12 hours

(Sent via email to Coach@slb-coaching.com)

Neil –

I had several strong workouts over the past 12 hours. Last night I did the brick like you told me to, even though you cancelled it for everyone else. I don’t know what it was, but I was unusually fast on the bike, with a relatively low HR. My loop splits were almost all sub 10 minutes and it felt very easy. See Table A.


I thought about bailing out on the run, since it was getting late (after 7:20pm), but I felt really good and went for it. My legs didn’t feel fast, but I felt good. I ran comfortably. I was probably a bit slower than usual, because I met a friend who runs slowly, so I just ran with him. See Table B.


This morning, I started out with the 4750 swim. I completed it without any problems and I felt very good in the water. I was pleasantly surprised, because I got to bed after 9:30pm last night and was in the water at 5:41am. I miss-counted one of my 500’s so I made up a 50 at the end. See Table C.


When I started my run to Central Park for the 4x1miles, my legs felt very slow. This has been sort of a pervasive feeling in my legs lately. The run turned out ok, but I definitely didn’t feel fast. It was a bit of a struggle to keep my pace high. I ran slightly over distance. My first to mile sprints were from EG to 72nd Street Transverse. I waited until my HR dropped to 60% before I headed back for the second. The next two were done on the reservoir, with an easy pace run from the 1 mile mark to the start between the miles. See Table D.

Later,

Charles

Long Course Paradise

Today the pool at Asphalt Green was configured for 50 meter swimming. I love swimming long course and I had the added pleasure of having the lane to myself for almost my entire 4700 meters. I did a steady race pace swim for the entire set, counting off my distance at the end of each 100 meter.

My shoulders are a bit fatigued now as I recall my swim while riding the M31 bus to my office on 57th and Madison. I managed to steal some wireless internet access while at a bus stop and was even able to check my mail.

After my swim I ran four miles. I went to Central Park and ran to the 72nd street transverse. I ran a few 30 second efforts at a fast effort (it was supposed to be sub 7 minute mile pace), but my legs were feeling as thick as the humid air.

I sent an email to my coach yesterday stating that I suddenly feel very unprepared for Lake Placid. I don’t think my run is where I want it to be and I feel as though I’ve been slacking on my swimming. Perhaps this is why he gave me 3 swim sessions this week with a distance of 4750 yards. I went 4700 meters today as penance for slacking off on the swim the previous few weeks.

My coach’s reply to my fears of inadequacy for Lake Placid were as follows:

I suspect that your preparation is better than it has been at any time in the past two years. Your nervousness is due to not feeling run down, exhausted (any longer) and over your head.

You'll be fine. We'll get one (maybe two) long runs in, and start you resting and recovering from all your training.

I hope he is right. My last couple of runs in race day situations was horrid; at least as far as I am concerned. I am a better runner than I have been racing; I am just waiting for my “A” game to show up on race day.

Mega Day

I am exhausted. In the past two days, I cycled 100 miles, ran 5 miles and swam 2 miles all in Harriman State Park with my friend, rival and all around good guy Super Todd. I installed 3 air conditioners (2 with the help of Todd), mowed my lawn and removed weeds from my backyard patio. I had several water balloon fights with my son, both of which I lost and ate a ton of PB&J.

The cycle and run happened on Friday as part of a mega workout. It was supposed to be a 120 mile bike/20 mile run day. However, taking the terrain of Harriman into consideration, I decided that a 100 mile ride would be much more manageable and I would see how much I could do on the run.

The day started cool enough, but the heat progressed throughout the day. I don’t have much to say about the loops other than after 5 of them I was becoming severely dehydrated and my breathing was a bit labored and shallow. The humidity in the air was causing moisture to build in my lungs and it hurt when I breathed deeply.

Until the 5th loop, I finished well ahead of Todd on each circumference, but on the 6-7th loops, I had just about run out of gas. The heat is definitely a killer for me and I need to learn to adapt. On the several occasions we saw deer along the course, I figured if I rode into one, that at least I would get to rest. Todd finished the last two laps ahead of me.

