IM-Everyman

In the Home Stretch

2009-05-08T14:14:00.002-06:00

Now we have raced into May I can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel which is both exciting and nerve-racking. I have worked out pretty hard and while I am excited to see the performance benefits there is still a twinge of doubt. Did I do everything I could? I have 22 days until Dam to Dam which I consider the offical start to my two week taper before the Ironman Kansas 70.3.The week leading up to that is a little lighter than usual but I figure the 20K will be a nice place to start my transition into the taper. The hardest part about this time of year for me is that I typically tell myself that missing workouts is ok because I need to be well rested. There are certainly times when that is true and rest is needed, I often use rest as an excuse to not do anything. There is a difference. The last thing I want to do is to start putting on the brakes when I should be charging.

Drake Relays on the Roads Half Marathon

2009-04-28T09:42:00.006-06:00

Cruising into week 17 on the training plan and things seem to be going pretty well. I have been pretty bike heavy and not running as much so I took on a couple of races recently to get some timing back and get my mindset back into racing mode. On Saturday I ran in the Drake Relays on the Roads Half Marathon and I really got a lot out of the experience. First, I really enjoyed the run. We had an 85 degree day on Friday and by Friday night storms rolled in and the high forecasted for the race were 40s and 50s. So I told myself before I hit the sack on Friday that I would be ready to run no matter what the conditions. Race morning was chilly but really not that bad considering. It did rain briefly a couple of minutes before the start but I don't think it bothered anyone. I really didn't know where I was at pace-wise for a race like this so my goal was more general than it might typically be. I was shooting for a 1:30 to 1:35 but I wasn't going to kill myself to get it. I wanted to try and stay relaxed concentrate on form. Up until now my longest run week was 33 miles at the beginning of March and besides that I have rarely made it out of the teens for weekly run mileage and my longest run was a 10 miler during that 33 mile week. So I was anticipating a reasonably difficult time once I got closer to that 10 mile mark. The first 4 miles felt ok and I was right on my race pace and felt extremely relaxed. The first half of the race is mostly flat and one stretch where the elevation drops relatively quickly. I had only glanced at the course map briefly but assumed that the elevation change back up would be just as quick. Around mile 5 started a slow ascent that took several miles and was gradual. That really took quite a bit out of me because my quads were a little tight because of a heavy bike week. I powered through knowing that when we leveled off I would be fine but I know my pace took a bit of a hit during that stretch. Once things leveled off I felt a lot better and settled in comfortably. Around mile 11 I started to feel it a little bit but I decided to try and hold my pace and suffer a little bit but not too much. I held my pace and finished just a few minutes off my goal time and more importantly I can take the experience and use it to prepare for Ironman Kansas in June.

The most difficult thing for me at this point is that it would be really easy to look at my training and my results and the results of friends that ran and try to tinker with it too much. I know that I can run the half a lot faster and I could certainly up my running mileage and my overall training time to try and improve that much more before that first race but in the end I am not training for a half marathon. I am training for an Ironman and getting too caught up in these other races and where I rank next to other competitors could easily derail what I am trying to do at Ironman Wisconsin in September. I am exactly where I need to be at this point in the season.

Why Not?

2009-04-20T13:37:00.003-06:00

Have you ever been sitting at a bar late on a Friday night after 6 beers and have someone talk you into running a race the next morning? I am not a big drinker but I enjoy myself from time to time but almost never the night before a race, but who could pass up a charity race for a good cause just a short drive from where they live, even if it was only 7 hours later? Months ago I thought that having a few tune-up 5Ks in the spring would be nice because they are short and would help snap me out of the rut of a winter of base miles so I decided that I would give it a go. The weather was pretty decent for running with temps in the high 40s or low 50s, I am not sure which. It was pleasant either way. There was also a light sprinkle about 8 minutes after the start which was nice. The race was just off of highway 141 in Urbandale and it was a small race but an enthusiastic group of organizers putting it on. I ran with a buddy of mine who is a strong runner and I thought for sure based on an eyeball of the competition that he would win. The race wasn't really advertised so not many typical runners were participating so my buddy would just need to deal with one or two people possibly to come out with the win. The race started and my legs were really tight. Probably from the 200 miles I had in the saddle this week but I didn't let it bother me too much. My buddy and this other guy took off kind of fast and I settled in behind them. At the 1/2 mile point my buddy separated himself from the other runner who was slowly coming back to me and by mile 1 I had passed him as well. By the 1.5 mile point my buddy was 200 yards ahead of me and I was 400 yards ahead of the 3rd place guy. My buddy extended his lead going away and I was out of striking distance so I spent the last mile concentrating on my form and came in a comfortable second. There were not any official times that I am aware of but I had my watch running and I would guess that my buddy finished in around 19 minutes, maybe just under while I was just under 20 minutes. I was ok with that and I fully expect to drop a few more minutes off of that by race season but it felt great to get out there and be pushed by other people.

A different kind of transition

2009-04-17T14:30:00.004-06:00

I am not sure how many of you approach your triathlon season when it comes to planning your training but I am guessing a number of you are just like me. In the late fall, winter, and early spring you focus on building a base and at some point in the spring you start to transition into a training phase where you can start to do more focused training efforts that will better prepare you for races. That is what I am currently preparing to do. This weekend wraps up my building phase and Monday I start do workouts that will start to look more and more like race simulations so that there are no surprises during that first race. Up to this point it has been pretty much broad strokes like, run this many miles today, and swim this many laps tomorrow and ride this many miles that day. Starting Monday it becomes more like Running Pyramids on a local track with predetermined splits and increasing levels of intensity. To be honest, I am really looking forward to it. I have built a pretty strong base and I have approximately 7 weeks of tweaking until that first week and I pretty excited about where I am at this point in my training.

What to do...

2009-04-15T14:56:00.004-06:00

I am not sure what everybody else thinks on days like today and by "days like today" I mean beautiful spring days. It is awesome outside and I have a pretty basic brick to do tonight but I also want to spend some time running around the backyard with the kids. In the end I know what I am going to do but for some reason I keep trying to work the angles to try and improve my set of options. Overall, all my options are pretty darn good so I am going to stress over them. I am going to go home and play in the backyard until it is dinner time. Then I am going to eat and hop on the trainer for two hours then run on the treadmill for 30 minutes. This is similar to what I did last night except tonight I am going to do it early enough that my wife won't be begging me to finish so that she can go to sleep. Apparently I am a little heavy footed on the treadmill and the pounding can be heard in the bedroom. I don't notice it much since I typically have my I-pod up and running with me but I am afraid that me not hearing it doesn't make it any more quiet for my wife.

