WEEKS 7 & 8 AND AN UNWELCOME SUPRISE

Two more weeks of training have come and gone. Weeks 7 & 8 ended with the following totals....2:20 hrs strength training, 6:15 hrs swimming, 7:40 hrs biking and 6:45 hrs running.  All this fun averaged out to about 11 hrs per week.  Still manageable. Swimming continues to be frustrating.  I am actually putting in about an hr or so more time at the pool than my plan calls for.  The swim coach I am working with has cancelled practice the past three weeks which has left me floundering (pun intended).  Then there was one morning that the lifeguard was 30 freakin minutes late which really sucks because I have to be out of the pool by 6am or shortly thereafter in order to get to work on time.  That left me with a whopping 30 mins to swim that day.   Hopefully we will be back on schedule with coaching and I will see some improvements.  I am also going to take private lessons (again).  Keep your fingers crossed.  Biking included a

Guess which lane I belong in!!!

Computrainer ride.  This is like a pimped out bike trainer.  The class is held in a garage

I am in the back right of this pic.

with a large TV suspended from the ceiling which shows the course you are riding.  This one just happened to be one of the Tour de France climbs.  You can actually watch the scenery as you are pedaling.  I usually don't see too much as my head is down while I am praying for the course to flatten out so I can finally ride BELOW my damn threshold for a few minutes.  The cool thing about these rides is that the computer automatically adjusts the resistance on your bike so you are putting in the correct effort.  The bad thing about these rides is ...see the previous sentence.  You can't fake these rides.  If you are supposed to be riding at 110% of your threshold then that is what you have to do.  I enjoy them overall and wish they weren't held an hour's drive from my house.  Thankfully I can inflict the same pain on myself in the privacy of my own home as I did today on my 2hr 30 min trainer ride.  First off...that is an eternity.  I swear the clock said 6:30AM when I started and by the time I finished 2 1/2 hrs later it was 9PM.  Well...that's what it felt like anyhow.  The ride featured a rather ugly 20 min as hard as you can go and maintain interval.  Now you know this will be ugly when your coach tells you it is ok to get off the bike after this interval for a few minutes before resuming the rest of the ride.  That means don't puke on your bike!!!  Yep it was ugly BUT I didn't get off the bike...so there. Thankfully only one of my runs the past two weeks required some serious effort.  It was an hr and 30 min run that included a 1/2 mile all out effort followed by a 5 min recovery jog followed by a 2 mile all out effort.  OUCH.  Did I mention how much I hate to run fast??!!.  OK..now with all of that training business out of the way let's take a bit of a walk in my head.  Something totally unexpected happened to me this week that I did not see coming and did not like.  It was brought on by something so simple.  I signed up for a Century Ride this week to be held in May.  It is a great opportunity to get a long training ride in with all the pre-planning and logistics handled by someone else.  The route, waterstops, food stops and bathrooms are all taken care of for me.  However while I was typing in my info to register I felt very apprehensive all of the sudden.  Then all of these images poured into my head that chronicled what I do remember about my last attempt at a Century Ride.  I got these vivid memories of arriving at the race, checking in, pumping my tires, gathering my friends, meeting a woman who asked to ride with us, beginning the ride and getting lost.  Of course you all know that is pretty much where my memories end.  These thoughts made me physically sick to my stomach and almost stopped me from continuing to type.  Something about the term Century Ride triggered some very unpleasant thoughts that I was unprepared for and that made me mad....very very mad.  I guess I was dumb enough to think that since I have no memory of the accident itself that once the physical pain subsided that was it.  Incident over, case closed.  Guess I was wrong.  Guess I will have some issues with that accident for awhile.  WHAT FREAKIN EVER!!!  It pisses me off.  You know what though....I kept on typing, I registered, and I am doing the damn ride.  I just might have to refer to it as something else though......4 Quarters ride anyone??!!!!

THE RUN...26.2 MILES

So after swimming 2.4 miles and cycling 112 I will once again arrive in the transition area.  Here I will hand my bike off to some lovely volunteer while muttering how they should feel free to toss the damn thing off a cliff because I am pretty sure I am never getting back on it again.  Hopefully they will ignore me and chalk it up to delerium. I will then hobble into the change tent and ditch the bike shorts and shoes in exchange for compression shorts and my running shoes.  Just as an aside...why the hell do those things cost so much???? I mean really...$125.  They should run for me.  Anyhow....

