I met my goals

As of yesterday, I had 3150m to go until I met my goal of 50km of swimming in December. Today, I put in about 3300m so I beat my goal by 150m. For running, I beat it by 13 miles. In retrospect, the running goal was too low. As for swimming, I met it but I don't think I'm necessarily a better swimmer because of it. The reason why is that the increase in swimming really bothered my shoulder a bit. Also, I put in a lot of junk meters where I was swimming just to get the distance and didn't get a quality workout. There were a lot of workouts where I would just get in the water and just swim because I was fatigued or my shoulder hurt. Eh, at least I tried. For January, I'm just going to try to get 3 quality workouts in a week and that's it.

Also, my morning weigh in was 197.

Remaining run miles: -13
Remaining swim meters -150

Easy week

I had an easy week this week for training because I skipped a lot of workouts because of vacation. I'm probably going to ditch my plans of running the AT&T half marathon in February. My body is just too heavy at the moment to do that kind of distance. I feel like I'm on the verge of getting really injured again and I don't want that. I may still do it, but I probably won't necessarily train for it. Oh, I ran 5 miles in 41:35 today and that was after 3550 yards in the pool.

New Balance mileage: 68.5

Remaining run miles: -13
Remaining swim meters 3,150

Weekly run mileage: 10 miles
Weekly swim distance: 6,550m

I swam!

I swam on Friday afternoon after I got back from TN on Thursday. I swam 3000m at the pool and my shoulder felt OK. I felt like I was swimming through syrup at first but I warmed up a bit after that. Nothing special. My knee still hurts from scraping dog crap off of my shoe. I also weighed in at 199.5 on Friday morning. Ugh.

New Balance mileage: 63.5

Remaining run miles: -8
Remaining swim meters 6,700

1 Year: Running (Relatively) Injury Free

Well, I started a year ago on Christmas Day of last year on a mission to run injury free. A year later, that mission was successful! I ran from December 25th. 2006 until December 25th, 2007 injury free! Woohoo! That is the longest stretch of consistent running for me in my entire life. I've had some issues such as the chronic PF that I've had in my left foot and the usual creaks and strains. Hopefully, this will keep up for a long time and I can continue to improve my running. I did somewhat hurt myself the other day but it is in one of the most embarrassing ways. I hurt my left knee by scraping dog shit of the bottom of my shoe. Yep, that's right.

New Balance mileage: 63.5

Remaining run miles: -8
Remaining swim meters 9,700

Long Run

I did a long run today. 14 miles in 2 hours exactly for a pace of 8:35/mile. Not bad. It was cold and my legs felt heavy though. My PF really acted up after the run and I was walking funny pretty much the rest of the day because of it and it's still bothering me right now. Being on my feet from traveling didn't help either. I really did a lot of calf and PF stretched when I could and it seems to help. I'm starting to think that I should trash my goal of doing the half mary in February and just try to get over this PF. I'll think about it some more and see how my foot does this week. Oh, I did reach my goal of 75 run miles this month! I may be able to hit 100 but we'll see how my PF dictates that.

New Balance mileage: 58.5

Weekly run mileage: 28.5 miles
Weekly swim distance: 12,000m

Remaining run miles: -3
Remaining swim meters 9,700

Shoulder Hurts

My shoulder hurts from swim practice. We basically did 21x100 on some insane interval and doing that much power hurt my shoulder. I ended up calling it quits after about 14 of the intervals and with the warmup and cooldown, I got in 2100m. Afterwards, I ran 5 miles easy around the neighborhood in about 43 minutes.

New Balance mileage: 44.5

Remaining run miles: 11
Remaining swim meters 9,700

My weigh in this morning was 197.5 which is much better than the 200.5 of yesterday. I'm glad that the holiday season is almost over and this is my last day of work for 2 weeks. The last couple of days have been OK. I swam Wednesday morning and then ran Thursday morning and swam Thursday night. Nothing special I guess. As you can see below, I'm blowing my goals out of the water for the month. I should meet the run after this weekend and meet the swim some point next week. The problem is that I won't swim for 4 days next week when I'm in TN for Xmas.

New Balance mileage: 39.5

Remaining run miles: 16
Remaining swim meters 11,800

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Man, I gotta be quick because I have to go to bed to swim in the morning, but I had a great workout tonight. We met at Peace Park and after the warm up, we did 2x1.25 mile loops with 2min rest in between. We left on the first loop and about 4 of us took the lead. The 4 of us ended up finishing pretty close to each other but it quickly became obvious about our strengths. On the inclines, Chris blew everyone away. On the downhills, I blew everyone away. This course was hilly so it became a battle of who could do better at their strength and the others' weakness. I "won" the first loop and had a time of 9:35.4 for the 1.25 miles or so. That's a pace of 7:40min/mile which isn't bad for this hilly of a loop. Chris came in a few seconds behind me and then Matt a few behind that. We started off on the next loop and we were all gunning for each other. Chris made a move about half way up a long, medium grade hill and I stuck with him but a bit back. On the next downhill, I blew him away and carried the momentum up the next incline. He knew he had me beat on the incline so he powered up it and actually came by me pretty damn quickly. I picked up a gear and stuck with him about 4' off of him. We crested the hill and had a quarter mile descend. I put on some speed but at the end, he ended up catching me and passed about 6' in front of me. The last move up the hill worked because it burned me out enough that I didn't have much left on the descent. My time for the second loop was 9:36.9. After going balls out for 2 of these hillacious loops, I fell off only bet a second and a half. Most other people fell off by 10-20 seconds. Not bad.

I started figuring some things out though. I think I found the form that I need for descending. I've been working on it for awhile, but I think it clicked today. I had to because that was where I was going to put some time on the other guys and if I slowed down with bad form, they would catch me. Basically, I opened up my stride a bit, land on the front of my food and not the heel which will slow me down, and lean forward. Whenever I get tired, I get more of an upright posture and land on my heels. Not good. I just had a great time this workout because I pushed myself when I was feeling very slovenly.

The swim workout this morning was also great because I decided to throw some speed back into the workout. My supraspinatus was a bit fatigued, but it wasn't bothering me. I need to work on that a bit but the workout today were pretty good. A B on the swim with an A on the run.


New Balance mileage: 35.5

Remaining run miles: 20
Remaining swim meters 18,400

Lazy Week

First of all, I hate holiday season. 198.5 this morning and I don't think the next 2 weeks are going to be any better but I'll try. Last week was the laziest week that I've had in awhile. I only swam 3 times and ran twice. I skipped 1 swim, 2 run workouts, and 2 weight sessions for various reasons. Most of it was work related though. Hopefully, this week will be much better since it is the week before Xmas and my boss is off this entire week!

For my shoulder, it is getting better. My chiropractor, Dr. Laurie Buob, thinks that I have injured my supraspinatus. I'm getting some ART done and it feels better. I'm also not going to use paddles for the rest of the year since that tends to bother my shoulder more.

Finally, I'm putting it all on the line. Warning! There are about to be gross pics posted. I've been worrisome about my weight lately since I just can't stop gaining weight especially with my weigh in this morning. To give myself more motivation, I'm posting pics of myself with my shirt off to show my progress. Be careful because there is pasty, doughy white skin about to be shown. And imagine the jiggle in those rolls when I run!

Fitness 1
Fitness 2

Yep, it's out there now. These were actually taken 2 weeks ago when I was 195. It's out in the public now and I won't post more pics until I get down to 180 or so.

New Balance mileage: 30

Weekly run mileage: 11.5 miles
Weekly swim distance: 9650m

Remaining run miles: 25.5
Remaining swim meters 21,700

Well, I'm on track to blow both of my goals out of the water, no pun intended.

