From 0 To Ironman

54 on my 40th

2008-08-20T08:39:00.006-04:00

My 40th birthday was on 8/14, so I took up the Bfit Birthday Gold Challenge over the weekend. Swim the first number of your age, bike the combined number, and run the last number (10 miles if it ends in a 0 – good for me) within 24 hours.

Since we all know that endurance sports offer great metaphors for life, what did I learn by going 54 miles for my 40th birthday? I'll get to that in a minute. First, the workout.....

I had absolutely no desire to swim 4 miles straight through, so I kicked things off with a 2.4 mile pool swim on Friday night. Putting things in perspective, swimming 2.4 miles in the ironman was a blast. Surrounded by 2000 type A's all headed torward the same spot in the ocean.....helicopters overhead....huge crowds cheering for us.....

In comparison, swimming 2.4 miles in the pool was REALLY boring...and my nose and sinuses got stuffy from the pool water.

Screw the swimmers mile. I split the swim up into 2x2100, taking a couple of minutes in between to sip some water, plus an extra 25 at the end for 4225. Total time was 1:33 - about the same time as my IM swim.

The next morning I was up at 5, drank my usual pre-workout Boost +, and sipped on some coffee on the way to St. Augustine. A lot of the hammerheads are training for summer and fall IMs, including IM Lou, IM Moo, and Kona, and Al – one of the hammerheads training for IM Moo - graciously hosted a group workout for us at his waterfront condo.

We gathered at Al’s at 7, and jumped in the water for an open water swim at around 7:30. His condo is right on the inlet in St Augustine, so he planned the workout for us to be swimming as the tide was coming in, so we would have nice clean water to swim in. From the end of his dock to a sandbar and back was .8 of a mile, and the plan was for everyone to do two laps.

My nose and sinuses were still stuffy from the night before, and the warm salt water just made things worse, so I bagged it after one lap. I had no desire to keep putting my face back in the salt water, just to aggravate my sinuses more, so I waited on the dock with a couple others who didn’t go back for a 2nd lap. Swim time of 38 minutes.

T1 was in Al’s pool on the way back up to his condo :)

After a few minutes for everyone to change, we hit the bikes. After 20 miles, the group split, with those training for later races going for another 20 before turning around, and those tapering for upcoming races turning around with me to get in 40. The ride was pretty uneventful, other than a pretty good headwind on the way back.

Total ride time was 2:09

A few minutes to change and it was time to get our run on.

We started as a group at a pretty easy pace, which would have been easy to maintain in cooler weather; however, this is Florida and we started running at 11. After 3 miles or so the rest of the group turned back, and I was left with a couple more miles out before turning around. The good news – I got to run on the beach, my favorite running spot. The bad news – it was in the high 80’s low 90’s and steamy.

My slow pace quickly changed to a 4/1: run 4 minutes, walk one, which I kept up for the next 7 miles. Even that became challenging over the last couple of miles. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Why bother doing it if it’s easy?

Total time for the run was 1:50, a rather pedestrian pace, although that’s what I get for so doing so little training the past few weeks.

After finishing the run it was back into the pool for a quick dip to cool off and time to enjoy a couple of beers, burgers and brats that Al so thoughtfully provided for all. Lori and Elle came down to join us for our post workout festivities, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

One slight problem – since I only did one lap in the inlet that morning, I still had another .8 of a mile of swimming to do. Ugggghhhhhhh. For those of you that have been reading my blog, you already know my thoughts on swimming. Oh well…..thanks to Al and the rest of the hammerheads for the great workout, company, food and beer…..I’m headed back to the pool

Another 1425 yds in 33 minutes and I was done:

Swim 4 miles, bike 40 miles, run 10 miles, brag for the rest of…..Oops….wrong tag line…..I’ll, save that for IM CDA next June….

Total time: 6:41:56.

So what did I learn from this silly way of celebrating my birthday?

Well…..

1. I’ve come a really long way when it comes to swimming. Two years ago I couldn’t swim 100 yds without stopping. The last few months I’ve swam once a week for 2000 yds or so at the absolute most. For me to swim 2.4 miles (4 total) with so little training is huge.

1a. Whether I swim 3-4k three times / week or swim 2k one time / week, my times are about the same. I'd have to swim 5-6 times per week to improve, and even then I'd probably only gain 10-15 minutes. I'll stick to focusing on biking an running.

2. I’m still are REALLY bad swimmer. Everything’s relative :)

3. Group rides are always better than riding solo. For the next few months I want to do a lot more group riding on the weekends instead of doing intervals on my own.

4. I can run 10 miles without too much of a problem on a whim.

5. Don’t run 10 miles on a whim in the middle of the day when it’s too f*&$ing hot out.

6. If I do run on a whim in the middle of the day when it’s too f*&$ing hot out, I’ll very quickly remember that I’m 40 and take a while to recover. I was completely wrecked after the run.

7. I hate swimming.

8. I finish what I start. Period. It would have been very easy to hang around Al’s and enjoy the good company, and good food, and really good beer, and bail on the rest of the swim, turning the gold challenge into the bronze or silver challenge by stretching things out over a few days or even a week. But that’s not what I committed to. Why bother doing it if it's easy.

9. My health and fitness are 100 times better than they were when I celebrated my 20th birthday.

10. I have some great friends who see fitness as a lifestyle, and not something they have to do on occasion.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

With age comes....

2008-08-17T12:30:00.002-04:00

I know. You were expecting wisdom.

Well doing 4 miles of swimming, 40 miles of biking and 10 miles of running in Florida in August is most definitely not the smartest thing in the world.

My 40th birthday gold challenge is done, and so am I.

I'll post a report later (once I'm recovered).

For now

Swim:

2.4 miles pool 1:33:26
.8 miles open water 36:23
.8 miles pool (after biking and running) 33:06

Swim time: 2:42:55

Bike

40 miles 2:09:12

Run

10 miles 1:49:49

Total time: 6:41:56

The Bfit Birthday Challenge

2008-08-15T16:53:00.003-04:00

Now that 40's arrived, it's time to take my fitness out for a spin (pun intended), and take on the bfit birthday challenge:

4 mile swim
40 mile bike
10 mile run

So as not to be completely miserable, the first 2.4 miles of swimming is going to be in the pool tonight. The other 1.6 is the ocean tomorrow, followed by the 40 mile ride and 10 mile run

Gotta love being in better shape now than when I was 1/2 this age :)

Stay tuned....

Live with purpose...Enjoy the adventure....

Connecting the dots

2008-07-22T13:27:00.001-04:00

You can only connect the dots looking backwards:

Dealing with Taper Madness

2008-06-05T15:33:00.001-04:00

I saw this post on beginnertriathlete.com. It's one of the best posts I've read:

Right now you've all entered the taper. Perhaps you've been at this a few months, perhaps you've been at this a few years. For some of you this is your first IM, for others, a long-overdue welcome back to a race that few can match.

You've been following your schedule to the letter. You've been piling on the mileage, piling up the laundry, and getting a set of tan lines that will take until next year to erase. Long rides were followed by long runs, which both were preceded by long swims, all of which were followed by recovery naps that were longer than you slept for any given night during college.

You ran in the snow.
You rode in the rain.
You ran in the heat.
You ran in the cold.

You went out when others stayed home.
You rode the trainer when others pulled the covers over their heads.

You have survived the Darwinian progression that is an Ironman summer, and now the hardest days are behind you. Like a climber in the Tour de France coming over the summit of the penultimate climb on an alpine stage, you've already covered so much ground...there's just one more climb to go. You shift up, you take a drink, you zip up the jersey; the descent lies before you...and it will be a fast one.

Time that used to be filled with never-ending work will now be filling with silent muscles, taking their final, well-earned rest. While this taper is something your body desperately needs, your mind cast off to the background for so very long, will start to speak to you.

It won't be pretty.

It will bring up thoughts of doubt, pain, hunger, thirst, failure, and loss. It will give you reasons why you aren't ready. It will try and make one last stand to stop you, because your brain doesn't know what the body already does. Your body knows the truth:

You are ready.

Your brain won't believe it. It will use the taper to convince you that this is foolish - that there is too much that can go wrong.

You are ready.

Finishing an Ironman is never an accident. It's the result of dedication, focus, hard work, and belief that all the long runs in January, long rides in April, and long swims every damn weekend will be worth it. It comes from getting on the bike, day in, day out. It comes from long, solo runs. From that first long run where you wondered, "How will I ever be ready?" to the last long run where you smiled to yourself with one mile to go...knowing that you'd found the answer.

It is worth it. Now that you're at the taper, you know it will be worth it. The workload becomes less. The body winds up and prepares, and you just need to quiet your worried mind. Not easy, but you can do it.

You are ready.

You will walk into the water with 2000 other wide-open sets of eyes. You will look upon the sea of humanity, and know that you belong. You'll feel the chill of the water crawl into your wetsuit, and shiver like everyone else, but smile because the day you have waited for so VERY long is finally here.

You will tear up in your goggles. Everyone does.

The helicopters will roar overhead.
The splashing will surround you.

You'll stop thinking about Ironman, because you're now racing one.

The swim will be long - it's long for everyone, but you'll make it. You'll watch as the shoreline grows and grows, and soon you'll hear the end. You'll come up the beach and head for the wetsuit strippers. Three people will get that sucker off before you know what happening, then you’ll head for the bike.

The voices, the cowbells, and the curb-to-curb chalk giving you a hero's sendoff can't wipe the smile off your face.

You'll settle down to your race. The crowds will spread out on the road. You'll soon be on your bike, eating your food on your schedule, controlling your Ironman.

You'll start to feel that morning sun turn to afternoon sun. It's warmer now. Maybe it's hot. Maybe you're not feeling so good now. You'll keep riding. You'll keep drinking. You'll keep moving. After all, this is just a long training day with valet parking and catering, right?

You'll put on your game face, fighting the urge to feel down as you ride for what seems like hours. You reach special needs, fuel up, and head out.

By now it'll be hot. You'll be tired. Doubts will fight for your focus. Everyone struggles here. You've been on that bike for a few hours, and stopping would be nice, but you won't - not here. Not today.

You'll grind the false flats to the climb. You'll know you're almost there. You'll fight for every inch of road. The crowd will come back to you here. Let their energy push you. Let them see your eyes. Smile when they cheer for you - your body will get just that little bit lighter.

Grind.
Fight.
Suffer.
Persevere.

You'll plunge down the road, swooping from corner to corner, chaining together the turns, tucking on the straights, letting your legs recover for the run to come - soon! You'll roll back - you'll see people running out. You'll think to yourself, "Wasn't I just here?" The noise
will grow. The chalk dust will hang in the air - you're back, with only 26.2 miles to go. You'll relax a little bit, knowing that even if you get a flat tire or something breaks here, you can run the damn bike into T2.

You'll roll into transition. 100 volunteers will fight for your bike. You'll give it up and not look back. You'll have your bag handed to you, and into the tent you'll go. You'll change. You'll load up your pockets, and open the door to the last long run of your Ironman summer - the one that counts.

You'll take that first step of a thousand...and you'll smile. You'll know that the bike won't let you down now - the race is down to your own two feet. The same crowd that cheered for you in the shadows of the morning will cheer for you in the brilliant sunshine of a summer Sunday. High-five people on the way out. Smile. Enjoy it. This is what you've worked for all year long.

That first mile will feel great. So will the second. By mile 3, you probably won't feel so good.

That's okay. You knew it couldn't all be that easy. You'll settle down just like you did on the bike, and get down to your pace. You'll see the leaders coming back the other way. Some will look great - some won't. You might feel great, you might not. No matter how you feel, don't panic - this is the part of the day where whatever you're feeling, you can be sure it won't last.

You'll keep moving. You'll keep drinking. You'll keep eating. Maybe you'll be right on plan - maybe you won't. If you're ahead of schedule, don't worry - believe. If you're behind, don't panic - roll with it. Everyone comes up with a brilliant race plan for Ironman, and then everyone has to deal with the reality that planning for something like Ironman is like trying to land a man on the moon. By remote control. Blindfolded.

How you react to the changes in your plan will dictate your day. Don't waste energy worrying about things - just do what you have to when you have to, and keep moving. Keep eating. Keep drinking. Just don't sit down - don't EVER sit down.

You'll make it to the halfway point. You'll load up on special needs. Some of what you packed will look good, some won't. Eat what looks good, toss the rest. Keep moving. Start looking for people you know. Cheer for people you don't. You're headed in - they're not. They want to be
where you are, just like you wanted to be when you saw all those fast people headed into town. Share some energy - you'll get it right back.

Run if you can.
Walk if you have to.
Just keep moving.

The miles will drag on. The brilliant sunshine will yawn. You'll be coming up to those aid stations fully alive with people, music, and chicken soup. TAKE THE SOUP. Keep moving.

You'll soon only have a few miles to go. You'll start to believe that you're going to make it. You'll start to imagine how good it's going to feel when you get there. Let those feelings drive you on. When your legs just don't want to move anymore, think about what it's going to be like when someone catches you…and puts a medal over your head... all you have to do is get there.

You'll start to hear the people in town. People you can't see in the twilight will cheer for you. They'll call out your name. Smile and thank them. They were there when you left on the bike, and when you came back, and when you left on the run, and now when you've come back.

You'll enter town. You'll start to realize that the day is almost over. You'll be exhausted, wiped out, barely able to run a 10-minute mile (if you're lucky), but you'll ask yourself, "Where did the whole day go?" You'll be standing on the edge of two feelings - the desire to finally stop, and the desire to take these last moments and make them last as long as possible.

You'll hit mile 25. Your Ironman will have 1.2 miles - just 2KM left in it.

You'll run. You'll find your legs. You'll fly. You won't know how, but you will run. The lights will grow brighter, brighter, and brighter. Soon you'll be able to hear the music again. This time, it'll be for keeps.

Soon they'll see you. Soon, everyone will see you. You'll run towards the lights, between the fences, and into the night sun made just for you.

They'll say your name.
You'll keep running.
Nothing will hurt.

The moment will be yours - for one moment, the entire world will be looking at you and only you.

You'll break the tape at the finish line, 140.6 miles after starting your journey. The flash will go off.

You'll stop. You'll finally stop. Your legs will wobble their last, and suddenly...be capable of nothing more.

Someone will catch you.
You'll lean into them.

It will suddenly hit you.

YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!

You are ready.

You are ready.

A little something for those doing CDA in a couple of weeks

2008-06-04T07:15:00.001-04:00

Public Service Announcement

2008-05-29T15:53:00.002-04:00

Since I'm not updating my blog very often these days, subscribe at http://reader.google.com, so you'll instantly know the next time I add any witty and enthralling entries....

Live with purpose....enjoy the adventure....

1st Tri of the New Year

2008-05-19T10:49:00.002-04:00

Significantly different from last year, which started off with a 70.3, this years first race was a sprint.

Doing a sprint after an ironman is like doing a 5k after a marathon. You know it's going to hurt, and otherwise don't really give it too much thought.

True to the spirit of the sprint, I went hard and just held on.

I had one of my better swims, and for the first time didn't look up to see myself 50 yds off course. I came out of the water in 9:19, which is about right for me, even if it is ridiculously slow in comparison.

The bike was a 10.5 mile out and back loop, with the wind blowing straight at us for the first part. I kept my heart rate right at the edge of zone 5, not wanting to go too hard and having a complete melt down on the run. The return trip was fun with the wind at our backs - it's nice being able to go 24-25 without too much effort.

After a quick transition, I started at a reasonable pace on the run, planning on a slight negative split. Since I haven't been running much lately, I didn't want to go too overboard. With a 1/4 mile to go I was running at a pretty fast pace - at least for me - just under 8 minute miles, when someone from my age group passed me.

OK - the race is on :)

I stayed right on his heels until a couple hundred yard to go. He was a faster runner than me, so I had one chance to beat him to the line - mentally.

I sprinted out in front of him as hard as I could go, at a pace I could only keep up for a little bit, and it was just enough - I heard a sigh of resignation behind me - I held that pace just long enough to give me a gap, and crossed the line a few second ahead of him.

I don't have the athletic talent to be competitive in my age group, especially at shorter races, so I'll enjoy the little victories instead.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

How Oprah Ruined the Marathon??

2008-04-22T09:36:00.003-04:00

I've recently seen a couple of articles about how slower people are ruining the marathon. There's constant whining on slowtwitch.com about the back of the pack ironman finishers.

The issue people are attempting to make of slower people ruining the marathon is actually pretty simple: Many people derive a lot of their significance from racing in endurance sports.

I’m generalizing here…..

Those complaining about the slower folks feel much less significant about themselves when the walkers at the end of the marathon or triathlon cross the finish line, because they’re forced to face the fact that anyone can do it.

It’s not the exclusive, elite athlete only, life achievement they made it out to be. They’re forced to face the fact that it really doesn’t take a lifetime of dedication – only a few months of consistently following a plan.

They can no longer brag to anyone who will listen about the immense amount of dedication it took, or the endless hours of running 8 days a week, or what an elite club they just joined, since the non-athletic, non-running, not-in-shape person who followed a canned, off-the-shelf training plan just finished the same race they did, especially when they had a coach, personal trainer, nutritionist, and the finest shoes, bike and racing gear.

They’re suddenly afraid that people won’t respect their accomplishment as much because a walker at the back accomplished the same thing they did: finished the race.

As a gross generalization, they’re looking at completing a marathon or ironman to externally provide a source of feeling special or significant, since they’re lacking it internally. As soon as they realize that someone with no athletic backround can finish the marathon they trained years for, with about 20 weeks of training, bye bye feeling significant about what they just accomplished.

Put simply, they lost their feeling of being special when they discovered that anyone can do what they just did.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure

T-Shirt Etiquette

2008-04-17T14:30:00.003-04:00

I recently saw this, and want to do my part to help pass the word. Enjoy.

In the running and triathlon community the wearing of race T-Shirts has become a sign of accomplishment and fashion. Choosing just the right T-Shirt for that special occasion can be a daunting and difficult task. The following guidelines have been compiled (in fun) to help the responsible T-shirt wearer avoid potential embarrassment and/or elevate their status.

A shirt cannot be worn unless the wearer has participated in the event. (crew, significant others and volunteers are exempt)

Any race, less than a marathon distance, shouldn't be worn to an ultra event. It simply doesn't represent a high cool factor and sends a red flag regarding your rookiness. If you set a PR at Pikes Peak Marathon, definitely wear that shirt whenever possible.

When returning to a race in which you previously finished, then wear the shirt from the first year you completed the race. Don't short change yourself by wearing the shirt from the year before. It doesn't adequately display the feat of accomplishment or the consummate veteran status that you are due.

Never wear a race shirt from the race you are about to run. It displays a lack of running integrity and might put the mojo on you.

Wearing a T-shirt of the race, while currently running said race, is discouraged. It's like being at work and constantly announcing "I'm at work". Besides, you wont have the correct post race shirt then.

Never wear a shirt from a run that you did not finish. To wear it is to say I finished it.

A DNF'er may wear a race shirt if... the letters DNF are boldly written on the shirt in question.

During a race the wearing of shirt from a previously completed year is acceptable. Wear the oldest T-shirt you have (see guideline #3). This is probably a good practice because you now have no excuse to drop out since you've done it before.

Runners should buy all crew members and, as appropriate, significant others (they let you run the race in the first place) T-shirts which can be worn without regard to running the race. (see guide #1)

Volunteers have full T-shirt rights and all privileges pertaining thereto.

No souvenir shirts therefore friends or anyone else not associated with the race may not wear a race shirt. If mom thinks that the Leadville shirt is lovely, tell he to send in her application early for next year so she can earn her own.

Wear the race shirt of your last race at the current race pre race briefing. The more recent the race the better. This is a good conversation starter. However avoid the tendency to explain how that it was a training run for this, and this is just a training run for the next, etc. It just sounds like your rationalizing mediocre performances. Sometimes it's best to live in the here and now. ("I've never been more prepared for a race! this is the big one!)

It must be clean (dried blood stains are okay)

If you've finished Hardrock 100 then wear it as often as possible, since the race is so damn hard.

Never wear a T-shirt that vastly out classes the event you're running (exception: see guideline #14) Example: Never wear a Western States 100 T-shirt at, say, Cool Canyon. Too many roadies will feel put down. It's okay to wear a WS100 or Leadville or Wasatch T-shirt at ultrarunner cult events such as Gibson Ranch or Jim Skophammer 24. It's probably not okay to wear your Trans-America footrace T-Shirt to your local around-the-lake Fat Ass 50k unless you want to psyche out the competition.

A corollary: never wear a blatantly prestigious T-shirt downtown. People will just think you have a big head, which you do.

If you don't know what things like DNF, WS100 or Crew are then you shouldn't wear any race shirt until you know what they mean.

T-shirts must be used sensitively. Worn responsibly, they can help expand one's consciousness and immerse you in a great conversation with your ultra brethren. Worn stupidly, they can cause blisters, vacant stares, sprained ankles, and cause social anxiety.

NOTE: Publicly these guidelines will be denied and possibly ridiculed by ultra runners, but privately and when discussed confidentially, they sing a different tune.

In a strange twist of fate....

2008-04-11T09:06:00.002-04:00

.....I finished and posted my dreamboard just last week. One of the things I put on it was a round at the masters, something I've wanted to do for at least 20 years.

Tickets to the masters are one of the most difficult in all of sports, if not the most difficult.

And late Wednesday afternoon I received a call from a friend of mine telling me that his client cancelled at the last minute and asking me if I wanted to go.

Hmmmm....let me think about it for a minute.......

So, I got to spend yesterday at

THE

OPENING

ROUND

AT

THE

MASTERS

WOW.....I've never seen anything like it.

There's not so much as a blade of grass out of place. There's a calmness and a beauty about Augusta National that is impossible to put into words, much less capture on TV or in a picture

Proof that what we focus on expands

Live with Purpose...Enjoy the Adventure

A rather unique commencement speach

2008-04-09T08:55:00.003-04:00

Other than the fact I'm back in the pool a couple of days a week, there's not too much interesting in my world of triathlon these days; so, here's a hysterical commencement address given by Neal Boortz. You'll either love it or hate it, but I guarantee you'll have a reaction to it, which is a good thing. It's long, so grab a cup of whatever it is you like to drink, pull up a chair, and enjoy:

Commencement Address (Tex A&M)

Neal Boortz is a Texan, a lawyer, a Texas AGGIE (Texas A&M), and now a nationally syndicated talk show host from Atlanta. His commencement address to the graduates of this years A&M class is far different from what either the students or the faculty expected. His views are thought provoking. It would have been particularly entertaining to have witnessed the faculty's reaction.

"I am honored by the invitation to address you on this August occasion. It's about time. Be warned, however, that I am not here to impress you; you'll have enough smoke blown up your bloomers today. And you can bet your tassels I'm not here to impress the faculty and administration. You may not like much of what I have to say, and that's fine. You will remember it though. Especially after about 10 years out there in the real world. This, it goes without saying, does not apply to those of you who will seek your careers and your fortunes as government employees.

This gowned gaggle behind me is your faculty. You've heard the old saying that those who can - do. Those who can't - teach. That sounds deliciously insensitive. But there is often raw truth in insensitivity, just as you often find feel-good falsehoods and lies in compassion. Say good-bye to your faculty because now you are getting ready to go out there and do. These folks behind me are going to stay right here and teach.

By the way, just because you are leaving this place with a diploma doesn't mean the learning is over. When an FAA flight examiner handed me my private pilot's license many years ago, he said, 'Here, this is your ticket to learn.' The same can be said for your diploma. Believe me, the learning has just begun.

Now, I realize that most of you consider yourselves Liberals. In fact, you are probably very proud of your liberal views. You care so much. You feel so much. You want to help so much. After all you're a compassionate and caring person, aren't you now? Well, isn't that just so extraordinarily special. Now, at this age, is as good a time as any to be a liberal; as good a time as any to know absolutely everything. You have plenty of time, starting tomorrow, for the
truth to set in.

