I'm a genetic freak

Before I explain to you how I'm a genetic freak, let me give you some numbers. Today, was my official race weight day. After this morning, I start carbo loading and my weight will definitely increase. I also go my body fat checked. This is the same guy that does it every time and we also do the same procedure: weight is in the morning without food or fluids and after any bodily waste evacuations, calipers in the morning with no exercise. There should be little variance in these testing procedures.

Here's the data from when I was measured on 19 JUL 2006:
Chest: 11
Abs: 18
Thighs: 13
Total: 42
Weight: 180 lbs
Body fat: 12.2%
lbs fat: 21.96
lbs lean: 158.04

Now, here's the data from today:
Chest: 11
Abs: 15
Thighs: 12
Total: 38
Weight: 180.5 lbs
Body fat: 11.3%
lbs fat: 20.4
lbs lean: 160.1

Now, looking at these numbers, it would seem that I'm doing a pretty good job at lifting weights and putting on some lean mass and muscle. However, I'm training for a freaking Ironman! Over the course of the last 3 months, my weight has pretty much stayed the same with a +/- 2lb swing. Most people that I know lost a decent amount of weight while training for an Ironman, especially in the peak of training like me. They lose fat as well as muscle. However, I'm the one in a million genetic freak that actually put on 2 lbs of lean mass while Ironman training. What the fuck? That is *NOT* suppose to happen. And it makes sense because I feel stronger as well. I do some LSD training. I try to have a calorie deficit every day. I eat a lot of carbs and not that much protein. What happens? I should be losing muscle and losing weight overall, but my weight is stagnant but I converted 2 pounds from fat into muscle. What the hell is up with my body? The good thing is that I'm down to 11.3% body fat and that does make me happy. I just wish I had less mass so that I could run better.

Otherwise, I'm not getting excited about IMFL. I just took an Ambien to get some sleep I'm that excited. We'll see if it works tonight. I have most of my stuff packed up already. I need to get a few more things tomorrow and then I'm ready to head to Florida. I'll be out of here at 7am.

Oh, one thing that I noticed. Whenever I'm about to go on vacation, especially right before a race where I should be sitting on my ass resting all day long and not working much because I'm getting 10 hour of sleep every night, work picks up. I had to be in the fab for 3 hours today on my feet and my feet hurt now. I should be in bed now since I have to be up at 5:30 to be at work at 6:30. It's just frustrating and I'm desperately in need of a vacation.

And on that note, goodnight!

Ran 66 Minutes

I ran 66 minutes today. I did 2 2.9 mile loops around Town Lake plus a little bit extra. On average it was something like 11min/mile which is slow, really slow. The weird thing is that I didn't feel like I was actually running that slow so something is probably off. I didn't have my HRM strap on because I was a dumbass and left it at the bike shop yesterday. I really needed it today so I could see how my pace vs my heart rate was. Oh well.

From today's run, Florida is going to be interesting. My left foot hurt and I now know that it *will* hurt at IMFL. It's not the 3rd met head anymore and it's more like the 3rd toe bone. It's really weird. It hurts, but not that bad and I may get a bone scan in December after I recover from IMFL and if the toe bone still hurts when I start running again. With that said, I'm not worried about the foot the most. What I'm worried about the most is my knees. Both of them started aching today. It wasn't a lot of pain, but pain on the medial side of each knee with the right one being worse. I'm going to keep a couple of those knee straps in my special needs bag on the run in case it starts to hurt. I haven't used one of those in years, though. I would really like to tape up my knee, but I know that tape doesn't stick very well if you are already wet, sweaty, and covered in sunscreen. Pretty much every upper leg muscle started hurting about 40 minutes into the run. Hamstrings were bad at the beginning of the run but got better as I ran more. Towards the end, the upper quads and hip flexors were hurting the most.

I thought that the run wouldn't be so bad considering how I've felt on my 30min runs lately, but I guess the pain starts to happen at about 40min into it for me. Next Saturday will be interesting.

Also, somehow, I'm an engineer that can't do math and today is 6 days away and tomorrow when I wake up will be 5 days.

