THE QUIET, FAT LIFE

I've been backing up my blog posts just in case Blogger dies. Reading some of my posts from my time in Hawaii makes me realize something.

Compared to where I was then I can't help but feel I now live a life of total obscurity.

I knew people back then.
People knew me.

I swam, biked and ran with some really awesome athletes, both famous and regular, everyday peeps. World-record holders and back-of-the-packers.

I haven't written on this blog for some time. Not that many people come here nowadays and if they do it's usually an errant search that brought them here. Even back in the day people mostly stopped by because they were doing a search on Hawaii and for some reason my blog showed up in their searches.

My "CHRISTMAS IN HAWAII" blog post from 2008 or 09 still get's lots of hits.  But when you put Christmas and Hawaii together search engines are bound to find it.

So these days I live in complete anonymity. No training partners. No group swims or runs or cycling. No training at all, actually. A little running now and then. Growing old and fat and slowly becoming that couch potato I once was.

I've thought about shutting down "The Kona Life" blog. Deleting it all. Erasing what seems like a dream now. Maybe someday. There's still a faint glimmer of hope that triathlete deep inside me will emerge once again.

But for now in these dreary days of winter here in Oregon I like re-reading my misadventures in paradise and dream of palm trees,  warm ocean swims, running along Alii and long, hot rides on Queen K.

A QUICK UPDATE 1/17/17
I haven't swam or biked since posting this. I have ran off and on though, but not much. I still miss Hawaii and all those wonderful people but I have lost weight. I weigh less now than I did when I weighed in for Ironman in 2009.  Probably less than I have in 20 years but it's from diet not training so not nearly as much muscle as I used to have. But maybe when the weather turns ...

REVISIONS

OK, I knew trying to reach 50k, or 31 miles, by the last Sunday of the year was really pushing it. Two weeks ago I got greedy and I ran 18 miles for my long run on Sunday. It should have been a 16-mile run that day but I wanted to push it to 18 so I could have a shot at 31 miles 6 weeks later. Big mistake. Combined with running in the much-more hilly Salem area verses the pancake-flat Woodburn area,  everything went wrong. I bonked plus I strained something in my lower right leg below my calf muscle and beside my achilles tendon.

My last two miles were close to 15 minutes each -- that's slower than walking speed. So I ended up taking the following week off just to recover from my stupidity. It took me until the following Wednesday to even start getting any energy back. Bonking really takes it out of you. Eight days later I tried an easy 2 mile run to test the calf muscle, which still hurt but I wrapped it up tight and it was manageable, I thought.

The next couple of days (Tuesday and Wednesday)  I ran an easy hour each day. By Saturday I felt back to normal so the plan was to do 10 miles that included the one little hill we have in Woodburn, which is three miles from my house. It was pretty cold out but I felt good. My leg felt strong so I didn't wrap it.

I was doing hill repeats in the cold sunshine and felt good. Then on the third trip up, just before reaching the top of the hill, SNAP! a sharp pain just beside my right calf muscle, right where it had hurt two weeks before. I could barely walk on it and I was 3 miles from home.

After a mile or so of limping I tried running and as long as I stayed on my heel I could jog, sort of and finally made it home. Now I'm trying to recover from a more severe injury and hoping I'll be over 10-mile long runs by the end of the year. So forget the 31 miles. But that's running or rather my stupidty or greediness or whatever you want to call it. We have to adapt as life, and age, gets in the way.

So while I am recovering I'm riding the bike trainer every day and after several years of playing around with trying the Pose method of running I finally bought the book  — The Running Revolution: How to Run Faster, Farther and Injury-Free for Life, by former Olympic coach Nicholas Romanov and sports writer Kurt Brungardt. I'm hoping it'll live up to its promise about injury free running. I actually bought the e-book deluxe addition ($11.95) that included a lot of videos. I figure if I can't run I might as well read about it.

I'll let you know if I can learn to run natural or not.

Oh, I'm also planning on entering the lottery for the Tahoe Rim Trail 50 miler that runs in mid-July. The lottery entry begins Dec. 7 and ends Dec. 21, 2014, and they draw the names Jan. 1, 2015. If I'm picked, this will be my first 50 miler. You can find out about the lottery for the TRT 50 miler, the 50k and the 100 miler at Ultra Signup.

I'm hoping to do a marathon or a 50k in the spring if I can find one close enough, whether it's an official race or me just going out on my own. It sounds funny talking about running 50 miles when right now I can't run a step and even healthy I bonked on 18 miles, but I learned from Ironman that good, solid training and a positive attitude can make the impossible possible.

Keep your fingers crossed.

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN ZOMBIES AHEAD ...

It's slow going but I'm up to 12 miles on my long runs and 10k (6.2 miles) on my other running days. I still need to add one more day of running to get it up to 4 days but I just don't know where I'll get the time, especially with winter coming on.

