blog.zgraggen.name  All-day insanity or I have a blog too!

At least that is what they told us at the “Welcome Dinner”. For once the saying “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is not true. There are many ways to follow the race:

Race Coverage
Athlete Tracker
TV broadcasting

There are something over 1700 athletes racing from 54 countries. Switzerland has, with 55 athletes, the fifth highest head count from outside the US. (Behind: Canada, Germany, Australia, UK)

It is very exciting to be here. All the athletes seem in very good shape and the atmosphere is phenomenal. The race director promised a hard race with lots of hills, wind and high temperatures (up to 33C). We shall see how I cope with the dry heat and the no wetsuit swim. I am ready for tomorrow, my bike is in the transition area and my race number is laid out. The expectations are set as well:

LG: I know you like names in this sport, and I mean that literally. So you must have had some fun with 30-34.

JM: Oh, yeah. I pick Jonathan Shearon of Missouri to win it, but he needs to worry about an athlete named Guido Zgraggen (SUI). Firstly, the name “Guido” frightens me. Secondly, in 1998 a guy named Lukas Zgraggen won the amateur World Champs, went on to set an amateur record of 3:49 in the Eagleman 70.3 and turned in an 8:48 in Kona. He’s the best amateur I’ve ever seen, so if Guido comes from the same gene pool…

LG: I don’t think they do. “Zgraggen” is like “Smith” in Switzerland.
JM: Oh. [pause] Never mind.

Full text here.

More to come…

As most of you know, I spend the last 3 weeks in Switzerland. So, yesterday it was time to fly back to the states. After a very short night (3h), since I had some farewell drinks with my friends. Once in the plane I was enjoying 3 movies (The Expendables, The other guys, Killers) which help to make the time pass faster. Also the service and food was really good. I should only fly with Swiss!
To my surprise, I made a new record at the US customs and border control. There wasn’t a line and I had only to wait about 5 minutes till I was granted access to the states. Once at home, I had just enough time to unpack my luggage before I had to leave again. Destination was Madison Square Garden in NYC. I had a ticket for the Rammstein concert.

The concert was amazing! I really enjoyed their live show! But the set up in Madison Square Garden wasn’t great at all. No Jumbo Tron for close ups, and the area where you could stand and dance in front of the state had only space for maybe 200 people. Fortunately, I had a good enough seat that it both wasn’t a big problem. It was a real spectacle, a burning man, lots of fire and pyrotechnic explosions. I would definitely recommend seeing them!

(pic source: http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/display/19529623)

Here is a little story about all the other things Amy and I did while in Washington DC.

I’m sure many of you have heard of Jon Stewert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” in Washington DC or Stephen Colbert’s “March to keep fear alive”. If not, check out the following links (Announcements Daily show 1:05, Colbert Nation 3:00 Website Sanity, Fear). Obviously, we had to be part of this big event
But before we went to this event, I needed to go to the packet pick up for the Marathon. Once, I had my race packet including the start number and a shirt. Amy and I took advantage to check out the latest running gear. This took longer than expected and so we ended up going to the mall around noon. We both were surprised how many people were there. The Rally was supposed to happen between the 4th and 7th street. But walking down 7th street was almost imposable because of all the people. After a failed attempt to walk through the people we walked back to the 12th street to try again. There we were luckier but unfortunately, we were way to far away too see or hear anything of Stewert or Colbert.

So after enjoying the crowd and signs for a while we decided to be reasonable and go to the Zoo, which was well worth it! The Zoo in Washington DC is free and has to offer a variety of interesting animals. My two personal highlights are the Panda bears, even though they are almost always sleeping and the Octopus feeding.

The only negative part about this Saturday was that we were walking around for 5 hours till our legs hurt. I’m still wondering if that was a good race preparation

Here are pictures from the weekend and from the race.

Tomorrow, I will be competing in the National Triathlon in Washington DC. I already arrived here yesterday Friday to get settled in and have time for the race preparation. Amy and I had also some time to explore the city. We were on the top of the Washington memorial and visited the American History Museum.

