning, except for a run before we all went out for dinner.

My learning started off with the Canon 7 D, I'm not sure if the settings are correct. We're not getting the same quality of video that we've seen on the You Tube sample videos.

Last night Reid was filming his movie and Alyssa was his actresses. I looked at the cuts this morning and thought it could be better and I knew he would never read the instructions and thought I better. Then I could provide the technical support. After a few hours, I still couldn't figure it out. Tomorrow I'll have to call the camera store.

Then the next learning stop was Word Press, again. I'm making headway. I followed up with Word Press by trying to teaching myself about Mail Chimp. It seems that all I'm doing is learning, or at least trying. Which is making me irritable. All I'm doing is reading from google and watching You Tube videos in the hope they'll help me figure everything out.

At 5 pm, I still hadn't trained and Alice was looking forward to going to dinner. I couldn't pass up a run, I needed it to clear my head. At one point I was fully dressed, heart rate monitor on and ALMOST didn't go. I thought, "it's my birthday, I've trained 12 days straight, your entitled to take a break, why not do it tomorrow".

Instead, I went anyways. I know that after 2-minutes of leaving the house, I'll get in the groove. It's those first steps that are the toughest. I was right. It didn't take long and I was into it. I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying the no-pressure training. It feels so damn enjoyable.

I finished the run, had a shower and we were off to Turtle Jacks for my birthday dinner. I was craving a nice burger, although I did pass up the fries and went for salad. Although, they did have a pitcher of beer special for $11 and I went for that.

When I asked the waitress how many beers came in the pitcher she said about 2.5. It turns out that 6 come in a pitcher. It was a great dinner, I love hanging out with Alice and the kids. We have so much fun and Reid constantly makes me laugh. I'm blessed.

For my birthday, the family gave me some beer related stuff, coasters and a cool glass. Oh, and a pair of fake diamond earrings that I helped pick out earlier this week.

Long run - 53:33 / 9.84 km / 5:25 per km avg

Riding impaired...

Today's ride was not easy. Not because it was windy out, not because it was cold out, not because I was bundled up with lots of clothes on, not because my hands froze, not because my feet froze, not because it was getting dark when I got home.

Nope, those weren't the toughest parts of today's ride, the toughest part was riding with a throbbing hangover.

It was another Friday Night in the man cave, aka "The Pig & Whistle", just Alice and I. We started late and ended early in the morning. I have no idea of what time we got to bed. All I remember was opening my eyes at 9 am and realizing I had a scheduled ride with Shaw and Mike at 10:30 am.

I guess I can blame it on my birthday, it's on Sunday and I didn't want to party on Sunday, or I'd be thrashed for work and that's not good. So, instead, Friday night was my birthday party come early.

I was in no condition to ride when I opened my eyes at 9 am. At that moment, I don't even think my blood alcohol was legal to ride. I closed my eyes and the next time I opened them it was 10 am. When I did wake up it didn't take me long to get dressed, I was dressed.

As sick as this sounds, I was looking forward to getting this ride on and over with, just like old times. It was going to be a RUTI ride (Riding Under the Influence). It had been a long time since I had one of those.

Low and behold, first think I did was check my email and both Shaw and Mike had to bail on the ride. Yes. That meant I could get some more sleep and go later, when it would be warmer and my head would feel better, hopefully.

For the next four hours I tried to work, I was teaching myself about Wordpress. Not easy to do and with a throbbing head it was near impossible. I felt like a hungover zombie trying to learn. It was weird, I didn't understand if I was still drunk or in the hangover stage.

At 2 pm I eventually forced myself out the door. I filled up three water bottles and took a protein bar with me. It was NOT going to be a podcast listening workout, that would be too difficult, it was music blaring the entire way.

To say the ride was slow is a understatement. My heart rate was so high and my speed so slow, essentially it was a HHLS workout (High Heart rate Low Speed). Although, I still enjoyed it, I was out there, I was SIU'ing it baby (Sucking it up). If you want to play, you gotta pay.

