A Belated Happy Thanksgiving

5 years ago, on Thanksgiving Day, I ran the inaugural Silicon Valley Turkey Trot with my then-boyfriend Jeff.  I had started riding our exercise bike while watching TV in the evenings and suggested maybe we go out and do this new running race in town before we do the turkey gorgefest.  I hadn’t run even a mile in years and had never liked running.

Suffice it to say, all 3.1 miles were not pleasant and there was a little bit of walking in there.  But I finished, angry at not being able to run 5K like people who looked less healthy than me and madly in love with racing.  I went out every day to run after that, first 1 mile, then 2 miles, building up.  I found an online training plan to follow, and by the time I could run 3 miles nonstop I was already on to a 10K plan…a couple weeks later I was signed up for my first 1/2 marathon. 

And so it began.

This Thanksgiving Day, on one of the coldest mornings we’ve ever had in San Jose this year (high 20s), I did the race again with my family, just for fun.  Both my parents, one of my brothers, 3 of my sisters, my aunt and uncle, and 3 cousins all did the race, as well as many friends.

Brrrrrrrrr!  I came within 45 seconds of my PR – not bad given that my running has been minimal in the last month since Austin – and I came in the top 10 in my age group, out of 518! 

I am thankful for many things this year – my health, my family, my friends, and being able to keep doing these fun things with my body!  Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend.

Ironman Arizona 2010 Spectator Weekend Report

It was a whirlwind weekend in Arizona!  I flew in Friday with Jenn and David, and flew home Monday afternoon. 

We met up with Alex and Susan for dinner on Friday night – so good to catch up with them in person without the weight of a race bearing down on us.

Saturday was consumed with the volunteer meeting, shopping at the expo, and trying to prepare ourselves for a big day of spectating and volunteering.

Sunday dawned early and early, with a 4:30am wakeup call.  We had to drop David at the Temple Town Lake marina for his swim spotting gig at 5:30 and I had to be over to transition by 6ish.

Future site of swim exit

Pros get in the water

followed by age groupers

and after a little more waiting…they are off!

We had some time to kill working at the swim exit

There’s Chrissie Wellington out of the water in the chase pack

Pretty much our job as wetsuit peelers involved waiting for athletes to come down the mat and then mauling them to get their wetsuits off at high speed.

After the last swimmers were done, we got to relax and get a snack!

Then it was time to hang on the bike course.  Chrissie was already in the lead by this point!

A brief rain shower sent all the spectators to this parking garage

Not too long after the lead men came in – maybe 10-15 of them – Chrissie rolled in!

We went out for beers at that point and made it back in time to see her head out for her final loop on the run.

The men’s winner Timo Bracht had a great race!

The first 7 men came in and then…with a new world record (for women in official Ironman events) and chicking the majority of the men’s pro field…there was Chrissie!

I touched her.

*I’ll never wash this hand again*

And then we cheered in a lot of other athletes.  And went home to rest for a while.  And then I was back in the stands at 7pm to cheer in a few more hours of friends.

Great shirt spotted on the course

THIS moment is why we do it.

Fuzzy photo of Wes finishing looking strong!

This is what it looks like to be 12th in the IMAZ volunteer signup line at 5am.

This is what the line looks like by 6am.

On-site registration is a really easy process – they just take your name, birthdate, email address, and charge your credit card.  You complete the online registration later.

As posted earlier, this is what it looks like to be $575 poorer!

Good thing I have a whole year to train.  I don’t have to stress too hard about what is coming just yet!

Oops I Did It Again

More on IM AZ spectating and Chrissie-chasing later.

Trial Videos

I managed to get a couple of videos from the weekend in Santa Rosa.

Here’s Max, acing another Excellent JWW course.  He’s got, literally, 100 Ex JWW legs.

And here’s Stanley in Open Standard – clearly more focused than his trials when he was younger.  If he’d just get the darn weave entrance on the first try, he’d be qualifying.

A Big Day for the Family Project

Presented at Tenth Annual Diabetes Technology Meeting
by Paul Zygielbaum with Bob McNamara
November 13, 2010
Bethesda, Maryland

I met Jan Lipson in 1968, when we both joined the freshman class at Caltech. I was quickly awed by Jan’s knowledge and intelligence, and by the intensity he invested in every moment. Even his relaxation was intense.

Bob McNamara arrived at Caltech in 1970, and the three of us formed a close bond. We were roommates over the summer of 1971, when we met our three wives, who were nursing classmates at USC Medical School. Jan and Janyce, Mac and Evelyn, and Michelle and I have been part of each others' lives ever since.

Jan’s second son lives with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus and suffers the effects and uncertainty that accompany that condition. This is why Jan decided to devote his later career to finding a way to free his son and so many others from blood draws and nocturnal hypoglycemia and all the other tyrannies of this medical condition. He conceived our company’s technology and was the technical visionary who sparked the effort that has brought us so far, upon which Jan reported in these meetings in previous years.

Jan once said, "You know, Paul, if I hadn't been an optical physicist, and my son hadn't had diabetes, and you hadn’t had your unusual life circumstances as well, we wouldn't have this company." "Jan," I said, "there's a fair wind blowing. Who knows why? Let's just stay on
course." And a steady stream of rather amazing coincidences has continued to propel us forward since the beginning.

