Brain Surgery to Ironman

 So, I’m now back being officially coached for almost a full month and to say it has been a learning experience would be an understatement.  My body has already done 140.6 miles and even with almost 6 weeks off the expectation was that muscle memory would take over relatively quickly and I’d jump right back into a 6 day a week training schedule.  What we didn’t expect was the changes to my training and nutrition that are a result of the cluster headaches. For the last month I have been doing all of my running at a very low heart rate with no focus on pace.  A friend told me that the pace would get faster at the lower heart rate as long as I was patient and trusted the process which I have so far.  This past Thursday was Thanksgiving and with it came the annual turkey trot races.  I decided that this would be as good a time as any to do an early season test of my new training on a fairly hilly 5k course.  I spoke to my coach prior and we decided that I ...

 Another full week of training in the books.  This phase that will last for a fair amount of time is known as the base building phase.  Ironman training is not all that different than building a house or a business, you have to start with a strong and solid foundation or base.  After not really exercising at all for all of September and half of October  because of the cluster headaches it feels good to be headache free and in a groove.   Last year while training for my first Ironman I got in the habit of writing down all of my workouts on a calendar.  I’m not a pen and paper guy by any stretch of the imagination and my workouts are all in an app on my phone called TrainingPeaks, but I got in the habit last year of writing them down as well.  Something about seeing them in my handwriting every day and subsequently checking the box every day was even more satisfying than turning the “boxes” green on the app.  It has become my Sunday evening rit...

 I just realized that I completely dropped the ball on keeping this blog updated.  On August 21 of this year I along with two of my close friends completed the first and likely only Ironhorseman 140.6 mile triathlon.  Canada never opened their border so our back up plan became the primary plan.  It truly was an incredible experience that I got to share with family and friends and had the most incredible surprise waiting for me at the finish.  After running down the street in the rain and embracing Lori and Jordan at the end of a long day I had one more thing waiting……a video message that Lori had arranged from Mike Reilly, the voice of Ironman.  He uttered the words I had worked so hard to hear, Jonathan Schwartz, You are an Ironman!!!! The only thing that can possibly top that will be to hear those words on July 24, 2022 on the 5 year anniversary of my second brain surgery live and in person in Lake Placid.  That’s right, I’m going to do this again, b...