Take it from a pro; I’ve been known to pack on the pounds in the winter. At Team Camp in April, I was flirting with obesity, carrying 180lbs on my 6’2″ frame. Come October, I weighed in at Kona at a skin and bones 163lbs.

So if you are looking to pack on some blubber this winter, follow these simple eating rules, and you’ll show the haters who’s boss.

1.  Eat round foods.

Round foods you say? Maybe this needs some clarification for the geometrically challenged. Case number 1:
You  might think this apple is a round food, but alas! you are wrong. This is a spherical food – To be avoided at all cost.

These are examples of round foods:

Simple as that! Moving on….

2. Go to the Drive through

This one doesn’t need explanation. That simple window is the portal to obesity. Just think back to how you felt the last time you woofed down something you ordered at the drive through….I think you get the point.

3. Cheese

4. “It comes in a can, but Isn’t a fruit or vegetable”

No, this isn’t a 20 questions clue, its another nutritional rule for the winter months [Cheese from a can is the holy grail of rules #3 and 4].

A few co-workers of mine ran the Boston marathon, which seemed to prompt the question, “Mike, what have you run at Boston?” My current Boston PR is 00:00:00, and those few questions were the drugs in my drink that took me home and made me think this was a good idea.

I despise open marathons. Running 17 or 18 miles relatively fast is enough running for me. Ironman is totally different. On the Ironman marathon, you find out what you are made of (in my case, wax, butter, snow… something that turns into a stagnant puddle on the road when it gets hot), in on open marathon, you just find out about pain and boredom (and getting chicked). 

Anywho, my friend Mark Vermeersch (who had run 2:37 at Chicago 3 weeks prior) came with me to be my pacer, and constantly remind me of how stupid an idea this was. You see, I could be the worst pacer ever when it comes to running races. I ran 2:49 at Chicago a few years back, with a 4:48 opening mile. The plan was to try to run 2:45, negative split… no sub 5 min opening miles. I felt like I’d recovered well from Kona, and done enough running and biking to maintain some fitness, so I was going to shoot for a PR. I derived some complex algorithms, which led me to believe there was a %40 chance of running great, and a %60 chance that my legs would break off my body at about 18 miles. I heard Ryan Hall was shaking in his Asics when he read my stats. 

In summary, my statistics were dead on. First half in 1:22, just cruising. Mile 15 took us up a long rise over a bridge, and my quads were starting to feel the effects of all the pounding on the pavement. Mark was also starting to feel some unpleasant effects, and sprinted off ahead to “take a huge dump.”  We reunited at mile 18, and my legs were Done. Trashed. Dangling by a thread. It wasn’t so much fatigue as it was soreness from the impact.  Mark had to pick body parts off the ground and carry me back to the Millennium Falcon.

Mile 18

After that I completely lost track of distance, and time, it was just about git’n ‘er done. With 100m to go, Mark stopped, reattached my legs to my body, and got a full body waxing.

Mark, checking out my bod….oooor maybe my stupid tan lines

Realizing I still had a chance to break 3 hrs, I unleashed an epicly epic sprint (it was epic), and crossed the line just ahead of Mark with 6 seconds to spare. I was hoping to run faster, but this was a gamble to begin with, and I totally fell apart and still broke 3 hrs, which is my new “blowup PR.” I decided to take my shoes off after the finish, which was another bad idea, because I was too sore to bend over and pick them up.

2009: DONE! 

Over and Out! (unless I think up some more inspiring material)

Mike

I’ve dreamed of standing on the podium at the Ironman World Championships since I started racing triathlon 5 years ago, and this past sunday evening, I finally got to do so…..so hooray for me! I came into this race in fantastic shape, but without a time goal. The weather conditions on this course are what make it oh so difficult, and this being my first time to the big island, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Apollo 57 landed…..excuse me, United flight 57 landed in Kona on tuesday evening, and upon deplaning, I immediately learned what the legendary Kona heat was all about. I broke a sweat waiting for my luggage, and I don’t think I stopped sweating until I got back to Wisconsin. Leading up to the race, I was very calm and relaxed. No point in worrying about the race when I knew I was ready. I spent the days before the race eating, relaxing, doing some short workouts, and shooting a porno with Roger.

Race morning was a different story. All the nervous energy I had suppressed was suddenly released. The mental effort it took for me to commit to swallowing my breakfast felt like trying to swallow a lethal dose of poison, or jump off a ledge to my death. I wore my slightly too big camo board shorts, that Jackie has kindly described as “offensive,” and made it through the standard pre race activities undetected, and then headed down to the water where I met up with Jackie and Cindi.