Weigh In

This morning's weigh in was 195.5. Sucks because I barely ate 2000 calories yesterday but ran for nearly 2 hours and burned off over 1500 calories from working out. However, I did eat and drink like crap on Saturday night, woke up at 10am and went to bed at 8pm. Eh, I can't wait until the holidays are over. Also, my PF is bothering me pretty badly today and my IT band on my left leg flared up yesterday and is hurting moderately today.

Sunday Run

Well, I did my long run today. I did 12.5 miles in 1:51:00 for a pace of 8:53 per mile. I wasn't exactly well nourished today (i.e. hungover) and it was getting hot so it wasn't a great run for me. My PF was bothering my left heel was really hurting today. I did 2 laps at Barton Springs afterwards and man it was cold. Also, the temp dropped about 15 degrees in 30 minutes today. A cold front must have blown through while I was swimming. I had Chipotle as a post workout meal and I'm now about to go to bed at 8pm.

New Balance mileage: 18.5

Weekly run mileage: 28 miles
Weekly swim distance: 13,850m

Remaining run miles: 37
Remaining swim meters 31,350

Nothing special

Man, my workouts have been pretty mundane lately. Nothing special and nothing really new to add. My weigh in yesterday was 195 so I am making some progress. I swam another 3300m and ran 6 miles in 49 minutes today. I'm feeling OK as well. I had some ART done on my shoulder this afternoon and it is feeling a lot better. I tried out my new pair of New Balance shoes and they were fine. Eh, that's it.

New Balance mileage: 6
Nike mileage: retired

Remaining run miles: 49.5
Remaining swim meters 32,250

Thursday Run and Swim

A 4.5 mile easy run and 3400m swim today. My shoulder was fine during the swim. Nothing special.

New Balance mileage: 0
Nike mileage: 235.5 miles

Remaining run miles: 55.5
Remaining swim meters 35,550

Wednesday Swim

Did 2850m. Shoulder was acting up a bit and other than that, not much to say.

Remaining run miles: 60
Remaining swim meters 38,950

Eh

Eh, not much to say. I weighed in at 196.5 this morning. Hmmmm. This morning, I swam 3400m and this evening, I ran about 5 miles. The weather this morning was freaking freezing. It was about 32 degrees or so. Burrrr! This even was a run around the neighborhood, but I took a new route. It was perfect running weather though. It was in the upper 50's, maybe 60. I wore a short sleeve shirt without a hat or gloves and I felt great while running. It was cool when I stopped, but perfect while running. Also, my Nike's are about flat, too.

New Balance mileage: 0
Nike mileage: 231 miles

Remaining run miles: 60
Remaining swim meters 41,800

10 Miles Today

Today was the longest run that I've done since Longhorn. I was going to take it easy and I thought I did, but I must be getting faster or something. I did the 10 miles in 1:23:28 which is a pace of 8:20/mile. Not bad for an easy run. I felt pretty good but my heart rate was a bit elevated the second half of it. No matter what, I thought it was a good run. I felt comfortable and the weather was excellent. Oh, for those of you that are in the colder parts of the country right now, thin Austin "winter" had a high of 82 degrees today. Most excellent. After the run was 2000 yards of recovery swimming. I just did 10x200yds and wasn't pushing it at all.\

New Balance mileage: 0
Nike mileage: 231 miles

Weekly run mileage: 23 miles
Weekly swim distance: 12,850m

Remaining run miles: 65
Remaining swim meters 45,200

75 miles & 50,000 meters

Since it is December 1st, I've decided to set a goal for the month. I will add a couple of metrics (man, I hate that word but it fits) to my blog to track. Here they are:

Remaining run miles: 75
Remaining swim meters 50,000

This should easily be accomplished if I swim 4-5 days per week and run 4-5 days per week. I almost went 100 run miles, but I think that might be a bit too much for me. We'll see if a month of fairly focused training will help me out.

I didn't do any workouts on Thursday. I wasn't feeling that well. I woke up that morning and was pretty dizzy and lightheaded and I had those spells throughout the day. Thursday was a run day and I was going to do about 6 miles with some intervals and fartleks in there. I did a run on Friday to make up for it but I didn't do the mileage. I just did the 3.1 mile neighborhood loop and did 5x1min strong, 1 min easy. Total time was about 27:09. It was a decent run. It was raining slightly but it was around 65 degrees so it was comfortable. It also feels good to run faster than to run slower. Before the run, I did a weight lifting session at the gym. I was focused and I was able to do it in about 30 minutes which is about all the weights that I think that I need right now. Well, I do it twice a week but that's it.

Before that in the morning, I went to the pool. I wasn't feeling it that morning. I still got in the water but did about 1350m. I got out because I just wasn't there mentally and my should was bothering me a bit. I talked with my swim coach about my shoulder and we agreed to move me down a lane. I won't be doing any faster intervals and I especially won't be doing them with paddles. I've noticed that paddles tend to hurt my shoulder as well as the faster intervals. Also, I've greatly increased the yardage while increasing the intensity at the same time and that's just a recipe for disaster. For the next 2 weeks, I'll keep the yardage up but I'll take the intensity down a bit. I may do 1 faster workout a week if that. I followed this advice this morning and my shoulder hurt a bit at first but once I warmed it up, it felt fine for the rest of the practice and that was about 3000m, too. I'll keep up with my shoulder exercises and keep it easy for 2 weeks and I should be fine.

Other than that, not much is going on. I weighed in at 196.5 on Friday so I've barely gone down in weight this week. For some motivation, I need to take a before shot and then hopefully take an after shot in a few months when I've lost 20 pounds or so.

New Balance mileage: 0
Nike mileage: 221 miles
Remaining run miles: 75
Remaining swim meters 47,000

"Eric, your underwater stroke looks amazing!"

That is what my swim coach said to me last night at practice. Like I said before, something clicked with my stroke in the last week and I've really been working on making it more permanent. She said this to me in warm up and it made my night! I swam 3400m last night and I moved up a lane as well. I was the slowest in the lane, but I moved up. The workout was a pretty good workout with lots of fast stuff at the end of long intervals and then 16x50 at the end that was pretty fast. I thought I seriously hurt my shoulder at one point, but I modified my stroke a bit and it went a way. I was also going to do the core workout, but I needed to work on some school stuff instead.

Hey, another update!

Let's see here. Monday's weigh in was 195.5 and Tuesday's was 197. I'm flirting with 200 and I don't like it. Time to get serious about this diet crap. Monday's workout at lunch was a weight lifting session followed by a 3.1 mile run around the track at work. It wasn't that bad. Tuesday morning was a swim with T3 and 3300m. It was cold and I mean C-O-L-D. There was ice on the ground. OK, not on the ground but on the wooden planks on the deck. However, the pool was toasty and warm. It's a good sign when you drive up to the outdoor pool and there is a 10m column of steam rising from the pool. Yes, 10m and not the usual meter or two that I'm used to seeing. I did something weird this morning. I jumped into the pool. Most of the time, I sit on the side and kind of procrastinate and psyche myself out before I finally lower myself in. This morning, the air was cold and the water was warm so I ran and jumped in. Man, that water felt nice this morning. The workout was good. I'm still working on engaging my lats more but I only really do it when I'm swimming. I don't feel it with paddles or when I do drills. At the end of the workout, it was me and some other guy and we were doing 4x50. I lead the first two and then he lead the third one. I gave him 5 seconds and ended up getting back to the wall about half an arm ahead of him. Needless to say, I lead the 4th one. Getting out was tough. One of the girls at swim practice had a pair of Crocs Mammoths. She loved them when getting out of the pool so I went and picked up a pair at lunch today. We'll see how they work out tomorrow night. Tonight's workout was a tempo run with Texas Iron. It was about 7 miles or so and it was OK. I don't think it was a particularly excellent workout for me but I showed up and put in the work.

