Yesterday’s post mentioned my ankle injury (from a bike crash on 7/13). A “mild” ankle sprain should be better after one to two weeks so when I still had significant pain on day 12 I made an appointment to get it evaluated at the orthopedics urgent care. Of course by this morning (day 14) it felt so much better that after 90 minutes on the bike trainer, I tried to see if I could run on the treadmill. I mainly wanted to be able to tell them at the appointment whether I could run. I started with a fast walk, then an easy jog, and up to my normal running pace. I felt mild pain in my medial malleolus but no instability and the pain didn’t seem to get worse no matter how fast I ran. I told Alex that even though the ankle felt almost normal I would NOT cancel my appointment because then I would likely have a relapse in a few days and regret it. Excelsior Ortho was super efficient and I was quickly checked in and put in an exam room. I took off my shoe and sock but a minute later I was being led off for x-rays. I assumed they would examine me first. I only had a few minutes to wait back in the exam room before a pleasant young PA came in, got a history from me, and then thoroughly examined my foot and lower leg. After confirming that my only pain was on the medial malleolus he showed me the X-ray result on his iPad. (notations added by me).

Luckily the fracture was not displaced and was healing despite all the weight bearing I had done in the past two weeks (including walking 30,000 steps while volunteering at race day of Ironman Lake Placid). The PA said it was usually around 6 weeks for this type of fracture to heal so only 4 more to go! I was given a minimal ankle brace that fits inside a shoe and will continue to keep it elevated whenever possible but will keep biking and swimming. After the appointment, I wandered around the Glen Park Art Festival with Alex and the brace really made it pain-free.

Friday, July 19th I was signed up to volunteer at Ironman registration from 8:45 to 12:45, there had also been an email sent requesting volunteers to help mix the electrolyte powder into water bottles for the bike course (they needed 3000 bottles). I got the earliest start I could manage and parked in the municipal lot in the center of town so I could walk to Mirror Lake for a swim and then back to the van to change clothes and walk to the Olympic Convention Center by 8:45.

I didn’t get on the road until after 6 and it was 6:54 when I started my swim. I wanted to be back at the parking lot around 8 as that is when the parking payment app would start working. There were several dozen athletes out doing practice swims versus the few two days earlier. Most of them did not do the whole course though so it was only at the south end of the lake that there was much traffic. Since I only had an hour to swim I went very hard the whole time. 1:42 per 100 yards was definitely my fastest swim ever for an hour. It felt cool to be passing so many swimmers even though I knew that they were taking it easy this close to race day.

This year is the 25th Anniversary of Ironman Lake Placid. It was the first Ironman race to take place in North America in 1999 (from 1978 to 1998 the Ironman was only in Hawaii, then in 1999 there was Lake Placid and Austria, and soon dozens worldwide each year).

There was definitely extra excitement this year and Ironman seemed to make extra efforts to make the event special (including have Mike Reilly come out of retirement to announce “You are an Ironman” for each finisher).

I ordered his book recently. I got to stand on stage and shake his hand in 2016 when I did my first Ironman at Lake Placid and the Buffalo Triathlon Club won a club award.

For the last few years Lake Placid has had issues with Covid and then construction on the Olympic Center and the street in front of the skating oval/transition area. This year everything was fully back to normal.

This year they had a giant adirondock chair for us Volunteers as well as one for the racers. There were 2000 volunteers and almost 2500 racers (a record) including over 100 professionals. This year both Men and Women pros would be racing; some years only one or the other or even none depending on the Pro tour schedule.

I helped with registration two years ago so it was easy to get up to speed on the iPad process. It was even easier this year, it only required scanning the athlete’s QR code from their phones or paper and then scanning the QR code of a race packet. The hardest part for me was writing the number on the swim caps with a Sharpie! There were a LOT of people from Quebec as there is no more Ironman Mt. Tremblant and the 2 hour drive to Lake Placid was very attractive versus getting to Ironman Wisconsin or Maryland. Next year there will be an Ironman Ottawa for the first time so there will probably be fewer Quebecois in Lake Placid. I enjoyed chatting with the athletes about their hometowns and providing answers to questions (having raced and volunteered at LP I had most of the answers but if not there was a “solutions” desk we could refer people to). The registration volunteers were mostly a group of people I had met before. They all come up from Georgia every year just to volunteer. They also do the Saturday pancake breakfast and the finisher food on Sunday.

Luckily this did NOT affect the Ironman software but there were many athletes whose flights on Friday were delayed by many hours. One of my friend’s flight from Florida was delayed 6 hours! Fortunately this year for the first time there was a two-hour registration period on Saturday morning so the late arrivals did not have to get any special help.

I was VERY disappointed to not get to register this athlete! Lake Placid is VERY dog friendly, I saw them in many shops, and restaurants, swimming in the lake and they were even allowed on the shuttle buses on race day.

The volunteer next to me was registering someone who said that he had pre-requested to be #2112 and then I noticed that he was “attached” to a woman. At first, I thought that maybe he was a “mentally challenged” athlete but then as we discussed Rush he seemed intelligent and I noticed he was wearing a yamulka. I told him that I had recently read the memoir of Rush bassist Geddy Lee. He immediately showed me a photo of him at a book signing with Geddy. He then showed me the outfit he always raced in. I asked what the deal was with the leash between them and his wife said that she sometimes “wandered off” when excited so this way it wouldn’t happen. I didn’t realize she was racing also so I asked what she would do during the 15 hours of the race. Would he tie her to a tree and leave her a bottle of water? I have a friend who is a short story writer (Kim…) and want to show her these photos and see if she can write a story.

I left registration a little early to drive to the bike bottle preparation site at the Horsegrounds. I took my volunteer bagged lunch to go.

