BACK TO THE POOL

Well I started swimming again :( I started on tuesday actually with a 1300 m workout set up by Scott Roy the coach of the masters program and also the head of a triathlon club here in Spokane called Team Blaze. Jayne has already joined the club not sure if I will though I'm not much of a club joiner....The waterski club is about all the club I can handle. It's sad but in every club I've ever joined or hung out with for any length of time, the club seems to become mired down in what seems to me to be an inordinate amount of politics..... And as most people reading this know,I'm not so good at the polical things in this world. I digress
So far this week I have swam twice the 1300 I mentioned and tonight it was 1750 with 250 of those as kick only. If you have never had the pleasure of using a kick board it is torture device in which you hold on with your hands to help float the front of your body while your legs kick like crazy. I have size 10.5-11 foot depending on the shoe and it's a fat Fred Flinstone foot. You would think they would motor me right along.....Not!!! But I'm sure it will get better.Running is going well, tony and I ran 14 on sunday....it was tough,alot of hills but a good run.

BACK AT IT

Well we are home from vacation actually got home on 10/21, so I'm a little behind. Cabo was great as always.Stayed at a great place www.HILTONLOSCABOS.COM
as much as I hate to support Paris hilton in any way the place was nice. Ran on the beach a couple of days and on the treadmill a couple. It was about 90 by 0900 so we had to be up and running early. Running in the sand has to be good for you it requires so many aux muscles to maintain balance and footing. At a min. it's a great core workout as for running about 10:30/mi was as fast as I could go. That pace had my hr at red line. But for the week we were in Cabo I still got 26 miles. This past week wee increased again and I ended up with 29.6. This gave me a good mix of hills,tempo and long and slow. Sundays long run was 12.2 @ 9:45 pace. It was tough because I had worked all night and it was about 35 and rained for most of the run. But Tony and I pounded it out. The plan for this week is a total of 33 miles. Speed work on wed. and 14 mile long run on sunday. I also start swimming with the master swim club on tues night....Whoopee.

NEW STRADEGY

Recently Tony ran the Portland Marathon. This was his 3rd marathon all of which were in 1 year, oct-oct. In all 3 he has bonked. Bonking for those of you that don't know is a very weird thing. Basically you run out of fuel. But it can manefest itself in alot of ways. But the worst symtom, in a race, is that you can't run fast anymore. I bonked at the CDA marathon and it took me 1 hr and 3 min. to run the last 6.2 miles. to put that in perspective I ran the 1st 20 miles in 2 hr and 50 min. And you are in this sureal frame of mind. I literally thought about grabing this kids doughnut as I ran by him....a little kid.... about 3. Anyway my past bonk and Tony's 3rd bonk have caused us to rethink our training. All of our train to this point has had us running between 20-30 miles a week. Whick we thought was enough but I don't think that forces the body to adapt eneough. These guys that are serious and fast runners are doing 50-100 miles a week. We are not quite that whacked out but tony has Boston in April and With me doing Ironman next June adding some weekly milage makes sense for base building if nothing else. I think it will help me alot. Time will be the biggest factor. I'm going to have to start swimming pretty soon, as much as I hate it. Bikeing will be almost all indoor pretty soon, which actually saves a little time, since I don't have to load up the bike and go somewhere. I will keep you posted.

KELLEN'S PICTURES

OK MOM GET OFF MY ASS..... There are also some more on my flickr badge on the right. Just click on the badge and you can see all of them. The ones on the badge are the ones we liked the most.

