Feeling Better

I must say that I feel better about my chances next week. Sunday's run, a 10 miler, felt good. My legs had some spring in them and the effort felt comfortable, considering that had worked all night on about 7 hrs of sleep. This run was basically caveman. I did have my watch and there are mile markers on part of the curse I ran so I did check up on my pace a few times. But for the most part it was just by feel. I was about 4 seconds/mi faster than my goal pace and I felt like could hold it for a long time. So I will continue the same rest,hydration,diet as I head into the race weekend. The pisser is that I'm working an extra day this week for a total of 8 nights= 80hrs in a row. Which does take it's toll on my old ass. But nobody said it would be easy, or at least not to me.
In my quest for for complete and total understanding of everything :) I have ordered a couple books that I'm looking forward to reading. The first came to me from Gordo and will hopefully help me make some sense of the economy going forward. The other book has more to do with this blog and may be more interesting to my faithful readers ALL of you. :) Lucho has been reading this book by Mat Fitzgerald about the mental aspect of running. So being the thinker that I think I am I think it may give me some things to think about. I will let you know waht I think when I think it.

The Final Stretch

With only 11 days and just a few more training runs before Portland there is not much left but to get'r done. I would be less than honest if said I was ready. I'm really not sure. After yesterday's run I came home and looked back at my training plan and compared it to what I actually did. NOT SO GOOD....I got a 70%. Now this grade is miles ran divided by miles should have ran. I also did not quite make the mark on hitting all of my paces. And in the last few weeks my motivation has been for shit. But as I head into this last week and try to absorb the training that I did do. I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it's not a train. Bottom line I going to run Portland and I'm going to do my best, even though I didn't do my best in training. At the end of the race I will either qualify or I won't. Neither my life nor my livelihood are dependant on this race. I will have as much fun as you can have while running 26.2 miles as fast as you can.
On another note you will notice a something new on my page it is the Endurance Corner badge. This is an online community set up by Gordo that has some great discussions as part of the forum. This is unlike some of the forums out there in which there is a lot of information spewed by so called "experts". These are some of the top athletes and coaches in triathlon. If you're interested in taking a look let me know as Endurance Corner is by invite only at this point.

LAST LONG RUN

I have to apologize for my last post as I know it was a bit of a ramble. I was totally procrastinating my long run on Thurs. Normally I do my long runs on Sun with the Hobbit but I have a real hard time with runs longer than about 10 miles after I have worked all night. So to solve this problem I decided that I would do my long run on Thurs. which is the day I start back to work. Confused, me too. Anyway I was not looking forward to this weeks run, a 20 miler. So rather than getting out the door when it was nice an cool. I came up with a whole host of things to do first and blogging was one of them. Again ,sorry. As I predicted 20 miles is along way and in no way fun. I did, however work on my nutrition and hydration with some success. The course I ran was brutal lots of hills something like 4700 feet of elevation gain. All this up and down took it's toll not only on my body but also on my pace. The goal was to average 20-50 sec slower than goal pace which would make it 8:20-8:50 pace.How about 9:30 pace.....3 pee breaks and 1 stretch. Boob and the Hobbit assure me that I'll be fine at Portland. I, on the other hand, am less than confident. We shall see.