I had a twisted thought as I was riding. What if I purposely did a hungover / drunk Ironman. Stayed up all night, drank and went right to the start line. Then filmed the carnage along the way. It's amazing how good of an idea that sounds like when you don't have all your facilities with you.

Near the two hour mark my hands and feet started freezing. I had brought money for a greasy hamburger but was too cold to stop and figured it's almost dinner time, we had steaks. For the entire ride, I drank less than one water bottle.

When I got home I was hurting, in the head. Damn, the delayed hangover was kicking in. I had two choices, fight it or start drinking again. I chose the former, I SIU'd it, had an Advil instead and spent the rest of the night learning more about Word Press until 1 am.

I'm proud of myself for SIUing it and getting on the road to ride. Even though it was cold and I wasn't feeling my best, I did enjoy the ride. No pressure to go fast and it sure beats riding indoors on a trainer. I saw a few other guys out riding and the one thing about riding in November is it's only the die hards out and we never miss a wave to each other opportunity, we're kindred spirits, hard-core cyclists.

It took about 2 hours for the food and Advil to kick to make me feel a LITTLE better. I didn't have my first pee of the day until 6 pm. I had to have a shower when I got home, the smell of my sweat was making me SICK!!! The night before nasty toxins were working there way out.

If the police ever need a non-leathal weapon and don't want to use the taser, the smell of my shirt from today's ride would be perfect. Put it over a criminals face and he's down. Or if you want to extract information from an Al-Qaeda member, I guarantee success.

Long Ride - 2:40:49 / 72.46 km / 27 kph / 135 avg hr

I'll take training any day..

Some people train to race, I don't, I train because I like training. I'll take training over racing any day. Racing hurts, training is Zen.

I remember hearing a podcast interview with ex-professional triathlete Ken Glah and he talked about how much he liked training. Ken's a 60 plus Ironman event finisher. He said, if you do Ironman's, "you better like training".

Ain't that the truth. What Ken said really resonated with me to this day, I always have felt the same way, I love training.

Since the NYC Marathon, I took one day rest and then got right back into regular training. I missed it. I've now trained 11 days straight since then and it feels great to get back into a daily training routine. As strange as this may sound, the thing I don't like about racing is the tapering and recovery phases.

When I have to stop training, it throws my routine out of whack. I start to feel a little disoriented. Then once the race is over I take some more time off for recovery. Before I know it, if I include the pre and post race time off, my routine has been disrupted for 2-3 weeks.

They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit and I guess it works both ways, in 21 days you can also break a good habit.

It's those 2-3 weeks of pre and post non-training time off that can screw you up. You start to get used not actively training. At first it's all justified on tapering or recovery, but it's also a gateway to making excuses to not get back into the regular training groove.

This is especially true if your big goal was to finish an Ironman distance race and you did it. Most first time Ironman don't have a post-Ironman plan.

For most of us that do an Ironman race, we often romanticize about how wonderful it's going to be to take some guilt-free time off from training and eating healthy. If anyone asks, we can justifiably say, "hey, this is my off season, I'm entitled, now pass me that donut, and f#ck off".

Many, if not most people, stop training altogether after an Ironman, which is one slippery slope. Unfortunately, being crowned an Ironman doesn't give you a never get fat pass. Although I really wish it did.

I was at the YMCA today and did a swim and weights. In only 6 weeks, I've got a bigger midsection than I can remember having in at least 3.5 years, the mirror doesn't lie. And when I was doing lunges, I could see this little paunch. That paunch, combined with hairy legs was disgusting me. If I was to look at it in a positive light, at least I can see my Kegerator investment.

The upside to my current training is I no longer feel weak. I had my best swim in a long time, which doesn't make sense, it was only my third swim since Kona. Today, most of my 100's were in the 1:32 - 1:36 per 100 meters. Weight lifting is a different story, I'm using lower weight and really focusing on long slow reps, two seconds on the contraction and four seconds on the release.