Over the next few years, as you begin to feel the cold breath of reality down your neck, things are going to start changing pretty fast... including your own assessment of just how much you really know.
So here are the first assignments for your initial class in reality: Pay
attention to the news, read newspapers, and listen to the words and phrases that proud Liberals use to promote their causes. Then, compare the words of the left to the words and phrases you hear from those evil, heartless, greedy conservatives. From the Left you will hear "I feel." From the Right you will hear "I think." From the Liberals you will hear references to groups -- The Blacks, the Poor, The Rich, The Disadvantaged, The Less Fortunate. From the Right you will hear references to individuals. On the Left you hear talk of group rights; on the Right, individual rights.

That about sums it up, really: Liberals feel. Liberals care. They are pack animals whose identity is tied up in group dynamics. Conservatives and Libertarians think -- and, setting aside the theocracy crowd, their identity is centered on the individual. Liberals feel that their favored groups have enforceable rights to the property and services of productive individuals. Conservatives and Libertarians, I among them I might add, think that individuals have the right to protect their lives and their property from the plunder of the masses.

In college you developed a group mentality, but if you look closely at your diplomas you will see that they have your individual names on them. Not the name of your school mascot, or of your fraternity or sorority, but you name. Your group identity is going away. Your recognition and appreciation of your individual identity starts now. If, by the time you reach the age of 30, you do not consider yourself to be a libertarian or a conservative, rush right back here as quickly as you can and apply for a faculty position. These people will welcome you with open arms. They will welcome you, that is, so long as you haven't developed an individual identity. Once again you will have to be willing to sign on to the group mentality you embraced during the past four years.

Something is going to happen soon that is going to really open your eyes. You're going to actually get a full time job! You're also going to get a lifelong work partner. This partner isn't going to help you do your job. This partner is just going to sit back and wait for payday. This partner doesn't want to share in your effort, but in your earnings. Your new lifelong partner is actually an agent; an agent representing a strange and diverse group of people; an agent for every teenager with an illegitimate child; an agent for a research scientist who wanted to make some cash answering the age-old question of why monkeys grind their teeth. An agent for some poor demented hippie who considers herself to be a meaningful and talented artist, but who just can't manage to sell any of her artwork on the open market.

Your new partner is an agent for every person with limited, if any, job skills, but who wanted a job at City Hall. An agent for tin-horn dictators in fancy military uniforms grasping for American foreign aid. An agent for multi-million- dollar companies who want someone else to pay for their overseas advertising. An agent for everybody who wants to use the unimaginable power of this agent's for their personal enrichment and benefit.

That agent is our wonderful, caring, compassionate, oppressive government. Believe me, you will be awed by the unimaginable power this agent has. Power that you do not have A power that no individual has, or will have. This agent has the legal power to use force, deadly force to accomplish its goals.

You have no choice here. Your new friend is just going to walk up to you, introduce itself rather gruffly, hand you a few forms to fill out, and move right on in. Say hello to your own personal one ton gorilla. It will sleep anywhere it wants to. Now, let me tell you, this agent is not cheap. As you become successful it will seize about 40% of everything you earn. And no, I'm sorry, there just isn't any way you can fire this agent of plunder, and you can't decrease its share of your income. That power rests with him, not you. So, here I am saying negative things to you about government. Well, be clear on this: It is not wrong to distrust government. It is not wrong to fear government. In certain cases it is not even wrong to despise government for government is inherently evil. Yes ... a necessary evil, but dangerous nonetheless ... somewhat like a drug. Just as a drug that in the proper dosage can save your life, an overdose of government can be fatal.

Now let's address a few things that have been crammed into your minds at this university. There are some ideas you need to expunge as soon as possible. These ideas may work well in academic environment, but they fail miserably out there in the real world. First is that favorite buzz word of the media, government and academia: Diversity! You have been taught that the real value of any group of people - be it a social group, an employee group, a management group, whatever - is based on diversity. This is a favored liberal ideal because diversity is based not on an individual's abilities or character, but on a person's identity and status as a member of a group. Yes, it's that liberal group identity thing again.

Within the great diversity movement group identification - be it racial, gender based, or some other minority status - means more than the individual's integrity, character or other qualifications. Brace yourself. You are about to move from this academic atmosphere where diversity rules, to a workplace and a culture where individual achievement and excellence actually count. No matter what your professors have taught you over the last four years, you are about to learn that diversity is absolutely no replacement for excellence, ability, and individual hard work. From this day on every single time you hear the word "diversity" you can rest assured that there is someone close by who is determined to rob you of every vestige of individuality you possess.

We also need to address this thing you seem to have about "rights." We have witnessed an obscene explosion of so-called "rights" in the last few decades, usually emanating from college campuses. You know the mantra: You have the right to a job. The right to a place to live. The right to a living wage. The right to health care. The right to an education. You probably even have your own pet right - the right to a Beemer for instance, or the right to have someone else provide for that child you plan on downloading in a year or so. Forget it. Forget those rights! I'll tell you what your rights are! You have a right to live free, and to the results of 60% -75% of your labor. I'll also tell you have no right to any portion of the life or labor of another.

You may, for instance, think that you have a right to health care. After all, Hillary said so, didn't she? But you cannot receive healthcare unless some doctor or health practitioner surrenders some of his time - his life - to you. He may be willing to do this for compensation, but that's his choice. You have no "right" to his time or property. You have no right to his or any other person's life or to any portion thereof. You may also think you have some "right" to a job; a job with a living wage, whatever that is. Do you mean to tell me that you have a right to force your services on another person, and then the right to demand that this person compensate you with their money? Sorry, forget it. I am sure you would scream if some urban outdoorsmen (that would be "homeless person" for those of you who don't want to give these less fortunate people a romantic and adventurous title) came to you and demanded his job and your money.

The people who have been telling you about all the rights you have are simply exercising one of theirs - the right to be imbeciles. Their being imbeciles didn't cost anyone else either property or time. It's their right, and they exercise it brilliantly.

By the way, did you catch my use of the phrase "less fortunate" a bit ago when I was talking about the urban outdoorsmen? That phrase is a favorite of the Left. Think about it, and you'll understand why.

To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is "less fortunate" is to imply that a successful person - one with a job, a home and a future - is in that position because he or she was "fortunate." The dictionary says that fortunate means "having derived good from an unexpected place." There is nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street.

If the Liberal Left can create the common perception that success and failure are simple matters of "fortune" or "luck," then it is easy to promote and justify their various income redistribution schemes. After all, we are just evening out the odds a little bit. This "success equals luck" idea the liberals like to push is seen everywhere. Former Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt refers to high-achievers as "people who have won life's lottery." He wants you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are lucky. It's not luck, my friends. It's choice. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino , entitled "The Greatest Secret in the World." The lesson? Very simple: "Use wisely your power of choice."

That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat? He's there by choice. He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life.. This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept, especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or other - victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism, whatever. After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or her position in life. Not when it is so much easier to point and say, "Look! He did this to me!" than it is to look into a mirror and say, "You S. O. B.! You did this to me!" The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms. Some of the choices are obvious: Whether or not to stay in school Whether or not to get pregnant. Whether or not to hit the bottle. Whether or not to keep this job you hate until you get another better-paying job. Whether or not to save some of your money, or saddle yourself with huge payments for that new car.

Some of the choices are seemingly insignificant: Whom to go to the movies with. Whose car to ride home in. Whether to watch the tube tonight, or read a book on investing. But, and you can be sure of this, each choice counts. Each choice is a building block - some large, some small. But each one is a part of the structure of your life. If you make the right choices, or if you make more right choices than wrong ones, something absolutely terrible may happen to you. Something unthinkable. You, my friend, could become one of the hated, the evil, the ugly, the feared, the filthy, the successful, the rich. The rich basically serve two purposes in this country. First, they provide the investments, the investment capital, and the brains for the formation of new businesses. Businesses that hire people. Businesses that send millions of paychecks home each week to the un-rich.

Second, the rich are a wonderful object of ridicule, distrust, and hatred. Few things are more valuable to a politician than the envy most Americans feel for the evil rich. Envy is a powerful emotion. Even more powerful than the emotional minefield that surrounded Bill Clinton when he reviewed his last batch of White House interns. Politicians use envy to get votes and power. And they keep that power by promising the envious that the envied will be punished: "The rich will pay their fair share of taxes if I have anything to do with it. The truth is that the top 10% of income earners in this country pays almost 50% of all income taxes collected. I shudder to think what these job producers would be paying if our tax system were any more "fair."

You have heard, no doubt, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Interestingly enough, our government's own numbers show that many of the poor actually get richer, and that quite a few of the rich actually get poorer. But for the rich who do actually get richer, and the poor who remain poor ... there's an explanation -- a reason. The rich, you see, keep doing the things that make them rich; while the poor keep doing the things that make them poor. Speaking of the poor, during your adult life you are going to hear an endless string of politicians bemoaning the plight of the poor. So, you need to know that under our government's definition of "poor" you can have a $5 million net worth, a $300,000 home and a new $90,000 Mercedes, all completely paid for. You can also have a maid, cook, and valet, and $ million in your checking account, and you can still be officially defined by our government as "living in poverty." Now there's something you haven't seen on the evening news.

How does the government pull this one off? Very simple, really. To determine whether or not some poor soul is "living in poverty," the government measures one thing -- just one thing. Income. It doesn't matter one bit how much you have, how much you own, how many cars you drive or how big they are, whether or not your pool is heated, whether you winter in Aspen and spend the summers in the Bahamas, or how much is in your savings account. It only matters how much income you claim in that particular year. This means that if you take a one-year leave of absence from your high-paying job and decide to live off the money in your savings and checking accounts while you write the next great American novel, the government says you are 'living in poverty." This isn't exactly what you had in mind when you heard these gloomy statistics, is it? Do you need more convincing? Try this. The government's own statistics show that people who are said to be "living in poverty" spend more than $1.50 for each dollar of income they claim. Something is a bit fishy here. Just remember all this the next time Charles Gibson tells you about some hideous new
poverty statistics.

Why has the government concocted this phony poverty scam? Because the government needs an excuse to row and to expand its social welfare programs, which translates into an expansion of its power. If the government can convince you, in all your compassion, that the number of "poor" is increasing, it will have all the excuse it needs to sway an electorate suffering from the advanced stages of Obsessive-Compulsive Compassion Disorder.

I'm about to be stoned by the faculty here. They've already changed their minds about that honorary degree I was going t o get. That's OK, though. I still have my PhD. in Insensitivity from the Neal Boortz Institute for Insensitivity Training. I learned that, in short, sensitivity sucks. It's a trap. Think about it - the truth knows no sensitivity. Life can be insensitive. Wallow too much in sensitivity and you'll be unable to deal with life, or the truth So, get over it. Now, before the dean has me shackled and hauled off, I have a few random thoughts.

* You need to register to vote, unless you are on welfare. If you are living off the efforts of others, please do us the favor of sitting down and shutting up until you are on your own again.

* When you do vote, your votes for the House and the Senate are more important than your vote for president. The House controls the purse strings, so concentrate your awareness there.

* Liars cannot be trusted, even when the liar is the president of the country. If someone can't deal honestly with you, send them packing.

* Don't bow to the temptation to use the government as an instrument of plunder. If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it -- to take their money by force for your own needs -- then it is certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for you.

* Don't look in other people's pockets. You have no business there. What they earn is theirs. What you earn is yours Keep it that way. Nobody owes you anything, except to respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you the hell alone.

* Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is for losers Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the maximum. You don't see highly successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive home in the dark.

* Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

* Finally (and aren't you glad to hear that word), as Og Mandino wrote,
"1. Proclaim your rarity. Each of you is a rare and unique human being.
2. Use wisely your power of choice.
3. Go the extra mile ... drive home in the dark.

Oh, and put off buying a television set as long as you can. Now, if you have any idea at all what's good for you, you will get the hell out of here and never come back.

Class dismissed"

MAJOR HEALTH CARE RANT

2008-03-25T09:53:00.005-04:00

First, Elle is doing fantastic. At her last doctors visit, she weighed a bit over 6 lbs, meaning she gained over 2 lbs in her 1st month. Not bad considering she wasn't even supposed to be here yet :)

Having her, I've dealt with doctors more in the last couple of months more than I have in my entire life. While I have the utmost respect for doctors, and think they do what they do because they really care about people, they confirmed my belief that the medical community knows lot's about death and disease and virtually nothing about actual health and vitality. I saw more obese people than I could possibly believe - most of whom were the nurses. A little hypocritical, or at best ironic, don't you think?

In fairness, they were nice as could be and took good care of Lori and Elle, but you're in the health field - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE learn how to be healthy.

<"WARNING: MAJOR HEALTH CARE RANT">

The latest brilliant idea from medicine? Let's give babies a hepatitis b shot AT BIRTH.

WHY IN THE *&^% WOULD YOU INJECT A NEWBORN WITH GENETICALLY ALTERED DNA AND TOXIC SUBSTANCES FOR A DISEASE THAT INFECTS IV DRUG USERS THROUGH NEEDLES OR SEXUAL TRANSMISSION?

The CDC states that it's so kids will be protected later in life. That's interesting, since both of the manufacturers state in the drug inserts that they don't know how long the injections are effective for. Neither the CDC nor the manufacturers know the long term effect, since no long term studies have been done.

My daughter is not your personal *&^%ing guinea pig.

Why do they continue injecting things that human services would take your kids away from you for, if you were to feed it to them? Have you ever looked at the ingredients in these injections? Aluminum (linked to Alzheimer’s), formaldehyde (last time I checked USED TO EMBALM DEAD PEOPLE), genetically altered DNA......Would you swallow a bottle of formaldehyde and aluminum? Me either....So instead you're going to inject it directly into the bloodstream?

It's common knowledge in the medical community, although not generally shared with the public, that germs and bacteria ARE NOT the cause of disease. For germs and bacteria to be the cause, EVERY person exposed to a certain germ or bacteria would need to contract the disease, which simply does not happen.

NOT

EVEN

CLOSE

When the flu is going around your office, every person in the office is exposed to the bacteria. Does everyone get the flu? Although germs and bacteria play a part in disease, they

ARE

NOT

THE

CAUSE

It takes a compromised immune system for disease to occur.

30 injections of massively toxic substances over the 1st couple years of a newborn's life, to "protect" them against germs and bacteria that are scientifically proven to AT BEST be a PART of disease, although PROVEN NOT TO BE THE CAUSE? When a newborn's immune system is just starting to develop?

I'm supposed to believe that circumventing every one of the bodies natural defenses by injecting massively toxic substances directly into the bloodstream will do nothing to compromise an immune system that's just starting to develop?

UGGGGHHHHHH........

WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE REMOVE SCIENTISTS' BRAIN - REPLACE COMMON SENSE THAT MEDICAL EDUCATION ELIMINATED - REPLACE SCIENTISTS' BRAIN

Cancer, heart disease, autism, diabetes, obesity, ADHD...all consistently increasing in both children and adults. While the government and medical community continue to suggest there's no link between injecting all of these toxic substances and the increase in so many long term diseases, to my knowledge not one study has been done to determine the potential long term effects. To my knowledge no humans have ever been raised in a lab. To my knowledge, not one study has been done comparing the long term health and vitality of those who receive the vaccinations, versus someone whose immune system was free to develop free of all of those poisons.

I'm realistic...vaccinations have massively reduced and eliminated a lot of diseases that used to kill and injure people. As a Rotarian, I'm thrilled to be a part of wiping out polio in the world.

But I also realize that we don't live in the same conditions of filth and dirty drinking water that breeds the bacteria that "cause", strike that - play a part in so many of the diseases they now vaccinate against.

I realize that the pharmaceutical companies are in the business of making money (over $300 billion a year), but could they please stop doing it at the cost of our health?

<"/WARNING: MAJOR HEALTH CARE RANT">

I'd love to hear your views and opinions

Live with passion...Enjoy the Adventure

From 0 to Ironman and back to 0

2008-03-25T07:03:00.009-04:00

Ok - not quite back to 0, although sometimes it feels like it. For the first time in months, I was able to get back onto some sort of routine last week. Getting back in the pool and back on my bike were very humbling experiences, to say the least.

Saturday's swim was actually a bit better than I expected. Although VERY slow, I was able to swim more than a 100m at a time, which is vastly better than my expectations.

Sundays 2 hour ride was a nice change of pace, enjoying a relatively easy spin in fantastic spring weather. My condolences to those of you still stuck on trainers. You're more than welcome to live vicariously for a bit :)

Live with purpose...Enjoy the adventure...

New Year - New LT Test

2008-02-11T10:24:00.000-05:00

Since I've been working out off and on for the last few weeks, yesterday's Winter Beach run seemed like the perfect opportunity to re-test my LT, and reset my hr zones.

For breakfast, I had some Hi Octane Pancakes, recipe courtesy of D3 Multisport. Yummy.

This year the beach run started and finished in Neptune Beach, a fact I wish I had noticed before parking in Jax beach, where they held it the prior year.

I thought I had given myself plenty of extra time to pick up my number and chip. Imagine my surprise when 15 minutes before the race I found out I was in the wrong place. Oops.

I drive the few minutes north to Neptune beach, stressing the whole time of course, and seemingly taking forever to find a parking spot. Fortunately the race start was delayed by a few minutes, and I ended up with more than enough time.

I signed up for the 5-mile option, perfect for a LT test. I went easy for the first 10 minutes, using it as a warmup, with some 30 second accelerations to get my hr up before starting the test.

I hit the lap button after 10 minutes and started running....let the "fun" begin. As usual, I completely overestimated the pace I thought I could keep for the next 30 minutes, going out at ~7:20. I was able to keep up that pace for a while, although saw it start slipping.....

I hit the lap butting 10 minutes in, so I'd have my average HR over the last 20 minutes of the run. I watched as my hr kept climbing, and my pace kept slipping. The last miles SUCKED.

I was oh so happy to cross the finish line and end the pain, looking up to see 40:something. My average HR for the last 20 minutes was 186. I'll discount that slightly, since we all have a tendency to go harder in a race than on our own, so will base all my new zones on a running LT of 183 and biking lt of 173, slightly up from the last time I did the test.

The winter beach run may be the best value of the year too. For $20 you can do either a 5 or 10 mile run, you get a REALLY comfortable technical running shirt, and the best part.....

FREE BEER and PIZZA......

Thanks to ......1st Place Sports for putting on another great event. Next up, the Gate River Run on March 8.

Live with purpose....enjoy the adventure

Need a challenge on your birthday?

2008-02-08T14:03:00.001-05:00

I've got just the thing for you:

The B-Fit Birthday Challenge.

Take your age and:

1) Swim the number of miles in the first number 2) Run the number of miles in the second number 3) Bike the number of miles in the combined number

So a 45-year-old athlete would:
1) Swim 4 miles
2) Run 5 miles
3) Bike 45 miles

The Challenge is a simple one. If you choose to accept the Challenge you must....

Bronze: Do all three (swim/bike/run) during the week of your Birthday.
Silver: Do all three (swim/bike/run) in the three days before, after, or during your Birthday.
Gold: Do all three (swim/bike/run) in 24-hours to celebrate your B-Day!

Important Note: Since “0” Birthdays like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and so on are important milestones the "0" in your birthday represents a 10. This means that on those “0” Birthdays you get to celebrate this big milestone by running ten miles.

Since I'm turning 40 this August, I'll have the pleasure of swimming 4 miles, biking 40 miles, and running 10 miles. What kind of an ironman athlete would I be if I did anything other than the gold challenge?

Who else is up to the challenge? See the website for more details:

http://bfitbday.ning.com

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

A great new toy for busy Type A's

2008-02-06T08:52:00.000-05:00

A new way of getting my ass kicked....

2008-02-04T20:58:00.001-05:00

Pilates....aka 20 different ways to do crunches and ensure I cannot situp without assistance....

Although I haven't been blogging nearly as much, I am finally back to working out somewhat consistently. I got in a great 8 mile beach run on Saturday, and a 2 hour ride on Sunday, all while putting the finishing touches on Elle's room.

This weekend we finished painting, so the room was all set for her furniture to arrive today :) Pictures to follow.

The gate river run is on March 8 and is coming quickly. I did a bit of easier base building over the last 4 weeks to get going again, and over the next 4 weeks I plan to add some intervals and tempo runs.

It'll be interesting to see if I can set a PR at that distance, relying mainly on the base I built over the last couple of years. Two years ago I put up a pretty decent time (at least for me) while training for my first marathon. This time around, I'm only running a couple of days a week, and am cycling x 2, hitting pilates x 1 and lifting weights x1.

At the moment I'm much more focused on overall health and fitness than training for any particular events (although you'd never know it from my nutrition lately).

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

Spirit of the Marathon

2008-01-25T15:29:00.000-05:00

I caught the sold-out premier of the Spirit of the Marathon last night, and I thought the movie did and outstanding job of capturing exactly what it promised: the spirit of the marathon.

If you weren't able to see the movie last night, there's another showing on February 21.

Spending a lot of time around other marathoners and ironman finishers over the last couple of years, my perception shifted a bit, and I seemed to have forgotten just how special finishing a marathon is, much less an ironman. The movie reminded me....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....

Did you miss me?

2008-01-22T22:01:00.000-05:00

I'm back.....

After a much deserved and much needed break from all things triathlon, it's at long last time to get going again. I've been going pretty much non-stop from the time I started training for my first marathon back in January 2005.

Although my intention was to take a few weeks off right after IM Florida, I ended up doing a couple of 1/2 marathons, so never really took a break. Then, it happened....

A few days before Xmas I went on a group ride on a cold, wet, rainy day. After that ride my body decided it was time to rest, whether I wanted to or not. I got a wicked sinus infection, and managed to spend Xmas morning at an urgent care facility picking up some antibiotics. It was the first time in at least three years I've had so much as a cold.

Fortunately Lori was a good sport, and we did have a great Xmas even if I wasn't 100%. One of the reasons I love her.

Speaking of Lori, both she and the baby are doing great. Thanks for all of the votes for a name. Our short list was down to Lily and Lauren, so naturally we had been calling her "L". A couple of days ago the perfect name came to us: Elle.

We're both very excited for Elle's arrival, and her room will be ready ahead of schedule :)

As far as training goes, I got back onto a schedule last week, gearing up for the Gate River Run, a VERY popular 15k her in Jacksonville. This year should be particularly fun finishing inside the stadium formerly known as Alltel, with the finish shown on the jumbotron.

Swimming is out for the time being in favor of weights. So between now and the race on March 8, it's weights 2x per week, an hour or so aerobic ride on the trainer with Coach Troy, a ~2 hour group ride, a midweek tempo run, and a weekend long run building up to 9 miles.

It definitely feels great to be back on a schedule.

A belated happy new years to everyone

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

U2 in 3D

2008-01-22T14:14:00.001-05:00

Health Care Rant

2007-12-12T14:05:00.000-05:00

Admittedly, the title is a bit misleading, since we have sick care, not health care.

I was stunned reading some of the highlights of the recently released Health, United States 2007 Report http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus.htm

According to the highlights, we spent $2 Trillion (yes, trillion with a T) on health care last year, and the United States spends more on health per capita than any other country, and health spending continues to increase. The United States spends a larger share of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health than does any other major industrialized country. In 2004, the United States devoted 15% of its GDP to health.

Are we getting our money's worth?

Well...here are some of the highlights...I'll let you be the judge:

First, the good news: Life expectancy in the United States continues to increase. In 2004, American men could expect to live more than 3 years longer, and women more than 1 year longer, than they did in 1990

Now the bad news: Yet, even as progress is made in improving life expectancy,
increased longevity is accompanied by increased prevalence of chronic conditions and their associated pain and disability.

Between 1988–1994 and 2003–2004, the prevalence of overweight among preschool-age children 2–5 years of age almost doubled, from about 7% to 14%.