New Balance mileage: 0 miles
Nike mileage: 218 miles

Weekly Update

I'm horrible about this. I try to update every day but I only end up updating on a biweekly or weekly basis. I suck at this.

Tuesday: Track workout with Texas Iron. We were suppose to do 8x200m fast, 200m easy. I think I descended pretty much each one. The first 200m was 47s or something like that and the last one was 39.1s. With the warm up and cool down, it was something like 5 miles or so.

Wednesday: I had a really good workout on Wednesday. I did a swim workout and we had to do 10x100 intervals. They weren't as tough as they were the week before but something happened. About the 7th interval or so, something clicked in my stroke. I realized what it felt like to use my lats more and how to engage them. This felt weird but it also felt like what my swim coaches have been describing to me. After a few more intervals, it started feeling right. I've been working on my catch as well with focus on not breaking my wrist as well as the action at the start of my stroke beginning with my hand moving and then my elbow doesn't move until my forearm is perpendicular with the bottom of the pool. That's a lot of words, but it is what my coaches have been teaching me. With the catch part and the lats part, something clicked and it felt great. Now, whenever I swim this way, I get tired quickly because my lats aren't used to being used this much while swimming.

Thursday, Friday: Rest days because I was lazy.

Saturday: 6 mile run in the rain and cold.

Sunday: 3300m swim with T3. Once again, I worked on my stroke and my lats got tired pretty quickly but that's a good thing.

Overall, it was a light week of training. With T-day, I got lazy and out of my routine. I swam only twice and ran only twice as well. Actually, that's the only 4 workouts that I've done this week. Eh, oh well. The weather changed in Austin this week. It got very cold, rainy, and nasty. And I liked it! It's a decent change form the heat that I'm used to. Running is more comfortable and swimming in a heated pool this morning was nice even though it was outside. I like the change and hopefully it'll stay this way for the entire winter.

Finally, my New Balance shoes have been retired and they are now my everyday shoes. I bought a new pair of the NB 1061 shoes and I have decided to not pick up another pair of Nike Air Pegasus. The NBs work a lot better for me and my physical therapist agrees with me.

New Balance mileage: 0 miles
Nike mileage: 208 miles
Weekly run mileage: 11 miles
Weekly swim distance: 6600m

Weekend of Running

I had a lot of running this weekend. Sunday was a 6 mile run around Town Lake. Nothing special but I feel like I'm running with lead legs. Yesterday was a swim with T3 in the morning. After that was a 3.1 mile run around the neighborhood. I cut the swim a bit short because I was feeling fatigued and my shoulder was hurting. Since I want to swim a lot, I need to stop the workout when I need to. Friday was a weight lifting session and then a 6 mile run around Town Lake again that afternoon. Thursday was a rest day since I was so worn out from the swim workout on Wednesday night. Oh, I was still feeling the intervals on Wednesday night even on Saturday morning. Friday's weigh in was 197 so I need to start to get more serious about that.

New Balance mileage: 209.5 miles
Nike mileage: 202 miles
Weekly run mileage: 21 miles
Weekly swim distance: 6000m

Torturous Swim Workout

I had an absolutely torturous swim workout tonight. It was a total of 3200m. It was about 1100m of various warmup sets and then it was the main set. 20x100m on an interval with about 10sec rest after each interval. First 5 were swim, next 5 were with a pull buoy, next 5 were swim again, and the last 5 were with paddles. That workout killed me and that was my first full swim workout in almost 2 months. I came home and all that I wanted to do was sleep. I was completely exhausted. I ate dinner, watched TV a bit, and then slept so hard last night. I woke up about 20 minutes ago and after 8.5 hours of sleep, I still had no clue where I was when my alarm went off. I felt like that I could probably sleep in for another 1.5 hours but that isn't going to happen because I need to go to work. I'm very happy with the workout because I was able to hold my interval for the entire workout and I felt completely exhausted at the end of it.

I went to the core workout last night as well. It was tough getting back but I'll back to normal in no time.

Update

Another long overdue update. Thursday of last week was a swim with T3. Friday was nothing because I was dealing with 2 sicks cats. Saturday was a swim. I checked at 11pm on Friday night to see what time my 9am swim was at on Saturday morning. It was at 7am. I still made it though. Sunday was a 3 mile run to recover from a hangover. Monday was another hangover recovery day. Yesterday was going to be my first 3 workout day but I got up and got ready to go swimming. Practice started at 5:45am and I wasn't ready to leave until 5:45am. I bagged it and watched Heroes from the night before instead. I did lift weights at lunch and do some run intervals with Texas Iron in the evening. I'm still a bit sore from lifting yesterday and my legs weren't happy for the run, but I'm fine now. My weigh in on Monday was 194.5 so I'm starting to feel like a chunky monkey. Man, I always hate November and December because I gain so much weight after the season is over. I also haven't looked at my training schedule since I printed it out on Halloween. I pretty much try to get 4+ swims per week, 4+ runs, and 1-2 weight lifting sessions. I need to start looking at it to keep me honest. Plus, I get lazy and I probably should be doing a few more 2-a-day workouts than I'm doing now.

New Balance mileage: 203.5 miles
Nike mileage: 193 miles

Speed is fun!

What was Tuesday's workouts? Oh, yes, a 1700m swim in the morning. Man, that was rough because it was the first before 6am workout I've had in about 6 weeks. I'm still tired from it. And I continued my dumbassedry as well. I went to the wrong pool. On M,W,F, my swim is at Courtyard in the morning and on T,TH it is at Lost Creek. On Tuesday morning, I went to Courtyard. I'm an idiot, wasted a bunch of sleep and gas. Eh, oh well. I was pretty sore from lifting weights on Monday so I didn't do that hard of a workout, but the swimming did help with the soreness. Speaking of lifting weights, I was fairly sore after Monday. My pecs, shoulders, hamstrings, glutes, and groin were sore.

I ended up doing a double workout on Tuesday and did my first workout with Texas Iron since before Longhorn. It was actually a really good workout. My legs were sore from running and lifting weights yesterday but I still pushed myself. The workout was a 15min warmup. Then, we did 3-5 1km loops that were hilly, too. I only did 3 loops since I'm just getting back into it. The pace was as fast as we could sustain for as many loops that we were doing. My 3 loops had times of 4:15, 4:09, and 4:00. I was pretty stoked about that because it felt like I was running through oatmeal on the last loop. Also, my max heart rate during all of these intervals was 183. With my max of around 190-192, this shows me that I was pushing pretty hard the entire time. Then we did a 1km cooldown and that was the workout.

Today is a rest day because I'm still sore in most places.

New Balance mileage: 200.5 miles
Nike mileage: 187 miles

First weights lifted in 6+ months

I lifted weights for the first time in about 6 months or so. I'm a little fatigued but I took it pretty easy. My upper body is feeling fatigued from swimming this past week as well so I don't want to overtax it too much. Overtaxing it a bit is fine though. We'll see how I feel in the morning though.

This morning's weigh in was 192.5. I'm starting to work that down again. I also ran my 3.1 mile loop in 25:20 or so. Not bad. I'm not doing much LSD in running now. I just want to do some 8-10 mile distances and then work on speed. Actually, I'm just going to follow my coach's plan after I get used to running again which should be after this coming weekend.

