173 Days and Counting....

It sure doesn't seem like very long til race day when I do this countdown thing... It feels like it was about 2 weeks ago that we were in Coeur d'Alene, worrying about the weather! I do have to admit though, that it is nice to have the race on the calendar this far out. It certainly helps with motivation, and having something to look forward to. And frankly, to have something to think about running indoors on the treadmill... Yuck.

Stats for today:

Training:

51 minutes on the treadmill, 6mph, 2.5% incline, 5.1 miles.

Nutrition:

2 nutri-grain bars, one can of ensure, 2 granola bars, 2 packages of fruit snacks, baked chicken fetticini, and one each fun size skittles/starburst candy (Still on the halloween leftovers).

I updated the links to the right for the A and B races for 2010, but after 2009, I am seriously re-thinking which one is going to be my A race. I REALLY enjoy the process of preparing for and racing the full Ironman. It is such an emotional and exciting process, and the culmination of all 6 months of effort NEVER disappoints. Race week is a blast, and the race itself is an amazing thing. But...

I found last year that as much as I enjoy Ironman, I am better at the 70.3 (half Ironman) distance. It is easier on the body, and though still painful, is a challenge that doesn't leave me limping gingerly for 4 days afterward. :-) My fastest IM time is 14 hours 31 minutes, and my 70.3 in August, on a tough bike course, was 6 hours 9 minutes. I was proud of both finish times, but in the 70.3 I felt like I had more in the tank, and could have pushed it a little more!

So, while I am much more proud of the full IM finishes (the distance, even when you've done it, is mind numbing to think about), I think I am a better RACER in the shorter distance.

And lets be honest, they are both still VERY challenging!

So, while this is the "off" season for most athletes, I am getting started thinking about how summer 2010 will shape up, and starting the "Iron Journey." St. George is May 1st, the first IM race of the year! That leaves June through September for me to evaluate where I really want to RACE!!

175 Days and Counting....

I skipped posting yesterday, though I did get in some training time... It was an interesting day as I swam for the first time in 3 months! We joined a brand new YMCA by our house, and said goodbye to the disgusting LA Fitness... The Y actually has some neat programs for Little Miss Cara, including daycare and a kid's only pool, in addition to the lap pool. SCORE!

Training:
5 minutes warm up (300 meters), and then 25 minutes straight at an RPE 7 (rate of perceived exertion, scale of 1-10 if you are new to following). The effort was MUCH harder than it should have been (I wasn't going that fast), but I guess that is the price of 3 months of cookies, beer, and candy. :-)

Diet was okay yesterday:
2 Blueberry nutri-grain bars, one can of ensure, one bowl of granola, and a bunch of chicken wings with 2 Bud Lights (GO WINGDOME!!).



Today was a light/recovery day. My arms were definitely sore from swimming, though overall I felt good. I have been feeling twinges of what MIGHT be planar fascitis in both my feet (switched the shoes I wear to work, and that seems to have helped), and tendinitis in my left knee? Take those "diagnosis" with a grain of salt. I am not a hypochondriac, but the Smokin Hot Wife is a physical therapist, and is intimidating smart. She concurs with the possibility of both, so I am sensitive to going too heavy too fast with training. Nice and slow, just like my races!

Training:
31 minutes on the treadmill, 6mph throughout, and 3% incline.

Nutrition:
1 nutri-grain bar, one bowl of granola, 2 bbq beef sandwiches and a small handful of potato chips, and vegetable beef soup with goldfish crackers. I also tossed in a handful of Tootsie Rolls left over from Halloween.

177 Days and Counting....

I am finding it VERY hard to get off the couch these days! But, I did a little better today on the diet... I was pretty inspired, and not by the regular stuff (good music on the radio, or an ironman clip on YouTube).





I have a great friend who has taken on a HUGE lifestyle change in the last 12 months, and is currently working on getting ready for a 70.3 race next summer. He has lost 87 lbs. in the las 12 months, and posted some before/after photos of his effots. Needless to say, it was impressive!





So, today's stats:








Training:


50 minutes on the treadmill, 5.2 miles, 2.5% incline.








Diet:


2 blueberry nutri-grain bars, one can of Ensure, one can of vegetable beef soup with goldfish crackers, a bowl of granola, a handful of pistachios, and a few Doritos, and a packet of skittles.

Lazy Ironman!! 6 months and counting...

WOW!! It has been almost 3 months since I last posted... What happened?! New job, new baby, more travel, and less racing.