Sunday Sundae

This race course as I mentioned in the previous post is tough. My goal for this race as with all races is to do better than last year. Well this was the 1st race that I did not improve my time on in the last couple of years. I was actually about 30 seconds slower this year. The week leading up to the race I had to many excuses not to train. Notice I did not say reasons, but excuses. Normally I hate excuses they go against everything I believe in. But the fact of the matter is my motivation is waining and getting out the door just did not happen. So one would think that I was well rested for the race, and I was. But I still just felt kind of bla. A 10 mile race on some tough hills just did not sound like much fun and it really wasn't. Anyway I started out running with a girl that lives down the lake from me who I ran the course with a few weeks ago. She and I had the same pace goal, 7 min/mi. The 1st 2 miles is nice and flat then comes the steep downhill that is about 1/4 mile long. My goal was to have us right on pace when we got to the bottom of that hill. I nailed it almost perfectly. The next 5 miles are mostly flat with couple little hills. But at about 7 3/4 miles you start a climb that last until just over the 9 mile mark. The last 3/4 is pretty steep. Then it is flat to the finish. So back at about the 4mile mark of the race Kerrie, the girl I was running with, pulled away from me. She did not speed up I had slowed down. I felt like I was in survival mode already. I was really trying to stay focused because if I didn't I would began to slow down. Anyway I putted along trying to muster the motivation to pick up the pace but legs were having no part of it. When I got to the 8 mile mark I was right at 58 min. So I new with the big hill still to come I was going to have a tough time beating last years time. And as I started up the hill my legs felt like they had no spring at all. At the top of the hill some guy passed me that looked like he was race walking, that was it. I had to pick it up. I started calling myself all kinds of names, making promises to myself I knew I wouldn't keep. I pulled out all the psychobabble bullshit I could think of to try to get my ass moving a little faster. Then I looked at my gadget and saw I had 3/4 of a mile to go. "Dude it's 3 laps, you've been doing those at 6:30 pace". Finally I started to speed up. When I rounded the last corner for the finish I could hear footsteps and that was the push I needed. I was able to put the hammer down for the last 800 I passed about 5 people. And when I ran through the shoot a voice behind me said "man I tried to get you but I couldn't". I turned around and shook his hand, he was about 25 yo, and I said " I heard you coming thanks for the push".
We hung around for the awards because they usually give away some good stuff. And to my surprise they called my name as 3rd place in my division.Wow! I even got a little coffee cup for my trouble. My friend BOB got 2nd in his division. And the girl I started the race with got 1st in her division and by the way ran 1:10 flat with no gadget, now that is knowing your pace. The Hobbit set a PR by 5 sec. but the 45-50 yo group is pretty tough.
The next day they had the official times posted and much to my dismay I actually did not get 3rd. They must have missed someone or had someone in the wrong division but I actually got 4th. So I will give up my coffee cup.Damn! My time was 1:14:28
The next race is the big one Portland Marathon on October 5th, my 45th birthday. I need to run 3:30 to qualify for Boston. Wish me luck I think I'll need it.

Training,races,work and poiltics

Yes I'm going to touch on all of those topics, but just touch. Training has been sparce since Sunday's run....0 runs. Which leads me to the 3rd subject in the title work....If you know any Pharmacists, will you send them to Deaconess Medical Center please. I would really like to get someone to take my job so that I could start my new job. As it stands right now I'm doing both jobs but only getting paid for 1. But to be fair I'm really only doing the new job about 1/2 assed, so maybe I should get 1.5x pay. As for the 2nd item in the title I will be running the Sunday Sundae this Sunday, DAH. This is a tough 10 mile race that has 2 killer hills. The first one is a down hill that is a quad killer. It come about 2 miles into the race. The 2nd is an uphill gaurenteed to peg your HR. It begins at the 8 mile mark as a rather gradual climb then the last .5 miles is not quite "oh my God" steep but will definitly get your attention.
And as for politics I'm going to vote and so should you.

Rainy Days and Mondays

This is a picture from our deck. I would put our sunsets up against any in the world.

Well today is a rainy day and a Monday so it is a good time blog. This past weekend I had the whole house to myself, except for the dogs and cat. Jayne went up to Penticton to watch IM Canada. We had several friends doing the race one of which Jess is a good friend who has always been so supportive of Jayne. She, by the way took ~ 1 hr of her previous IM times. They were on different courses but it is still a significant accomplishment. Jayne is such a good friend to people. The most selfless person I have ever known. Jess did not finish until ~8:30-9:00pm and Jayne stayed until the end to see her finish. It's about 4 1/2 hr drive from Penticton and Jayne had to be at work this morning at 0745. She got home at 0220 and the alarm went off at 0600. She is going to be dragging her ass today. But to her it was all worth it because she got to see the look on her friends face when she finished. And I'm sure there are a 20-30 pictures to document the occasion.
Another friend Jon Moen did his first IM. Jon and I met last year at IM Canada. We were there to watch and he was signing up for this years race. Jon and I rode the course together, kind of, he kicked my ass. He had a great race 10:45 with a 5:19 bike split, good job Jon. Jon is on our tri team Tri-fusion. We had a couple of other people from the team do well as well Martin and Vicki Scates both went ~ 10:50.
The weekend did give me time to paint and to run. I ran a total of 32.5 miles. Friday was an easy 6.5 Sat. a fast 10 and Sun. 16. 16 miles is just hard. I held my goal pace for 14 but the last 2 had a couple of good hills and they spanked me. I ended up a little slower than planned and mentally I was whipped. This was ~ 30 seconds/mi slower than what I need to run in Portland to qualify for Boston and right now I don't see it. We will see what happens the next long run is 20 miles, that doesn't even sound fun.

