johnhirsch.org

Holloween is the high holiday of freaks. It means a lot to me. While I often spend this night doing things I can’t blog about tonight I am going old skool kicking it at a Chargertron show. Before there were girls there was a crew of guys. We played hoops, we ran, we lifted, we surfed, we rocked out, we watched Ninja Scroll. Like all good friends they welcome you back when you need em, don’t care how long you have been gone and remind you that your ok. Punks not dead! http://www.myspace.com/chargertron

  (Pic: I didn’t need to dress up as my tee says it all: I am really scary on the inside.)

As some readers might recall I was thinking of moving into life coaching. I put up an advice column I called “Ask Bro” where I explained how I would help an athlete with their life issue. Oddly no one has contacted me. I am still available as a life coach and to keep the momentum going I am again taking real problems from my athletes and showing how I would help. If you have a problem and would like to “ask bro” please do so!

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 Yo Bro, 

 I am having trouble with my wife. She just doesn’t understand how hard I am training. She is being really selfish, like the other day I went out and trained for 8 hours like I have every weekend for months now and when I got home she was all needy and shit. She is so selfish can’t she see how tired I am from all that training? I just wanted to watch tv and eat.
Dude Under Distressing and Emotional wife

Dear DUDE,
You need step back and see things from her point of view. Ironman is hard on everyone and everyone has needs. You need be available not just physically but emotionally despite training.
You should also get tattoo sleeves. You can take your wife and share the experience with her. Maybe go out to a biker bar that night and pass her around if she ok with it. This will allow her to get a lot of attention that night and may help with those feeling of neglect. Nothing makes a person feel special like a bunch of Hells Angles. You will also wanna train more to deal with the visual images and rageful jealous that you will carry after that night given to seeing seriously depraved acts of sexual congress and her loving it like she never does with you . While not entirely the point, a little payback on her part is good for everyone here.
Best,
Bro

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 Yo Bro,
My partner is moody. Its sometimes a bit over welming. I feel like I am on eggshells. It gets worse after the season ends.

-Forever and Still Training

Well FAST I think you need to deal with this behavior directly. A lot of people have Seasonal Affected Disorder or SAD. The fall brings on lots of mood changes for these people and this combined with the end of training which for some is a healthy cooping tactic can cause some harsh behavior. You should also train more. Getting out of the home for 7-9 hour training workouts is the key to dealing with anyone. Also then when you come home you will be to tired and will likely sleep through alternating of crying and yelling. Also you should get tattooed sleeves. Nothing says “settle down of I will cut you” like tattooed sleeves and this should help both of you until the prozsack kicks in or spring comes. A common rule of thumb is: shanks for the fellas and razor blades for the ladies, the shanks show how handy a man can be and is bigger. A razor blade is cute and femine and goes well with most outfits.

Take care,

Bro

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Yo Bro,
I am having trouble balancing college with training. My grades aren’t great. Also I am thinking of becoming a pro and am not sure why I need college anyways.

Thanks,

Person Ending Education?

Dear PEE,
College is the key to a successful life and completion of college will give you options. Many pros like Alex Mcdonald who is a doctor, Joan Ziger who has a Ph. D and Tom Evans who is a dentist did both and both have won ironmans. Ironman is no excuse for not hitting the books. A trick I used at Columbia Law School was to do my class work early when my mind was fresh and then train as a study break. I also took more nighttime classes so I could have the daylight hours for training. You may also wanna get tattoo sleeves. If you do turn pro you will make so little that you will live in a van down by a river. The sleeves will help keep the other homeless away from you if you can get a good snarl on your grill. Also if you give up the path to being a pro you will end up a doctor, dentist and lawyer and they are a painfully boring group (not the ones who quit to become pros) of people and the tattoo sleeves will help make you feel different even though you are not. Obviously to turn pro you need to train more.
Good Luck,

Bro

(this post is in loving memory of Capt. J. Hollis, may the wind always fill your sails)

Hi goodly reader. As you may know several years ago I started a training camp in spain. This year it nearly sold out in a month with just returning athletes and athletes I coach.

HOWEVER we have a few spots left, but they will not last long. We have 1 spot for the first session and 5 for the second.Please email me at hyctn [at] aol [dot] com to sign up or to ask questions.

 Its the high light of the year!

____ 

Strong Like Bull 2009 Ironman and Cycling Camp

 The ‘Strong Like Bull’ training camp series places you in the heart of the Andalusian peninsula in Spain during February where mountains will challenge and strengthen you, the Spanish sun will warm you, the gourmet food will nourish you and the friendships you make will last a lifetime.

The Training

A typical day’s itinerary:

8am wake up

9am yoga

9:30 breakfast

10:00 prepare for ride

10:30 start riding

12:00 lunch on the road

4pm ride concludes

5-7 recovery, bathing, hottub relaxing; replaying the day’s events

8pm gather for dinner

9pm dinner

11pm bed

Amenities

• Hot tub
• 25 meter pool
• shared room
• 3 meals a day
• fully supported rides
• optional day trip to historic site
• day trip to signature climb (la vuelta) the longest climb in southern Europe.

Dates and pricing:

Thursday February 5th: (group one fly out of USA)
Friday February 6th Session 1 starts (group one lands)
Sunday February 15th, Session 1 ends ( group one flys out of Spain) (group two fly out of the USA)
Monday February 16th, Session 2 begins (lands in Spain)
Wednesday February 25th, Session 2 end

cost is $1125 per session. We also offer 2 more days of training FREE for anyone insane enough to do both sessions.