At the pool there was a couple of woman swimming a couple lanes over. One started a conversation by yelling over at me "Hey, Mr. Ironman!!!". I wonder which of the 6 logo's on my person or within a 10 foot radius of my person gave away that I was an Ironman.

She did a sprint this year and was planing on doing an Olympic next year and maybe even a half Ironman one day. She was asking me questions like "so what Ironman did you do this year". It's a great feeling when you can reply, "I did China, St. George, Lake Placid and Kona, AND a couple of half Ironman's".

Her eyes opened wide like saucers and she was in awe. Of course the next question was, "do you have a family?" It was one of those stupid questions I get all the time, where people think that if you do Ironman training your family relationship is going to suffer.

Actually, now that I think about it, next time I get that question I'm going to answer it as follows.

"Damn straight it's tough on the family, I'm on my third wife and both my kids have run away from home twice and my son quit school in grade 6. Then my 12 year old daughter got pregnant and I didn't want a newborn around the house scratching my bike or screwing with my triathlon gear, so I took the coat hanger out of the closet and gave her an abortion. It wasn't an easy thing to do, she's a fighter. The downside of training all the time is it keeps me away from the home and I don't get to beat on them as much as I'd like to. I've rarely asked them if they like triathlons, but like I tell them often, if you want me to be your father and you want a roof over your head and food in your mouth, you better shut the F#ck up and clean my bike without scratching it and not say anything negative about my triathlon training. Heck, it's not easy on me mentally either, look I'm a man wearing earrings for gods sake".

Instead, I told her I have a family and it's not a problem and in fact I also like to party and tonight I'll probably get to bed at 4 am and I have a 10:30 am bike ride scheduled for tomorrow. She then said, "wow, I don't know how you do it, I'm normally in bed by 8 pm".

I don't want to make it sound like she was a jerk, she wasn't. She was actually quite pleasant and I enjoyed talking with her and her friend. I always find it inspiring to watch people who are older in age and new to triathlon training like real athletes. I feed off their energy, enthusiasm and optimism and even though I was in the middle of a set, I'll always spend the time talking and encouraging.

At least I weighed in at 188.2 lbs today, which is .8 lbs less than yesterday. Again, as I look at my 3 Ironman tattoos on my body in the mirror, I realize I have NO advantage to keeping weight off or stay in shape anymore than any non-Ironman. Life isn't fair.

In fact, it may be tougher for me because my body is so efficient at burning and storing calories. If I don't train, I get fat sooner than the average person.

The best part of my day was looking at my training log and seeing that virtually everyday this month I've done something. It's not high mileage, but it's constant training. I've learnt that consistency is more effective than cramming or binging. The same goes for dieting.

Things are starting to feel back to normal. I have no big races I'm preparing for and I'm back to a steady daily training routine. I no longer feel like I'm free falling. I now need to use my Ironman focus to get down to 180 lbs.

As I was leaving the Y, I was thinking that if doing an Ironman gave you a life, or even a 1-year pass to stay in superior shape and never gain weight, everyone would be doing them. It's just not fair.

I actually think there's a downside to being an Ironman and then get out of shape and gain weight. The downside is that you know how good it feels to be in the Top 1% of the world shape and then to lose it makes it even a bigger loss than those that have never experienced it.

SPECIAL FAVOUR REQUIRED: I have a long time friend that is really down on his luck and is trying to reinvent himself. He has started a blog to get the ball rolling. I'm his only follower. It doesn't look good if some of his potential clients only see one follower. If you have a moment can you follow my buddy Dougs blog it's at http://theweeklysalesbeast.blogspot.com/

Thanks in advance. (I also want to hear him tell me how successful his blog has taken off when I speak to him on Monday and he doesn't know why).

Tempo Swim - 48:34 / 2100 meters
Weights Adp 2 - 45:00

Video of the day is John Proc, Rodney Buike and Kevin Neumann. Unfortunately Matty-O and Simon were not at the rink that day.

Found it...

Yesterday, after 40 minutes of writing, I somehow lost my blog post by hitting the wrong button.