I did get a pretty easy 2200 meters in at the pool over my lunch break which was nice. The pool at the YMCA was a little on the warm side which didn't bother me to much but I definitely heard some chatter about it from other swimmers. I hate swimming at the YMCA on my lunch break because the Walnut Creek YMCA gets so busy. I prefer doing my swims in the morning but lately we have had sick kids moving in and out of the bedroom late at night so the snooze on the alarm gets hit before I really know what is going on. So I swim on my lunch break and I wait for someone to get done before I jump into a lane that has only one other person in it. During this time you pretty much never get a lane to yourself and there is a decent chance that someone is going to ask you to circle swim. I don't know about you but I hate, hate, hate circle swimming. No one ever swims the same speed and people are stopped at different times and it just becomes a big mess. It is one thing if you are part of a training group to circle swim because you are all typically doing the same workout and are with swimmers of approximately the same ability so the negatives are minimized. Not on lunch at the Y. I don't think that this is something that I will get passed so call it a character flaw or whatever. Circle swimming stinks.

Good Start to the Week

2009-04-14T09:56:00.002-06:00

I had a pretty good start to the week getting in 70 miles on the trainer yesterday. I actually was in one place the entire time but you understand what I mean. It felt pretty good since it was the first time in the saddle after a few days of no bike time. Felt great afterwards almost as if I didn't peddle at all. I was a little tight this morning but it wasn't any different than usual and I felt good in the pool. I was expecting a little more soreness and it just hasn't happened. Of course sometimes it takes a couple of days until I feel the full brunt of a long workout but right now I am pleased.

Today is an exciting day in that my daughter starts soccer. Having played soccer from 4 years old all the way up to Men's league myself, I couldn't be more excited to see my little girl strap on the cleats. Of course it is pee-wee soccer and she will be head to toe in pink with a bunch of other 4 years probably dressed the same, but it will still be fun to watch. The trick for me is to sneak my run in at some point. Probably try to get some time on the treadmill here at work over lunch so that I don't have to try and squeeze it in tonight after soccer practice. After soccer practice is more time in the saddle. Busy busy busy.

Ahhhh, Easter!

2009-04-13T09:17:00.004-06:00

I always think of Easter as one of the first events of spring. Families get together and usually it is one of the first nice weather weekends of the year and maybe one of the first times you might get outside on your bike. I had big plans to get outside on my bike this weekend but I needed to negotiate the weekend fiestivities that were planned with relatives from out of town as well as Easter Egg Hunts and Church. Let's just say that when the dust settled I got in an 8 mile run on Saturday followed by basketball at a nearby park with nephews and a lot of pork products consumed an Easter Buffet. All things considered I had a great weekend and this week I am going to get back to the business of training.

The plan for this week is includes 8800 meters in the pool, 340 miles on the bike, and 41 miles of running. I feel refreshed and ready to go. I am less than 2 weeks away from the Drake Relays on the Roads Half Marathon which I am going to treat as a training run so I will continue to work my regular training schedule through that event with one exception. The exception will be that on raceday I will not do a long bike ride. Maybe an easy late day one to loosen the legs a little bit. That is almost two weeks away so I am not going to think too much more about it.

TGIF!

2009-04-10T12:52:00.004-06:00

Thank God it is Friday. It has been a pretty hectic week for this guy. It started out great with a really great workout on Monday and went down hill from there. Overnight Monday my daughter got sick and by Tuesday morning I realized that I was sick so Tuesday nothing happened. Wednesday I didn't feel 100% but felt great compared to Tuesday. I went out for a run that was intended to be 10 miles but at the 2.5 mile mark my intestines told me that I needed to head back home which I did. Of course I didn't bike either because I didn't feel great. Yesterday I got up and did my swim which felt great. 2200 yards and I felt great doing it. Last night though I felt exhausted so I skipped the run and the bike I had scheduled. Today is a beautiful day here in Iowa so I am going to get outside this afternoon and get a 6 mile run in and sit on the trainer for a couple of hours. Both are going to be easy because I have a long workout day planned for tomorrow which I am actually looking forward to.

One thing I started to do this week that I have never done before was I started logging all of my food and their calories. I have it all set up nicely in a spreadsheet showing my basal metabolic rate, calories consumed per day, calories burned from exercise (estimated of course) and my weight everyday. The main reason for doing this is that I am working out a lot more and I am at a pretty good weight but would prefer to be a little lighter going into the race season. That being said, my diet had been pretty decent for the most part but at the end of the day I do not think that I was eating enough. I think I was eating so little that my body actually started doing the exact opposite of what I wanted it to. So, working under the assumption that I need to eat more I decided to try and work towards a better balance of the food that I was eating so on the advice of a friend I am taking a look at the Zone diet. I don't like calling it a diet because it is more like a manual for how your body uses food and at the end of the day the word "diet" for me is associated with restricting food consumption when in fact I will be eating more as a part of the program. I am sure that they sell products and the whole bit but it isn't necessary and I do not. We already keep a lot of the foods that I need to eat in the house. The difference will be balance. I am not sure how effective it is yet because I just started but I can tell you that so far I am not as hungry and I feel like I have a better understanding of how everything I eat affects my body. You might hear me chat about this from time to time so I might as well spill the beans on my current stats so we can see how it is working. I am currently 5'11" and as of this morning I weighed 182 lbs. My low weight last year was in the 173-175 lbs range and I think that 165-170 might be a better weight for me although I will be happy getting down to where I was last year. I am not sure it is realistic to cut weight down to 165 right now when I should be trying to get stronger in each of the triathlon disciplines. In case any one is curious, I did buy a paperback book on the zone that I am using as a reference although I am sure that the internet is saturated with information on the Zone. The book is called "A Week in the Zone" by Barry Sears Ph.D.

Ouch!