The race seems to be organized very well, and everything is going smooth. The best part of the day, was the organized bike ride from the Hotel to the transition zone. Two Police car with blue light and sirens escorted us (several hundred athletes). I felt like a celebrity, while we passed the white house and the World War II memorial. After the bike ride, I did a test swim in the Potomac. They say this is one of the dirtiest rivers in the US, and that might very well be. I was barely able to see my hand in the water during the swim stroke. Unfortunately, I bumped my knee into the ramp to get out of the water. So it is a little swollen and I am hoping that everything will be fine till tomorrow since I will be racing anyway

Apparently, there are 7000 athletes competing in 44 waves
I am in wave #12 and will be starting 7:44am (EST)!

Check back in a few days to read how I did…

This weekend I attended the Electric Zoo Festival on Randall’s Island in NYC. Even though no one wanted to join me, I decided to go anyway. And I am glad I did. It was well worth it and I even met some friends from UBS there.

The Festival was bigger than I expected. There were several 1000 if not even over ten thousand people. But luckily the event was well organized and I didn’t even have to wait at the entrance.

The crowd at the party was really interesting. Especially, the dressings of some of them were hilarious. One would expect people wearing going out, beach, hippy clothes. Since it was an electronic dance festival I also expected all the neon and furry rave wear. But I didn’t expect people dressing up in action heroes costumes like superman, iron man, boba fett and some of them were totally weird by wearing a ski dress or a frog costume. Well… I enjoyed it

The one big negative part of this event was the dust. Since, it was really hot and dry. The dancing on the ground resulted in a lot of dust which was picked up. This is a picture of my foot after the event.

There were many people with scarf’s around there faces which seemed funny to me. But soon, I realized that it was not only style but even more so protection from the dust. A few hours later my through was itching and my nose felt funny… so I wished I had one myself

Yes, it was electronic music so I enjoyed myself. But I have to say that it seemed fairly monotonous with a heavy focus on Electro/House. I would have wished to have a little more diversity in the 4 music tents. The best set I listened to was from Sander van Doorn! “Thanks! You made my day”

All in all it was a wonderful event!
Note to myself:
“Maybe next time I shouldn’t run 14miles beforehand :-)”

I just came back from the Beach Boys concert. Or better said what is left of them
During summer they have a concert series right outside my apartment building. It’s called Alive@Five. Since this was the last concert for this year, I figured I have to attend… After waiting for 20 minutes at the entry and paying $10.- I was allowed in to a really crowded festival area.
I had a fun time listening to the Beach Boys, since they have so many well known hits. In general the atmosphere was quite good, and I might have to go to more concerts next year.

It was almost 2 weeks ago, but nevertheless I would like to share my experience from the Kids in Crisis (KIC) Triathlon. This is only my 3rd triathlon. After an Olympic distance Triathlon in 2006 and an Ironman70.3 in 2007 I didn’t think about triathlons for almost 3 years. In this time I was pursuing my master’s degree where my shape degraded severely. But by now I have received my master’s degree and started training again.

The night before the event I had a hard time to fall asleep. I am not sure if I was so nervous, or if it was the fact that I went to bed at 20:00. I got up at 4 o’clock in the morning. I started more or less relaxed my morning routine and was soon out of the door to prepare the two transition areas. After getting marked with my number and checking in my running gear. I rode down to the first transition area and checked in the bike. I was ahead of the crowed and had enough time to prepare everything in a calm matter. I put on my wetsuit and went down to the beach to do a warm up. There I realized that the tide was out. And other people were walking far out into the water. As a weaker swimmer, I was almost celebrating that fact until I realized there was a catch to it. There were many stones and shells which made it dangerous to run. After a long walk and a short warm up swim we started to line up at the beach. While we were listening to the last instructions, a 10 inch crab (with about 2 inch clamps) came out of the water and turned around once he saw all the people. I didn’t expect that and spent the next few minutes hoping: “Let that not be me who stands on this crab!”