LONG RUN

Sunday Tony and I met for what was to be a 12 mile run. We started out at a nice pace real easy for Tony and easy for me. The coarse we ran though was less than easy. Hilly, very hilly, some off road and some on a giant loop that we thought would acheive the 12 mile goal. At about 5 miles my left calf began to hurt. This is the same pain I have had for the last couple of weeks. It hurts but not so bad that I can't continue. And after a while it quits hurting altogether. The difference this time was that when I woke up on Monday, it was very sore. To the point that I was favoring it a little. The sad thing is that our run ended up being short of our goal in fact was only 10 miles, and we had to run around the outside of the prking lot to squeeze out the last 1/4 mile. Now here it is Wednesday I'm supposed to run a little today maybe 3 miles, the calf is a little sore but not as painful Monday. Maybe an easy run followed by some stretching will help. we'll see. I also have physical therapy today. I'm about tired of giving them money. I just hope my flexibility comes back pretty soon. I can't scratch my left shoulder with my right hand, which totally blows. The really weird thing is I'm constantly having to try something with my left arm to make sure it's something I should be able to do. Frustrating!!!

contruction progress

This is the other project occupying my life right now. This started as a simple reroof. But as the project has progressed we have added on to the other side of the house as well as what you see here.I will continue to post pics here to show our progress.

Good Week

Well this has been a good week, considering it's a work week. With my weird schedule that how I break things down now days, work week or not a work week. On my off week the possibilities are limitless 7 days to do whatever I want and everything I need to do. On my work week anything I do other than work is a major victory. If you have never worked nights you should try it, if you have then you should try 7, 10 hr shifts in a row. Not that I'm whining, I do this by choice. But none the less It leaves little time for training, errands or whatever. So on those rare weeks when I seem to get a lot accomplished I'm pretty happy. This week I was able to run ~ 20 miles, more about that in a minute. I also got to go to Kellen's football game. Kellen is my 17yo son who is a senior. This was also the 1st game in which he had the opportunity to kick his 1st field goal a 27 yd.kick which he easily made.
I also am starting to feel like I'm making progress at physical therapy. My flexibility is increasing and so is my strength. But it is a slow/painful process.
Now back to my running I ran 4 days this week. With a back to back workout yesterday. I actually ran 4 miles on sat. night before work. I did interval on the treadmill. Then when I got off sun morning I ran ~ 8 miles at a little over 9 min/mi pace. The beauty was that my hr stayed pretty close to what was 2 weeks ago. However 1 ran over a min/mi faster this week. So all in all it was a good week. Jayne ordered the part for my aerobar for me,so hopefully that will come in soon and I can hit the bike.

Sundae Sunday

This past weekend was the Sundae Sunday 10 mile race. It was hard for me this year. Last year, my 1st, was hard as well but I ran so much better. My time last year was 1:17:something this year 1:27:something. 10 min. slower, 1 min/mi. Most people have said it's no big deal you are just coming of an injury. And I understand that coming back from an injury, especially one that took me out for 7 weeks, is going to take some time. Patients is not my strong suit. Just the opposite, I'm very impatient. Maybe that's the real challenge for me here. Maybe that's what I'm going to be forced to learn here. Patients, wouldn't hurt. To bad I did not learn this when I was 22 not 42. I just hope I learn it now. I digress, the race was great, perfect weather. I think over 400 runners/walkers. Tony set a PR by a whopping 10 sec. I think he is ready for Portland. We are all ready for CABO, 1 month.
Physical therapy is going ok....once again patients is key. My strength is shit my right arm is 50% as strong as my left. My flexibility is less than that. The human body was not meant to spend 6 weeks in a sling. But it is getting better. I have PT this morning and then it's a 5 mile run.

CLEARED BY M.D.

Well yesterday I went to the doc for my 6 week check up post op. All is good. The x-ray looks good and can start lifting weights and really working on range of motion. So I should be able to get into the pool pretty soon. He said I could start riding outside but thought that it would be better if I rode my mtn bike on the road instead of my road bike. the upright postion will be more comfortable. I still can’t ski or wakeboard though and if I do ride I can’t crash, again. I was able to do 3 push ups, wow!!