2009-04-08T11:07:00.003-06:00

Decided to start blogging again since I am pretty much consumed by triathlons these days. I have two months until the first triathlon of the year and I am really excited. I have been working out quite a bit in preparation for the season. My big race of the year is Ironman Wisconsin in September. Ultimately I will sacrifice performance at any earlier season triathlons in order to do well there. That should not be an issue though. I have a couple of sprint triathlons on the calendar as well as Ironman Kansas and the Hy-Vee triathlon. I started logging all my workouts the last week of January and here is where we are. I have 43.31 miles of swimming, 1182 miles in the saddle and 223 miles of running. Numbers I am proud of but still don't seem like enough. I am lightyears ahead of my numbers last year and last year I thought I had a decent year so hopefully the time translates to better performances.

So this week, I had a great day of working out Monday. I started with 30 miles on the bike in the morning, 4 miles on the treadmill at lunch and 30 miles on the bike in the evening. Because I am focusing a lot on the bike and that takes up a lot of my available workout time, I try to make my runs, even on the treadmill, as intense as I can. For me that means hard intervals. So on Monday I had a warmup 10 minute jog at 7.0 and moved 8.0 for two minutes, then to 9.0 for two minutes, then to 10.0 for two minutes, then to 11.0 for two minutes. The 11.0 was a struggle but I felt ok. After the 11.0 I dropped to 5.0 to recover for three minutes. Then I started over at 8.0, then 9.0, then 10.0, then I skipped the 11.0 and tried to hold on at 12.0 for as long as I could which was just short of two minutes. Then I dropped to 7.0 to cool down for another 10 minutes before wrapping it all up. Ideally this would have been an easier workout but considering I had already had a 30 mile bike under my belt I felt pretty good. Still had a 30 mile bike planned in the evening and I still felt great.

Tuesday was a wasted day with my daughter and I being sick. I was so excited to build off the great workouts on Monday that I was really disappointed. Got nothing done. Sat around all day with my entire body aching. At first I attributed it to the workouts but it was clear by afternoon it was much more than that. Got a good nights rest and today I feel like a million dollars compared to yesterday. To get the rest I need I skipped my morning pool session and decided I am going to get in a 10 mile run in this afternoon and then sit on the trainer for a couple of hours tonight. It is a beautiful day out so getting outside to run should be nice.

Is Enough Enough?

2007-07-31T14:35:00.000-06:00

Well after a much too long hiatus from the blog I decided to start back into it. Part of being an Everyman is getting lazy and letting something go for a few weeks until you can swing yourself back around so here I am. The nice thing about the blog is that it makes me feel guilty to continue to write in it if I am not doing my training. Guilt is a pretty powerful motivator and almost as powerful as fear. When you are preparing for an Ironman chances are both will come into play. I have 2.5 months until the Hawaiian Ironman and a little less than two months until I start my taper and I am nervous that I am not doing enough. I have been following my training plan pretty close but have stepped up the running a little bit because it didn’t feel like I was doing enough. I have had some pretty long running days which have hurt but felt great when I was done and I have had to switch around my schedule anytime life gets in the way. I need to spend some more time on the bike and I will try to do so in the coming weeks if I can manage it. The wife and I were able to sneak away for the weekend (an adult-only weekend) and actually run in a road race together when the typical requires one of us to become cheerleader and kid-wrangler. We ran in the BIX 7 in Davenport Iowa. We had a great time and enjoyed every step of the race. I think it helped that everyone kept telling us how hard and hilly the race was because we were prepared for the worst and really enjoyed the “not so bad”. Coming up, my wife has a triathlon at the end of August called the CY-MAN in Ames IA and a friend has challenged me to run in an Endurance Race being held at a state park nearby. I am looking forward to the endurance race because it should be hard and I think that will help me mentally going into Hawaii. We are going to do the Northface Endurance Midwest 50 miler at Big Creek State Park on Labor Day weekend. The run will easily be double than any distance I have run so far but it shouldn’t take me as long as the Ironman will so I think it will help a great deal mentally. The nice thing about races like that is that speed isn’t really an issue so much as surviving. In the end, that is all I want to do.

Hy-Vee, Shop Hy-Vee

2007-06-19T13:18:00.000-06:00

What an awesome event the Hy-Vee triathlon ended up being. Anyone who had a chance to participate in the event had to go away happy. Even for the age groupers it felt like a big time race and I will do it again in a flash. I have talked with a number of people that were spectators that have asked me about doing the race next year. I am certainly not an authority but the knew I competed and they were interested in doing so next year. These are non-triathletes looking to get involved because of the way this race was managed. The only thing I didn’t like about the event was that the run course didn’t have mile markers anywhere so I never knew exactly how far I had ran until I finished. What a great event.

Now that my triathlon month is over (1 sprint tri, 1 Olympis tri, 1 Half Ironman) is over I can settle back into my training for Kona. I definitely improved by race #3 but the problem with recognizing areas of improvement with three triathlons scheduled so close together is that you don’t have a lot of time to work on them. I am looking forward to putting in a lot of miles and some long bricks over the next couple of months because I think that will help me the most. I also think the training plan that I am following is a little light on the running and biking mileage so I am going to pick it up in those areas.

One Day at a Time

2007-06-12T09:00:00.000-06:00

Well, I like to try and get a post out there everyday during the week but I promised myself I wouldn’t think about triathlon for a couple of days because my mother told always told me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say then to not say anything at all. Yes, I had a rough weekend. In addition to a 4 hour road trip with a 4 month old and a two year old (they were wonderful actually) I competed in a Half Ironman as a part of the Liberty Triathlon at Lake Independence in Minnesota. I truly wasn’t ready for the race and knew I wouldn’t be this early in the season but part of validating my lottery spot in Kona was completing a Half Ironman or longer. Since no other Half IM worked into my schedule until late August, I decided to bite the bullet early rather than wait until the last minute and risk having something unexpected happening and not having a backup. So, it was my second weekend in a row competing in a triathlon and the conditions were perfect. I found the event was run really well and I got there in plenty of time and had no problems in the transition area like at the Pigman.

It was in Minnesota so of course it was a wetsuit legal race and I brought it along this week. I use a body glove wetsuit that is really meant for water skiing and I suspect that this is a less than ideal wetsuit for triathlon but I figure keeping warm and being a little more buoyant outweigh any issues with the suit. I adjusted to the water pretty quickly but swimming in a wetsuit is something you have to really prepare yourself for and I don’t do that very well. Once the race got underway I felt I was swimming pretty well. I had a guy swim up my back like he was going for a ride and then a back-stroker smacked me along side the head. That is all to be expected so I didn’t let it bother me. I got about half way into the 1.2 mile swim when I let up and started breast stroking and felt the neck of the wetsuit a little too constricting and panicked when I couldn’t loosen the strap. I calmed myself down and convinced myself to ignore it since drowning in a Minnesota lake was not the way I wanted to go. I muscled through the swim in a time I was ok with, but not as fast as I would have liked.