Saturday Ride & Run

Yep, you heard that right, I ran again today. It was a brick and I felt fine. IT wasn't a real brick because after I changed and got my shoes on, I stopped and talked to Charles for like 10 minutes, but it was good. I was suppose to ride about 2 hours but I put in closer to 2.5 hours. Oops. I just kept riding and when I got back to ATC, I put in about half an hour extra. The run was fine, though. My heart rate was a little higher than I expected, but I didn't have any problems otherwise. I was feeling something in my foot, but pretty much every time I run I feel "something" in my foot, but it isn't ever "pain". I'm actually pretty happy about my runs off the bike doing so well since I know they hurt so badly and I was able to keep my run off the bike legs pretty well. That's something I think I'm good at; I run off the bike well for me. My standalone 5K and 10K times are not much faster than my sprint tri 5k and Oly tri 10k times. Yes, they are slower, but not that much slower. Also, to put things into perspective, the girl I'm dating has been having some foot issues as well. She started doing some bricks because she couldn't run. Her first brick was a 12 mile bike and a 2 mile run. Afterwards, she told me "Those fucking hurt!". Yes, they do and I love them, too. I like pain. Makes me feel alive. After that, I came home and watched TV on the couch without taking a shower. After being an athlete for so long, I don't mind basking in my disgusting smelliness. Oh, and by watching TV on the couch, I meant that I had the TV on and took a 3 hour nap. Also, the ride this morning was quite cool and the starting temp was 53 degrees. I have a problem riding in the cold because I have to wear a beanie cap. Problem is that my chin straps on my helmet are so disgusting from the sweat and salt that I can't adjust them so the straps choke me. I decided this morning to leave the beanie off and be a little cooler. Wow, this is one completely disjointed paragraph.

Friday was a rest day. Nothing special.

Tomorrow I'm really looking forward to. I get to run for an hour and I think this will be a good test to see how my body deals with the impact again. I think my body is ready for it because on all the easy 30min runs I'm doing, everything feels fine. It won't be anything compared to the marathon of an IM, but it'll be something.

Monday is a rest day, but I'll be packing up most of my stuff that night. I'm doing laundry tonight to make sure I have everything clean before I leave. I'll get my nutrition stuff together as well which consists on InfinIT, Gatorade, Clif bars, Odwalla bars, Gus, eGels, and my electrolytes. I have a ton of stuff to take. I actually spent about $100 on supplies for the race next weekend. This sport is expensive. I won't use all of it at the race, but I definitely needed to stock up on a lot of stuff. The only thing that I couldn't find is some socks. I really, really like the Ultimax Running Mini Crew socks. The top is really, really thin and cool, but the bottom is soft and cushy. I have Thorlo's and they are good socks, but nothing compared to Ultimax. I went to 3 stores before I found a similar type of sock by Wigwam. I may take a trip up to REI to see if they have them. I'll run in the Wigwam's tomorrow and see how I feel. If they are still decent, I'll get another pair. Ok, Monday is packing up day.

Tuesday is a couple of last workouts before I leave. I'll try to get a decent night's sleep because I leave Wednesday morning at 7am. Also, my friend flaked out on me at the last minute. Well, it was yesterday. I'm not happy about it, but luckily things worked out and I found someone else at the next to last minute to ride with me and help out with the condo.

Ok, I'm almost done for now. I'm finally getting a little bit excited at times about my race. I've been pretty open about stuff and I've been pretty open about my recent bout with depression. I'm off meds and I don't think I need to go back on them, but I still think I have a little bit of lingering depression. I mention this because I'm not depressed, but I think it's preventing me from being really happy and excited about the race. And that really fucking sucks because I should be excited and bouncing off the walls because I'm doing an Ironman. This is something that I never thought I would be able to do but I keep pushing myself and now I'm 6 days away. And I should be more excited about it than I am.

No Swim, Swim, Run

Wednesday was suppose to be a swim, but the weather was crappy all day long. Yes, when I'm swimming, I'm wet so it doesn't matter that it's raining, but it's still tough getting out in that weather.

This morning was a 45min swim. Nothing special. Did 600 warmup, 2x100, 10x66 fast, and then 700 cooldown. What is that, like 2400yds or something? Close enough. There weren't many people at the pool so that's nice.

Tonight was a 30min run. I was driving to the workout, but traffic was fucking horrible. When I was 15 minutes late after being on the road for an hour and still being only half way to workout, I pulled over in a park, changed, and then ran. Did 30 minutes and it was very easy. Average heart rate was 132bpm; max was 148bpm. Very easy run and nothing hurt. The big run is on Sunday. That day, I'll be testing out my gear for the run for IMFL and see how I feel. I'll also be testing out my body for the run, too. I'll be wearing my new Desoto 4 pocket Power Tri shorts and the Texas Iron long sleeve Sugoi shirt. Well, that shirt may go in my special needs bag, but I'll probably be starting out with my blue TYR shirt that I love.

Well, it's time for bed. When I wake up, it'll be 7 days until I do the biggest race of my life. Also, I found a place in Austin to get my tattoo which will be something commemorating my Ironman achievement, but it won't be an MDot logo.

Shoe mileage: 55.5 miles.

IMFL Bib #

Well, I'll be racer #206 in 9 days from today. If you are interested in following me, go to Ironmanlive.com on the day of the race and enter in my bib number or my last name.

10 Days

Today is 10 days from when I toe the line at IMFL. When I wake up tomorrow, it'll be single digits. I should be excited, but not fully. I've come to the realization that one of my friends is very likely to bail on me for the trip and when I cross the finish line in 10 days, I'll have no one there supporting me. That's enough feeling sorry for myself and the story is a lot deeper than just a single sentence as well.