Until this year, Gatorade Endurance was the beverage on the bike and run courses. This year Ironman switched to Mortal Hydration which is NOT sold in bottles (only as powder) so volunteers needed to take pallets of water bottles and add the powder. Besides not being available in bottles and the powder ONLY being available as single serving packets, Mortal was a very poor choice for Ironman-length races as it has only 40 calories per bottle and is sweetened with Stevia.

I was glad the flavor was Mango as it didn’t stain my clothes like the berry flavor would have. Although they had thought this task would go past 2 it was done by 1 so I was glad to have an afternoon to rest. I parked the car on the way back into town to get a photo of this amazing display in someone’s yard along the run course. I imagine their Halloween decorations are over the top.

I was back at the campground before 3pm and then elevated and iced my ankle and “started” to blog but barely managed to organize all my GoPro and DashCam photos. As it was hot out I just napped inside with the A/C running rather than opening the top. I went to dinner at the brewpub across the street with my Facebook friend Maud and her partner Francois. They were from Quebec and it was to be Maud’s first Ironman attempt after just one or two 70.3s (half-Ironman distance races). They were camping near me as I had recommended the Meadowbrook site last year to them. They had been at Lake Placid in May camping as well so Maud could practice the course.

Francois had for many years been on the Canadian Dragon Boat racing team and traveled the world for meets. He is transitioning back to triathlons soon I think.

I had a nice view of the sky from my site and the moon would be a Full Buck Moon on race night. I didn’t get any good star photos at night because of the moon being so bright.

I had volunteer duties on Friday, Saturday and Sunday so Thursday was my planned long training day. Luckily the weather would be sunny as it would be for the whole trip. I had planned to do a full day long brick (🚴🏼‍♂️+🏃🏻‍♂️, ick! = 🧱) of 90/15 miles. But 4 days before my trip I had a (stupid) fall off bike on a downhill turn (onto grass at least, don’t worry, the bike is ok!) and sprained my ankle. I also bruised my low back a bit but it was the ankle that has kept me from running even now (almost 2 weeks later).

Although a few days of icing, NSAIDS and rest quickly got my ankle walkable, running was not possible yet. I loaded up my backpack in the morning with extra water, a lock and food in addition to my usual load of first aid and bike repair equipment. It had to weigh at least 12 lbs.

I planned to do a 100-mile ride including one loop (56 miles) of the Ironman Bike Course and to Bike the run course.

The bike route heads West towards Keene and on the way there is a long steep descent. I kept it under 40mph but when racing I hit 50mph.

On race day there is a lane closed to cars but on a random summer day there were a LOT of cars and trucks and the shoulders were not always very wide.

I had brought my mini GoPro for the bike ride thinking it would be easier to access it in my bikes “bento box” than getting out my phone from my backpack’s waist pocket. But since I always came to a full stop for photos it really didn’t matter. And the GoPro has a very wide angle lens so even though it is 1080 quality, having to crop so much decrease the photos resolution.

After taking Hwy 73 East to Keene the route switched to 9N which was the nicest road. Mostly flat, it traveled along the Ausable river and had a very wide shoulder and very few vehicles.

This year for the first time I saw many signs on the course and other roads for “portable restroom”. This is a nice service provided by the communities to prevent bikers just “going” anywhere. They have porta potties at many of the scenic overlooks and trail heads.

I reached this one at about 2 hours into my ride and it seemed like a nice spot to have my peach and a ClifBar.

It was very beautiful and so quiet I could hear the river and the birds and insects. I heard a big splash and turned around expecting to see ? An animal or big fish but it was a family of Grebes.

I noticed that my phone had only SOS here (I had brought my Garmin emergency Satellite device as well, in case I had ended up biking off a cliff). I had thought that Apple was going to allow texting with the satellite connection but it is ONLY for contacting 911, and THEN also contacts your emergency contacts).

I continued north on 9N past Jay and turned around in the tiny town of Au Sable Forks.

As I looked at the beautiful river I noticed the trees were blowing a little. Usually the wind doesn’t pick up in Lake Placid until the afternoon (for the second bike loop of Ironman) so I had hoped that starting at 6 am I could finish my loop before that. But as I headed back South to Jay and the Westward turn towards Wilmington the wind was already strong. I made myself as aero as possible but the hills towards Wilmington were bad and then the road south from Wilmington to Lake Placid was BRUTAL! The strong winds and many cars and trucks along with the minimal shoulder made it a brutally slow 10 miles back into Lake Placid.

I stopped to use the Porta Potty by a trail head I had hiked in the past to see waterfalls.

When I got back to Mirror Lake for a break to refill water bottles and use the restroom I had only done 65 miles but almost 4000 feet of climbing. Between the wind on the flats and my extra 12 lbs on the hills I was pretty exhausted. If not for my ankle (and still slightly sore back) I COULD have pushed myself to the limit and done 100 miles but I used common sense instead and decided 75 was plenty! I shot a video of the WIND!

I biked West back past my campground and turned around at Saranac Lake to reach 75 miles.

After a quick shower I relaxed in my compression leg sleeves, iced my ankle and then stopped by to say hi to a couple from Quebec I knew through the Lake Placid IM Facebook page.

Dinner was a sandwich I had in the fridge and I went to sleep EARLY as I was exhausted and had to wake up early the next day.

Alex had gifted me a troll and I took some photos of him. Here he is sleeping on a natural hammock 🙂

I had thought my run of bad luck was over, but breakfast on Sunday, July 7th corrected that notion. Alex came in after hearing my screech. While laughing they said it reminded them of when we were hiking and Fifa got her 30-foot leash wrapped around my legs and then sprinted off; I was upended and then lay on the ground watching my large Tim Hortons coffee drain into the mud.

Today is Tuesday, July 9th and I’m spending a little time writing while watching the last part of today’s Tour de France Stage 10. It was a boring stage as the peloton of 170 riders stayed together the whole time on flat country roads except for a sprint finish the last kilometer. I wished I could have watched the whole gravel stage a few days ago as it seemed super exciting based on the brief recap I watched that night.