Treading water before the start, it all hit me. This was what it was all about. Nervousness turned to excitement, and it was ass kicking time. To clarify, I was planning on dishing out the ass kicking, but instead it seemed the other way around for the first 500m of the swim. Roughest swim start ever! In hindsight, I started way too close to the pier. Things cleared out eventually, and I felt really good, and was passing people the entire time. I was a bit surprised to see how slow my time was, as I ran up the steps in 1:02, but looking back at the results, I out swam a few guys that normally beat me out of the water by 2-3 minutes. For those keeping track (which I am pretty sure is only me), Jackie beat me out of the water, despite my year long claims of total aquatic dominance in Kona.

As I hit the T1 tent, I couldn’t get my Aquasphere skinsuit off. I’ve never had this happen before, so I asked a volunteer for help, but they just jammed the zipper and made it worse. I eventually turned bright green and incredible hulked (yeah it’s a verb now) my suit off. All other men in the tent at that time immediately DNFed after my incredible display of pure man power.

                              That speed’s all real baby!

Now it was time to see what the Speed Concept was made of, hopefully real speed, and not the conceptual kind. I had strict instructions not to hammer the first drag strip through town, and to the disbelief of some, I took it pretty easy, although my +25 mph average would suggest otherwise. I blame the bike. Coming down Palani Rd, about 2 miles into the bike ride, I heard the comforting jingle of both my CO2 catridges falling off my bike and bouncing off the asphalt. I was now rolling commando on the bike course, and unlike wearing no underwear, it wasn’t a particularly liberating feeling. Something unexpected always happens in an Ironman, so I quickly put this behind me and the rest of the bike ride was pretty uneventful. My strategy was to ride easy to Kawaihae, put in a solid effort on the climb to Hawi, recover on the descent, and then ride strong for the last third of the course. I executed my plan well, staying aero and passing about 1000000 people on the climb to Hawi, but ran into a bit of trouble on the descent. I hit a huge bump, lost both my water bottles, and managed to only get one bottle at the next aid station, which meant I rode ~15 miles on 1 bottle of water. This would not be a disaster under normal conditions, but here I was going through almost 4 bottles every hour, so this put me in a hole for a few miles. I did manage to get some fluids in me at the next aid station, recover about mile 90, and ride strong on the way back into town. Overall I rode pretty conservatively and posted a 5:00:45 bike split, which I am happy with considering it was head winds both ways (really, it was, I swear).

The second transition, thankfully, did not require any super human feats of strength on my part. I asked for some sunscreen, but after seeing how burnt I got, I am suspicious that I actually just received a creepy back rub.

                              Mile 1: Thinking about my back rub

The first two miles of the run redefined my definition of “Hot.” If it was that hot the whole run, I wouldn’t have made it. It seemed to cool off a little as I ran out of town, and I actually was making pretty good progress, running just over 7 min pace even though I was walking all the aid stations, grabbing water, gatorade, cola, and throwing ice down my shorts (which is great for keeping you cool). I did manage to accidentally throw a cup of cola down my shorts as well. It didn’t work any miracles, so I decided to take the rest of my fluids orally (in case you were wondering). As we came back through the “hot corner” in town, I really started to melt. I walked most of Palani (which is waaaay steeper than it looks on the race video, FYI), but then seemed to be running OK until the energy lab, at which point I was less runner and more of a slowly moving blob of biomass. I was actually still running very fast at this point…..it was just all the damn walking I was doing that was slowing me down.

Mike Lavery, You are and IRONMA–

ooooh, uuuuum, cleanup on aisle 3, cleanup on aisle 3

I eventually finished, with a time of 9:36 (my 2nd fastest IM), 5th M18-24, and a 3:26 marathon (personal worst!!), although I don’t remember the finish. Some dudes scraped me off the line and brought me to the medical tent, where I became more than intimate with someone else who almost left “it” out on the course. Unfortunately, “it” wasn’t left out on the course, but was trapped in said persons’ tri shorts, and “it” passed within a few inches of my face as I sat with nausea in the medical tent. I’ll spare the details of “it” so someone (me) doesn’t throw up on their computer.

Overall, I left it all out there (no, not the “it” from the paragraph prior), but the more I think about it, I’m not satisfied with how my race unfolded. My bike power numbers and run speeds in training suggest I have a lot more in me, and I know I can go faster. I was just not ready for the heat. I don’t think I made any gross errors in hydration, nutrition, or pacing, but the very cool summer we had in Wisconsin did not give me much time to acclimate. I do feel like I went as fast as I could on the day, and I learned a few lessons that will help me next time I race on the big island.