At the end of the 6th loop, we ran into fellow Lake Placid Ironman aspirant Walter. He just finished riding 7 loops and looked about as exhausted as I’ve ever seen another human. He was just about to head out for a run, with the intention of going 10 miles.

At the end of the 7th loop, we ran into Walter coming in from his first of 5 miles. The first 5 were also his last, as he had enough. Walter now looked terrible and started to throw up. Todd and I hung around for a few minutes to make sure he was ok. After assuring us that he was, Todd and I headed out for our run.

I started to get several stitches in my chest, but I managed to persevere. I knew right away that I was only going 5 miles. It was just too hot and I was too thirsty to run for much longer.

When I returned to the car after the run, I felt horrible. I was dehydrated and afraid of being Hyponatremic. I drink some water and electrolytes and it was very difficult to keep down. I felt really sick for a while, but after 30 minutes or so I started to recover. I had to let Todd start driving us home though, as I was not yet up to the task. I think Todd was worried that I was going to die. Truth be told, I considered telling him to take me to a hospital. Workout summary: 100 mile bike – 6 hours, 5 mile run – 48 minutes, over 5000 calories burned.

That evening, I spoke to my coach about how I felt after the workout. He said I should have drank more water and spaced out my electrolyte consumption more evenly and regular intervals. I’ll have to try it, as what I am currently doing doesn’t seem to work.

I also installed the first of the 2 air conditioners, ate dinner and got soaked by my son with water balloons in the backyard.

This morning, Saturday, Todd and I headed back up to Harriman to do an outlaw swim in Lake Tiorati. We both had the feeling that we were not allowed to swim out into the middle of the lake, but I reasoned we should do it anyway without asking. Besides, we got to the lake so early, that there was no one around to stop us.

We headed out for a 2 mile swim, which took us out around two islands in the middle of the lake. The water was warm, calm, clear and pleasant. The sun was shining first to our left and then to our right for the return home. My favorite part of the swim was when we moved within the shadows of the islands. The water became darker until we swam past the islands and the sun was able to hit us again. When we swam directly into the sun, you could see the sun’s rays shining through the water. It was very peaceful and dreamlike. I started thinking about driving up on weekday mornings to do this swim, before heading to work.

We finished the swim in just under 1 hour. Todd finished first and told me that a Park Ranger had come over to him and said that we weren’t allowed to swim like we did. He apologized profusely, which is just as well, since if it was me who finished first, I don’t know if I would have been so apologetic. It seems such a shame not to be able to swim in such a lovely body of water.

We then went to my house where Todd helped me install two air conditioners, destroy a bees nest and have some more water balloon fights with my son. I mowed my grass and de-weeded the backyard on my own. Now it is time for a nap.

Pictures from Eagleman Half Ironman 2005

This is the closest I will ever get to a winners trophy!




Natasha and Tony with Same and Noreen



Me with Natasha Badmann holding her winners trophy.



Probably the worst I've ever looked at a finish.

Eagleman Half Ironman

Race Date: June 12, 2005

Race day dawned with clear skies, high humidity and warm temperatures. The same as it had been for the past couple of days. Talk the day before the race was that wetsuits might not be allowed, because the water was very warm. I wondered if that would be the case.

I woke up around 4am and ate a PB&J on white bread. It was delicious and went down easy. I dressed in my Hammer Nutrition clothing and adorned it with a yellow ribbon my daughter gave to me. I also found a small bracelet in one of my bags that belonged to my daughter, which I wore on my right wrist. I finished putting my gear together and headed to the race site with another athlete from my Home Stay – Andy.

For this race, all of your gear was stored in a single location. The bike rack area was tight, but I managed get enough space and lay out my gear in the order I would need it. I was determined to have fast transition times.

I was in the 8th wave of the day. This consisted of men in the 40-44 Age Group whose last names started with the letters O-Z. This meant I had over an hour wait from the time that the professionals started the race.

The officials decided that wetsuits would be allowed, so I waited as long as possible to put on my wetsuit. I was sweating just standing around and didn’t want to make myself warmer than necessary. Finally, my wave was called to the starting line and I was able to get in the water to cool off and take a few strokes. Truth be told though, the first thing I really did was take a nice long piss – along with many other athlete I am sure. This was not a location where I wanted to put my face in the water.

