BassMan HIM
BassMan Half IronmanBass River State Forest, NJOctober 4th, 20091.2mi swim / 58mi bike / 13.2mi runIntroAfter 3 failed attempts, this time I was really determined to finish a Half Iron under 7 hours. Something went wrong each time so far, even when I was well trained, like one year ago at JerseyMan (when the course was poorly marked and I logged lots of extra miles). This time I picked a flat easy course, I trained as well as I could, and kept my morale high.TrainingNo matter how perfect I wanted everything to be, of course it didn't happen, since I'm busy with so many other things. Swimming had alw

Looking Forward to BassMan
There are only 3 days left till the BassMan HIM, meaning I'm in the last days of tapering and carbo-loading. It's the last tri of the season and only the 2nd A race of the year. It's one more attempt at having a decent Half-Iron, and my only objective is to finish under 7 hours. This hasn't happened in my previous 3 HIM's, for various reasons. Black Bear because it was my first, the bike killed me, and it was just too long :-) JerseyMan was all good, except that the course was poorly marked, I did lots of extra miles on the bike, and it rained all the time. Rev3 was the toughest course I've been on, and severe allergies didn't help at all! This time I feel well trained, quite optimistic at

McGuire AFB Mud Run 2009
I did the 10K Mud Run at the McGuire AFB for the 2nd time in a row. And since last time I noticed that teams had more fun, this year me and a few tri club teammates made our own team, called Team Inglourious Basterds. So I was joined by Heather, Brian, Mark and Alex. Since our team was inspired by the great Tarantino movie, we had to find some matching outfits, and Mark had the great idea of getting wife-beaters for us, with the movie logo printed on the front, while Heather, of course, wore Shosanna's red dress.I was, quite expectedly, a bit late, so everybody was ready to start when I got there. I could see a lot of funny team uniforms, from old boy scouts and nurses to baller

Tour de Fair Haven
My first ever bike race was a rude awakening, making me realize that I'm not a cyclist. I'm a triathlete, and I'm a runner, but cycling is just something I do in between swimming and running.The Tour de Fair Haven is a brand new event and I decided to do it because I always wanted to do a bike race, and this one is close to home and on very familiar roads. For a first-time event, there was a huge field in my race (Cat 4/5), 80 people, much more than you'd expect in a local bike race. It was 5 laps of 4.4 miles, for a total of 22 miles, and they called this a circuit race, not a criterium, but same rules applied - if you get lapped by the peloton, you're out.It was ex

ShoreRunner Summer Showdown 5K XC
I've done this race last weekend, but didn't have time yet to write the report.The race, organized by Christine from Shore Runner in Long Branch, took part in Bucks Mill Park in Colts Neck. I did it last year too and can't say I enjoyed it that much. I have this love/hate relationship with XC races. I love the idea of trail running, and really want to like it and do it more, but I've never had a very pleasant experience at such a race. Mainly because I couldn't get to terms with the fact that I'm much slower than on the road.So in Colts Neck I decided to go by my perceived effort and ignore the pace. The race came after a night of heavy raining, which transformed the course into