In the transition area I felt pretty good and since my goal wasn’t time so much as just finishing I decided to not press to hard so I talked with some friends that came to the race and of course my wife was there taking pictures. I loaded up on the bike and took off. The bike was a two loop technical route that was really difficult in my mind. On the stretches where it was not hilly, it was really windy. If I had to guess, I would say in the 30 to 40 mph range at some points. I hoofed it pretty well for the first loop hitting 34 mph coming down one hill and averaging in the 21 mph range for the first 26 miles or so. Coming back around for the second loop, me and about 12 to 15 riders missed a turn and got off course. I figured it out pretty soon since we found ourselves going the opposite direction of some riders. While in hindsight I could have continued going backwards since it was a loop and it probably would have been the same distance, I didn’t want to take my chances. So I stopped, talked to a nice police woman directing traffic for the event and she told me that a few people had said the same thing so she called to a race dispatch and asked about it. The end result was that I went back and got back on course and it cost me an extra 3 miles and 5 or 6 minutes of standing still (it was a pleasant break). I didn’t want to take any chances since this was my validation race and I wasn’t too concerned about time. At the 42 miles mark I hit a strong headwind and found myself going 9 mph for an extended period of time which totally zapped me. I was still unsure about how much extra mileage my earlier gaffe was going to cost me so I was not sure if I had 14 more miles or 20. I just kept my head down and plugged away until the turn around where I could pick up the pace a little bit. The entire bike route, although very hill and difficult to ride, was very pretty with lots of big beautiful homes. I distracted myself by trying to get lost in the detail of some of these homes. I also played the alphabet game as well and that didn’t help as much.

When I got to T2, I was pretty shot but trying to keep my spirits up. I was wondering how I was going to complete this half marathon since I had only run this distance once this year and never after getting off the bike. I decided to go with the run-walk strategy until I loosened up a little bit. The run was on a bike trail and stayed in the park. It was really nice and my nutrition was pretty good because I had a lot of good energy even though my whole body hurt. I did pass a guy early on the run that was a little too chatty for me considering that I was a little irritable and I didn’t want to be the distraction for some weirdo that could derail my whole race if I let him stay close enough to keep talking. During the run a lot of people were on their way back and most everyone was pleasant and encouraging. I got to the turnaround and got a drink from the turnaround aid station and walked and talked for about 20 minutes with a fellow competitor. We were about the same age and we both had young children so our talk dealt mainly with struggling to get workouts in with family and active wives as well. It was interesting hearing someone deal with the same thing I do. I found out later, my wife and his talked briefly as they waited for us to finish. After 20 minutes I started running and he hung back to run with a couple of others that were moving up behind us. The last 6 miles I was completely by myself and did more walking then running. Between miles 10 and 13, I started to question the sanity of competing in events like this. Then I expanded on that to question why anyone would want to even run in a 5K. I was not having any fun. I sucked it up and ran the last mile to the finish line where my wife and kids were waiting. Shelby ran the last quarter mile with me and I was pretty happy to finish so I did a cartwheel across the line. I went up to the food and got some water and a bite of foon and sat down at a picnic table. Now I really began to feel miserable. Don’t get me wrong. I felt pretty miserable during the race but I was ignoring all of that at the time. I had a couple of pretzels and a bite of pasta but that was all I could take. We went back to our friend’s house and I took a nap while Mike cooked and my wife and Meredith ran to the store. I didn’t sleep much because now the sunburn was starting to sting. You see, in the excitement of the morning I didn’t put on any sunscreen which is a bad idea for an event where you are going to spend hours and hours out in the sun.

I felt pretty good on Sunday considering and I felt like a million dollars yesterday despite some heel pain that began the instant I got off the bike. Now, despite a wicked farmers tan, I am getting ready for the Hy-Vee Triathlon this weekend in Des Moines. It is just an Oly so I am going to have some fun with it. After that I have decided that I am going to go through my training plan and squeeze out some more miles so that I can do my best in Kona. Miles, miles and more miles. My complete frustration with racing has turned into excitement. I pushed myself this weekend and knowing that much more about my limits is going to serve me well in my preparation for Kona. I know I have a lot to do but I am looking forward to it.

Good job out of the folks at the Liberty Tri.

Ugh!

2007-06-07T10:01:00.000-06:00

Now that I am back into the swing of things and the memory of the Pigman is starting to fade a little bit, I have become a little more disappointed with my performance. I was prepared but didn’t step up to the plate like I should have. Not too mention that I came crashing down to reality about where I am in the grand scheme of things in the triathlon world in central Iowa. I have a lot of work ahead of me. I have decided that I am going to really turn it up.

Back In the Saddle Again

2007-06-05T14:07:00.000-06:00

After a short break from the Pigman Tri, I started back at it yesterday. I managed to get in a nice easy 30 minute run yesterday which felt pretty good. On my lunch break today I got in a 1700 swim. A nice hour long bike is also on tap for this afternoon once I get home from work. I am still in a taper mode because I have the Liberty Half-Ironman Triathlon this weekend which might just kill me. I think my success this weekend is going to be the result of being mentally prepared because the “hay is in the barn” so to speak and anything I do right now physically can only hurt me on race day. That being said, I read this article in the new issue of Runner’s World about this Japanese fellow that recently completed something close to his 500th marathon. He draws his inspiration from the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei. I am not going in to detail about these folks but I have provided a link that explains what these monks do. In a sense they take a different approach to running that allows them to do some pretty amazing things. In the end, I need to train myself to think differently during some of these events because it should not be about enduring pain for as long as you can. It should be about enjoying the moment and feeling alive because not everyone can do what we do.

Race Day Recap-Pigman Sprint

2007-06-04T14:32:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a very educational day for me on a number of levels. It was my first triathlon of the season, the Pigman Sprint, and my first time doing this race. First let me say that the weather was great and the event was very well run from start to finish.