My string of misfortunes began on July 4th when I spent 4 hours (and $2000) at the emergency vet hospital with Fifa. She had started having some upper respiratory symptoms almost a week earlier that at first, I thought were just her allergies, but then she developed some nasal discharge so an URI I assumed. I had told Alex that as long as she was eating and active it was not serious and made a vet appointment for after the holiday weekend. I had Alex video her coughing to show to the vet.

Of course, ON July 4th midday she started panting and drooling and REFUSED a snack (unheard of for a labrador). Her temperature was 103.7 (102.5 upper normal for dogs) and she had earlier in the day coughed up some phlegm.

It is a great facility but it was much busier than the last time when I was there at 2 am after Fifa’s incident last year of choking on a stick she puked up.

Everyone there was super friendly and professional (and there was “free” Keurig coffee and bottled water) but it just took so long for each step. My Kindle battery died after about an hour of reading and my phone battery was low and I only got one bar in the exam room anyway. The vet did a thorough exam and spent a lot of time discussing all the possibilities but I was fairly sure she had pneumonia. When the blood work was all done and the x-rays had been reviewed by the “off-site” radiologist, it was definitely pneumonia in at least 3 of her 6 lung lobes (very obvious on the x-rays). Fifa got antibiotics and also a cough medicine/steroid that she happily ate with some peanut butter. She seemed better even before getting the first meds as she did want dinner when we got home (I only gave her 1/2 just in case). Luckily, Fifa is NOT scared of fireworks so she had a peaceful night. The following morning her temperature and breathing were back to normal.

In case you are wondering… not just Fifa, I guess. She was just unfortunate that her URI progressed to pneumonia.

So, although my July 4th was not the most relaxing “do nothing” day I had planned, disaster was averted. As I had my first Triathlon of the season scheduled for Saturday, Friday was also going to be a “rest day” and I just planned to do a 30-minute bike ride and a 10-minute run in the basement and then go to a morning Yoga Class. I was excited for the race. It was the “Tri in the Buff” Olympic distance race (0.9 mi swim 25 mi bike, 6.2 mi run) that I have done several times before but not since Covid.

The rest of this blog post is about my Triathlon “bad luck” and subsequent training so feel free to stop here if you aren’t interested in the minutia of Triathletes. But, if you do care about me….. at least skim through as there are some non-training items mixed in there.

I was well (really over) trained as I had recently biked up to 80 miles, run 12 miles, and swam as far as 3 miles in Lake Erie. Also, after 2 months of a nagging Piriformis muscle strain, I was finally 99% recovered (after twice-daily stretching, foam rolling, massages, etc.). While the strain did not affect my running or biking it did cause pain when getting up after sitting and some referred sciatic pain on the inside of my left knee. Here is a long, boring article about Piriformis Syndrome.

https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/piriformis-syndrome-causes-symptoms-treatments

If it wasn’t for bad luck, you know I wouldn’t have no luck at all. – Albert King, 1967 (Born under a bad sign).

Halfway through my relaxing, flow Yoga class somehow I caused a strain in my left glute/piriformis and by the end of class (despite extra stretching and self-massage) it felt as bad as it had a month ago.

As soon as I got home I wanted to ice it so I set up a blue ice pad on my couch, settled with a cup of coffee, and turned on Le Tour. I immediately then knocked over my coffee as I tried to adjust my ice pad! Argh!

Saturday, July 6th I left my house at 5:20 am for the less than one-hour drive south to Evanglola State Park. The weather was perfect, it was going to get close to 80 but based on the awful heat lately, that was good. It was a little windy and there was some chop in Lake Erie but I am comfortable with much bigger waves and the water temperature was almost 75.

I knew that my Piriformis would not impact my running, swimming or biking but after getting out of the car it did bother me until I walked a little (sitting is the worst thing; so driving aggravates it).

I set up my transition area and had brought everything I needed so no stress, chatted with the many other Buffalo Triathlon Club athletes who were racing or volunteering and went for a pre-race warmup swim. I swam hard for a few minutes to make sure I was used to the wetsuit and that my goggles were good.

The race started at 8 am and I ran the 20 feet of sand and then ran in the water until it was deep enough to swim. After I had swam for a few minutes I realized I had not started my watch! I tried a few times to get it going but it didn’t want to let me do much with it under the water. I then noticed that my fussing with the watch had me off course a little and I corrected my direction with frequent sighting. There was a strong sideways current and I was figuring out to sight a little to the side of the buoys so as to compensate when I noticed I was breathing really fast and was out of breath. I slowed to an easier pace, filled my wetsuit with water and even tried just treading water for a minute but I was still hyperventilating. I KNEW that it was 99% likely to just be me reacting poorly to the tight wetsuit and this was only a 0.9 mile swim (less than a third of my 3 miler a few weeks ago) but….. my anxiety about “maybe it is an arrhythmia, maybe you have pneumonia like Fifa” overwhelmed any ability to think rationally. I swam over to a jetski and tread water there for a few minutes and talked to the lifeguards. I should have just waited a few minutes but I wasn’t in the right mindset and said I was “done” with swim. I held onto the jetski and they towed me the few hundred yards back to the shallow water. I thought that my day was done but an official said I could do the bike and run but wouldn’t get an official time. I walked back to the transition area (of course having to explain to 2 BTC supporters I passed about my “issue”). There were actually 2 other people in the transition area who had bailed on the swim as well. I waited 20 minutes until 5 or 6 racers had finished the swim and headed out on their bikes as I didn’t want to be the first bike on the course and have people mistakenly think I was the leader.

Of course since there are no headphones allowed in races I could not listen to an audiobook as usual and instead just had to be in my own head for the next 2.5 hours. I did recall having a little rapid breathing in the OnondagaMan race a month ago but had gotten over it and finished the 1.2 mile swim strong. Here is my blog from that race to see what I wrote….