Still, 5th in the world ain’t too bad! I can’t complain. I’m already excited to get back at it next season to build up to Ironman Wisconsin, hopefully run a bit faster, and make it back to Kona in 2011. 

Mahalo

Mike.

2. Although I have never been to the moon, I have to say, I am almost certain this place is much hotter than the moon, or anywhere I have ever been for that matter. Its like the moon on (super) global warming.

3. I haven’t stopped sweating since I got here (and its not because I’m nervous or have some medical condition, see #2 above).

4. You know that fish tank at Chinese restaurants, the one with all the ridiculous fish in it? That’s what the swim is like here.

Time to go swim.

Mike

I was registered to race IM Lake Placid last weekend, but decided to forgo a mid season Ironman to focus all my energy on Kona (I got a slot in Arizona in the fall). Instead, I decided a little back to back half ironman experiment would be “fun” to do. It started off with a “Holy Crap! Where did that come from!” 4:03 at Racine, and my hope was to match or better that time at Chisago one week later.

Between barely missing a bloody impact with a deer, and some sketchy directions from the British lady inside our GPS (it must have been set to “I want to buy crack at the projects” mode), Jackie and I showed up with minimal time to spare. Swim warm up involved putting on the wetsuit as I ran down to the start.

I went out hard and blew up hard on the swim. I gave it my all to tack onto the lead pack, but once I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I slowed (blew) up and let Jackie pass, and drop, me. I got into a groove on the way back, exiting in 26 min and change.

Onto the bike, I rode pretty conservatively. My legs felt good, but I knew after last weeks race that my run was going to be hit or miss, so I was going to do everything I could to save some juice for the last leg. I exited the bike in 2:13.

Mile 1 of the run, my goals changed to just break 4:10. At Racine I ran the whole run at ~160 bpm. First mile at Chisago was up near 190 bpm. With my HR through the roof, I was in damage control mode for most of the run. My legs lacked any snap, and felt like lead, or maybe Jello, or maybe Jello with chunks of lead inside, I am not sure.

I still managed to finish in 4:08, good enough for tenth place against some stiff competition. A bit of a bittersweet result, but I can’t complain. It was great to see Tim Hola out there racing as well.

Now its back to training mode. Pigman half in 2 weeks, then its full speed ahead to Kona.

Thanks for reading
Mike.

First off, Blake killed it for the overall win in 3:54, very impressive.

 My goal for Racine was to break 4:10. I’d been putting in some extra hours in Waterloo working on super double top secret triathlon things, and it left me a little tired on race morning, so I wasn’t so confident that I was going to have a great race. I was pretty excited that the run supposedly went through the Racine zoo, with the race flyer promising “Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!”  While expressing my excitement to a friend pre-race, a near by ease dropper chimed in with “The zoo sucks!” I was still hoping to see a Giraffe. Also, I was given the wrong color swim cap, and pre-race announcements said this was going to be a penalty. It took me a shocking amount of time to convince the race director I was not a 40-44 year old woman, so I didn’t get much of a chance to warm up in the water, which didn’t help my cause.

 I had a crap swim. The course was either a hair short and/or there is a current, because I still exited the water in 24 minutes and change.

 Onto the bike, my heart rate was pegged at LT for the first 20 minutes, even though I wasn’t pushing it too hard. I rode through some of the faster swimmers, and within the first 10 miles, and ended up riding with some guy that was riding a pretty comfortable pace up until about mile 35.  All of a sudden, on a long false flat, my legs came alive, so I turned up the heat and smoked 2 or 3 more people before entering T2 in 3^rd place with a 2:14 bike split (2^nd fastest of the day to Blake’s redonkulous 2:09).

 A quick T2 put me out on the run about 100 yards behind 2^nd place, Adam Zucco, who is a stud swimmer and biker, but I had passed on the run at Rockman earlier in the year. My legs immediately felt gooooood, and I moved into 2^nd place within the first mile, still about 8 minutes behind Blake. Other parts of my body weren’t so happy, as even with a super smooth carbon TTX under me, the pavement of the bike course made the ride feel like 2+ hours of getting punched in the taint. The run was pretty uneventful. My best efforts to pull back time on Blake weren’t good enough, and the time gap remained relatively steady for the whole run. I was second across the line, with a run time of 1:22 and a total time of 4:03 (a huge PR for me). I have to thank teammate and coach Eric Bean for milking some speed out of me this year.

