After waiting six months on a pre-order waiting list, I finally got my Fitbit two months ago. I was really looking forward to it — as a big fan of the Nike+ running tracking system, I was excited about Fitbit’s promise to not only track my running and walking, but to track my sleep patterns as well. And the design was extremely seductive — small in size, elegantly combining form and function (it doesn’t have a clip, it is a clip), and with a magical blue led screen that is invisible when the device is off. How could I resist?

And I was right: I love the Fitbit!

But I don’t want to use it any more. How is that possible?

First, though, you may be asking “What is Fitbit?” Fitbit is a personal health tracking system consisting of a small electronic device that you clip to your body to track your movements and a web site that uses the data from those movements to give you detailed reports and analysis of your fitness and health. The Fitbit device contains an accelerometer to detect anything from a single running stride to tossing and turning in your sleep, and it wirelessly syncs to your computer via a small radio transmitter. The Fitbit has a small digital display indicating the number of steps you’ve taken, how far you’ve walked or run, and how many calories you’ve burned. MORE…

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Where’s Chris been? Why, I’ve been working, swimming, biking, and running.

The latter three were all brought together two weeks ago in the Philadelphia Triathlon (my second triathlon ever — my first was the New York Triathlon which I finished last summer), for which I have been cramming in a lot of training in recent months (to the obvious expense of blogging). On July 28th, it all paid off. It’s like working for a year on a major web site and finally launching it, only better.

I grew up in Philadelphia, but I don’t think I remember it ever being as beautiful as it was during my race. It had been raining all week, but by the time Sunday rolled around the sky was clear and sunny.

The swim was in the Schuylkill River, which for my entire childhood was synonymous with pollution and filth. But to my great delight the river was clear and clean, an absolute joy to swim in. It was, in fact, my first open-water swim in fresh water since I began serious swim training. The 1-mile swim began at the St. Joseph’s Boathouse (my father’s alma mater) and passed under a bridge, finally finishing on the other side of the river.

The bike and run were all though Fairmount Park, including two loops on the bike passing right in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (known in Philly as “The Art Museum”). It was hard not to have the Rocky Theme in my head every time I passed by those step. I’ll confess that I actually downloaded the song a few weeks before in a fit of Philadelphia nostalgia.

Most of the bike course was through shady woods or country roads or grassy hills. The run was along the bank of the river. You’d hardly know you were in a city park. Again, I don’t remember Fairmount Park being so tranquil and lovely in the 1970s.

The Philly Triathlon is about half the size of the New York version (2000 vs. 5000 people), which makes it sooo much more intimate and manageable. After doing both, I am reluctant to want to ever do New York again when I can always do Philly instead. I am, of course, now trying to find one even smaller to do, maybe even before this season is through.

In the New York Triathlon last year I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped, but this time around I managed to reduce my overall time by almost 20%. My final, official time: Swim (1 mile): 30:02; Bike (25 mile): 1:17; Run (10k): 58:06. Total, with transitions: 2:53:26! I worked my way through the swim, kicked ass on the bike, but I petered out a little on the run, I guess, running what I think is my slowest 10k ever.

In the end I came in 844th of 1306 men. Next time I know I’ll crack the top 50%!

Maybe I’m not as verbose as I was last year, but there’s more to see in my Flickr photo set, and my Mom even put up a video on YouTube!

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At 11:01am Sunday morning, in 90-degree heat, I crossed the finish line in Central Park and completed my year-long goal of finishing the New York City Triathlon. I was exhausted and frustrated (more on that later), but at that moment, as soon as I stopped running and realized I was done, I was overcome with a profound visceral joy.

I’ve been actively training for the triathlon for a little less than a year, but it’s been an idle dream of mine for several years. Since way back in my teenage years I’ve been an sometime runner and cyclist. But last August I did a run/bike duathlon that was more than a little thrilling, and then, in September, I began training as a swimmer, a step that for all intents and purposes was the first step on the road to my first triathlon.