While biking and obsessing the only explanation I could find was that the 2 swims prior to the race (one in pool and one in lake) I had NOT worn a wetsuit and on race day with a heart rate monitor strap, tight Triathon suit and the tight wetsuit my body had just not felt comfortable breathing compared to its last 2 unrestricted swims. I will be sure to WEAR a wetsuit for the swims immediately before my next race.

I biked really hard (my initial plan had been to swim fast, bike fast and take it easy on the run unless I felt really good, as I was planning to do a 90-mile bike ride on Sunday or Monday) and averaged 18.6 mph for the 25 miles, definitely a record for me.

But as the bad luck streak was continuing, my chain came off going up a hill and was wedged very tightly inside the front chainring. I got it loose but it took several minutes and me having to turn the bike upside down on the grass. I had NOT worn bike gloves to save transition time so of course my hands got very greasy but at least not cut by the chain.

I had a quick transition to my running gear and immediately noticed how HUMID and hot it had gotten. I did not push the run hard but on the second lap I did increase my speed. I thought it must just be my Garmin but everyone agreed that the race course was 6.6 miles instead of 6.2 (which made no sense as there was a turnaround on an out and back section that would have allowed for easy adjustment). About half the run course was on grass which slowed everyone down.

The finish line clock said exactly 3 hours as I crossed. 3 hours was my goal for the race but I would have been a little over that if I had swam as I would not have been one of the first 6 people out of the water and would have definitley biked a little slower after the swim effort. I had decided to NOT accept a finishers medal but conveniently they didn’t have any! I had forgotten that in recent years these smaller races only give medals to first time triathletes. I had to accept the “finisher” water bottle as I needed the water 🙂

I wished I could just slink back to my car and drive home but of course I had driven a friend so had to wait for him to finish the race and enjoy his time talking with other BTCers about their races. And then, as we got the bikes on the rack and were ready to go… “let’s get a photo of all of us”… check out my fake smile as I thought, “I don’t want to be in the finishers photo”…

While running this morning I started a new audiobook and it opened with an Oscar Wilde quote (from The importance of being Earnest”)

“What seem to us a bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”

Or, as I always tell my child, “suffering builds character”. I googled to see who the quote is from but it is not a direct quote but a paraphrasing.

It is also attributed to Kay Larson, I want to read her book about John Cage now!

“Suffering builds character and impels you to penetrate life’s secrets. It’s the path of great artists, great religious leaders, great social reformers. The problem is not suffering per se, but rather our identification with our own ego: our divided, dualistic, cramped view of things. ‘We are too ego-centered,’ Suzuki tells Cage.’ The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow. We seem to carry it all the time from childhood up to the time we finally pass away.”

― Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

Despite my banana jumping into my coffee cup on Sunday morning I continued with my plan to do a 90-mile bike ride. I had discussed with my coach doing it on Sunday if I felt good or on Monday if I needed the extra recovery day. As I had NOT done my swim on Saturday in the race I felt I HAD to do the long ride on Sunday as penance. The plan was to do it at an easy pace and I just hoped that I would not get a flat tire or be hit by a truck as the universe did seem to be conspiring against me.

I took this shadow photo while walking Fifa with Alex that morning and on the ride decided to continue with the shadow theme.

The ride was super pleasant for the first 35 miles until I reached Old Fort Niagara State Park. As I entered the park I saw that for the holiday weekend there was a huge encampment of revolutionary war and war of 1812 “re-enacters” from all over the nation. As it was only 8:00 am they were making coffee in iron pots over fires and in their traditional garb. Distracted by them I did not notice a piece of twine strung across the path between trees (and a small, road closed sign) until the LAST second. I slammed on my very strong disc breaks and somehow smoothly unclipped my shoes as the twine pressed against my sunglasses! My bike computer starting alarming over an “incident detected” and said it would start contacting emergency contacts if I didn’t hit cancel! When would my marathon of bad luck and near misses end!

I usually stop at the State Park for a water refill and bathroom but as it was not too hot that early in the morning I still had some fluids in a bottle and planned to head east along Lake Ontario and stop at Porter town park where the triathlon club has it’s Sunday morning open water swims. I stopped by the beach there and saw about 5 club members getting set up and chatted with them about my swim failure.

The rest of the bike ride was uneventful, I even saw a chipmunk! Some good luck was that for once there was not a strong wind from the southwest as usually happens as the day warms up. It was VERY hot and humid by the time I got off the bike, walked the dog and headed out to run.

While biking I had really only planned to run a mile or two but then decided to do a full 6 hour brick (bike-run-ick), so a good confidence boost for my long term Ironman Training (still 16 weeks until Florida), especially doing it a day after a hard bike/run. On my bike and run I listened to and thankfully finished a very mediocre sci-fi/fantasy book.

Monday morning it was time to get back on the horse, seahorse I guess. I put on my exact same outfit from race day including heart rate strap and dove into Lake Erie and swam hard, swam underwater, tried doing only one breath every 6 strokes and yet had no rapid breathing. I had planned to swim 2.5 miles (an Ironman swim is 2.4) but I felt good and pushed myself a lot further. I did notice some grafitti on the seawall that said “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” when I started out. The water was very clear and I saw lots of minnows and small fish.

The water was so warm that every 10 minutes I pulled my collar open and let the wetsuit fill with cooler water. I will need to bring some fluids and nutrition for my next swim longer than this. I plan to do one 10 kilometer swim (6.2 miles) before fall (but just on my own, not a race like the last 2 years).

I called this my “Redemption Swim” in my Instagram post.

Today I had a long slow run scheduled. I set my watch for a 9:40 to 10:20 pace but it was so hot and humid that I had a lot of “too slow” alerts on the first half of the run. I imagine my legs were also a little more trashed than I realized after all the heavy training. I did pick up the pace at the end.

