Week 15 Report:

HALFWAY DONE!!!


Swim: Feeling steady, would like to push my speed a little.
Bike: Feeling strong, love my bike!
Run: Feeling good at my slow pace, need to add more hills and speed.

Well its official, I am at the halfway point of my journey. It's time to reflect, think back, learn from the past...blah blah blah...man that went quick!! When I first started I saw that it was well over 200 days til the race, workouts were light, legs weren't sore all the time...fast forward, and I do mean fast, here we are! It's good and scary all at the same time. I'm really happy I've made it this far and am still in good health and outlook. But now that we are in the back half of this adventure it's really starting to set in what I'm attempting to do.

I think back just a few years ago, and if you would have told me that I was going to be doing an Ironman in September 2011 I would have had you checked into your local hospital, had your drivers license revoked, and made sure you weren't allowed to be near children. Cause you would have some very serious issues and you are not fit to be apart of society. Yet....

I've always enjoyed challenges in my life, well maybe not always enjoy, but taken them on at least. Whether it be school, work, filmmaking etc, I've always welcomed challenges and thrived on people telling me what I can't do. I very distinctly remember one of my friends parents telling me I'd never be an animator cause it was too difficult. Suck it friend's parent, my IMDB says otherwise. No one really told me I can't do this, however, I did get a few raised eyebrows and I could see it in there faces that they don't fully believe I can do this. Because I'm a stubborn little bitch, I use that, and thrive on it. I don't know if it's really a good and healthy thing to focus on, but it is there all the same. When I am out really struggling on a run, or legs exhausted on the bike, I think about those raised eyebrows and they push me.

On the flip side, I have an amazing group of athletes I train with that are so supportive that they make you forget how big of a challenge this thing really is. It becomes so common place when you are training together that it really takes the edge off of the nerves. My girl, family and friends are also in my corner. So often I feel very alone in this journey, but it is far from the truth. I am so thankful for everyone that has helped me along the way. I'm gonna really need to lean on everyone for the second half. Thanks everyone for helping me through this.

Training was hard this week. Good, but I feel extra exhausted this weekend. I had to push one of my weekly swims to the weekend because of a work conflict, so my weekend was extra workout heavy. The weekend alone was 70 mile bike, 3 mile run on Sat, and a 45 min bike, 3000 yard swim, and a 9 mile run on Sun. I cut the swim in half because the gym was so crowded, but I pushed hard through it and felt I got a fairly good workout anyway. The run was a little brutal, big winds at the beach actually kind of hurt as I was getting pelted with sand. I also picked a route that had a few nice hills in it. So my calves are a bit sore. All in all, it was a nice endurance building week. Though, I have never looked so forward to Monday off as I am tonight. Fortunately its Memorial Day and I get to do nothing but grill up some burgers and relax tomorrow. Nice little reward for making it halfway.

All down hill from here....ha! I wish....

Week 14 Report:

Good Week...Gym people annoy me...


Swim: Did I say how much I hate 24 hour fitness?
Bike: Another tough sat bike, 80 miles...furthest and fastest this season.
Run: Still my weakest, but its going ok.

Another week of training has come to a close. It's definitely been challenging to fit in all the workouts. Though, I have gotten into a routine. Swimming is still the hardest to fit in due to the amount of time prepping vs. actual doing. I say this every week, but the gym sucks. I'm starting to get more and more annoyed. Mainly with the people. I know patience can be a struggle for me sometimes, but seriously, I don't get some of these gym people. One guy is there every single time I'm there. Doesn't matter when I show up, It could be at 7 in the morning, 1 in the afternoon, or 10 at night. He's there. I don't think he actually works out. Just so you can picture him, he's probably in his late 40s, he's quite over weight and has really long gray and black hair. I always find him in one of 2 areas. Either sitting butt ass naked in the locker room, or sitting in his swim shorts in the coed water area. Last time I was there he was playing angry birds on his Iphone...naked of course. There is a guy like this at every gym I've been too. I've never really understood it. When I go to the gym, I just want to get in and get out. I wonder if the women have to deal with this kind of person too. I don't know. But I suspect it is more rare. Most women I see do the same as me, get in, get out. Work out, go home. But I see so many guys spend more time in the locker room checking out there muscles after lifting one weight, or doing one situp than I'd care to see. If I see one more guy with a giant beer gut thinking he's all hot shit, I'm gonna puke....

