Last weekend my wife Brooke and I celebrated our one year anniversary. (Actually, we celebrated the fact that Brooke made it through one year with me!)
Since moving to CT last year, we have talked about a day in the city so we decided to treat each other to an action packed, fun filled day in the Big Apple.
The day started with a 1 hour drive to the Metro North train which drops us off right at Grand Central.

Our first stop of the day was the Empire State Building. It’s very hard not to look just like every tourist in the city…i guess we were the only ones without front packs on, you know…a fanny pack worn up front. I love the black leather ones the best…that is a serious traveler.

Anyway, after the Empire State building we took a nice stroll down 5th ave and headed over to Rockefeller Center, down through Time Square and eventually ending up at Mesa Grill for brunch. http://mesagrill.com/ is owned and operated by one of my favorite chefs in the country, Bobby Flay. Bobby has a ton of great shows on the food network that really highlight his southwest style and his masterful sauces.

After brunch, we slowly shuffled our way back up town with heavy stomachs to Broadway to see a show. Ever since we moved here last year, Brooke has wanted to see Wicked in the city but because tickets are so hard to come by, we settled for Les Miserables. What an awesome show! besides the two idiots that i sat next to that smelled like cheap perfume, ate potato chips and M&M’s and narrated the whole time…it was definitely worth it and i can’t wait to get down there soon for another show.

Finally, as our day was coming to an end, we walked through Central Park, snapped a few photos and headed back to Grand Central to catch the train back home.

Everyday is great with Brooke but this one was especially cool.

I leave Sunday for Kona and hope to update the blog throughout the race week.

Good luck to all of the athletes competing, you will do great!

Special K

I simply cannot believe it took me this long but finally, I write my first Ironman race report. (You can scroll down to Sunday if you want to just read about race day)
Thursday July 19th – Brooke and I head to the Hartford airport to pick up her Brother Jay who is flying in from Palo Alto, CA and who is also attempting his very first Ironman (and second triathlon) along with me. If you didn’t know this already, Brooke completed the hardest Ironman in history in 2005 at the Ford Ironman Wisconsin event where over 22% of the athletes did not finish. (To view results, log onto www.nasports.com)
After we picked Jay up, we headed back to the house to pack the Jeep and headed up to Lake Placid. Upon our arrival in Placid, we were greeted by a good friend Sheri Fraser who gave each of us the best pre-race massages that one could get, thanks Sheri, we owe you! We rent a great house that is within walking distance to the expo and the swim start and share with the guys from Team Sports and other close friends including Chris Travers from Profile Design who cooked 3 beer butt chickens for us on Thursday night for dinner. It was an early night for the three of us as we were all tired from getting up so early and Jay had flown in on a red eye flight the night before and barely got any sleep at all.

Friday July 20th – The three of us got up at 6am to have a light breakfast then headed down to Mirror Lake where we met our coach Mike Monroe for a loop of the swim course. I ran into my good friend Tim Moxy from Blue Seventy wetsuits (new sponsor to the Timex team for 2007) and caught up only briefly but Tim’s last words to me were “Have fun and let the suit do all the work.” Those words will stick in my head and carry me through the best swim of my life on race day.
After our swim, the three of us suited up in our rain gear and headed down to the Olympic Oval to register for the race. I have never experienced a race registration that ran so smooth, great job to NA Sports!
Friday night was the Pre race dinner, which was held out at the horse fairgrounds under a mega tent. Few things to mention…Mike Richter, former goalie for the NY Rangers gave a short speech about his quest to conquer Lake Placid and said he had dreamed the night before that the lake actually froze on race day while he was still swimming and when he became coherent there were a bunch of Detroit Red Wings skating around him…too funny!