My day started out at 4:00am when the alarm clock in the room next to our room at the hotel went off. My wife and kids and I were staying at the Quality Inn in Cedar Rapids (don’t if you want some good advice) and it was a pretty miserable experience. I am not a big complainer so I won’t go into it. Let’s just say that if my kids ever talk to me the way this teenager working the front desk did, they would never leave the house. Anyway, I get to the race site a little later than I would have liked to and was a little rushed. I had not even found a place to park my bike in the transition area before they said they closing it up. Needless to say I had to get special permission to go back to get my goggles after taking a pit stop in the kybo. I wasn’t too worried since my age group, M 35-39, was the 8th wave out of 9 total.

Water was 71 degrees or so at the start of the race. I swam round a bit and the water wasn’t too bad once I got in. I did forget my wetsuit at home which was disappointing since I will be swimming in Minnesota next weekend and that will certainly be colder. The practice would have been nice. I got off pretty good at the start of the race but felt a little tight. I attributed it to the rush of the start. I tried to relax and settle into my swim but struggled a little bit after taking a belly full of lake water. I was a little disappointed in myself in that I defaulted to the breast stroke too many times where I am sure I would have been fine if I would have stuck with the right stroke. I think my nerves got to me a bit. So I came out of the water a few minutes slower than I expected. I got to the transition area and my legs felt a little heavy. I went to put on my race jersey and it wrapped in a way that it took me a long time to get out of it, which subsequently tore my race number off.

By the time I was up and on my bike I had wasted over 5 minutes in T1. I felt pretty good on the bike. I tried to take it easy because the bike finishes with some long inclines and I wanted to feel strong coming off of the bike. I cruised into Palo averaging 21 mph which is where I wanted to be. I think that there may have been the slightest decline from the park to Palo because on the way back I slowed to 19.3 mph and there was a tiny bit of a headwind. I still felt pretty good so I was a little surprised to see my average speed drop below 18 mph. I finished a few minutes slower than I would have liked but I was happy with that time.

Transitioning to the run was pretty difficult. A little more difficult than I expected. I got out of T2 ok but I was pretty wiped. I ended up walking a great deal. My back was a little tight as were my abs so I struggled quite a bit. The run was pleasant considering my condition. I got passed by a few people and passed a few people despite my horrendous time. It is really hard to gauge where you are in relation to everyone during a race like this because there were 10 different waves and the person that is 50 meters ahead of you might actually be 4 minutes behind you and vice versa.

Overall, I enjoyed myself and I gained a good insight into what I will need to work on through the rest of the summer. I have a lot of work to do for sure so I plan on packing on the miles and ratcheting up the intensity a little bit. I feel good about where I am now and I know that I am still in the beginning phase. I have only been following my training plan for 6 weeks so by the time September and October roll around, I expect to be pretty strong, both mentally and physically.

Lump Day

2007-06-04T14:07:00.000-06:00

This post was written before the weekend even though it wasn't posted until today. Feel kind of lazy today. I have the Pigman Sprint in a couple of days and I cut back a little bit for a taper and now I feel like a lazy lump. I might do a little jog tomorrow but really it is everything I can do to not hop on my bike and tear down the street for 30 or 40 miles. I just have to keep telling myself that I will be stronger on race day by staying off my feet. The most important race for me at this point is a week from tomorrow where I am competing in a Half IM in Minnesota to validate my spot in Kona. That is going to be a long day but in the end I know I can finish and I don’t need to be perfect. Once that monkey is off my back I can pick up my training and start making some more progress.

Hump Day

2007-05-31T07:38:00.000-06:00

Well today is the Wednesday before my first triathlon. On Sunday I am competing in the Pigman Sprint Triathlon in Palo, IA. I am really looking forward to it. I took a spin on the old race course yesterday with Google Earth. I still plan on at least driving the course the night before so I am mentally ready for race day. I can’t put a number on it but I can tell you that it always wears me down faster not knowing how much further I have to go. Which is why I plan on driving the course. The course overall looks pretty flat. The swim is listed on the race website as 547 meters. I should be able to breeze through that pretty easily considering that my warm-up is always longer than that. The big course appears flat but it is really hard to tell on a satellite generated map whether or not there are any hills. The course goes out onto the road outside of the park area before eventually coming back into to finish where you started. The run course is entirely within in the park and is an out and back loop. If I could come through at 1:30 or faster I would feel pretty good about myself but my goal is 1:25. I know those times are slow but it is still early in the season and I hope to improve a great deal throughout the summer.

Car Back!

2007-05-29T15:24:00.000-06:00

I hate riding on the road. Especially on a busy travel weekend because no one is paying attention and the ones that are paying attention are kind of PO’d that you are there. I had one such experience this weekend on a long ride. Cruising outside of Madrid, IA everyone was extremely courteous and giving me enough room for me to operate safely. The only exception was the little old lady that pulled out of the cemetery. It was Memorial Weekend so I let it slide. Then just when I started to really enjoy being on the road someone brushed me off going what seemed like 100 mph although I am sure it was closer to 55mph which is the posted speed limit. What is it with these people? So I stepped on it and covered the next 6 miles into Slater as fast as I could hoping I might actually come across the A**hole that thought that this was a good idea. I wondered what exactly happened. Was he not paying attention? Was he trying to let me know how mad he was that I was on the road? Regardless of which made the most sense, it was inexcusable in my book. When I pulled into Slater, what do I see at the first intersection of town just past the local tennis courts? That’s right! A crappy cream colored full size chevy pickup with a rusted bumper. Same truck that ran me off the road! I got a good enough look since he made no attempt to avoid me. It was parked on the street and it was hard to tell which house he might have went in. So I stopped and took down his license plate number which is GAB 417. It turns out he was also selling his pickup truck so I got his cell phone number off the for sale sign. That number is 515-779-7155. I would love it if everyone gave this guy a call and told him exactly what you think of people like him.

Setting the Mood

2007-05-25T12:36:00.000-06:00

I recently had a conversation with a co-worker about the lunch hour massage I have scheduled for today and she asked if I was going to listen to Kenny G during my massage, jokingly of course. That got me to thinking. Not about the smooth stylings of Kenny G, but about creating the right mood to do well. I think that everyone knows the Ironman, or any activity for that matter, requires the right mental state to be successful. Think about that for a minute. Preparing for a test, preparing for a big meeting, competing in a triathlon all require the right mental state. We train so hard for months and years to participate in some of these events so that on game day we have everything in place to be successful. Everything. How many people approach it like that though? Race day should not require some gargantuan effort well beyond anything you have experienced in your training. Race day should be about knocking it out just like you prepared to do. If everything goes well you might even have a breakthrough performance. In the very least you should not be surprised by the results. On race day, you should know that you can finish.