Sigh, sorry for the rant. I'm in an annoyed by people mood. The macho thing has always annoyed me and boy does it come out in the locker room. Maybe it's cause I was always that little guy that got picked on instead of drooled over by the girls. I'm sure there's some deep issues I have to look into one day. But for now, I'd like to use that aggression towards my 140.6 miles thank you very much. (=

So as for training this week. All went well. Running and swimming continue to improve. Had another tough and long bike ride. It was great though, ended up riding with two of my friends, both of which are accomplished Ironman's? Ironmen? anyhoo, yeah, they are both pretty talented athletes. The ride left no room for slacking, we did just under 80 miles in 4 hours, around a 19mph average. That was with hills and headwinds. I was pretty wasted afterward, but felt good being able to push through it. We'll see what next week brings, unfortunately with this training schedule...it just keep getting harder!

Til next week!

Week 13 Report:

Bring on the pain....oh so much pain...


Swim: No 24 hour fitness, I will not be done in 20 mins...
Bike: First real hard ride of the season, good..saw a whale. (=
Run: Zone training has made the run more fun and challenging




Good week of training. I know I say that every week. But I've been lucky not to run into any major issues yet. Aside from being nervous and scared about Sept. But that's still 116 days away...not that I'm counting...refer to the upper right corner of this blog. (=

Swimming was good. But I really really need to find a better place to swim. I think I've out grown 24 fitness a bit. They have a 20 min time limit which can be stressful when you have to put in an hour work out. Most of the people that swim there really have no business being in the pool. I'm tired of getting kicked by people who swim like a frog cause they don't know how to swim properly. I ask them kindly to stay in their lane, but they always say they are....their head is...but their damn feet are kick into my lane, and often my kidneys. I'm talking to you rich house wife with way too much makeup on in the pool! Aside from that, the workouts are good, but still by far my biggest time sponge throughout the week. I'm trying to figure out some ways to be more efficient. I'll see what I can come up with. I have to figure something out before week 20, cause the workout bumps up to 3500 yards each time...sigh...

Running was good. Zone training is kind of fun. Hard, but fun. Basically by having parts of your run be at a full sprint, elevating your heart rate, you are teaching you body that when you are back at your steady pace that is a comfortable resting level. Thus giving you more endurance at your comfortable pace. Its like tricking your body to think its resting because its not having to pump like crazy to keep up with your sprint. Simple concept, but seems to be pretty effective. Hopefully this will help with my speed a bit. Always have been a bit of a slow runner.

Biking was intense this week. The mid week rides were just on my trainer. Its nice though, gives me a chance to catch up with the news and episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation...don't laugh, that show was awesome! :P The long bike this week was suppose to be 3 hours, but I had friends going on a 3 1/2 hour ride, so I just decided to join them because it is way more fun to ride in a group. This is the first time I rode with this group and damn are they good and fast. It was great. Pushed me the whole way. In the end we are all really similar in our bike fitness level. Which was great. I think its going to be a really good training group. No more lazy rides, gotta keep up now! We did 65 miles, and followed it up with a 3 mile run. Needless to say I was pretty exhausted afterward. The best part of the ride was when we spotted whales very close to shore. The lame picture I have doesn't do it justice, but it was an exciting break around mile 40. This is why PCH is still my favorite place to ride. It always has surprises!

On to week 14...almost half way!

Week 12 Report:

Recovery week...sort of.

Swim: New distance! 3000 yards, 3 times a week...phew.
Bike: Good but boring, long ride by myself this weekend.
Run: Started zone training...painful, but its good for me!



This week was really the first full week of my build phase. It was suppose to start last week, but that was Wildflower, so I had to taper towards the end of the week to make sure I was fresh for race day. Which went well. This week was suppose to be a recovery week. But I was feeling pretty good after my Monday Rest day, so I decided just to put myself right back on schedule. I can definitely see that things are starting to get serious. No more Mr. Nice Coach/Book. I feel like the base phase went really well. Cause I truly feel like I'm starting to build now, instead of trying to catch up. So that good. I've never really been this stringent in my training for other triathlons. But seeing as Wisconsin scares the crap out of me I feel like I really need to take things to heart. I definitely feel stronger in all events than I did last year at this time when I was training for Vineman 70.3. It may be more mental, but since half of this sport is mental, that's a good thing. Swimming is going good, but its by far the hardest to fit in the schedule. It's now 3 times a week and a full hour to swim. So factor in travel time to the pool and waiting on idiot bad swimmers in line at 24 hour fitness (no bitterness there!), it takes minimum 2 hours. So add that to an 1-2 hour morning work out. The day fills up fast. I think that is going to be a big challenge as I get closer to the second half of this Iron training. Just fitting it all in. Fortunately I have some wonderful supportive people in my life, and I know I'm gonna have to lean on them more as I get closer to the big day.