The prevalence of overweight among school-age children increased more than 60% between 1988–1994 and 2003–2004. Among children 6–11 years of age, overweight increased from 11% to 19%. The prevalence of overweight among adolescents 12–19 years of age grew from 11% to 17%

Among adults 20–74 years of age, overweight and obesity rates have increased since 1960–1962. These increases were driven largely by increases in the percentage of adults who were obese. From 1960–1962 through 2003–2004, the percentage of adults who were overweight but not obese remained steady at 32%–34% (age-adjusted). During that time period, the percentage of adults who were obese increased from 13% to 34% (age-adjusted)

In 2005, 28% of adults 18 years of age and over had any low back pain in the past 3 months

Between 1988–1994 and 1999–2002 the percentage of adults in the civilian noninstitutionalized population who reported using an antidepressant drug during the past month more than tripled, increasing from 2.5% to 8.0%

And now my personal favorite....

Wait for it....

Wait....

In 2005, almost one-third of adults 18 years of age and over engaged in regular leisure-time physical activity.

Really? Almost 1/3 engaged in regular physical activity?

I'm only a CPA, so please excuse my math skills, but 2/3 of the country is either overweight or obese, and only 1/3 of the country exercises on a regular basis?

Hmmm....something to think about....

Winter Cycling

2007-12-03T08:38:00.000-05:00

A few people have asked me about spinervals dvd's lately, and ironically I just received this article from Coach Troy:

Spinervals Article

As much as I despise being indoors on the trainer, the spinervals dvd's make it almost tolerable. The aero dvds are good for base building, and I like the time trial dvds for a good, old fasioned a$$ kicking.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure

11/28/07: Need Your Help

2007-11-28T09:05:00.000-05:00

The votes were counted and verified, and the winner to the What Should Andy Do Next Poll had a clear winner: Do Another Ironman Faster was a clear victor. I'm grateful that got the votes, since hiking 2000 miles of the Appalachian trail didn't sound too appealing.

As far as doing another one faster, I'm in for 09, since our little girl is going to take up much of my time and attention in 08, since she's due March 27.

Speaking of, we need your help my voting blogger peeps. Help us choose a name.

We've narrowed it down to our favorite 6, and would like some input.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the Adventure

11/26/07: You'd think I'd Learn

2007-11-26T15:13:00.000-05:00

aka: A Painful way to a PR

If you're looking to set a PR in a 1/2 marathon, and would like it to be VERY painful, here's what to do:

1. Run 2 x since IM FL on 11/3
2. Make sure one run is only 20 minutes on the beach at sunrise, and don't run very hard
3. Make sure the other run is two laps around the downtown bridges 2 days before the race
4. Go out WAY too fast for the first few miles

This is a perfect strategy for making sure the last 3 miles of the half marathon hurt like a son of a *&$%

By now you'd think I would have learned to go out easy in the first few miles...it worked SO well in the IM....oh well.....

The good news is that with virtually no training over the last three weeks, I did manage to take almost 5 minutes off of my open half marathon time, crossing the line in 1:47:38.

Note to self: go slower in beginning = much less pain at end

11/21/07: Thanksgiving Workout

2007-11-21T10:54:00.000-05:00

AM Workout: 1/2 Marathon

Should be interesting, since I've run two times since the IM, totalling around 5 miles....hmmmmm.....funny thing is I still want a PR....Hmmmm

PM Workout:

1. Eat
2. Drink
3. Watch Football
4. Sleep
5. Repeat Steps 1-4

I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving

11/17/07: For the 1st time in almost two years

2007-11-17T10:28:00.000-05:00

I went for a run this morning

Because I wanted to, not because I had to.

I saw the most stunning sunrise over the ocean. My god that was worth getting up early for.

It was about 35 degrees, not a cloud anywhere....crystal clear....steam was coming off of the ocean....I saw a total of 2 other people in the 25 minutes or so that I ran...

No heart rate zones, no pace, no distance or time limits.....Perfect.....

So that's what it feels like to relax and enjoy a run.....

11/16/07: Quote of the Day

2007-11-16T08:49:00.000-05:00

From Common Man Syndrome.com

Obstacles face us all the time in life, it doesn't give anyone the right to use that as an excuse to not give it your all at what we do. Its not okay to be unprepared for something and then indignant when there's consequences when doesn't go right.

11/15/07: Maybe....Just Maybe.....

2007-11-15T09:55:00.000-05:00

http://www.silvermannv.com/race_details/half_course_description.php

or

http://www.superfrogtriathlon.com

Say it with me....Hmmmmm....something to think about.....

11/14/07: What Now?

2007-11-14T11:07:00.000-05:00

For the first time in 5 years or so, I have no huge goal in front of me that requires a consistent schedule. First it was my masters degree, then training for my first marathon, and then another...then it was training for my first HIM...then the full....

So now what. I know myself well enough that without a huge goal in front of me requiring consistent focus and effort, I'll actually do very little.

The poll votes are in, and doing another IM faster won. I'm down with that, but not until 2009, since obviously Lori and my little one on the way are going to need (and deserve) most of my time and attention starting in March 2008.

But what the hell should I be doing in the meantime?

I promised myself I was going to take a break from training after the IM, since I haven't really had an off-season since I started training for the first marathon in Jan 2005, but I'm starting to go stir crazy. I know I need a break both mentally and physically, but there's got to be a happy medium somewhere, right?

And to top it off, I'm fortunate to have it VERY easy at work right now, which is of course a double edged sword. I like having a certain amount of pressure/stress professionally. I operate best when I have 5 or 6 balls in the air, all of which are priorities. I always find a way to get it all done....

I've been fine without that kind of stress for the last several months, since I've been so focused on IM FL....but now that the IM is done, I'm BORED.

There's a 45 miles group ride this weekend, which I'll probably drop in on to see some friends. And there's a 1/2 marathon on Thanksgiving Day, which I may do just for fun. But with no goal out on the horizon, those kind of things don't seem to serve much of a purpose...I'm just doing them to do them....just going through the motions.

So my question to you, my blogging peeps, is now what?

Live with Purpose....Enjoy the Adventure

(Which is by the way the problem - I need a new adventure between now and March)

Tragic News

2007-11-09T10:40:00.000-05:00

By now many of your have probably heard about the tragedy of Dorothy Barnett-Griffin.

Please keep Dorothy's family in your thoughts in prayers:

By ROY APPLETON / The Dallas Morning News
rappleton@dallasnews.com

Exercise helped Dorothy Barnett-Griffin move beyond the death of her husband.

With her first Ironman triathlon, she wanted to raise money for a support group that had helped her three children deal with the loss of their father.

Now the pain has returned.

Five days after collapsing during her competitive swim in the Gulf of Mexico, the Collin County woman died Thursday in a Panama City, Fla., hospital. She was 43.

"It's bizarre. It's wrong," said friend Carla Blatney. "I go from being sad to mad."

While Ms. Barnett-Griffin's family privately mourned their stunning loss, Ms. Blatney and others this week spoke of a bright, caring, upbeat and inspirational woman – a former nurse with a remarkable passion for her husband, three children, exercise and the Journey of Hope Grief Support Center in Plano.

"You never saw Dorothy without a smile on her face," said Jody Gunsolus, a friend and occasional training partner.

And "you've never met two people more in love," she said of Ms. Barnett-Griffin and her husband, Mike Griffin, whom she met on a Christian singles ski trip in Utah.

After a car crash killed her first husband, Dr. John Barnett Jr., five years ago, she began bicycling to escape the sorrow and find inner strength.

"It was great therapy for me, and I found out that you can cry and ride at the same time," she wrote in a recent online posting for Journey of Hope, detailing her support for the center and her "Journey to Ironman."

Ms. Barnett-Griffin and her children – Kim, now 15; Derek, 11; and Zachary, 8 – turned to the group, finding comfort there by sharing their grief with others, she said.

She joined the center's board of directors and became an active fundraiser for the program that helps children and their families confront the death of loved ones.

"She was so generous with her time, financial support and passion," said Susan Tucker Williams, executive director. "Everyone's loss is terrible, but for us this is huge. We are grieving, too."

A resident of Lucas, Ms. Barnett-Griffin hoped to raise $10,000 for Journey of Hope through donations to her Ironman effort. It was to be her biggest physical challenge, the next step after advancing from bicycle rides to rallies to the swim-bike-run combo of triathlons.

She competed in her first triathlon last year and finished two half Ironman events this year before going for the full 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run with her husband Saturday in Florida.

"So ...we will do the hard part," she wrote in her Journey of Hope posting. "We will swim, bike and run all day and train very hard to be able to make it."

Gerald Jackson, a triathlete and coach for the Dallas-based group Fit2Train, said he met Ms. Barnett-Griffin at a workout camp this summer.

"It was going to be a difficult challenge for her," he said of the Florida race where a swimmer died last year. "But she was going to go out at her own pace and knock it out."

On the day of the race, her husband had advanced to the biking phase. Ms. Barnett-Griffin was one of two swimmers left in the water, talking occasionally with escorts in kayaks. And suddenly she "rolled onto her back, said 'help' and passed out," said Helen Manning, spokeswoman for North America Sports, owner and manager of the Ironman events.

Ms. Barnett-Griffin was briefly underwater before being rushed to shore, where her children and mother were waiting to cheer her on, Ms. Manning and others said. Water conditions for the race were ideal, she said.

Revival efforts failed, and Ms. Barnett-Griffin never regained consciousness despite two surgeries to ease swelling of her brain.

The cause of death is unknown. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Contributions to Journey of Hope in Ms. Barnett-Griffin's name have almost tripled since Wednesday and exceeded her $10,000 goal.

The woman who spent her life working, encouraging and leading others would have relished the news, her friends said.

"Dorothy was one tough cookie," Ms. Blatney said. "She's the type of person that you fight your demons. You step out there, out of your comfort zone."

Just as Ms. Barnett-Griffin did Saturday.

"One day of pushing your body beyond any limit that you thought possible," she wrote in her Journey of Hope posting. "Sounds crazy? Most of you would agree. So call us crazy!"

News Aritcle

Race Report (LONG)

2007-11-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

Thanks for being patient...at long last...here's the day...

The morning started at 3:15 with 3 bottles of boost (750 calories total) and a quick shower to wake up.

I had followed some really good advice and scheduled out the 24 hours leading up to the 7 am start, so was on autopilot following my plan. In creating my schedule for the morning, I spent a bit of time visualizing race morning, as well as the race itself – an exercise I find invaluable. The visualization and creating a plan for the morning was definitely paying off now.

A quick look in the mirror at the message I had left myself last night:

Slow is smooth…smooth is fast.
See how far your can push yourself. Be the man your dog and daughter think you are :)
Andrew Hariton, You are an ironman.

What a great way to set the tone for the day – Thanks for the idea Rich Strauss.

After a bit of coffee, I LIBERALLY used body glide, threw on my tri shorts and top, and checked the weather one last time. I couldn’t help smiling when I saw a low of 54, high of 75 with little wind expected: PERFECT

Lori and Mark (a friend of mine who made the trip down to watch me suffer for 14 hours) dropped me off at transition at around 5:15. Got body marked, tires pumped up, garmin on bike, gels on...uh oh – where are the gels...oh well...I can grab them at the aid stations....I spent the next 1/2 hour or so slowly sipping Gatorade and trying to stay calm.

With so much nervous energy around me, I was grateful to have my Ipod, and could ignore most of what was going on around me. Finally 6:30 came and I met Lori, Mark and my mom and headed down to the swim start. Had a gel, sipped some water, got my wetsuit on.

Paula Newby Fraser was wrapping up an interview right next to me, and I was able to get one last hint from someone who really knows what she’s talking about: “Treat the race as a very long training day with 2200 of your closest friends.” I can do that...

We were waiting for the pros to start and BOOM...the cannon went off with no warning and scared the shit out of us...10 more minutes...At this point I found myself completely nauseous...most likely from the unknown of the swim, being that I could barely swim 50 yds a year ago.

I remember going to my first swim practice, getting ready for an Olympic and the coach saying to do 200 as a warmup...a 200 WARMUP? For me that’s going to be my entire workout...Yet here I was only a year or so later doing a 2.4 mile ocean swim.

I put myself about 4 rows back, 20-30 yds outside from the buoys. In my mind, the best way to deal with a fear is to face it head on, so I intentionally put myself right in the middle of the washing machine...and I’m so glad I did – the swim was an absolute blast...

For all of the talk I’ve heard about the beatdown, it really wasn’t any worse than most of our local sprints. There was certainly some contact, but nowhere near as bad as I expected. Gotta love a wetsuit swim with 2200 people...you can really feel the draft pulling you along. I got to the first turn buoy and had to stop and tread water until I could dogpaddle around it. There were swimmers coming from all directions: inside, outside, straight...and no one could go anywhere...It was pretty funny being in the middle of it.

Things spread out a bit after the first turn, and I found a bit of open water. The other nice thing about the mass start is that there are always feet to follow, even for a slow swimmer like me. I enjoyed the swim in, finishing the first lap in 45 minutes – right on schedule. My “realistic” goal time for the swim was 1:45...anything under that and I’d be thrilled....so far so good....

I got out from the first lap, sipped some water, and headed back for lap two. I knew this lap would be slower with everyone so spread out now, and knew the 2:20 cutoff was no longer an issue, so simply focused on long clean strokes and staying on feet in front of me. The second lap went by quickly, and I was out of the water and to the strippers in 1:33, having used very little energy. PERFECT.

Everything’s relative. Although a 1:33 swim is slow by comparison, It was a GREAT swim for me...I was truly ecstatic getting out of the water.

A lot has to go right to make it to the finish line, most of which is out of my control (avoiding flat tires, nutrition issues – even though it’s been practiced dozens of times, crashes, etc), and it’s a VERY long day. To me, the day was already a total success having such a great swim, no matter what happened the rest of the day.

I took my time through T1 – Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

I was out on the bike and settling in for the next 6 1/2 hours or so. I looked down for just a second to turn on my garmin and...WHAM...I hit a HUGE hole coming out of transition which sent me straight towards deep sand...I stayed upright after hitting the hole...not so much after my front tire hit the sand...I went down pretty hard on my left side, but no real damage done to the bike or to me...fix it and move on...I hope that's not a sign of things to come the rest of the day....

My plan for the bike was simple...setup a great run. I once again followed Rich Strauss’ advice and went incredibly easy for the 1st thirty miles to get my heart rate under control and start my nutrition. A ton of people went flying by me and it was hard to let them go, but I knew I’d see them later...I started sipping water with NUUN at 10 minute intervals, and after a 1/2 hour I started alternating perpetuemwith NUNN every ten minutes, adding in a gel every 45 minutes..

At thirty miles I started actually riding a bit, pushing my hr up into low zone 2, where I planned to keep it until mile 80-90. I rode steady for the next 50 miles or so, enjoying the high points and just maintaining through the low points of the emotional rollercoaster that I was warned about.

I stopped for just a few minutes at the bike special needs to stretch and enjoy a couple of uncrustables. It was nice having some solid food for the first time of the day. I got to the short out and back at mile 70 and was glad I had driven the course the day before. Having driven the course, I at least knew that the really rough road only lasted for a few miles. Along with the expected yellow thingies that fell out of aerobottles, I was a bit surprised to see more than a few bottle cages having gotten ripped off of bikes. I got to the turnaround and wouldn’t you know it, I got to enjoy a headwind along with the rough road for the next few miles….oh well…..no one said this would be easy.

At mile 80 I was still feeling really good, so pushed a bit harder on the bike, keeping my hr at the top of zone 2. No bonk was in sight thank God. My focus was still on having a great run. At this point I wanted nothing to do with gels or perpetuem anymore, but knew I needed to keep taking in calories if I wanted a good run, so I sucked it up and kept going with my nutrition plan.

I don’t remember the mileage, but two things cracked me up on the bike:

1. The pirate aid station – you guys were awesome.

2. Seeing the sign saying “Andy You Bitch You Slut You Whore.” A big thank you to the Southwest Texas Tri Club!! :)

I was SO happy to see the bridge at around mile 100, knowing that in just a few more miles I’d be off the bike and to my strongest part of the day...Making the turn onto Thomas Drive, it was great finally having the wind at my back for the next few miles...Thank god I had paced myself on the bike so well for the first 80 miles...since I’m still not a very strong cyclist, I definitely needed the energy I had saved up for dealing with the headwind the last 20-30 miles. I felt really bad for the woman who got a flat with only a few miles to go on the bike – what a tough blow mentally to get a flat SO close to being near the end….

I got off of the bike at just under 7 hours….about a 1/2 hour slower than expected...no worries since I picked up so much time on the swim. My goal of breaking 14 hours was still intact, as long as I didn’t blow up on the run. At this point I got a bit tearful, knowing that I was going to become an Ironman.

After a smooth T2, I felt REALLY good starting the run. My hr was incredibly low (zone 1) and my legs felt surprisingly good. I found out later that Lori saw me coming out of transition and remarked to a friend “OH SHIT – he’s going to do another one.”

A lot of people were walking already, and I started passing people instantly. I looked down and saw an 8:30 pace...too fast...gotta hold back for a while...I kept myself at a 9:30 – 10 minute pace for the first loop, running from aid station to aid station, which were about every mile. Speaking of the aid stations, the thought of Gatorade or gels was completely repulsive...so flat coke it was...

For the record, flat coke is the greatest thing ever, along with chicken broth!!!

The volunteers and crowd support was amazing. The triathlete girls gone wild ROCKED!!! I think everyone looked forward to going through that aid station on the way out and back.

The first loop was pretty uneventful, other than I was surprised at how many people I was passing. I grabbed a long sleeve shirt out of my bag at the turnaround and headed out for the second loop, wondering what awaited me at mile 20, where I hit a MASSIVE wall in both of the standalone marathons I had done.

I kept my pace consistent on the first part of the second loop, sticking with my plan of running aid station to aid station, and stopping for water, coke and chicken broth. I had some great conversations with people on the way. I definitely got a boost from seeing a lot of friends from the Hammerheads on the run course...everyone looked strong and like they were having good days.

I got to the turnaround still feeling good, with my hr still in zone 1, so picked up the pace just a little, still expecting to hit a wall, passing people the entire time…Miles 21...22...23...still no wall...little faster...24...no wall.

On more than one occasion I head some of the people out cheering for us say Holy Shit – he’s still RUNNING...what a great mental boost, since at this point virtually everyone around me was walking. I guess it proves the saying...it’s all about the bike.

At this point I could hear Mike Reilly’s voice just a couple miles away and new I was going to shatter my goal time of 14 hours...I passed under the arch right before the finish line and couldn’t believe the number of people cheering for me and all of the other athletes...it was absolutely electric!!

Coming through the finishers shoot I glanced up, saw 13:10 on the clock, and finally got to hear the words I had worked so hard for over the last couple of years:

Andrew Hariton from Jacksonville Florida, You Are an Ironman.

What an absolutely amazing feeling.

Stay tuned for LOTS more pictures and the post race report...

Race Week

2007-11-07T16:43:00.000-05:00

Since my race report is going to be ridiculously long, I'm breaking it up into two parts (or maybe more, we'll see when I get there). For now, here are my memories from the days leading up to the race:

Race week started with the trip down to Panama City on Tuesday. Since this was my first IM, I wanted to give myself plenty of time to de-compress and for all of the logistical stuff all week. I see no point in heading to the race on Thursday morning. I can't think of anything worse than rushing around and being stressed getting ready for a day I've worked so hard and so long to get to.

Putting things into perspective, I started thinking about doing this three years ago, and started training for it in January 2005, when I started training for my first marathon. So why not take a couple of extra days.....

Fortunately we had found a townhouse about a mile from the race site that was dog friendly on vrbo.com, so we packed up the dogs and all of my race gear I had fortunately started packing the week before. It’s amazing how much you need for an ironman.

It was an easy drive, and we had some time to relax and for me to get in a quick 45 minute ride before picking up my mom from the Panama City airport. Note to Panama City government: PLEASE put up signs to the airport. The only reason we were able to find the airport was that I had printed directions from the house on yahoo.maps. There wasn’t a single sign to the “International” airport on the way there from the beach.

Anyway, we got there right when my mom did, since her flight landed a few minutes early. We got crabs at Dirty Dicks (I know, a bit cheesy, but they picked the name, not me), and relaxed at the house later that night. The house was great, except for one minor issue – the windows/insulation in the master bedroom SUCKED, and the traffic noise was so loud, I though the window in our room was open. Hmmm...that should be fun the night before the race. Scratch that…who am I kidding, there’s no way in hell I’m going to manage to get any sleep the night before the race anyway.

Wednesday morning I got up early and headed down to the race site for one of the morning practice swims. The water was perfectly clear and flat. WOW. I remember thinking I hope it’s like that on race day. I put on my wetsuit and headed out for a ½ hour swim. I swam out for about 15 minutes at a nice easy pace and headed back in. Mission accomplished: my wetsuit fit perfectly and I was able to focus on my stroke and relax a bit. I wonder how well that's going to work in the midst of 2000 other totally obsessive type A personalities on race day....Hmmm.....

It was about 10:00 and registration had just opened, so I headed over to hopefully beat the lines. There were already a couple of hundred people there, but things moved quickly and I got my chip, number, transition bags and special needs bags.

Then I noticed half of my swim watch was blank. After spending an hour driving to Wal-Mart and a few jewelry stores to finally find someone to change the battery, since I was hoping the problem was the battery....I found out the problem wasn’t the battery. Fortunately there was a Timex tent setup at the race site. A HUGE thanks to those guys for hooking me up with a new watch for the race. 1st glitch of the week solved.

When we got back to the house I started packing the transition bags to get a bit of a head start. At this point I realized that my taper must be going perfectly, because I was edgy as hell. Ahhhh....the fun of taper madness....I next switched my attention to my bike and was thrilled to see a few cuts in the rear tire. Nothing like brand new race tires that need to be replaced. Uggghhh....Glitch number two.

I took my bike over to the race site to get a new tire put on....better safe than sorry. The folks at the bike shop took a look and were absolutely positive that the cuts were nowhere near the puncture barrier on the tires, and told me not to give it a second thought...so I took their advice and put it out of my mind….glitch number two solved. God I hope I don’t get a flat in the race...

Thursday I took the day completely off from any workouts and tried to relax as much as possible. We drove the bike course, since I HATE bad surprises, and spent quite a bit of time packing and re-packing the transition bags, making sure I didn’t forget anything. I’m a bit surprised I don’t read about more people driving the course. If I’m going to spend such an enormous amount of time and money for an event like this, I want to eliminate as many of the unknowns as possible. 112 miles is a long way to go, and I want to know what’s coming.

Speaking of unknowns, I of course spent quite a bit of time in front of the tv obsessively checking the weather. What else are you gonna do when you’re edgy as hell and have WAY too much pent up energy.

We headed to the athletes dinner and meeting and came back to the house to watch one of my favorite movies: RUDY. Gotta love a guy with, as the coach put it, not a spec of athletic ability, who keeps getting the crap beat of him, but hangs in there. It’s all about heart. I can relate to it I guess. I have ZERO athletic ability (especially when it comes to swimming – just check my swim splits for proof), yet here I am getting ready to become an Ironman.

By the way, thanks to Susan for getting to the dinner early and holding a bunch of seats for the rest of the hammerheads. Also, thanks to the person who gave me their extra dinner ticket for Lori, saving me $25. Good karma – I hope you had a great race :)

Friday gave me one last chance to make sure everything was ready for the race, including the most important piece of equipment: ME. I headed out for a quick 10 minute swim in my race gear and wetsuit, a very easy 20 minute ride (mainly to shift through all the gears and make sure everything was in order), and a 10 minute run with a couple of quick pickups to stretch out a bit. Everything seemed to be in working condition, including me, so I checked my transition bags one last time and headed to the race site to drop off my bike and bags.

One little problem – they won’t let my bike into transition without the bike numbers on it....duuuhhhh....how many races have I done? Ughhh....Quick trip back to the house, his and hers 15 minute massages (gotta do something nice for Lori for putting up with my edginess all week), some significant $ damage done at the expo (once again, gotta do something nice for Lori for putting up with my edginess all week), and I had nothing to do but wait for 7 am the next day, except be nervous as hell and continue checking the weather obsessively. By the way, we found the CUTEST swim bike run shirt for out little girl who's on the way...pictures to follow.