For those of you unfamiliar with triathlon (it is conventional to leave out the definite article), it is a race of various lengths consisting of swim, bike, and run stages, in that order. Between each stage, competitors are required to “transition” from the mindset and the equipment from one sport to those of the next sport as fast as they can. Triathlon lengths range from “sprint” distances (approx .5mi/12mi/3mi) to the classic “Ironman” length (2.4mi, 112mi ,26mi). The New York Triathlon is “Olympic distance”: approximately 1-mile swim, 25-mile bike, and 6-mile run.

For me this is a sort of fulfillment of a family tradition: My father is a runner and a high-school cross-country team captain, my brother and several aunts and uncles are long distance runners and certified marathoners, my stepfather is a cyclist who biked from coast to coast, my mother swims and bikes, her father (my grandfather) is a living family legend of long-distance running (completing many marathons at an age when most men play shuffleboard), and his wife, my grandmother, has been a competitive diver, swimmer, racewalker… and, yes, a triathlete. My effort was at some level dedicated to and inspired by them all, especially my grandmother. Thank you, family!

Ready!

The preparation for any triathlon, especially in the days leading up to the event itself, is elaborate to say the least. I’ve included a photo here of all the stuff I needed to pack for the race, from bike helmet and gloves, three different pairs of shoes, goggles and extra goggles, extra contact lenses, body lubricant (yep), water bottles with water and energy drinks of various sorts, and countless other little things — and this doesn’t even include the full-body wetsuit!

(In the lower left corner you will see the Field Notes notebook I dedicated exclusively to planning for the race.)

The triathlon is really a weekend-long event, with a check-in and briefing about the race on Friday, dropping off the bike and taking a tour of the transition area on Saturday, and waking up at 2:30am on Sunday to eat breakfast before heading over to the race site. During the week leading up to the event, it was increasingly hard to think about anything else. Every meal was carefully planned, every bedtime strictly enforced. The development of a sore throat Friday morning worried me far more than it normally would have. I don’t think I’ve ever been so conscious of how my body was working.

Set!

My car service got me to the start area at 4:30. The 3 hours between the time I laid out my gear in front of my bike to the time my age group (men 34-39) jumped in the water went by as if it were only a few minutes. During these twilight hours I was Twittering and uploading photographs to help distract me from the nervousness under the surface (you can check out my live Tweetlog here).

Next thing I knew I was in my wetsuit and walking down the gangplank with a hundred other men in their late 30s, listening to a megaphone telling us that we would start in 30 seconds.

Go!

I got in the water, heard the siren blare, and started swimming.

Before this, I had reconned the conditions in the water. The waves didn’t seem bad. The current seemed strong, but I knew it was slowing down. I didn’t see any garbage in the river along our race course, but I did see some nasty looking jellyfish along the shoreline. My summers in Cape Cod have innoculated me against the fear of most varieties of small icky marine wildlife, so I was pretty confident about what would be my first open water long distance swim.

Even the initial mayhem of the swim, with arms and legs kicking about like crazy (I was even kicked in the face and almost lost my goggles), I felt like things were under control.

But after only a hundred meters, things changed dramatically for me. I was suddenly and precipitously exhausted. I couldn’t hold up the pace I was accustomed to — I’d swam a mile or more in the pool dozens of times before and never tired like this. I was so winded I had to stop swimming and simply drift on my back for a few moments. In fact, this cycle characterized my whole swim — crawl stroke for a few minutes, followed by a few minutes of aimless drifting. The current that the earlier starting athletes enjoyed had by this time come to a standstill, so when I drifted it wasn’t even necessarily in the right direction.

In short, things were going pretty badly from the outset.

I didn’t figure it out it at the time, but later on, after the race, I realized that the sore throat I’d been wishing away had, moving southwards, matured into an acute bronchitis, constricting my breath as if someone were sitting on my chest. The rest of the triathlon would be shaped by this biological fact, but for me in the heat of competition I could only think to myself “What the hell is wrong with me? Try harder! Breathe harder!” It’s funny how quickly and easily we can blame our problems on our characters instead of our bodies.