I checked my Garmin afterwards and it showed that I am more acclimated to the heat but still have a ways to go.

Tomorrow I am working so a REST day from exercising!!! Thanks for reading. Please subscribe, share, “like”, comment.

http://www.sailwestmac.com

With my Dad’s death now 5 years in the past and my kid 500 miles away, Father’s Day was meh. Although Ironman Florida is still 20 weeks away I was scheduled for a long brick workout (🚴🏼‍♂️🏃🏻‍♂️ick = 🧱) of 70/12 miles. As the killer heat dome was starting to arrive I headed out on my bike before 6am when it was only 47 degrees. To deal with the initial cold I wore long fingered bike gloves and put a section of newspaper inside my jersey (like the pros do for cold descents in the Alps). It was a beautiful sunny morning and the roads were wonderfully empty for the first few hours. Niagara County is very rural and I passed cattle, horses and fields with crops just starting to grow. I stopped after 2 hours and 35 miles to fill my water bottles and switched to short fingered gloves and ditched the newspaper. I saw a Black squirrel near the park!

There are forts on both sides of the Niagara River dating to the War of 1812. When Alex was young they often had a soccer tournament in the state park one weekend of the summer.

This was the second year in a row that Alex was not with me for Father’s Day. Last year they were in NYC with friends and this year again down there preparing for their move from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Prior to last year, Alex and I had gone fishing every Father’s Day; beginning when they were 4 in our backyard pond.

And then the following year at Bond Lake where we collected some of our bluegills in a container and brought them home to our pond.

After one more year in our backyard ….

…we moved onto Tillman Nature Preserve in Clarence. At Tillman Alex caught a big bass (I think the same one every year) as well as bluegills and we also saw snapping turtles that followed our worms sometimes.

Actually in 2015 or 2016 we went to Chestnut Ridge Park for a change of scene and as there was a Father’s Day event there.

When my Dad was still alive Alex and I would call him from the car or while fishing. He had often taken me fishing when I was a kid (usually in the Hamptons or out of Montauk Harbor) and one year he did get to fish with Alex when he visited us in the Finger Lakes.

On the way home I passed a roadkill fawn (still with spots) which seemed sad on Father’s Day. A flat tire with only 6 miles to go was also disheartening. Of course it was the rear wheel! It only took 20 minutes to deal with but by then it was over 70 and the sun was strong on the side of the road.

For the first hour of my run I felt pretty good but then I got behind on fluid intake and the last hour was awful as it was over 80 degrees.

Next year I have to make sure Alex and I get to spend Father’s Day together. Even if they are in Brooklyn it is an easy flight for me. I didn’t consider flying down this year as I am driving down to help them move tomorrow 🙂

Wow, this is my third blog post in June! WordPress says that over 20 people read my last one! But I only got one “like” or “comment”. My most devoted reader mentioned recently that I should make each post shorter as people don’t like to read so much anymore. I am working on that and with Ironman Florida less than 5 months away my training schedule will encourage more succinct blog posts. Also, if you subscribe to my website (www.sailwestmac.com) you will get an email when I write a post with a link to the full post. If you add the FREE WordPress app to your phone it makes the reading experience more streamlined and pleasant. I also have the free Substack and Medium apps on my phone and follow a bunch of authors on each of those. I just wanted to do a quickie post about my race in Canada two days ago but in case you read the last post and wondered how the T100 San Francisco triathlon turned out.

The men’s race had an amazing finish. The three leaders had formed a pack about a minute ahead of anyone else and stayed together for the last several miles of the run until the last 100 yards when it was an all-out sprint. Two men hit the tape less than a second apart. The second-place finisher collapsed on his side on the ground and immediately puked! The camera quickly cut away so I had to rewind a bit to get a good video (I won’t torture you with it, just shared it with my triathlon buddies).

Taylor Knibb was not the first out of the water but on the first bike hill took the lead and was first off the bike by a few minutes, she ran super fast and extended her lead to about 5 minutes by the end. She will be competing in the Olympics for the U.S. in both Triathlon and Time Trial Cycling.

Also, I forgot to include this photo I had taken of a neighbor’s lawn last year while walking Fifa. I meant to post it on Instagram on my 60th but forgot (getting old!).

And also missed this photo for the last blog entry…. I had requested “no gifts” for my birthday but got a few books.

I got to joke with people that MY birthday party was much better than Rudy’s which was almost the same day.

I am currently reading a good non-fiction book on my Kindle about an American journalist visiting Russia’s Siberian penal colonies in the 1880s.

And listening to an addictive Sci-Fi series on my Hoopla library audiobook app. The narrator is EXCELLENT but the books are VERY long.

O.K., time for the quick race report. I’ll add in a few links to Swim-Run info at the end but basically, a swim-run race has multiple segments of swimming and running. Usually, you will wear a wetsuit and waterproof trail sneakers for all the segments. I had read about them just before COVID-19 and bought some sneakers that I had trained in a little and finally did a race last year in Welland.

Welland is barely an hour from my house. The shipping Canal from Port Colborne to St. Catherines is how boats get from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario (Niagara Falls not being a good option). Over the years the Canadians built larger canals and the old one is now just for non-motorized recreation with a bike path alongside.

We were lucky with the weather as a strong storm front had passed through overnight. It caused some rain for my friends doing a triathlon at Keuka Lake and even more so for people doing the Ironman 70.3 half-ironman race in Springfield, MA. It was cloudy when I left home but sunny by the time I arrived. It is a gorgeous venue with crystal-clear water (and minnows). They gave out nice gear bags and an orange! Most of the 75 athletes were there to do the 1,3 or 5 KM open water swims. Last year only 11 people were doing the swim-run races and it was only 9 this year. Like last year, many had not done one before. I was a relative “expert” with one under my belt. This year I wore foam shin protectors to offset the weight of the sneakers. Most people used a pull buoy between their thighs and didn’t kick at all. Some people used hand swim paddles to go faster, but I didn’t as when I use these at masters swimming they seem to overstress my shoulder muscles.