But today, with the change for daylight savings time, my internal clock also changed. Instead of it being November 1st when the sun rose today, my thought waking up this morning was verbalized by the Smokin Hot Wife.

"6 months exactly until Ironman St. George!"

I was super excited, but also a little nervous. I've eaten WAY more candy/ice cream/beer in the last 3 months than I have in the last 3 years. I took my "off season" a little to the extreme, and am coming in with a bit less fitness than the last couple years. But, I've been working on the dreadmill the last few weeks here and there, and in my first training session today, I was pleasantly surprised.

I have a few updates to make to this blog page to get it up to date, but all in all, the sentiment remains the same. I am a proud back of the pack athlete, and going for IM finish #4. I'll keep track of training and nutrition here, and make every attempt to not bore the snot out of those of you following. With that said, here we go!

Training:

45 minutes on the treadmill, 2.5% incline, 4.7 miles (about 9:30 per mile).

Food:

Nutri-grain bar, granola bar, 2 cups of coffee, baked cheese tortellini with red sauce, BBQ pork sandwiches with some potato chips, and a bucket of leftover Halloween candy.

See what I mean about bad habits since Lake Stevens?! Ugh... I have some work to do.

Is that all you've got?!

So, I've been VERY lazy about sharing recently, but I wish to jump back on the wagon for those of you still with me! And if you're excuse the philosophical mumbo-jumbo, I'll explain a bit about my absence...

I absolutely enjoy triathlon, especially long courses (ironman and 70.3 distance). Why? They are HARD. I am not skilled, I am not fast, and I don't posess some of the natural gifts that other athletes do. The training is long, the distance is almost unfathomable, and the race itself is guaranteed to expose any flaws in my preparation. BUT I LIKE IT. I like that it is not an instant gratification; you have to put in months of physical and mental practice. If you don't, the race will chew you up and spit you out. You just can't fake it. That appeals to me.

BUT... for as much as I like it, I also need a break in the routine. After being in this for 3 years now, I've learned that there is a pattern to these breaks. The 4 weeks following an Ironman? I don't want $#!+ to do with triathlon! I don't want to train, I don't want to keep track of my equipment, and I don't want to plan travel/food/logistics for my race.

I DO want to eat ice cream/bratwurst/hamburgers/bacon/beer/cookies/beer/cookies/beer (smokin hot wife introduced me to the 50lb. box of Otis Spunkmeyer cookie dough at Costco).

But after a while, I need a break from that too, and triathlon again calls for me softly... she lures me back into my old, comfortable routine. That routine in 2009 was to do IM CDA in June (DONE!), take my break, and then come back and do IM 70.3 in Lake Stevens in August. That race took place yesterday, and this is a brief recap (if I get the itch, I'll write a full report and post that, but I have beer and brats calling my name first).

For starters, here are my stats:

Swim 35:12
Bike 3:24:15
Run 2:01:06
Total 6:09:13
Overall rank 541 of 1189
Division rank 52 of 111

A fantastic race for me! My goal was to try and go under 6 hours, something I have never done, and pretty lofty considering my full ironman times; I thought I'd be closer to 7 hours. But I came VERY close, and am very proud. Honestly, if I could shave 10 minutes off the bike, I'm there... and I STILL have a TON of work to do on the bike. It just isn't my best event, which does nothing except provide ammo to keep getting better!

The most fun part of this race however, was that my kid sister from Utah, who is brand new to triathlon, drove up to take part in this race. She has some guts to make a half-ironman her first race, but she didn't let that bother her! She did the registration/drive the bike course/bike check-in bit, and suited up for her first ever race on Sunday morning....

As a big brother/fellow racer this added a whole new element to the race. Not only was I making my own plans to hit the gas pedal in the race to see what I am capable of, I was worrying about my little sister! Will her bike chain break? Will she get psyched out on the swim (hell, will she get the crap kicked out of her on the swim, a "non-contact" sport)? Will she enjoy the race, or just be miserable? Can she handle the unpredictable weather in the PNW? I was in a strange place, the mindset of the triathlon spectator! Watching the clock, and staring up the course for hours desperately trying to find a glimpse of the uniform that I recognized, only to see her for about 4 seconds... then spending the next hours waiting for her to come back, hoping she was alright!

Well, as you probably know, our worries will wear us out if we let them... Control the variables you can, and then enjoy the ride, right?! Well, she did just that, and had a nailed it. Her first ever triathlon finish was a half-ironman! 70.3 miles, in 7 hours 26 minutes. She had a great day, and a great time... For proof, here she is smiling at the end!

CONGRATULATIONS KIDDO!!!!!

