Upgrade

Willie upgraded today. He purchased a Cervelo P2C from Conte's in Bethesda. Looks pretty fast. I am sure that this will take at least 15 minutes off his Eagleman bike time.

Willie will write more later. He took the Red Rocker for a stroll around Columbia Gateway this evening. Tell us how it went!

--TJ

Tour de Cure

Willie, Chris and I rode the Tour de Cure this past Saturday. Willie raised $1500 for the cause. We turned a 62 mile bike ride into a 67 mile ride thanks to a wrong right turn. Very hilly course that was a good start to the season. Great weather though a little windy. Definitely some good fellowship.

-- TJ

April Update

We're 31 weeks out from race date. Here is an update on what I've been up to.

Health: I've been having a problem with my breathing. It reached a critical point a couple of Saturday's ago when I had to cut a run short because I was gasping for air. What was even worse was that I was running very slow. My heart rate was skyrocketing and I was literally wheezing and gasping for each breathe. I decided to see a doctor. The doctor did some tests on me and concluded that I have asthma. Dr. Geyer prescribed Albuterol as treatment.

Workouts: The weather has finally turned warm. I've cut back on the heavy weight lifting and am doing a lot of pullups, pushups, dips and core work. I have run a handful of times since the run that I cut short which was on April 4. I have not run longer than 45 minutes in about a month. I did not ride on the tri bike until today. I rode 40 miles with KDOG and Chad. Eric Goetz and Patrick Serfass showed up at the meeting point. I was thinking, oh great... how am I going to keep up with these guys. The only riding I've done has been on my Schwinn and it's been on the jogging path. Very low intensity riding. Then, we get to Georgetown and Bobby Grohs joins in. This guy WON the Reston Triathlon in 2007 and did a 10:42 Ironman Lake Placid in 2008. He is total stud on the bike. I just shook my head and hung on for the ride. It wasn't pretty but it wasn't ugly, either. Overall, I am encouraged by how the ride went.

I still have not been in the pool since the day after Thanksgiving but I believe that Friday is the day I'll get back in. I will try to get a run in on Tuesday or Thursday... I have managed to get in a little run while Jessica Rose is at lacrosse practice. They practice at White Oak Junior High on Tu and Th and there is a nice paved trail that I've managed to run at least one day a week. Now that it is warm, perhaps I can do it both days. We'll see how it goes.

Diet: Readers of my blog last year know that diet is a challenge for me. I have not been good so far this year. But, I've really reached a bottom and have turned a corner. Now that the weather has warmed up, I'm committed to getting on a eating plan and I intend to get down to 205 by June 21. Today, I weighed in at 214 at the gym.

Please contribute to Wilie's Team in Training fundraising efforts.

- TJ

Racing to Save Lives

Welcome to my Team In Training home page.

I'm training to participate in an endurance event as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. I am completing this event in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers. These people are the real heroes on our team, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure!

Please make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance LLS's mission.

I hope you will visit my web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress. Thanks for your support!

To Donate - please go to: http://pages.teamintraining.org/md/eagletri09/wbrennan

Willie Brennan

Warming Up

Washington DC can be very pretty in the spring. The Cherry Blossoms are in bloom, daffodils are sprouting up through the soil and bikes are coming out of the garages and basements around town for some outdoor riding. For me... this time of year is showing how rusty I am. I have gained some weight this offseason and lost a lot of my cardio fitness. I weighed in at 215 lbs. yesterday and have had a lot of problems catching my breath when riding up hills or running at a high heart rate this past month. Hopefully, over the next four weeks I can get some of my triathlon-fitness back as we start warming up for this training season.

What Would You Say to Cancer, Given the Chance?

LiveStrong.

You're going to do what?

It's been a few weeks since my last blog and I see TJ has outdone me again with his posts - I am still trying to catch up with my thoughts on this and only want to post the ideas relevant to my purpose on this whole Ironman adventure.

My last post was all about The Reason, and I hope its clear why I'm here and as it turns out - I love the intense physical exercise.

So when I finally made the decesion in 2004 to do my first Olympic distance triathlon - I signed up with the Team in Training program offered by The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I would joing Rick, John and Chris and do my best - but the ultimate goal was to raise funds for a great cause against cancer (In memory of Ron, Allen B and Matthew), train for the distance and have a lot of fun.

So at the young age of 50, with injuries and scar tissue all over my body - I opened my big mouth as usual and started telling just about everyone I knew whatI was going to do, and I can summarize the responses in the following manner;

80% - said I was crazy (tell me something new)
10% - had no intelligible response worth noting
and finally, those precious remaining said, "You're going to do what?"

And then went on to say, "If you can do - so can I!" This would be repeated by the followinmg encouraging guys: TJ, Jeff Sylvester Jeff Jenson and Chris Nopalitano.



I'm not sure my response back to them - but I can tell you that this was not quite the encouragement I was looking for - but it did help that I would certainly not be alone in this journey, and quite frankly it made it all the more enjoyable.

We all went on to finish that first event and of course both TJ and I would sign up immediately for the next one which was Disney only to arrive in FL and be sent away with a hurricane.

We both went on again the following year for more Olympic and Half Ironman events. Of course, like most things that you like - if this was good, more must be better. So what's better than this? Well of course Ironman!

Blame it on Ron - he always said to take it to the next level and of course we did!

2006 would be a tremendous amount of fun - training with Chris and other members of Team In Training - Marcia, Mike and Wendy and others - it would be like being a kid again, being outside and getting in great shape.

Finishing Ironman was the biggest physical accomplishment ever for me and the most rewarding.

Little did I know I sustained a very serious injury - I thought the blisters I obtained during the run were bad - but I was to learn over 6 months later, that all the lower leg pain I experienced the past few years were a result of compartment syndrome. As a result, I suffered nerve damamge in my lower right leg and required surgery in February 2008. I was already signed up for IMFL 2008, and after several months of rehab and a new training team that helps injured athletes get back to racing - I finally decided that I could not come back in th esame yera as the surgery, so I was allowed to switch my IMFL 2008 slot to IMAZ in Nov 2009.

So here we go again - this time around my plan is to train and run without pain. But one thing will remain the same - and that is the same reason when I started - keep these special people in our memory, train hard and have a lot of fun!

Willie