Here is a photo of me looking at the minnows! There was a race photographer and also a videographer with a drone. They took a lot of photos of me but I don’t see any online yet, I will add them later if they get shared by the race director. There was a random reel on Instagram.

It was a VERY low-key, friendly event. I tried to get some more people from Buffalo to come but swim-run is still a new idea in the U.S. (much more popular in Europe).

The swimmers left all together first and then we swim-run people left 15 minutes later. The diamond-shaped course was 1000 meters. The water was flat and it was very easy to site the buoys.

Even though I had done a practice swim I still had a little wetsuit anxiety breathing for the first few hundred yards. After that I settled into an easy swim pace, kicking a little. In the first run segment, I started out very slow and my heart rate was very high. It settled after a mile and it felt soooo good to dive into the cool (68 degrees) water after the hot run in my wetsuit. After the short middle swim segment I ran much better although my time was not really a lot faster. On the last swim segment, I felt great and swam all out for the last 250 meters. I definitely could have done the extra short run and swim segments that the 10 KM swim-run required. Next year I’ll move up to that distance.

Because both the runs were out and back it was possible to see how many people were ahead and behind me in the race. While I was the fastest of the 7.5 KM racers, there were 3 10 KM racers who finished 7.5 KM before me. But, I was the WINNER of the 7.5 KM race, beating two much younger women.

The drive home took longer as only half of the border gates were open and even with my Nexus (Global Entry) fast lane it took 15 minutes to get over the bridge and through the border.

Because the race was only 1:23 it did not take that much out of me so I took advantage of good weather on Monday (60 and overcast) to do a hard bike ride and easy brick run.

Oh, my buddy just jumped up to “help” me write.

Here are some recent random photos of Fifa!

And the promised link to Swim-Run info. My eventual goal is to do one of the more serious races where one swims from island to island and runs across trails on them.

WWW.swimrun.com

It has been three weeks since I came back to Buffalo so apologies for taking so long to write about my trip to NYC for my kid’s college graduation. Having had their HS graduation ruined by the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020 I was very worried that the Mideast war protests might affect their college graduation. Luckily, unlike some other schools, their graduation proceeded on schedule!

I finally found some time to write this morning as I am watching the T100 pro-triathlon race from San Francisco (free on YouTube and with almost no commercials).

I did the Escape from Alcatraz race there 5 or 6 years ago, that is tomorrow with a few thousand racers, the T100 is just 20 men and 20 women pros. The pro course is mostly the same but with a slightly shorter swim and much longer bike, and they don’t run on the actual beach or have to climb the feared sand ladder.

I had an uneventful flight down to JFK on JetBlue.

There were some fluffy clouds but I got a good photo of Central Park and the Upper East Side

Lately, JetBlue flights have taken a huge loop going south of Manhattan to the Jersey Shore and then circling out and around to approach JFK from the northeast. I think this is literally around 1/3 of my flying time 😉

It was “only” a 70-minute drive from JFK to Midtown. My room had a slight view of the Hudson, but a great view of the M+M store!

Alex invited me to come down to NYU to be a guest on their radio show. They have been DJing one or two shows for the last two years for WNYU.org (89.1 FM). The Sunday 11:30 pm one I have to listen to on the archive webpage but the Monday 4:30 pm sometimes live and sometimes on the archive. I think they will be doing some shows over the summer when they are in the City but not while they are up here for 6 weeks. The studio was even cooler than I had imagined! Alex played a song that had just been released for streaming by their friend Ethan’s band. Alex took the photo that is on Spotify and Apple Music for the song.

The full album was just released (Alex went to Pittsburg for the release party) and is excellent. Ethan wrote all the songs.

https://embed.music.apple.com/us/album/duck-hollow/1748026399

The next day Alex needed me to carry something home from Barney Hall, the arts building where they had studied and worked for a lot of their time at NYU. The building was VERY old but the studios were very nice.

I got a tour of the photography studio. Alex worked the last two years at “The Cage” so it was nice to see it for the first time.

Alex showed me the spot where they were when they felt the big earthquake a few months ago. We had been on the phone talking at the time and I told them it was “probably just some construction work”.

They had a super cool rotating door for darkroom entry!

Alex brought me out to Brooklyn to see the apartment they will be moving to soon and meet their roommate. It is a wonderful apartment in a nice row house near Williamsburg, I took a bunch of photos but in the interest of privacy, I’ll just share one of the pond in the enclosed backyard. I was disappointed not to get to meet the cat who lives in the basement.

Alex stayed in Brooklyn while I headed back to Manhattan for a nap. It was “Grad Alley” night at NYU where they closed off several streets around the “campus” and had free music, food, etc. for grads and friends and family with wristbands.

I wandered around Washington Square Park for a while as I got there a little early. It was at full NYU grad photo levels!

I shared my free snacks with a new friend (and then used Purell).

I took the subway up to Times Square to see The Who’s Tommy.

Here is a one-minute YouTube video of highlights…

The show was not at all what I expected but it was excellent. The 11 pm walk home through a rainy Times Square was very scenic. When I saw the off-duty “characters” I wondered how many Tisch graduates with degrees in acting will be there in a few years 😉

Wednesday, May 16 was the BIG day. And it was RAINY. But we had ponchos and umbrellas and made sure to get there extra early so we would get the best seats which for today would be COVERED ones. All the seats had good views of the JumboTron and there was no walking across the stage for the 8000 graduates. Just one or two representatives for each school. As a lifelong Yankee fan, it was great to be there for Alex’s graduation. I remember bringing Alex to the current stadium when it opened and going to Monument Park in the outfield with them. We had also been to the old Yankee stadium together and also seen games in Toronto. My dad went to the final game at the old Stadium.