Somehow, I finished the swim and staggered ashore. I learned later that others were not so fortunate: one man actually died during the swim. It’s unclear how it happened, but I am glad I played it safe and floated gently on my back (with wetsuit buoyancy assistance) whenever I thought anything didn’t feel right.

I knew I was falling well short of my target pace, but I didn’t know by how much. I later learned I completed the swim in almost double the time I targeted, but during the race I simply knew the bike stage was my chance to catch up. Still, I felt faint and winded as I climbed into the saddle.

Biking up the Henry Hudson Parkway, however, was a joy. I had fallen so far behind that, as a relatively strong cyclist, I was able to pass a great many people during the 25 miles, and managed to keep a pace very close to my objective, despite my shortness of breath. And cycling on a closed highway, with only a small number of riders around you, is a thrill that’s hard to describe.

In the final run, I again found myself in the same condition as I felt in the river: each burst of even low-level exertion would be quickly followed by gasps for air. As with the swim, I again found myself coasting — walking — for a great deal of the running stage.

Finishing!

Along the way, there were thousands of spectators and officials cheering the triathletes on. Most of the time I loved the “great jobs” and “doing greats”, but when I was drifting down the river on my back to catch my breath, or gasping for air and walking through Central Park, it was a little frustrating to be urged to a level of achievement I felt I just didn’t have in me. In the big picture, however, the sting of even these bittersweet encouragements kept me focused on the primary objective: to finish the whole thing, to try my hardest, and to never give up.

Similarly, the pre-race best-wishes from friends in the real world and via the Internet drove me on. The best part was seeing my family and a few friends staked out along the way. Some were following my performance via a SMS text-messaging service announcing my times as I completed each stage — pretty cool. But the best part was seeing my family with a home-made sign with my name on it.

When I finally crossed the finish line, I was surrounded by congratulations from the race staff. I was given a nifty medal, had my photo taken (all along the course, photographers from Brightroom.com took photos of athletes, many of which I’ve included on my Flickr set for the triathlon), and was given an endless supply of branded sports drinks.

Repeat!

Knowing that my performance Sunday was impaired by my health, I am totally psyched to do this again, and soon, to see what I can really do. I’m not waiting until next year. I’m looking for the next triathlon now. I’m hooked.

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I am currently training for my first triathlon, the New York Triathlon on July 20.

(Holy crap, that’s only 9 weeks away!)

Anyway, last weekend I competed in the Prospect Park Mother’s Day Duathlon right here in Brooklyn. This was my second duathlon (I ran my first one last August), and this time I did a lot better: I came in 23rd out of over 120 competitors. I came in 6th place in my 24-39 age group, too. If you’re my parents or if you are thinking about racing against me someday, you can see the complete results here.

A photographer, Len Lopate, was on site taking pictures during the race (the top pic is his). Check out his site to see his other shots, including me at the start and on the bike.

Most happily (and most surprisingly) at the end of the race I discovered that the race organizers had free WiFi set up around the finish area, and as people finished the race the staff was updating their web site with the results in real time. Those of us with web-enabled devices were able to check our own times and everyone else’s as we waited for the rest of the athletes to finish the race. Pretty cool.

I’m pretty nervous about July’s triathlon, but these duathlons have helped me a lot. They help me actually get some idea about what switching from biking to running in rapid succession really feels like, and in a competitive environment, too. I’ve been able to meet other multisport athletes, too, although it would be more accurate to say I got a chance to scope them out but not really meet them. I still feel like an outsider in a fairly exclusive club.

Other lessons learned:

• Transitions: I need to figure out how to get my bike gear on more quickly. I could have come in the top 20 if I hadn’t been so leisurely about my first transition.
• Nutrition: The duathlon is probably half as long as the triathlon in sheer time, which means I need twice as much stored up energy. I’m going to need to pay closer attention to my diet on race day. I began to feel a little weak towards the end of the race, but moments after finishing I was shocked to find myself getting dizzy and then vomiting in the bushes. Must remember to avoid acidy fruit drinks for breakfast!
• Pacing: I’m going to have to figure out my final pace. I intended to take the bike part pretty easy, but I think I pushed myself pretty hard in the end and lost some energy for the final run.