Finally, we were allowed to run off, and since we had to run the first 250m I was among the first who started swimming. But the swimmers caught up pretty fast and overtook me a few minutes into the swim. I also learned that there is a big difference in swimming in the sea (salt water) or in lakes. 20 minutes into the swim I had this weird taste in my mouth and I was looking forward to drink some water. Another thing which I realized was that one part of my feet was burning and I guessed that I had a cut from running over the stones/shells. At least it wasn’t hurting too bad and I didn’t have to give up the race as other athletes. Towards the end of the swim we had to run again and I had cramps in my calves. Surprised by that I stretched for a second and then went ahead. Luckily these cramps didn’t come back for the rest of the race. Later I learned from an expert that this can happens if the water is cold, and the wetsuit puts the caves in a stretched position without movement. So the next time I should occasionally relax my feet during the swim.

Even though I prepared everything in the transition area, I was confused after the swim and didn’t follow my transition procedures. This way it took me 2 minutes till I finally hoped on my bike. I started off in a moderate pace for the first 5 minutes. Where I drunk some water and also ate half a banana. Then I started pushing hard on those pedals. My goal was to be over a 30 km/h pace even with the hilly course. After I overtook several triathletes with much more expensive equipment I started feeling better and better. Especially up hills it seemed as I would fly past them, but I’m not sure if I should attribute this towards my Swiss roots, the road bike, or my flyweight… Towards the end I forced myself to drink some more water, since I learned in the past that I normally don’t drink enough.

The next transition went smooth. I had a clear head and was out of transition area after only 51 seconds. But I soon had to learn that this forced drinking was too much for my stomach. So I had to slow down and couldn’t run my pace. I was suffering quite a bit. But after half time I started to recover and picked up the pace. Since, I didn’t use my running muscles yet, I was able to sustain a high pace for the last 5km. So the running split doesn’t seem too bad.

Results
Time: 2:21:08, Division place: 5, Overall place: 36,

Pictures from the race!

Overall I am pleased with my time, after all it is 15 minutes faster than my last triathlon.
I am looking forward to Nationals Triathlon in Washington DC with the full length swim and less running
By then I should also have a better nutrition plan for during the race.

Thanks@Rebekka for cheering for me and supporting me after the race!

Another weekend and another trip to NYC… this time I was accompanied by Amy
Here are four more things, which I like to point out:

- Plaid Power: We saw the NYC Tartan Day Parade. And we happened to be there for exactly the 5min, when the bag pipers (or was it only one?) of Carnegie Mellon walked by. Thanks to Amy’s loud cheering we are now proud owner of a yellow “Plaid power” towel from Carnegie Mellon.

- MoMA stands for the Museum of Modern Art. While entered the museum I was contemplating to leave right away because there were several hundred other people trying to get admission as well. But as a UBS employee I had free admission (incl. a free ticket for Amy) and was able to queue at a special desk. Since it is the modern art museum there is a lot of peculiar art which would need some time to get used to. Especially, the exhibition from Marina Abramović which included life performance and loads of nudity. The highlights for me were “Starry Night - Vincent van Gogh“, “Water Lilies - Claude Monet” and the Picasso exhibitions.

- The View. This is a restaurant in the 48 floor at the time square. And it is the only rotating restaurant in NYC, even though the rotation is not as smooth as it could be it is a great experience and the food is delicious. Definitive worth a visit before a show. Make sure to make a reservation and tell the waiter what time your show starts. They will help you that you stay on time Video on the way down in the elevator.

- Lion King. My first show at the Broadway! I guess there is not much more to say… I liked the musical and I would definitely recommend it.

Here are some pictures…

That is the title of the book I just read.
It is a compilation of stories based on Tucker Max life. This book showed me, in a funny way, that there are people out there who live their lives different. It is fair to say, that Max is an asshole and often behaves rude and condescending to pretty much everyone who doesn’t admire him. He is very narcissistic and likes to be the center of attention. This will even get worse when he is drunk.
Average people treat other people like they want to get treated by others. Not so Tucker Max…

I thought most stories are funny and I had a hard time to put this book down. Additionally, I also thought it was interesting to see how you can be an asshole and get away with it.

Here is his description on the back of his book:
My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world.

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

As many might know, I am working in the biggest trading floor of the world. But what most people won’t know is that UBS has an interesting tradition on St. Patrick’s day. This afternoon around 4 o’clock a group of bagpipe players walked onto the balcony of the trading floor and played some music for the 1400 people