I ran long on Sunday a 10 miler with Jayne and Tony. I ran most of it with Jayne at her pace which unfortunatly now seems to be my pace as well. I ran 8 mi. with her at a hr less than 150, which was damn slow. At 8 miles Tony and I took off trying to catch these 2 girls that had passed us at mile 6. We caught them within 3/4 mile but it was hard. We passed them on this tough hill that had my legs burning and my hr at 186. Needless to say I was hurting, but able to finish strong.

Long??? Run

Sunday was my 1st long run since the crash. If you can call 6 miles a long run. But it was the longest I’ve run since the end June. It felt good, however my HR was too high. But I was really trying to give Tony moral support. He ran 17 and I tagged along for the last 6. It was a beautiful morning here temp was great. My legs do feel a little sore tonight though. Tommorrow I will rest maybe an easy spin on the trainer

Making progress

Well today I made a little progress, I think. I was able to run 5 miles on the treadmill. Not fast but faster than I have been running outside. Hr was a little higher it stayed right at 160, went to 167 towrds the end by I think that had more to do with the van halen song I was listening to. Going to try 6-7 on Sunday. Tony is going 15 and I told him I would go for part of that with him. Since I got hurt he has had to all of his long runs alone and I think he misses the company. We’ll see how it goes.

Another Slow One

Well yesterday was another slow run. Trying to keep my hr below 160 is harder than I thought it would be. I can’t hardly run that slow and can’t walk that fast. Shoulder is a little sore today not sure if it’s the running or not.

I was able to read “START TO FINISH IRONMAN TRAINING” BY HUDDLE AND FREY. Not a bad read alot of good info. I’m also reading “BE IRON FIT” BY FINK. Have not read enough to form an opinion yet. But I think in the end I will end up stealing pieces from several training programs most of them seem to have something to offer.

Out of Shape

Well today was the beginning of my post crash training. Wow it’s amazing what 5 weeks of sitting on your ass can do to your aerobic capacity. I started by putting my bike on the trainer in the basement. The plan was to ride for 15-20 min and see how the shoulder felt. It hurt….but was tolerable, and I was able to go for 20 mins. But I was breathing hard and sweating like a pig. But it felt good to be doing something. Then about 4 hours later I decided I would see if my shoulder could take a little jog. So I got my running shoes on put on the hr monitor and Gus(my lab) went for a little jog. Prior to the crash I would have to leave gus at home because my runs were usually to long and to fast for his 10 yo body to take. Today though I knew that he would be fine running with my old busted ass. My should did ok, not great but ok. My hr though was rediculous. I had a hard time keeping below 160 and I was running so damn slow the dog was waiting for me. Oh well still good to back to the land of the living. The good thing is there is really only room for improvement. So at least for a while I will feel like I’m making great progress with every workout. That is always a good feeling.

Back to Blog

Well I’m back to blog, but that’s about it. Since the last time I wrote anything in my blog a lot has happened. Back in May I ran my first marathon, The Couer d’Alene. This was the focus of my training and my life for that matter everything else took the backseat. My goal was to finish in under 4 hrs. The good news was that I actually ran a 3:53:13,so I met my goal. However I was at mile 20 at 2:50, so it took me over and hour to run the last 6 miles. My first race bonk. It all felt good until that 20th mile. Then all of a sudden every step was hard, and I couldn’t seem to understand what was happening. It wasn’t until it was all over and I took an inventory of all of my nutritional goodies that I figured out that I simply ran out of gas. I ran the hole race on 1.5 GUs, 10 oz generic gatorade, and 2 Shot Blocks. Not enough for a 180 lb man running ~ 8 min/mile. Lesson learned, I hope.

The next goal was to be a half IM called Troika here in Spokane. So starting about June 7th it was time to hit the pool and the bike. Training was progressing and all was going well. I was increasing milage and feeling the benifits. Towards the end of June Ironman came to Couer d’Alene. My girlfriend and I volunteered as we did last year. This year we knew 7 people that were competing so we also there to support our friends. And what an experience to watch those people cross that finish line. The flood of emotions when the announcer says “joe blow you are an ironman” and the crowd is screaming, people are crying, hugging, kissing throwing their fists in the air claiming victory….. Victory for themselves and a victory over their former self. Very powerful!