addendum

I went to see a ENT(ear nose and throat doc) yesterday. Apparently the ER doc was wrong and I did not rupture the eardrum. Instead it is bruised with a bit of a blood clot behind the eardrum. Bottomline good news, I'll be skiing today.

Pleasantly Confused

Today I planned on doing a MAF test followed by some 1 mile repeats,which I did. However, the results have me a little confused. The MAF went terrible, from a pace vs HR standpoint. A total backslide from my last test. I don't know if this means I'm ready to add more intensity. Or did my drop off in volume last week have that dramatic of an effect. Or was it just a bad day, dehydrated etc. I don't know. But since I'm 8 weeks out from Portland I will assume it is time to add more intensity. So I did that today in the form of 5 x 1 mile repeats. The plan was to do a ladder off sorts with times not distances. So I would adjust my pace for each mile. I was to start at 7 min/mi for 1 st mile then 6:45, 6:30, 6:45,7:00. This is how it turned out.
mile 1 6:50 HR 169
mile 2 6:38 HR 172
mile 3 6:21 HR 175
mile 4 6:41 HR 171
mile 5 6:49 HR 170

Now the part that is cool, to me. The last 2 miles felt easier and not just because I was going a little slower. The pace seemed slower and easier with each rep. My 9th and 10th mile of this whole workout felt good. I've always had a tough time with the concept of perceived exertion. Hard is hard and easy is easy and all the rest is either not hard or not easy....I know you'd think I was smarted than that. but I'm not. But today I actually could tell that miles 9,10 were easier from an effort standpoint than miles 6,7. I liked this workout and will repeat it a few more times before the race. I will track them and see if there is any trend.
AS for the MAF here are those numbers. As I said a little disappointing.

mile 1 8:40 HR 141
mile 2 8:49 HR 145
mile 3 8:46 HR 147
mile 4 9:00 HR 149
mile 5 9:29 HR 147
So HR's are a little all over the place and this was my 1st 5 mile test as opposed to the 3 mile tests I've done in the past.

WHAT! I CAN'T HEAR YOU

Well the best laid plans can often go to shit. So yesterday I went skiing,as I often do this time of year. Actually before I got into the triathlon thing this was how I spent most of my time in the spring,summer and 1st part of the fall. The past few years though I have stayed off the water until my major race was over.This is because I didn't want to take a chance on getting hurt. If you have ever watched competitive water skiing then you'll understand this. But suffice it to say that the combination of speed and water can prove to be very painful. The picture is of a pro showing what the turn should look like. My turn coming out of the 4 ball did not go quite as planned. As I came around the ball my ski washed out and I basically smacked the side of my head on the water. The force was enough and the angle just right to cause my eardrum to rupture. OUCH! Long term prognosis is good. However I do have to stay out of the water for a week or two. So no race today. No water skiing for a while. So needless to say I'm pretty disappointed in how my summer is turning out. Next week I will go see a ENT and see how it is healing and find out if it will have to be surgically repaired. This could really screw up a dive trip planned for October but I will wait until I know for sure before I get pissed about that.


On a better note I am very happy to report that my brother has safely made it home from Iraq. I know his wife and 2 kids are thrilled to have dad back in the house. Welcome home Ron and thanks for all of your service to our country and the sacrifices that I know you have made.

TOUR DE 9 MILE

I went on a great ride yesterday with my buddy Pat. We always have great conversations with lots of laughs. It was Pat's longest bike ride ever, with just a little climbing. Needles to say he is in pretty good shape for an old man. And if you ever find yourself lost in the back country he IS the man you want looking for you.