They had a nice musical performance by two NYU grads who had been in Wicked which was celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. There was no real graduation speaker as the students had decided to not have one due to possible “controversy” over politics. So no Taylor Swift for us like they had 2 years ago.

I wished they had just re-played Seinfeld’s graduation speech (on the Jumbotron) at Duke from a week earlier or maybe Steve Jobs’s famous 2005 Stanford one or even David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” one to Kenyon College in 2005 that was made into a great video after his death.

I KNOW that no one reading this has an extra hour to watch these 3 videos right now, BUT you should at some point take the time and do so.

They had a bunch of NYU alumnus celebrity brief videos on the screen and repeated PSAs from the Yankees saying “Congratulations… but don’t go on the field” as if the NYU parents and grads were British soccer hooligans!

Alex had plans with friends so I took the subway downtown.

I had some takeout in my room while watching Seinfeld’s recent Netflix movie about Pop-Tarts’ origins. It was the perfect pleasant comedy I expected. The Empire State Building was lit purple for NYU but as soon as the Rangers won their series it changed to those colors!

On Thursday morning I did my long run for the week. 13.1 miles at an easy pace. I took a bunch of photos and made a Relive video of the run.

https://www.relive.cc/web/view/vr63QGBe78v

Here are a few photos if you didn’t take the 2 minutes to watch the movie.

A few photos from the NY Public Library and Bryant Park where I had lunch.

The Gallatin School of Individualized Studies would have its graduation at the Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side.

With only 300 students it was much nicer than the stadium experience. And a gorgeous venue.

It was very special for Alex that their only surviving grandparent (my mom) could be there.

The speakers were great too. One was a Gallatin alumnus who is the Massachusetts House representative (and majority leader) from Cape Cod and an advocate for LBGT rights. The faculty speaker was a full-time Gallatin theatre professor (and Gallatin alumnus) who was the partner of Alicia Keys in creating the Hell’s Kitchen Musical which has over a dozen Tony nominations this year. I saw her on Colbert recently and look forward to eventually seeing the show.

Here is the 37-second video that cost $300,000!

The confetti was great!

Despite my bias, I do think that Alex had the most creatively decorated cap. Trolls in a forest/garden.

Friday morning I took the subway down to Greenwich Village as Alex had asked me to take some “real” cap and gown photos. I was honored as they are a professional photographer. I was a little early so I got some nice photos of the scenic area between Barney Hall and St. Mark’s Church.

I had wanted to visit the Pele store in Times Square for a while but it wasn’t convenient on my last two visits to NYC. The interior is beautiful. I imagine it will be super busy soon with the World Cup being here in 2026.

Alex’s favorite squirrel. I named her “mittens”.

After some initial reluctance, Alex agreed to have a family graduation dinner. I arranged it to be at the Bowery Road restaurant in the Hyatt near Union Square where I had often stayed while visiting Alex over the past 4 years.

Alex with their cousins Ben, Maisey, and Jon; my sister and mom.

We ended up having a nice area just for ourselves.

Saturday morning I went for a run with my nephews Ben and Jon who are running their first half-marathon tomorrow.

Since my 60th Birthday was that weekend and family was already gathered we also did another dinner on Saturday night that also included some friends of mine and my mom and my Uncles Stephen and Richard and my sister’s in-laws.

The official graduation photos…..

I have never run the Buffalo Marathon despite living here for the last 23 years. One year I ran as part of a relay team and twice Alex and I ran the Saturday 5K. Last year Alex ran the half-marathon. For the last 8 years, Alex and I have volunteered at the Buffalo Triathlon Club mile 2/mile 4 water stop (unless we were out of town).

As the race starts at 6:30 AM this requires waking up before 4 AM to be there at 4:45 AM to start setting up the tables and filling thousands of cups. Alex is an early riser like me but I was surprised the two years that Alex got a friend or two to join us. The BTC gets a charity grant for staffing the water stop and this year my masters swim team (Nickle City Splash) also participated so I signed up for four-hour volunteer shifts for them as well on both Saturday and Sunday.

Knowing that my training time would be limited on the weekend I scheduled a full day of training on Friday.

I had sent out an invitation on the triathlon club’s facebook page for an “unofficial” open water swim (OWS) at 7 am Friday and was happy when there were 5 of us. It was my third Lake Erie swim of the spring at Wanakah Beach in Hamburg (the Official ones don’t start until mid-June but my first race is June 1st). The water was up to 65 degrees (it had been 53 and 57 earlier) and only a little choppy, the air temperature was up to 70 by 8:30 AM.

Halfway through the swim I heard a loud motor and looked around for a boat until I realized it was a Sheriff Department Helicopter circling overhead. I was worried maybe they wanted us to get out of the water but after I waved they circled and headed south. They were probably out on a practice flight to be ready for all the drunk boating incidents on the holiday weekend.

After drying off I drove the 20 minutes East to Chestnut Ridge Park in Orchard Park (my go-to hill training site as it is very flat in Amherst where I live).

I had planned to bike 50 or 60 miles with 3000 feet of climbing but after I hit 2000 feet of climbing in the first hour I had to replan my route and even though I took “less” hilly roads I passed 3000 feet and decided that I would stop at 3500 feet regardless of distance. So I “only” biked 48 miles but 3.5 hours was enough. It was almost 80 and sunny and I was not well acclimated to the heat yet. I had also done a 90-minute brick (60-minute bike and 30-minute run) the day before which would not usually be the case before a long bike day (but….volunteering all weekend).

I saw these gorgeous horses at the top of a big hill.

I did a 15-minute run off the bike and actually, my legs felt strong and I managed a close to 9 minute/mile pace.