New Balance mileage: 195.5 miles
Nike mileage: 187 miles

2500m Today

I swam about 2500m today. Nothing special about it. I'm going to ease into it and not do a 3300m workout for the next week. I'm just doing 2000-2500m per workout, but I'm doing that 4 days this week. No run this weekend because of Halo 3, working on the house, and drinking beer. I need to get my ass in gear though. My half marathon is 3 months away and I want to go 1:30 in it as a super goal and 1:35 as a satisfied goal. I'm going to be ramping up my running this week as well as starting to lift weights too.

Also, I've decided that of all the athletic body types of females out there, I prefer the body type of a swimmer. Female runners are great if you like small boobs. Cyclists are great if you want nice legs and gnarly scars. However, swimmers can be athletic and muscular but still have some curves and softness to them. That's all that I have to say about that.

I'm working out liike a sane person

I've been working out like a sane person lately. Tuesday and Wednesday morning were 3.1 mile runs. Both were fine. Nothing wrong with them and they both were in the mornings with the cool 55* air that is fantastic to run in. Thursday night was a swim with T3. It was my first swim and I put in 2150m that night. I was a bit rusty at first but my stroke was coming back at the end. The cool thing was that we were suppose to do a 200m swim pretty much as fast as we could go. After being off of swimming for about a month, I was still able to do 200m in 3:01. That is a pace of 1:22/100yds which I'm quite happy with. Not much else is going on. I'm busy on the weekends playing Halo, watching TV, and working on the house. My plan is to get a 6 mile run and a swim in this weekend but we'll see how that goes. I'm going to start lifting weights next week as well.

New Balance mileage: 192.5 miles
Nike mileage: 187 miles

Back to running

I went running yesterday morning. I did the 3.1 mile loop around my neighborhood. It was nice. I didn't go out super easy but I didn't go out hard and strong either. Just a comfortable medium pace. I have no clue what my time was because my HRM came in the mail yesterday. It was a good run. Nothing hurt but my breathing was off a bit because it was around 55* when I started the run. Oh, yes, I'm so happy that the heat has broken and we now have some chilly temperatures in the morning. I like the lows around 55-60 with a high around 75-80 and this entire week is suppose to be like that. I'm probably going to be outside all weekend working in the yard and it'll be beautiful! I'm also going swimming tonight.

New Balance mileage: 192.5 miles
Nike mileage: 180.5 miles

I'm back on the wagon

I'm just checking in here to let myself know that I'm back on the wagon. I'm going to start working out again which I'm actually looking forward to again. My weigh in this morning was 191 which I'm quite surprised. After IMFL, I gained 10 pounds in a week. After the Longhorn Tri, I only gained 4 pounds. Not bad.

Season Recap

Well, it's been 2 weeks since the cap to my tri season. I should've posted a season recap sooner, but I've enjoyed being a normal person. And what does that entail? Being fat, lazy, and bored. The only working out that I've done in the last 3 weeks is a 2 hour hike, some yoga, and a 3 mile run. I've been watching a lot of TV, a decent amount of beer, and eating a good amount of junk food. I'm about to get back to working out though. I miss it. I won't be doing 10-12 workouts a week, but I'll still be doing stuff. I'm also going to take it a lot more relaxed for awhile as well. I'm a little burned out. I worked in the yard today and I miss doing stuff like that.

Oh, back to my season. My goal this season was to run injury free. As of right now, I've been running injury free for 10 months now. My season has been a success! I didn't really make that much progress in gaining running speed but that's OK. I've also had some unexpected outcomes from this season. I've actually been competitive. I've had two 3rd place finishes, two 4th place finishes and a 6th place finish. This is from sprint distance races all the way up to a half Ironman 2 weeks ago. My swimming has stagnated but I'm going to work on that over the winter. My biking has been strong as usual and here's the weird thing. I haven't been working on it. As I mentioned, my running has improved slightly. I've had some set backs this year. I just haven't been that mentally focused or motivated this year. I got through it though. It hasn't been that bad because I'm actually have had a bit of a social life this year. I'm going to try to keep that up next year as well.

So, I guess that's it. Not much else to say. Nothing spectacular in my opinion, but I'm happy with it overall.

New Balance mileage: 189.5 miles
Nike mileage: 180.5 miles

Longhorn Tri Race Report

I have been excited about this race since last year when they announced the Texas Tri Series. This would be the first half Ironman within an hour of Austin that I remember. Also, Keith Jordan is the race director and I hear that he puts on great races. This would be a great cap to my season as well. So, my season was planned last year and this was the last race. I was really looking forward to the end of this season as well. I was just ready to sleep in and drink beer.

Prerace

The weather was hot lately. The highs were around 92-95 and the lows were around 73 or so for the last month straight. It wasn't a wet suit legal swim by any means. I heard that the water temp actually went up by 4 degrees over the last week. I picked up my packet on Saturday and checked out the schwag. There was a lot of decent stuff and as usual for Keith's races, there was a nice tech long sleeve shirt in the bag instead of a plain Jane cotton shirt. I'm willing to pay $10 more for a race entry to get a tech fabric instead of a cotton shirt. The bike course changed so I went and drove it to make sure that I knew what the new parts were like. That night, I went to the Olive Garden and had their bottomless bowl of pasta. I could only eat 2 of them. I came home, had a beer, and went to bed pretty early.

I got about 7 hours of sleep that night so that was pretty nice. I got up and ate my usual big breakfast. I left the house nearly on time. I had most of the stuff packed up the night before so I just put on my tri suit, my sweatshirt, and my iPod and left. Unfortunately, I left a little too late and got there kinda late. There is only 1 way into the park with a lot of people trying to get in. I waited about 25 minutes getting into the park. This left me in a hurried state to get ready which I don't like to be in before a race. I felt like I had a lot to do and I kinda did. I did get all of my stuff set up and then headed into the water. I did about 150yds warm up and was ready to go.

The Swim - 35:41

The swim was in Decker Lake so the water wasn't that nice. There's a power plant on it so the temp is usually somewhat warm. This causes a lot of hydrila to grow which we had to fight through in the first 100yds or so. The first few hundred yards were a washing machine and then it eased up a bit after that. The course was laid out so that you could sight off the power plant. Then next leg of the course was a little weird because I think that leg wasn't straight. I first started off and then I eventually had to sight off a tall power line tower thing.

I drafted a bit on this swim. I tend to start off slow and then when I want to draft, there aren't any faster people around me. That means that I swim in a lot of open water. It sucks. I also had to go through a lot of other people from the previous waves. I took the last turn in and just swam for it. Nothing special happened except that I'm sure a volunteer from Texas Iron grabbed my ass when I was getting out of the water. Oh, I think this is a good time to mention that I had no clue what my swim time was. Or my bike time, my run time, or my heart rate. I raced completely naked since my HRM battery died about 2 months ago and I haven't had a bike computer on Sophia the Cervelo since IMFL last year. This race was done completely by perceived effort. Back to the swim, I think the swim times were a little slow because there was quite a jog to get to the T area. My pace was 1:51/100m which isn't that great, but it's much better than what I did at Austin Tri. I also felt very comfortable breathing which was a problem at the Austin Tri. I did get a bit of chafing on my neck from where my tri top was rubbing on my neck because I was breathing on my right side about 95% of the time. I was 68th overall on the swim and 5th in my AG.

T1 - 1:33

As usual, my T1 time kicks ass. I came into T1, put a Rice Krispy treat in my back pocket, sunglasses, helmet, unracked my bike and I was off. Here's the thing because I took my time a bit as well. I stopped and chatted for about 2 seconds with people around me. I also though about how to get my bike off the rack. I racked it by the seat but the bottles in my bottle cage were in the way. I just tilted the bike a lot, got it out, and was on my way. I also think I've figured out how to run with the bike while holding onto it by the saddle instead of the stem. I had the fastest T1 time of my age group by 10 seconds, too. Oh, I actually ran when I could coming out of the water and heading to the dismount line.