I will then attempt to get moving while my legs try to figure out what the hell is going on.  The following line is right off the IMLP website describing the run course.  "This spectator-friendly, two-loop course passes by the downtown area four times.  This incredible route features some spectacular tree-lined scenery, coupled with lakeside running." Can't you just hear the birds chirping and violins playing as you read that.  They make it sound so peaceful, so inviting.  Umm what?  Ah no!! Let's be real here people.  I will NOT be admiring any tree-lined scenery.  The only tree I will even be looking at is one to throw up behind. Lakeside running.....yeah...more like "Oh look somewhere for me to jump in and end it all."  You see it has been said many times that an IM will reduce you to the most basic elements of yourself.  It will present you with unbelieveable difficult times.  Times when you fear you won't make it and times when you don't know how you can take just one more step.  A lot of IM finishers talk of focusing on simply getting to the next telephone pole or tree or aid station in order to keep moving.  Once there they just concentrate on getting to the next one and so on and so on and so on.  Of course the run course isn't exactly flat either.  It has it's own nasty elevation chart also.  So the weirdest thing about the run for me is that although I know

Lake Placid IM run course elevation profile

it will be by far the hardest and most painful part of the race, it is also the part that scares me the least.  I think there are two reasons for this.  First off the risk of bodily  harm here is relatively low compared to say drowning or getting kicked in the face on the swim or crashing on the bike.  The second is simply that it is the devil I know.  While I have never swum 2.4 miles or biked 112 I have run 26.2.  3 times.  Two out of three of those times were ugly and I was hoping and praying that any moment the world would end so I wouldn't have to finish the race.  So let's take a look back at my marathon adventures.  #1 2004 Boston Marathon.  After training in one of the coldest winters on record, race day arrived and it was 83 freakin degrees on April 19th when the race started.  I actually held up pretty well until Mile 15 when my left iliotibial band decided it didn't want to participate anymore.  This forced me into a run walk strategy for 11 miles.  I would run a long as I could till my leg gave out, then walk till it felt ok then run again.  At first I could run for 8 mins or so at a time but by the time I hit Mile 22 I could only run for a whopping 30 secs and then my leg would give out.  But I finished along with 16,742 other people. I would not be able to run for three months after this race and only after much physical therapy. The race that year had a 7% drop-out rate which is a bit more than twice the normal amount.  #2 Stonecat Trail Marathon.  Loved this race.  All in the woods, aid stations with M&M's, pretzels, potatoes, beer etc.  Trail races are the best.  This one was in November with temps in the 20's and I crushed my time goal by over 30 mins!!! Total of 158 finishers here.  #3 2010 Chicago Marathon.  October in Chicago...average temps in the 50's.  Ah no.  High 70's at the start of the race.  Somewhere around Mile 16 I started to get insane quad and calf cramps.  Somewhere around Mile 17 I passed a bank and the sign said 87 degrees.  As I went through the water stop here the race officials were yelling through their megaphones that we were at Hazard Level Red meaning potentially dangerous conditions.  No shit Sherlock.  Somewhere around Mile 18 I made the first of three trips to the Med Tent to get the cramps massaged out of my leg so I could continue to run. The ONLY thing that kept me moving forward to the finish line of this race was my family.  I knew they were waiting for me and there was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to disappoint them. I was one of 38,132 finishers here.  So you see I have some

The best support crew EVER plus Quinn the picture taker

experience with those moments where you really have to crawl inside your own head and convince yourself that you can keep going while every fiber in your body is begging you to please please stop.  So yeah..it's gonna hurt, it's gonna be UNBELIEVEABLY difficult but I am going to do it because I have somewhere to be before midnight people.

Not stopping till I get here!!!

By the way I was watching the weather the other day and they said "meteorologically speaking" the hottest day of the year is generally July 22.  That would be race day!!!

WEEKS 5 & 6 AND BRICKS

While still being manageable, the past two weeks brought an increase in training hours and some serious high intensity workouts.  Totals for the weeks were 6 hrs swimming, 5.5 hrs running, 8 hrs biking and 3 hrs strength training.  By far the most gnarly workout was a 90 min run.  It's not the time that is a problem.  I have been routinely running a 2hr weekend run for years.  The problem was the phrase "1 mile at maximum effort with a 5 min recovery followed by 10 200m repeats all out". UGH.  I love to run.  I hate to run fast.  I haven't done speedwork for awhile so I knew this was gonna hurt.  After a 20 min warmup run I took off at my maximum sustainable pace. 8 minutes and 15 sec later I hit a mile.  Not the fastest mile I have ever run but not bad for this give me distance not speed runner.  I was however convinced at this point that I would drop dead any minute.  My heart rate topped out at 175.  I haven't seen it that high in quite a few years.  My avg HR on most runs hovers between 150-156.  I was hauling ass.....my ass.  My 5 min recovery turned into 10 because I still couldn't breathe normally and my heart was still trying to beat itself out of my chest.  By the way recovery here does NOT mean stop and put your feet up.  It means keep on running...just slower.  The 200m repeats were just as nasty. That is about 1/8th of a mile.  SO I pretty much run as fast as I can for around 58 secs then jog back to the start and do it over again 10 times.  By the 5th one the recovery period just isn't enough so you never really fully recover before it is time to take off again.  This brings on that build up of lactic acid and the risk of my legs falling off.  Thankfully that didn't happen.  All of the nastiness above took a little under an hour so I still had 30 more minutes of running to do. There was also a 90 min bike a few days later that featured 3x10 min intervals at 95% of my FTP.  OUCH.  And for good measure we ended the week today with a brick.  A brick is a workout consisting of two different sports done one right after the other.  Usually either a swim/bike or a