 I can also confirm, the zoo did, in fact, suck. Not only did I not see a Giraffe, I didn’t even see the zoo itself.

 Results:

1.  Blake Becker (USA) 3:54:04
2. Jeff Paul (USA) 4:00:58
3. Mike Lavery (USA) 4:03:51
4. Adam Zucco (USA) 4:06:33
5. Jeremy Davis (USA) 4:07:09

Image1: Madison at 4:15am

Now to the race…. 

The two loop swim took place in a local sewage containment pond, and was marked via a few dudes floating on big innertubes (I kid you not). I tacked onto the second swim pack, and hit the beach in 28’ and change, having avoided any attacks by local brown trout. No Michael Phelps swim, but I felt good the whole time and the swim times seemed a little slow across the board.

Image 2: My view from the swim course

Into T1, my new Aquasphere wetsuit (big fan btw) slid off like a seal on an iceberg. Onto the bike…

This is usually were I make up most of my time, but today my powersticks just didn’t have the power. I managed to move my way up to 4^th place by the turn around, but then things started to get interesting. First, my spare tubular jettisoned off the back of my saddle due to my ghetto-rigged attachment method. Next, I lost an arm rest pad that had stuck to some lingering road rash on my elbow. I watched it fly off into the woods, leaving me to ride ~10 miles skin on metal (not recommended). Then I fumbled and dropped my water bottle. I entered T2 in 5^th place, with a 2:17 bike split, unleashed some “mad T2 skills,” and hit the run on the heels of 4^th.

The run turned out to be its own adventure. I decided to take it out easy, as the course was non stop hills through Rock Cut State Park, and I knew it was going to be tough. By the time I went through the two mile mark (the only mile marker anywhere on the entire race course), I had settled into a rhythm and started to feel very good. Roughly 4 miles in, I came upon a fork in the path, an unmanned aid station, and no signage or volunteers to speak of. Three options presented themselves to me:

1. Go left, onto a muddy flooded out path 

2. Go right, up to a major road intersection (with no volunteers)

3. Turn around, but there was supposed to be timing mat at the turn around.

Three options, and they all seemed wrong. I killed ~2 minutes trying to figure out what to do, when two of the guys in front of me came running back down the path from the right, equally confused. We regrouped, decided to turn around (which was the correct choice) and were on our way. About a mile later, as I am flying full throttle through a left hand, downhill turn, I managed to slip in some mud and face plant the asphalt. Covered in dirt and blood, I eventually located the finish line and crossed in 4^th place with a finish time of 4:15. Winner Chris McDonald gave me a once over, and said, in his heavy Aussie accent, “You look like you’ve been to war.”

Overall I am very pleased with my race. I still have a lot of work to do before the big dance in October, but this was a great start. I love racing in competitive fields, and this race didn’t disappoint. I was beaten by 3 guys that placed top 10 overall at IM Wisconsin in 2008, and it was a lot of fun to be in the mix with such top notch athletes. Props to Jackie on her 2^nd place finish.

Results here: http://www.itsracetime.com/Results.aspx?ID=85

Oh yeah, the Sugoi race kits are “like super awesome.”

Mike

8:54 am line up at the start

8:55 am: run into teammate Jackie Arendt, sporting a sweet pink Timex visor

8:56 am: mini panic attack: how could I have forgotten my pink Timex visor at home!!

9:00 am: gun goes off

mile 1: 5:54, just cruising, feeling good

mile 2: 5:50, still cruising, still feeling good, wishing I was wearing my pink visor.

miles 3-7: lots of running at 5:50-6:15 pace, thinking it’s time to turn on the jets…

mile 7.1: initiate negative-split launch sequence, immediately blow by 3 dudes

….cue (most) painful side stitch (ever)….

mile 7.5: don’t walk, don’t walk, it’ll go away…

mile 7.6: quick walk break, immediately get chicked

miles 8-12: run walk jog walk curse walk jog run….

mile 12: quick look behind me, see a pink Timex visor on the horizon, closing in fast

Finish: …one second ahead of Jackie (but only because she didn’t put a surge on me in the final 100 meters)

Not the race I was looking to have, but it was a fun event none the less. I am pretty happy with my run fitness at the moment, considering my running has been spotty the last month due to some tendonitis. I am looking forward to redeeming myself in a few weeks at the Madison Half Marathon.

Mike