The Opponent

One bad thing is it seems for the past month I haven't thought about Ironman. Not that I forget I am signed up and not that I haven't been active, just not really thinking about a grueling event that wants to put me in the hospital.

It makes you think about a boxer with an upcoming fight, you know they are thinking about the other person wanting to punch their face in, every day.

Currently, starting over, building up and serious training for 4 months leading up to another Ironman seems tougher than just going out and doing the event itself tomorrow.

Maiden Voyage

One day I might do some real running, swimming and biking. Not today. I carried this beast of a pack 3 miles, but got a 2 hour kayak warm up in before all the heavy lifting. 

                                   

This is much easier to carry than the ladder.

The unload. I love you SeaEagle.

National Running Day

Today is National Running Day. I guess I should run today, seems to be how you celebrate the occasion.

I have been reading 2 books on running, I'll write a book report on them for you blog lovers later. I think any book about running is pretty simple though, you ran as a kid, everyone did. It was fun, fun to be timed, fun to see how fast you could go. And with all the many times of being told to slow down, everyone did.

109 more days until International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Team SP

Crazy

I carried this ladder over 2 miles.

Analysis of a Disaster

Here's a lengthy recap of what not to do in preparation for the big race. Most of this stuff seems obvious and isn't what the pros are doing. But, in one of many confirmations, I am not a pro.

One thing you probably shouldn't do the day before the race is go to Schlitterbahn. I didn't see any athletes at check-in with these two wristbands on and I KNOW they saw the Schlitterbahn, it was right next to the race start. Don't these people know that water parks are amazing?

The problem with Schlitterbahn isn't that it is crazy awesome. The problem is that running around all day on your feet in hot and wet conditions is tiring and will give you blisters. Not ideal for a next day event of 70.3 miles.

You shouldn't do anything different on race day that you didn't do in training, I've been told. So if you didn't do anything in training, which I did, you can pretty much do whatever you want with unexpected results on race day. I did a lot of things different than I usually do, most of them went terribly wrong.

• For breakfast I ate leftover pizza and tons of peanuts. I thought I could trick my body into starting from lunch and feed it a consistent pile of food so I would have plenty of fuel. My stomach never recovered from breakfast jump to lunch. I wasn't hungry during the race, like I have been in others. Instead, I just felt bad, which was worse.

Disaster.

• I wore a long sleeve compression shirt with a bit of a neck on it. I did it so I wouldn't have to wear sunscreen, I have worn a long sleeve compression shirt that worked really well in an ultra marathon, and I thought the compression on the neck would help with soreness on the bike.

Disaster.

• I had never swam a race in salt water before. Salt lined the neck on my compression shirt and proceeded to dig in, rub, cut and burn the entire race.

Disaster.

• I took off the visor on my bike helmet. Jeff told me I would look cooler and less people would make fun of me. My face got burned.

Disaster.

• I had a box of more leftover pizza in the transition area. Finishing the bike, I grabbed 2 pieces of pizza and threw on my running shoes. It tasted great, but I should have just grabbed 1 piece.

Surprisingly OK.

• Running without socks, well I already had blisters before my day started, needless to say things didn't get better.

Disaster in planning.

• It was super hot outside, so I figured a long sleeve shirt, soaked with water every chance I got (they hand out wet sponges at aid stations in Ironmans), would keep my core cool and something draped over my neck with a hat would do the same for my head. But, I felt like I just had on a lot of stuff. I was still hot, but everyone looked pretty hot.

Maybe a Disaster?

During the bike there was definitely a stretch of hopelessness, of throwing in the towel. My bike could have had a basket on the front and I could have been pedaling to the market, not competing in a race. It was sad. On the run I thought about pushing. I really wanted to do well or throw up trying. My stomach felt bad, I didn't feel great and could have found a reason to run myself into the ground. I saw a lady lying down in the medical tent and remembered while I have never thrown up in a race, I have also never been in the medical tent. It is tough to say I am glad I didn't push, but the course had already won that day.

The good news is, I have a feeling Galveston will be exactly like the full Ironman in Florida. Also, that is the bad news.

I have 6 months to train a killer. And the next time I am on the line, I will be ready.

Peanuts and pizza for breakfast was a bad idea.

Schlitterbahn was way much more fun than the bike.

Fast food.

Super salty legs. And rethinking life.

the worst thing that can happen to a fighter

This weekend I got destroyed. It was the worst I have ever done in an event of this distance. I tried a couple different things, I did a lot of things wrong and I got crushed. My time shows. And it feels like the hardest race I have ever done, is always the last one I do.

I've forgotten everything I learned from Rocky III. I met my Clubber Lang. The champ got complacent. I've lost my edge. It happened to Rock in the 2nd round, just my 2nd round was 6 hours and 50 minutes longer than Rocky's.

That's the last race I'm on the starting line unprepared, not trained to kill it. I need to find the feeling I had the first time I attempted one of these races, going these crazy distances. I need to listen to Apollo. I need to get that look back in my eyes.

Some Additions, Some Subtractions

If you've seen a preview for Ironman 2 there are all these new tougher looking Ironman suits, I'm upgrading mine as well:

I've added speed. Just finishing was fine the first time, I now know I can finish. How hard I can push to get there we will see.

I've added numbers. I hate math, but the numbers I need to focus on are 19 mph pace on the bike and under 9 minute miles on the run. I am going to monitor both and see if I can maintain them. The swim is still a warm up, I just can't spend 35 + minutes in there splashing around.