Friday night I had my usual pre-race pasta w/ pesto and garlic bread dinner at around 6, put one one last inspirational movie (Rocky), packed my special needs bags, got all of my morning gear laid out, and put a quick message on the mirror for the morning.

I’m a big believer in giving yourself positive messages at critical times. I got this idea from Rich Strauss at Crucible Fitness, as well as many others I’d use on race day. I put a couple of things on the mirror so that they’d be the first thing I saw when I woke up:

SLOW IS SMOOTH…SMOOTH IS FAST. (perfect for my pre-race routine and transitions. The point here is to take your time. Things are going to go wrong. Fix it and move on)

My one thing: See how far I can push myself. Be the man your dog and daughter think you are :) (OK – so I had two things. It’s a LONG day and is going to be an emotional rollercoaster with lots of highs and lows, so I’ve been told. When you hit the lows, it’s time to remember why you’re doing the race)

Andrew Hariton You Are an Ironman (just for good measure)

As luck would have it, I felt tired and had no problem falling sound asleep. I woke up at 3:30 for the adventures of race day to begin....Hopefully between 3:30 am and 12:00 midnight, I’ll hear Mike Reilly announce those magical words: Andrew Hariton, You Are an Ironman.

Stay tuned....

The Reward at the End of the Journey

2007-11-05T21:09:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone for all of the great comments and supporting me along the way for the last several months of training leading up to this event...It was an unbelievably amazing day that I'll never forget.

Now that this part of the journey has come to an end, I definitely understand a couple of things much more clearly:

1. It's not about the race...the race is the reward for all of the training.

2. Ironman is 80% mental and 20% physical. Those of you who have gone the distance understand that comment. Those that are that are training for your first will understand it soon enough....

I have a long list of thank yous that will rival any oscar awards speech, and probably a longer race report...please be patient....I'll post both in the next few days.

In the meantime, this will have to suffice:

One last post....

2007-10-29T13:50:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if we'll have an internet connection in PC Beach, so I'll say farewell until after the race....We're heading down tomorrow morning.

I hope everyone follows me on raceday at:

http://www.ironmanlive.com

I'm #1058

The race starts at 7 am CST.

I look forward to sharing the experiance through my race report with everyone when I get back next week....until then.....

Live with purpose...Enjoy the Adventure....

10/29/07: Coasting into the Race

2007-10-29T13:37:00.000-04:00

Last week was another light week, coasting into the race....The last few weeks are no longer about building fitness...they're about recovering from the last several months of training and showing up at the start line injury free.....which I thankfully am....

Last weeks plan was for an easy 8.5 hours (it's amazing how short 8.5 becomes after doing 15-16 a few times)

Swim: Plan 4.5 hours
Actual: 2.92 hours, 3.3 miles

Even though I had planned on doing an hour wetsuit swim in the ocean yesterday, the weather had other plans - the wind was blowing 15-20 out of the northeast with 6-8 ft breakers...unless I was planning on testing my wetsuit out as a flotation/survival device....no ocean swim...such as life....

Fortunately one of my race wishes has come true: 77 is WAY too warm to be in a wetsuit....but there's no way I'm giving up the buoyancy advantages....fortunately for me, the water temp in Panama City has dropped 6 degrees in the last week down to a nice comfy 71 :)

Run: Plan 1.5 hours
Actual: 1.5 hours, 10.19 miles

I've definitely noticed an increase in pace while keeping my heart rate low over the last few weeks...let's hope that continues through the race

Cycling: Plan 3 hours
Actual: 3 hours, 53.47 miles

I'm as ready as I'm going to be....one of my biggest challenges on Saturday is going to be taking it VERY easy for the first 50-60 miles of the bike - ESPECIALLY if I feel good...feeling great and going too hard on the bike = BONK a few hours later at mile 20 or so of the run...something I'd rather not have to experience...

This week's workouts are extraordinarily minimal: 1/2 hour run, hour ride, 1/2 hour swim over the next few days...Then a very short 30 minute swim/bike/run brick on Friday just to stay loose...and then....

RACEDAY!!!

Live with Purpose....Enjoy the Adventure....

10/25/07: The Surprising History of the 220-Age Formula

2007-10-25T10:25:00.000-04:00

Let's assume for a moment that you need to know your max heart rate, even though it has very little relevance in endurance training. It's commonly accepted that 220-age = max heart rate, right? And since it's so commonly accepted, and in textbooks, and taught to most trainers, it's certainly based on proper testing and scientific evidence, right?

Ummmm...not so much....

Although common sense tells me that age based formulas wouldn't be capable of predicting hr training zones with any accuracy, since we're all so unique, I had no idea that such a widely accepted formula could possibly be based on only 11 data points.... Quoting from the study:

"Despite the acceptance of this formula, research spanning more than two decades reveals the large error inherent in the estimation of HRmax (Sxy=7-11 b/min). Ironically, inquiry into the history of this formula reveals that it was not developed from original research, but resulted from observation based on data from approximately 11 references consisting of published research or unpublished scientific compilations. Consequently, the formula HRmax=220-age has no scientific merit for use in exercise physiology and related fields. A brief review of alternate HRmax prediction formula reveals that the majority of age-based univariate prediction equations also have large prediction errors (>10 b/min)."

Emphasis added

The study concludes:

"1. Currently, there is no acceptable method to estimate HRmax.

2. If HRmax needs to be estimated, then population specific formulae should be used. However, the most accurate general equation is that of Inbar (17) (Table 3); HRmax=205.8-0.685(age). Nevertheless, the error (Sxy=6.4 b/min) is still unacceptably large.

3. An acceptable prediction error for HRmax for application to estimation of VO2max is <±3 b/min. Thus, for a person with a HRmax of 200 b/min, error equals ±1.5%. If this precision is not possible, then there is no justification for using methods of VO2max estimation that rely on HRmax prediction formulae.

4. Additional research needs to be performed that develops multivariate regression equations that improve the accuracy of HRmax prediction for specific populations, and modes of exercise.

5. The use of HRmax is most prevalent in the fitness industry, and the people who work in these facilities mainly have a terminal undergraduate degree in exercise science or related fields. These students/graduates need to be better educated in statistics to recognize and understand the concept of prediction error, and the practical consequences of relying on an equation with a large standard error of estimate (Sxy).

6. Textbooks in exercise physiology and exercise prescription should contain content that is more critical of the HRmax=220-age or similar formulae. Authors need to stress the mode-specificity of HRmax, provide alternate, research substantiated formula, and express all content of items 1-5, above. Similarly, academic coverage of HRmax needs to explain how this error detracts from using HRmax estimation in many field tests of physical fitness and in exercise prescription."

All the more reason I'm in favor of using a combination of RPE and HR, or better yet, doing a time trial and determing lactate threshold with some amount of accuracy.

Here's a link to the study: href="http://faculty.css.edu/tboone2/asep/Robergs2.pdf">

Live with purpose...Enjoy the adventure....
Live at cause....not effect....

10/24/07: Panama City Beach Athlete Safety and Information Guide

2007-10-24T08:51:00.001-04:00

Fortunately a southerner was kind enough to offer the following information about doing an Ironman in Panama City Beach:

"Well, here in the Redneck Riviera they do speak a dialect of English, "I rekon" You won't need to worry about currency exchange because we do accept the US dollar, personally I would like to be paid with British pounds or the Euro.

You will be swimming in the Gulf of Mexico or as they call it here, the "guf" Watch out for: red tide, jellyfish, dead fish from red tide, 800lb mako sharks, and rednecks swimming in cut off wranglers.

The bike portion is relatively flat, there is one mountain stage, the Col du Causeway. You will have to climb this beast twice, early and late into the day.

There is a phenomenon here in the south called the hillbilly, redneck, or just white trash trailer people. They engage in a sport called cyclist harassment.

Their mode of transport includes large diesel trucks or cars that were produced in the late 70's to very early 80's that supplement air conditioning with rusted roofs, floorboards and doors. For your safety I recommend you wear a cycling jersey that the entire back is a NASCAR logo, Dale Jr's logo, or the American Flag. Hear in the South it is heresy to run over or throw anything at those three national treasures."

This week the taper continues...YAY....and so far no taper madness....YAY

Last night was the normal group swim. A relatively short night at 2650 yds, with some good intensity thrown in...perfect for tapering....

wu: 200 x swim, kick, pull

3x50 on 1’10”

4x50 on 55 – 1 (5 sec rest)
4x25 on 45”
3x50 on 55 – 1 (5 sec rest)
4x25 on 45”
2x50 on 55 – 1 (5 sec rest)
4x25 on 45”
1x50 on 55 – 1 (5 sec rest)

200 kick easy

lactate threshold set (all out w/ lots of rest)
75 on 3’
50 on 2’
25 on 1’
25 on 1’
50 on 2’
75

400 neg split under 8 (actual 8’ 3”, although I did a negative split by 5”)

200 swim

The rest of the week remains light, with some short bursts of intensity thrown in. All that remains is an hour bike ride, another swim with the masters group, and a 1/2 hour run. This weekend is a three hour brick (2 hour ride, 1 hour run) and an hour'ish ocean swim on Sunday with a few others doing the race.

With the race numbers up, the race just got a bit more real and nervous energy is certainly starting to build.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the Adventure
Live at cause....not effect....

For Immediate Release....

2007-10-22T16:08:00.000-04:00

It's a girl :)

And less importantly, I'm #1058 at IM FL...

That is all...carry on....

10/22/07: One More - The Week in Review

2007-10-22T10:15:00.000-04:00

Plan: 11.25 hours; Actual: 11.2 hours

Swimming: Plan 3.5 hours
Actual: 3.33 hours; 4.42 miles

I got in a great distance swim Thurs night on my own with the masters group being cancelled, and suffered through an ocean beating in my wetsuit on Sunday...all in all a good swimming week

Cycling: Plan 4.75 hours
Actual: 4.63 hours, 83.64 miles

I really enjoyed Saturdays "short" 3 hour ride. Just remember, it's all about running off of the bike...

Running: Plan: 3 hours
Actual: 3.24 hours, 22.04 miles

I turned Wednesday's bike ride into a short brick by adding a 10 minute run onto the end. Same after Saturday's ride adding a 15 minute run.

Sunday's long run was great, with the 3 higher intensity zone 2/3 intervals.

Weight: 177...lost 4 during the week - just 7 more to go

Overall taper week number 1 went right according to plan :)

Live with purpose...Enjoy the Adventure...

10/22/07: Rounding out the weekend

2007-10-22T10:01:00.000-04:00

Last but not least for then end of taper week 1 was an ocean swim and a 1 1/2 hour run.

The weather was NOT conducive for an ocean swim, but so what? I really needed to get in some time in my wetsuit, so....off to the ocean....

I dragged Lori along (begrudgingly) to keep any eye on me, squeezed into my wetsuit and hopped into an ocean that was MUCH rougher that is comfortable for swimming. The current wasn't too bad, although the waves were - very choppy. More conducive to surfing than swimming, although I didn't see any surfers out there either.

In the end, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. After getting completely pummeled for 15 minutes, I turned around and started heading back, which only took about 1/2 the time. I had planned on swimming for a 1/2 hour. The 20 something minutes I did swim felt like double that....

Fortunately last nights run went a little better. I spent the 1st 45 minutes taking it easy, and getting warmed up. The next 45 minutes I alternated going 10 hard and 10 recovery, with the hard sets in hr zones 2 and 3, with the recovery sets in zone 1, once again adding a bit of intensity to the lowered volume.

Overall pace was 8:45 / min with a 147 avg hr. My average for the harder intervals was sub 8, which is a HUGE leap for me. Hopefully my fitness continues to INCREASE through the next two weeks of tapering, as I continue decreasing volume and letting my body recover from what I've put it through over the last 20 weeks....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

10/22/07: A short 3 hour ride?

2007-10-22T09:56:00.001-04:00

Never thought I'd find myself saying that....

This phrase seems to be showing up a lot: EVERYTHING'S RELATIVE

After doing several 5-6 1/2 hour rides, 3 suddenly seems short. Kind of like running a 5k after a marathon.

I got off to a very late start on Saturday, since I could. Planning for 3 hours is SO much easier than planning for 6+.

I spent the 1st two hours taking it easy in zone 2, and pushed the pace a bit getting my hr up into zone three for the third hour...one of the keys to a good taper: a bit of intensity to keep the legs fresh for the race, given the massively reduced volume

Overall everything felt good, even into the wind, and I hit a new speed benchmark: 18.32 average...Woohoo...I guess this tapering stuff really works :)

Just to keep myself honest, I did a short 15 minute run off the bike...I managed 8:37 pace keeping my hr in zone 2 and 3....

Overall a great workout...

10/22/07: Catching up....

2007-10-22T09:50:00.001-04:00

...on the rest of last weeks workouts....

Thursday night's masters swim was cancelled, so I headed to UNF for a swim on my own = distance night. Ended up at 3900

Warmup was the typical 200 x swim, kick, pull

Time for a ladder set, which I hadn't done in a while (all on 10-15" rest between sets):

100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 400, 300, 200, 100 = 2500

8x100 on 10" rest

Friday was an hour recovery ride, keeping my hr in zone 1 the whole time. Nothing too exciting here....

10/19/07: Train Heavy.....Race Light.....

2007-10-19T10:33:00.000-04:00

Going 26.2 miles with 10 or so less pounds should make for a much easier race. Over the last 5 months or so, I've been consistent about eating everything and anything in sight - consistency is after all what get's you to the IM starting line, and hopefully over the finish line.

Starting this week, with three weeks to go, it's time to drop 11 lbs to get to 170 for the race. Fortunately I'm way ahead of schedule :)

How am I going to do it? Simple - stop eating crap that is pure poisen to our bodies, which is unfortunately most of what comprises our diets these days.

Fortunately the Paleo Diet for Athletes by triathlon coaching god Joe Friel is a phenomenal guide, and is VERY consistent with what I learned works years ago.

Here's a great summary: http://www2.trainingbible.com/paleo.htm

The Paleo Diet for Athletes is NOT about losing wieght. It's abouting eating for peak performance. Funny thing, ironically enough), is that when we start eating for peak performance, weight takes care of itself. Everyone who knows me already knows that weight is an effect, not a cause.

Starting this week I went back to a much more cleansing and alkaline diet, geared specifically towards peak athletic performance.

What is that you ask?

First and foremost, good hydration. I've been consistent about this for years now anyway, so no changes needed here. Simple formula - 1/2 your body weight in oz of WATER a day. There is no substitute and really no way around this one. This, by the way, is THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOVE ALL.

Next, elimate processed foods, fried foods, dairy, and whites (white flour, sugar, salt, etc).

Now onto the good stuff:

Fats and essential fatty acids (omega 3s and 6s) come from
Udos (my personal favorite, as it's designed for health, not shelf life), extra virgin olive oil, and avocado (YUMMY).

Protiens come from grilled fish and lean meats. This means real meat, not the lunch meats or other processed crap that's pure poisen to the body.

Carbs come from steamed basmati or jasmine rice, spelt bread, whole wheat wraps, sweet potatoes, etc...lots of good choices here...EXCEPT immediately before, during and after workouts...then sports drinks, gels etc still play a big part...no change there.

One or two botteles of Boost a couple of hours before a workout (250 - 500 calories, good ratio of carbs and protien), typical gels, perpetuem and Nuun during workouts, recoverite and some real food after worktouts.

Fruits and veggies also play a BIG ROLE. Lunch and dinner has typically been some sort of salad...grilled tuna or chicken salad....udos or olive oil as dressing...simple...plain...effective

Last but not least, to make sure things stay alkaline, green drink 2x per day. Altough several exist, my favorite is Barleans, since I like the taste and can get it locally.

Now that I've gone into way more detail than you ever probably wanted...the results?

Since Monday I've lost 5.5 lbs....WAY ahead of schedule.

I'm always amazed at how quickly our bodies respond, once we stop poisening ourslelves with all of the dairy, fried foods, bread, processed foods, and other crap that seems to make up the majority of our diets these days. (Please excuse my rant).

Since a few people have asked about it, here are my favorite resources, since I don't have the time or space to go through all of the information here:

The Paleo Diet for Athletes: A Nutritional Formula for Peak Athletic Performance

The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health

Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill: The Complete Guide to Fats, Oils, Cholesterol and Human Health

Living Health

10/18/07: Tapering?

2007-10-18T08:43:00.000-04:00

So far, it doesn't feel like I'm tapering, since my mid-week workouts haven't changed too much. I mentioned in a previous post that I have to work out pretty hard now-a-days to get my heart rate up into zone 2 on both the bike and the run. Seems like my aerobic fitness has surpassed my muscular fitness, which is probably a good thing for going 140.6.

Tuesday was the normal run and swim. I ran 3.45 miles in 30 minutes with an average hr or 141. WOW - massive progress from where I started, although I think part of the reason my hr is much lower at a slightly faster pace is the lower temps and humidity.

Did 3300 yds with the masters group Tues night:

Warmup: 200 swim, 200 kick, 100 pull

1x100
4x50
2x200
3x50
3x100
2x50
4x100
1x50
5x100

Two things of note: 1. I kept my pace UNDER 2' for all of the 100's - GO ME - swimming is finally starting to come together - I'm getting the concept of a strong pull with a high elbow, using my lats and delts to do most of the work - gotta love using big muscles instead of small muscles.... 2. I was the only one in the lane that actually enjoyed that set - leave it to the token triathlete in the group.....

8x75 kick So much for enjoying the set......

cd: 200 swim

Again, MASSIVE progress in the pool - I struggled getting in 2500 yds not that long ago - now 3300 isn't a problem

Wednesday was a 45 minute ride, followed by a 10 minute run. Like Tuesday's run, I managed a higher speed with a lower heart rate, having to push myself to keep my hr in zone 2. I went 12.46 miles in 41 minutes with an avg hr of 141, for an average speed of 18.23 mph. The run afterwards was as much about breaking in my new shoes as anything else.

I went 1.25 miles in 10 minutes with a hr of 147. An average pace of 8 / mile off the bike? WTF? That's WAY faster than I usually run, much less keeping that pace off the bike, which was a bit faster than usual....and all this keeping my hr in zone 2 on both the bike and run...not that I'm complaining....too bad I won't be able to keep that pace in the IM, which would be a 3:30 marathon...Instead, I'm hoping for more like a 5 hour marathon in the race :)

Live with Purpose....Enjoy the Adventure....

KONA REBROADCAST

2007-10-17T09:47:00.000-04:00

http://ironman.edgeboss.net/wmedia/ironman/rebroadcast.wvx

Enjoy

10/16/07: Training to Date - 19 weeks in review

2007-10-16T10:55:00.000-04:00

When I first started this training plan shortly after the 1/2 IM in May, I remember thinking that IMFL seems so far away. The last 5 months went by in the blink of any eye, and Nov 3 is only a short 19 days away :)

Since starting on June 4th, I've trained for 219.38 hours and gone 2002.33 miles

I've swam 72.84 miles, ran 351.69 miles and cycled and unbelievable 1577.80 miles.

Was my training perfect? Absolutely not....

I missed a few swims and other mid-week workouts here and there, and with only one exception hit EVERY SINGLE ONE of my key workouts and all of the milestones along the way, including the 90 something miler in the unbelievable wind a few weeks back. The one exception?

4 flats = no 112 miler :(

Milestones? According to coach extraordinaire Rich Strauss, whose advise I trust implicitly (along with a few others such as Joe Friel), there are three key milestones to hit at least once on the way to ironman:

1. 4k swim - check...did it twice, once in the ocean and once in the pool...
2. 100-112 mile bike - check...I did one century, although would have preferred to hit 112...oh well.....
3. 2.5 - 3 hour run...check...I did one 3 hour run, plus several others in the 2.5 - 3 hour range....

Let's just hope that I got all of my flats out of the way.....

Starting in January 2006, when I began training for the Rock n Roll marathon, it took me a year and a half to build up a good enough base to START training for a full ironman...WOW...IT's so easy to lose track of where you were and how far you've come sometimes. Now that I'm under three weeks to go, all I can do know is hope that everything I've done over the last 19 weeks was enough, and more broadly, over the last 2.5 years was enough.

My training hours peaked at 16 hours, and now they're MASSIVELY reduced for the next few weeks, getting in 11.5 this week, then 8, then just 2-2.5 the week of the race. No more 6 hour rides, three hour runs, 6 hour bricks....no more eating like crap knowing I'll burn it all off anyway....

The next three weeks are to give my body exactly what it needs to recover from all of the training - REALLY good nutrition and lots of rest - and to let my fitness hit it's absolute peak on one specific day: November 3.....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

10/16/07: The week in review

2007-10-16T09:47:00.000-04:00

The plan was to up the hours a bit, since my supposed peak week the week prior was a flop due to all of the flats on the bike. Out of a planned 16 hours, I ended up with 14.86

Swim: Plan 4 hours
Actual 2.75 hours, 3.04 miles

I got stuck in traffic on Tuesday, so arrived 15 minutes late. After Saturday's long run and Sunday's long brick, the weekend swim got left out. Having done two 2.4+ miles swims, I'm not going to sweat missing a swim workout at this point. I've come a LONG way swimming with the masters group and am totally confident about making the cutoff, at least based on the factors under my control....as always, I'll need some good karma from the open water swimming gods on race day...

Run: Plan 4.5 hours
Actual: 4.5 hours, 29.61 miles

Saturday's long run was a little bit of a mental challenge...Quite frankly I didn't WANT to run for 2 hours; however, there comes a time when you train the way you NEED to, instead of the way you WANT to. So it was with the long run....

I was probably thinking more towards how my legs were going to feel on Sunday's monster 6 hour brick, which brings us to....

Cycling: Plan 7.5 hours
Actual: 7.58 hours, 138.29 miles

Is it all about the bike? I think it's time for a revision...It's all about being able to run off of the bike....which was exactly the purpose for Sunday's brick from hell.

My legs were a bit tired when I started the ride from doing a 13 mile 2 hour run the day before. But that's what makes triathlon so much more demanding than marathons....you have to recover from workouts much more quickly.

Although it was a bit windy, the bike ride went well, and my nutrition really seems to be dialed in, alternating sipping water with Nuun every ten minutes with Perpetuem + some water, and a Powerbar gel every 45 minutes. No stomach problems at all :)

I intentionally took it VERY easy on the bike, wanting to have a good run afterwards. I got in a bit over 85 miles in 5 hours, which is about what I expected.

Starting the hour run, my legs felt like lead weights, also expected. After about a mile I fell into a rhythm, and just kept reminding myself that this was the last hard workout of my training.

One thing I've noticed lately is that I have to run pretty hard to get my heart rate up into zone 2, which bodes well for the race. In fact, I would LOVE to be able to keep a 9-10 min / mile pace on the run with my hr in zone 1.

I pushed the pace a bit in the last 30 minutes, getting my hr up without going overboard. I went 6.44 miles, for a 9:19 / pace....not bad

And that leads us to....drumroll please....Training to Date - 19 Weeks in Review

It's all downhill from here.....

2007-10-14T21:43:00.001-04:00

That's right...after yesterday's 2 hour run and today's monster 6 hour brick....it's taper time!!!

Aside from the expected moodiness, I'm definitely looking forward to letting my body recover and showing up at the starting line healthy, rested, and peaked!

Check back in a couple of days for the week in review, and as an added bonus, a review of the last 5 months of training to date....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

10/12/07: This Just In....

2007-10-12T15:25:00.000-04:00

Gotta love finishing in the mud:

My shoes "were" white before the end of the 1/2 last weekend.....

Now back to our training, already in progress......

10/12/07: Today's MUST read....

2007-10-12T13:30:00.000-04:00

In the Beginning... from Iron Wil at http://www.throughth3wall.com/2007/10/in-beginning.html

10/11/07: Peak Week - Part Duex

2007-10-11T10:01:00.000-04:00

Can you imagine training for the most part non-stop for two years, focusing on Ironman Florida for 22 weeks, training your ass off, and having your fitness peak two weeks BEFORE the event? Me neither......

