Fastest Ever

swim on Saturday morning. I couldn't believe it. Not only was it my longest swim so far 3400 yards but my time was the fastest 100 yard average for anything over 2000 yards. I averaged 1:47 per 100 yards. I really tried to use to my left arm for pulling a little harder. I also really tried to "catch" as much water as possible while keeping a good stroke rate the entire time. I started to slow at the end. I was busting out 1:45s for the 2nd 1000 of the swim. It was sweet.

After the swim, I went and rode for 5 and a half hours. My legs were still fried from Thursday so I cut out two of the hills. I thought I was just going to bag the longer ride until I got about 90 minutes into it and felt okay so I went the entire way. I finished with 107 miles so it wasn't bad. My cycling legs are coming around.

It was Father's day yesterday. Way to go to all the Dads out there. I decided to do a long run. My first long run since late April. I was worried before the run about my running condition and I'm still worried after the run. I was going to run first and then if I felt good go do a technique swim before going over to Elena's for father day festivities. The plan was to do an out and back. I'd go out for an hour and then turn around. The first 2 hour run since 2002, the last time I did a standalone marathon.

My first mile was slow, 8:10 even though I felt comfortable and fast. Its so weird I had run that exact mile in 7:10 on Thursday after a hard 90 minute ride. I decided to try to pick it up a little and was able to hit my 2nd mile and 3rd mile in 7:20ish. These were the only mile marks I really had until I went by them on the way back. It wasn't too hot but it was humid. My shirt was soaked about 30 minutes into the run. I had brought my runner water pack with 20 ounces of cytomax and 3 powergels.

I was going well about 45 minutes into the run. My foot stopped hurting and decided to try and hit this one water fountain for a refill, then turn around and head home. The fountain was at 66 minutes out. Uh-oh, this is going to be over two hours.

I started trudging home and got within 4 miles and the legs really started to fatigue. I just kept trying to mimic the focus I'll need for that last 8 miles of the Ironman. I started to get back into my familiar territory with known mile marks. I was clocking 7:35 miles and they were tough. I just felt I've lost a lot of running fitness from this stupid foot injury. I'm going to start just blasting through the foot pain and try to get some tempo runs in over the next month to increase my speed. I slogged in the last mile with a 7:25 as it's got a decent downslope to it and finished. My legs were toast. I could barely walk and stretch.

I hit up Runner's World to calculate the total distance and it came out to 17.9 miles for an average pace of 7:24. This is just over 8 miles left or about another hour or so of complete suffering. Hmm...this is getting tougher and tougher as my training gets longer and longer. I figured I'd gain more confidence as my training volume increase but I'm losing confidence and thinking what the hell did I get myself into.

This morning I decided to swim in my wetsuit at the pool for a long swim. I wanted to see if would make my shoulders tired and if it felt okay. The pool has been cold enough that officially it would be wetsuit legal if there was USTA triathlon being held in it. I got going and was flying across the pool. My left shoulder was tired and sore though. I really did a number on it on Saturday. It was hard to focus on my stroke because it was bugging me so much. I wasn't able to swim as long as I would've like because I just couldn't bare the soreness. I didn't want to injure myself so I stopped at 2300 yards. I still averaged 1:39. So the wetsuit is 10 seconds per 100 yards faster for me. This basically equates to 440 seconds over the Ironman swim or 7:20. Sweet!! That puts me under 1:10 for the Ironman swim. If I can stay straight during the Ironman swim without getting bashed by other swimmers that should be good.

2 months 8 days...

Cool your jets

This is what my 6 year old daughter said to me this morning as I was trying to hurry her up while she was making her bed. A chore by the way that I didn't ask her to do. Too funny, she could just leave it but that's her mother's influence. I mean really why bother making your bed when you're getting into it in about another 16 hours. Seems like a total waste of energy. Its not like anyone sees your bed while you're at work. I can see making the bed if you're hosting a party or have friends coming over but other than that, why? Straightened covers/sheets versus just a pile of sorts? So overall, I'm learning patience and cleanliness from my 6 year old.

The heat is over for now. It's only going to be in the upper 80s today and it's actually cool enough to have my morning coffee. I've definitely missed that over the past few days. I left early for my workout yesterday right around 11am and it was only 92 degrees with a heat index of 98. It was overall a decent workout on the bike and my brick run went okay. I really didn't feel like pushing because my quads were still sore from the weekend. My foot was also hurting just enough to ease up a little.

I keep icing the foot and I'm taking today off from running. The foot feels a little better today so maybe it's on the way to working itself out.