This Sunday I should be up to half marathon distance (13.1 miles). I can't wait to get up to three hour runs but by then it'll be cold and dark and rainy here. I know, I'm a wimp, but after training for years in Hawaii it's hard to get motivated in poor weather.

Karen and I, NJ and the twins are planning on racing zombies on the 25th in Albany. My guess is we'll not make it too far before we are "bitten." But it should be fun anyhow. I've always wanted "The Walking Dead" to do a show on zombie babies, especially zombie twin babies.

Oh, since Ironman World Championship is this Saturday, here's a video of my first world championship finish shot by my friend Giovanni.

This is from 2009. Back then 13 miles seemed like nothing. In fact I remember racing a half marathon a few weeks before where I went out and ran 3 miles as a warm up then ran my fastest half to date just so I could get in my 16 mile run for the day. Dang I miss in that kind of shape.

31 MILES TO SUNDAY

Let me just put this out there so I have a little bit of accountability: I’m working toward running 50k by December 28 - Fourteen weeks from now. My goal is to reach 50k (31 miles) by the end of the year in prep for a 50-mile run next spring.

Sundays are my long run days and this Sunday I’ll be at 11 miles. I know, that’s not that far but I took the past spring and summer off dealing with a stress fracture, which is still hurting, and trying to get rid of skin cancer, which I’m still fighting. Note: chemo, even in cream form, sucks.

Adding a mile a week and NOT having any recovery weeks or injuries, I should be at 25 miles by Dec. 28. Oops! Gonna be short. Now I could just push the last week and run that extra 6 miles just to hit my goal, but we’re talking an extra hour’s worth of running on day that’ll probably be cold, rainy and short on daylight.



(I was a runner once, and young! This is a spoof I did back in the day of a Zoot commercial I saw on TV that featured the great Jason Lester and I thought, "Ya know, I wear those exact same Zoots. I could do that commercial." So Karen and I headed to the Energy Lab with an old handheld 8mm camcorder just shot it in about 30 minutes. I remember I had a pulled calf muscle so it was pretty painful to try not to limp. Don't know why I never got a commercial contract with Zoot.)

Here's The Real Zoot commercial starring the awesome Jason Lester "Got Ultra?"

BUT, if I increase my mileage by one and a half miles per week that’d land me just a half-mile short of my goal a week early. But lets be realistic here. There are two major factors. Make that three major factors: 1) This is Oregon and it’s going to rain and snow and get pretty cold so I’ll be carrying a lot of extra weight in clothing. Plus I’ll be doing most of my running in the dark. 2) I’ll never make it injury free or without throwing in a recover week here and there. And 3) I’m lazy, which means I’ll miss some runs during the week because of (insert any lame excuse here) making my long runs even harder and putting me more at risk for injury.

Besides running marathons, the longest training runs I’ve done were 20 milers. And unlike a race, this will be done solo (I think I’m the only runner in our town during the winter) and with whatever support crew I can muster from the family.

Can I do it? I’d like to say HECK YA! But honestly, I’m doubtful. I haven’t had a real goal since I left Hawaii and I’m thinking that this might be fun to try - at least until it turns cold, wet and windy. Then I reckon the Ironman in me better kick in with that “anything is possible, I am an Ironman” attitude.

I'll be doing shorter runs throughout the week: a couple of hour runs and maybe an hour and a half run followed by the long run on Sundays. Probably a lot of it done on the tready once the weather turns. Btw, if anyone has any advice for training for ultra marathons, feel free to pass it along.

They say the first step is the hardest. Yeah right! Let's see how the 500,000th step feels and see which is harder… Oh, by the way, if anyone has any connections with a running shoe manufacturer, I’m looking for shoe sponsors … ha!

See ya out there!

DEATH BY ZOMBIE

"A zombie film is not fun without a bunch of stupid people running around and observing how they fail to handle the situation." - George A. Romero, director, writer of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, among other zombie movies

Well I participated in my first-ever zombie run recently. It was a 5k run at Blue Lake Regional Park in Portland Oct. 26.

I managed to make it about halfway before I was consumed by the mindless, brain eating walkers -- who, just for the record did some running to chase me down -- what's up with that?

Oh well, it was fun and even my 19 month old grandson liked seeing all the zombies, who looked pretty good, er, dead.

Here's a few photos from the event for your entertainment. These are all frame grabs taken from video from our GoPro Hero 2 camera. Love that camera.

Here's a link to my flickr account with more photos:
Zombie apocalypse

A QUICK CHECK-IN

It's been a busy time since we left Hawaii just over a year ago. We've lived in three different time zones and have driven across the U.S. four times. We have seen Yellowstone, the Atlantic Ocean and had a few tornado scares. Three grandsons have been born in the past few months, including twins, (giving us 6 grandkids total) and so much more has been going on that it has been hard to catch my breath.