I cycled for 1.5 hours tonight on the spin bikes. Did 5x4min fast with 3min rest. I could only get my heart rate up to 158 or so. I just didn't have the mental sharpness today to push it over 160 and keep it there. Basically, I was being a pussy about it. Not cool.

It might have been because my legs were tired this morning from running 20 minutes. I felt fine, but there were some pains in my foot, but mostly in the 3rd toe area. They were minor, but it still hurt a bit. I'll have Rachel check me out on Thursday night. That's one of the perks of being an injury prone triathlete that's dating a physical therapist.

I was suppose to do a 30min swim yesterday. I worked late at work and didn't leave in time to get to Stacy and I didn't want to swim in Barton Springs. In the morning, I did some errands and took a broken toilet that's been sitting in my driveway for 6 weeks to the dump.

That's it for now.

I'm not sick

This is something that I just realized. I don't get sick anymore. Before I started triathlon training, there would be times where I would feel like I'm coming down with something. I would rest and then I would be OK. Sometimes, I would get an actual cold and not feel well, take a sick day from work, and then I would be fine. Now, nothing. I feel fine. I haven't been sick in months and I mean I haven't ever felt like I was coming down with something. I've been worn down from working out too much, but nothing that feels like I've been getting sick and I just find this out of the ordinary.

Why does the wind blow harder when it's cold?

I went for a 2 hour ride today. Today was the first day that I had to wear my cold weather gear. It was about 54 degrees when I started riding, but it was sunny out. I headed south and the wind was fine. What I didn't know was that I had a decent tailwind. When I turned north, I had a massive headwind and it was tough to pedal. The wind seemed to be blowing so much harder today when it's cold than the wind that I was used to when it was warmer. I'm not looking forward to biking this winter battling the cold, harsh wind the entire time. Also, my ass was pretty sore from riding yesterday as well.

Afterwards, I ran 15 minutes. My heart rate was a little higher because I was doing a brick, but even doing a brick after 30 miles was pretty easy. I felt fine, but I don't know the distance that I ran today. My avg heart rate was abotu 138bpm. I kept picking up the pace, looking at my HRM, and having to back off a bit. After that, I did some aquajogging. I was freezing though. I got out after 60 minutes and went and got some coffee and breakfast tacos. I'm at home now freezing.

Yesterday was a 4 hour ride. It was a good ride because I had only 2 cars try to kill me so that made me happy. I did the ride by myself and it was boring. Came home and watched a bit of the Ironman championships in Hawaii. Man, that was inspiring. I went and did a 60min aquajog then. I was cold again but that's usual. I was also a complete dumbass yesterday, too. It started out a little cool but overcast, so I put my arm warmers on and left. I forgot to put sunscreen on myself. Today, I have burnt arms, nice marks on the side of my face from my helmet straps, a red face, and most embarrassing, I have an outline of my helmet air vents burned into my shaved head.

Like I said before, I was watching the Ironman Hawaii World Championships last night. It was a pretty good race. It was awesome seeing Desiree Ficker, the hometown hottie pro triathlete, come in 2nd place. She's been having a great year and it's really awesome for her to finish 2nd at this race. She's super awesome and very deserving of the race. Can't believe that Michellie Jones is kicking as after moving up to the IM distance so quickly. The men's race was led by Normann Stadler the entire time, but it was still exciting. Unfortunately, Rick and Dick Hoyt didn't make the swim cutoff. If you haven't heard about their story, it's quite amazing.

After today's workouts, my taper has officially begun. I have 12 days left to my race. Hopefully, today was my last aquajog as well. I'm thinking about actually doing my run workouts on land next weekend. Those workouts are a 30min brick after a Saturday bike ride and then an hour easy on Sunday. I want to do them to see how my body feels after running that long on land. I'll have to ask my coach, but the main reason I want to do this is I'm sick of aquajogging.

I'm in a better mood today, too. My problem is that work is so frustrating because people don't do their jobs and don't do things that they say they are suppose to do. Also, management is insane and is asking for us to meet ridiculous goals, but they answer can't ever be "No." This causes me problems because even though I know that my true calling is not as an industrial engineer in the semiconductor industry, but I still want to do the best at my job. It's just hard for me to not care because I've committed to this and I don't want to slack off at it. I just need to learn to not care, but I can't. Ok, enough personal stuff for now.

Shoe mileage: 49.5 miles

I hate the cable guy

I'm in a sour mood today. I woke up and had to wait around for the cable guy to show up to hook up another receiver. The window was from 8am until noon. They showed up at 11:50. Damnit! I had to hurry up to get to work for my 1:30 meeting. Then, things at work pissed me off. I left work at around 5:30 and went for a swim. Nothing special except I did 45min instead of 60min. I came home and ran 15 minutes. Average heart rate was 133bpm. I don't know the distance but it felt like I was actually running today so I think I was doing faster than 10min/mile. Now, I'm home and watching the most riveting episode of Battlestar Galactica that has ever aired.