I lined up in the front and sprinted at the sound of the horn. I only got kicked one time, in the mouth, and I felt a slight fat lip brewing. I hoped that the cool water would keep it from swelling.

Several times during the swim, I could smell diesel exhaust from nearby boats. The smell was a bit nauseating, but not too over bearing. I was having a good swim and no problems spotting the line of buoys. I made the turnaround point without a problem and was pleased to see only swim caps from the athletes who started the wave ahead of me. I picked up my pace and started to swim hard for the finish.

The swim exit was up a boat launch that was marked with two large red buoys. I found this to be the most difficult part of the swim. For the life of me I couldn’t line myself up between the two sides of the launch and I had to keep correcting my position. I felt like the Staten Island ferry that plowed into the dock of the marine terminal.

When I exited the water my HR was pounding at 96 percent of my max. This was way too high, so I tried to calm down and keep my wits about me. I found my transition spot without a problem. I had marked it with a medal my son won in a recent pee wee race.

I ran out of transition, hopped on my bike and headed out for the 56 mile ride ahead. I pulled on my cycling gloves as I settled into a rhythm and spit up some river water. My HR was still high, around 88 percent, but I was feeling very good. I decided to hold it at this level to see what happened.

Once I got going, I immediately started passing many riders. I passed some guy on a tan colored Felt, who took exception to my maneuver and soon re-passed me. We played this game of cat and mouse for a mile or so. Each time I passed him or he passed me, I made it more and more difficult for him. Eventually, I grew tired of the game, so I dropped the hammer and left him for good.

The next 50 miles consisted of gusting winds, high heat and hundreds of riders passed. For the entire ride, only two other riders passed me. I couldn’t have counted how many times I needed to warn a rider up ahead that I was about to pass on the left. Most riders that I passed offered encouragement and it made me feel real good.

I slipped out of my shoes on the last quarter mile of the bike and started to run through T2 as soon as my feet hit the ground. I made a good, clean change and made it out of T2 in just over 2 minutes. My HR was still high and my legs felt good. This was the high point of the run.

The next 13 miles could only be described as pure hell. It was brutally hot, humid and sunny. When the wind wasn’t blowing, I could feel my face starting to fry. You had no way to escape the heat. The black asphalt radiated it right up through your body. I looked forward to every water station that I could reach.

Despite the conditions, I was managing to hold it together. I didn’t really start suffering until I reach the turnaround point at the 6.5 mile mark. This is where I took my first walking break. I followed it up a short time later to take a piss on the side of the road. I could have held it in, but the urge to go gave me a nice excuse to take a time out.

I started thinking to myself how it would be possible for me to complete an Ironman race. What I was doing at the moment was so physically difficult and I was in such discomfit that I could not imagine completing a full Ironman. The miles were dragging on and the heat, sun and humidity were relentless.

As I started to reach mile 11, my mind was telling me to take a walking break. I desperately did not want to walk, but once I hit the water station my body stopped running and made me walk through it. I goaded myself by asking where my mental toughness was that I bragged about just a few days ago. After dumping a bunch of ice in my shirt I started to run again.

The death mile – mile 12. I only had 1 mile left, but I was reduced to walking. I thought for sure it would take me at least 20+ minutes to make it the remaining 1.1 miles if I could do it at all. I walked about 100 yards passed the 12 mile aid station and managed to get running again. When I started to hear the music at the finish line I somehow picked up my pace.

I finished the race strong, but completely wiped out. I walked over to the medical tent just in case I started a collapse. They let me lie down and gave me an ice pack to put behind my neck. After a few minutes I felt better and left.

Post Race –

I drank my recovery drink, grabbed some food and put my gear in the car. I then hung around for over 4 hours to find out if I won a spot to the Florida Ironman. I had to stay to the end to find out I missed it by 1 spot. I thought back to the sprint to the finish and I wondered if I only kicked and caught that one runner ahead of me, would I have gotten the spot.