CHANGING PLANS

Due to a work conflict I will not be able to do Troika this year. So instead I 'm going to do the CDA Scenic Challenge. This is an Olympic distance tri. It is actually the first "big" tri I ever did back in 1998. Of course the definition of big has change quite a bit since then. In 1998 I defined a long swim as a mile, a long bike was 30 miles and a long run about 8 miles. That same year I ran my 1st 1/2 marathon and it nearly killed me. The day after the race I went deer hunting and my legs were so toasted all I could do was walk out into the woods about 110 yds. and take a nap.I digress, I remember back then as I was training for that 1st oly. thinking how big of deal this was. Yea I've come a ways since then. Of course that makes me wonder what "big" will be in 2018.
This weekend I'm also going to run a little 8k cross country race that a friend of mine puts on The Toaster Splash after the race I'm heading up to Deer Park for our tri clubs kids triathlon to help out, should be fun/funny.

T.Boone Pickens

I like the sound of this.

MAF Test

Yesterday I did a MAF test prior to doing some 800's with Bob. The results of the test are pretty amazing. First though let me show you what my previous test results were.
test #1 11/3
mile 1 @ 141, 8:51/mi
mile 2 @ 144, 9:08/mi
mile 3 @ 143, 9:16/mi

test #2 12/4
mile 1 @ 143, 8:34
mile 2 @ 145, 8:48
mile 3 @ 145, 8:58

So as you can see I was making progress. This was doing exclusive MAF training. Of course since Jan. I was building up for IMCDA so most of that training is pretty low intensity as well but alot more volume. Then as you get closer to the race you add more intensity.

test # 3 7/15/08
mile 1 @ 144, 8:09
mile 2 @ 144, 8:14
mile 3 @ 144, 8:29

notice that my 3rd mile is faster now than my 1st mile was back in Dec. I guess that's progress.

Sharing Ideas

In the past couple of days I've some interesting,at least to me, interactions on the Internet. A couple were simple Q&A kind of things with Lucho another was a little support/pat on the back thing with Angela. The one that I found the most interesting though was a discussion with KP. He had quoted something on his website that I had commented on over at Alan's blog. The discussion in general is about aging as an athlete. Attitudes about it and attitudes in dealing with it and the like. So I wanted to share part of our discussion. You can go to the specific sites to piece it all together if you like but the last couple of emails should give you the gist.

KP-"Thanks for your post on my forum. I like to have lots of ideas on there and they don't all have to agree with me. However, I understood that you and I mostly agree on this subject of aging; but I wanted to comment to you privately so that it doesn't look like I am at odds with you if we are actually agreeing.

The point should be made that as we age and slow down we may be performing better than ever relative to our competition. Gordo's blog article on the 'aging athlete' http://www.gordoworld.com/gblog/2007/11/aging-athlete.html uses Ron Ottoway as an example. At 65 he went 11:57 and was second in Kona by 3min. At 70 he went 13hrs and was first by 60min. If he had stopped training and racing because he would never go sub12 again he would not have been the champion and missed great experiences along the way.

Are you sure you meant to convey the message you wrote about "aging big time athletes that won't quit and move on" to be part of your post? That doesn't sound like part of what I have been talking about and goes against what I hope we continue to see from Gordo and Molina, which is staying in the sport and maintaining great perspective."

Me-"Thanks for the chance to clarify my meaning. I'm talking about athletes whose prime in their sport is behind them and there is no room for future growth. For sports like football and basketball where there really is no way to continue to compete past a certain point.It would be great if MJ could play forever but I don't want to see him get smoked by Lebron. For Gordo and Molina and you and I we can continue to compete. Our times may get slower relative to our previous times but we can improve within our AG.Actually just continuing to push our bodies this way into the later years is a huge victory in and of itself. I'm kind of banking on that very thing. Like I said on AC's blog I did not even start this until I was 43 so I have lots of room for improvement. I'm kind of hoping that if I can stay healthy that at some point I can go to Kona. But hell at CDA this year I was 180/332 in my AG. Not exactly competitive, but an hour better than last year. This year I plan on qualifying for the Boston marathon not because I've gotten so fast but because I turn 45 on the day of the race and the required time decreases by 10 minutes.
I can see in Gordo's writing that he is coming to grips with the reality of age. I think he is dealing with all of those questions we all have as we get older in a very public way with alot of people watching and with an enviable amount of class. I personally can't wait to see what he is capable of accomplishing. He and Molina and all of you Epic guys pushing yourselves is one of the things that motivates me on a daily basis. I'd like to see Gordo be the first 60 yo go under 10hrs or whatever. It is about perspective. Even in the example I used above I would like to see MJ play with a bunch of guys his age. I'm sure he can still dominate them.
Does that make more sense?"