Yesterday, I had a sweat test done. It was a 15min warmup and then 30min for the actual test. I had my heart rate parked at 140bpm and the wattage on the machine was 210 watts. I think that's a good goal to shoot for at Florida. Speaking of, only 13 days away.

Shoe mileage: 47.5 miles.

I shaved my arms

I shaved my arms today. The reason for this is that I'm getting a sweat test done today. It'll measure my sweat loss and sodium loss rates. This will just in time for IMFL as well. I'm a heavy sweater and if I qualify for the study, I get $300 so I'm happy about that. Last time I was testing I lost 41oz of fluid and 1150mg of sodium per hour.

I don't know what it was but I was really happy to be alive this morning. I'm normally happy to be alive, but I just took a moment to soak it in today. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the brisk fall morning that we had (brisk for Texas is 55 degrees) while walking into work with my headphones on listening to The Constantines. Just sharing that with everyone.

I swam during lunch yesterday. I can't remember what set I did but I did about 3000yds. I noticed that the pool clears out at around late lunch so it's better to show up then than at 11:30. After work, I did a hard bike set. It was a 65min workout on the spin bike. 15min warmup, then 15min, 10min, 5min strong with 5min EZ between each. Finally, 10min cooldown. On the 15min interval, I got my heart rate to around 160. On the 10min, about 165. At the end of the 5min interval, I hit 175bpm. Man, I really like spiking my heart rate and seeing if I can keep it there.

I'm a little sore this morning. I've been working on my legs with the rolling pin and I working out the sore spots. I think it flushed out the lactic acid from those spots into the rest of my legs. It hurts, but it's good for the long term.

15 days!

Tuesday Update

Let's see. I ran during lunch yesterday. Another 15min or so. Well, I guess that was what it was. I forgot my HRM on my bike so I just ran the 1.5 mile loop and I had no clue what my heart rate or my time were. Oh well. I then did 15min on the elliptical. After work, I did another 60min on the elliptical. I was suppose to do a run, which means I was suppose to do an aquajog, but I didn't feel like it so I did an elliptical workout instead. It was a long run, too. I probably would've ran 10-12 miles. Speaking of that, I'm starting to get worried about the run. Well, I want to run 10 minute miles or better, but we'll see if I can do that.

I think I've turned a corner. I'm no longer want this race to be over with. Well, I do, but I'm starting to get excited about it. It's 16 days away which is the week after next. It's on the horizon looming overhead. It's so close. I start my taper after this weekend. Not much else to say for now.

Shoe mileage: 46 miles

Super Swim

First, I weighed in at 179 this morning. I'm happy with that since I pigged out twice last week, I had a light training week, and I stayed the same weight. Today, I had some candy though. I don't feel bad about it because I needed a break in something.

Second, I bought something that will probably help out my athletic career immensely. I bought a rolling pin. I like using it to roll out sore spots in my quads and IT band. It's much better than using a foam roller because I can do it while sitting on the couch and I can control the pressure better.

Finally, I swam today. It was gorgeous. Here's what I did:

600 warmup
4x(33 kick, 33 10-3-10, 33 fingertip)
2x33 one arm drill
4x33 band drill (this one is tough)
3x33 paddles
200 pull buoy
10x100 fast w/ 40sec rest
200 cooldown

I had to circle swim for a bit. I almost quit because I hate circle swimming. It wouldn't be bad if there were 3 people in a lane all the same speed or close to it, but I had 2 people in my lane that were slow. Luckily, they were about the same speed so if I could pass one, I could pass the other easily. I need to start swimming more at lunch because it seems less crowded. I wanted to go at lunch but it was still pretty nasty out from the rain this morning, but it turned out to be gorgeous with a high around 84 degrees and sunny. Very awesome.

I changed my mind

I woke up determined that I wasn't going to work out today. Well, I'm now at home completely bundled up with sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and a beanie because I'm so cold from doing an hour of aquajogging and 1 lap of swimming at Barton Springs. I'm glad that I did it, too. I got some encouragement from Jodi and I just couldn't completely give up since I'm not a quitter.

Weekend of Burnout

Seriously, 19 days and I can't wait until it's over. I've just been feeling really burned out the last couple of days. Yesterday I did a 2.5 hour base bike ride. No problems, but then I was suppose to do a 45min aquajog. I went to my LBS to get my front wheel fixed and some breakfast tacos. I then left to go aquajogging and found out that I forgot my belt at home. I decided to just skip it and I didn't feel that bad about it. Today, I'm totally skipping my aquajog again because I'm just not up to it. The weather is pretty crappy as well, so that's just another excuse. I really hate being like this, but I'm just completely worn out. I just need to stay disciplined and mentally tough to get through this. I've worked a year for this and I can't give up now.

Yes, a Friday workout!