12 down, 18 to go!

Week 11 Report:

Wildflower!!


So I just completed my second race of the season. 2 down, 2 to go!

There are two courses at the Wildflower Triathlon, The Long Course, and The Olympic Course. I chose the latter. The long course is a Half-Ironman. Not only that, but one of the toughest in the country. Many of my brave friends did that course. I felt it was too early in my training to attempt. My end goal is Wisconsin this year, but maybe one year I will return and do the long course. Sounded pretty brutal from all accounts.

Anyhoo..I did the Olympic course, it in its own right is a pretty difficult course. Much more difficult that any other Olympic I've done. I'm happy how it went, glad its over, and pumped to continue my training.

Here's how it all went down.

Swim: 00:28:14 ( about 1 mile)

The swim started out in one of the craziest starts I've ever been apart of. It was just a really small area for a hundred swimmers to all jump in. It took a good 500 yards for us to really find our groove. After that, it was pretty smooth sailing. I decided to try something I read in an article about improving your swim times and saving energy. It was to draft. Not legal in biking, but perfectly OK in swimming. Basically get right behind the feet of another swimming. So I picked my prey...good swimmer, about my speed. Perfect I thought. It was perfect, I could feel how much easier it was to swim. "Brilliant" I thought in my head! Not thinking too much about it, I just followed and followed..and followed. Followed the little shit way off course! Yup, I chose the guy with the bad direction skills! Crap, truly my own fault. But any energy I saved by drafting, cost me in trying to get back on course. Oh well, live and learn. After that, it was pretty smooth back to the finish. I felt really good with this swim. Probably one of my better swims energy wise. Felt great getting out and ready to roll on the bike!

Bike 01:27:39 (25 miles)

This is where the course is just evil. Right out of transition you have to bike straight up hill for a mile. Doing this on warmed up legs is hard enough, but to come right of swimming into this is just plain crazy. It was. By the time you got to the top and realized you've only gone a mile you just want to bike right over to your car, pack it up, and go home. Conveniently enough, the top of this hill is where infact your car is parked. Fortunately, I had my wonderful teammates who did the Long Course the day before cheering me on. If they can make it through that horrible course, I can make it through this. So you get over the hill and get your ass going. From there it actually wasn't too bad. It was was a lot off rolling hills. I ride hills similar to these all the time in Malibu, so I felt pretty strong riding them. It's an out and back course. I saw a few friends along the way, cheered them on and kept on biking. Sadly, I knew I had a tough run ahead of me, so I wasn't looking forward to getting off of the bike.

Run 00:56:09 (6.2 miles)

This is where you really find out if you trained hard enough. The whole run is up hill, except for the last mile, where its all down hill. It was pretty brutal. I knew I really didn't do enough hill training for this run, and my calves were on fire for most of it. I did ok though. I've never been a really strong runner, so I was just happy I was continuing to move forward. The hill just would not stop. At each aid station, I would grab 3 cups of water. One to drink, one to splash on my head, and one to splash on my calves! It worked pretty well actually. Mile 5 could not come soon enough. I could see that last hill and was so excited knowing that is was all down hill from there. So I got to the top, and there were my teammates! They were cheering me on and handed me what I thought was water...nope...it was a beer! I took one sip to celebrate, and tossed the rest....I had a tough run to the finish, couldn't be getting all drunk...and yes, it only takes one beer cause I'm a pathetic light weight! I appreciate my teammates gesture though. So as I made the turn down the hill, I looked at my watch. I saw that I might actually break 3 hours if I really hustle. So I grabbed whatever energy I had left and ran as fast as I could. I was cruising down the hill. I was just praying that my legs didn't give out cause that would have been a spectacular crash and burn. Fortunately they held up and I crossed the finish line with 2 mins to spare! However,as soon as I stopped my legs got really mad at me and my right leg cramped up pretty bad. I tried to walk it off, but ended up falling to the ground trying to let it loosen up. After a few minutes I was able to stumble over to the medical tent and they iced me right up. After that, went to the free massage table and had them work on that leg. All was good after that. A dramatic finish to my little race!

Final Time 02:58:16!! Woohoo, broke 3 hours! Happy and ready to move on in my training.

Wildflower was fun! Up next, Muncie Ironman 70.3....bring it on!