Elena last day of kindergarten is tomorrow or should I say last "half" day as they get out at noon. Luckily, she had daycare so I can pick her up at the normal time. She doesn't have school on Friday and her summer camp doesn't start til Monday. I'm watching Elena on Friday so she'll be at my place. I'm still a little in shock that I will have a first grader and half the time I still feel just as irresponsible and childish as I did when I was in college. Amazing..

2 months 13 days...

Hunger Pain

I hate waking up to hunger. I didn't work out at all yesterday. I just worked and snacked through the day to make up for a calorie deficit from Sunday. I really didn't consume enough calories Sunday night. I felt hungry all day on Monday even though I didn't do anything but sit. I ate a bunch of cheese filled tortellini from Costco. These things really are good and for 10 bucks you get a decent sized bag that lasted about 6 meals. If I can average under like $2 for dinner, I'm a winner. I feel this type of meal is towards the high side of my price range but I don't eat them all the time. I can really save money by consuming my usual rice or pasta and lots of it.

My foot hurts so I didn't run to the gym even though it was a lovely 75 degrees with 80% humidity when I woke up at 4:30AM. This is suppose to be our last high 90s and mid 40 humidity day of the week. The weather folks on the local news say this isn't normal. Thank god! I'll be able to stay cool in the evening without running my A/C non-stop. I'm not a hot weather weenie by any means but sleep is beneficial to my training. The last two nights I set the temp to 76 like a wuss. Oh well, it's only a couple of days. I'll buck up after the Ironman and just leave the thermo at 80 since it won't matter if I get a decent night sleep or not.

The thing about not working out is it's really weird. I got still sortof early at 5AM only showered once during the day and wrapped a decent day of work around 4pm. The hardest post Ironman training part will come on the weekends when instead of working out for 6+ hours I'll have those hours to do "stuff". I may have to up my Netflix subscription to 8 out at a time as I'll be able to burn through tons of movies post Ironman either that or maybe I should actually try to meet some people. Do social stuff and contribute to society. Nah...I'll just eat, watch TV and gain 100lbs. Crap I can't do that because I promised to do the Florida Half next year with Orion.

I will have to continue to swim even though I'm still totally lost in the water. Little girls, old guys, fat people, short people, skinny people, old gals and just about everyone can swim faster than me. I still must suck at technique because I just can't believe that all of those people have more endurance or strength than me. I mean there are tons of people who easily average 1:30 something per 100 yards for the entire half and even the entire Ironman distance. My fastest 100 yard all out ever is 1:40. I'm able to swim in the pool low 1:50s for at least 3000 yards so far so my fastest to my endurance speed is real close. Ugh..Orion just started working out and he's already just as fast as me in the water but he swam a bunch as a kid plus he is way stronger. Oh well, if I can get rid of this nagging foot pain I will still crush the run portion I hope. I may suck in the pool but if I can post a 3:15 marathon at IMC that would rock and be probably top 25 run split compared to my likely 1800 out of 2200 swim split. Ouch!

Ack 11 weeks left!!!

Hot Fog

Yep, you read it right. Who knew that there was such a thing? Being from the west coast, I had never experienced this weird phenomena. I need Bill Frye the Science guy to explain it to me. Here's wikipedia on fog. It happened on Saturday morning. I knew it was going to be hot from the forecast so the plan was to wake up at 6am and ride at 7am skipping swimming. I could be back from my scheduled 6 hour ride by 1pm before it really got hot.

I woke up at six and turned on the computer to see how hot it was already. It was 75 and then I noticed the humidity read 98%. Hmm..that's strange and I looked outside. FOG! Crap...visibility was horrible so I was hoping it would go away soon. Finally around 8am it had cleared enough to be somewhat safe on the bike. Probably quarter mile visibility. I jammed out of the house and proceeded to start my death ride.

The new P2C only has 1 water bottle cage. I have a rear hydration cage system but I lost a key part in the packing of the bike from the Florida 70.3. So on the bike I have the front aerobars bottle and the lone cage. I packed two water bottles in my jersey. I was going to test some nutrition for the ride. I mixed a 3x concentration of infinit or 900 calories worth, the front aero bottle had another 300 calories of infinit and the rest was water.

My plan was to attack all the hills and just cruise the flats with some tempo sessions during the last 3 hours. By the time I got to my scheduled turn around point and free cold water stop, I had rode 57 miles 3.5 hours and it was frickin hot. I thought to myself this is how you toughen up for any hot weather you get at the Ironman.

The entered my rides last hour and I immediately started worrying. I mean I didn't swim 2.4 miles before this ride and I was planning to go pass out on my couch after the ride not run a god awful full blown 26.2 miles. Oh no, this is not good. What had I signed myself up for?!?! The final ride statistics were 111 miles in 5:50 which is about 19.2 average speed. I felt totally wiped out. Calling NASports....I think I need a refund. I stumbled incoherently into my condo and looked at the Weatherbug temperature. It read 95 degrees with 48% humidity for a heat index of 100.