Now we know that Jan was not destined to reach port with us. But we shall continue the voyage that he envisioned, undertook and helped so much to further.

Janyce Lipson was unable to be here today, but she asked me to extend her congratulations on the occasion of the Tenth Annual Diabetes Technology Meeting, her sincere thanks to Jan’s friends for the many condolences that she’s received, and to David Klonoff, Yoram Tamir and the entire Diabetes Technology Society for their friendship for Jan over the years.

One more coincidence related to C8 marked the very end of Jan’s life. Jan was an avid and accomplished bicyclist. He loved every moment that he spent riding. It is tragic that his life ended during one of his frequent 75-mile rides just about 4 months ago, when he lost control of his bike and ran into a tree at high speed. Among the population of California’s teeming Silicon Valley are just a few dozen people who have been C8’s clinical trial test subjects. Just after Jan’s accident, as he lay by the roadside, near death, a group of scooter riders came to his aid. One of them just happened to be one of our very own test subjects. The C8 team immediately took this
as a sign that we were to rededicate ourselves to realizing Jan’s dream of creating the ideal glucose monitor.

In that same spirit, at our request, the Diabetes Technology Society has established a memorial fund in Jan’s name, and C8 itself has held the First Annual Jan Lipson Memorial Ride for Diabetes, benefiting the society as well. Now, it’s with a sense of great humility and hope that, on behalf of C8 MediSensors, Mac and I present these donations from our company’s many friends.

Thank you.

Jan’s Ride is on for September 17th, 2011!

Decisions, Goals, Unnatural Weather and Other Nonsense

It’s the middle of November and it’s been 80+ degrees in Northern California for several days.  We aren’t complaining but it sure is odd, even for our generally mild fall/winter weather.  It will be cold and raining by the weekend but I will be…

In Arizona!  Frolicking around the Ironman course without a care in my heart this time.  Catching up with friends who are racing and friends who raced last year and friends who are spectating and friends who are volunteering.  Wetsuit stripping.  Stalking Chrissie Wellington. 

The beardie boys and I spent the weekend in Santa Rosa for an AKC agility trial.  Stan is showing wonderful focus and drive in his runs – no Qs for him but they were all very close.  We need to work on his weave entrances more.  Max ran his little heart out on Saturday and had a great time, then double-Qed on Sunday! 

I am nearing a decision point on Max’s agility career – as of today, he has 18QQs and 270 points towards his MACH2 (20QQs and 750 points needed).  We are trialing heavily through mid-January (and hope to fit more trials in beyond that for as long as my training stays lighter) and then I need to decide if we will pursue the MACH2 or if I will drop him down to Preferred and run him at a lower jump height just for fun.  If we can pick up a decent number of points in the next couple months, then I’ll be amenable to chipping away at the number slowly over the next couple years.  Either way, it’s all about the two of us having fun at this stage of the game – and he’s still having a blast.  He knew he rocked the Standard course on Sunday and he strutted around wiggling with joy afterwards.

In between agility runs, we visited Beth’s house as it’s only a mile away from the trial site.  The boys were – of course – thrilled to see their sisters again – it was a mutual lovefest!

I’m continuing to refine my race schedule for next year.  As dates get officially announced, I’ve been either signing up or researching other options when there is a conflict.  I’m just waiting for the dates on the 2 shortest races of the year to complete things.

My primary goals for next year involve the races on the schedule and the times or experiences I want to get out of them.  But I’ve been thinking a lot about the sub-goals that I have along the way – things that will support the larger goals or just things I want to do.  Like…

Muscle.  I put on a lot of muscle mass last year in Ironman training.  It more or less sat there undisturbed this year.  I want better muscle definition for next year.  Hence, I am busting my ass doing all the strength training workouts assigned to me.  This pays off in other ways as well…every time I’m doing pushups on the stability ball and thinking I’d like to cut the set short, I remind myself that I would regret it during the Ironman swim when I have to rely on those strong muscles to get me through.

Food.  In conjunction with the previous goal, I am back to watching what I eat.  I am NOT at the point of limiting things too much or calculating exact #s of grams of carbs I need to intake, but even the process of tracking what you eat tends to result in better decision-making.  When the volume gets intense again, I want to have well-established good habits to fall back on, as well as a framework for determining what I need to eat when to support the training.

Sleep.  I am on top of this one like white on rice.  I worry that I may be overdoing it, to be honest, but I’m averaging 9 hours of sleep per night lately.  There’s no shame in going to bed at 8:30pm, right?  In any event, I know how important proper rest was to staying healthy during IM training last year and I intend to sustain that this time.

Yoga.  I slacked this year but I was religious about going last year - stretching and flexibility are just as important as the other parts of training.  This is me committing to weekly (at a minimum) yoga classes once the training year gets rolling.

And more as they arise…this is just what’s been in my head at the moment.  Happy Monday!

Read This Blog

My baby brother, who’s done a number of 1/2 IMs over the last 2 years, has signed up for the Vineman Full for next year.  Follow his journey on his blog right here! 

Tri Tri Again