Since last week's hours were so rediculously low (it's amazing how 11.86 hours has become a rediculously low number of training hours), I re-wrote this week's schedule to push my volume back up to at least 16 hours to avoid what would otherwise be a 5 week taper.

So....this week kicked off with a 1/2 hour run on Tuesday and a relatively short 2300 yds in the pool. Unfortunately traffic was backed up and it took me 20 minutes longer than usual getting to the pool, so I missed the warmup :(

Still had a good swim, doing:

9x100 descending 1-3x3 on 2'10"

5x200: odds negative split; evens 50 easy 50 hard

Misc 50's

Last night I avoided the dreaded trainer once again and hit a spin class for 50 minutes and then immediately spent 40 minutes on the rollers. My balance has most definitely MASSIVELY improved on the rollers....I had them in the middle of the room and other than having a chair next to me to get started, I'm riding without a safety net

This morning was an hour zone 2 run with 6 30" strides thrown in to ensure I'm keeping up good form. So far so good this week.....

Live with purpose...Enjoy the adventure

10/10/07: The Week in Review

2007-10-10T08:30:00.001-04:00

I think I've been procrastinating putting last week's numbers up because they were so bad. Although it was supposed to be the peak week of my training, it was anything but.

The original plan was for 18 hours....the revised plan was for 17 hours...actual hours were less than my last recovery week: 11.86....

Swim: Plan 3 hours
Actual: 3.1 hours, 3.98 miles

After missing Tuesday's group swim, I did a continuous long swim on Saturday afternoon, after doing my 3 hour run that morning. GO ME!! The long swim was 4300 (2.44 miles) in 1:36, with only a 30 sec break at the 45 minute mark for a few sips of water.

Running: Plan 4 hours
Actual: 4 hours, 24.4 miles

Adding an hour onto the 1/2 marathon made the long run fun, especially getting to cheer for all of the people still finishing when I ran the course in reverse for a few miles at the end.

Cycling: Plan 10 hours
Actual: 4.75 hours

Here's where the wheels came off, both figuratively and literally. I wasn't feeling good on Friday, and certainly didn't want to get sick, so I skipped the hour recovery ride...no big deal...better to rest sometimes.

4 flats = 48 miles in 4 hours (3.25 riding time) = disaster of a ride on Sunday. Instead of doing 112 miles over ~6.5 hours, I obviously fell well short.

The bright side, if there is one to the train wreck of a training week, is that my focus had been much more heavily towards cycling the last several weeks, so at least I've developed a reasonable cycling base, with an 80 mile ride, a couple of 90 mile rides and a century ride, even if I did miss hitting 112 this week.

Here's a look at my training to date. It was supposed to be 4 week blocks, three up, one back...Hmmmm....

To avoid what would essentially become a 5 week taper, I'm going to re-write this weeks plan and push the volume up a bit to 16 hours by adding in a two hour run this weekend and hopefully an ocean swim on Sunday, and start my taper as planned next week. This weekend's big workout is my last: a dreadful 6 hour brick (5 hour ride and an hour run).

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure...

10/09/07: The aftermath

2007-10-09T14:54:00.000-04:00

10/08/07: This just in.....

2007-10-08T09:50:00.000-04:00

Apparently I wasn't the only one who had a bad day yesterday. In fact, by comparison, mine wasn't so bad:

Runner dies, 300 treated as heat ravages Chicago Marathon
Story Highlights
Marathon run in record 88-degree heat, high humidity

At least 49 people taken to area hospitals due heat-related ailments....

.....CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Organizers shut down the course four hours after the start of Sunday's Chicago Marathon because of 88-degree heat and sweltering humidity that left one runner dead and sent at least 49 to area hospitals. Another 250 were treated at the site.

Chad Schieber of Midland, Michigan, 35, collapsed while running on the South Side and was pronounced dead shortly before 1 p.m. at a Veteran's Affairs hospital, the Cook County medical examiner's office. An autopsy was scheduled for Monday.

George Chiampas, the race's medical director, said witnesses reported seeing Schieber collapse and become unresponsive. "It sounds like he lost his pulse very fast and died on the race course," Chiampas said.

There was another running death Sunday in Arlington, Virginia. An unidentified runner from Virginia died during the Army Ten-Miler, collapsing near the finish at the Pentagon. The race started in 70-degree heat and high humidity.

The Chicago race was run in record temperatures, topping the mark of 84 degrees in 1979....

Runners were diverted to the starting area, where they were provided with medical attention and cooling misters. Shortages of water and energy drinks were reported along the 26.2-mile route.

Race director Carey Pinkowski said organizers were concerned that emergency medical personnel wouldn't be able to keep up with heat-related injuries.

"We're seeing a lot of our participants slowing," Pinkowski said. "It was a contingency plan we had in place and we decided to implement as a precautionary measure."

At first, organizers hoped those who passed the halfway mark could complete the run. But eventually even those recreational runners were told to turn back.

Still, some runners persevered, although organizers said they didn't know how many completed the course.

Helicopters hovered over the race course while police officers shouted through a bullhorn and warned runners to slow down and walk.

Lori Kaufman, a runner from St. Louis, said she was told to start walking at mile 14. She said the fire department turned on hydrants to hose people down along the course.

Paul Gardiner, a runner from England, said the weather made for a "brutal" run.

"We were at about 18 miles and we heard they canceled it and that kind of sent a little bit of concern through the crowd," he said. "It's just it's impossible to run."

Almost 10,000 of the 45,000 registered runners chose to not race in the heat despite more mist stations, cooling buses and water-soaked sponges.......

10/08/07: 112 Ride? Not Exactly.....

2007-10-08T08:38:00.000-04:00

The last thing I wanted to do yesterday morning was to get up and ride 112, after doing my peak 3 hour run on Saturday, although that's what makes triathlon training so much more challenging than marathon training (I mean no offense to marathon runners by that statement, as I've done a couple).

In marathon training you get to recover for a couple of days after a long run; in triathlon, the day after the my longest run of my training, I find myself doing the longest ride of my training, or at least that was the plan. The ride seemed to be doomed from the start.

Want to know if god has a sense of humor? Just tell her your plans.....

:)

I started out with the velobrew b ride for a 55 mile ride, and was going to do another 57 on my own. Not 5 minutes into the ride we had our first flat of the day; unfortunately, that was a bad omen of what was to come. 10 minutes or so later the flat was fixed and we were on our way again.

About an hour later we had our second flat, and this time it was me :(

No big deal....change it and keep going.....and then 10 minutes later another flat....me again....UGHHHHHH....

After the first flat I felt around the tire and didn't see or feel anything, so I replaced the tube and kept going. After the second flat, I looked VERY carefully, and found a TINY piece of glass that had lodged in the tire.....No big deal, except I had only brought one tube with me.

The smart thing to do would have been to borrow a spare tube from someone else in the group. Unfortunately for me that's not what happened. Instead someone suggested patching the tube, which I did....I few minutes later we're rolling again.....and a few minutes after that....Yep, you guessed it...another flat....the patch didn't hold....

So of course this time I borrowed another tube, right? No, that would have made way too much sense...the person who suggested patching it the first time suggested patching the old tube....so I did, and so I flatted again a few minutes later....This time we did finally put in a new tube and the rest of the ride was uneventful, other than the group was LONG GONE...

I'd like to thank Richard for staying with me, giving me his spare tube, and making sure I got back to the start ok.

4...yes 4, F&^$ING flats in one ride.....I managed to go just over 40 miles in 4.25 hours......UUUUGGGGHHHHHH.

Since it was now 12:30 and the ride was pretty much shot for the day, I headed over to the bike shop a couple of miles from my house to get some new tubes, CO2 and to get the speed sensor for my computer fixed, since it was already 12:30 and the day's ride was shot. To make the day complete, so was the sensor on my computer. Although I could have grabbed a new tube and CO2 and kept riding for an hour or two, sometimes it's best to live to fight another day.

Needing to drop my bike off for it's pre-race tune up anyway, I drove down to Ponte Vedra Beach, planning on leaving my bike at Bike Fitters. Just to make the day even more fun, they're no longer open on Sundays.....just one more annoyance for the day and another hour and a half wasted.....not that I was mad at them, since the last time I checked they don't need to check in with me when they change their hours....just one of those things.....

After a 4 hour ride (3 hours of actual riding time), only 42 miles, and a wasted trip to PV Beach, I headed home, Dos Equis in hand to at least try to enjoy the afternoon......

I've already gotten in one century ride, a couple of 90 miles rides (including the 6.25 hour ride in the wind last weekend) and a couple of 80 mile rides, so I'm confident that I'm ok for the race....I have one more long training day left before my taper: a 6 hour brick this coming weekend (5 hour ride, one hour run).

Fortunately the weather was REALLY nice early in the evening, and we were able to take the dogs for a walk to the lake for Kramer to get his swim on and Sophie to...well...watch Kramer get his swim on.....she's a pug, what did you expect?

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....

A good, although wet start.....

2007-10-06T19:07:00.001-04:00

to IronWeekend....

This weekend started out with the Marine Corps 1/2 marathon, plus an hour tacked onto the end, making my 3 hour run reasonably entertaining. It was raining throughout the whole race, but what are you gonna do?

My plan for the race was to keep my heart rate in zone 2 for the first hour (155ish), zone 3 for the second hour (165ish), and after the finish, to run another hour in zone 2 again.

My plan worked perfectly, giving me a great negative split for the race. I really enjoyed the second hour, passing LOTS of people. Although this was a training run for me and not a race per se, my competitive spirit kicked in the last few miles and I broke two hours.

Although I finished a few minutes slower than last year, overall the race was much slower. Last year's time was 1:52:08, which was good enough for 34/81 in my age group and 275/606 overall. This year's 1:58:41 placed me 22/82 in my age group and 177/550 overall.

I'm admittedly a bit surprised at how well I did, since my focus has been on biking and swimming much more than running, and I went so easy for the 1st half of the race. I guess it really is all about the bike.

I really enjoyed the hour I added to the end, as I did the course backwards and got to encourage all of the BOPers that were still finishing. That was probably the highlight of the race, and made the last hour go by pretty quickly and painlessly.

After watching Maryland hold on to beat Ga Tech (FEAR THE TURTLE), I DRAGGED myself to the pool.....1:36 and 4300 yds later (2.44 miles, ever so slightly farther than the IM swim), the day was at long last done. I did a continuous swim, stopping after 45 minutes for a quick drink of water. The plan was for 4250; somewhere I added an extra 50. Better too long than too short.

Tomorrow Ironweekend continues with a 112 mile ride followed by a 1/2 hour run...should be thrilling after trashing my legs breaking 2 hours today....in hindsight that may not have been the best idea....I guess I'll find out in the morning....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

10/05/07: This week so far...

2007-10-05T15:31:00.000-04:00

I didn't exactly get off to a stellar start to Ironweek.

I was scheduled for a run and a swim on Tuesday, neither of which happened....I enjoyed being lazy Tuesday morning and missed the run, and we got home way too late from Naples, and I missed the swim.

Originally I had scheduled a massive 18 hours for this week, which isn't going to happen. In an attempt to at least get to 17, I'm changing today (Friday) from a day off to a 1.5 hour easy brick (1 hour ride & 1/2 hour run). The downside is that the weather once again sucks (a technical term) and it's going to be an indoor brick...welcome back to the rollers.....

Speaking of, Wednesday was a 1.5 hour ride, 40 minutes on the rollers and 50 minutes on the trainer. Yesterday (Thursday) was an hour run in the morning and 1.5 hours in the pool. The pool workout got cut a little short by lightening at the beginning, although we still got in 2700 yds:

100 swim warmup

9x150 pull on 3'10"

4x50 sprint on 1'5"

6x150 swim on 3'15"

150 cd

I'm praying for the weather to cooperate for ironweekend, as I'm planning a steady 4225 swim, 112 ride and 3 hour run, although not all together.

Tomorrow I'm mostly likely going to do the

and add an hour onto the end of it. I'll hit the pool later in the afternoon, and hopefully get plenty of sleep for Sundays LONG ride.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

10/05/07: Last Week in Review

2007-10-05T08:40:00.001-04:00

At long last....I know you've all been patiently waiting for this :)

Last week's plan was for 16.25 hours, and I came very close, although traded some cycling time for some running time, getting in a total of 16 hours and 155 miles....

Swimming: Plan 4.5 hours
Actual 4.5 hours, 5.28 miles

Good swimming week. Not too much to add, other than thanks again to Kevin and his masters group in Naples for letting me drop in for the day.

Cycling: Plan 7.75 hours
Actual 8.41 hours, 130.72 miles

It's all about the bike. Extra time was mainly from fighting the wind on my long ride. Great training for the race in case it's windy (let's start praying now that it's not).

Running: Plan 4 hours
Actual 3.08 hours, 19 miles

Moving my long run to Wednesday worked out great; unfortunately moving Wednesday's short run to Saturday not so much, since I didn't do it :-(

Although I've been great about hitting my key workouts (e.g. long runs), which I've NEVER missed, I haven't been so great with a handful of the shorter runs. Even though they're filler to a certain extent, they still play a part in overall training volume. I promise I'll be better in the next few weeks....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

10/04/07: Catching up on my Blog

2007-10-04T12:53:00.000-04:00

Lot's of catching up to do, starting with the trip to Naples.

As all trips seem to go, we left later than expected, and it took longer to get there than expected...we got in around 2 am on Friday night, which definitely took a toll on me 4 1/2 hours later went the alarm went off for me to get up and swim.

A huge thanks to Kevin Erndl, the masters swim coach, for letting me drop in for the day. Kevin has not only put together a great masters group, he's competing in the 70.3 Championships in Clearwater in November. Best of luck Kevin.

If you're ever in Naples, and in need of a swim, check them out. We did some interesting drills including some with a longer stretch cord, which made it VERY difficult to get to the other side of the pool....overall it was a good workout and enjoyable to do something out of the ordinary.

Sunday was time for my long ride. I had been warned over and over about the lack of bike lanes/shoulder and the prevalence of older drivers, the combination of which is every cyclists nightmare come true. Fortunately for me, the snowbirds don't show up in Naples for another month or so, and I had absolutely zero issues on my long ride.

My initial plan was to meet up with a 6:30 group at Clint's bike shop; unfortunately, no one from the 6:30 group had the same plan. Their 7 am group was sizable, although had a very different agenda for the day (shorter and faster), so after getting their thoughts on my route, I set out for a century ride on my own.

I followed the route I had created on mapmyride, going through Fort Meyers beach, over the causeway, and through the very beautiful and very remote Sanibel Island and Captiva. If you've never been there, do yourself a favor and go. It's absolutely beautiful, with spectacular, unspoiled beaches.

The downside of the ride was the wind, which was blowing HARD out of the east. I knew I was going to be in trouble on the way back when I was going 30+ with virtually no effort once I was on Sanibel....on the way back I was going ~10, and that was a struggle. I was going pretty much straight into the wind the entire way back, so much so that I was only going 10 mph on the way DOWN the causeway.....hmmmm....good practice for Hawaii one day....

(just kidding Lori)

At my usual pace, a century ride should be right at 5 1/2 hours. Well.....this definitely was NOT my normal pace.....I ended up with 91 miles in 6:10, giving me a pace under 15mph....I was good for the first hour or so back into the wind...after that my attitude went downhill FAST (even though my speed was anything but).

Riding into a wind like that just wears on you....needless to say I wanted off the bike badly....and finally I got my wish after a very beautiful and thankfully uneventful ride. Thanks to everyone from the Naples velo group and the Naples triathlon club for all of their input. I would have been much more lost and nervous without their help.

Of course after every long ride, no matter how miserable the last couple of hours were, it run time. I put in 20 minutes, which actually felt pretty good, considering...

After a MUCH needed shower, I enjoyed the rest of the weekend with Lori and her mom exploring Naples and their favorite sport, SHOPPING, along with one of my favorite activities outside of tri, EATING.

Coming up is the week in review and this week's posts, which I'm already behind on. Speaking of, this is IRONWEEK....the peak of my training....all of my training over the last 22 weeks, and indirectly over the last year and a half has led up to this week....The weekend alone has me doing a 6+ hour ride, a 3 hour run, and a long swim....The good news? It's all downhill from there....

Live with purpose....enjoy the adventure.....

09/28/07: So far so good....

2007-09-28T13:33:00.000-04:00

So far I've managed to get in all of my workouts this week. Doing my long run on Wed night made it a little bit tougher to get in my two rides, since I had to do them on the trainer on Tues & Thurs mornings, and everyone reading my blog know exactly how I feel about my train.

Speaking of feeling, Lori's feeling good these days, as the morning sickness from hell is gone for the most part (thank god!)...stay tuned for a quote from konamommy (ps...don't tell her that's her new blog nickname)

Last night was a solid 3500 yds in the pool:

warmup: 200 x swim, kick, pull

12x100 on 2'15", sprint every 4th....I've gotten to the point of swimming 2 minute 100's very consistently...the sprints were consistently 1'47"

6x150 pull, descend 1-3 & 4-6

8x50 kick

4x75: odds - 50 hard, 25 easy; evens 25 easy, 50 hard

cd: 100 swim

This weekend I'm taking my training on the road to Naples...we're heading out to see Lori's mom. I was fortunate to find a masters group to swim with on Saturday, and a group to at least start my ride with on Sunday. Unfortunately Naples may be one of the most unfriendly cycling places anywhere, since there are practically no bike lanes or shoulders, combined with lots of old people.

I'm planning on doing a century ride while I'm down there, which tentatively has me doing an out-and-back up through Ft. Meyers beach to the very beautiful Sanibel island:

Naples/Sanibel Century
Find more Bike Rides in Naples, Florida

Check in early next week to read my thoughts on sharing the roads with Naples' q-tips...

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure

09/27/07: Stress

2007-09-27T10:29:00.000-04:00

Actually, a better title for this post would be Staying out of Stress, but then it wouldn't have captured your attention as much....

I see a lot of people around me constantly stressed, especially at work....They're like hamters on a treadmill, always running around getting their to-do lists done, feeling like they're taking care of things for everyone but themselves, and going nowhere, FAST. The harder they run, the more stressed they get, and the less they move.

Fortunately I was introduced to a fantastic time management system a few years back (actually it's a life management system), and I've had VERY little stress in my life since I started using it....this does have a tie-in to triathlon, so indulge me for a bit.....Triathlon is a great model for approaching "real life."

First, a couple of models for looking at how we spend our time.

The first is called time targets, and there are four of them, based on a combination of importance and urgency:

1. Distraction: Not important and not urgent. Escape time: watching tv, surfing the internet, reading the latest celebrity trainwrecks.....Feel like you have to spend time here? It's mainly a result of spending too much time time in delusion and demand and not enough time in the zone (keep reading)

2. Delusion: Not important, but urgent. Drain on fulfillment...why stress about something urgent if it's not important? Comes from poor planning - mainly became urgent because it wasn't taken care of upstream - A lot of people I work with LIVE here.....in the end, is it really that urgent?

3. Demand: Important and urgent. Firefighting = STRESS...some things just can't be helped sometimes......Great questions to ask: Is it really as important and urgent as I'm making it? Could I (or someone else) have planned for this better up front so that it it wouldn't be urgent now? Poor planning on your part doesn't constitute and emergency on my part, nor does it ensure compliance....enough said.....

4. THE ZONE: Important and NOT urgent = fulfillment - not stressful since it's not urgent. Eg. Planning/brainstorming, exercising, reading and learning, time with those important to us BEFORE they're begging for our attention

One more quick model and I'll get to my point (yes, there is a point to all of this). We can focus our time and energy in a few different areas:

1. Things we can control
2. Things we can't control, but can influence
3. Things we can't control or influence

Now to my point: training for an ironman creates lots of time in the zone and keeps me focused on things I can control.....

For most of us, perception is everything when it comes to training, since we're doing this for fun. Last time I checked I wasn't a professional athlete (that would take speed and athletic talent, both of which I'm lacking).

Even though I occasionally complain about "having" to go on a 5-6 hour bike ride, or 3 hour run, or any time I "have to" go to the pool, it's a choice. And it's a choice that has long term consequences.

Fortunately they're really good and positive consequences.....long term health benefits, consistent and focused effort, doing things even when I don't necessarily feel like doing them, determination, meeting lots of other athletes, both locally and through my blog...

All of these things are most definitely important and not urgent. IM training gives me somewhere between 10-20 hours every week in the zone. It's time for me. Training is most definitely important, yet certainly not very urgent.

As a side benefit, training forces all of us doing this crazy sport to focus on what's in our control, like it or not. Can't control (or even influence) the weather, getting a flat tire, whether I feel good or bad in a particular day (like last Saturday)....What I can control is my focus: I'm doing this because I choose to and enjoy the challenge....I can control my pace and intensity....I can control my nutrition both before, during, and after a workout.....and I can control how many different options I create for myself when life doesn't cooperate (indoor pool, spin class, training early in the morning or late at night)....

I was watching the Biggest Loser this morning while on the bike trainer (thank god for TIVO), and was laughing when a few of the people were bitching about how they didn't like running, and didn't like the food, and didn't like getting up early, blah blah blah....Finally the trainer told them to shut up and do it anyway....Because in the end, when somethings important, the excuses go out the window and you find a way to get it done.....

I guess my point here is that triathlon training is a fantastic model for life in general:

1. Take time for you for things that are important and not urgent...with a bit of planning and taking care of things upstream, a LOT of urgency can be avoided entirely....

2. Focus on things that you can control. If you can't control it, or at least influence it, skip it and find another way....

3. Speaking of, it it's important, find a way to get it done.....

Now that I'm done philosphizing, workouts have been good this week so far. Tuesday morning was 1.25 hours on the trainer, "enjoying" one of Coach Troy's Spinnervals DVDs(sadistic bastard), and Tuesday night was 3k in the pool.

Last night was this week's long run. 17 miles in 2:45, for a pace of 9:42 / mile. It was my first really good run in a while. I went easy for just about the whole run, keeping my hr at the top of zone 1 (145 ish), just jogging along. To work on building some good muscular endurance (and mental endurance), I threw in a hard 10 minute interval every 30 minutes, getting my hr up to the top of zone 2/bottom of zone 3 (165ish). The last interval was definitely a bit of a challenge, since I had already run over 15 miles at that point, which means I got a BIG payoff from sucking it up and running through the pain of that one.

Needless to say I DID NOT want to get up at 5:30 this morning for another hour on the bike trainer...as always, I felt MUCH better after the workout than I did before it....makes getting up early at least a bit more manageable....and besides, it was time well spent in the zone....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure

09/25/07: The week in review

2007-09-25T08:49:00.000-04:00

Another big week gone by....

The plan was for 14.75 hours

Actual ended up at 13.84, just under an hour short

Swimming:
Plan 4.5 hours
Actual 4.2 hours, 5.25 miles

Great workouts with the group. The TI clinic definitely helped me with timing, balance, my recovery, and relaxing. I'm easily swimming 2' 100's now, which is still extremely slow by comparison to a half decent swimmer, but is major progress for me nonetheless.

My plan was to swim ~4000 yds on Sunday, but the pool closed a 1/2 hour earlier than I thought, so I was only able to get in 3100, missing my swimming goal by 20 minutes for the week. Bad planning on my part.

Running:
Plan 4 hours
Actual 3.33 hours, 19.15 miles

The good news: I hit my key workout...the bad news....not a great running week....I forgot to bring my running shoes with me to the pool on Tuesday, so instead of my usual Tuesday bridges run, I had to settle for 30 minutes on the treadmill....which I HATE (although not quite as bad as the bike trainer).

Unfortunately the combination of bad thai food and chlorine on Thursday night left my stomach in complete knots, and I ended up skipping my hour run that night. I would have thought that my legs would have felt great for Saturday morning's long run...not so much....