In other news, the smokin hot wife proved herself AGAIN as the world's smartest ironman spectator. Even with a stroller and an infant, she ALWAYS manages to navigate the crowd and the course and show up smiling and cheering right when you need her. How doe she do it? ESP? A crystal ball? Some magic powers reserved for beautiful, intimidatingly intelligent, triathlon-savvy babes? I don't know. But if you ever participate in a race, and want some support, you need to contact her. She's truly amazing people.

The REAL Real World

This blog post has nothing to do with triathlon, per se, other than how most of us age groupers manage to fit this enormously time-consuming hobby into our lives... And how it sometimes takes a back seat.


My wife and I have been discussing day care options for when she returns to work in September. We have not put 100% effort into FINDING day care, as we are (like most first-time parents, I would guess), reluctant to face the reality of not getting to spend all day/every day with our cute little girl. But today we woke up, ate our Wheaties, and figured we would just slay the dragon and get things done. I actually had planned on doing a medium length run this afternoon when we had finished.


I did not run today.


Searching for a day care that you trust, it turns out, is a gut wrenching, appaling, eye-opener of a reality check. I know there are LOTS of really awesome and well-run day care centers in the world; this isn't a generic commentary on the industry. I can say with the utmost confidence, however, that we visited ALL of the worst that have managed to be licensed in Washington state.


It felt like we were touring drug-addict training facilities, and sweat-shop employee orientations.


In one facility, a disheveled "director" met us at the entrance, wearing sweatpants, slippers, and a giant men's shirt (she was not a man). She had either not bothered to comb her hair for the day, or I am just not up to speed on "director" hair styles. Based on the facility, I would guess it just wasn't combed.


On the tour she mentioned about 3 times for us to ignore the "dirty mess" because they "just hadn't cleaned up in a few days."


"Um, is that why it smells like rotten beef and cat piss in here?" I wanted to ask (but didn't).




Then, we went into the infants room, where one of the "teachers" was asleep on the floor. I know she was asleep and not dead, because she got up and started playing with a baby when she realized we were in the room. The fire exit was propped open by a crib with no fewer than 4 infants in it, and some lady was playing with another 2 kids just sitting on the ground outside. The "director" pointed at that scene, and said "That is our fire drill crib (WTF is THAT?!)... And Jane there, her English is pretty good." She said it with pride.


Then she asked the floor-sleeper if they had any room for another infant; oddly, after about 5 minutes of discussing it, they couldn't decide if they had an opening or not. Why the floor sleeper would know this info, and the "director" would not is still a mystery to me. I also wondered why she didn't ask "Jane." After all, her English is pretty good.


So, we went back to the front door, and politely asked for a rate sheet, as we had other facilities to look at. The receptionist gave us a rate sheet, and in a moment of full disclosure, told us they had recently had a violation with the state. Where a child was pulled over the fence. By one arm. By an employee who had worked there for one hour.


So, we looked at a LOT of day care sites today, and we did actually find one. The only one where baby girl smiled at the infant room teachers, and where they spoke intelligently and politely to us.


And did not sleep on the floor.



I also got a funny Facebook response to a shorter version of this rant... A friend said this reminded him of the movie Mrs. Doubtfire, where Robin Williams calls pretending to be a string of terrible babysitters. At one point he yells into the phone, "IT GETS BACK IN THE CAGE OR IT GETS THE HOSE!"



Yeah, it felt a little like that!

70 Degrees and Cloudy

Is the current forecast for one week from today, for Lake Stevens 70.3! 10% chance of showers as well; I can live with all that... Hopefully it holds up!

I am starting to get quite excited for this race, as I have a bit of a different mindset going into this one. All my previous iron and 70.3 races I have had the mindset of "train to finish, and have fun." This will be the first time I am really going to push and see what I can do... I am hoping for sub-6, which for me is a pretty challenging goal. Not that I haven't tried hard in the other races, but when you're dropping a truck-load of money on plane tickets, hotels, food, etc. for a week long vacation, you want to make sure you finish the damn race! This one is in our backyard, so I am excited to see what I can do when I push it a little harder, with no pressure to live with the disappointment of traveling 2000 miles for a DNF.

We'll see what happens!

In other news, results for the swim on Friday were posted this morning...

I finished in 33:12, and #8 overall out of 51 (men and women), and #6 out of 13 in my division (men's wetsuit) in the 1.2 mile race.

AND

Smoking Hot Wife finished #13 out of 23 in her division! A SUPERIOR performance for her first post-baby race, AND her first open water swim in over a year.