The Bike - 2:31:22

I fucking rocked the bike. I preroad the course about 4 times and that really helped out. I knew which hills to power up, which ones to take easy, which corners to take fast, which corners to take slow, and a bunch of other stuff. It was juts great knowing what was coming up as well. This is the first time that I really knew a bike course going into it and it really paid off. I normally don't use race wheels but I borrowed some ZIPP 808's from Austin Tri Cyclist. Of all the wheels that I've ridden, I think they are by far my favorite. I just felt super fast on them, even more so than a disc wheel in the back.

As usual, my lower left bike starting killing me about an hour into the bike. My hip flexors later started acting up as well, but I was able to get through it. There was only 1 person that passed me on the bike. I passed some people and they passed me later and there were a few that passed me but I passed them back. Like I said, only 1 person passed me on the bike. My nutrition on the bike was spot on as well. I drank at least 4 bottles of fluid as well as my single Rice Krispy treat, Nuun, and Thermolytes. I also want to mention that the course was well marked and well supported. I saw a bunch of Mavic support vehicles as well. They were patrolling the entire course. The only thing that I would add would be a sign about 1 mile before each aid station so I had time to switch bottles and stuff. I also said thanks to as many volunteers and sheriffs as possible. The weather started out cloudy but then the sun came out and it warmed up quite a bit. Not cool. I still rocked the bike with a time of 2:31:22. I was 3rd in my AG and 14th overall. Totally kicked ass and I'm very happy with it. I also felt like I could've gone a bit faster but I'll save them for 2 years from now.

T2 - 1:36

My T2 sucked as usual. The reason why is that I had to sit down and actually pull 7 burrs out of my feet. I knew there were burrs from setting up in the morning, but I missed all of them in T1. Man, I hate burrs and I had to pull another 2-3 out of my socks on the run. Oh, I forgot to mention this. I used a bento box on the bike and it worked well mostly. I had all of my nutrition in the BB for both the run and the bike before the race started. Then, about the last 2 miles on the bike, I started taking stuff out of the BB and putting it in my pockets of my tri shorts. I put in SportSlick, Thermolytes, and eGels as well. I felt like it did save me time since I was loading up my pockets while still moving forward. T2 had me putting on my socks, grabbing my hat, race belt, another eGel (I don't know why I needed this one), and a bottle of fluid. That entire sock thing slows me down and I need to figure out a way to hurry my ass up. I run through T2 so it isn't that. Well, it's not going to get fixed in the next week. 14th fastest T2 in my AG.

The Run - 1:59:57

I heard this run course was a kick in the nuts. I really think that it was a kick in the nuts, a punch in the kidneys, and then dirt with burrs kicked into my face. I started off a bit slow for the first few hundred yards while I was getting situated. I had some chafing under my arms from the bike and the swim so I reached for my small tube of SportSlick. It was gone. That really sucks because I hate chafing. Also, it had gotten hot. A lot of the run course was on asphalt with no shade and that wasn't pleasant. I felt horrible for the first 2 miles and then I started feeling a bit better. I kept up with my usual plan of 1 cup of water in my mouth and 1 cup of water on my head/down my shorts at every aid station. I took my first eGel at about Mile 3 and it didn't sit that well with me. I didn't puke, but I had to really think about my nutrition. I decided to risk bonking and had only 1 more eGel for the rest of the course. I had some Gatorade which helped and I also had some chips which my stomach didn't like either. I still took Thermolytes as well to keep up with my electrolytes. I was already seeing people puking and walking at this point in the race. It was around Mile 3! This was going to be a long day for a lot of people, but I wasn't going to let the heat beat me.

All the aid stations had great volunteers. I said thanks a lot but I felt horrible. I was also approaching the worst part of the course. Part of the course goes off into grass and trails which I don't like. I have bad knees and they dislocated very easily. Any kind of rough terrain will increase that. The offroad portion also had The Hill from Hell. This is the worst hill on the bike course where you also run up it, too. It's just a bitch of a hill. Actually, the entire course is hilly. It's constant up and down and you couldn't get in a good rhythm at all. This is much different than Buffalo Springs which this race is compared to a lot. At BSLT, there are 3 big ascents and 3 big descents but the rest of the course is flat. This run course is much more of a bitch.

I started out on the 2nd loop of the run and there were a lot of others starting their first loop. They were already walking up the hills and had that look in their eye that it was going to be a long day. I get moving though. I walked some of the hills but for the most part, I was still moving my feet in some horrible imitation of a run. I just stuck to my plan and get moving. Nothing special to really mention besides the heat, other people melting, and the great support on the run course. There was something like 8 aid stations per loop. I had another eGel at Mile 8 or so and that was my last one. My stomach was done with them. I started feel somewhat bad around Mile 9 as well. I had only 4 to go and I could do it. My biggest thing was to not fall apart in the last mile and a half like I did at BSLT last year. So, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other until I crossed the finish line which I was very happy to do.

I was the 34th person across the line. I was 27th overall and finished 3rd in my AG. My run time was 1:59:57 and I had the 96th fastest run split overall and the 11th fastest in my AG. I'm actually really happy with that. I had a pace of 9:09min/mile but it was a slow day for most people. My pace wasn't that far off considering the training runs that I've been doing over the summer of similar distances and similar temps.

The Finale

I went to the med tent and had some ice put on me. My arms started tingling about Mile 9 and then it spread. Also, I was getting headaches on the run and the only thing to make it go away was the ice cold water on my head but it worked every time. I basically did the same thing in the med tent because that is why they are there and it wouldn't really hurt. I was also out of it mentally a bit. Once I started feeling better, I got some food, some beer, and talked to some friends.

The race is very well run. Lots of supplies, lots of aid stations, cool shirt, cool medal, etc. The coolest thing that others haven't thought of is what do you do when you are done with the race? You need to turn in your chip. You have to balance on one foot while someone takes it off your ankle. They made this kind of contraption where you put your put on this bar while a volunteer takes off your ankle strap. Also, they have a metal bar at about chest level to put your arms to balance yourself. It's a very good idea and was one of those "Why didn't I think of it?" moments. There were signs marking all the turns on the bike and there were mile markers on the run course. It was just a great race and I don't have that much to suggest for improvements. Good job, Keith!

New Balance mileage: 186.5 miles
Nike mileage: 180.5 miles

Another Update

Yeah, it's been awhile since I've posted an update. I'm getting lazy and I'm ready for the season to be over. I actually have to look at my training program to see what I've done. It doesn't really matter because the only thing that I really worry about tracking is my running.

Last week was an easy ride on Monday. I was suppose to do 2 hrs but I can't stand being inside without intervals so I only did an hour. Tuesday was a swim and then a run in the evening. I can't remember the run anymore but I think it was a trackish workout. Let's just say that it was 6 miles in the Nikes. Wednesday was an unintentional rest day. Thursday was a brick workout and it was a good, hour long LT workout. 4 miles in the New Balance. Friday was a swim in the morning. The rest of the weekend was a rest weekend because I went to me 10 year high school reunion. That was actually a lot of fun.

This past week was a taper week. Monday was a rest day. Tuesday was a track workout with some shorter, faster sprints. I can't remember what Wednesday was. I think it was another unintentional rest day. Thursday was a 30 minute swim with some faster 100yds. Later that day was another brick workout. Friday was a rest day. Today are some tune up workouts and that tomorrow is the Longhorn Tri.