I started my 2.5 hour run Sat morning at around 8 to beat the heat and the expected rain. For whatever reason my legs felt like lead weights the whole time, and my heart rate was in zone 3 for almost all of the run, a bit higher than I'd like it. Some days "it's" there, some days not...Saturday was a not.....

My legs being so tired on Saturday definitely left me concerned about my long ride on Sunday....

Cycling
Plan 6.25 hours
Actual 6.31 hours, 113.77 miles

I went just over the distance of the race...YAY...in a couple more weeks, I get to go all 112 in a day instead of a week.....

For Sunday's long ride I joined in for the Swampman, a local fundraiser for the YMCA. I jumped in with some friends and others I knew from the local velobrew cycling group, most of whom were planning on doing 70.

Since most of the details are in Sunday's post already, I won't re-hash the ride here. Suffice it to say I went too hard for the 1st 50, although at least was able to draft for the first part by doing so.

The next 35 miles was a good workout at a relatively easy pace, similar to what I'll need to do in the race. I kept my heart rate at the top of zone 1/bottom of zone 2, and spun easily at a cadence of 90-95. Every ten miles or so, I got of the bike just for a minute or two to stretch.

The last 5 miles was the mental workout of the day, since I got back to my car at 4:45 and had another 15 minutes of riding to go.....

The 20 minute run afterwards was reasonable, and was more about being used to running on tired legs (especially after Saturday's 2.5 hour run) than actual fitness. I'd be lying if I didn't mention the thought of running a marathon after a 112 mile ride (and 2.4 mile swim) is a bit intimidating right now....I just have to trust my training and upcoming taper...I know I'll be ready when the gun goes off....

This week is a monster 16.25 hours. Lori & I are going to Naples to see her Mom this weekend, so as an added bonus I'll get a change of scenery and get to ride with a different group for my long ride....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

09/24/07: A 91.76 deposit into my IM account

2007-09-24T08:43:00.000-04:00

As I'm writing this on Monday, I am ever so grateful today is a day off.....I'm wiped after this weekends workouts. Before I get to the workouts, thanks for all of you recent comments....I definitely appreciate them......

Saturday afternoon I headed to the pool, planning on getting in 4,000ish yds. The pool closed a bit earlier than I thought, and the workout became 3100 (1.76 miles):

30x100 on 2'15"

100 cd

Sometimes simple works.....

Sunday was my long ride, planned for 5 hours. I did the Swampman, knowing that my legs would be dead after Saturday's run, and that lots of drafting would be a much welcomed help.

I knew I had to go around 90 miles to get in a 5 hour ride, and the 70 mile and 100 mile groups started off together. For the first 30 miles or so I was in a pretty good sized group, moving along relatively effortlesly at 22 mph or so. When we got to the 70 mile turnoff, only 4 of us kept going....22 in a big group is pretty easy....22 with only 4 of us was a bit more of a struggle....I stayed with the other three until we hit a rest stop at around 50 miles, where we joined up with a few more people.

Leaving the rest stop, the group was going 22+ mph straigt into the wind, and my heart rate started to skyrocket...there was no way I was keeping up that pace into the wind for another 50 miles, so I dropped off the back and hung out on my aero bars for the next couple of hours.

I knew I was going too hard the first 50, and now I was paying for it. I intentionally took it VERY easy coming back, hopefully simulating the kind of riding I'll need to do on Nov 3. I was spinning in a very easy gear, keeping my HR at the top of zone 1 and bottom of zone 2. Not sure about speed, as my computer went bye bye for the rest of the ride...no biggie, since speed is nothing more than a function of cadence and effort (as measured by heart rate).

Nutrition seemed to be working well...every 10 miles or so I stopped for a minute or two to stretch, have a gel, and then continued. Fortunately the course offered me a shortcut back to the start, so I could keep my ride to my planned 5 hours; unfortunately, I got another lesson in mental toughness for the second day in a row.

I got back to the start with 15 minutes to go yet again....As bad as I wanted off the bike, a 5 hour ride is a 5 hour ride, so I turned around and kept going. Total ride time was 5:03 and just a hair over 90 miles.

Since I commited to always running after my long rides, I put my bike back in my car, sipped on some water, and put on my running shoes. I ran for 20 minutes, running for 9, walking for 1, getting in just over 2 miles.

All in all a good weekend of workouts....Stay tuned for the week in review.....

09/22/07: Swim, a lSd run, and Focus

2007-09-22T12:10:00.000-04:00

Thursdays swim went ok, although the unfotunate combination of bad thai food and chlorine didn't go over so well....

Got in 2850 yds

wu: 200 swim, 100 kick, 50 pull

4x100 on 2'15"

4x25 sprint

16x25 kick on 45" (on stomach odds, on side evens)

3x200 (kick 100 swim 100)

8x50 descend 1-4 and 5-8 on 30" ri

3x200 descend

cd: 50

My stomach was a total and complete mess, so I skipped the hour run afterwards

This morning was a lSd run (long SLOW distance), and it was SLOW. For whatever reason my legs felt like lead weight, and I could just never get going; plus, my heart rate was much higher than usual, in zone three for almost the entire run...except for when it was in zone 4 for the last 1/2 hour or so.

I ran the first hour straight through, and did last 1 1/2 hours using a 9/1 (run 9, walk 1). Even with the 9/1 strategy, I continously wanted to stop and walk. That's the part where the workout shifted to mental training more than physical.

To keep my focus on positives instead of negatives (have you seen the secret?) I started continously asking myself "How can I enjoy this run even more right now?" Although I can't quite say I ever got to the point of enjoying today's long run, constantly asking that question at least kept me from focusing on the suffering....

The other thing that kept me going every time I wanted to stop and walk (which was a lot) was asking myself if I was going to be in more pain if I kept running....since the answer was no, I kept running.

Just to make the mental workout complete, I got back to my car with 165 minutes to go, and REALLY wanted to stop....after all, 2:15 is close to 2:30, right? DING...No, but thank you for playing....I kept going for the remainder, even though my HR skyrocketed to the top of zone 4 for the last 10 minutes or so....which is interesting, since my pace had slowed to 11 something minutes per mile....some days it's there, some it's not....this was a definite NOT....

Overall I got in 13.98 miles in 2:30, for a 10:44 average...not horrible, although considerable slower than usual.

Time for a quick (or maybe not so quick) nap before doing 4k in the pool.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

09/20/07: Training Hours

2007-09-20T13:56:00.000-04:00

Saw this on Slowtwitch and found it entertaining:

"When people post about their training hours for a given week, I'm assuming that most people, like me, count only the actual hours of the activity....So, here's a sample training week scenario that describes why the significant others tend to feel that we spend more time training than *we* feel like we've spent...

Note: The hours below are fictitious, and any similarity to the training of any actual person are strictly unintentional

Option 1: *** this is the way the athlete sees it ***
Day 1:
1 hour run

Day 2:
1 hour swim
1 hour bike ride

Day 3:
1.5 hour run
1 hour swim

Day 4:
1.5 hour bike ride

Day 6:
1.5 hours of swimming

Day 7:
5.5 hours for long bike/run brick

TOTAL: 14 hours (that's not so bad, beats sitting around watching TV, right?)
***************************************************************************************
Option 2: *** this is the way the significant other sees it ***
Day 1:
1 hour run
PLUS:
30 minutes of finding running shorts/shirt/shoes, stretching, getting IPOD, etc.
30 minutes of walking around a sweaty mess talking mumbo-jumbo about 2x5:00 fartleks

Day 2:
1 hour swim
1 hour bike ride
PLUS:
1 hour driving to/from the pool and changing/showering while there (more if you do hot tub or steam room)
30 minutes of finding bike helmet/shoes/shirt/sweatband..., stretching, pumping bike tires
30 minutes of walking around a sweaty mess talking about the crazy driver that cut you off

Day 3:
1.5 hour run
1 hour swim
PLUS:
30 minutes of finding running shorts/shirt/shoes, stretching, getting IPOD, etc.
30 minutes of walking around a sweaty mess talking about how hard the training is
1 hour driving to/from pool and changing/showering

Day 4:
1.5 hour bike ride
PLUS:
30 minutes of finding bike helmet/shoes/shirt/sweatband..., stretching, pumping bike tires
30 minutes of walking around a sweaty mess talking about how many watts you were pushing

Day 6:
1.5 hours of swimming
PLUS:
1 hour driving to/from the pool and changing/showering

Day 7:
5.5 hours for long bike/run brick
PLUS:
1 hour of finding/preparing all of your bike and run gear, stretching, lubing...
2 hours laying around dead tired, complaining about what a tough workout week it was while simultaneously mentioning that next week you have to "pick it up"

TOTAL: 23 hours (hmmm....)

PS: This does not count time spent PLANNING your training schedule, races, nutrition...; SHOPPING for new wheels, tires, helmets, shorts, pedals...; or TALKING about all the above til they hope to never hear about anything having to do with swimming, biking, or running ever again. "

Thanks for putting up with my addiction Lori :)

09/20/07: The Last Push

2007-09-20T11:14:00.000-04:00

With IM FL only 44 days away, I'm down the the last, and largest, training block before my much anticipated taper begins. The next three weeks have training hours of 14.75, 16.25 and 17.75.....

This week started out with the usual group swim, at 3300 yds:

WU: 200 swim; 50 kick

2x500

broken 500 (sets are all out) 50, 10" rest; 50, 20" rest; 100, 30" rest; 100, 1' rest; 200 (11:19-2' = 9:19)

6x50 kick: 2 easy, 1 hard, on 1'20"

50 easy

400 8'30"
1' rest
2x200 on 4'30"
1'rest
4x100 on 2'15"

With the rainy weather continuing, running the bridges after swimming was out of the question, so I hit the treadmill for a 1/2 hour.

I did some interval work, increasing perceived exertion every minute by changing the pace, elevation, or both. The set looked something like:

5 minute warmup

5x:

RPE 6 1 minute
RPE 7 1 minute
RPE 8 1 minute
RPE 9 1 minute

5 minute cool down

Last night was 1.25 on the bike. I had absolutely no desire to be on my trainer, so I headed to Ballys for a spin class. The last time I did a spin class a few months back I was pretty much anaerobic the entire time, or at least I would have been had I kept up with what they were trying to do.

A few months later I did all of the silly out of the seat stuff, and was pleasantly surprised to see my HR stay around 145-155, which is exactly where I keep it during my real rides. Bally's did a great job with the spin bikes, putting comuters on them that give cadence and distance, as well as being polar compatible, giving me heart rate the whole time; all the numbers I need for riding indoors or out. Thanks Ballys!!

Since the spin class was only 45 minutes, I got on my rollers for a 1/2 hour when I got home. My balance is definitely improving the more time I spend on them; in fact, I was brave enough to get out of the doorway and put the roller in the living room in between two dining room chairs....next up - trying to ride aero on them.....

Tonights another group swim and hour run, before the weekend of another century ride at the Swampman, a long swim of 4k'ish, and a 2.5 hour run.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

09/17/07: Thur - Sun Update

2007-09-17T14:17:00.000-04:00

Thursday was another 3100 yds with the masters group - more anerobic sets:

wu: 200 x swim, kick, pull

8x100 all out on 2:30 (fastest 1:30; most 1:45 - 1:48)

6x50 kick all out on 1:15

50 easy

6x100 all out on 2:30 (fastest 1:40; most 1:45 - 1:50)

50 easy

5x50 kick all out on 1:15

50 easy

4x100 all out on 2:30 (1:45 - 1:52)

On Friday I did a short, relatively easy 45 brick: 30 minutes on the bike and a 15 minute run. I took Saturday off, since it was a recovery week and I was doing a 1/2 on Sunday.

The 1/2 was a dozen or so of us, and fortunately was really more of a long workout than it was a race. Why fortunately? Keep reading...

We met at 6:45 on Landrum, set our drinks on a table, and set-up our cars as T-2 (Bike to run). Once everyone was set, we rode three or so miles over to the beach, where a couple of people had very nicely volunteered to watch our bikes while we swam. We walked ~1.2 miles up the beach and it was time for the day to begin.

The ocean was MUCH more choppy than I would have liked, but what are you gonna do.....We started swimming, and I felt like a cork in a washing machine. I spent quite a bit of time fighting against the water, before finally remembering one of the biggest lessons from the TI clinic: RELAX. Once I was able to relax my arms a bit, swimming got much easier. I'm not sure if I got much faster, but either way, I made it back to Mickler's Landing where we started in about 50 minutes, which is a really good swim time for me. (Speaking of swimming...stay tuned.....I promise to blog about the TO clinic in the next couple of days....lots of good stuff to share)

Out of the water I didn't feel the least bit tired, and my heart rate was exceptionally low when I got on the bike. YAY. It was time for 6 8 1/2 mile loops on the bike, including Jacksonville's version of hills...The Palm Valley Bridge. In the middle of each lap we had an over and back on the bridge, totalling 2700 feet of climbing according to my Garmin. Between the bridge climbs and the wind that kicked up, my bike average was just over 16 mph.

My nutrition on the bike worked great. Instead of swallowing salt tablets every hour, I gave Nuun a shot yesterday, after reading about it on a couple of peoples' blogs. Tasted great and seemed to work really well. I'm definitely going to stick with it. As usual, I alternated sipping water (this time with the nuun in it) and Perpetuam every 10 minutes, and had a gel every 45 minutes. The time on the bike seemed to go by reasonable quickly, although the wind on the last couple of laps became a bit cruel. The total bike mileage came in at just over 54 miles, a bit short of a true 1/2 IM distance of 56...like I said, this was really more of a long training day than a race....

Once off the bike, time to run a 1/2 marathon, or at least that was the plan. The run was an out and back, over the same bridge that we rode over. The way down wasn't too bad, although I started getting really hot from being in the sun so long, even though I was drinking so much water. I was running a mile at a time, then taking a minute to walk, which I what I plan to do in the IM - walk the aid stations.....Once I got to the bridge I walked up it, ran down the other side, and did the same in reverse coming back over.

Once I came back over the bridge the combination of being out in the sun all day without shade and all of the climbing, which I'm definitely not used to, did me in. On the way back I was jogging 4 minutes and walking one, just trying to get back to where we started. I had planned the day as a 6 hour workout, and looking at my watch realized that if I had done a 2nd loop I would have been closer to 7-7:15.

While I certainly could have done a second lap, especially if it was a race, I knew if I did it was going to take me several days to recover from the extra exertion in that heat, so I called it quits after the first 6.5 mile lap. I decided to lose the battle and win the war so to speak.

Although I'm a little bummed that I didn't go the entire 1/2 IM distance, I'm pretty sure that I made the right decision to call it quits after a really good, long brick workout, instead of senselessly beating the hell out of myself.The last thing I needed coming off of a recovery week was to feel totally exhausted for several days, especially since this coming week is a 14.75 hour week.

Speaking of...just three more hard weeks of training, then it's taper time....YEAH BABY....

Stay tuned, next up is the TI clinic report and the week in review.....

09/12/07: Changing things up a bit

2007-09-12T22:21:00.001-04:00

I decided to change things up a little since this is a recovery week, ending with a 1/2 IM on Sunday.

Last night was the usual swim, getting in 3000 yds:

wu: 200 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull, 50 easy swim

3x200 negative split

2x300, last 100 under 2"

Broken 200 (all are all out): 25, 10" rest; 25, 20" rest; 50, 30" rest; 100...4'15" total = 3'15" 200

2x (50 kick 50 swim)

broken 200: 3'14"

5x50 on 1'30"

broken 200: 3'15"...gotta love consistency

misc 100

Normally I'd run after the Tues swim, but since my legs were still tired from Sundays century and it's a recovery week, I gave myself permission to take the night off.

Tonight was an hour on the bike. There was a lot of lightening, and I had no desire to be on the trainer, so I hit a spin class for a change of pace. Although it's certainly not comparable to being on my bike out for a ride, it was a really good hour workout. Then I hopped on a treadmill for a 1/2 hour, getting in the workout I normally would have done Tuesday.

Tomorrow's another swim, and I'll at long last post a bit about last weekend's TI swim clinic....better late than never.....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

09/11/07: The Week in Review

2007-09-11T08:50:00.000-04:00

Last week was another really big (read tiring) training week, the biggest so far....again....

Plan was for 14.75 hours
Actual was 14.60 hours

Swimming
Plan 4.5 hours
Actual 4.5 hours

Spent all of Saturday doing the Total Immersion clinic, where I learned exactly what I needed to get my swimming to the next level. I'll write more about that in a separate post. Good swimming week, including Benji's anaerobic sets on Thursday. I'm definitely still progressing.

Running
Plan 4 hours
Actual 3.22 hours, 20.48 miles

I moved my long run to Friday night becuase of the TI clinic on Sat, which worked out well, giving me somewhat fresh legs for Sunday's long ride. Unfortunately my planning sucked Sat night and I forgot to bring my running shoes with me on Sunday, so didn't run after my long ride.....such is life (Note to self: PLAN BETTER...Pack the night before)

Friday's long run went well, getting in a 17.5 mile run. Nothing too interesting to report. It was long...I got it in....enough said.....

Cycling
Plan 6.25 hours
Actual 6.88 hours, 122.44 miles

I did my first century ride on Sunday....it was LONG.....

Sunday was the annual watermelon ride. There were several hundred riders, most riding in groups, and it was great seeing a lot of friends out there.

I caught a draft here and there when some of the larger groups went by, although tried to stay out of the middle of the groups as much as possible...too many inexperienced riders = potential disaster....something I really didn't want to deal with.

I was much more comfortable hanging off the back of the groups, still getting a little bit of help from their draft, but able to hang out on my aero bars and enjoy the ride.

I took a 5 hour bottle of perpetuem with me which I alternated sipping with water every 10 minutes, plus some powerbar gels ~ every 45 minutes, plus 2 lava salts ~ every hour. Nutrition for the ride seemed right on target.

Total time for the century was just a bit over 5:40, which includes the couple of times I stopped to get more water or just to stretch a bit. That gave me a pace of 17.63 mph...which is probably a bit faster then I would have gone on my own since I did get to draft at least some of the time.

I'd say I enjoyed the first 4.75 hours...the last 45 minutes seemed to last forever and I was really ready to be off the bike!!

The week ahead is a recovery week, at only 12 hours. YAY!!!!

Just some light training and the usual swims midweek, then a local, unsupported 1/2 this weekend just for fun. Talk about a change in perspective....a half ironman for fun....Hmmmm....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....

09/08/07: A new countdown timer

2007-09-08T08:52:00.000-04:00

If you're reading this, you probably already noticed the new countdown timer, the important one......countdown to baby :)

Last night was a 2.75 hour run. Covered 17.49 miles at an average HR of 144, giving me an average pace of 9.19 / min. Nothing too interesting to report, other than my garmin annoying the hell out of my by continuously losing my heart rate.....must be bad karma from my smartass comment to bigun.....

Off to the TI clinic

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

09/07/07: Anaerobic in the Pool

2007-09-07T11:03:00.000-04:00

So Benji has this great idea for us to work on our swimming LT thresholds in the pool last night be doing lots of anaerobic sets. Fortunately Benji is a really good coach and knows what he's doing, and balanced the sprints with lots and lots and lots of rest in between. I ended up with 2550 yds:

Warmup: 200 swim, 100 kick, 100 pull

3x200 (175 easy, 25 sprint)

50 easy

6x50 sprint on 2'30" (sprints were 42-44" - see what I meant about lots of rest....)

50 easy

400 kick sprint on each 6th 25

50 easy

8x25 sprint on 1'15" (sprints were 20-21")

50 easy

5x50 breathe after 1 stroke, then 2, then 3, etc

CD: 200 swim

Actually turned out to be a pretty fun workout.

Lots of training coming up. Tonight is a 2.75 hour run, tomorrow is the TI swim clinic, and Sunday is 5 hours of riding fun.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

09/06/07: One More Must Read

2007-09-06T14:25:00.000-04:00

There are many, many fantastic race reports, but some in particular stand out above the rest. This is one of them, in four parts:

Spanked by Kentucky

Run Part I

Run Part II

Wrap-Up

Congrats Iron Misty!!

If you have time, make sure to catch up on the rest of her blog too....great stuff

09/06/07: Another Big Week on Track

2007-09-06T08:55:00.000-04:00

Before I get to training, good luck and best wishes to Angie & Dustin doing IM Moo this weekend....their first! They've trained hard and consistently and should have a great race. And of course, good luck to everyone else out there heading to WI. I hope that the weather is MUCH better than last year for you.

Hey Tea....I think you're the only one who does that.... :)

Like everyone else doing their first IM, my goal is finish in under 17 hours....With that said, using some relatively conservative paces based on my training, my goals are a 1:45 swim (2:43 / 100m), 6:30 ride (17.23 mph) and a 5 hr marathon (11:27 min / mi). Including some time for transitions, that puts me at a 13 something time....not that I would ever calculate such things ;-)

So far this weeks training is on track for my biggest week ever (14.75 hours), after last weeks biggest week ever. Monday was a day off as always, and Tuesday's swim went well, doing 2800 yds:

wu: 200 swim, 50 kick, 50 pull

2x500 negative split

100 easy

3x(200 kick on 5')

2x (200 on 4:15; 4x25 sprint on :45)

cd: 150 swim, 25 breast, 25 back

I was all set to do a couple of running laps around the bridges after swimming, except was missing the one thing I really needed: running shoes :(

After getting home I got in a 30 minute form workout, including 4 x 30" pickups

Wednesday morning biking, the rollers unfortunately won for the 30 minutes I was on them. Just when I thought I was making progress.....oh well....deal with it and move on (and repaint the walls in a couple of spots)...... :-(

Altough I had planned on doing my long run last night, I still wasn't fully recovered from last weekends workout, and wanted to spend some time with Lori, so I moved my long run to Fri night. That should work out well, since I'm doing the Total Immersion clinic on Saturday and my long ride on Sunday.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....

09/04/07: A big deposit in my IM training account

2007-09-04T13:30:00.000-04:00

Last week was by far my biggest training week yet....

Plan was for 13.75 hours:

Actual was 13.58 hours

Swim: Plan 4.5 hours
Actual: 4 hours, 8600 yds

Thursdays practice got cut short by lightening about an hour into it; otherwise, it was a good swimming week. Given the warm weather we've been having, getting in the pool has actually been quite refreshing...especially in my pool at home where no laps were involved......

Run: Plan 3.75 hours
Actual: 4.08 hours, 26.8 miles

Since I went to the group swim Sat morning, I did Saturday's long run late Sat evening, starting at 7:45, a bit later than I would have liked.

The run was pretty uneventful, other than finishing a little after 10 PM. The downside was that I had to get up the next morning at 5:45 to get in my long ride and short run afterwards. More about the ride in a minute...

As far as the 30 minute run after the long ride....PURE HELL....It felt like the last few miles of a marathon, which on the upside is probably exactly what I need to experience during training, since the last few miles of the IM will feel that bad or worse I'm sure.....

Overall a good running week, going slightly over my planned hours by adding the 30 minute run to the end of my long ride.

Fortunately this week I'll be doing my long run on Wednesday so that I can fit in the Total Immersion Swim Clinic at UNF this weekend, which should leave my legs much fresher for Sunday's long ride.

Bike: Plan 5.5 hours
Actual: 5.5 hours, 99.58 miles

In addition to my planned workouts, I spent 5-10 minutes on the rollers a few times during the week to work on balance.

The weeks main bike workout was Sunday's long ride. After doing the long run late on Saturday, it was a good thing I was meeting someone to ride with, or I probably would have started MUCH later than 7 am and possibly gotten rained out.

I did two 40 miles loops. The first one felt great, especially since I had some company. Most of the second loop felt ok, alhough the last 1/2 hour or so got a bit tough. Running 15 miles the night before obviously took at lot out of me.

This week has a 5 hour ride scheduled, although I'm hoping the last part of it won't be quite as bad, since I won't be biking on such tired legs....Just have to wait and see....