Tri-Booze

2007-05-24T09:21:00.000-06:00

One thing that I have always enjoyed, besides a frosty cold beer, is a frosty cold beer after a road race. I am not sure how this little trend started but it seems that a fair number of road races I have participated in have included beer at the finish line. Not that I object of course but it seems that a little alcohol might be the worst thing to consume after sweating out every fluid in your body. As a rule I don’t replenish my fluids with a diuretic and I don’t start hitting the bottle before 10am, but when it is hot and the beer is cold, all of those hard and fast rules get chucked out the window. I know it is going to hurt, but it is going to hurt so good.

This brings me to a timely topic since we are rolling into a Memorial Day weekend. There are always a lot of opportunities to do a little drinking on this weekend and I plan on doing a little myself. I have not been a big drinker since college but drinking has been even less frequent since I raised the intensity on my tri training a couple of months ago. The decision to cut back was not really a decision at all so much as I am just too tired most of the time to have even a couple of drinks. Having seen hard core road bikers knock’em back after a hard ride, and all of the alcohol floating around after road races, I wonder why I haven’t seen as much of that after triathlons. I don’t work out with any other triathletes and mostly don’t know a lot of people I see at triathlons. This begs the question; are triathletes, in general, drinkers that do triathlons or are they health freaks that hardly touch the booze?

Mini-Taper

2007-05-24T07:22:00.000-06:00

Next week I start my 2 week taper leading into my first few triathlons of the year and I am more than ready to ease off of the throttle a little bit. I had the perfect excuse to cut down on the activity with the Holiday weekend but the Boss (read: Channie) decided that we were going to stay in Iowa this weekend rather than go see her and his family in Illinois. That means your truly is going to be on his bicycle for 3+ hours on Saturday. Despite being worn out/down my training has stayed pretty steady which is encouraging knowing that a little rest is just going to make me stronger during the race. My first race, the Pigman Sprint Tri should be a lot of fun. With all of the mileage I have been piling on, a sprint triathlon will be a nice, fun tune-up for my Half IM the following weekend. I am a little nervous about that one since that race will validate my spot in Kona. I have put in the time so I am not worried about finishing but I would like to have a strong performance to give me a bit of a boost through the rest of the summer. The very next weekend (yes, third triathlon weekend in a row) is the Hy-Vee triathlon which will be quite a spectacle as triathlons go for Des Moines and Iowa. Des Moines hosts some relatively big road race events during the year in which thousands upon thousands participate but a triathlon is a different animal. Until this event, all local triathlons have been limited to state parks and little rural communities near state parks so having one in Des Moines is going to be something. Not to mention the caliber of the field that will be participating and the prize money being offered. I am really looking forward to seeing Hunter Kemper and all of the other big name triathletes running through our fair city. That being said, I expect to be pretty wiped out by then.

Give Me a Break

2007-05-22T13:50:00.000-06:00

I have a couple of different things to comment on today. First, I could use a break. I know, I know. This is part of the process so I am happy with where I am at and I am ready for the brief rest period before the next build phase, but it is hard to stay motivated. This reminds of an earlier post of mine where I referred to the long training period as a mental training process as well and this feels just like the last couple of minutes of a long run where I get on with it, but I might distract myself so that I don’t realize how tired I am. So I will do the same and get through this week since next week will be an easier week. Nuff said.

The other thing I wanted to touch on is the game of purchasing a triathlon bike. These stinkin’ bikes are expensive but I think that for the most part they are worth it. I have a pretty decent road bike that is my primary ride at the moment and I can’t complain, but, it could be better. There are so many options out there to consider and prices on new tri-bikes ranges from $1200 to $5000 and up. What is worth it? I know from my experience on my current bike, which is an aluminum bike, that I want something that is going to be fairly stiff so that all of the energy I put into the pedals translates into speed on the bike. Since I haven’t owned a triathlon bike and I am not independently wealthy, I am looking for a used back and the greatest marketplace of all things used is Ebay. There are easily 100 triathlon type bikes on there and you can get a pretty solid used bike and there are a couple I have my eye on. About 2 hours ago, a 2005 Litespeed Saber 56 cm sold for $1125. This bike is titanium and probably sold for $3000 or more brand new and is exactly what I am looking for, but maybe there is a better bargain to be found. I have 3 triathlons in the next month and I am not going to experiment on a new bike during any race so I have decided to wait until July to pick up a new bike where I might be able to find a bike or two that meets my needs and might be a little bit cheaper since demand for new tri-bikes would presumably drop when you get to mid season. No facts to support that, just good old common sense.

What is Realistic?

2007-05-21T14:25:00.000-06:00

What is a realistic time that a typical athlete can aspire to in an Ironman Triathlon? When it comes to Hawaii it seems like the 1st place finishers and a handful of other pros are finishing between 8 hours 10 minutes and 8 hours and 30 minutes. I think the top women pros are finishing around an hour later. So where does that leave me? Sure most people would say, “How can you tell when you have never run an Ironman?” While that is certainly true, what I am really looking for is a time that a typically athlete can shoot for and realistically attain? Sure the number is ultra-subjective and not really good for much, but what a number like that does is provide a little perspective. For example, when I was in high school I read a book by Ron Daws where he outlines training plans for runners of different competitive levels(phenomenal book). In that book he breaks down, by distance, realistic times that a healthy person can run given a great deal of patience and hard work. The one distance that jumped out at me was the mile, where he stated that a male that works hard in training and avoids injury could realistically run a mile in 4 minutes 27 seconds. So my question is, what is an attainable time in the Ironman? Not for the pro athlete but the everyman like myself? There are days where I think that I am going to really struggle to finish and there are other days when I think that I could run under 10 hours. Why can’t I run it that fast? Why can’t I run it faster? Sure I am in my mid-thirties but I still feel pretty good and I am working out hard. Maybe I could? To quote Steve Prefontaine from the movie Without Limits, “l won't know that till l get there, and I’ll figure it out then.”