Before my Friday workout, I ran on Thursday. It was another 1.5 miles. This time, I ran it at a blistering pace of 9:45 per mile with an average heart rate of 134. Man, that's smoking. Then, I did 30min on the elliptical and did an interval program. I'm so sick of Barton Springs and aquajogging that I only do it on the weekends now. The rest of the time, the elliptical will do. Oh, my run felt fine. No problems at all.

I worked out today. I usually don't work out on Fridays because I'm just really lazy on Fridays, I don't want to be at work, and all I want to do is go home and relax. I miss a lot of Friday workouts and if I don't do them in the morning, I probably won't do them. Today, I swam after work. I was suppose to do 75min but I did 60min instead. I also did something a little different. I did some drills. Yes, me, I did drills. Those are the things that I hate doing when swimming. I just like swimming, and then swimming faster. Drills suck, but I needed to mix things up. Here's my routine:

600 warmup
4x33 kick
4x33 alternating zipper drill and fingertip drill
4x33 10-3-10
2x33 paddles
2x33 DPS (distance per stroke)

The main set was this:

3x(200 slow, 200 medium, 200 fast)
200 cooldown w/ pull buoy

That's about 3133yds today. Not bad. I think it took a little over 60 minutes now that I think about it.

The weather was gorgeous today. Fall has finally arrived and it was a brisk 65 degrees this morning. Hey, stop laughing! That's a cool, crisp morning for Texas. Warmup up to about 85 today and partly cloudy. Oh, I forgot. I'm trying to savor the moment more often. People get too busy and live for tomorrow instead of today, but you aren't guaranteed that tomorrow will come. I'm guilty of this. I'm trying to stop each day for even just 30 seconds and just take it all in. I'm sitting here trying to remember the smell of the air the morning of my first triathlon. I'm 21 days away from the biggest accomplishment of my life and I'm worried that I won't remember the smell of the water and the feel of the crispness of the air on my skin when I look across the Gulf of Mexico with butterflies in my stomach a year after the race. I want to remember that moment of clarity for the rest of my life, but the day after my race, all that I'll be thinking about is my next race. And I'm not happy about that.

Pushing it

Yesterday's spin bike workout was boring. Did some 1 legged drills and a couple of 1 min fast sprints. I got my heart rate up to 168 though. A lot of my workouts are going to get more and more boring as I get closer to IMFL. Some speed work and most of it is easier stuff. To keep my blog more lively, I'll be posting on more of the psychological aspects of training instead of posting my workout sets.

And here is the first one. I went to the J&A core workout yesteday. It was the last one before I do IMFL. My coaches want me to start tapering soon. Well, I had one hell of a workout. I did 8 chinups on my own. But before that, I was pushing myself on the ab exercises. We started out doing 250 flutter kicks. As usual, I felt like my core was weak so I would start stopping and resting after 30 of them. I kept challenging myself to go to where I think it would hurt the most and then do 5 more. At one point, I did 25 straight flutter kicks without stopping and they were number 165 to number 190 as well when I was really tired. Then, after a few other exercises, Haung and I were pushing each other on the scissor kicks where we did 100. Both of us were tired, but start at #66, we finished out the set without resting for 34 straight scissor kicks. I didn't think I had it in me. What I found is once you reach the point that if you go --> <-- that much more, you are going to die from the pain, it doesn't get any worse. If wasn't like the pain kept building. It was just a test of how long could I endure the pain and I found that I could endure it for a decent amount of time. I knew that it wasn't going to hurt any worse than the pain I was in and the pain was tolerable, so let's now focus on maintaining this pain. This is something that I need to apply more to my swimming, biking, and running as well because I do the same thing in those disciplines as well. I just need to learn to not back down from the pain but just to endure it and I'll get stronger, faster, and better a lot quicker.

The effect of crap food on your body

At lunch, I went to see my acupuncturist. When I came back to work, there were leftovers in the breakroom. There were bagels and a lone muffin. I ate the muffin. Now, I feel like crap. I crashed about 20 minutes later and I'm really tired now. Muffins are basically cake for breakfast and this incident is just another reminder why I love eating clean and healthy foods instead of the crap that I used to eat. Yes, the muffin was good, but I'm paying for it 20 minutes later. An apple and some yogurt wouldn't have done that to me.

After work . . .

. . . I went to the gym. I changed my clothes and put on my iPod. The walk outside to the trail was quite nice. About 75 degrees. I smelled the rain on the ground since it has been raining all day. I looked up at the sky and watched the clouds. Does anyone actually look up at the sky and just watch the clouds anymore? "Whistle Song" by Kent was playing on my iPod. I took a step and then I started to run.

I only ran ~1.5 miles for 15 minutes. I didn't run fast at all. I only managed 9:50min/mile but my heart rate was really low at an average of 133bpm. That's enough though. I felt completely fine and that was really what counts. Right now I'm sitting at home after having some chicken and quinoa black bean salad. Nothing hurts. My foot is fine, my knees are fine, and my calves are fine. It's awesome. I'm so happy to run again.