Thanks to Adena, I found it, it was in the drafts section. The good news is the replacement blog post was better.

As you can see, today's picture is a little unusual. Can you guess who it is? No, it's not me. The masked wonder is Al "The Hammer" Nolan.

It was a picture from his recent Mexican vacation. The one where the resort blew up. For those that know Al from the beer run, you can see he's looking good, he's lost weight and is firmer.

I've spoke to Al and I'm coaching him and motivating him for next years Battle Royal at the HOP Beer Run. Al will be my hired gun. I'm his manager, he's my muscle. I can hardly wait to see him and Tank-O rumble. I think it will be pay-per-view worthy, unless Matty-0 has two beers and some chicken nuggets. If so, Tank-O will be crying like a baby because of his Tummy-O before it even starts.

Al is not only a blog follower, he's a family friend and one of my brothers best friends. Al and I grew up in Winnipeg and have known each other since we were 15 years old. Al used to be quite a good cross country runner in high school. He was a lean, mean, running machine.

In just the past few months Al's decided to get back into shape. He's been reading my blog for at least a year or two and in that time he wanted to get in shape and talked about it a lot and even bought a bike a year ago and still didn't commit to it.

This summer something changed. Al started going to an early morning boot camp at a buddy's place. The next thing I know is Al is firm and looking good, actually GREAT. Now the plan is for us to do a triathlon together this summer, Al's first and hopefully a half Ironman. Even Julia, his better half, is thinking about getting into triathlons. Good on you Al, keep up the good work.

Before I move on to another topic, I have one last thing to say about Al and that mask. First off, without even talking to Al, I can guarantee you that at one point during his vacation he was running around Juila in that hotel room with only the mask on. Guaranteed.

Secondly, Al had some fun with the mask at the resort, and I quote from the email he sent me:


I actually bought three masks from the guy and thought Julia and I could do some role playing, but I ended up drinking too much and things didn't work out as planned. I got drunk and wore that mask all evening around this 5 star resort and was growling at people and telling them the Ass Cracker was going to get them. Most were very unimpressed. Too funny.  

Oh how I wished I was there, bugging people in anonymity. How beautiful is that?!

On the training front, I had a bit of an epiphany the other day as I was stretching. As obvious as this sounds I felt that I need to be careful or I'll lose all the fitness I gained and gain all the weight I lost.

As it stands now, I just hit the scales at 189 lbs and I DO NOT want to hit that 190 lb mark. My best is 179 lbs and I'm happy around 181 lbs. One of the reasons I haven't set the date for the Training Payne Kona party is that I'm afraid that it will push me into 190 lb's. I'm scared, I'd rather be at 185 lbs before the P-A-R-T-Y.

I've really changed my training focus. For most of the year it was performance based training and by the time Kona came around, no matter how much I trained I was going in the wrong direction. My body was too worn out and in need of recovery. My current focus is to rebuild and recover.

Recovery focused is a wonderful way to train. I care absolutely 0% about speed. I'm more focused on keeping the workouts easy. Even my weight training is all about long, slow reps and full extension. My stretching is the same. It's all about going back to basics.

In doing so, I've found my motivation to train has returned. I'm feeling similar to how I felt three years ago. The workouts are pressure-less and enjoyable, much more Zen like. All I care about right now is rejuvenating my body with the perfect training balance. Training enough that the body can easily recover from the session and still has time to repair and re-build the old damage.

My run tonight was one of the best I've had in such a long time. I didn't get out the door until around 8:30 pm and my brain was fried from working through some problems. I knew that I NEEDED to go for a run. I knew I'd feel like a new man when I returned, even thought it was a relatively short run.

I was right, I felt like a new man. Nothing is as good at clearing the mind and de-stressing like exercise. Even though I LOVE beer, it takes a second place to exercise for immediate stress relieve.

One of the reasons my run was so enjoyable was because I have a potentially BIG announcement to make, and no, it's not that I'm retiring from blogging again. I don't want to say no more, other than it's going to be made on 11:24.