Massage, Please!

2007-05-17T14:05:00.000-06:00

In the last couple of days I have been reading about some steps that seasoned endurance athletes do in order to facilitate recovery. For example, Dean Karnazes, who recently completed 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days, ended his day with an Ice bath. I can tell you that there are days where that sounds nice because my body temp is elevated and I am sweating buckets. Then there are those moments when I think about actually stepping into an Ice bath and I have to believe that the bath is a completely uncomfortable experience. Have you every had someone put a cold can of soda on your arm or leg and it hurt because it was so cold? Imagine that over your entire body.

Other people get a regular massage during race season to help loosen up tight muscles. Most road races, at least most well established road races, actually have massage therapists available for a free rub down after the race. As a matter of fact, the only time I have ever had a massage was after my first triathlon 3 years ago and it was only for about 5-10 minutes but it was well worth it. What I am getting to here is that my wonderful wife, Channie, made the suggestion the other day and the YMCA where I workout has a massage therapist that offers her services for a really reasonable rate for YMCA members. I am thinking about scheduling a regular massage through the summer so that I can be in top shape by the time I hit Kona.

Where Am I?

2007-05-15T13:33:00.000-06:00

Where Am I?

Narrowing down the lodging options for Kona and it has been pretty easy so far. Channie knows someone who vacations in the Hawaiian Islands and they have always had a lot of good luck with www.vrbo.com which stands for vacation rental by owner. Basically it is a service by which you can see hundreds of rental properties owned by private parties. So far it seems like the way to go. The place we are looking at is a 2 bedroom house with full kitchen, Jacuzzi, plus a lot more including a 1.25 acre yard and the price puts us around $150/nt which is pretty reasonable in my opinion. Plus we can do a lot of cooking at our place while we are there rather than blow all of our moolah at the local restaurants. Although we will no doubt enjoy the local fare.

On the training front, I am plugging away at my program and I am seeing some progress which is exciting. Although maintaining this consistency for the next 5 months is not going to be easy. I have a couple of weeks until my first Triathlon of the season which is the first of three consecutive weekends of triathlons so I am going to have to have a mini-taper a step out of my training plan briefly. In the end the same effort will be there so I am not worried that there will be any drop off. I will just have to jump right back on the end of June and try to continue as if I didn’t miss anything. Then comes the long stretch from the 17th of June until race day where I don’t have any races planned. That is a long time without a little competition to keep my head into it. I might pick up a handful of road races (longer distance ones) and maybe get in on the Big Creek Triathlon. There is another Olympic distance triathlon called the Whaletown Tri in Iowa the weekend before Big Creek which would be a nice late season tune-up race but it is still two months before Kona.

The Man with a Plan

2007-05-09T15:01:00.000-06:00

I don’t know about you but when it comes to training, I like to understand the plan. I cannot stand it when I would go to Cross Country or track practice not really knowing what was about to happen. I did not need to know specifics but it would have been nice to know that today is a hard day or today is a long easy day. I understand that sometimes it is nice to kind of shock your body with a surprise workout but I am not in boot camp anymore and these surprise attacks really just aggravate me. Following a well documented training program allows me to get past that and be mentally prepared for the next workout. That is not enough though. You really need to understand the training program as a whole. Early on it is about building up a base and every 4 to 5 weeks dropping the effort for a recovery week before you start building again. Then it is about fine tuning and getting ready for competition before finally tapering down to the big competition. Understanding this allows me weather some of those ups and downs knowing that it is all a part of the process.

Hyper-Mentally Speaking

2007-05-08T11:54:00.000-06:00

That is the way I feel on the treadmill-Hyper mental. If you have ever run on a treadmill you know what I am talking about…or maybe you don’t. On a treadmill you have all of the information about your current run that you need sitting in front of you on display. How fast I am going, how far have I run, how many calories have I burned, how much time left. For someone with an undiagnosed case of ADD, this can be a terrible problem if you don’t know how to handle it. Normally it takes about 10 to 15 minutes for me to squeeze out a handful of conscious thoughts. When I am on the treadmill it takes about a second. I will sit there and calculate how far I am going to have completed at the next interval, scream at myself to quit thinking about it, tell myself how tired I am, tell myself how tired I am not, ponder tripping and falling off the treadmill, and convincing myself to stop staring at the display. This all happens in several seconds and then repeats over and over until I talk myself into giving up or slowing down to a walk, and if I am lucky it will go until my time is up. This excruciating experience is only alleviated by focusing on something completely off the treadmill such as a good song or the TV. Actually, a song that is really good might be the only thing that can distract me. Another good distraction is the TV. On Sunday I had a 10 mile run on the plan so I slipped in Rocky, of course to keep me company. The story of an over the hill, down on his luck club fighter getting a shot at the heavyweight championship of the world seemed only natural as I drag my tired old bones through a workout in preparation for my own World Championship. All in all I find this struggle necessary. The mental aspects of the Ironman have to be developed and trained as well. I have to be prepared to march right up to my limits and keep going. I love running on the bike trails near the lake by my house. I can let my mind wander and feel the wind rushing past my face cooling me off. Running indoors has to be more like solitary confinement. No wind, no birds chirping no nature, nothing. I figure that the punishment of running all of those miles on a treadmill have to count for something. They are not just miles on my training plan. They are brutal, unforgiving reminder that there is nothing stopping you from ending your workout early. You are just as far from your house as you were when you started. If I can somehow fight off the piles of easy excuses sitting in front of me with the treadmill display begging me to count the seconds along with it, then I will be that much stronger on race day.

