The Last Dragon

On Friday, it was Elena's big karate camp graduation ceremony.  The camp rented a gym to hold parents and friends.  They had a little skit at the beginning before all the students from 3-15 years did their form and then they all had a chance to break boards.  My little one was able to break her one board.  We got it on video which I hope to post to YouTube soon.  She really likes karate.  She graduated and went from white to yellow to 3rd degree orange belt.  They ran out of orange belts as the organizers aren't the best planners but she got her yellow one.  For the entire weekend she was always talking about how she is suppose to get her orange belt on Monday.

The ceremony had a special guest, Taimak the star of Berry Gordon's The Last Dragon. It was wild because the guy was at least 6'2".  I saw that movie a bunch when I was kid and I always thought he was short based on the movie.  I guess the magic of the movies was in full effect.  He and the instructor are good friends.
 

Here's Elena on the far right in her stance during the ceremony.

Well it's under 3 weeks to go and the modified taper will begin.  Thank god.  My left leg is completely wiped out.  The weak hamstring and foot has me favoring it which is making it extra sore.  I proceeded with my most difficult running workout.  I was planning to do a 10 mile tempo run on fairly flat terrain.  I did the mile or so warmup and started cruising out my tempo pace.  I was planning on trying to just sit at a 6:30 pace.  The pace felt hard which just amazes me considering this is the pace I ran my entire first marathon at just 10 years ago.

I was cruising along and when I roughly got to mile 3 I decided to cut it to an 8 mile tempo run.  I was feeling my legs and didn't want to risk a chance of injury plus I didn't think I could hold the pace for 10 miles.  I made it to the rough turnaround and proceeded to head back.  This is where I really had to focus mentally to complete the work.  I ended up with an 8.6 mile tempo run at an average of 6:24 pace.  Not bad but my legs were pretty cooked at the end.

On Sunday, my plan was to ride for 5 total hours with 2.5 hours of half ironman pacing and the rest at Ironman pace.  My legs were a complete mess as I started the ride but this was good as I used that to control my pacing.  It's crucial during the Ironman not to hammer the first part of the bike.  At Canada, the first 40 miles of the bike are the easiest miles with a lot of slight downhill.  Conserve, conserve will be the motto for that portion.

I think I locked into my run pace.  My goal is going to be to shoot for 7:15 miles.  I think if things go well on the bike I should be able to hold that pace.  The last 10k is going to suck but that's how marathon's go probably at any pace.  The legs just get tired.

20 days...