I didn’t dwell on this misfortune as I had better things awaiting me. My Home Stay was also where Natasha Badmann, the winner of the female race, was staying. She was going to be at my Home Stay for a post race celebration. She is an amazingly nice person and I felt incredibly lucky to have been invited. I am not sure what good dead I done in my past to deserve such a treat. The evening consisted of great company, great food and beautiful surroundings. Natasha and her partner/coach answered any question and we spent the night discussing, racing, training, and life in general. I didn’t leave until close to 9pm with Jason, the person responsible for my good fortune.

Here are my race stats:

Data Value Unit
Duration 5:06:00
Sampling Rate 5 s

Energy Expenditure 4638 kcal
Number of Heart Beats 48667 beats
Recovery -81 beats
Minimum Heart Rate 82 bpm
Average Heart Rate 159 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate 183 bpm
Standard Deviation 9.4 bpm

Minimum Speed 0.5 mph
Average Speed 21.6 mph
Maximum Speed 28.5 mph
Distance 54.9 miles
Odometer 3162 miles

Minimum Altitude -1274 ft
Average Altitude -329 ft
Maximum Altitude -209 ft
Ascent 2360 ft

My official results.

Red Bull

I’ve discovered a new energy drink – Red Bull. It has a lot of pep and perks me right up. Natasha Badman drinks it and even suggests that you add it to your water bottle. It also has Taurine. I have no idea what it does, but Natasha’s partner and trainer felt that it was very good for you. She came in first place for the Eagleman Half Ironman, so it must do something for you. I just downed a can after getting my oil and anti-freeze changed at the local Jiffy Lube.

While my cars inner fluids were being changed at the Jiffy Lube, one of the Jiffy employees proceeded to clean my windshield. I was talking to someone on my cell phone at the time and mentioned to this person that the guy cleaning my window left a huge chunk of bird shit on it. I asked if she thought I should tell him to come back and clean it and her response was an emphatic yes.

I pointed out the bird crap to one of the other guys servicing my car and he motioned for the window cleaner to come back and to clean of the bird shit. The other attendants thought this was hilariously funny, so did I, and all the other attendants started to bust his chops while he went to go look for a razor blade to scrap off the shit. I don’t think he was very happy to have it pointed out to him that he couldn’t even get some bird crap off of a window.

The bird shit scrapper was a very heavy set guy, who apparently got the dirty jobs or non-auto servicing jobs around the shop. He appeared to be the guy who also got the brunt of everyone’s jokes. The whole scene was very suburban and stereotypical of the modern day, blue collar, high school educated, 18-21 year old worker. Sort of right from the movie “Clerks”

Race Night Eve – Eagleman Half Ironman

My Homestay is with a very nice couple – Sam and Noreen. They are very supportive of the athletes who do the race and have welcomed me into their home with open arms. Any concern I had about being uncomfortable was quickly put at ease and I can honestly say that I am in the best accommodations I have ever been in before a race.

I started the day by eating breakfast in their very well stocked kitchen. I kept it simple and only had a bowl of cereal. I then got my gear ready for some light workouts and headed to the registration and transition areas.

Registration consisted of the usual fare. Various vendors selling stuff, check-in and bike inspection. Check-in and bike inspection were painless and I made several purchases of stuff that I needed at relatively low prices.

I should point out that the person who inspected my bike told me it was in perfect condition. I had my bike tuned up just a couple of days ago by a member of my Tri-Club. It cost me a couple of bucks to do, but the service was well worth it. The person who referred me to him said that he will make my bike look like it was brand new. In fact, on the day I took it home from his servicing, a person on the train asked me if I just bought it.

After check-in, I went for a short swim in the Choptank River. That is the name of the body of water we will be swimming in. It was very warm – 76 degrees, and had a mild salty taste. It was a bit choppy and slight current, but overall, it looks to be a pleasant swim.

After the swim, I rode the length of the Run Course. It was flat and windy. I will be prepared based on my experience at IMAZ. However, it should be much warmer and much more humid.