So what is so interesting to me about this?? For one thing all of us are spread all over the place and still able to have essentially live conversations. Secondly, people can actually have civil discussions and truly share ideas. And 3rd is the old idea that if a butterfly flaps it's wings in Japan does that cause the wind to blow in California. Sometimes it does.

POST IM GOALS

Well now that I feel fairly recovered and have started hitting it again. It's time to lay out the goals for the rest of the year. The original plan was to waterski a lot. With the new boat sitting in the garage all winter and spring it was calling loud. However thanks to $4/gal gas I can't seem to hear it calling as much. That combined with the fact that our ski clubs slalom course got totally trashed over the winter. Thanks to the people in the club that used it on a daily basis but seem to think that they shouldn't take it out without the help of those of us that have always done it. I digress. Next race Troika 8/3, local 1/2 IM with great point to point route. I've never done a half, but all the while I was training for CDA I was thinking that a 1/2 sounds like the perfect distance. One that I actually feel like I should be able to race, not just do, like IM. After that it's Portland's marathon 10/5. This just happens to be on my 45 birthday. Which means that my qualifying time for Boston gets pushed back by 10 min. So I need to run 3:30 to go to Boston, and that's the plan. My run fitness has gotten so much better since my only other marathon. Not to mention that I've learned so much about fueling and hydration. I know I can break 3:30 and I'm going to.

JAYNE

Let me tell you about my girlfriend. She IS an Ironman. To some of you her times may not sound to impressive. But those in the know, know just how impressive they are. Jayne finished this years IM in 14 h 20 min and some change. That is a modest 6 min. improvement over last years times. But a 6 min improvement is still pretty good. Most people that know her know she is a good swimmer and might think that she improved her swim time. Wrong!It actually was about the same. But because the water was pretty cold and she was fighting leg cramps she swam way wide in the course to minimize contact with the other swimmers grabbing her legs.
So was her improvement on the bike?? No that actually was slower this year. She too did not have as much bike time this year. With her longest ride also 82 miles,not the same 82 miles though as mine. She also had a few more stops this year.
No much to my surprise and everyone elses including Jayne herself. She improved her marathon by about 30 min. This is huge and I'll tell you why. 8 miles, that's the distance of her longest run leading up to IM. I'll bet she did not run 30 miles in the last 2 months. She had been fighting a nagging leg injury basically all year. Every time she ran she would re-injure her leg. A few days before the race though she was thinking that the seat height on her bike just didn't feel right. She had worked with Steve at 2 Wheel Transit on getting position dialed in, but the seat height had slipped or something. Anyway, the day day before the race we stopped at the bike shop and they made a cm increase in seat height, that's alot. So her plan for the race went something like swim her best,bike her best, then walk the marathon. We were expecting a midnight finish. But every time I saw her on the run, she was running. I thought cool, but she was way back. So after I finished and Tony and I loaded the bikes. We got a call from Janine,who had driven out on the course to see where Jayne was. She said Jayne has about 3 miles left. "Get the Fuck out of here" or somehting like that was my reaction. So we hobbled, I guess I hobbled, Tony was fine, back to the finish area and met up with Janine. And about 10 min. later here she came. Totally running and stroking it pretty good. Grinning ear to ear, she said "I'm going to beat last years time" and she did. I have never been prouder!! what a studdete!!
Lots of people would have never started that race given her prep. Not doing it was never even an option for Jayne. She is as tough as they come. She is an IRONMAN!!