I've barely had time to do any running or biking over the past year. I've only been swimming twice since leaving Hawaii, which is really sad. I love swimming. Now we live just 2 miles from a swimming facility so hopefully once we get settled in our new location - Oregon, by the way - I'm hoping to get back into the water.

This blog has slowly transformed from a triathlete's journey off the couch to more of a family focused blog, but I'm hoping as we get settled in the Northwest I'll get back into training and find some interesting experiences to write about such as how hard it's going to be to "learn to swim" again. Or how to get and stay motivated in a cold, rainy climate. 

I've always marveled at how mainlanders could stay motivated to train for a triathlon all winter long compared to how easy it is to those of us in Hawaii who always have great weather and a beautiful ocean to swim in. Now I'm about to find out.

Anyhow, this is just to revisit "The Kona Life" and say what's happening. I should change the name of this place but I think I will keep it. After all, The Kona Life is a state of mind more than a place where I lived. 

Take care and I'll hopefully be writing again soon.

CROSSING THE COUNTRY

At the beginning of this month I got to drive and run across America. All in only 3 days. From Idaho to North Carolina by way of Alabama and Georgia. Long, long days.

( Each pin point on the map represents places we have been over the past month. From Portland, Oregon, to Yellowstone National Park to Georgia to North Carolina and back again.)

Our son, Daniel got married in North Carolina and we decided it would be more fun to drive across the U.S. instead of fly. It would give us a chance to see places we have never seen and also to stop by and see our daughter, Rachael, and our two grand-daughters, Maddie and Zoey, in Georgia.

Somewhere in the planning stages I thought it would be fun to try and run in each state we drove through. After all, how many chances will I have to do something like that. So I decided I would try to run at least 5k (3.1 miles) in each state, But knowing we would only have three days to drive nearly 3,000 miles I knew that would be tough. Plus the second day of driving we would hit 6 states. That would mean driving a thousand miles and running 21 miles all in 15 hours.

A pretty ambitious plan. One thing I didn't figure on was how cold it would be in the first few states we passed through. It's been six months since we moved here from Hawaii and I still don't have cold-weather running clothes.

I can say I didn't hit my 5k goal in every state and I did skip running when we passed through Tennessee, our sixth state in one day. It was dark, cold and I was tired.

Nonetheless, we had a blast. There were a lot of firsts for me. The first time driving across America. First time being in most of the states we've been in. First time in the eastern time zone. First time I've ran in 5 states in one day. (How many people can say that?) And my first time to see the Atlantic Ocean. Not bad for a couch potato.

So get off the couch fellow couch potatoes and get out there and do something. Have fun, get healthy. Life is calling ...

(Maddie and me making faces for the camera)

(Daniel and I at the beach at Camp Lejeune)

(Running in Georgia)

(Karen and Rebecca at the beach)

Karen and I at the beach)

(Maddie)

(I got the chance to shoot with some Marines at the shooting range.)

(Running next to the Atlantic Ocean)

(Echo Canyon in Utah)

(Daniel and Dawn's wedding)

(Running in Utah)

(Running at sunrise in Iowa)

Maddie and I shopping

Zoey.

(Running in Missouri)

The Atlantic ocean

(Stepping into the Atlantic)

(Rebecca at the beach)

ROAD TRIP

Athens, Alabama ... That's where we are tonight. Karen, Rebecca and I are traveling cross country from Idaho to North Carolina for our son, Daniel's wedding next Saturday.

We left Monday morning around 5 a.m. and made it to York, Nebraska by about 10 p.m. One of my goals is to stop in each state we travel through and run just enough to say I ran in that state. Its been fun. So far I've run in Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky. I missed Tennessee just because it was dark and frankly I was tired. I'll catch it on our way back. 

As I said we are in Alabama tonight (Tuesday) and I plan on running here in the morning. Tomorrow we head down to Tuscaloosa where we are stopping by to say hi to a friend from Hawaii who lives there now, then we are off to Georgia to see our daughter Rachael and our two granddaughters. 

The next day we head off to the East Coast and North Carolina to See Daniel and his bride-to-be, Dawn and attend their wedding Saturday. 

Come Sunday we do it all again and drive three days back to Idaho and running in whatever states we go through that I haven't run in yet. 

Running in Iowa at Sunrise. 

Running in Utah on Monday just after sunrise.

So there you have it. This is a first for me. I've never been to most of these states and running in them is a blast and makes for some interesting conversations. It's mostly been cold however. That's why I'm wearing jeans in the Utah photo. I don't have any cold-weather clothes since this is my first fall/winter

on the mainland since we moved from Hawaii. hmmm ... maybe I can get some clothing and shoe sponsors out of this ... lol 

See you out there.