Saturday July 21st – Day before the race and we are all getting very excited at this point. We spent the day getting a few last minute items including Brave Soldier anti-chaffing crème, tic tac box for my Advil, CO2 cartridges and a few other misc items. Saturday is also the day when you need to hand in your transition bags and turn in your bike. Once that was all done, we went back to the house, cooked some pasta and just relaxed for the evening. Heading to bed, we were all prepared to get very little sleep the night before the race but Brooke and I got a solid 6 hrs or so…Jay on the other hand was not so lucky. The first thing Jay did when he woke up on race day was to give us the big zero sign with his fingers, indicating the amount of sleep he had gotten that night.

Sunday July 22nd, Race Day!! – 4am came around pretty quick for Brooke and I but Jay had been waiting patiently for the alarm to sound so he could get on with the day.
We each had our own pre race meal that we were attempting to get down but it’s hard to eat at 4am. My favorite pre race meal is a wheat bagel with crunchy peanut butter, low fat cream cheese and a banana…oh, and my coffee.

After breakfast, we dropped off our special needs bags, headed to transition to put our water bottles on our bikes and add a few last minute items to our gear bags and then went back to the house to get suited up.
615am – we are all body marked, transition is set and we are way ahead of schedule and I am lovin’ it!

Start
My strategy for the swim was simple, be confident, know that I am going to get hit a few times, breathe easy and let the suit do the work for me. My strategy worked great as I exited the swim in 1:15, not bad for a guy that just took his first swim lesson in February.

Transition
Into transition I go…taking my time of course as I am not here to go for the win but to make sure that I am comfortable on the bike and I don’t leave anything behind.
I listened to the advice given to me by our coach as well as a few professionals who have done very well on this course and it was clear that you wanted to take it easy on the first loop. That I did, zone II the whole loop for a 3:01 and I felt great, I passed about 200 people on the climbs alone and never felt as if I was pushing too hard. Lap two came around and I was starting to get a tightening in my left IT band and my right hip flexor muscle, uh oh…between the high winds and the aches and pains my body was feeling, lap two of the bike was waaaay slower 3:24. What I imagined to be my strongest leg of the day has turned out to be the one I suffered the most on.

Transition
Finally I enter T2 and am feeling good that I am off the bike and about to start the run. (my weakest event of the three). As soon as I start running, my left IT band pops in for a quick hello and it hurts, so much so that I spend the first mile doing my best impression of Terry Fox. All of the sudden I hear people yelling my name and cheering me on and out of the corner of my eye, I notice its Cassidy from Trigger Point Therapy. “Good”, I say to myself, “Cassidy will know how to fix my IT band issues right here on course, he is the man you know?” So I stopped running and Cassidy popped out of his chair to come greet me in the road. I told him about my issue and he said to just “Tilt your pelvis more forward…that should help.” Once again, Cassidy talks me off the ledge and by mile three; my IT band pain would disappear for the remainder of the run!
I must say, my favorite part of the day was the first half of the run. I was feeling good physically and mentally, got to see my brother in law Jay a few times and saw how awesome he was doing and it helped to lift my spirits.
The second half of the run was not so much fun however…(I forgot to mention that I had been dealing with a mild stomach discomfort since mile 10 on the bike and wasn’t sure what was going on but I was having to force down my nutrition the entire day. Luckily, I never got sick but there were plenty of times that I came close). It is very difficult mentally to come all of the way back into town after completing 13 miles and hear people finishing, see the finish line shoot but have to take a different turn and head back out of town for your final 13 miles. I shuffled through the run and was still feeling fairly good. The plan was to run the second loop at 145-160bmp but I could not get my heart rate to go above 128. Along with my concentrated mix of Infinit nutrition I was using on the run, I was alternating at aid stations with Gatorade and coke…I love Coke, it really gives you that extra push and helped to settle my stomach. I knew the end was near when I hit the turnaround on the out and back portion of the loop an fueled me to push even harder. There was never a time during the race that I ever felt like I wanted to quit, our coach Mike Monroe really prepared Brooke and I for this and mentally I had prepared myself.
With 1.5 miles to go until I become an Ironman, I get the best cheer of the day from my best friend (and my wife) Brooke. Brooke was on her way out to start her second loop of the run and still had that same smile on her that I left her at the swim start with. She is truly the reason I was out there on Sunday and was my inspiration to keep going when things got difficult. Seeing Brooke right before the finish was just was a perfect ending to a perfect day for me.
I had two goals for the day, the first was to finish and the second was to come in under 13 hours, which I did with a final time of 12:54:30.