Well now I’m relly fired to train for Troika. I have the 1st 3 weeks of July off from work. The race is 1st weekend in August so I am going to log some serious miles. The first week after Ironman I road my bike 98 miles. The next week was to be 120. On Sat. 7/1 all of that changed. 50 miles into a 60 mile ride with Jayne, my girlfriend, I made a huge mistake. I was more worried about the line Jayne was riding and not enough about my own line. And you guessed it I crashed. Not only did I crash but as I slid accross the pavement on my head,face,but and eventually back. I slid right in front of Jayne who had 2 choices, hit my bike and do a front flip or run over my head. Lucky for me she chose the bike. Unfortunatly for me though I hit the ground hard. Hard enough that when I jump up I knew right away that I either broke my collar bone or dislocated my shoulder. Jayne had her cell phone,as she always does. She called a friend and they were able to come pick us up and take me to the hospital. When I walked into the ER at the hospital, where I work. I knew all the docs and nurses working and was able to get right in. X-ray confirmed what I thought I knew, collar bone shattered. 3 visable breaks even to my untrained eye, I’m a Pharmacist so x-rays are not my gig. In that moment I knew my summer was over. A hell of a way to start my 3 week vacation. Not to mention the house remodel I was in the middle of and race I was training for, all gone. The following thursday I went to my orthopeadic guy, great guy and a friend. He called it a weber type 2 b fracture. And the only real option is surgery, tommorow. So I crashed on 7/1 and I was on the table on 7/7. lucky number what??? Anyway long story short the first week post op sucked. I slept in a recliner, which I had to go buy. The next doctor appt. 10 days post op. suture removal and x ray went great. The xray looked perfect, and the incision, about 4-5 inches doesn’t look like it will leave much of a scar. That’s the good news, bad news 6 weeks in a sling. The other pseudo good news, 2 more weeks off work. I say pseudo because I have never called in sick in my whole life, I’m 42, and have been working since I was 12. So this was the end of that. Oh well.
Well now I’m back to work, 3 more weeks with this sling. I get my bike from the shop tommorow $ 148.11 not bad. I’ll write more about my bike later. The doc gave me permission to put the bike on the trainer to spin. He also said I could get in the pool and use a kick board, this will help in more ways than 1, I’m a crappy kicker, the practice will help.
The other big thing that happened during this time and while under the influence of some very good drugs, legally obtained I might add. Jayne and I both signed up for Ironman CDA next year. more about that later as well,as that will be the focus of this blog for most of the next year I expect.
Anyway sorry for my bad grammer and horrible puctuation and any spelling errors, have not figured out how spell check works on this yet.
Bryan

BLOOMSDAY 2006

For those of you that don't know Bloomsday is one of the largest timed races in the country. This was the 30 th year for this race here in Spokane. It draws world class runners and wheelchair athletes from all over the world. As has been the case for the last several years the Kenyans won. This is an odd distance 12 km/7.46 mi road race with some pretty tough hills and > 40000 runners. I think the biggest year was like 67000. Anyway this was my 2nd year running the race and I beat last years time by over 4 min. with a time of 54:59. My goal was to break 55 min which I barely did. It's amazing what a few seconds can make. On my watch I had my time at 55:02 and I was so dissappointed. but when the offical results were posted and I saw that I actually beat my goal I was so pumped. 3 seconds difference and I went from feeling like a failure to king of the world. Amazing what your ego can do to you, if you let it. After the race,and a nap,food etc. I went for another run this was a slow 9 miler. I did this in lew of the 26 I was supposed to run according to my marathon training plan. All in all a good day.

