IM70.3 Florida

I think this race was a great learning experience for me. I think when I talked about it with my friends, they thought I was not feeling great about it because I may have seemed negative, but on the contrary, I realized some pretty serious things in the time I took to do this race.

  Pre-race: I did the best I could to get ready for the day. I ate oatmeal and a snack bar in the hours before hand, I drank water. I took salt stick electrolytes the night before, the morning before, and as I was leaving transition. I think I stood too much the day before at the expo, and the morning of where we got to the site at 4:30, and my swim wave didn't start until 7:30. I should have found a place to sit on both days. I got to watch the pro start at 6:30, and they were finished with the swim well in advance of my start time.

 This race seemed to be all about Lance Armstrong. He was not first out of the water, but 3rd or 4th. Once he ran up the chute, the masses huddling around the swim exit dispersed. Half of the group went up to see if they could catch him on the bike out, and the other half went over to the swim start to start their race. First pro woman came out of the water a few minutes later to about 1/3 of the crowd that was there for Lance.

  Swim: The swim was interesting. I have not been swimming much in the past few weeks, so i struggled a bit. I am not a great swimmer yet, so my struggling was more struggling than it normally was. I also didn't strategically place myself in the start group, but just walked out there and stood where i was. I just so happened to start in the middle of the middle. Bad Idea.

 We swam in a Block U shape, so I got beat up the whole way out. Mostly just people pushing my feet down and punching me in the arms. I was concerned that I was going to lose my chip. At the turn there was a lot of grabbing and pushing, then more grabbing and pushing at the second turn to come back. Then, everyone was funneled into some goal posts and had to do about 50M across the bottom of the U before we were funneled through a goal post and headed out for the last leg. Again, there was pushing and shoving at the turn, and at about this point, the good swimmers from the group behind mine and the relay group started to overtake me.

 So, because I swam a really good line, about every minute or so, someone would try to swim over me, or I ran into a slower swimmer.

 The lake was muddy, the course had lots of turns and my swim fitness went to shit. Swim time :47:07 Roughly +10 minutes from goal pace of 35-40.

  Bike: I decided in T1 to change completely, and put on my loose fitting UA long sleeves, and a loose bike jersey. It looked like it would be sunny, and 3rd degree sunburn would make what was then an ok day turn into a nightmare. t1 time was roughly 4 minutes, but that was not bad since I completely changed clothes. I clipped my shoes onto my bike prior to the race, so I barefoot ran my bike with shoes attached along the epic route to bike out. Once there, my plan was to slip my left foot into the shoe, then go, and slip my right foot in in the first part of the downhill coming out of t1. after fumbling a while trying to try to get my foot into the shoe, someone yelled "just take them off the pedals and put them on!". So I did, and that went very well.

The first half of the bike was great. Cool, relaxing, and my time was excellent. Up to about mile 30, my average pace was about 18mph, which was faster than my plan of 'take it easy, 16-17mph is fine'. At mile 30 or so, the shit hit the fan, and my speed slowed. We started into a headwind for the second part of the bike, and that is also where the hills started, and the bad section of road. About 30 seconds before I got there, a lady in a car turned into oncoming bike traffic and hit someone. There was no turn there, and had she continued she would have turned into a ditch and a field. I am not sure where she was going, but she hit him good.

The second half of the bike was slow. I tried to keep it easy, and keep the HR down, but it was tough. Hills are automatic HR increase since it takes serious effort to get my 245 lbs up any hill. This is the second lesson, ( the first being that I can't expect to be a better swimmer if I don't spend more time in the water) I need to lose some weight. I knew this going into the season, but have not put forth the effort to lose more than 5lbs.

 The bike was hot, hills, headwind, humid, and fubar'd my HR anyway, but it was on plan at 3:25. The plan was 3:15-3:30.

  Run: in t2 I applied more sunscreen. head, neck, ears, hands, and legs. I also peed cause i have a problem peeing on the bike, and even in the water on the swim. call me a prude. Then I was out on the course. The plan was to walk for between 2-5 minutes so that I can get my legs under me, and get into the non-bike frame of mind. Problem is that the first part was where all the people were, and I have a problem walking where there are crowds. They didn't come to see me walk, they came to see people running. I ran for about 3 minutes to get past the crowds, and then started my refresher walk. at 1.5 minutes into my initial 3 minute jog past the crowds, I realized that this was not going to be a plan run.