Other than that, I was suppose to swim this morning. I basically got into my wetsuit, got into the water, peed in my wetsuit, and then got out. Ok, I actually swam 1 length at Barton Springs but it was lightning so the lifeguards kicked us out. Fine with me.

The gym bag surprise today was the deodorant leaking all over the place.

Another piece of advice for the newbies. Get used to your car smelling absolutely horrible.

Two more days before I can run again.

Shoe mileage: 44 miles

Random Stuff

1) I weighed in at 179 this morning. Down is very, very good.

2) Rest day today. I didn't even do the core workout tonight. I just need a mental break, too.

3) I found out some disturbing things about some of my favorite food. I really like Kashi cereals. Their granola bars are OK, but serious is awesome. It's healthy and delicious. I also really like Odwalla bars. They are probably best known for their very expensive fruit juices that are very delicious though. Well, I found out that Kashi was purchased by Kellogg in 2000 and Odwalla was purchased by Coca-Cola in 2002. This really disappoints me because I really like supporting businesses that are health conscious and smaller businesses. It seems like once companies grow to a certain size, they lose track of helping out the community and the culture of the company is to make as much profit as possible. Now, the point of business is to make money, but there usually is some other ideal as well. Now, I don't think companies like Kellogg and Coca-Cola do not have these ideals besides making as much money as possible.

4) Whenever I get into the toiletries section of my gym bag, you'll never know what container has exploded and coated everything in my. It's been awhile since my shaving cream has exploded. That doesn't look like my lotion has leaked again. It doesn't quite smell like deodorant melted this time. Maybe it's my soap because I always love the taste of Mountain Spring soap flavored Triberrry Gu's. And speaking of Gu's, they are really a pain in the ass to clean up from the bottom of a gym bag.

5) Here is some newbie advice to other newbies since I'm 25 days away from my first IM. You will have bad workouts. You will doubt your abilities to work towards your goal. You will feel like giving up. You will wonder if it is really worth it all. You will wonder where your social life went. This is normal. Almost everyone goes through this and it's OK. You aren't alone and these thoughts are very typical. Just remember to not let it consume your life. Remember to go out and have fun every once in awhile. It's OK to get some beers once or twice a month. It's Saturday night and you haven't had pizza in about 2 months? Go ahead and order some Papa Johns. You will need to keep things fresh and not deny yourself 100% of all indulgences. While you are training to become an Ironman, you still need to live a little. Good luck.

6) Using cottage cheese when you're out of vanilla yogurt in your smoothies doesn't work out as well as you expect it to.

So cold!

I'm now sitting at home trying to warm up after my aquajog. To tell you how cold I get, the temp in my house is 83 degrees and I'm sitting here on my couch wearing a hooded sweatshirt and some sweatpants. That's barely adequate.

The aquajog was suppose to be 7 laps. I only did 5. I had a really crappy aquajog, too. I just wasn't into it. The biggest reason that I want to be done with this IM is so that I don't have to do anymore aquajogging. If I was running, I don't think I would be this mentally worn out. The good thing was if I was doing these 2.75 hour runs and stuff then my body would be more beat up than it is now. I was also suppose to do a 45min recovery swim but I skipped that as well.

Update

Wow, it's been 3 days since the last update. Not cool.

Thursday was a bike workout with Texas Iron. Well, everyone else did a brick workout but since I'm not running on land at the moment, I just did the bike. However, I made an important find. My front wheel is loose. It's been loose for a few weeks but I didn't think anything of it until today. I asked Jamie and Fish about it and they looked at it. What had happened is that it looks like the ends of the hub that hold in the axle came loose. So, the body of the hub was bouncing against the ends of the hub. Jamie tightened down the ends of the hub, but he let me borrow his wheel just to be safe. He wasn't going down some hairy hills like I was. I did 2 loops easy and then 2 loops hard. I had 8 minutes rest between each hard loop. I was doing the slow loops in about 12 minutes but doing the fast ones in about 9:30 so I was going pretty hard when I was going hard. On the last loop, my heart rate topped out at 179. At this point, I tried to keep my heart rate up above 170 just to see how long I could keep it there. I did a cooldown loop and then I went to Rache'ls to watch Grey's Anatomy.

Friday was a rest day but even after pigging out and having about 3 too many cookies at Rachel's, I weighed in at 180 in the morning.

Saturday was a 5 hour ride. I did about 91 miles in 4:53 for an average of 18.5mph. Average heart rate was 133bpm with a max of 164bpm. I did some hills so that slowed me down and caused my heart rate to be somewhat higher. I was in my HRM's Z3 (147-156bpm) for a total of 39 minutes and HRM's Z4 (157-175bpm) for only 6 minutes. The rest was below 147bpm with 50% of my time under 136. This was suppose to be a base ride and it was. Afterwards, I went for an aquajog at Barton Springs. This was the first time in a long time that I was actually cold in the water. I usually get used to it after a few minutes, but I was in the water for 45 minutes and I was freezing the entire time. I cut the run short by about 15 minutes. Came home and ate some food.