I’m not sure if I will have a chance to compete again between now and July 20 — maybe I can find a 10k to join or something — but I really enjoy this and look forward to more.

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This is the least humiliating frame from my whole clip.

I’ve recently started a swimming training program so I can competently complete my weakest part of the trifecta: Running, biking, and swimming. Hopefully by next summer I will be ready for my goal, to compete in the New York City Triathlon.

An interesting aspect of this swim class is the use of technology. In our very first meeting, the coach shot underwater videos of each student crossing the pool, capturing all of our flailing arms and gasping breaths. He then wrote up a critique of each student’s swimming technique and gave a CD with all of the videos and critiques to each of us, giving us all a powerful insight into what we are doing right and wrong in the water. It’s astonishing how many things I can instantly see that I need to improve, especially when I watch my own video next to that of, say, Olympian Ian Thorpe.

What’s great about this is how incredibly low-fi and accessible the whole deal was. You would think that underwater cameras as a training tool would be reserved only for competitive swimmers at the top of their game. But there I am! The video camera looked like a regular consumer model attached to a long pole with some kind of jerry-rigged periscope involved, and immersed in the water. The coach shot by simply walking along the edge of the pool and following each of us as we swam across. And because it’s digital, it was easy for him to bring 20 copies of the videos on CD-ROM to the next class a week later.

He’ll be recording us a few more times over the 12-week course, so we can track our improvement. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to the next taping. I swear, I dream about swimming now.

This blog post has been brought to you by “Our Swimmer”, by Wire:

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This weekend I built my first single-speed bicycle. It’s not a fixed-gear or track bike — it has a single gear in the back with a freewheel mechanism, and as you can see it has brakes, too.

For years I’ve wanted a single-speed bike just to see what all the fuss is about, but also I wanted to experiment with what I’ve heard are the benefits of single-speed training. But most importantly I also wanted a basic bike that I would feel comfortable leaving locked up in my lobby or even on the street for hours or days on end. My other two bikes are a just little too attractive to thieves, so I can never leave them anywhere for long. Basically I needed a kick-around set of wheels.

Speaking of thieves, this whole project has a little bit of a shadow over it: Over the years I’ve been collecting enough of my own bike parts for this project, but I was missing just one critical piece: the frame. It finally occurred to me that a pile of abandoned bikes locked up in my building’s lobby might be ripe for the picking. There was one bike, an old Nishiki, that looked my size and had the requisite horizontal dropouts. I knew the bike hadn’t been touched in two years, but still I put up several signs in the building’s lobby seeking the bike’s owner. After a few weeks of hearing nothing, I made my move and, yes, I stole the bike.

I like to think I salvaged it, and I did my deed during a high-traffic part of the day so as many fellow residents as possible would see me doing my work (I merely unbolted the rear wheel, which was the only part locked up). But honestly I am still a little afraid that the bike’s owner will someday return from his three-year ’round-the-world hike, or kick his drug addiction, or whatever has kept him from his wheels, and he will see me on a bike whose dents and angles look a lot like those of his beloved Nishiki. Such worries are the wages of my sin, I guess.

I stripped the bike of nearly every part it had, dramatically reducing the weight by replacing the bike’s original parts with my own slightly-higher-quality parts (the original handlebars were made of steel!) or by just leaving certain parts off the rebuild entirely. The only part I’m (literally) stuck with is the seatpost: it seems the previous owner installed a replacement post that was too big for the frame, so he simply hammered the thing into the seat tube as far as it would go. As a result, the seat is immovably positioned about an inch too low for me. Even if I figure out how to remove the seatpost, I’m not sure a properly-sized seatpost would even work anymore since the seat tube seems permanently expanded.