No...not these kinds of bricks

bike/run.  The bike/run is the hardest because after spinning in circles for hours and hours your legs aren't quite sure what to do when you all the sudden put weight on them and start pounding the pavement.  They are all confused and punish you by feeling like stiff wooden posts attached to your hips that don't want to go anywhere.  Not a pleasant feeling but these types of workouts help you get used to the feeling and teach you how to make it go away quicker.  Today's brick was a 2hr bike immediately followed by a 30 min run.  While bricks are pretty straightforward in warmer weather when you are riding outside they are a little more labor intensive when the theremometer says this

Yep...it was a balmy 16.9 degrees outside with a windchill of 1.  Yes ONE!!!!  So wearing this outfit on the bike was not going to cut it outside.  A complete wardrobe

I am little concerned about how large my ass look here.  Objects in the mirror may seem bigger than they are.  I hope

change was in order here.  After sweating to death inside for two hours I changed as fast as possible into the outfit below and took off into the 1 degree air.  I was actually hot

after about five minutes but was still very glad I only had to run for a half hr.  Mission accomplished.  Brick completed.  Week 6 completed.  Bring on week 7.  PS  Did anyone notice the foam roller, tennis ball and stick on the floor!!!!!

STOP, DROP AND ROLL

No need to be alarmed kids, this is not a blog post about fire safety.  I will leave that up to Josh.  Mission accomplished boy. Game on.  Sorry about that-private joke.

Firefighter Josh Hobba on the job

Anyhow...stop, drop and roll is what allows me to train at this level without my legs falling off or my back breaking in half.  All of this swimming, biking, running and strength-training can put a hurtin' on you after a while.  Muscles get tired, sore, and cranky....just like me.  If you're not careful, before you know it, you are walking around like a 90 year old.

Ohhh my back

 My favorite tools to prevent this from happening are a high-density foam roller, a stick, a tennis ball and a heating pad.  While in the picture these things are all nicely lined up

Can't live without these

on my couch that is not where they can usually be found.  Most of the time they are smack-dab in the middle of the living room floor and this pisses Quinn off to no end.  Frankly I am amazed that I have not had to have any one of them surgically removed from any given body orifice.  Trust me...there have been plenty of threats made along those lines.  She just doesn't understand :)  Pretty much everytime I walk into the living room I stop, drop to the floor, roll my quads and iliotibial bands on the foam roller, use the stick to attack my calves, lie down with the tennis balls under my arse and lower back and then plop on the couch with the heating pad behind my lower back. AAHHHHHHH.  This scene repeats itself at least twice a night during the week and 3-4 times on weekend days.  Whatever it takes man...whatever it takes!!!!!  I will end this post with a challenge to the Ohio contingent of the family.  While the Pennsylvania and Illinois peeps have all piped in with comments I haven't heard anything from the Ohioans so .......hello.......anyone there???  If you are reading leave a comment.  It's a family blog and I would love to hear from youns!!!!

PART 2: THE BIKE

So as much as I hate to swim I love to bike.  Just for the record although I am so very bad at swimming I try very hard.  I have taken lessons galore and have swum 3x/week regularly for years.  It just doesn't seem to help much.  Here are some numbers for you to consider from my last half-ironman in June 2011.  My swim time was faster than only 12% of the participants but my bike time was faster than 59% of them.  So yes..the bike is my strength.  I am a good endurance runner but not exactly speedy.  My run time was faster than 41%.  It should have been better though but my legs were mad at me.  Aside from going into the race with a quad injury I made a cardinal mistake in the world of triathlons.  I biked too fast and blew my legs out before I got to the run.  I do this all the time and it is one of the big reasons for me getting a coach.  Here's how my races usually go.....swim swim swim swim suck suck suck get out of the water look at clock and immediately get pissed off and start swearing that it took so long.  Then I run into transition and easily find my bike in the ghost town and get even more pissed off and start making up words offensive to even my trucker's mouth.  Then I get on my bike and ride the hell out of it because that is what I am good at.  I pass people all over the place thinking in my head "Take that you @#$#^**@ smooth fast swimmer".  This is the only time my competetive nature comes out.  In these races they put your age on the back of your calf.  If I see anyone younger ahead of me...especially male...look out... I am coming after you.  While this makes for a smokin' bike time it also makes for a painful run.  There is a general consensus in this sport that there is no such thing as a good bike and a bad run.  Simply put..if you had a bad run it is because you went out too hard on the bike.  I can't let this happen in Lake Placid.  By the time we get to race day I will know at what percentage of my power threshold I should be riding in order to not blow up on the run.  It's all in the coaching.  Of the 25 IM's in the world, the Lake Placid bike course is ranked as the 6th most difficult.  It has approx. 6000+ feet of elevation gain.