What I noticed today was that about 80 miles into the ride was the point that my legs started to get tired. It also seemed like I wasn't keeping my cadence up as well and was doing a lot of time under 90rpm's. I still have a lot to figure out before IMFL but I think I have the time. Well, there will be other IM's and I will learn a lot after the race and figure out what else I need to do differently for my next IM.

Elliptical & 4th Day of Swimming

I did the elliptical machine last night at the gym for 60 minutes. I couldn't do another aquajog because I spent too much time in Barton Springs this weekend. I also wanted to do something that didn't leave me wanting to eat every piece of food in my house afterwards. Problem is the elliptical is boring as well and it doesn't really give me that good of a workout. I even up the resistance and keep my cadence up but not so much. Also, I think it shortens my stride. Well, I start running again next Tuesday so that should make me happy.

This morning I swam 3000yds. Did it in about 60min and I was resting a lot between sets. I did 5x200 warmup. Then, I did this weird set where I would do 1x200,1x133,1x66 and each one got faster. I did 2 of those. Then, I did 600yds easy followed by another descending set. 200yds cooldown and I was done. No major breakthroughs except that I was expecting to be toast this morning. I swam fine, though. I was a little fatigued, but not much. I had to cough and coughing while trying to swim and get in enough air to continue breathing is somewhat difficult.

Stacy was fairly warm this morning. I'm at work now and I had a single bowl of cereal and I feel OK. If I had swam in Barton Springs, I would've been through a bowl of cereal, an apple, a granola bar, and then eyeing my jar of peanut butter by now.

You know what, I'm so ready for this Ironman to be over with. This is probably the most difficult thing that I've done in my entire life. I set out a year ago DNF'ing my first half Ironman and determined to get through the year and make the sacrifices to get to Florida. I'm 30 days away now and those 30 days can't get here quick enough. I love training, but some weeks are just crazy because I have no free time at all. My social life sucks and I need more interaction than the old people at Barton Springs and Stacy. I want to expand my thinking besides what will I do at the next workout. Ironman training is not only a battle of your physical self, but it's also a battle of your psychological self. You have to be extremely determined and dedicated to set a stake in the ground and work towards it for a year. It's very solitary as well. I do 90% of my training alone. Why? It's very difficult to find a training partner that is the same speed as me and training for the same race. I've had a few in the last year but they all disappeared for different reasons. I've also had to learn to push myself on my own. I usually think that I get faster by training with people just a little bit faster than me. I catch up to them and then I gun for the next fastest person. Doing my training alone is a battle because I have to make myself hurt by chasing ghosts in the pool or that phantom rider that also just a few yards ahead of me. I have to beat them even though they aren't there because it's easy to go out and say "this speed is "hard" enough". Nope, you gotta take that extra step and push a little harder. You become accountable for yourself and in some ways that's very good.

This has opened my eyes for my future training, but I'm so ready for beer and burgers. 30 more days.

Fatigued Tuesday Swim

This morning I swam 5 laps at Barton Springs so that's a good 2500yds or so. It was a miserable swim though. Today is the 3rd day that I've swam in a row. I also went to the Jack & Adams core workout and toasted my arms. But I did 7 pullups at the beginning on my own and then 5 at the end, but the last 5 required minimal help. Point is my arms were tired. Then we did 6x1 warmups. After that, we did 4x1 mass start swims fast. I died after about 3.5 of them. I just couldn't go fast anymore. Tomorrow I have the 4th day of swimming and another core workout. Luckily, I won't have to use my arms again until Sunday.

Oh, 31 days until IMFL.

Finally, is anyone else absolutely sick of summer? I mean, it's October and we still have highs in the 90's. Not cool.

Massage & Swim

So far today, I've had a massage from Ron and a quick swim. The massage was very painful because I had a decent amount of sore spots in my butt, my lateral quads, and my calves. Ouch, that hurt. Afterwards, I went to Barton Springs and swam 4 laps. I should've done 6, but I didn't have time. Now I'm feeling pretty relaxed and good. It's nice.

I didn't get up to swim this morning. I got up at 5:30 and my body was like "More sleep!" I tried to go back to sleep for another 2 hours and I didn't get much sleep. Why do I listen to my body?

4 Hours in Barton Springs

And I'm frozen solid. OK, I'm not really that bad. My day started off with a quick 3 hour aquajog at Barton Springs. I had Laurie's waterproof mp3 player which entertained my for quite awhile. Then, Laurie showed up and kept me company for the last lap and a half. Overall, I did about 3 hours which is 7 laps or so. One problem though. The aquajogger belt tends to flap back and forth on my back whenever I "step". Well, 3 hours of this wore a sore spot on my back in a couple of places and I was bleeding. Don't worry, I don't have The Herpes so I didn't spread much stuff into the water. It hurt though.