So I woke up late Sunday, 7am because the current day plan was swim for an hour, bike for 4 hours and then run for an hour. I'd be done around 2pm just like yesterday. It wasn't foggy woohoo but it was 75 and humid right out of the gate. The good thing about the day was there was a breeze so it felt cooler.

I packed up the Escape to drive over to the pool and then park for the ride/run portion. It's hard to run off the bike from my house because there's easily 15 minutes of dodging speed bumps, crappy roads and traffic lights at the end of the ride. So my legs really spin out easy and I'm pretty refreshed plus if I want to go over an hour on the run I have to deal with more traffic lights and the worst part of the run is there's no water. There's a park that has most of its roads closed to traffic on the weekends here. It also has bathrooms and water fountains.

I was clicking off a nice swim pace until the end and then it was a struggle. I swam 3300 yards and hopped out the pool. I got onto my bike with a different nutrition strategy. I just feel the Infinit isn't working as well as my old standby Cytomax so I decided to go gels and cytomax for the 4 hour nice and flat mellow ride.

The ride started and I immediately got passed by a girl. She was moving at a good clip. I figured I might as well follow and get the legs moving. She turned at the top of this little climb so I continued on my way. I decided to explore a slightly different route and was hoping I'd be able to find free water around the 2 hour point. I was only 45 minutes in when I stopped at a water fountain. I had already consumed 2 bottles. Uh-oh...this is going to be a tough day.

The new route was quite smooth and nice. The legs started to feel good and I was going at a relaxed pace. The day definitely felt cooler due to the slight breeze. As I approached the car, I was quite relaxed and felt I was going to have a good run. This notion came crashing down like the hopes of my Dodgers actually having a chance with Joe Torre at the helm this year with the first 10 steps of my run.

Oh crap, my body feels like total hell. Instead of running the first mile of my hour run, this feels like I've already run 18 miles during a marathon. It was just all out tiredness. My legs didn't hurt but I really felt dead all over. Wow, this is how the marathon is going to feel out of the gate. I'm not even going to get that first 10 miles where you feel invincible during the marathon. I just kept trudging along feeling like my new goal for the marathon portion of the Ironman is 4 hours.

I made a bathroom stop and about suffocated from the intense humidity and heat. I slugged forward trying to stay with it although I just wanted to quit. I kept thinking about all the Ironman finishers each year and just wondering if they suffer like this through the whole marathon. What an amazing feat. I shuffled along and got to my first water fountain. I downed a gel and drank as much as I could while splashing some on my head. I made my turn around point right at the 30 minute mark and proceeded back.

The gel with caffeine perked me up and I felt a little better. I decided to try to go with it and if I totally blew up and walked so be it. I decided to make another water stop and eat my 2nd gel about 15 minutes later for that final push to the car.

I got to the car with a total of 61 minutes and thought I was going to die. How am I supposed to run at least 2 something more hours...maybe I'm not going to be an Ironman. Overall, I figured my pace was probably 8 something miles and it just felt tough. Man I'm stupid if I think I have a chance of making a 3:15 marathon.

I stopped at a 7-Eleven on the way home for a slushie..er slurpie. It was so hot all the flavors were just pushing out syrup except pomegranate margarita. Oh well, it was cold and had sugar so I started downing as I finished my drive home.

My bad foot was hurting, my quads were sore and I have a new blood blister under a totally different toenail. Joy! I was so wiped out that I wasn't hungry at all. It took everything just to eat one plate of food. Before I crashed into bed, I measured my distance for the run portion and logged my bike stats as well. For the bike, I rode 77.7 miles in 4 hours for an average of just over 19mph. Not bad considering it felt pretty easy but there wasn't much climbing at all. I did the whole Runner's World gmap for the run and it was an 8.6 out and back which put my pace at 7:09. WTF!! I was and still am in shock. It felt so slow and hard. I'm totally confused.

2 months 15 days...

Too lazy

I ordered my Florida 70.3 photo today. I got the 3 photo page with my finish time. This is my first ever triathlon so it was worth the extra money for more of a keepsake. It will have my finish time on it so I had to hit the results page to see what my time was. The official results are posted. The official results allow all kinds of sorting which is really cool so I sorted on overall run time. I basically showed me that I was totally lazy on the bike and I'm a super slow swimmer.

I remember early on during the bike toning it down on purpose. I really just went through the bike easy. I can say now that I really was using this as a good feel for the IM distance. I don't care too much but it is funny looking at the results sorted by running time. There was only one swim slower than mine with a faster run. I was like minutes slower on the bike than everyone around my time on the run except for a woman between 18-24 who was almost exact with her bike and run as me.