 I was hoping for 2:15-2:30, since i had saved myself for this leg by coasting by the whole rest of the day. This would put me in a 6:30 total time, which would be a PR for me. Unfortunately, I had been on the course doing moderate work for 4 hours at that point. It was at that point that I realized that I was in that unknown space where I had done 4 hour workouts, and I had done bricks, but what I have not done is a 4 hour workout often enough that I could do another 2.5 hours of moderate work.

 Lance had done workouts and could sustain a 4 hour workout, and I could sustain a 4 hour workout, but the difference is that Lance was done at 3:45. I still had 13 miles to run. My first 3 miles were my best 3 miles. I walked up the hills at the beginning of the loop, and I ran down. I ran most of the flats and only took 1 minute walks between 3 minute runs.

 Then I hit the wall, and the sufferfest began. I ran when there were crowds, and I walked most of the time. I kept an eye on my HR, but by this time, it rarely got below 140. Walking up hills was at 155. If I ran for 30 seconds to a minute, I would feel that chest thumping feeling, and I would stop, and look at the HR monitor which showed me 160+ bpm. At 160+ I am in danger of not finishing. I felt the fart cramping sensation, but i was nervous, since I didn't want to crap my pants, so i just held it until after, since it wasn't debilitating crampy fart where i had to stop at a portlet. I started to see those people who red-lined. Throughout the run course, I saw 3 people who were with medical getting help because they didn't listen to their body, and they went through the wall without a care. I had bought a water bottle, and I had a shirt that I would have to throw out and never wear if I didn't make it to the end. I also had about 15 people there who expected me to finish. Little did I know that my wife had the tracker up at home and was wondering "what the HELL" because it didn't register my first loop, and so it looked to her like i fell off the world. That must have been a stressfull 2 HOURS for her.

Anyway, sufferfest is a sufferfest. I walked and walked with 30 second run breaks. I averaged about 15 minute miles overall The run was hot, hilly, humid, and I was pretty miserable. I missed goal by between 45 and 60 minutes. Run time 3:09:45

  Nutrition: Apart from the pre-race mentioned stuff, I took 3-4 salt sticks every 40 minutes or so on the bike, and took 3 in t2, and took 5 on the run. That is a lot of salt. I paid for it some on the run, while walking, because my hands were sausages. It receded pretty quickly after the race.

 I started the bike with the aero bottle and another bottle of gatorade. I finished those, and picked up a water and 2 bottles of powerade on the bike. I took 2 hammer gels, and a gel that was handed to me on the bike. I left the bike with the aero bottle pretty full, and the bottle on the bike pretty empty, so i would say i drank half the water i picked up, and 1 of the bottles of powerade i grabbed. At each station, i used priorities. 1. get electrolyte drink. 2. get cola if they have it. 3. water to drink or pour on my head.

 There you have it. Race Report. Total time, a whopping 7:33. a full hour over my plan. For future races, I want to be able to ride 56 miles like it was nothing, so that I can do the rest. I think that is important, since the race is 3 disciplines, and I really have only raced 2 up to this point. I figured it out, if i can lose 2 lbs a week between now and IMFL in November, I will go from 246 to sub 200lbs. I think that doing this would make the distance more manageable, so that is a priority goal. I know how to do it, and do it the right way, I just have to make it happen.

weekend workouts and extra credit.

I am not going to go much into the weekend workouts.

Saturday: 2000M = 2 crossings at lucky's lake swim. Then 75 minute run. I ran in the 140-155 range for HR, and finished 6.5 miles. exactly. - not bad for 75 minutes.

Sunday: supposed to be 50/2 brick. I was pretty tired from the (see above) and got started later in the day. It was raining, so I busted out the trainer and the Indian to Girdwood video. 1 hour 50 minutes later, I was done with that. I cut my workout a bit short, and headed out for 2 mile run. 2 miles in 25 minutes. easy pace. HR was high cause by that time, I was a bit dehydrated, hungry, and tired. I kept that in the 130-150 range.

Monday: rest day. I went out for a 2 mile run with the kids. Addison is quite fast, and we lost sight of him almost right away. Sammy rode her bike with him, and Jeremiah and I ran. we did 4 sets of fartleks - starting slow, building up to a pretty fast run. i would say starting at 11 and working up to a 9 min mile. last one i sprinted for about 200 yards. For the most part, HR started in zone 1, and i got to low zone 4 by the end of each. The last one i got into zone 5 for a few seconds, but i didn't go long enough to have it in there for a very long time.