RACING AGAIN

I ran my first race in Idaho last weekend. The Rim2Rim canyon run. 7.5 miles of pain. It's the hardest running race I've done. As I posted on Facebook, the race was like running Kaloko ( a very steep,winding road in Kona, combined with running the Hawaii 70.3 triathlon running course (a half marathon on a golf course, hot roads and gravel) then running down Kaloko followed by running back up it again. All fit into 7.5 miles. It felt a lot farther than that though.

Anyhow it was fun finally racing again. It's been a while since my last race and it's my first race on the mainland since college.

I am still trying to adapt to mainland living and no ocean in sight. The biggest trouble has been not being able to swim anymore. The only swimming here is at the YMCA, of which we are members, but they have such an odd schedule for lap swimming that I have only made it to the pool once since we've moved here.

Cycling is another issue. There are no shoulders on the roads here and traffic is fast (75 mph on the freeways and 65 or so on the back roads) so it doesn't feel safe to bike. Most people bike with the bike club but they DO NOT allow tri bikes and I don't like riding in groups anyhow, so I've restricted my cycling to using the bike trainer in the garage.

So mostly I've only been running, which is fine. I like running. My goal is to participate in an ultramarathon sometime in the next year.

On the bright side, we have been doing a lot of road trips since we've moved. I even got to check off a bucket list item (going to Yellowstone and seeing Old Faithful).

Here are a few photos of some of the places we've visited:

Yellowstone 

the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Madison river in yellowstone

road trip to Balanced Rock

Hidden Lakes.

Jerome County Fair

On the Snake River at Twin Falls Park

At the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Craters of the Moon National Monument

Craters of the Moon national Monument.

Oh, we are planning a speed trip cross-country at the end of October and running in as many states as possible, but more on that in my next post. 

Be safe.

BACK ON THE MAINLAND

(Derkes Lake around sunset)

Just a note to say we arrived safe and sound in Twin Falls, Idaho. Actually, we landed here about three weeks ago. However, our stuff ... all of our household items, including my computer just arrived. So we are officially moved off the island and on the mainland.

It's been a rough transition over the past three weeks. But what should I expect? Over the past 7 years I have only been out of Hawaii for 1 week. So there is going to be an adjustment period I suppose.

Anyhow, we made it. Our possessions arrived pretty much all intact and we have a roof over our heads. I have plenty of photos to post and maybe even a story or two to tell once things calm down and I actually get a chance to relax.

(Shoshone Falls)

(SNAKE RIVER CANYON)

Thanks for all your notes of encouragement and support, I'll post again soon.

MY 7-YEAR SUMMER IS ENDING

My perpetual summer has come to an end.

As of May 24th my family and I are moving back to the mainland. I got a new job and a new adventure awaiting me in Twin Falls, Idaho.

I've learned so many things while living here it doesn't seem real that it is all coming to an end. My greatest fear is that I will become that couch potato I once was. Hawaii is so much a part of who I am now that I can't imagine myself anywhere else. I have met so many wonderful people here. Made so many great friends. But it's time to move on. Since three of our kids and two grandkids live on the mainland, it's for the best. We'll be able to see them more often.

I can honestly say I am a different person now than when I arrived in the Aloha state 7 years ago. I guess the true test of character comes from challenges, and moving to a completely different climate, culture and economy will certainly be challenging for me.

I have always felt that Kona made me special, at least, made me feel special. It taught me how to swim, how to bike and how to run. It  taught me how to be strong, how to be encouraged by encouraging others. To be inspired by inspiring others. Without it, without being here, seems like I just might be leaving my identity behind. The person I have learned to become.

I've never swum anywhere but here - the ocean and the Kona pool. I've never done a triathlon anywhere but here. I've trained with some of the best athletes in the world here (I wonder how often Lance makes it to Idaho?). I've trained with some of the best people in the world here - Kona People.

But, just like moving here was scary and exciting and a giant mystery of what to expect, moving to a place I've never been is just another step on this adventure I'm on.

I don't know much about Twin Falls other than that it's on the Snake River Canyon. The pictures look pretty. There is no Masters swimming there, which is very disappointing to me. Hopefully there will be lots of good running trails and biking routes. Whatever the negatives are, the positives will outweigh them. Our son, Jon, lives in Portland (about 9 hours away) so we will be able to see him a lot. Rachael is in Georgia and Daniel is in North Carolina so it won't cost nearly as much to see them as it does now.

So, here's to a new adventure. Scary, exciting, mysterious! Just like doing my first Ironman.

I'd like to leave you with this song by Loudon Wainwright. It characterizes my 7-year summer more than anything I could ever say.

Oh no, I just realized I'll have to change the name of this blog next month. Maybe I can call it "The Spud Life," or "Beets Me." (They grow sugarbeets there).

Thanks so much for following "The Kona Life" all these years. I'll start posting my new adventure once I get settled and come up with a new blog name. Take care my friends, Randy