New Balance mileage: 173 miles
Nike mileage: 180.5 miles

Update

Let's see where to start. I've been lazy about blogging lately and that sucks because I'm forgetting stuff when I post here. Let's begin:

- Last week's running mileage was 12 miles
- Tuesday was a run with Texas Iron. I think I did 6.5 miles. It was a fartlek run and it was a pretty good run that hurt a bit.
- Wednesday was a bike ride that happened for only about 20 minutes. My HRM battery died so I know have 4 HRM watches, 3 straps, and none of them work.
- Thursday was a swim workout of about 1900m or so. It wasn't a great swim workout.
- Saturday was another Longhorn Tri course ride. It was a good ride and I didn't kill my legs so that was good. I did a 45min run afterwards and I couldn't breathe well.
- Sunday (today) was a 9.1 mile long run with a 2000yd swim in Deep Eddy afterwards.

Well, that's it for the workouts. I'm seeing a doctor about my breathing problems. I'm off the Asthmanex because I felt like it wasn't working. He gave me a peak flow meter to measure my lung output before and after exercise. He says that if I have a drop of 20% then I have some breathing obstructions that are induced by exercise. I also have Albuterol to try to see if that helps out. It'll be interesting to see. As for chaffing issues that I'm having when I run, bandaids on my nipples help tremendously. Today's lack of bandaids proved that theory. Also, Sportslick on the crotch is a miracle cure for my crotch chaffing. I've tried that the last 2 long runs and I can actually take a shower afterwards without wincing. The last thing of interest is that I'm peeing in the pool again and it feels good. ;-)

New Balance mileage: 160 miles
Nike mileage: 174.5 miles
Weekly run mileage: 21 miles

I'm being lazy and it feels good

I'm being lazy at this moment and it feels very good. This weekend was my last big weekend of training before the Longhorn Tri. I'm skipping all of it. The main reason is that I have some friends in town and I don't want to be like "Hey, watch TV while I go on a 4 hour bike ride." After sacrificing pretty much my entire social life for IMFL last year, I'm of the mindset that skipping some training to hang out with some good friends that I don't see very often is a very good compromise. Plus, I'm pretty sure that skipping the training isn't going to damage my race that much. I've also been very tired lately and sleeping in has been very good. The mental break is welcomed as well because I've lived more of a normal persons weekend instead of having training take up 6 hours of each day. Hopefully, this will be a very good thing when I look back at it in the next few weeks because this break allowed me to become more focused.

Other than that, I on Wednesday was another unscheduled rest day. Life just got in the way. I made that up by making my workouts on Thursday and Friday. Thursday was a 60 minute run in the morning and then a 3400m swim workout in the evening. The run felt great actually and I enjoyed it. Also, it's starting to cool off here a bit so it was about 72 when I started running. I got in about 7 miles or so for that run. That night's swim workout was actually a great workout for me. We did some interval sets and I really enjoyed them. Plus, there were only 3 people at the pool so I got some extra attention from my coach. Oh, my highlight was swimming 50m in 0:38 at a 95% pace for me and also swimming 100m in 1:24 at a 90% pace for me. It just felt good. Then, I got back in the water the next day. That wasn't fun because it was only 15 hours after getting out of the water from the previous night. My chest muscles were fatigued almost immediately. I tried keeping up the other people in my lane, but I fell off tremendously at the end and almost got lapped on a 300yd interval. I ended up getting out of the water after 3100yds and I was pretty happy about that. I need to get used to that though because I want to swim 4-5 days a week and run 4-5 days a week this winter so this will be a more common occurrence.

Eh

Eh, not much to write about. I haven't slept well the last 2 nights so I'm exhausted and I should be in bed by now, but I'm playing with the new TV. Monday was a weigh in of 186.5. I was suppose to do an easy 90 minutes spin, but I needed to study for class and work was busy so I couldn't come in at 9, leave for lunch at 11, come back at 1, and then leave for the day at 4. Class that night was good, though. Tuesday was a 2500m swim in the morning. I had only 1 swim in 3 weeks and it took a bit of getting used to it. My form came back but I still cut it short because I was tired and I usually ease back into it. Tonight was some shorter intervals with uphills and downhills. They hurt. I talked to my coach about my exercise induced asthma and I'm going to see a specialist about it within a week. Oh, I found my HRM, too. I was putting on my shoes for practice tonight, looked down and saw it sitting in the shoe.

New Balance mileage: 151 miles
Nike mileage: 156.5 miles

Stupid Ride

Sometimes I hate having testicles. They get in the way and cause guys to do stupid stuff. I went on a ride today. I was suppose to do a 4 hour easy ride. I talked to Maggie and she invited me for a ride so I joined her. A lot of other people showed up and they ended up being my AG rivals Sean, Noah, and a few other fastish guys. We started riding and I was keeping up with the faster guys. I needed to do a longer easy ride so I dropped back. At some point, I saw the faster guys in front and left the group I was with to go and try to catch them. I caught them, but it hurt like hell. It took me at least 20 minutes to catch them. I almost gave up a few times because it felt like I wasn't closing the gap. At one point, I was about 75yds back but I couldn't catch up. I finally caught up when they slowed down and I just stuck on their wheel. There was a long hill and I got dropped. My legs were fried and it was absolutely stupid for doing it, but it was fun. I stopped and waited for the others and it hurt like hell the rest of the ride. My quads were on fire. We did the 56 miles in about 2:48ish so we were booking it pretty well, but we were working together. I still think the bike course for the Longhorn Tri is a great one and it's pretty fast, too.

Afterwards, I went to go swim, but Deep Eddy was packed. I soaked for 10 minutes and then went home.

Update for the week

Eh, I'll be brief because I can't concentrate at the moment. Monday was the Austin Tri which I just posted. Tuesday was a rest day. Wednesday was a spin workout and the core workout. Thursday was a 6.5 mile run in the morning. Friday was an easy ride after work. Saturday was a 15 mile easy run that hurt like hell. I lost my HRM so I need to get a new one and because of that, today was a naked run.

New Balance mileage: 151 miles
Nike mileage: 151.5 miles
Weekly run mileage: 27.5 miles

"If you are talking that much, then you aren't going hard enough"

This report will attempt to be pretty short. Well, we'll see how that goes.

Prerace

Not much different here. I didn't do any carb loading except the day before the race. All that I did was eat a decent amount of food the day before and had a pretty big dinner. That morning, I ate a big breakfast and that was all the solid food that I had that morning. After I left, I had a bottle of water and then a bottle of Gatorade about 30 minutes before the start of the race. I had at least 3, maybe 4, RPs and that was it. I wish the had more porta potties because there wasn't enough.

The Swim - 29:24

The swim was barely wetsuit legal. I still wore it because I get a benefit from it, but I don't know how much of a benefit it was during the race. Also, the waves were sane and I was the wave after the open wave. The swim wasn't a good one for me. It's either because the swim course was long or it was accurate and I'm used to short swim courses. The swim was horrible because I couldn't breathe the entire time. I don't think it was the wetsuit, either. I think my exercise induced asthma was acting up. I breathed on every single stroke and when I did, I felt like I was breathing through a straw. I almost puked, too. I swallowed a huge mouthful of the water in Town Lake and that didn't sit well with my stomach. I came out of the swim and my time was horrible, but I was done with it. It was good for 7th in my AG and a pace of 1:58/100m.

T1 - 3:00

I consider that's a pretty good time considering I felt like I was almost going to pass out. I got my wetsuit off and then grabbed my bike. I started running out of T2 and bad things started to happen. My vision started to, I couldn't breathe, and I started to get light headed. I have orthostatic hypotension but this was different. It felt almost like asthma attack. I was going to sit down so that I didn't pass out and keel over, but it passed. I kept going out of T1 and I was on the bike course. Oh, I was 15th in my AG. Not bad considering I had a wetsuit on and not many people were wearing them.