During next year's Florida 70.3, I will really push the bike and see how that goes. It will be interesting to see how it affects the run. Next year's training will hopefully be different as an Ironman won't be looming causing to me to train like Rocky in Rocky IV when he fears for his life. Although, I think with my wetsuit the thought of drowning is now less likely. Even I'm completely spent at the 2 mile mark I can just float in the wetsuit to make it to the end.

I still haven't had the mental breakthrough on my run. I don't have the HTFU mental edge I used to have with running. I had it before the last two marathons which were my last two real running races. They destroyed that mental edge that I had used in a ton of previous races to put the hammer down. Now I run scared not wanting to put out that extra effort worried that I'll blow up and not be able to finish. If I can get my foot feeling good, I will need to put in quite a few killer tempo workouts to get it back. I'm hoping if I just go hard without caring if I totally get destroyed that it will come back. I'm going to need to rely on this during the marathon. I will need to be tough when the pain comes.

2 months 18 days...

Milestone and 90s movie flashback

I hit a new swimming milestone this morning. My longest swim of my short brief career so far, 3400 yards or 65 minutes of continuous swimming. My overall time was okay but the last few 100 yard splits were pretty pathetic even though it felt like I was doing a decent pace. I just think I wasn't pulling as hard because my body was tired. I really busted out some fast 100 splits at about the 2000 yard mark. I'm hoping I can extend my pace farther if I keep getting in these long swims. I need a 75 minute swim to feel easy so I'll be ready for that Ironman swim.

I went for a brick run after a hard bike ride yesterday around 1:30pm. My foot felt "okay". I notices a little twinge here and there but I was happy..until this morning when it feels a little sore. I iced the foot right after the run yesterday and I have my ice corn bag on it right now. This really sucks. I guess I'm not going to have to worry about overtraining for the marathon portion of the Ironman. I'll be lucky if I get in a couple of 18 mile runs at all the next 2 months or so. I think I'll be looking for a podiatrist via my health insurance soon. I hate doctors because they rarely understand endurance athletes.

I got back from my run at around 2pm and decided to check out the doppler radar. There was a mention of thunderstorms for the afternoon. That turned to a full blown tornado watch as this massive storm was head straight for DC. It was sunny and about 80 degrees around 3:30 and then it got dark and just starting pouring rain with intense wind.
I was wondering where Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were chasing the storm just waiting for a tornado to appear or the RV helmed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. His break out film before moving to his real parts like his Oscar winning role in Capote.

I can't see much from my condo's window except some big trees which were basically blowing sideways during the storm. I'm just glad I wasn't out on the bike or running when it happened because it easily rained about an inch in the 20 minutes that storm lasted.

Power was flickering and out in some locations just south of where I'm at. This morning on the way to the pool a bunch of street lights were out. School is out today because some schools don't have power. A total mess...and to think I thought I only had to worry about snow issues when moving here.

2 months 19 days...

Stronger or Fatter?

So I hoped on the scale after my killer swim workout this morning and it read 145lb. Ouch...that's 3 lbs in 3 days. I feel stronger on the bike and with today's swim I feel a little stronger in the water but I could just be fatter though. It's hard to tell. I wouldn't know how my run is going because I haven't run really since the half. I ran an easy 30 minutes on Memorial day but that's it. I'm going to try to do a brick run tomorrow and see how the foot handles it. I got 11 weeks left to get ready for the marathon part of the Ironman.

I still need to figure out how I'm getting to Canada. I have lots of options. I'm just not sure which one to take. I could fly into Seattle and rent a car = 6 hour drive at who knows what gas prices. I could fly into Vancouver BC and rent a car equals 4 hour drive at who knows what gas prices. I could fly into Kelowna BC and rent a car equals 45 minute drive but a significant heft to the ticket price for the airline. I can't seem to catch a break right now on saving money. I just got whacked by the state of Maryland yesterday.

I need to get my vehicle registered in the state because my insurance is coming due this month. In Maryland, you have to get an inspection. Totally lame...and my car failed because I have a big ole gouge on my front window from this massive rock. I think it happened when I was still married which was almost 4 years ago and it's totally fine but not my Maryland standards. So now I have to get a new front windshield then get reamed the DMV for the rest of the registration process. I could just drive uninsured and come post December 08 with an expired license. I rarely drive anyway. What a pain...I need to call my insurance company and see what to do about the front window glass.

I think my allergies are worse here in Maryland than Oregon. The 24 hour Claratin isn't even helping. My eyes constantly itch. I'm blowing my nose all the time and I can't even think clearly enough to come up with some gross analogy for that. I didn't have hardly any allergy trouble when I was down in Florida. I guess there must be a bunch of pollen running around up here in the Mid-Atlantic.

2 months 21 days...