END OF APRIL

Well another month has come and gone. Been working hard main on running but did get out on the bike a few times.
Running: 129.8 miles
Time: 18h 28m 22s
Avg. Pace: 8:32/mile
MTN BIKE: 10.3 miles
Time: 1h 31m 27s
Avg. Pace: 8:51/mile
NEW BIKE CYCLING: 35.9 miles
Time: 2h 25m 56s
Avg. Pace: 4:04/mileI can't wait until this marathon is over. I'm looking forward to training for Troika 1/2 IM in August. But now the focus is only on the marathon. Still a little worried, not that I'll finish, I know I will, barring anything weird. But will I be able to break 4 hrs??? that's the big ???? The shorter races I've been doing have been great in that my pace has been nearl a full minute faster than last year. But the longest race was a 10k 3 weeks ago and my pace was 7:16. But on the long runs on Sundays my pace @ ~9-9:30. with my longest run being 20 miles. Just not sure how it will all hold together at sub 9 min pace for 26.2. but I guess we'll find out soon eneough, 28 days to be exact.

ALMOST 40 MILES

Well this week I had to deviate from my training plan again. My long run that was slated for Sunday was to be a 22 miler. However I decided to run a 10 k race on Satuday and had planned on doing a duathlon on Sunday. The duatlon was a short one 2,10,2 run,bike,run. So I thought I would do it in the morning then go for a 10 mile run later in the day. But Sunday morning it was raining pretty hard with no signs of letting up so I decided not to do the race. I'm not going to intentionally take my new bike out in the rain for a little training race. So then I was stuck needing to do a longer run to make up the difference. So I decided to run 16 miles. Now you have to remember that I ran a 10 k race the day before. This 10 k was a PR too 45:10. Fast for me. And after the race rather than go home and drink my recovery drink, I went to a friends and had coffee. So needless to say I was not 100% for the 16 miler. And I felt it too. At the beginning I was stuggling, but kept going thinking that I would loosen up. And I did, for about 8-10 miles. But 11-13 were hard, and 14-16 were torture. So I learned that long runs should not follow races, and that after races you need your recovery drink. Not smart I know,now. But hopefully this week my life will fit my training a little better

END OF THE MONTH

Well this is by far the most I have ever run in a month.

Running
148.5 milesTime: 20h 45m 01sAvg. Pace: 8:23/mile
INDOOR CYCLING
20.0 milesTime: 1h 00m 00sAvg. Pace: 3:00/mile
Now that the weather is getting better i will be able to get some time on the bike.

20 MILES IS A LONG WAY

This weeks long run took me a long way, 20 miles to be exact. This is the farthest I have ever gone. My intention was to run 18 miles. My training plan did call for 20 but I had made some adjustments a few weeks ago to fit in a race. So Sunday was going to be 18 miles. Jayne was going to ride her road bike and provide any extra support I might need. She's the best by the way. I bet she rode her bike 40-50 miles while I ran. I got to use my newest gaget the GEL-BOT, check it out www.gel-bot.com . The thing works great. Jayne also had a couple of bottles of gatorade for me on her bike, as well as an extra gu. Now you must also know that I'm working real hard at running these long runs slow 9:30-10 min/mi. So when I got to 9 miles I felt great, despite the very hilly coarse that I choose. So I thought what the hell I feel great, the program actually calls for 20 at this point, so I went for it. By the time I got to 15 miles I was even picking up the pace just a little. At mile 17 Jayne ditched her bike and joined me for the last 3 miles. The last 2 miles I tried to pick up the pace alot. Mile 19 was a 9 min. mile and mile 20 was at 8 min. At about 19.5 it took all of my concentration to keep the wheels from falling off. I could tell that if I did not focus all of my attention on each step it could all go to crap in a hurry. But there it was I could see the last mile marker. I got a big grin on my face, yelled f*&k yea. and finished felling great. Total distance for the week 36.5 miles. And monday morning when I woke up I felt ok. I could definitly tell I had done something but really felt pretty good. The beauty to me at this point is I can actually see me running the marathon now. Before Sunday I had serious doubts. Now I know I can do it. Now, can I do it at pace?

