Two friends of mine, who live in a remote town in the Vermont mountains, have recently gotten off the couch and started exercising. They haven’t admitted it yet, but I know at least one of them is dreaming of doing a sprint tri for the first time next …

In mid-November, I start my “official” training, using the 36-week training plan on www.trifuel.com. The plan starts with blocks of an hour or so each of swimming, biking, and running, with longer workouts on some days, so ever since I signed up for La…

Some people who do the Ironman have a big fear of open-water swimming, and they have to overcome it to go the distance. I’m fine with jellyfish, regular fish and the imaginary sharks that every swimmer wonders about when swimming in deep water, but wha…

Some friends came over and we were all sitting around talking, eating supper, hanging out. One of the friends, Julie, is blind. About 10 pm she said, “Hey, let’s go swimming!”The rest of us just looked at each other. “But it’s night time!”"So?” Julie a…

When I was a kid, growing up in Wisconsin, I did a little triathlon every day. In the morning I would ride my bike to the town pool and play in the water for hours. At 2 pm, the lifeguards would kick all the kids out of the pool for an hour so the adul…

Some people have asked me why I do this stuff, why I feel the need to do such a long event. Honestly, I don’t really know, but I just love long, grueling things that require a huge amount of preparation and planning.Other things I’ve done that are sort…

As soon as my volunteer shift ended, around 12:30, I took my sleeping bag and a camping mat and headed to the Lake Placid High School, where registration would start the next morning at 9. There were already people in line, some in tents, others just s…

You wouldn’t think that so many people would want to do such an extreme event, but in recent years, so many people have wanted to do Lake Placid that the next year’s race filled up within minutes of registration opening. So the organizers said, “Hey, i…

Back in 1980, when I was 17, the Winter Olympics were held at Lake Placid. My dad, who had cancer at the time, wanted to get us all tickets to go, but for some reason the plan fell through. Maybe it was too expensive, maybe he couldn’t get the time o…

What is the Ironman? It’s a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and a 26-2 mile run (a marathon) done one after the other, all in the same day—and you must finish them all in 17 hours or less. The most famous Ironman is in Hawaii, but there are others…