One very last thing, I want to officially thank the following people for their recent contributions to the TPPF. They made their donations AFTER I announced I was shutting down the blog. How cool is that!!! I also want to add that David O'Sullivan made the donation a day or two AFTER he lost his job. I told him when I get to Nashville, all the beer is on me.

Thanks You, in the order recieved.
Kevin Neuman - $25
Kathryn Murphy - $20
Doru Sandor - $75 (now third largest contributor)
David O'Sullivan $25

Thanks again, your money will be spend on beer, and not wasted on frivolous stuff.


Tempo Run - 41:29 / 8.20 km / 5:03 pace.

Blog Post Take Two...

Thank God for PBS. Last night my brain was fried and it saved my life.

For most of the evening I was deleting old photos and video and trying to make room on my hard drive.

I uploaded some new software and was copying files from one program to another and my computer gave me a warning that I'm running low on disk space and have only 197 mb left from a 200 gigabyte drive.

For the next 3 hours, Alice, Alyssa and I were reviewing my 10,000 photos and deleting ones that we didn't think we needed. No Triathlon photos were harmed in the process.

By the end of the night I had 7 gigabytes open. It was then just past 11 pm and I didn't want to write the blog post, but I got an email from Derek (CouplaHounds) saying he's looking forward to it with his morning coffee tomorrow. That's all it took to motivate me to GETTER DONE.

The rest is history. I changed over to the new editor months before, before switching back, and the same thing happened, the post or parts of the post would delete. Doru, you're the computer nerd, any help would be appreciated, let me know what buttons I'm pushing that are deleting an entire entry. Like you, when the window closed, I figured "no big deal" and then when I opened it, it was gone.

It was midnight and I decided to go to bed, it was too late to start writing my blog post. My mind was racing. From experience I know if I try to fall asleep with a racing mind it doesn't work, I'll be up for hours. Instead, against Alice's ongoing wishes as she tries to sleep, I turned on the TV and specifically PBS. 

Within 20 minutes the documentary background voices on PBS put me into a slumber. In fact, the best program they offer with the best voice to put you to sleep is Frontline, hands down. Last night I caught some documentary about the Apple Circus.

Yesterday, earlier in the evening I had no choice but to make room on my hard drive. The day before I bought the family a new camera. It's the Canon 7D SLR camera. In one of my drunken moments in Kona, to shut Reid up, I promised to buy him THE Canon 7D SLR camera for his movie making. I knew nothing about it and little did I know it was $2500, I thought it was about $900. Had I known, I would have kept my mouth shut and kept listening to his whining.

Reid loves movie making and wants to be a director. He's not into sports and that's how we justified the purchase. Out of all the sports and hobbies he's tried, and he's tried them all, he keeps making movies. He's constantly on You Tube and did his research and told me the Canon 7 D is the best camera. He said Saturday Night Live, the TV show 24 and even Steven Spielberg uses it. 

At first I called, "bullshit", until I asked him to show me movies and TV shows that used the camera. The quality is truly amazing. I've attached some You Tube clips of the quality at the bottom. There is five clips, each with a different style, take a look as short parts, you'll be blown away.

They are all a little different in subject matter and filming style. I know the one with the porn actresses WILL be watched fully by Matty O. If he had a laptop, he'd probably even take it in the bathroom. (I heard he got caught once trying to unplug all the cords and take his CAD work desktop machine into the bathroom and it didn't workout so well with his boss).

The next topic I'd like to discuss is the earrings and hopefully put this issue to bed. I got an email from John Barclay yesterday or the day before. He asked why I got the earrings? I emailed him back with a truthful reply, I poured my heart out. I then got a return reply from him that said, "Whatever!" 

Until I got that email, I didn't realize that no matter what I say, unless it's what he wants to hear, it's going to be a "whatever" response. 

So for John and the rest of the knuckleheads out there, and you know who you are, I'm going to tell you the reason I got the earrings and hopefully this will put the entire issue to bed once and for all. I'll give John what he wanted to hear.

I'M GAY!!!!

