What's on your "running" playlist?

I suspect that most triathletes have a playlist like mine. "Running" is what I've chosen to label it but it is the default playlist that I use when going out for a run or strength training at the gym. It's got 60 songs but there are really about a dozen songs that have a "story" behind why they ended up on my playlist. As a result I think it's kind of an eclectic combination of songs. Some of them fit for a running playlist while others are only there because of circumstance.

Here they are:

"American Woman" by Lenny Kravitz: I heard this song at mile 139.5 out of 140.6 at Ironman Lake Placid. Someone had a stereo system set up on their front lawn on Mirror Lake Drive and it will forever be in my head as the song I heard on my last mile of my first Ironman.

"Best of You" by the Foo Fighters: This song seems to be a favorite of Keith Jordan of Endorfun Sports. I think it has only been at his races that I've heard it. One of the great things about Keith's races is there speakers he has set up along the run course. The first time I heard this one was at the Mooseman 1/2 Ironman going up the first hill just after the road peels away from Newfound Lake.

"Beautiful Day" by U2: If you've been to an Ironman Lake Placid race you probably know where this one comes from. I've been to the race for the past four years straight (once as a competitor) and it is the last song played before the cannon goes off before the swim start. My heart races just thinking about being in Mirror Lake with 2000 other competitors about to begin the day.

"Candles" and "Alive" by Dirty Vegas: Janus is a sponsor of Ironman and I'm in the process of using their Charity Challenge program for a 2nd time to raise money for Bretton Woods Adaptive. After my first Ironman in 2006 Janus produced a video with footage from the race that used both of these songs in it. They handed it out at the awards banquet after the race where I received 2nd place......definitely not for speed for for the amount of money raised. I probably watched that video a hundred times in the first month after the race.

"Sugar, We're Goin Down" by Fall Out Boy: The three years I've been at Ironman Lake Placid while not racing, I've volunteered in various parts of the race. The past two times my son came with me and we volunteered together - an awesome experience. I don't know if he'll ever want to do an Ironman but I'm glad he's been able to attend if for no other reason than to be inspired by what is possible when you set a goal. This last year we spent the ENTIRE day in a pouring down rainstorm, four hours of which were handing out supplies to racers at one of the aid stations. While waiting for some GSTC finishers that year, this song came on and it reminds me of the day in the rain I spent with my son. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

There are definitely a few others but these are the highlights. What songs do you have on your "running" playlist and what's the story?

You become a product of your environment

I met up with Paul and Tony last night for a couple of drinks.  I've known Paul for a couple of years now and first met him through the Granite State Triathlon Club. Since then we've trained for several races together including the Manchester Marathon, Patriot Half Ironman and currently we are both training for Ironman Lake Placid.

We've had some long training sessions including some mutli-hour bike rides and runs.  I can't even count the number of topics you cover when on a three hour run. So, inevitably when we get together outside of training or exchange e-mails the topic of triathlon will come up, whether it is a tough workout, a cool new bike or upcoming race expectations. 

My training has been way off for the past week due to an injury (rib injury that will take 4 weeks to recover from!) and I've gotten frustrated from the lack of activity I'm relegated to. I've felt my motivation slowly going away.  However I think I've become conditioned to think about triathlon when I interact with Paul. After hanging out with Paul and Tony last night (and yes we talked triathlon) I woke up this morning with a much more optimistic outlook on my injury and upcoming training in the next couple of months.

Paul is part of my triathlon environment which led to the title of this post - you become a product of your environment.  I believe this statement is true no matter how you look at it.  

It may seem that there are exceptions to this.  There are story's like Oprah's, Art Berg's and people you meet everyday. You have probably met people yourself who after hearing their story think, "how does this person have such an optimistic outlook on life?" These people "beat the odds" of a tough environment only to become successful, in whatever way you want to define success.  They are incredible examples of being pro-active in creating positive definitions about events in their life, they find the positive in a situation, use it to their advantage and embody one of my favorite phrases - 'no event has any inherent meaning, only the meaning we give it'. 

However, even those people we consider exceptions to the rule: "you become a product of your environment" changed their environment in one way or another.  It may have been their physical environment; maybe they chose to find a new cirlce of friends, move to a different place or find a different job.  However in all cases it was their mental environment they changed first which likely led to a change in their physical environment.

Looking outside these seemingly extreme examples (I think most people have their own version of a challenging environment) I believe everyone can use this belief to their advantage.

What would you change about your life if you believed that you were at least in some part a product of your environment? If you had the choice, why wouldn't you create the best environment possible to reach whatever goals and dreams you had? If you can't immediately change your physical environment, there is no one stopping you from changing your mental environment.

What are you going to do to or what do you now do to change your environment, mental or physical?

Over the next several weeks and months I'll be getting into more details about my fundraising efforts for the Bretton Woods Adaptive ski program.  In those posts I hope you'll find examples of people who have changed their mental environment, no matter how difficult their situation seemed to be.

Wiped out

I had a great week of training last week. I fit all my workouts in despite having to shuffle things around because of the constant thunderstorms throughout the week.

The way I was forced to shuffle them around I ended up with a double session on Friday that consisted of a long swim workout in the morning followed by a difficult brick workout afterwork. The next morning was a 12 mile run followed by a 2000 yard swim. Sunday was the annual GSTC ride around Lake Winnipausaukee which is a 62 mile hilly course that kicked my butt.

Thankfully, Monday was a day off before getting back to the routine on Tuesday. I hadn't fully recovered by Tuesday. I did an hour run that felt like it was two. My legs felt like cement and I realized then that I probably shouldn't have crammed all those workouts in last weekend.

I felt better at Masters swimming on Tuesday night but lesson was learned on re-scheduling workouts too close together.

Tune Up weekend

Mooseman is this coming Saturday so this past weekend was my last chance to get some good training volume in.

By the look of the forecast on Friday night with a chance of rain predicted most of the day, I thought I'd be riding the trainer. When I got up it was gorgeous so I was able to get a 2-hour ride in before the rain started to fall later in the day.

Sunday I was going to head up to Wellington State Park for a GSTC Mooseman race prep training. Paul and I were going to drive up together before Paul bailed and I started to wonder if I wanted to drive 3 hours round trip for a 2 1/2 hour training. Particularly with gas at close to $4/gallon and the weather being so nice. Instead, I did my own triathlon training camp.

It started with a 15 minute bike ride to the pool. I swam for about 30 minutes before getting back on the bike and riding for about 30 miles. I finished up with a four mile run which was harder than I expected. The temperature had gotten pretty warm and I haven't gotten a lot of training in the warm weather yet.

Good thing because the forecast for the race this weekend is temps in the 80's!

Flat tire

I haven't had a flat tire since last Spring but I got one on the Wednesday night GSTC ride. I'm comfortable changing tires, however, it's not the fastest process in the world for me. The one I had last spring was a front tire flat and it was less than 5 minutes from flat to rolling out again (using CO2 cartridges). I don't have much to compare that to but I thought was pretty good.

The flat on Wednesday night was on my rear wheel and I was on by older road bike. The rear wheel never seems to be as easy to remove as my tri-bike. My change time was closer to 20 minutes with tire irons that didn't seem to want to get under the tire. After getting the tire back on the CO2 didn't inflate the tire as much as I was comfortable with so I cut the ride short and it eneded up being a 40 minute ride instead of the planned 75 minutes.