For pictures from 2007 and 2008 camps visit here.

For blog entries from the camp visit here.

What to bring:

The weather in southern Spain in February can be a little unpredictable but is generally a warm 50-80 degrees. It can rain, but the storms are typically short lived. When traversing multiple mountainous passes in a single day, it is not uncommon to experience different weather systems in the different valleys. The other challenge is being a 45 min drive from any significant bike shop. Therefore we suggest you pack the following gear:

• Bike (39 / 25 gearing or smaller)
• 1-2 pairs cycling Shoes
• 3-5 pairs cycling shorts
• 3-5 cycling tops
• 1-2 pair(s) knee warmers
• 1-2 pair(s) legwarmers
• 1-2 pair(s) armwarmers
• 1-2 pair(s) full fingered gloves
• Helmet
• glasses
• 3-4 spare tubes
• spare chain
• spare cassette
• rain jacket
• wind vest
• 1-2 pair(s) overshoe booties
• under helmet cap
• 64 oz powdered sports drink
• 5-12 sports bars
• 5-12 sports gels
• 7 servings of recovery beverage
• camera
• multitool
• small (4oz) bottle of (bicycle) lubricant
• backpack or sports bag (to store your personal supplies in the follow car)
• 2-3 pairs of sweatpants
• 2-3 pairs of sweatshirts
• 1-2 sets of town clothes

Testimonals:

SLB 2008 provided the base to take my time trialing, hill climbing and road racing to the next level.  When I returned home, I felt like Superman on a bike.  Thanks so much to Mandy, John, Shawn and their wonderful staff in Espana.  Amigos, please sign me up for the Gibeley 20 day challenge for 2009! -Ken McCallum

“For pity’s sake, how much do you want to take? Go ahead and disagree, I am giving all I can. I don’t want you anymore. I don’t need you anymore. There is no tomorrow.” -Slipknot

One of brooklyn’s best traditions, is the egg cream. There is no egg in it. Someone must have named it that so that you non-bk types would be fooled. Like iceland. Iceland is lovely. They named it iceland to keep the suckers away. Had hawaii been called pooinyourmouth I bet Captain Cook would have moved on. Anyways back to egg creams: Freakin’ awesome. My pops was an outer burough soda jerk back in his youth so I know how to make em’ –the key is the foam. I can’t reveal that trick-its part of the soda jerk code, and also we need to keep that secrete in nyc if we can.

“What will you do when you war is over? What will you do when your system fails?” Slipknot

I promised I would get to training this week and get back on the proper diet for a person who wants to go as fast as I do. But its also october (not that I would really know since there is no holloween fun in my home this year or any trips to new england for me to enjoy the fall). So I promise to start tomorrow right after I eat my lat supper at Juniors. Juniors is THE old school joint. It has all the orginal brooklyn food. It is one of my favorit places from my brooklyn days so I was so excited when a friend said we should meet here for dinner. Smart girl. Will I have pie for dinner? Its famous for cheese cake. Hmmm. I am gonna have an egg cream for sure. Unless you are from here you don’t know that joy as its a nyc thing. Ok seriously tomorrow I get on the wagon.

I have been thinking a lot about this race since we got here and came up with a few thoughts.

 1) Kona is different then all other races. Its burtally hard even by ironman standards. You cant imagine it on a bad day unless you raced it on a bad day. A bad day will add an hour at least. A good day here adds 30 minutes.

2) Kona makes you feel special. Everywhere you go sponsors and people remind you how awesome you are to be here. Indeed, 50000 people battle for 1000 qualifing slots.

3) Kona can make you feel anything but special. Everyone here is a local regional or national stud. They top age groupers here will be or were top pros. Awesome athletes come here to get an ass kicking.

 4) Take your worst time ever for an ironman and that’s what you will do here after you train hard to get to the best fitness of your life.

5) There is no race like this one. All the others are very much the same (I have done 10 different ones) and they all smaller differences between them. This one is very different, nearly a different sport.

6) This race has hype, but isn’t hype. The core of this race can’t be sold or ruined by marketing and capitalism. Its too pure.

7) The pro race for the men is different then any others. Most of the time there are 15-30 of us. At kona about 100. The big numbers means if you have a misstep or are off just a fraction you can lose 30 spots as the racing is that tight. Also people take huge risks. If you don’t you not even get into the race. Taking risks here with the hard conditions leaves no room for error. Its a lot more like bike racing, where the brave sometimes beat the best.

Kona shows the growth of the sport. At first anyone could sign up. Then anyone with talent could do it. Now you have to been so fast and lucky its nearly impossible. Awesome athletes spent years to get to the peir and to be on the start line. But for those who do the world is there’s as sponsors and the industry is now big enough to support the kona level athlete willing to gladhand a bit.

9) The top athletes put on a sick show. They all race to win. Faris, Sinballe, Brown and Sadler all took huge risks to win. Sinballe, faris went of the front on the bike. Sadler ran way too hard and when I saw him at mile 25 he was clearly struggling. Brown ran with Cro holding a sub 6 minute race. He blew up and lost spots, but he rolled the dice. If you ever wonder why you don’t see the favorits always in the top spots its because everyone is taking huge risks to win and its awesome to watch. They do everything you wouldn’t want an age-grouper to do in an ironman and it makes sense for them.