IM CDA 2008

Well I did it, again. If you have been following along on this blog then you know I was less than optimistic about this year. With my work schedule 7x 10hr nights in a row then 7 days off it was hard to be consistent. Working nights adds an element of sleep deprivation that cannot be good. This combined with the addition of Otis, our Chocolate Lab puppy in Dec. made for many days with 4-6 hrs of sleep. The weather also took it's toll on my training plans. With the limited number days that I could ride my bike to start with being ruined by rain,snow and freezing temps. My pre race mileage was down over 900 miles from last year. with my longest ride being 82 miles.
The icing on the bike riding cake though was being hit by the car 3 weeks prior to the race on what was to be the beginning of my biggest week. My running, the 1 bright spot in my training early on, had fallen on tough times as well in the last 6-8 weeks. Minor injuries and a slightly mistimed peak had left me feeling a little flat and less than fast. As for the swim, I hate swimming! I never have like to swim. As far I can tell the only good thing about swimming, other than keeping you from drowning, is girls in swimsuits. The SWIMP3 made the training bearable but still not something that I looked forward to.
Ok so enough excuses you get the picture. Ironman is not for pussies,excuses or whining.
Race day morning came early 0330. Jayne and I opted to stay at home this year vs staying at her mom's house. We stayed at her house last year, and it did save us about 40 min, but sleeping in our own bed is sure nice. So after we both had some coffee and a successful BM we were off. We were about 8 miles from the house when I realized I had forgot my IRONMAN swim cap, shit! But it was not worth turning around for and we were sure they would have extras for all the other morons, they did. When we got to CDA we were a little concerned as we drove down Northwest blvd because the flags were flapping in the wind. But after parking and getting a look at the lake a feeling of relief no real waves to contend with. Compared to last year it was glass.
We dropped off our special need bags and drinks and helmets at our bikes. Filled our tires and double checked all the gear. I made sure my bike was in a lower gear so I could start off easy. After the body markers we put on our wetsuits and headed for the beach. We got to see Al and wish him luck. Boom! and we're off. The mass start of an Ironman is a clusterfuck beyond belief. Imagine 2000 people thrown into a 2 million gallon washing machine, and everyone trying to go to the same place. I think this actually works to my advantage though because it's the only part of triathlon which is a contact sport. For the 1st 1000 meters it's basically a fight for a place to swim. By the time we made the 2nd turn and headed back to shore it had spread out and I was able to get into a rhythm. I finished the 1st lap in 37 min. WOW! for me that's great. The 2nd lap was uneventful. But I was getting hungry, swimming makes me so hungry. Out of the water and to my surprise my legs felt springy, so I ran up the beach and to the wetsuit peelers. After they peeled my suit and stood me up I got one of the best head rushes of my entire life. Re-caged the giro and I was off to the change tent again with springy legs. I was actually high stepping over the other t1 bags on my way to the tent. T1 went faster this year but not much. swim time 1:17:07 T1 11:13
The plan for the bike was to start slow enough that I could eat a pbj, then hit it. Well I ate 1/2 the pbj, the rest was blob of mushy goo in the bottom of the baggy. Lesson learned do not cut into quarters. Time to cruise, now this is where I get confused. I passed tons of people all day long. Up hill, down hill and even on the flats. Now I did get passed but it sure seemed like I passed alot more people than passed me, but my bike time relative to others in my age group pretty much sucked. The difference between bike split and my bike computer was 8 mins. so with stopping to pee and getting my special needs bag that's not to bad. My garmin was a huge disappointment. About 3 hrs into the bike it starts telling me it has a low battery. The damn thing had been on the charger for like 4 days straight without being used. I don't understand what the idiot that designed a recharging system that actually loses a charge while being plugged in was thinking. I would think that the software could assess the charge and act accordingly, but what do I know. The Garmin issue was not that big of a deal on the bike but the run would suck without the pacing info. I digress. Towards the end off the 1st loop as you head back into town the head wind was brutal. I remember thinking that if this wind keeps up the 2nd loop will kill me. The wind must have subsided a little because the 3rd 1/3 of the ride was faster than the 2nd 1/3 but not as fast a the 1st. make sense?