At work they are signed up for virgin health miles. I have ordered my step counter, and yesterday i put in all my recent workouts from friday until now. I get 10 points for each manually entered workout, but if i purchase the $150 polar watch, I can upload the workouts i do. Entering them manually gets me 20 points. If I got the watch, i would get 200 points on most days. I can't tell what the points are good for, so i am going to hold off on the watch, but if I find that the points are good for something more than just "e-badges" then i am going to go ahead and get the watch. Might as well....

good days and bad.

today i swam 2000m in open water - specifically a lake. (http://luckyslakeswim.com) then i ran 10,480 meters in 1 hour 15 minutes. weird thing. 6.5 miles, and 1:15 happened all at once, like all the world was aligned or something.

then, on the way home i stopped to try to get handlebar tape for my bike, and some bib shorts for riding, and the bike shop was closed, so i went to get gas, and it was only when there was 9 gallons in the tank, and it was up over $50 that i realized that what i THOUGHT was 3.79 per gallon (which is kinda expensive) was really $5.79 per gallon. I had stopped at the "we take advantage of people who need full tanks of gas before returning their rental car" place. STUPID ME!!! I am mental after 2+ hours of working out.

so, good workout, bad trip home, good breakfast at lunch time, good COFFEE, bad experience with ATT (the link they gave me was broke, and there was no link anywhere in the site to do what i needed to do

all joking aside - well, mostly...

I like to kid, I like to joke, I like to have fun, I like to laugh. I will sometimes make fun of myself so that others will be happy, or crack a smile, or feel better about what they are doing because they see that I have a problem with something.

I cracked a couple in class today, but mostly felt content to do the exercises. We did Triggerpoint rolling, and then an ab workout. I am pretty weak in the core, so the abs workouts are necessary.

I am also kinda tired. I haven't got the handle on being able to go to bed a little earlier in order to get good sleep when the wake up time is before 5am. especially when the good shows are on at 9pm.

Can you believe there is an entry in Wikipedia for "Safeword"? Crazy, huh Snackie. (everyone else is like "WTF!")

seizure swimming

This morning's swim workout:
100pull
100kick
100pull
100kick
100pull
100 finger tip drag
100 tennis ball in hands
100 one arm
100 one foot in the air
100 someother drill
100 some other other drill
400 easy+
4x100 descending to full speed
4x50 on the minute
4x25 on the 30
200 back c/d
2400 was the total workout. I musta blacked out somewhere in there, cause i cant do the math or remember in all those drills. all i remember is that somewhere in there i was holding a kickboard, and trying to keep one foot out of the water while the other one kicked... I wasn't really moving forward on that one, so i kept stopping cause the foot that was supposed to be kicking was down at the bottom of the pool. I finally figured it out, and think i likely looked like i was having some sort of seizure there at the end of that one. Sorry, this may not be great english, I am still recovering.

pushing it.

60 mile bike on saturday, 9 mile run on monday, 2900 swim on tuesday, zombie tuesday night, missed alarm on wednesday morning.

I have also gained 6 lbs of something. I am back close to 250, where i was at 243 about a week ago.

I am pretty sure that i have about 5-6 lbs of water weight on me. I have not been running as regularly as I was when I was getting ready for the marathon, and this is where my weight loss happened. (zone 2 running) Second 30 of the bike was pretty balls out, and my run on Monday ended up being a BT LSD run, because i have lost some fitness there.

Solution: Today - 50 minute bike spin (that i missed this AM from being zombified) 10 w/u, then 6x5min where 4 easy, 1 hard, then 10c/d - NOT A BT WORKOUT. Also, drinking at least a gallon of water. Funny, drinking water helps with gained water weight. You just have to wear loose pants, and be ready for hourly trips to the little boys room.

Stretch goal: weight room today, weight room friday = activate internal HGH to lose a little weight, repair muscles, and be ready for 50/2 brick on saturday.

morning epic swim - tiresome

today's workout:

50x10 warm-up 10sec RI
500x2 easy+
400x2 mod
200x2 hard
200 back
total: 2900

By the way, I came REALLY close to falling asleep at work today. I actually went out and gave myself 20 minutes nap in the car as a nap.

Sleep is coming....

Hoo Ha Ride Glide for my lady bits.