Elevation profile for one loop of bike course

The course is 2 loops.  I get to climb those mountain looking things twice.  In all honesty it isn't the hills that scare me.  It will hurt, I will be breathing hard but I have done that before.  It is the one very long descent that scares the crap out of me.  It begins at approx Mile 8 and lasts until Mile 14.  Six miles downhill at blistering speeds.  There are not one, not two but three of these in this stretch.

  One wrong move, rock, dirt, pothole, another rider and you're done.  A crash at these speeds will end your race and maybe....nuff said.  Brave riders can get close to 50 mph here.  That won't be me.  The fastest I have ever hit has been 34 and I had a white knuckle grip on my handlebars.  Scary. Oh yeah...I get to do that twice too.  112 miles is a long way and on my bike I will have drinks, food, spare tubes, tire levers, CO2 cartridges for filling a tube etc.  I am currently working on my ability to change a flat and hope to be speedy and proficient by race day.  I will also be praying regularly to the Patron Saint of No Flat Tires (Saint Michelin).  There are support vehicles on the course to assist with mechanical repairs but they have to patrol 56 miles at a time  so you can't count on them being readily available.  There are aid stations every 10 miles or so where you can fill your bottles or grab some nutrition.  There is also the Special Needs bike stop halfway through where you can leave a bag with clothes, food or whatever you want to have access to at the time.  All aid stations have bathrooms but I have to tell you...there are a lot of athletes that just go on the bike.  No kidding.  Be careful who you ride behind.  Not me....no way.  All I need to do is hold back on the bike and  stay out of harms way till I am safely back in transition again!

Going up

Going down

Just got a look at next week's training schedule.  OOOOMMMMMGGGG.  Time to put my big girl panties on cause it's gettin ugly!

TRANSITION, THE BIKE AND YOU PUT WHAT WHERE?!?

Transition is pretty much what it sounds like.  It is where you transition from one sport to another.  My first trip to transition will be after the swim and before the bike.  After getting stripped of my wetsuit I will drape it over my arm and proceed to run about a quarter mile down the road to the transition area.  For Ironman Lake Placid that will be in a white tent in the middle of the Olympic Speed Skating oval.  Thankfully it is in a tent because there is quite a bit of nudity and other things going on that the general public just doesn't need to see.  I honestly don't know why anyone would volunteer in this area because you could quite possibly be scarred for life. Thankfully however people DO volunteer and one of them will hand me a bag that I dropped off prior holding whatever it is I need to get on my bike and ride.  That will be bike shorts, socks

My bike on its winter home...the trainer.  I LOVE my bike!!!!

helmet, sunglasses and bike shoes.  Now settle down there kids....I know I didn't mention a shirt.  I promise I will be wearing one.  It will be under my wetsuit so I will have it on already.  You see the goal is to get out of transition as fast as you can because the clock is ticking.  In other races I can manage to get out of this first transition in around 2:30 mins.  However that is because I was wearing tri shorts so I didn't have to try to pull a pair of bike shorts onto my wet legs. Tri shorts are like bike shorts but they have a lighter chamois in them.  A chamois is that thing in bike shorts that makes it bearable to sit a size 8 ass on a size 2 bike seat for any extended period of time.  Tri short chamois' don't absorb water so you aren't biking and running feeling like you have a diaper on.  But this is an Ironman people.  This is 112 miles on a bike.  My ass needs more padding than that so I choose to wear bike shorts which means I will be putting them on in the tent.  For us slow age group athletes long transition times are fairly common.  I mean really...what is 10 mins when you are going to be on the course for 14-17 hrs!!!!  I would rather be comfortable and have everything when I leave there.  Another thing I will be putting on in transition is this

A girl's best friend on the bike!!!

Yep you are correct.......I am a fan of products called Body Glide and Hoo Ha Ride Glide.  I mean really...how could you not be with names like these.  Body glide goes on the chamois and the other stuff on me.  All in attempt to prevent uncomfortable chafing.  In order to keep it PG I will leave it at that.  All dressed and ready to go I will run out of the tent and hop on my bike which will be a lot easier to find since most people will have already left while I was still splashing around in the lake.

Dude....where's my bike????

Next up...the nitty gritty of the bike.  Oh yeah...make sure you check out my Ironbuddy Kerry's blog too!!!  Link is above.