bike time 6:29:27 t2 4:31
I do want to thank all of the volunteers that helped with this race. Having been a volunteer in the past myself I know that I liked feeling like I really helped someone have a good race. And for me it was the guy who helped me in T2. I don't know his name but this guy was great. He dumped my bag and was taking my bike shoes off. After changing socks he put my running shoes on my feet and my hat on head while I was eating and drinking. I know he saved me 2-3 minutes and allowed me to relax a little. I got to talk to Mike Bresson a friend who was also helping in the tent and got some words of encouragement from him. Which means alot coming from a guy that can run a 2:20 marathon. Got some sun spooge rubbed on me as I left the tent and back on the road I go.
With no gadget to tell me my pace nor a watch to figure it myself I was left to be a caveman. I ran on feel. I have no idea what pace I was running at first, or at second for that matter. But I did have an idea. When I would get to a mile marker I would ask someone standing there what time it was. Now this was not going to be a very good system for figuring my current pace, but it would allow me figure out roughly when I might finish. When I felt like I had settled in I passed my buddy Stan only he was going in the other direction. He is great rider and had pretty good day on the bike in retrospect he was about 41 mins ahead of me. Stan's a big boy though and I thought I could catch him if just stayed consistent and tried to push myself. I would know when I got back towards the second turn around if I was going to be able to run him down or not. It was a pretty nice day for a run the wind was a non factor and the support was great. My feet were killing me though. One of the nagging minor injuries I had been dealing with just would not go away. Of coarse my fix...a new pair of shoes... a model that I have run in but still brand new and a 1/2 size smaller than the other 2 pairs of those shoes that I have. So now not only do I have the normal soreness of my right foot, but now I have a whole new soreness of the big toenail of my left foot, gotta have balance. Like I said Ironman is not for pussies. keep plugging away counting my cadence in my head. People yelling "good job" "nice pace" "your doing it" for the first 5-10 miles I would say "thanks alot" or "thanks for your help" but by mile 10-20 it was reduced to "thanks". And from mile 20 on it was more of a grunt. By the time I got to the third and final turn around I knew I could catch Stan if I could maintain my pace and keep the wheels from falling off. We high fived each other as we passed, what a great competitor. 5 more miles of pain, I was drawing deeper and deeper into my own head. Counting cadence focusing on form the the occasional grunt towards a spectator. Now I have intentionally left Jayne out of this blog because her story deserves it's own blog entry. But I will mention her here just before mile 25 I saw her, we kissed, that's all I needed. I could see Stan in front of me now maybe 2 blocks. Right at mile 25 I caught him. I told him he was one tough MF to catch. What a great race he had. Last mile gotta pick up the pace, finish strong. I was passing people some with a second loop still to come and others on their way home with me. But nobody was going to pass me in the last mile no matter what, and they didn't. Now when I made the last turn and headed toward the finish line I would have sworn I running 7 min/mi pace. But according to the Hobbit no not quite 7 min pace, maybe 9:30. I felt fast, to bad that doesn't count. I was able to get the crowd fired up though which was fun and when I came down the shoot this year I did hear him call my name and call me an Ironman. run time 4:34:53 total time 12:37:09
For those of you keeping score that's a 57 min improvement over last year.
After the catcher helped me out of the finish area and I was waiting for Tony an Janine. I actually got a little choked up. Knot in the throat, watery eyes the whole thing. So for those of you that say I only have one feeling, I found it. Huge thanks to Tony and Janine for being there and Tony for helping me load everything up and Janine for keeping track of and continually motivating Jayne. Thanks to everyone that sent the good vibes my way it was appreciated.