The Bike - 1:06:35

I really like this bike course. I think it's much faster and safer than the CapTexTri course. There are only two U-turns per loop and there are only 3 loops. There are some challenging sections, especially the part going up southbound Congress south of Lady Bird Lake. The first loop I took pretty easy, I pushed it really hard on the 2nd loop, and took it somewhat hard on the 3rd loop. My back was hurting as well. I gotta figure out how to prevent that. I saw a lot of people riding on the left and they should've been on the right. I also witnessed a near crash because of this. Some slow guy was riding to the left and some faster guy tried passing him on the left. The guy on the right went all squirrely and was definitely not a good bike handler. The touched bikes and the squirrely guy nearly went down. I was 5th in my AG and averaged 22.4mph.

T2 - 1:23

Nothing special. I think I had a pretty quick T2 and don't have much to note except that putting on socks really wastes a lot of time. 8th in my AG.

The Run - 46:14

The run felt great. I took it a bit easy on the bike and it paid in the run. I felt fine pretty much the entire time and coming off the bike was fine as well. No cramps, side stitches, or anything like that. Actually, I could've gone harder. I saw Amy on the run and I chatted with her a bit on the 2nd loop. She told me "If you are talking that much, then you aren't going hard enough". That was pretty much the truth. Like I said, I felt good. Actually, too good. I really should've pushed harder and gone faster. I finish strong. Oh, one more thing. I had a Gu on the run and I shouldn't have done that. I didn't feel like I needed it and it upset my stomach a bit. I was 15th in my AG with a pace of 7:27/mile. That is my fastest 10K distance pace that I've ever done in a race so I'm happy with that.

My total time was 2:26:36 and I got 4th in my AG out of 52 people. Overall, I was 59th out of about 700 people. I was almost on the podium. Oh, here is another interesting fact. My swim, bike, and run time was 2:22:13. The guy behind me was 2:22:06, but he finished 5th. I totally kicked his ass in the transitions and got 4th instead of 5th because of that. I'm pretty happy with my race. I need to not skip swimming the week and a half before the race and I need to practice in a wetsuit if I haven't worn it in 4 months.

This was the inaugural Austin Tri. I really like this race. It was well organized and I like this race much better than CapTex. It was less crowded. Well, that's it. I had a good race at a good race.

Austin Tri is tomorrow

OK, quick update. Thursday was a run workout with some hilly intervals. The intervals were 1.2 miles each and there were about 2 major hills and 1 minor hill. I did the first one in about 9:10 and the second one was about 9:40. I fell off, obviously, but I felt pretty strong on both of them. Oh, I forgot that Wednesday's swim workout was rained out, but the core workout was pretty good. Friday was a rest day with a weigh in of 186. Saturday was also a rest day. Sunday was a tuneup workout. The pool was closed so I skipped that. I did do the bike workout. I skipped the run workout because it has been raining since the middle of the afternoon. This looks like it might be a repeat of CapTex in may. I'll be disappointed because I really want to race. I've been tapering the last few days and I'm getting jumpy and I want to race. Well, the next time that I post, it'll be a race report tomorrow.

New Balance mileage: 130 miles
Nike mileage: 145 miles

Fatigued Legs

I didn't notice it until today but switching up the workouts this past weekend really fatigued my legs. They aren't sore, but they have no life in them. I ran for 45 minutes and got in about 5.5 miles yesterday morning. I just felt like I had heavy legs and didn't have much life in them, but it wasn't that bad. I did a few strides as well but the run felt pretty good. What killed me was a bike ride after work on Tuesday. I just couldn't go at all. I would try to push and I had the lungs, which is abnormal, but the legs just didn't want to work. I called it quits after 45 minutes and went home. I ate a lot of protein last night to help recover. The only thing that I can think that did this much damage was mixing up the workouts this past weekend. That's good though because you're body gets stronger when you mix up the workouts, right? I may need a massage to help out, but I'm not going to get one.

Monday was a rest day with a weigh in of 186 pounds.

New Balance mileage: 130 miles
Nike mileage: 139.5 miles

300 Pound Triathletes (Crosspost)

I saw this post on Mark Sisson's blog about how how describes it as "fat but fit". I'll post more later, but I thought this was interesting and I just wanted to share it with my readers, uh, I mean myself. Also, I like the little cartoon picture at the top of the post, too.

Longhorn Tri Scouting Report

I rode the bike course for the Longhorn Tri this morning. I want to write about it so that I remember it for the race. The ride started out on 3177. It's a somewhat busy 4 lane highway, but with decent shoulders. Then, the course takes a right onto 290 and it's busier than 3177 but with wider shoulders. Then, the course takes a right on Old Kimbro Rd. For the next significant portion of the course, it's on farm back roads. There are a few patches of rough pavement, but nothing is that bad for that long. The road conditions vary from semismooth chip seal all the way to very smooth asphalt. It is very scenic with lots of farms, ranches, and fields. The course keep changing directions so it does break it up a bit and you aren't staying on a single road for very long stretches. There is all kinds of terrain. A few small rollers, so nice flat parts, and a few false flats which are somewhat annoying. There is a decent amount of shade along the roads as well but not much prolonged shade. The trees also block the wind a bit. The changing directions also prevents the wind from being a straight headwind or straight tailwind for a long period of time, too. Littig was kind of annoying because I think that was the roughest patch of pavement and it was a lot of false flats. Like I said, all of these roads are very lightly traveled two lane farm roads and there was very little traffic, but if there was traffic, it was big trucks and sometimes they were hauling trailers.

About half way through the course, you turn onto 1704. This stretch of road is very nice in some regards. The pavement is absolutely glassy smooth and it's fast. There is a pretty good amount of shade and there are some stretches of slight downhills. There are a few rollers, too. Now, the bad part about this road. It's a two lane highway with no shoulder and a decent amount of traffic. Then, you take a turn onto 969. Once again, a 2 lane highway with little to no shoulder but slightly less traffic. A right onto Blake-Manor leads into a somewhat significant hill. The pavement is mostly smooth for the majority of this road. A left onto Taylor puts you on probably the roughest parts of the course, but it still isn't too bad. As usual for this course, it's pretty scenic and you won't get bored with the course. Very nice Texas farmland. Decker Lake and Nez Pearce have some rough patches as well. Mostly fissures in the pavement and stuff like that, but still very lightly traveled. Gilbert leading up to 973 is nice. It's a slight uphill, but very fresh asphalt. Then, you take a left onto 973 which is the most dangerous part because it's a left at a red light and 973 is somewhat busy. It's a 2 lane highway with no shoulder and I got buzzed once that scared the crap out of me. On this road is a slight hill and then the toughest hill of the entire course. It's pretty big for Texas standards but not htat bad. It's maybe a 2-3 minute climb and you have to get in the little chain ring unless you are a beast. Oh, I got in my little chain ring maybe 3-4 times if that gives you any indication of the hilliness of this course, but I also tend to go up hills in the big chain ring, too. Once you crest the hill, you're about 2 miles from the transition area and there is another slight hill up into the transition area.

Overall, it's a very scenic course on either highways with big shoulders or little traveled farm roads for the most part. Some rolling hills, false flats, and flat, fast sections with only 2 or 3 moderate hills. Lots of changing directions as well to keep it interesting. I think Keith Jordan did a pretty good job selecting this bike course. I'm happy with it.

Woah, this nutrition thing works!