The Ironman will forever be the proudest accomplishment in my life and I can’t wait to start training for the next one, thanks for reading.
Oh, forgot to thank everyone who donated my to my fundraising efforts through the Janus Charity Challenge, i raised over $4,000 for Trips for Kids!!!

Congratulations to Alex, this win couldn’t have gone to a more deserving person…a true athlete!

Here are some pictures from our team training camp compliments of our star photographer - John Robichaud.

enjoy!

Yesterday morning at 7:07 local Hawaii time, I was awakened by the sound of glass breaking, pictures falling off the walls, lamps crashing to the floor and the fear that our building had just been hit by a bomb.

In my confused state, I called my wife, Brooke, who is on the mainland and started to explain to her what had just happened to me and she said “Get out of there, it sounds like an earthquake.” I’m not sure why my first instinct wasn’t to get out of there as fast as I could and was pretty calm and collected considering now what we had all just lived through.

Just as I was finishing my call with Brooke, an aftershock hit and I finally decided it was ready to high tail it out of the condo. As I left my condo, all of my fellow team was standing outside already and was yelling at me to get out of the building.

It is hard to explain my thought process but through the entire ordeal, I never felt scared or threatened until the hotel workers next door was yelling at people to go to higher ground for fear that a Tsunami could strike at any time. It’s amazing how fast a natural disaster hits you and you have no time to react.

My condo was trashed. Every picture on the walls either fell down or was hanging crooked, all of the kitchen cupboards opened up and spit out wine glasses, coffee mugs, bowls and an entire spice cabinet. Broken glass was in the living room 12 feet away from the kitchen, in the bathroom and down the garbage disposal.

Since the power was out over the entire island of Hawaii, it was difficult to find food anywhere in town and all of the supermarkets suffered major damage and were closed. Cell phones were not even working. It’s at that time when you go into survival mode and reality sets in and it’s very frightening.

I am very thankful that we are all safe here and appreciate life that much more knowing that it can be taken from you at any time. Thanks to everyone who called or emailed yesterday concerned about our safety.

On September 30th, I will be getting married to the woman of my dreams.  How do I define the term “Woman of my dreams?”  Well besides the fact that she is the most beautiful person both inside and out, she has agreed that a grilled burrito bar for our rehearsal dinner cooked by yours truly would be awesome!  I get to share my passion for burritos and grilling with my closest friends and family and this makes me happy.

I will be making a few homemade salsa’s to go with the feast and will include (but are not limited to) my fresh tomato salsa, cucumber mango and a black bean and corn relish.  I made a test batch of the relish and tomato salsa to bring in to Timex and share with the unknowing test pilots yesterday.  The salsa was a hit and a few had asked for the recipe so here it is.  If you don’t like cilantro and garlic…you may want to skip this one.

Meyer’s Salsa

28oz can whole Tomatoes
½ small onion diced fine
1 small Jalapeño seeded and diced
1 clove garlic minced
¼ cup chopped cilantro
½ green pepper diced fine
Juice of one lime
1 tbsp cider or red wine vinegar
Salt and Pepper

Puree the tomatoes and juice in a food processor or blender to your desired consistency.
Add all remaining ingredients.
Place in refrigerator overnight.

I recommend a good blue corn tortilla chip to serve with.
Want more of Meyer’s salsa recipes?  Post a comment below with your request and i’ll add ‘em.  (I can make some mean guacamole too…)