TAPER???

This year has been weird. With the new job, doing part of the job not getting paid for it though. The new puppy, nearly 8 monthes old now. And weather that it indicative of the end of times. My training this year has been marginal at best. So there is no real need to taper. Trying to make sure that I'm getting enough rest. I'm not pushing if I feel tired. I am trying to make sure that all workouts are on pace though, after a warm up. I'm also trying to eat right, not just a lot, but good stuff. Big salads almost everyday with chicken or tuna. Fresh fruit and veggies as much as I can. And I've really cut my ice cream intake, one of my only vices. The other being coffee, forget it, maybe I can cut that down when I get off nights but not now.
On June 10 it snowed ???? WTF crazy weather.
The bike is dialed in I just got some new Pro race3 tires that I will mount later today. I plan on riding today and Sunday ~ 3hrs each with a short brick run. Next week will be a couple of short bricks a few open water swims and some strides. Then it's time to step up and see what happens.

POTENTIAL

This morning,as most mornings, I read Chuckie V's blog. He had a link to Kevin Purcell's page and a discussion about potential. They raised some very good points and below is my 2 cents.


As a 44 yo man preparing for his 2nd IM, I have been giving this a lot of thought. And not to be to argumentative but I think the question should be "what is my eventual" rather than potential. According to wikipedia,sum of all universal knowledge, Potential,n.1.Currently unfulfilled capacity to improve, develop, and achieve impressive feats. adj.2 Existing in possibility, not in actuality. Therefore a potential can never be reached. However if one asks himself/herself "how good will I eventually be if I".....fill in the blank.
1.continue this protocol
2.get a coach
3.spend more time on the bike
4.etc,etc,etc.
Chances are you still won't get the answer you probably want. We all want some finite answer and there isn't one. But you would be asking a better question of yourself. As for "knowing" if your close to your potential or not, I'm not sure. I do think we all have a sense of whether we are ready or not. Even then as Chuckie pointed out"HR does not not measure heart". Until the deed is done and we reflect upon it can we then say we did EVERYTHING we could, and got the most out of ourselves at that particular time. But I could potentially do better next time if I change xyz.
At this point in my life I just want to get the most bang for the buck so to speak. If Gordo is right and it take 10yrs/10000 hrs to get good. Then I won't be good until I'm 50-52. Hell, if I can still do this when I'm 50-52 that WILL be good.

Another First

Well today June 1st I had another first in my life. I joined the ranks of thousands that have gone before me. And, as with most things, it never quite turns out the way you thought it would. I'm not sure if it is unrealistic expectations or misinformation or just plain naivety that leads to that surreal feeling after a first time experience. Your head swims. Replaying the event over and over trying to figure out exactly where it was that what ended up being fate became inevitable. At what point was it destined to happen and/or could you have affected the outcome in some other way. So what "Cherry" did I have popped today.....I got hit buy a car. Yep, t-boned complete with a ride on the hood of he car. And just like on TV when the car came to a stop I went flying off the front. But being the stud athlete that I am...yea right. I was able to hit the ground running... sort of. I don't think I went down to the ground. My confusion has nothing to do with a head injury or loss of consciousness or anything I'm pretty sure it was anger. I saw the whole thing develop I knew it was going to happen. I was watching the girl that hit me as she watch the bikers I was following pass in front of her. And as is the case far to often she did not look back to the left before pulling out. The weather was crap and it was raining. I was on the brakes hard and was skidding slightly sideways. My years of motorcycle riding paying off so that I did not lay the bike down. Which would have allowed her to run OVER me, rather than into me. I was yelling at her NO!!!!! to late...BOOM! Time slowed way down as I was riding on the hood I swear I saw her mouth the words "I'm sorry" right before I launched off the front. She was terrified, poor girl was about 17. She was crying and apologizing. At first I was so pissed I told her not talk to me. The people that I was riding behind had heard the crash and had turned around to see if they could help. Thanks, to the 2 members of Badlands Cycle Team for helping me out. One of them tried to calm the girl down while the other tended to my bike, after I assured them that I was ok. The girl said she would pay for any damage to my bike to which I exclaimed "you don't understand I have Ironman in 3 weeks and you may have just screwed up a year of training". But as I began to understand that I truly was ok and that my bike was ok I calmed down. I then tried to interject a little humor by stating that the worst part is that I blew a hole in the toe of my favorite sock. Which is true I love those socks. I apologized to the girl for losing it and said "you had every right to lose it". We exchanged information and I told her it was ok, I was fine. My only real injury is a very sore left quad, she hit me on the right side. I think my quad hit the top tube of my bike. I climbed back on my bike and headed down the road. This happened at about 20 miles into a 100 mile charity ride the Loreen Miller Ride . I rode about 4 miles further at which point I decided that the pain in my leg was getting worse not better. So I thought it would be better if I called it a day and got some ice on my thigh. So at the next intersection I waited for Jayne and Jeff and Sean, who I started the ride with. Jayne decided to bail with me so she could drive me home, she IS the best girlfriend...ever.
Hopefully this will heel fast and I can ride by Tuesday at the latest I need a 100 miler.