That is Going to Hurt

2007-05-07T15:12:00.000-06:00

One thing that I am going to put in the “one thing I learned today folder” for later use is that when you sweat a lot over a long period of time, any friction taking place involving your body is going to hurt. This includes your legs, nipples, and any seem on your clothing that rubs against your body. I am going to experiment with some different ways to deal with this but I am definitely open to suggestions….let’s move on.
I think one of the most underrated parts of a running or triathlon training program is the big mileage days. On most programs you will see a weekend day where you have a long run or ride, or both. The idea behind these workouts is to get your body used to being active for an extended period of time. I think most people that have ever completed a marathon will tell you that the hardest part of the race was the pounding on your legs. I know that this is true for me. I ran the Chicago Marathon in 2002. Actually ran/walked the Chicago marathon to be more accurate, and I took a beating. I had run sporadically over the summer leading up to the October race and once fall rolled around that stopped. I took a couple of evening classes at Drake University and that combined with my full-time job, my training was pushed to the backburner and by the time the marathon had started, I hadn’t ran a single step for almost 6 weeks. I cruised right along through 16 miles before my feet started to hurt. By the time I finished the race I swore that I had a stress fracture and that I might be risking permanent damage by continuing and I had walked most of the last 4 miles! I continued anyway. It was a miserable experience that could have been avoided had I gotten in some long runs leading up to the race. So when I had my 2 hour bike ride on Saturday I told myself that I needed to stay consistent and keep pushing and that the mileage covered at this point didn’t matter. Same thing with my 90 minute run yesterday. I certainly wasn’t surging at any point during the run. I tried to keep the same pace all of the way through. I am a little worn down today but not too bad. I just completed my swim of 1700 meters at a nearby YMCA and I am drinking as much water as I can so that I don’t become dehydrated. So far everything seems to be progressing well. Less than 4 weeks to the Pigman Sprint Triathlon, less than 5 weeks to the Liberty Half-Ironman Triathlon, and less that 6 weeks until the HyVee Triathlon. I have a lot of work to do still but I feel pretty good.

Look Out Ahead

2007-05-04T14:55:00.000-06:00

There is a lot going on this summer and it being the first Friday in May it finally feels like things are getting underway. Friday is a rest day on my training plan and I need it. I am trying to straddle that line between doing enough and not doing too much and it is harder than you think. I am looking for slow steady progress here. The one thing that has the potential to ruin that slow steady progress is that Sunday is 4 weeks from my first triathlon of the season. I have been training, which in previous years has been the exception to the rule, so I am really excited to get going. That being said, it is only a sprint but I know of several people that are in the race that have seen me at my lowest lows in triathlons and I would like to have a respectable performance.

On a related note, RAGBRAI planning has begun. For details on the event, go to their website by folowing the link from my links list. RAGBRAI is a weeklong bike tour of Iowa that starts in the west part of the state and ends in the east. It takes place in July and it is quite an event. My brother, his wife, and another couple actually have a RAGBRAI skoolie bus purchased just for the event. There is often a lot of eating and drinking, and a little biking on this 500 mile course and I am going to be a packer this year. Which means I am going to try and be self contained the entire week and not rely on others to take my stuff from one end town to the next. I am going to pull everything in a Burley trailer. It should be fun and by then I expect to be in pretty solid biking shape. If you have ever want to spend a week around 20,000 bikers going from one big beer garden to the next, this is your event. No doubt you will hear more about it in the months to come.

Training

2007-05-03T12:54:00.000-06:00

Training. The only thing that is going to make event even remotely enjoyable. The big question you have to ask yourself is how much you want to suffer. In the end I truly believe that you are going to suffer greatly whether you train really hard for this event or not. The only control that you have over that is in determining whether you want to suffer a lot over 6 to 9 months so you don’t suffer as much on race day, OR, do you want to suffer a little before race day and suffer severely on race day and not finish. I personally choose to suffer as much as I can in advance. That being said I am using a 36 week training plan I snagged off of trifuel.com. The important thing for me is understanding my training plan so that when I have completed the training and I am at the start in Kona, that I feel confident about what I am about to do. I also track my training on a spreadsheet that shows actual completed mileage and how that compares to goal mileage. The biggest worry I have at this early stage in the game is over doing it and getting hurt or over doing it and getting burnt out. It is so easy to be gung ho at this early stage of the game but I have to keep in mind that I need to maintain this effort for another 4.5 months and I should try to keep on an even keel, mentally and physically.

Luck of the Draw, or Not.

2007-05-02T08:28:00.000-06:00

One of the most interesting things about getting a lottery spot isn’t the suffocating fear of participating in the event. The most interesting thing has been the response from people in regards to me getting the lottery spot. Initially, I heard a lot of “That’s impressive” and “Wow, I am impressed”. Quite honestly, the most impressive thing that I did in the string of events leading up to being selected for the lottery spot was entering my credit card number correctly on the registration form without getting an error message. Being chosen at random to participate in an event is not an accomplishment. It is kind of like getting free tickets to a James Taylor concert by winning radio contest. All you did was dial the phone and no one should think you are a super star for doing so. The other side of the argument is just as interesting. If you read any message boards or forums geared towards triathletes, you will see that a lottery spot for the Hawaiian Ironman is a very polarizing topic. There are the triathlete snobs out there that think it is appalling to have the Everyman athlete out there along side the people that came by their slot by qualifying. Then there are the normal people that would love to qualify but are not going to turn down a spot in the race if they can get one(that’s me). At the end of the day, I am participating in this race because I have wanted to since I saw Julie Moss crawl to the finish line when I didn’t even know what I triathlon was. I want to prove to myself that I can complete this event. While I think the lottery system can be improved, I believe it is a valuable part of this event and should remain in place as long as this event continues. In my opinion there are only a handful of people that enter this race with a realistic chance of experiencing the glory of winning. Everyone else should look at this as a chance to explore their limits because that is the spirit for which this race was born.

IM-Everyman

2007-05-01T09:55:00.000-06:00

IM Everyman- catchy title I thought up after I discovered all the racier blog titles were unavailable. Despite not being the first, second, or even third choice, I find that this title best explains who I am and the reason why I started this blog. I am everyman. I am the average guy in everyway. Average height, average weight, average athletic ability, average smarts(or dumbs depending on how you look at it), average, average, average. Just like every man out there I do some pretty dumb stuff. To paraphrase a line from the Matrix (Everyman loves that movie) the source of my greatest strength and my greatest weakness, is not hope. In fact, for me it is ignorance. It is kind of like a super power (the worst super power if you were going to rank them) that allows me to rocket past the line where most people with common sense stop. It isn’t a mutation like most of the cool super powers so much as it may be a genetic abnormality or possibly the effects of an undocumented brain injury. Either way, my super power has gotten me into a bit of a bind and I thought that the best way to get out of it is to open the books and let everyone take a peek. The bind I speak of is being selected as a lottery pick to participate in the Ford Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii this October. I think that documenting all of my steps along the way would prompt advice from some kind people traveling around the internet with fewer “challenges” than me in the smarts (or dumbs) department.