More about me – beyond college
After college graduation, I moved to Austin, Texas, where my friend Charles managed a bar and offered to help me get a job. While working at a bar called the Coppertank, I became friends with the bar manager, Victor. He was a runner and had run the Austin Marathon a few times. I was lifting a lot and had started running a little bit. Somehow, with just a short time to go until the 1996 marathon, Victor convinced me to let him sign me up for half-marathon, which would go off on the same day. If I remember correctly, at that point, I’d never run more than 6 miles. Instead of signing me up for the half, Victor signed me up for the real deal. I trained for a few weeks, but still don’t think I ran more than 10 miles leading up to the race. But I was definitely enjoying the running – it’s hard not to enjoy running in Austin; I did most of my running around Town Lake, which is just awesome, it’s a nice soft path that goes along the river (so why do they call it Town Lake?). Anyway, I finished the marathon – I had to walk at times and I think it took me about 4:15, but I finished and survived, and actually, Victor and I worked our usual Sunday night shift that day. I certainly wouldn’t say that I was hooked, but that race is really the foundation for all my endurance training and racing today. After the marathon, I continued running but my focus was on the weights. I lifted all the time, ate a carb-restricted diet, read weight-lifting magazines and tried to learn things from Charles. I never got “huge”, but I was probably seven to ten pounds heavier than I am now, mostly muscle and mostly in my upper body. I liked the way I looked and felt, but always knew that the moment I stopped lifting it would all slide right off and I’d revert to my “normal” size and shape.
In August 1996 I picked up and moved to Ann Arbor for law school. There, I met Marc, who enjoyed lifting as much as I did. He and I worked out together regularly. I don’t remember if I was still running during our first year of law school. But at some point during that year, Kyle and I decided to run the Detroit Marathon. Kyle had run Chicago the same year that I ran Austin. We ran together and I ran in San Diego during the summer between first and second years of law school. When I came back to school for second year (fall of 1997), Kyle and I trained together. Now, when I say I trained for the marathon, it was certainly more than what I did for Austin, but nothing like what I did in preparation for New York. We just went out and ran a few times a week. We did some long runs, but didn’t follow a program or really know what we were doing. I didn’t stop drinking or lifting. When the day came, I struggled through it and finished in around 3:45, which was great for me. Kyle beat me by a fair amount (but Kyle always wins). I remember finishing at Joe Louis Arena and remember the giant fist statue. Then, I remember going to Zingerman’s and filling my belly with all kinds of excellent post-race recovery food. The following year, Kyle and I ran the Marine Corps Marathon. My training was about the same as it had been for Detroit, but unfortunately, about eight weeks out, I got a stress fracture in my foot. I didn’t run for more than a month. I still “ran” the Marine Corps, but it was misery. I was feeling good for about half and stuck with Kyle for most of that, but then my lack of training caught up to me and I had to walk/run the rest of the way. I finished in around four hours, I think. It was a beautiful day and a really fun race.
This all brings me to New York, where I moved after graduating from law school in 1999. For my first six years in the City, I concentrated on lifting. I ran a few NYRR races here and there and even signed up for the New York marathon lottery (didn’t get in), but didn’t run more than probably ten miles per week, at the most. In 2004, I signed up for the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon. I was training great and running hard (including a 1:39:24 half marathon in March), but didn’t know what I was doing and as a result, I ended up getting achilles tendonitis and pulling out (I remember exactly when it happened – it was just a couple weeks after that good half-marathon and I ran two loops of Central Park. I must have run too hard or not stretched or something, but that run was the last good run I had for about six months and the last good long run I had until probably sometime in 2006) . In 2005, I got into the New York Marathon (by completing nine NYRR races), but this time, hip problems kept me out. That bring me to triathlons.
In retrospect, it seems logical and I wonder why I didn’t start doing triathlons earlier than I did. As I said, Assaf had been doing triathlons competitely since before I knew him. Then, my friend Drew started doing them in 2000 or so. He tried to get me into them, but the swimming seemed complicated and I didn’t have a bike and getting out of the city to do the races seemed like a pain. It was in the summer of 2004 that two friends from law school did a sprint triathlon on the Jersey Shore. That got my friend Matt (Matt of Alcatri) hooked. Somehow, he convinced me to sign up for the New York City triathlon for July 2005. I signed up for it in November 2004 and that was that. I started swimming in early January 2005 and was running regularly. I tried to keep up with the lifting, but that soon fell by the wayside. I wasn’t cycling very much – and any I did do was on a spin bike or stationary bike at the gym. That spring, Assaf loaned me his good road bike, which I used that first season. The bike was too small, but the price was right and it enabled me to see if I wanted to actually stick with it. Assaf also signed up for NYC, his first triathlon in years. He did it on his beater/commuter bike (the one with a collapsable basket) and still kicked people’s asses on the bike. He was in an earlier swim wave, but waited for me at T1, then rode with me (surging ahead when he got bored, but always coming back to find me), and then ran the entire run with me. So nice of him. He really made that race a success. That first season (2005), I did New York City, Greenwich (sprint) and Westchester. I was so hooked, and here I am…