So far, the 4 1/2 hour, 79.58 mile ride is my farthest to date.....more to follow this week with a plan of 14.75 hours.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

08/31/07: Just in.....An amazing race report

2007-08-31T16:40:00.000-04:00

Here's one of the best race reports I've ever read, from Courtney who just finished IM KY.

Enjoy:

IM KY Report from 140point6miles

08/31/07: We interrupt this swim for lightening

2007-08-31T09:41:00.000-04:00

:(

Such is life in Fla in the summer...Still managed to get in 2100 yds:

wu: 100 x swim, kick, pull

300 pull

6x100 descend 1-3 & 4-6 on 2:10

6x50 swim with fins on 1'

300 pull

3x100

Backing up a couple of days, on Wednesday I did a one hour form ride. I split it up into 30 minutes on the rollers, 15 minutes on the trainer (3x3 ilt), and another 15 minutes on the rollers. The person in the condo below me complained that the rollers were noisy (note to self: start looking at single family homes in the spring), so ready or not, I graduated from riding in a doorframe and put the rollers in the spare bedroom. It was like riding without training wheels for the 1st time...a bit nerve-racking, but worked out just fine - no harm done to me, Kramer, my house or my bike. YAY

Yesterday morning was a 45 minute form run. I ran some laps around a lake behind my condo, getting in 8 30" pickups during the run.

As the weekend hours are getting REALLY long, I scheduled Fridays as rest days as well as Mondays, to ensure that my key workouts are quality sessions. So today my legs get a break, although I'll still probably put my bike on the rollers for 5-10 minutes of easy spinning. At least in theory, 5-10 minutes a day on the rollers should turn me into a cyclist with at least reasonable balance.

This weekend has me doing a 1 1/2 hour swim, which I'll probably do with the group, a 2 1/2 hour run, and a 4 1/2 hour ride. 8 1/2 hours over two days....Hmmmm.....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the Adventure

08/30/07: What's your challenge?

2007-08-30T09:13:00.000-04:00

What is it that makes Ironman so special? Is it the World Championships in Kona every year?

Kona hosts some of the most athletically gifted and genetically endowed men and women on the planet each year. Although awed by their abilities, I'm not one of them, never will be, and could care less. That's not what this is about, at least for me, although I may decide I want a lottery spot to Kona later in life (or I may not).

For me it's how hard the journey is to get there. The harder and more challenging something is, the bigger the payoff in the end. Although anyone CAN do an ironman, very few actually will. For me the payoff is in the challenge, so to speak. To a certain extent, if it were easy, then why bother?

For me this journey began back in January 2005 when I started training for my first marathon. Back then the thought of consistently running 4 days a week was a bit overwhelming, and the thought of running 10 miles the first time was totally intimidating.

Two and a half years later, there are no 4 day training weeks, since even recovery weeks have me training 5 days. Now I consider ten mile runs and 40 mile bike rides short. Consistency and determination are the keys to endurance events, nothing more, nothing less. Well, ok, you need a good training plan that'll get you from where you are fitness'wise to the starting line injury free, but I digress.....

Some love swimming, or biking, or running for hours on end - me, not so much. Some use it for social purposes - I prefer training alone most of the time.

For me, one thing I've grown very certain of is that this is about the challenge, and in two months and three days this challenge will reach it's peak: 140.6 miles in under 17 hours.

It doesn't really matter whether the subject is endurance events, or relationships, or spiritual, or financial independence, or any other area of life, it's the same story for all of them. In the end, it's not the race that's important, it's what we went though to get there and who we become in the process that really matters.

So what's your challenge?

Now back to IM training, already in progress........

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure

08/29/07: Back in the Pool

2007-08-29T08:34:00.000-04:00

Started off Base 3 in the pool. Benji was out, so had George, one of his assistant coaches on deck. George likes distance....

We put in 3300 yds, which felt pretty good actually:

4x (4x50 on 1:15, 200)

6x50 kick, 100 swim; 4x50 kick, 100 swim

3x300 pull

100 cd

After this swim I ran the bridges, doing a quick 30 minute loop.

Just 7 hard weeks of training left before the taper starts....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

PS - I believe in positive pessimism....Even though I had a bad race over the weekend, the pictures came out horrible :)

08/27/07: HOT Report & The Week in Review

2007-08-27T09:33:00.000-04:00

HOT Report:

First, thanks to all of the volunteers for helping make this a great race once again. We couldn't race without you!!

Onto the race....I didn't do particularly well, and fell well short of my goals, but have to find some positives and some lessons, so here goes:

Pre-Race
Woke up at 4:30, drank 3 Boosts = 750 calories, and drove the 45 minutes down to Camp Blanding. Got there in plenty of time to relax and take my time setting up transition.

Walked the transition area, swim in to rack; rack to bike out; bike in to rack; rack to run out....Quick 10 minute warm up run; 5 minute warm up swim....ready to go....except the weather wasn't....

It was REALLY foggy, so much that we couldn't see even the first buoy from shore....so they postponed the start of the race for a 1/2 hour for the fog to lift.

Swim
I went off in the first wave, which meant there were plenty of people to swim over me as the faster swimmers in the later waves went by, which they did. Overall I felt pretty good on the swim. My goal was 40 minutes, and I was actually a bit surprised when I got out of the water and saw 45 minutes on my watch.

Based on my latest swims, 40 minutes was probably a bit too aggressive of a goal. A 40 minute swim would be a 2:40 / 100m time, and my my split in the last ocean swim was 2:55 / 100m. The 45 minute swim put me at 3:02 / 100m, which is in the ballpark for me, although still a snails pace by comparison. The faster swimmers literally finished in 1/2 that time....With all of the swimming I've been doing with the group, I thought I'd have improved more than this by now, but I suppose any progress in good....And I did make progress, swimming 3 1/2 minutes faster than last year. Not huge, but progress none-the-less.

The good news is that a 3:02 pace in the IM swim = 1:57. Slow as hell, but good enough to finish before the 2:20 cutoff...plus it's a wetsuit swim, which should help me go slightly faster.....

Bike
I had a relatively quick transition, downed a couple of salts with a sip of water, and was off on the bike.....

One of the cardinal rules of triathlon is nothing new on race day. I'm amending that rule slightly....Nothing new the night before race day either...

Lori & I went out for dinner to a Japanese steak house on Sat night, and the food was great (as well as the company). Unfortunately, my stomach and gi (gastrointestinal) didn't agree on Sunday.

Almost immediately from the time I started biking I had a wicked side stitch and stomach cramps. Uggghhhh....NOT FUN.

I tried sticking with my nutrition plan of alternating water and gatorade endurance every 10 minutes, with a gel and salts at 45 minutes. After almost throwing up for the second time, and realizing that I didn't particularly enjoy the combined taste of lake water, gel and gatorade, I stuck with sipping water.

I felt like I had a pretty good bike split considering, although was 30 seconds slower than last year as it turns out. In comparison, last year my training was for the HOT and I tapered for a couple of weeks, versus this year where this was a training race.

Trying to find a positive, I sucked it up and pushed past my stomach issues, changed my nutrition plan so that I didn't keep doing what already wasn't working, and the bike performed flawlessly.....Also, I managed to keep my intensity way up in Zone 4 (just under lactate threshold), which is where I wanted it for an Olympic distance.

Run
After another pretty quick transition, time to get my run on....Typical run strategy: run from aid station to aid station walk the aid stations.

First mile always sucks, so no big deal. First aid station grab some water, walk for 30 secs or so....onto the next aid station.....same thing.....

That's about the time when my gi issues became more than a minor (or not so minor as the case may be) annoyance. GI issues = no digestion = not enough carbs/glycogen in the bloodstream & muscles = BONK.

My plan of running from aid station to aid station changed to run for 5 minutes, walk one. There's one and only one way to finish a race = keep moving forward...so I did. Up and over the hill at mile 4 and back down again at mile 5. By now it was run 2 minutes and walk one.....

With .2 miles to go it was time to get past the pain and just finish, so I started accelerating for the last two minutes. I had to laugh when I crossed the finish line at just below a full sprint and the announcer said it looked like I could do it again.....Ummmmm.....not so much......

Overall
Goal: Sub 3...Swim: 40, Bike: 1:18, Run: 55

Actual: Swim: 45; Bike 1:24; Run: 1:08

I finished the race 50 seconds faster than last year, all of which was from the swim, since my bike time was 30 seconds slower this year and my run was 2:46 slower this year.

Other positives (I'm searching for anything): T1 was 20 seconds faster, T2 24 seconds faster.

The Week in Review

Goal: 10 Hours, Actual 9.38

Swim
Goal: 3 hours
Actual: 4.25, 4.05 miles

Tu, Th 1:30 group swims, Sat 30 minute group swim + race

Bike:

Goal: 4.5 hours
Actual: 3 hours

Mid-week rides were right on target. Weekend ride was initially scheduled for 3 hours and the I rode just under 1 1/2 in the race. Higher intensity/lower volume = acceptable for a recover week, although I have to make sure to get back on track volume-wise with this week's 5 hour ride.

Run

Goal: 2.5 hours
Actual: 2:13

Similarly to the bike, mid-week runs were on target, and the weekend run was originally scheduled for 1 1/2 hours.

Coming up is a shortened Base 3 period, with two training weeks and a recovery week in week 3 to do the Palm Valley 1/2, basically an unsupported 6 hour training day to hopefully improve on my nutrition plan and work out at an intensity in zone three, versus yesterday's zone 4.

After Base 3, I'll only have one more 4 week base period, and then it's taper time.....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

08/24/07: Recovery Week Continues w/ a Swim

2007-08-24T08:52:00.000-04:00

Last night's swim had another great Benji set. After a 200 warmup, we did 3 400 sets:

4x100, 2x200, 400

One thing I really like about Benji;s practices is that everything has a purpose, versus merely going out and swimming a bunch laps or doing drills with no apparent meaning. The purpose of this set was to keep a consistent pace though each set, even as they got longer. Probably even more importantly than running, pacing is critical in the water....Go out too hard = major issues later. The first set I stayed right at 2'/100; the second set were both on 4', so far so good; the third set was 8'10", just a bit off.....

After a couple of drill sets, we had a bit of a team competition. First it was 50's on 35 seconds. What did I learn from this? 1. We have some REALLY FAST swimmers in our group. 2. I'm not one of them....50's on 35? Not a chance, at least not yet.....

Next was backstroke 50's on 45. As usual, the triathletes in the pool were given a bit of leeway, and could swim freestyle instead of backstroke...45 seconds....hmmm....Swimming as hard as I could, I managed to make the interval the first time; second trip not so much.....

Now for the depressing part....there are a few people in our group that can swim backstroke indefinitely on that interval.....So, I have a new goal....Be able to swim freestyle at least as fast as they can swim backstroke......

On a slightly less sarcastic note, since I've already managed to take off 30 sec / 100 in my last several races through a combination of consistent swimming and massive technique improvement, my goal is to take off another 15 sec / 100 by November. That would put me at 1:43 swim time for the ironman - perfect.....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....

08/23/07: Swimming, Barefoot on the Beach, & Rollers

2007-08-23T09:27:00.000-04:00

So far it's been a great week of workouts. God I LOVE recovery week. For the first time in months my legs aren't stiff and I'm not too tired.

Tuesday's swim had a great VO2 Max set built in. Totalled 2850 yds:

Warmup: 200 swim, 50 kick, 50 pull

3x300 negative split w/ 1 min ri. One of the best things about Benji is he's done triathlons and realizes that the triathletes could care less about doing butterfly sets. So while he was working with the "swimmers" on butterfly form, we got to swim.

3x50 kick

3x (4x100 HARD on 2:30) 50 easy in between each set. This was the fun one of the evening. The idea was to go really hard on the 100s, with plenty of time in between. Great set.

Cool down 150

On the way home from the pool I ran the bridges. One loop from the Y and back takes about 25 minutes...add a bit onto the end and it's a perfect 30 minute run.

Last night was once again time to go barefoot at the beach. The nice thing about recovery week is I get to do some workouts because I want to, instead of feeling like I have to. Getting to run barefoot at the beach for a 1/2 hour as the sun sets is DEFINITELY a workout I WANT to do.

After a 10 minute warmup, I did 6 20 second strides, aiming for 32 right foot strikes, which as it turns out is pretty fast. I walked back to the start before each interval, since this is a form workout and not a hard running workout. After the strides I headed back for about 10 minutes at a pretty good pace (~7:30 / mile), which was just hard enough to get my heart rate up into zone 2.

Finally this morning it was time to tackle the rollers. I got on them the last couple of nights just for a few minutes to work on balance. Today was my first actual workout on them, which didn't go too badly.

I'm staying in a doorway, at least for now. After practicing the last couple of nights I'm able to stay on them pretty well, only bouncing off the doorway occasionally, that is until I reached for my water bottle.....Andy go bye bye.....Even with falling off a couple of times, it was a good 30 minute spinning workout, with my heart rate staying mostly in zone 1 and low zone 2. The idea of rollers is to keep a good cadence (90-100) and work on form and balance more than anything else.

With enough practice on the rollers, I aspire to doing ILT drills on them, although for the moment I can't even ride them in the aero bars, much less without hands:

08/22/07: Catching up - Last Weeks Review

2007-08-22T08:35:00.000-04:00

Better late than never......

Last weeks plan was for 15 hours, and I trained a total of 11.9 hours :(

Overall I ended up trading some intensity for volume, which I would have been better off doing this week, since it's a recovery week; sometimes you just have to go with what you have:

Swimming
Plan: 4.25
Actual: 3.0

The weeks group swims were great. I'm grateful we were able to land Benji as our coach.

I showed up for Sunday's ocean swim and was greeted by a pretty choppy ocean with a strong current, although swimmable. I started swimming and swimming and swimming and was going nowhere fast. It took me around 8 minutes to go 150 yds or so on the way down, and 2 minutes for the return trip. Unfortunately the waves got HUGE and were cresting right on top of us.

After getting pummeled to the bottom and held there by a wave for the second time, I figured I'd had enough. The other 5 or 6 people seemed to have the exact same idea. So much for my hour ocean swim :(

Since UNF was closed for maintenance, there went the weekends long swim....oh well, what are you gonna do.....

Cycling
Plan: 6.5
Actual: 5.39

The usual mid-week rides both went according to plan. For a change of pace, I went to Clermont to ride some hills with friends on Saturday. Let me start out by saying all of Florida is not flat.

Saturday's ride was supposed to be 4.5 hours, although ended up at 3.75, which was fine considering the rolling hills and Sugarloaf. Sugarloaf is only 300 ft high, but rumor has it is at an 18% grade = steep. No matter how many gears you have, there aren't enough. Even with compact cranks and a 12-25, I was going ~4 mph with a cadence of 40 something going up Sugarloaf. Speaking of, compact cranks rock....I was loving them in the rollers........If you don't already have them, I'd stongly recommend looking into them.....

Given the steepness of the climb, we did what any intelligent group of cyclists would do....climbed it twice :) Gotta love a challenging, thigh burning, lung searing, threshold pushing climb!

We ended up doing 55 miles with ~2500 feet of climbing...Fun.....

Running
Plan: 4.25 hours
Actual: 3.5 hours

With the heat and training volume, my legs have been just too dead to do a long run and ride in consecutive days on the weekends, so I switched my long run from the weekend to Wednesday.

Good plan.....my 2.5 hour long run on Wednesday went great, even though I started the run at 7:30 PM and finished at 10 PM. I went 15.95 miles, keeping my HR in zone 2, averaging 9:24 min / mi.

The other thing I did well was forced myself to run for 15 minutes after Saturday's long ride, as much as my legs (and lungs) really didn't want me to. No one ever said this was supposed to be easy.

Moving my long run to Wednesday left me with an hour form run scheduled for Sunday, which I was going to do after the ocean swim. With the swim cancelled, the weather REALLY hot, and my legs done after Saturday's climbing, I bagged the run.

One key to training is realizing when rest will be more beneficial than training, and this was one of those times. Although I'd never skip a key long workout, trading in a short form run for some much needed rest seemed like a good idea at the time, and in hindsight it was.

Taking off both Sunday (for the most part) and Monday gave me some much needed rest. I was exhausted through my entire last recovery week last month. This time I feel pretty good headed into recovery week.

Base 2 Summary and a Look Ahead
Taking a look back at the last three weeks, the quality of the workouts was great; unfortunately the volume was off a bit.

The weeks should have had 12.75, 13.75 and 15 hours. I ended up with 12.12, 12, and 11.9, obviously going the wrong way.

Running and cycling were very much on target, with swimming being the apparent culprit in my training hours being a little light the last couple of weeks. I think trading the hills for some volume last week was a good plan, since it's rare that I get an opportunity to train in hills.

I had an excused absence from week 2's swim, and can't do much about weather and pool maintenance this past weekend, so overall swimming was as on target as it could be.

Looking back over the last three weeks, I don't see anything I would have changed, except for maybe moving the long run to mid-week a bit sooner....

Now my favorite part of training (and Lori's).......RECOVERY WEEK...YAY

Recovery week is the perfect time for reduced volume and slightly increased intensity = RACE!! This weekend in the HOT, which will probably live up to its acronym once again.

Last year I was 43/49 in my age group, going 3:23:35. I had an abysmal 49 minute swim (49/49) followed by a decent 1:24 bike and 1:05 run.

Although this year I'm doing the HOT as an un-tapered B priority race, my goal is still to go sub 3, with a 40 minute swim, 1:18 bike and 55 run. Add a few minutes for transitions and I'm right at 2:58. My other goal is to keep my heart rate in zone 3-4 for the whole race....lower volume + higher intensity = good end of Base 2.

See you at the finish :)

Live with purpose....Enjoy the Adventure

08/21/07: If you suffer in the pool (or open water)....

2007-08-21T23:11:00.000-04:00

A one day Total Immersion swim clinic is coming to Jacksonville on September 8th:

What You’ll Learn
Total Immersion Senior Coach Gary Fahey will guide you through the skills and drills that will help you develop a fast, efficient freestyle stroke. We’ll use a time-tested sequence that builds logically from basic body balance to fluent whole stroke freestyle. We’ll combine hands-on pool time with extensive videoanalysis to help you master these core movements and concepts.

This class is an exclusive 1-day version of our renowned 2-day workshops and is being offered for the first time anywhere at the special rate of $295.

Experience the Hands-On Difference
We’re committed to helping you become the best swimmer possible and will be with you in the water as we show you the keys to fast, efficient and enjoyable swimming. Our hands-on, get wet philosophy keeps us intimately involved in your learning process and makes us active partners in your success.

We’ll also provide you with a dvd record of your clinic to inspire and inform you in the weeks and months ahead.

Limited to the First Ten to Register
To ensure personalized attention, the clinic is limited to the first ten swimmers to register.

To secure your space, please have your credit card number ready and call Total Immersion at 800.609.7946. You will receive an email confirmation that will include a medical waiver and liability release.

You MUST bring the completed release to the clinic in order to participate.

CLINIC SCHEDULE

Total Immersion Clinic
U. of North Florida
Jacksonville
September 8th, 2007

9:00 - 9:30 Classroom
9:30 - 11:30 Pool / Videotape & Drill Sequence
11:30 - 1:00 Classroom / Lunch & Videoanalysis
1:00 - 3:00 Pool / Videotape 2 & Integration
3:00 - 4:00 Classroom / Video Review

I hope to see a few of you that I know there. Stay tuned tomorrow for last weeks review and a look forward to this weekends race!

08/21/07: Comments and Rollers

2007-08-21T22:53:00.000-04:00

First, thanks for all of your comments. I really appreciate them. It's great hearing from others who are sick and twisted enough to do this crazy sport we all seem to love so much.

Speaking of sick and twisted, what crazy, demented, sick bastard came up with the idea for rollers?

Those of you who have had the "pleasure" of riding on rollers before are no doubt laughing your asses off right now, since you understand my plight. For those who have never had the pleasure, I'll describe the experience for you:

Go get your bike, take it to the nearest ice rink, put your bike on the ice, and start riding....No, I'm not kidding......And to make things worse, Lori's going to make me start wearing my helmet in the house now....Ok, now I'm kidding....

The suggestion is to start off in a doorframe until you get used to them and learn the concept of balance, something I've obviously not yet learned. Something tells me I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the doorframe :)

One more thing:

To everyone doing the HOT this weekend, I look forward to seeing you there. Megann Ann, my guess is you'll surprise yourself and do better than you think; besides, I have more respect for the person who comes in last in the race than anyone else.....becuase everyone else quit!

Live with Purpose....Enjoy the Adventure

08/17/07: Quantifiable Progress in the Pool

2007-08-17T08:47:00.000-04:00

If you've paid attention to my blog at all, you know by now that I'm a bit analytical...ok, maybe more than a bit...anyway....I started looking back at my race swims to see if I'm actually making any real progress.

2006 HOT Olympic Distance: .9 mi swim, 49:06 = 3:23/100m
Fla 70.3: 1.2 mi swim, 1:02:12 = 3:13/100m
Ocean Marathon: 2.5 mi swim, 1:57:50 = 2:55/100m

Looks like I've taken ~30 secs off my 100 meter pace. Go me!

Speaking of swimming, our new swim coach rocks.

Last nights swim was 2850 yds:

Warmup: 200 swim, 150 kick

6x100 on 2:15

400, 300, 200, 100 descend

50 easy

150 kick

9x50 hypoxic (varying 3-5 breaths / 50)

5x50 ascend

Tonight it's 45 minutes of running bridges (our version of hills) before tomorrows 4.5 hours of riding in actual hills

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....

08/16/07: News Announcement & a Training Update

2007-08-16T08:48:00.000-04:00

First the news: We're having a baby! :)

Priorities are important....Triathlon's just a sport...having a baby and a family is real....so, with that said, I'm glad I signed up for an IM when I did, since it'll probably be my last for a bit.....Both Lori & I are really excited and I'll put some updates here, although most will probably be on our new baby blog.....

Since this is a training blog....on with my training update....

I moved some workouts around this week so that I could split up my long run and ride. Doing both in consecutive days has been too much.

This week started out with a 1:15 form ride on my trainer and a swim Tuesday night. When I showed up to swim practice on Tuesday, I had a great birthday present waiting for me: Benji, our new masters swim coach. Benji has a phenomenal coaching resume spanning 20 years and really "gets it" when it comes to massively improving form and balance in the water, and that triathletes in the pool could care less about doing im sets.

I lost track of the distance once we started doing hypoxic swim sets (lots of swimming, very little breathing), although they were fun. I'm guessing we got in 2300-2500 yds:

wu: 150 (I got there a few minutes late)

After some talk about using a 3/4 catchup stroke,

10 x 100

3 x (2x100 kick, 100 swim)

Misc hypoxic sets

Fun swim and I'm grateful Benji agreed to coach us!!

Last night I did my long 2.5 hour run, instead of trying to do it on Saturday.

Running on slightly fresher legs and avoiding the rediculous heat we've had lately seemed to make a BIG difference. I intentionally took it VERY easy for the first 5 miles or so, keeping my pace in the 9-10 min / mile range, planning on a negative split.

My hr stayed in zone 1 for first 5 miles. I picked up the pace a little, pushing my HR into zone 2 for the rest of the run, keeping my pace in the 8:30 - 10:00 range.

Nutritionally I drank a boost (240 calories) an hour befure the run, and took 2 lava salts (electrolytes)about 15 minutes before I started. During the run, I took a couple of sips of water every 10 minutes. I took another 2 lava salts with a gel 45 minutes into the run, and a second gel at 1 1/2 hours.

Overall the run went well. I ran 15.95 miles in 2.5 hours, for an average pace of 9:24, with an average HR of 153. A good solid run. The last 1/2 hour or so I definitely slowed down a bit, which means I probably could have used one more gel at 2 hours, giving me some extra energy for the last 15 minutes...I'll try it next time.

When I got home I had a Recoverite and went to sleep, since I got home from the run at 10:30.....

This morning was a quick 30 minute zone 1 recovery spin on the trainer, which I REALLY didn't want to do, although I felt much better after, which I knew I would....