I went out to breakfast with Richelle, Spencer, Laurie and Laurie's husband, Matt. I was so cold that I downed 2 cups of coffee pretty quickly. I really need to stop drinking coffee. I came home and finished off the pizza from yesterday.

Then, I cried. I looked at my training schedule and it said that I had to do a 30min swim in cold water and then another 30min run. Well, I headed back to Barton Springs at around 6:30pm and got home at about 8pm. I'm cold, but dinner is almost ready. I'm having spaghetti; big surprise there.

Friday & Saturday

I really need to start posting every day and on the day of a workout.

Friday, I was suppose to do a 75min swim but couldn't fit it in. Oh well.

Saturday was actually a great workout for me. I met Meg with some people from T3 (yeah, yeah, I know that they are the "other" triathlon group), but I like riding with other people from time to time. I left from my house and met them at Kiker Elementary School. From there, we did about 60 miles which consisted of the Dam Loop. I really wasn't looking forward to the Dam Loop because I wanted to do some flats. Also, it seems like the Dam Loop kills my legs every time. Well, we went out and I was taking it really easy. I wasn't pushing myself up the hills (yet). The weather was great and I was just on a nice, easy base ride. I kept my heart rate low and my cadence high. I hit a new personal speed record going down 2222. I hit 51.6mph. Wow, it was scary today, too. I had a lot of wind buffetting me around and that was pretty hairy. As usual, there was the Texas Wind from the southeast that made going east or south a total bitch. The Dam Loop protected us from a lot of it, but once we turned south on 360, it was back. I learned something today. I actually spun up the hills. I just put myself in a bigger cog than usual and tried to keep my cadence up. Of course my heart rate went up, but it seemed more controlled and less like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I think this helped save my legs and my heart for the rest of the ride. I did power up one hill, though. The hill on 360 going south on 360 after the bridge. It's a nice long, steady climb and I dropped everyone on it. I got my heart rate up to 170 and held it there for a couple of minutes. I thought I was going to blow up but I didn't. I just held it there constant and get spinning up the hill. I dropped everyone. I had one person catch up to me at the stoplight and that's it. I just felt like showing that hill who's the boss. After that, I took the hills a lot easier since I was only abotu 50 miles into a century. We headed back to Kiker and had to battle the wind pretty much the entire way, but we got back without incident.

That reminds me, at one point I was behind Meg. I noticed something and then said "Meg, I can see your ladybug." Meg has this tattoo of a ladybug on her butt and when riding behind her yesterday, I could see it. That was absolutely the funniest thing that happened yesterday and I made her totally selfconscious about it as well. Her biking shorts were pretty old and you could see through them.

After I left Meg and then, I went back to my house to fill up on fluids. I was at least 1 water bottle behind when I left so I was getting worried. I didn't get dehydrated because it wasn't that hot for most of the ride. I still took down a half of liter of water when I got back to my house and then filled up 2 more bottles for the remaining 30 miles. The last 30 miles was a battle against the headwind and then some fun with the headwind. Coming back home I was pushing a biggish gear at 90rpm going 28mph. My heart rate was at 145 and I felt fine. I got back in my neighborhood and rode around a bit. I pulled into my driveway with 100.16 miles down for the day. Total ride time was 5:37 and I averaged 17.8mph. Not fast at all, but I was suppose to go easy and it was hilly and windy so I'm happy. And once I got off the bike, I felt fine.

After that, I went for a 60min aquajog at Barton Springs. I then search all of Austin for some breakfast tagos. Tacodeli was closed after 3pm, Rudy's stops selling them at 10am, and Taco Cabana stops selling them at noon. Bastards! I had a burrito from Taco C instead. I then got my Saturday milk shake from Amy's. I went home and ate half a bag of Central Market veggie chips. I was still hungry and craving pizza so I ordered Papa John's. I know it was bad, but I was crazying in really badly and since I burned probably glose to 4500 calories that day, I deserved it. I was exhausted for the rest of the day though, but surprisingly not that exhausted. I really think I'm almost ready for IMFL.

I think I forgot to post about Thursday. Went out with Texas Iron and did some hard bike intervals. I talked with Jamie and he trusts my LT and VO2max numbers but he thinks that my LT is actually higher that what was tested. His reasoning is that my performance at Buffalo Springs and the bike time trials don't match up with my LT numbers that I'm getting. Basically, my tests results are confusing and even though I wanted to use these results to pace myself for IMFL, I don't think I can right now. Sucks, but I'll deal with it. I'll just go off of feel and I think keeping my heart rate in the 145-150 range is probably well below my LT and should be good for me for Florida.

Oh, only 33 days away now.