A WEEK OF FIRSTS

This week had a couple of firsts. First first, this was the 1 st week I ran all 6 days my plan called for. It was also the 1st time I have ran 6 days in a row. It was also the 1st time I have ran 35 miles in a week. All of this and this is my work week. I have an odd work schedule in that I work 7 nights in a row then have 7 off. So any of you that work nights know how hard it can be to fit workouts in with sleep and work schedules. But this week all the planets lined up or something and it all worked out. At about the 7th mile of sunday's 10 mile long run I was a little worried that maybe I was pushing to much. I had a weird pain in my right knee that kind of came out of no where, but after a little limping and a little stretching it fixed itself and I was able to finish. A little slower than I wanted but ok for a long slow run.

ST. PADDY'S 5

Well Sunday culminated a busy week. Mon. was a rest day, Tues. was a killer hill workout. I pick a steep hill 0.25 miles long and ran 7 repeats the first 5 were run in 2 min each followed by jogging down, the last 2 were a little tougher and 2:17, 2:24 was all I could manage. My lungs hurt for 2 days from breathing so hard I think I actually strained my intercostal muscles. Wed. was a 7 mile tempo run. Thur and Fri were spent at silver mtn skiing in knee deep powder, awsome snow. Sat was my my long run 14 miles, on the treadmill no less, pace was nice and easy 7 mph x 2 hrs. And last but not least was the St.Paddy's Five. I actually set a pr with a time of 35:34 on my watch, they had me at 35:46. Oh well, 31 miles for the week and I felt great.

END OF FEB.

Well as another month comes to an end, I'm forced to reflect on my training. I feel pretty good about my running. Yesterday I ran my first real hard long run, 16 miles. Man that marathon just seems impossible at this point. But I know it's not so I'll keep on training and stick with the plan. As for the biking still only doing the spinning class thing once a week, but that's about to change along with the weather. oh and pretty soon I'll have to get in the pool too.
Running
101.2 milesTime: 14h 01m 17sAvg. Pace: 8:19/mile
INDOOR CYCLING
65.0 milesTime: 3h 15m 00sAvg. Pace: 3:00/mile

GYM DUATHLON

Thursday was a duathlon workout.... I got off work at ~ 0745 at the gym by 0815. On the treadmill for 4 miles 7:40/mi pace. Then spinning class, killer hill workout, nearly puked towards the end. Then back on the treadmill for 2 more miles. Then to bed. Not a bad workout I think I will make that a regular gig on thurs. since I can go to that spinning class.

PARTNER'S IN PAIN

Well this past week was another good running week, culminating with Partner's in Pain race. This a 5 k race in which male and female teams times are added together along with there ages to determine the winner. I ran a PR 5 k at 22.26, Jayne,my girlfriend and partner in the race, did not do so well so we did not do well as a team. Not that my time help much either since I finished 104th out of 450 or something. But a PR is still a PR and I was happy. Some friends and I ran the course once before the race as a warm up and once after the race as a cool down, for a total of 9.3 miles for the day. That put me at 24.3 miles for the week.

SO FAR SO GOOD

Well as the 1 st month of the new year comes to an end, I'm on my way to fullfiill my goals. The running is going fairly well. I ran a total of 71.3 miles in jan. the biking has been a little less productive as the weather has not allowed much outside riding and what there has been has been on the mtn bike. However, I have been going to a spinning class once a week and that is sure to help me once I can get outside. I have yet to get into the pool though and that;s ok with me.

NEW YEAR PLAN

Well I have been putting this off but here goes. my goals for this year are to run 1000 miles, ride my bike 4000 miles, compete in and finish my 1st marathon, and compete in and complete my 1st 1/2 IM. wow I get tired just reading that.Ambitious yes but totally doable.