Looking at the rest of the week, I have a group swim tonight, a zone 2 run tomorrow, and then it's off to ride hills in Clermont for 4.5 hours on Saturday. Finally, Sunday finishes off this 15 hour week with an hour form run and an ocean swim with the hammerheads. Oh yea, and lots of baby planning...... :)

Live with purpose...Enjoy the adventure.....

08/14/07: Last Week In Review

2007-08-14T08:35:00.001-04:00

Better late than never...

Last week had a planned 13.75 hours, and ended up at 12 hours:

Swimming
Planned: 4.25
Actual: 2.17 hours, 4910 yds

Missed Thursday's swim workout....it was an excused absence though....Even though I hope for afternoon thunderstorms every Tues and Thurs, I can honestly say I haven't missed a single swim workout due to simply not wanting to go....and missing this one was no different....no harm done

In fact, I'm actually starting to look forward to swimming, since I've been making so much progress and Carrie's been so amazingly helpful as a coach.

Cycling
Planned: 6.25 hours
Actual: 6.33 hours

The new bike is amazing and 3 1/2 of Sunday's 4 hour ride was great; on the other hand, the last 30 minutes after I bonked was pure hell, not to mention the 15 run immediately afterwards.....This coming week it's back to 2 lava salts / hour in my perpetuem and gels every 45 minutes....Running off the bike after riding the hills of Clermont should be interesting......

Running
Planned: 3.25 hours
Actual: 3.50 hours

It was nice finally getting in a long run where I didn't stop to walk every two minutes....Even though Saturday's run was brutal and I only managed a 10 something minute pace with my heart rate in zone 4, I got it in and pushed through....Sometimes those are the best workouts of all......

I learned a very valuable lesson last week: especially in this heat and humidity, I really need to split up my long rides and runs. Trying to both in consecutive days is leaving my totally exhausted.

So...this week I moved some thing around on my schedule and am going to do my long run (2.5 hours) on Wednesday night, with my long ride (4.5 hours of hills in Clermont) on Saturday. Hopefully that'll keep me a bit fresher while still getting in all of the mileage, considering that I have a VERY BIG 15 hour week planned. YIKES!

Live with purpose...Enjoy the adventure....

08/12/07: 1HappyAthlete Blog History

2007-08-12T14:56:00.000-04:00

Let me start off by making 1happyathlete blog history:

My favorite workout this weekend was the swim.....

Print that statement and frame it, because there's a pretty good chance that you'll never see that here again.

Yip that's right, me who despises swimming so much and usually is just trying to survive in the water enjoyed the swim this weekend. How could that be you ask? Simple, it's the only time this weekend that it wasn't unbelievably, unbearably hot!

Sat morning had a 2.25 zone 3 run scheduled. After the last couple weeks nightmarish runs, I was really hoping for a good run this week, especially since it's my strongest sport (notice I said strongest, not fastest).

Friday night I thought to myself that I wanted to start running before sunup to beat the heat. Good plan...didn't happen....

I started my run at 8:30 out at the beach, which still wasn't too bad. The first half hour or so went great. I was running 9 something pace, keeping my hr nice and low, planning on doing a negative split. Then as the heat increased, so did my hr, straight through zones 2 and 3 into zone 4.

At this point I had two choices: walk yet again, or suck it up and keep training. This time I chose to suck it up and train through my high heart rate. Thank god for my camelback and lava salts.

I went through twice as much water as I normally would, having to stop and refill a little over half way through, which I've never had to do before....Speaking of - thanks to the girl at the Marriott who gave me a key to the exercise room to refill with cold water....She gets my good samaritan award this week.....

I got in 13.19 miles in 2.25 hours, for an average pace of 10:14. As brutal as the run was, I was thrilled to get in a run without having to stop and walk every minute like the last couple of weeks.

Sat afternoon getting in the pool was a welcome break from the heat. I only had an hour before the pool closed, so managed to get in 2200 yds:

200 swim kick pull warmup

200 tennis ball drill

200 swim

10 ebeh (easy, build, easy, hard)

200 cd

As tired as I've been from working out in the lovely North Florida summer, I had a feeling today's ride was going to be tough....I was right.....

Today I did manage to start my 4 hour ride right at sunup. The ride was a zone 2 ride, which was never a problem. My heart rate stayed pretty low all day, completely the opposite of yesterday's run.

It was great starting so early...it was only in the 70's...which didn't last very long, but was nice for a little bit. I tried something new nutrition wise....

I cut down on the lava salts a bit, since perpetuem already has an electolyte profile, and instead of gels tried uncrustables on the ride....both mistakes.....I bonked with about a 1/2 hour to go...that last 1/2 hour seemed to take forever. Next week it's back to gels every 45 minutes and 2 lava salts per hour.....stick with what works. During the ride I went through two bottles of perpetuem (4 scoops each) and 3 uncrustables + almost three liters of water.

Overall the ride went well, and I love the new bike!! The ride ended up being 72.21 miles in 4:14, for an average of 17.06 mph. Not exactly fast, but I can live with it, especially given the condition of my legs from yesterday's run.

After the ride I got in my obligatory post ride run. A short and very much forced 15 minute run, mainly to keep getting used to running on VERY tired legs.

After some recoverite and a LONG nap, I'm looking forward to tonight's red meat binge at Tento, our local Churrascaria, to celebrate my birthday with a truly wonderful woman.....yes, I'm of course talking about Lori.....and tomorrow's well deserved day off.

Stay tuned for the week in review and an important blog announcement :)

Live with purpose....Enjoy the Adventure....

08/12/07: Congratulate Me.....

2007-08-12T14:47:00.000-04:00

on my slowest ride ever:

Friday's recovery/form ride was 14.98 miles in 57 minutes, for an average speed of 15.77 mph.

Once you get past my sarcasm, there's actually some good news here. It was a scheduled Zone 1 recovery ride, and I left my ego at the car and kept it as a zone 1 recovery ride.

The heat and humidity have been totally unbearable all week, and have definitely had a cumulative effect = exhausting = higher than normal heart rate!!!

Although it's really hot pretty much everywhere right now, for those of you missing out on the humidity in your training, take your bike and trainer to the gym with you, put them in the steamroom, and go to work for a couple of hours.

08/10/07: Ocean Marathon Results

2007-08-10T13:29:00.000-04:00

The results were finally posted, so here's the way my age group stacked up:

Men 35 - 39
115 8 1 Jon Sakovich, 37 1:02:10 24:52
114 17 2 Jr Woodward, 38 1:14:38 29:51
100 20 3 Jeff Gidwind, 39 1:18:34 31:26
69 25 4 David Mariotti, 35, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 1:20:50 32:20
68 33 5 Saswata Roy, 38, Jacksonville Beach, & 1:32:44 37:05
109 34 6 Carlos Marina, 38 1:33:36 37:26
74 41 7 Andrew Hariton, 38, Jacksonville, FL 1:57:50 47:08

25 minutes slower then the next slowest person? You've got to be f&*%ing kidding me.......

UGGGGHHHHHHH

08/09/07: Planning for the Mass Swim Start

2007-08-09T13:33:00.000-04:00

TRAIN LIKE YOU RACE

IM FLORIDA 2006 START

08/09/07: More Training in the Heat

2007-08-09T08:40:00.000-04:00

Training through this heat wave is definitely challenging. The key: hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.....

Base 2 training has definitely stepped things up a bit.

Last night was a 1.25 hour ride (1:08 actually) with some bridge repeats and 20 minutes or so of zone 3 time thrown in. Add in the heat and humidity, and it was a pretty tough ride. I went through almost two water bottles in just over an hour. Totalled 19.45 miles, averaging 17.16 mph. A bit slower than I would have expected, given that what goes up the bridge at 10 mph comes down at 35.....

This morning I woke up to some nice stiff legs, and was torn between bagging this morning's run and doing it. Knowing how important recovery and rest are, I almost didn't do the run, thinking how tired I was. Then I realized that I'm always tired, so I did the run :)

30 minute form run: After a 10 minute warmup or so, I did 6x30 sec pickups with a couple of minutes in between, and cooled down for the rest of the time (as much as one can cool down with 88% humidity that early in the morning). I felt much better and more energetic after the run, just like I always do.

As hot as it's been, I'm ironically looking forward to beeing in the pool tonight to cool off. Speaking of the heat, my next ironman (which is a very big IF there's a next one) will more than likely be something in the spring like CDA or Lake Placid so I can train through the winter and spring instead of dealing with this ungodly humidity......

08/08/07: Another Good Swim

2007-08-08T08:30:00.000-04:00

Thanks to all for the positive comments about the ocean swim. Although I'm THRILLED that I was able to finish an OWS of that distance, which I wouldn't have even thought about a year ago, I'm dissapointed in my time. That's actually a good thing....it forces me to stay VERY focused on my swimming over the next three months...

Speaking of swimming, last night was a group swim as usual. We had a group meeting before we started and it looks like Benji, the Episcopal High School coach who I mentioned a few entries back is going to start coaching us. YEA

The pool is now back to short course for the rest of the summer :(

Got in 2500 after Benji gave his thoughts:

wu: 200 swim, 200 kick, 100 pull

10x75 on 1:50 (was supposed to be on 2:00, but we sped things up a bit)

50 easy

4x 50 dolphin kick, 100 kick (50 was supposed to be back), 50 swim

200 medium/hard

200 cd

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....

08/07/07: Just a little bit of humidity

2007-08-07T07:33:00.000-04:00

Starting off week 13 as usual with a 30 minute run. I now know why it felt like a steamroom at 6:45 am:

Jacksonville International Airport
Lat: 30.43 N Lon: 81.7 W Elev: 39 ft
Last Update on Aug 7, 6:56 am EDT

76°F (24°C) Humidity: 97 %

UGHHHH

Now that I'm done whining, here's a little humor forwarded by Lori :)

As we pursue excellence in triathlon events our behavior can become a bit obsessive, especially from the perspective of those who don't participate, but that's what passion for sport is all about. As obsessions go triathlon is not that bad, perhaps a little taxing to family and significant others, but no threat to society as a whole. Consider what we do from the perspective of those not 'addicted' and you should be able to see some humor in it.

"Those who hear not the music think the dancers mad." - Chinese Proverb

Here are the symptoms:

Just one more qualifier and you're sure you'll make it to Kona.
Only one workout a day makes you feel guilty.
You called in sick not because you're hung over but because the weather was bad over the weekend and you've got to get that long workout in.
You lie to your friends and family about what you did over the weekend: "I relaxed!"
You can accurately assess fitness level by volume of laundry.
You know the exact weather prediction for any given day, when a storm is coming, what the wind speed is—and most important—from which direction it's blowing.
Your bike(s), wheels, wetsuit, and other miscellaneous tri-gear are worth more than your car.
A year of entry fees cost more than your car insurance.
You never sleep-in on weekends.
You used to eat candy bars and still do, but now they have names that include words like: Power, Balance, Zone, etc.
Acronyms and numbers like HRM, AT, LT, ATP, OD, 140.6, 70.3 are familiar, and IM does not mean Instant Messenger!
You know there's still a band aid at the bottom of lane 3.
The phrases "Swim Meet this Weekend," and "Annual Maintenance Shutdown" stress you out.
You forgot how to tie shoe laces.
You know all the kilometer to mile conversions by heart.
Spending another $1000 on your bike to shave a few seconds off your 40k time is well worth it.
You plan your race season a year in advance and log on at midnight with your credit card ready.
You used to make fun of people wearing Lycra, now you think it looks cool. :)
You look forward to getting older (aging up = less competition)!

A couple of last thoughts about Saturday's ocean swim: Even though I went a bit slower than I would have liked, 1. I didn't drown, 2. I finished; 3. I didn't finish last (although that would have been ok with me too)

Live with purpose...Enjoy the Adventure....

08/06/07: A long weekend of workouts

2007-08-06T10:21:00.000-04:00

The weekend started with Saturday's Hammerhead Ocean Swim: 2.5 miles of ocean fun. If you've been following my blog at all, you already know that I'm a REALLY bad swimmer.

Fortunately the winds were out of the south west and the water was calm as could be. There were several small buoys along the path, most of which I never saw. I pretty much sighted on the houses along the shore, and the pier that we were swimming towards.

Being that last year I was unwilling to even attempt the 1.25 mile swim, I'd say the I've made a lot of progress. My form has definitely improved MASSIVELY. I spend most of the swim very relaxed and used very little energy. In fact, I wasn't really even breathing that hard through most of it - an indication that I probably should have been swimming harder.

One thing that did cause me a bit of trouble was the salt water getting into my nose and sinuses. After the first hour it got EXTREMELY annoying and made it very hard for me to breathe. I may start trying to swim with a nose plug and see if that helps....the only downside to that plan is that it'll probably get knocked off in the middle of the IM swimming beatdown anyway...

I finished the swim in just under 2 hours, (1:57 something), which is a 2:55 / 100m pace. Although about 15 minutes slower than I would have liked, it definitely puts my mind at ease knowing I can swim the distance in under the 2:20 cutoff. Over the next couple of months continuously improving my swimming with the masters group, I should be able to knock off 10-15 minutes easily; plus, the IM swim is wetsuit legal, which should also help quite a bit.

Not that it matters, but the teenage winner of the swim, (it wasn't really so much of a race, alhtough it was timed) finished in under an hour...UGHHHHH

Overall, a complete success, other than my sinuses being a wreck from all of the saltwater.

Right after the ocean swim, I picked up my new bike...YEA...

Although I had a run scheduled for Sat evening, I was still too wiped and my breathing was still too much of a wreck, so I had the brilliant idea to do the run Sunday afternoon instead. That would have been fine, except for Sunday morning's bike ride.

I met the Velobrew "B" group at 7. I stayed with them for about and hour, most of which I hung off the back on my aerobars. When one woman got dropped, I went back for her to pull her back to the group, and she said that the group was too fast and that she was going to finish the ride on her own.

Whereas a couple of weeks ago I had no chance of catching up with the A group, I probably could have gotten back to the B group - they were doing 20-22 (versus the 25 of the A group). Instead of using up a whole bunch of energy needlessly to try to catch the group again, I decided to stay on my aero bars and ride on my own the rest of the way. Following my training plan, I wanted to get in some zone 3 time and do some bridgework anyway.

I spent about 20 minutes in zone 3, still keeping my cadence over 90. Then I met the Acosta bridge. The bridge won. I think my speed dropped down to around 7 on the way up..the good news is I hit 36 on the way down - FUN. I probably could have gone a bit faster, but didn't want to push my luck too much on a new bike. I'm getting a set of compact cranks next week that should help significantly, which I'm most definitely going to need heading to Clermont on the 18th...All of Florida is not as flat as everyone seem's to think.....

Total ride was 61 miles in 3.5 hours, for an average speed of 17.4 mph. Interesting thing was the group got back shortly after I did, having gone a total of only 64 miles, which gave them an average of only 18.3 mph. I guess it was windier than I thought....and I'm glad I went off on my own...After the ride I ran for about 10 minutes or so, which I'm going to continue doing after all of my long rides.

After much napping and a really bad dinner choice, it was run time. Out of pure convenience, I threw a couple of the organic hamburgers I had in my freezer on the foreman grill, which tasted great at the time. An hour and a half later, when mixed with very the morning's Perpetuam and gels, tired legs, gatorade endurance, and the really high heat and humidity....BAD IDEA. My stomach was NOT HAPPY!!!!

After the 1st 1/2 hour or so of the run, every step required immense mental and physical effort, and once again I found myself walking as much, if not more, than I was running. I should have known better than to try running on the same day as a long bike ride. Oh well....

Since I felt like I was doing more harm than good at this point, I cut the run short a bit over an hour and a half, having gotten on only 8 miles or so. Better to lose the battle and win the war, so to speak. Lesson learned.

As I get to my peak training weeks later in September, I think I'm going to split up my runs and rides a bit more, instead of trying to get them both in on the weekend. Not sure when I'm going to fit in a 3 hour run mid-week, but I have some time to figure it out.

08/05/07: Week in Review

2007-08-05T20:50:00.000-04:00

I just got back from an exhausting run, so will give some details tomorrow. Note to self: don't run 2 hours on the same day as a 3.5 hour ride.....

For now, here are the numbers:

Total: 12.12 hours, of a planned 12.75

Swimming: Planned 4.25 hours
Actual: 3.97 hours, 4.93 miles

Cycling: Planned 5.25 hours
Actual: 5.13 hours, 89.45 miles

Running: Planned 3.25 Hours
Actual: 3.02 hours, 18.07 miles

08/04/07: BIKE PORN - Nude Carbon

2007-08-04T18:39:00.001-04:00

Click on any of the pictures to zoom in:

08/03/07: Shuffling Workouts

2007-08-03T09:03:00.000-04:00

With last nights rain at rush hour, traffic was SLOW to say the least. I got home too late to make it to either the masters swim or to UNF. So, instead of swimming last night I put my bike on the trainer for 45 minutes of easy zone 1 spinning.

Tonight I'll head to UNF and swim for a 1/2 hour or so...just long enough to do a warmup (200 swim kick pull) and swim a few laps focusing on form...that should be enough to hopefully have me as ready as I'm going to be for tomorrow's 2.5 mile ocean swim.

I just read an interesting quote from Joe Friel (author of the Triathlete's Training Bible)that seems appropriate for tomorrow’s swim: “How do you know when you’re ready to go long? You don’t. You commit, train, and pray.”

After tonight's warmup swim I'll be doing a lot of praying.

I’ll admit to being a bit nervous (translation: terrified) of the swim – 2.5 miles is a LONG way to go in the ocean, and I’ve never gone anywhere near that far. I guess I’ll see how much progress I’ve really made swimming with the masters group.

Looks like we’ll have good weather at least:

000
FZUS52 KJAX 030805
SRFJAX

SURF ZONE FORECAST
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSONVILLE FL
405 AM EDT FRI AUG 3 2007

FLZ024-025-033-038-GAZ154-166-032300-
NASSAU-DUVAL-ST JOHNS-FLAGLER-COASTAL GLYNN-COASTAL CAMDEN-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...FERNANDINA BEACH...JACKSONVILLE...
ST AUGUSTINE...PALM COAST...BRUNSWICK...ST MARYS
405 AM EDT FRI AUG 3 2007

RIP CURRENT OUTLOOK: LOW. RIP CURRENTS ARE POSSIBLE TODAY AND ARE
LIKELY TO BE WEAK BUT MAY POSE A DANGER TO POOR SWIMMERS.
HOWEVER...THEY ARE STRONGER AND MORE FREQUENT IN THE VICINITY
OF JETTIES...INLETS...AND PIERS. KNOW HOW TO SWIM AND HEED THE
ADVICE OF THE BEACH PATROL.

WIND: SOUTH 5 TO 10 MPH.

SURF: BREAKERS WILL AVERAGE 1 TO 2 FEET.

WATER TEMPERATURE: LOWER 80S.

UV INDEX: 6...IN THE HIGH RANGE.

OUTLOOK: A LOW RIP CURRENT RISK IS EXPECTED ON SATURDAY.

Now onto some blog housecleaning items:

1. First of all, there's no way in hell I'm hiking the Appalachian trail. It's 2,175 miles. I can't even to begin to imagine living out of a tent for 6 months. I think I'll stick to much easier endeavors, like going 140.6 miles less than 17 hours.

2. July in revew (no wonder I'm tired):

Swimming: 15.75 hours, 17.44 miles

Cycling: 17.50 hours, 313.36 miles

Running: 12.21 hours, 80.38 miles

Overall my training hours seem to be right on target.

3. A few schedule revisions:

Instead of doing the Disney Olympic in September, I'm going to do our local HOT Olympic on Aug 26. Based on my training, my goal is to take off 20 minutes from last years race and finish in under 3 hours, which I thing is a very realistic goal if I have a decent swim.

Everyone warned me not to do the Florida Challenge 1/2 since it's only a couple of weeks before the full, so I'm going to do the Palm Valley 1/2 instead in mid September. A few years ago, Susan Wallace, the Hammerheads president, was looking for a fall 1/2 and couldn't find anything to fit her schedule, so she created one.

It's a local, unsupported, no t-shirt, no crowds, totally unnoficial half - perfect.

Last but not least, my goals for tomorrow's swim:

a. Don't drown
b. Finish in under 1:45

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

08/02/07: The Start of Base 2

2007-08-02T08:35:00.000-04:00

This week is the start of a new training block: Base 2.

Time to add a bit of force and muscular endurance training to the endurance and form work I've already been doing; in english...bridge repeats and some extended time in zone 3.

I added a bit of extra nutrition to make sure I'm getting in enough calories throughout the day. I started using hammer nutrition's recoverite after my longer workouts to help get some glycogen, protein and electrolytes back into my system ASAP and to hopefully recover more quickly, especially after brutal workout's like Sundays.

I also started drinking Boost Plus a couple of times during the day, to spread out my energy intake during the day...From a common sense standpoint, I really like the idea of eating 6 smaller BALANCED meals throughout the day as espoused by Bill Phillips in his Body for Life program. Taking in fuel constantly and consistently during the day seems like a much better idea than having a few huge meals spread out by several hours.

Not to get off on a complete tangent, but what is up with the fad diets that are so completely out of balance: no carbs, or no protein, or whatever other ridiculous concepts some flakes seem to come up with; even worse, why in the hell do people buy into such complete nonsense...Sorry, I'm back now.....

Over the weekend Sean, Susan and Rich from Velocity Multisport coaching had a Tanita Ironman scale setup over at the Trek store where they were doing power testing and body composition testing. Although I skipped the power testing, I did the body composition testing, finding out I have 14.8% bodyfat and a metabolic age of 21...not bad considering I'm about to be 39....Shhhh...nobody tell my body that....

Since they seem to think the scales are reasonably accurate and are only around $100, time to get one for myself to see if my new nutrition additions keep me headed in the right direction. By the time IM rolls around, I'd like to have lowered my bodyfat % to the 12-14% range and dropped about 10-15 lbs to give myself a higher power to weight ratio.....

The week started off with the Tuesday's usual run and swim. The run was 30 minutes in zone 2, which ended up being 3.51 miles, with an avg hr of 151 and an average pace of 8.33 / mi. Nothing too interesting. No lingering ill effects from Sunday's workout thank god.

Tuesday night's swim was 2900 yds:

wu: 300 swim, 200 kick (zoomer fins are a HUGE help - they make kick sets doable)

4x50 10 ri; 2x100 15 ri; 200 20 ri; 2x100 15 ri; 4x50 10 ri

5x100 swim w/ fins (a bit tiring on the legs, although it's nice to swim a bit faster and they seem to be helping with ankle flexibility and kicking form)

2 x im (substituted freestyle for butterfly)

300 pull

cd: 200 swim

Yesterday morning I put in 45 minutes on the bike trainer. Once again, the usual: gearing pyramid (17-13), 3x3 ilt; reverse gearing pyramid. Nothing too interesting here, other than I get my new bike this weekend. YEA! This means my old bike is about to be a permanent fixture on the trainer. No sense in stressing a perfectly good carbon fiber frame on the trainer. Also, my next toy (aside from the new scale) is a set of rollers so I can work on balance.

Last night was the monthly Hammerhead meeting, where we got to hear Will Pearce, our local 19 year old triathlon superstar, give us some great tips on getting faster in the run. Will is FAST...REALLY FAST. We found out that a slow run for him is 7 minute miles....everything's relative.....his fast pace is 5:30.....we're not even going to talk about his swim time - it's too early in the morning to get that depressed.

I started this morning out with a resting hr of 49 and my favorite run of all: sunrise at the beach. I did a barefoot zone 2 run with 6x20 second strides. The run was one of my best yet, totalling 5.35 miles, with an average hr of 150 and an average pace of 8:24 / mile.

Running at low tide rocks. The only downside was that the bottom of my big toes started hurting around half way through the run - no big deal, just the sand acting like sandpaper on the bottom of my feet, right?

Imagine my surprise when I got home and noticed blisters the size of 1/2 dollars on the bottom of both big toes....oops.......Oh well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....