I've been in the closet for 45 years. The only reason I got back into triathlons was to look at fit men. The only reason I trained with John for Ironman Louisville and ran with him on Sunday's and around the track during the week is because I was smitten by him. He's so tall, dark and handsome. I love his Village People mustache and his flat as a pancake butt. But most of all I think I just feel in love with the hair coming out of his nose and ears, it accentuated his baldness.

And Matty O is right, I enjoy going to Hans for a rear end adjustment. In fact, I loved Matty O's peoples elbow. It wasn't Al Nolan who was the instigator at the HOP Beer run and started the wrestling on the trampoline. It was me. I look forward to wrestling with a bunch of sweaty men and the peoples elbow was a near highlight. It hit me on the side of the butt, like a charlie horse, had it been about 5 inches move to the center, then Bingo, I would have been in heaven. 

So there you have it, you now know the reason for the earrings. And don't think I haven't seen guys like Matty O, John Barclay and Simon on the gay porn sites I visit. The stuff you guys do is wild, I think it's even banned in 49 of the 50 states, except Vegas, which gives you added motivation to get to the 70.3 World Championships in Vegas. I couldn't even dream of some of the things you guys figured out to do. Looking at it ALMOST turned me un-gay. 

Hopefully now the earrings are put to rest. 

I've got to say I LOVE my alter ego's blog, TRAINING PAYNE-S. Each post has been classic. Yesterday's post about the Ironman earrings really hit home and made me laugh. (I hope that blog continues as well). At one point I was actually thinking of getting Ironman earrings and in unison, Alice and Alyssa said NO!!!!

Coming out of the Y after yesterday's swim, I counted 11 Ironman logo's on my person and on my truck. I have 3 Mdot tattoos, a shirt, a jacket, a gym bag, a swim cap. On the truck I have a chrome emblem, a trailor hitch cover and two license plate holders in the back seat waiting to get put on. Not to mention my morning Mdot coffee mug, er pail, and water glass. Actually, now that I recount it, that's 12. The earrings would be just a LITTLE to much.

I'm running out of time, I;ve got to get to work, so even though I got more to say, I've got to wrap this up. The other stuff about my training state of mind will have to be on my next post. 

To close it up, I'm glad Al and Julia Nolan are alive. They had a near miss that killed 5 other Canadians at a Mexican 5-Star resort they were staying at this past week. In fact, Julia had just went for a run and passed by the area that exploded. She felt the ground shake. Al was in his room and didn't hear a thing, I assume he was watching "Spank-tra-vision" on TV and thought the explosion was his. Dreamer.

In all seriousness, I feel badly for the people who were killed and injured and glad that Al was okay. In fact, when most people were leaving to go home, the Nolan's decided to stay for a couple more days. I'm assuming, in true Al fashion, he asked for a discount or coupon for another vacation.

I could just see him at the front desk arguing with a Mexican manager that the grounds are a mess, far from 5-Star quality, "I want compensation, you almost killed my wife". I attached a news video below for those who may not know what happened.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the new stuff Reid creates with the Canon 7D. He's hoping to shoot his movie this weekend if he can break his actress, Alyssa, away from exam studying. I said we should advertise for an actress on Craiglist, but Alice vetoed that idea, she was afraid who would show up and didn't want them in the house.

Al's Mexican News

This ain't a good sign...

I wrote my entire blog, it took about 40 minutes and then "WHAM" I hit some wrong button and lost it all.

I recently switched over to the new blogger editor and for some reason if I'm not sitting fully vertical when I type on my keyboard my hand his some button or combination of buttons that erases everything.

So here I am, I had a great blog post and poof it's gone and I need to get to bed. I'm too pissed off to even want to write a short version. I'll try to do it before work tomorrow. Damn that pisses me off. That's a part of my life that I'll never get back.

The excellent subject matter included my earrings, my training, my hard drive storage problems, Reid's new Camera and Al Nolan still being alive after the Mexican resort he was at blew up. Hopefully I'll still remember it all tomorrow.

Long Swim - 43:56 / 2000