I decided it was too hot and humid to expend energy on much of a run. I only ran for 10 minutes or so at a very slow pace. I wanted to save my energy and decided to go back to my Homestay to eat, rest and get ready for the next day.

It is tradition at the house to wear a Hawaiian themed outfit at dinner. If you don’t have a Hawaiian motif, you are forced to wear a grass hula skirt. This is what I wore. Unfortunately, it did not provide enough covering to afford me the luxury of going commando.

Dinner consisted of plain pasta with tomato sauce on the side, grilled chicken, steamed shrimp, smoked blue fish and a salad. It was all very yummy and filled me up perfectly. For desert we had fresh baked cookies and banana bread. This is race day heaven. Hopefully, I will be invited back next year.

Dead Fish

I read in today’s New York Times Metro section a story about a bag of dead fish that was stinking up the Upper East Side. Apparently the heat was making the fish nice and rancid and the stench was something fierce. Everyone who passed the bag feared that it contained a dead body and were afraid to go near it. Eventually the police, coroner and finally the sanitation department were called in to investigate.

This reminded me from my younger days when I used to do a lot of fishing out in Coney Island. A friend and I would go off the Jetties and catch dozens of porgy, Sea Bass and Black Fish. One day while I was driving home with a large bucket of these small fish, I had to stop short. The bucket tipped over and the fish spilled out all over the hatch back area of this crappy old Toyota Corolla I was driving. I cleaned up the mess as best I could and forgot about the incident. That is until several days later.

This crappy Corolla was a dark blue with dark blue vinyl seats and did not have air conditioning. During the summer months it would be hotter than a pizza oven. This heat started to bring out the smell of a putrid dead fish that apparently lodged itself somewhere between the seats of the car. The smell was so intense that after only 5 minutes of sitting in the car your clothes became drenched with the smell. Too bad I didn’t have the same services of the upper east side residents to get rid of it.

Antepenultimate Race Day - Eagleman

I had a good workout this morning. I didn’t feel sluggish and I had to force myself to lower my effort. I caught myself starting to push too hard, which is not the wisest thing to do two days before a big race. Visualizations of having a good race and crossing the finish line kept getting my HR up higher than where it should have been and I had to keep slowing down. This was a welcome change of pace from the other day when it was difficult to push myself faster.

Today called for a 13 mile bike followed by a 3 mile run. The weather was overcast and exceedingly humid. If I stopped moving my glasses would fog. I am always obsessing with my glasses. They are always sliding off my nose, fogging up or bouncing around. On a good day, they stay put and simply get very blurry from sweat and grime rubbing onto the lenses. I wear a pair of Rudi Project glasses that have a prescription lens insert that sits behind the frosted lenses. These lenses sometimes get so dirty while training or racing that I can barely see two feet in front of me. Should I unfortunately suffer from Glaucoma in my later years, I will already have many hours of practice navigating with blurred vision.

Tonight I pick up a Triathlete I have not met before, for the trip down to the Eagleman Half Ironman in Cambridge, MA. I connected with Jason through a Triathlete message board. He was looking for a ride to the race and in exchange offered free lodgings for the weekend. It will be in a Homestay. Homestays are local residents who open up their homes for athletes to stay with them over the race weekend. It is my understanding that Natasha Baddmann also stays at the house where I will stay. I am hoping I can get a picture of me with her holding a sign stating that I will kick ST’s ass at Lake Placid. It will go good right next to his picture of me with Amanda Beard holding a similar sign.

I am going to have to end this entry short, as I am writing it on the subway and a large class of eight year olds just boarded. It is becoming too difficult to write with them jostling into me.

Traveling Again

I head for the Eagleman Half Ironman tomorrow evening. I don’t think my children know I am leaving yet and I am hesitating to tell them. I think in the end it bothers me to be gone more than it bothers them. I would have preferred to leave Saturday morning, but I got a free place to stay in exchange for giving someone a ride. Maybe I will appease my guilt by buying them presents with the money I saved from a one night hotel stay. At least I will be with them for a few hours before I leave. It would be nice to tuck them into bed though.