On my first test ride of about 15 miles, I came to enjoy the single-speed’s simplicity, and it was surprising how often I managed to keep up a steady pace without shifting gears. On the hills I had to stand up and hammer, but even then I managed to keep a good pace.

The best part was that with this beater bike I can stop riding, lock up the bike in the park, and then do a few miles running on foot. The toe clips require me to wear normal sneakers, so I didn’t need to pack an extra pair of shoes. And, as I said, I’m not overly worried about the bike being stolen. Hooray!

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I’m the skinhead in the red shirt.

A year ago I entered my first bike race. It didn’t go well.

Yesterday I entered my second race, and my first multi-sport race. It was a “duathlon” — running and bicycling — around Brooklyn’s lovely Prospect Park in the twilight hours of a perfect summer weekday.

How did I get myself into this situation? It all started so innocently, in a late-night AIM chat with Adam Greenfield in which I mentioned that I heard about an event called the “Brooklyn BricK Duathlon“, and that it looked like something I might be able to handle. Next thing I knew, Adam and I were both registering online at the same time, spontaneously and impulsively. There’s no way either of us would have done this if it wasn’t for the support and encouragement you get from having even just one person to commit with you.

The start was at 7:00pm on a Wednesday night, just as the park was getting dark and the streetlights were coming on. This alone made the race attractive to me: I am not a morning person, and my evenings on Fridays and Saturdays tend to involve fine wines and good spirits into the wee hours. This makes early morning weekend racing a bit of a problem for me. Having a whole day to eat properly and prepare mentally for the race really helped.

The BricK was what they call “sprint distance”, a cynical term for what is still an endurance event for most mortals. It consisted of:

• A 3/4 mile run through wooded trails.
• A 10 mile bike around the park loop.
• A 3.2 mile run through the woods and around the meadow.

So how did I do? I think I did pretty well. Of 133 entrants, and 89 finishers, I came in 35th overall (results here). I did equally well in both the run and bike phases, and felt pretty good at the end, too. Which means I am definitely doing this again.

The event was inspiring, to say the least. Adam and I felt like we were surrounded by superhuman professional athletes, and the carbon-fiber stealth-fighter looking machines most of them had put ours to shame: me on an 18-year-old steel frame, Adam on a single-speed (!). Many of the competitors were tricked out in team gear, ripped with muscles, sleekened hairless, and sharing war stories about the other triathlons they’d triumphed in lately. Nonetheless, the whole event was really low key, very DiY and ad hoc, and completely devoid of the kind of aggression I felt all around me in when I was racing in a cycling pack. In a triathlon/duathlon, drafting behind other cyclists is illegal, which means it’s just you and the wind — which is how I like to roll.

The race was brisk, of course, but the vibe was pure fun. A great first-time experience. The best part was on the last run, where the race leaders would pass the rest of us on their return trip to the finish line. Most of the top five finishers took the time to cheer on the rest of us as they ran by us: “great job, way to go, great pace!”. That meant the world to me.

I want to commend the information design by the kids who chalked the directional arrows on the roads. The running route was fairly complex, the maps they prepared were god-awful messes, and the race director could barely describe it without just confusing people even further. But some young kids were sent on a mission to put directional arrows on the paths using chalk, and they did a great job. The route doubled-back on itself, and there were two runs on the same trail, so the signage needed to indicate which way to turn on the way out and which way to turn on the way back. Here’s what they came up with. Not bad, huh?

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“Simple is Best” is the motto of Jinbei Yamada, founder of Japanese bicycle maker Arrow Bicycles. I love this motto for its elegant phrasing, completely devoid of pretention and utterly consistent with its own meaning. There is no false dichotomy of “form versus function” to drive a pointless wedge between functional and decorative simplicity and pure visual design elegance. Who needs ten complicated laws when one law sums it up so well?

Arrow makes less than 1,000 bikes per year, and most of them are custom-ordered to some degree. As for the bikes themselves, I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing or riding one, but they look lovely. There are no logos to be seen, either, which is something I deeply appreciate.

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