After stretching, driving home, and unloading all my swim and bike gear I would have been happy for an early dinner and bed but…. my friend Ron was in a new band and they were playing their first show.

https://thesoulstreetband.com

I am glad I went. The vocalist was AMAZING. Ron’s guitar playing is always great. The drummer was also excellent.

I was glad I went as there were only a few dozen people at the small pub/club. They played a nice mix of Soul and classic rock songs. I stayed only a little past 9 pm as it had been a loooooong day. I look forward to seeing them play again later this summer.

Saturday morning I just did an easy 3 miles on the treadmill and then an hour of Yoga/core work in the basement. I got downtown more quickly than anticipated which was great as just as I got to the convention center the first wave of the kids’ fun runs was starting.

Look at the form of the boy in the 0-3 age group!

I got my (AWESOME this year) volunteer shirt and headed upstairs to the registration area. I was first assigned to folding/rolling the runner shirts.

I only had to do that challenging task for about 30 minutes before I got promoted to the registration desk.

Great artwork on the volunteer shirts.

I just had to check people’s IDs and then the “runners” would collect the bib and shirt for each athlete. There were a good number of people from Canada, I thanked them all for visiting our country, and one woman from France (Je parl au pous Francais….?). I was told it had been very busy for the first few hours of registration and it was still moderately busy for the first hour or two but then slowed down a lot. I had brought “lunch” with me as I wasn’t sure if/what they would have for the volunteers. Of course, being Buffalo there was plenty of comfort food!

They did also have salad and sandwiches so I could have eaten healthily even if I hadn’t brought my own meal.

I was continually getting “Lightening near your location” alerts on my phone and by 1 pm people were looking soggy…. and they all asked if we had bags. We did not have bags. Usually, at a race, you get your bib and shirt in a bag and can then put other goodies you get at the race expo into it.

With less work, I kept myself busy by making sets of 4 safety pins (like they have at the “fancy” races).

I also took some time and wandered around the Expo which was much more extensive than I remember from years ago.

I saw a beautiful black lab and at first, kept my distance as with it’s vest I thought it might be working but it was just the pup of a woman who had a spot at the expo for her dog training business.

It was just drizzling by the time I headed to my car and on the way home I grabbed some Indian food. This bird was VERY excited I had filled the bird bath that morning.

I watched the local news to see the detailed weather forecast for the rest of weekend (good for race on Sunday, rainy for Memorial Day Monday) and was surprised to see a familiar face during the story about the Marathon.

BTC hat made it into the video…. “influencer” !

I went to sleep “early” but the 3:55 AM alarm was still jarring. After a 5-minute shower and then an early breakfast and a walk for a surprised Fifa, I was on the road by 4:20 AM. With 40 BTC volunteers, they had already set up all the tables by the time I arrived at 5. I helped set up cups and fill them with water (I ALWAYS avoid the sticky Gatorade tables) for a half hour and then had some Tim’s coffee and a tasty rice-crispy treat.

It was VERY foggy and about 60 degrees. The fog hung around until almost 8 and then it stayed overcast for a little longer before it got very sunny. The half-marathon racers and fast marathon runners had PERFECT conditions, it did get pretty hot out late in the morning for the slower marathon people.

Ethan was ALL about the spoon for some reason. I wore my shark hat (that I wore in NYC marathon last year) and had my cowbell. There was soft moss growing on the Buffalo statue, in a few years he’ll have a full fur coat.

First male and female runners.

There were 1500 full and 3700 half runners, plus some relay teams.

As only the stragglers were still reaching mile 2 but most people were now on the way back and at mile 4 we moved across to offer them water and cheers.

We did the wave for the last 2 racers.

NOTICE that there is not a single cup on the ground. While most of us were handing out water and cheering and watching the racers, a few dedicated BTC volunteers spent all their time sweeping up the cups and bagging the garbage! After a second cup of coffee and another rice crispy treat I walked the 2 miles downtown to the convention center.

The fast half-marathoners had already finished, and I passed several with their medals while walking. You can see how overcast it still was at 9 AM.

There were a LOT of swim team members assigned to “shirt exchange” duty.

I helped out there for a little while but then found some other friends working at the food table in the post-race party room.

It was nice that there was enough food for not only the athletes but also all the friends and relatives, there was also beer. And… Kiwis! With special kiwi tools, cut them in half and then scoop out the fruit!

My friend Jaime was doing the full marathon and I heard he was hoping for around 4:20 so I headed down to the finish line around then and managed to get a great photo of him (and got to pet a nice golden). You can see how sunny it is by then and it was upper 70s.

I went back inside and helped with the food for another hour but by then there were very few people still on the course so I headed back to my car. It was another 2-mile walk and I see now my phone says I walked 21,000 steps today (and was on my feet continually for 8 hours), so much for a “rest” day.

Roosevelt was inaugurated here in 1901 after McKinley was shot by an anarchist at the World Fair/Pan-Am Expo.

While walking back to my car I was going against the direction of the course so I was able to cheer the last few dozen people out there. I passed a few people with less than a mile to go and told them “Less than a mile, you can beat 6 hours!”. At mile 25 I saw the last person on the course with the convoy of official vehicles right behind her. She seemed very happy and to be walking comfortably. I stopped to clap and told her “I always say it is a lot easier to run a 3-hour marathon than to tough out a 6-hour one, good job!”

I heard there was no prize money for the Buffalo Marathon so no international top runners.

The male winner was almost 20 minutes slower than the men’s world record and the woman was 40 minutes behind the women’s record.

Fifa was very happy to see me after the long day apart.

We settled in the shade and I listened to some Jazz (and the birds) and did my blogging.

The forecast looks bad for tomorrow so I guess I’ll be biking in the basement.

With it’s 6:30 start time, GREAT volunteers, flat course, and amazing post-race party I now realize that I should run the Buffalo Marathon! Will be doing it in 2025! See you there, on Sunday, May 25th, 2025!