I'm racing for peanuts. I think this is going to be the key to my potential. I am usually hungry during a race, I think peanuts are going to save me. I have previously loved pretzels, but they are harder to carry and more difficult to cram. Peanuts fill me up a bit more. They'll get their trial run this weekend.

I'm cutting out transition recovery. Before I basically did everything but sit down and ball up and cry in transition. It felt like a safe zone away from the action of the sports. Now I'm not stopping. Anything I need for recovery I'll get in motion.

I'm going sockless. I bike without socks and my feet do fine, running is a little different. It will take some toughening up, but the new Zoot shoes feel good.

I've lost 10 lbs. My previous fighting weight was 165. I felt like a boulder. It was awesome. But, I'm stripping off everything I don't need for speed. I am at 155 now and on my way to becoming a welterweight champion.

Supa Fast

Here's my secret weapon and how I am going to fly next weekend. My average transition times (T1 - Swim to Bike, T2 - Bike to Run) are about 3 - 3:30 minutes. I am hoping to cut those in half. My bike (56 miles) time has never been under 3 hours, that's going to change. And I haven't had a half-marathon (13 miles) time under 2 hours. Don't worry that's going to change too.

Though, I did just get tired thinking about how fast I am going to have to go to do all that. How fast? Supa fast.

Space Race

Well, either through amazing endurance or sheer stupidity, we know I can ride 100 miles without biking for 6 months. That is crazy, but to be fair, you never forget how to ride a bike.

Here are some things I learned:

I can maintain a strong bike pace, my technique is good. My ride time was 6:33 which going 104 miles means I was cruising around 16 mph. The race took me 7:45, there were 9 rest stops, so I averaged about 8 minutes at each stop. I just need to build up strength to be able to stay on my bike and ride through them.

Wind can always make your day of biking harder, rarely does it seem easier. This ride was nice because a lot of tree walls did cover you most of the time. Though, you know the wind is really strong when a car dealership's huge American flag the size of a house is blowing at a 45 degree angle. The last 25 miles were mostly straight into the wind, that didn't help, I was slowed to about 14 mph.

My cyclometer is awesome. To see how fast you are going and actually know how many miles are left is a great feeling. Even when you are not thrilled to see you are only going 8 mph and have 90 miles left, it somehow just feels good to know. It also helps a ton, like having a running pacer next to you to keep you on track. My cadence sensor didn't work, I didn't miss it though, because I also have no idea what it does.

Real cyclists have friends. I am not good at science, but drafting is crazy amazing. It is a bad feeling to get blown by by a faster rider, worse to get to see all his friends behind him pass you by. Early in the race a line of about 30 cyclists flew by riding in a row like ducks flying south. Twice in the race I fell back in line behind a pack and drafted for a couple miles. It felt like cheating both times. It is obviously not cheating in cycling, however in an Ironman every rider is suppose to maintain a 3 bike length with every other rider. It just makes the race tougher.

I am extremely proud or extremely disappointed, not sure which, that I have never vomited in a race. I felt like it a couple times during this ride. I didn't.

I hate sunscreen. I wore a long sleeve shirt and bandana around my neck just to avoid this unfortunate situation again. But, I forgot about one thing. I try to be PG and didn't want to just post this picture without warning. You have been warned, they are both this bad.

I feel good now, I'll continue to recover. I have a half-Ironman race in 2 weeks and I am going to set a personal record. I am going to finish in under 5:30. That or throw up trying.

100

7 hours and 45 minutes, 6 hours and 33 minutes of actual ride time and I've ridden my bike 104 miles. I do not feel well.

Wired

So, in my Christmas stocking I got a bike computer! (I said I haven't messed with my bike in a while.)

I attempted to install it yesterday. I hope I did it right. It is difficult to line up the sensors and wiring comparing it to my instruction manual and the example picture that is size of a bottle cap.

What does the Blackburn Delphi 3.0 cyclometer do you ask?

I am no great cyclist or anything but from what I can tell it measures bike stuff.

Seriously though, I need to tie an iPad to the front handlebars.

Century Ride

One event I've never done is a century ride, 100 miles on a bicicleta.

There is that minor exception in the Ironman where I biked 112 miles sandwiched between some light exercise. And even in training for that the farthest I had biked was around 78 miles. But on its own, the century ride is the biking equivalent of running a marathon.

I haven't looked at my bike since October - Half-Ironman Austin 70.3. That's about to change, my bike and I are about to get reunited. 100 miles of reunited. I've signed up for the Space Race.

Also, it is this weekend!

Take Back

I take back what I said about my heart being 'with me.' Definitely against me. After runs it is beating like crazy, part of the reason I have to eventually walk or slow my pace.

It is all connected, one big system I have to reprogram. I am going to focus on breathing, I think it starts there.

Winded

I am trying to run fast. I can run really fast for about 1.5 miles. That is running at probably a 7:30 pace, I don't really know. Normally, I cruise at about a 9:45 pace, big difference. So the problem isn't lack of endurance or focus, but I do get really winded, not tired, again big difference. After 1.5 miles my teeth start to hurt, my lungs are burning for more intake and my throat gets really cold and dry. I would imagine this is the unpleasantness running delivers to non-runners who try to take it up and don't know how to pace themselves.

I know how to pace myself, and now I am ignoring that and adding speed. I am not ever going to win a marathon, those people run different. Different as in like blazing fast. But, I don't really know just all the differences, currently the biggest difference is my body isn't on the same page.

Those with me: Brain and heart

Those against me: Lungs and everything else