I still feel a bit sluggish from my Taper. Not as bad as on Wednesday, when I felt as fast as a three toed sloth. My coach told me that it is normal to feel slow when coming off high volume training with a short taper and that I will feel fine come race day. I hope so. I looked at my times for this race at last year’s event and I don’t feel like I can run as fast as I did then. I am sure though I will perk up come race day.

Taper Week

I get all out of sorts during a Taper week. I get to sleep late since the workouts are shorter, I am less hungry, but I still feel like eating and I worry like crazy about losing fitness. Old aches and pains start to subside and new pains start to appear. The workouts are so short and easy, that you wonder if it is even worth doing them at all.

To start out my Taper week, I took Monday off. This was more a matter of needing extra rest from my busy weekend, than having a scheduled day off. Today I rode an easy 14 mile in Prospect Park. At one point during the ride, the usual morning peloton caught up to me and slowly passed. I jumped onto the back and hung out with the pack for a mile or so. However, they were going at a very leisurely pace and having the nice draft in the pack made the ride much too easy. My HR dipped from around 70 percent to somewhere in the low 60’s, so I decided to let myself coast past them on the downhill.

When the pack saw me passing, it was like I disturbed a swarm of bees. They all started sprinting furiously to get ahead of me and I swear they wanted to cut me off. I found the whole thing very amusing.

Busy Weekend

I’ve had a pretty full weekend. It started out on Friday night with my daughter’s ballet recital. She looked beautiful in her costume and radiated excitement. Of course, this necessitated a later night out than usual for me, so I just planned on dealing with less sleep than I am accustomed.

I think I got to bed around 10:30 pm. It took an Ambien to knock me out and I only slumbered until 2am Saturday morning. I got up and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then lay in bed for the next 1.5 hours. I gave up trying to sleep sometime before 4am, so I started to get myself ready for my ride in Harriman State Park (HSP). I picked up Lowell, my riding partner for the day just after 5am and we started to ride just after 6:30am.

The day started out rainy and overcast, but you could see the sky trying to clear as we headed further north. By the time we started to ride, the rain had stopped, but we encountered wet roads and some fog through the climbs. As the day wore on, the sun broke through and we had a spectacularly beautiful day to ride.

On our first loop, I snapped a couple of photos while we were climbing the road Tiorati Circle. This is a much forested road, with streams, waterfalls and lakes. It was peaceful and serene, with only the sounds of our breathing or my exclamations at the beauty of it all punctuating the sounds of the mountains.


The Road to Tirorati

Upon completion of the first loop, we ran into our fellow Tri Club member Jason. He was joining us in the mountains to train for the Canada Death March – an ultramarathon with an elevation ascent equivalent to Mt. Everest. Jason was hitching a ride with us back to the city after his run, since his ride up did not plan to stay for that long.


Jason getting ready to run 30+ miles

One and a half loops later, we encountered Jason again on his first loop around Harriman. We didn’t see him again, as after his first loop; he abandoned the roads in favor of running the trails.

At some point during our third loop, I lost one of my fueling bottles. This contains 700 calories and was half of what I was hoping to consume during the day. The bottle was in one of the bottle cages behind my saddle, which are prone to being launched if the cage doesn’t grip it snuggly and you hit a solid bump in the road. Fortunately, I also had some Hammer Gel with me and it managed to get me through the ride.

I am sure the loss of one of my main fueling sources contributed to the fatigue I felt during our 6th and final lap. Our lap times for the 5th and 6th lap were now taking over 50 minutes and I feared that one more loop would take well over 60 minutes. Rather than try to gut out another 15 miles, we decided to stop riding and go for our 5 mile run. Our decision must have been providence, since at this time we saw Jason start making his way down a trail back towards our cars. At this point Jason had only run 23 miles. I told him I was disappointed as I expected him to have run at least 28-36 miles by now. While we racked our bike, Jason switched out of his trail sneakers into his road running shoes so he could run 5 more miles with us.