I initially posted this on the trifuel.com forum, and thought I would repost here.



SO, today I was completely out of chamois cream (I usually use some Chamois Butt'r) when i went to do my BreakThrough Bike ride of 60 miles. It is a breakthrough because I am training for an Ironman, and starting at 60 miles, every increase in distance is "the longest I have ever gone before."
That being said, I have issues because I am still finding the 'sweet spot' as far as saddle placement and comfort/discomfort. I have recently posted a question about bike shorts to that end, but have not purchased my new training bibs yet.
I asked a co-rider if she had any cream, and she said all she had was hoo ha ride glide - designed for women, to keep their lady bits from turning into hamburger. At this point I am pretty desperate, I try some. It tingled a bit at first, but then I proceeded to have the best ride I have had as far back as I can remember. I could feel the saddle, but the swelling, the rubbing, the pounding, was reduced to a little pressure.
If you are struggling with taint pain, or if you are a lady, who has issues with lady bits and friction, try this stuff. It may not work for you, but then again, you may have the best ride as far back as you can remember. I hope that using this product that is specially formulated for a woman does not make me lose my man card. I am going to look for other products like this, but at the end of the day, I had a good ride.

Jesus, i sound like a friggin commercial.

Recovery/RR Goofy

Well, I did the Goofy.  Saturday, I woke up at 2:45 to get to Disney for the 5:30 race start.  Run/Walked it.  Finished under time.

Sunday, I woke up at 2:45, forgot my Garmin had to go back for it, took the wrong exit, had to drive the long way around to get to my 5:30 race start.  Run/WALKED it.  Finished right on time.

Goals for the weekend: 1. Do not get injured.  2. Go so slow that I can finish both races.  3. Finish both races in under max allowable time. 4. Memorize the chorus of Party Rocking.
I was 4/4.

Prior to this, I had never done a half marathon by itself, only attached to the end of a HIM, and I had never done a marathon.  My longest distance training run EVER was 13.2 miles, 2 weeks before the race, and it was only a little bit faster than my time for the half...  I was also sick with a head cold for Wednesday and Thursday last week, but for some reason when I pay over $300 on something, I feel like it is silly to not attend.

So, Sunday after the race, I immediately froze up all the muscles from about mid-calf down.  The feet would not move any more, so I walked like a 120 year old man to find my car, which my son's girlfriend and her mom was nice enough to drive me part way to.  Mine was the farthest car from the race... I practiced lying on my back and letting my legs drain into my body.
Monday was my wife's birthday, so I had to do some moving around and I had to work, so with the frozen muscles, I think I aggrivated my ankles, so there was some swelling.
Tuesday I took it easy, and in the evening I started using a tennis ball to attempt to trigger point some of the frozen muscles to relax.  I got some of them to lighten up.
Today is more of the same.  I need to go to the office, so that should be interesting.  Usually muscles freeze up in my car, so after a tough workout it will take a few hundred yards walking away from my car to get back to good.

Things I learned this weekend:
Walking is sometimes harder than running.
7 hours on your feet is 7 hours on your feet.  -Ouch.
I need to increase my game between now and November if i am going to be able to do the whole marathon thing as a portion of a tri.
I need to get on the weight loss.  250lbs is a lot to drag for long distances. JAN, FEB, MAR are great months to do this.

Thank you for enduring my upchuck of thought.

IM Florida

Coach wants me to start this back up again.  I have signed up for IM Florida, and this is sure to be an exciting year of IM Zone 2 training.

I have been working on my running, and have signed up for the "Goofy Challenge" this coming weekend, which consists of a half marathon Saturday, and a full marathon on Sunday.  I so far have only run 13 miles at one time, ever.  The race has forced me to focus on running, but I have only just in the past 10 days have gotten the discipline to run every day.  Prior to that, my 13 mile runs would put me in recovery mode for at least a week, and any run would force a recovery day, so 3 weeks ago was my first week of over 20 miles running volume.  That being said, this week I have finally gotten to the point where I can run consistently in Zone 2 without walking to bring my heart rate down.  This could be because I am getting it, or could be because I am overtrained and about to hit a wall.  I guess either way, I am going to hit a wall this weekend.

Part of the new year brings my IM training into focus.  Consistency is required.  I plan to attend as many group sessions as possible, and to volume up!  I hope to keep the running that I have built up, and over the next 3-5 months to bring the bike up to par.

Typed too much. Got to save some for next post.