Lowell and I were both happy to be off the bikes. When I started to run, it felt like I put on a new set of legs. I felt great and happily ran our out and back course. After all of us finished running, we headed to the lake. Jason and I took a couple of short swims, while Lowell declined to fully immerse his whole body in the water because it was too chilly.

Some quick stats for the workout:
Time Ride: 5:01:42
Time Run: 20:17
Ascent: 7845
Calories burned: 4500
Calories Consumed: 1500
Max Speed Bike: 50.3 MPH
HR: 139/161

Later in the day, after I returned home, my kids and I washed our car. It was a nice way to spend the remainder of a hot afternoon. Both my children seemed to love the idea of climbing on top of our Ford Explorer and cleaning the roof.

After we ate dinner and then went for a bike ride into Prospect Park. We rode around the park one time and into Long Meadow field to watch the planned fireworks and the first Star Wars movie. I didn’t get to bed until well after midnight, giving me almost 24 hours of constant activity.

The next morning, Sunday, I got up around 8am to do a 10 mile run. I discovered a race being held in Prospect Park, which included Pee Wee Races. I thought my kids would enjoy doing this race, so I ran back home to see if they wanted to do it. The answer from my son was an emphatic yes, and my daughter reluctantly decided to try it as well. I shuttled myself back and forth to race registration and planned to meet my wife back in the park by 11am. The kids ran the races and had a blast.

I capped my weekend off, by taking my daughter to a birthday party and then having an archeological expedition in my back yard. My son wanted to dig a hole and as we started digging deeper, we began to find buried bricks, tiles, a marble and the cap from an old German cold remedy called Formamint. Maybe I can sell it on eBay and buy an energy bar with the proceeds.

Medical Tent

I’ve had a very productive weekday training week. My coached stated that is was supposed to be an easy week, something that I thought I needed considering the high volume of training I put in over the past couple of weeks. However, upon looking at the schedule, I saw nothing easy about it except for some reduced mileage on the bike workouts. My schedule went from a total cycling distance of 148 to 105; basically midweek I went from 24 to 20 and tomorrow I will go from 100 to 85. Other than change in distance the workouts themselves were just as hard as they have always been.

Today I swam sets of 20 x 50 yards, 20 x 100 yards and 10 x 50 yards on 10 seconds rest with a 400 and 300 warm up and cool down. It took me 1:14:00 and I felt pretty snappy in the water. I think part of my snappiness can be attributed to the fact that my lane was invaded by a bunch of newbie triathletes while I was in the middle of my workout. Subconscientiously , I must have pushed myself harder to show them how a real triathlete swims – with speed grace and sense of purpose. I have reached a sort of Zen with the water. I will never move through it with the speed of a dolphin, but I am happy enough with my swimming technique that I no longer fret about it.

My run was very strong. Actually, what I should say was my mental focus was very strong. My legs are definitely fatigued. However, I ran my 4 x 1 mile intervals with alacrity and purpose. I remember thinking that it was feeling hard to run at the pace I was maintaining, but the more difficult it felt, the harder I pushed myself. My HR felt like it was higher than my monitor was indicating, but I think that was my body telling me that it was tired. I did not allow those signals to slow me down. I ran the 1800 yard intervals (40 yards over 1 mile) in paces of 7:26, 7:12, 7:04 and 7:40 respectively – add 10 seconds to each pace to find the 1800 yard times.

I was discussing my new found sense of training purpose with my coach. He pointed out that I really have reached a new level of training. I can now push myself through fatigue and maintain a high level of intensity. Previously, I would have backed off or been unable to maintain the intesity.

He pointed out that finishing Ironman Lake Placid fast was more important to me than the fear of blowing up and DNF’ing. This is definitely true. I no longer care about finishing an Ironman. I only care about finishing it fast. I would rather risk a DNF, than finish slower than my potential.

Earlier in the week during my previous 1 mile sprint sessions, I kept myself running hard by repeating the phrase “Medical Tent”. It was my visualization of me crossing the finish line at a fast past and collapsing as I crossed the line. I am looking forward to racing the whole thing hard and leaving nothing out on the course. I imagine I will be hurting badly once I cross the line and I look forward to that feeling with intense anticipation.