I keep having crappy long workouts. I'm just zonked towards the end of every workout, especially on the brick runs. Well, not today! I went riding wit Colleen, Shellie, and Maggie. Maggie is a really good cyclist and she and I dropped the other two pretty quickly. Oh, we rode the exact course for the Longhorn Tri in October and I'll report on that later. We ended up riding for about 3:20 or so and got about 60 miles in. Then, I went and did a 30 minute brick workout. I was actually feeling pretty strong during the run and felt like I could keep going for awhile. Here's what happened. I really upped my nutrition this workout. During the ride, I had 3 bottles of Infinit which had about 300 calories each. I had 2 bottles of Gatorade with about 100 calories each. I also had two Rice Krispy treats with 100 calories each. That's 1300 calories over the course of 4 hours of exercise. That seems about right. I also had a 3 Nuun tablets and about 8 Thermolyte tablets so my electrolytes were up as well. During the workout, I had 5 bottles of fluid and peed only twice. That indicates to me that I still need to take in more fluids, but I'm happy to realize that my nutrition is pretty well dialed in now. Oh, the run. It was tough at first, but I eased into it and kept running almost the entire time. I felt fine, too.

New Balance run mileage: 130 miles
Nike mileage: 134 miles
Weekly run mileage: 28.5 miles

My HRM strap is NAS-TAY!

I picked up my HRM strap this morning to put it on. It was about 3 feet from my nose and I could smell it. I put it all the way up to my nose and I nearly passed out. Man, that thing stinks! It's going in the dishwasher at some point by the end of the year!

After the horrible workouts last weekend from the heat, I decided to go ahead and get up early this weekend to workout when it was cooler. This morning, I was up at 5:30 and actually running by 6:45. Oh, my coach switched up the workouts this weekend and put the long run on Saturday and the long bike and brick on Sunday. I like this and wish he would do it more. I was on the trail by 6:45 like I said. Also, I was trying some different things today. I put bandaids on my nipples to prevent chafing. That worked and they stayed on the entire time. Awesome! I also put chamois butter in my shorts and that didn't work. My taint still got chafed. I need to try something else out and I think I'll pick up some actually running shorts and try them on a next run. The compression shorts that I used are the suspected culprit in my "down below" problems. Another good thing. I did 3 laps of the 4.5 mile loop at Lady Bird Johnson Lake. I came home and used MapMyRun to verify the distance. The 4.5 mile loop is actually 5 miles. Now, that makes a lot of sense and makes me happier because I then dropped 30 seconds/mile off of my time! I did 15 miles today in 2:09 and that put me at about an 8:36/mile pace. That's more like it! Now, running earlier in the morning is a lot better than running at noon. When I was off the trail, it was only 82 degrees or so. I don't think I ran faster, but I do think that I ran easier. It didn't seem as difficult to run. However, I did have trouble breathing the second half of the run. Hopefully, it'll be another week or so before my asthma medication kicks in and then I can breathe easier. Oh, my workout today was a 2-2:15 run with 3x15 min strong, 5 min easy in the second half. I did do the strong intervals, but I was really tired by the third. My legs just feel heavy when I run. I know that I have big legs and that's probably why, but this is just something that I noticed. I also have a nice big blister on the ball of my right big toe, too. It's in the usual spot.

After that, I went to Deep Eddy to do a recovery swim. Their lane lines were closed so I went to Barton Springs instead. I haven't been there in awhile. It was OK. The water was colder and more refreshing than Deep Eddy and that is good. I swam 3 laps and I was done. I was suppose to swim for 45 minutes which is about 4 laps, but I just cant' swim that long at Barton Springs. It's a mental. I went to ATC, got some tacos and Powerade, and I'm now at home chilling for the rest of the day. It's a great feeling to have all of your workouts done by 10am in the morning.

New Balance mileage: 130 miles
Nike mileage: 131 miles

Finally had a good swim

I actually had a pretty decent swim this morning and got in about 3600 yards. The beginning stuff was the usual drills and pull buoys and paddles. The last few sets were 12x100 all on a 1:50 interval. The first 4 were at 80%. The middle 4 were at 85%. The last 4 were at 90-95%. When I go fast, I go fast and don't really differentiate between 90% and 100%. I was really moving, for me, on the last 4 and the last one was actually a 1:26/100yds. Not bad doing that after swimming 3400 yards before that. It hurt like hell though, but it felt good to end a workout with a strong swim like that.

Yesterday was a 27min run during lunch. It was hot and I ran slow. After work was a 90 min spin with some faster, longer intervals. That hurt, but in a good way. I really can't wait to get back to shorter stuff next year so that I can work on increasing my lactic threshold and getting used to getting my heart rate high and keeping it there.

Wednesday was the core workout and a skipped swim workout. I decided to go home and try to get some rest because I was feeling worn down. I'm still feeling tired and I expect to be in bed by 9pm tonight. Luckily, next week is a recovery week so maybe I can sleep in a bit and get some chores done around the house. Oh, my weight this morning was 184.

New Balance mileage: 115 miles
Nike mileage: 131 miles

I forgot something

I forgot to post something about my Saturday workout. During that ride, my focus was to stay in the aero position. I have issues being in aero for that long and I really need to practice it. I always get lower back pain on my left side that I almost never get in training. Also, left hip flexor usually gets fried at about the same time. Well, of the 4 hour ride on Saturday, I spent about 3:15 in aero. It felt pretty good. Being in aero for that long is something that you have to get used to and I need to get used to it. During the ride, I could definitely feel a difference and it was good practice. Also, my back hurt a bit so that is kind of good that I can replicate that when training.

Now, for the rest of the week, I did the core workout on Monday. I'm not sore after it like I was last week. However, my left shoulder is jacked up. I'm working with Rachel to fix it up a bit, too. We'll see how that works out. I hate asking her questions about PT issues because she's not at work and she isn't getting paid for it. I also saw the doctor and got put back on an asthma medication so hopefully I'll be able to breathe easier in the next week or so. Breathing deeply while working out has been bothering me lately and I think it's because of a combination of the heat and I haven't been on asthma medication in over a month now. My Monday weigh in was actually on Tuesday morning and it was 187.5. That's a bad trend that's developing. I weighed in on Tuesday instead of Monday because I woke up at 7:04 on Monday, I had to be at work at 7:30, and it takes 20 minutes to get to work. Tuesday was a run workout with Texas Iron. It was only 90 degrees so it wasn't that hot. After this past weekend, I'm trying to avoid the heat more. I think it's a mental thing though. Anyways, after a 15min warmup, we did 10x400 steady, 200 easy. I ran with Richelle, Emily, and Allison. We maintained 1:45 for the 400's the entire time and it felt great to run that consistently. I probably could've done 1:40 but 1:45 is good enough because I still felt like I was working pretty hard to maintain them. It was a good workout and I'm happy with it. With the cooldown, the total workout was about 7.5 miles.

New Balance mileage: 112 miles
Nike mileage: 131 miles

Long Run

Long run today. Was suppose to do 2 hours but did 12.3 miles in 1:53 instead. It was hot again because I didn't start 11:30 or so. And my pace showed it because I ran that 12 miles at 9:10 pace. I really can't wait until winter to start running faster again. I'm having a smoothie and I'm not feeling good either. I'm a little nauseous. Oh, I had to crap pretty much the entire run and that wasn't comfortable. As soon as I stopped, it went away.

New Balance mileage: 112 miles
Nike mileage: 123.5 miles
Weekly run mileage: 28 miles

I actually had a good workout today!

I've been trying to ramp up my long workouts on Saturday lately because I have a half Ironman in about 6 weeks or so. Today's workout was a 3.5 hour easy bike followed by a 50 minute brick run. Well, I did all of it. I've been bagging the workouts or cutting them short lately for various reasons. It was important for me to actually complete a workout and I did it today. I went for a ride leaving at 8:00 this morning. The fucking weather.com website lied to me. They said there was only a 10% chance of rain. Well, it rained on me for pretty much 30 minutes into the ride until 1:30 into the ride. It wasn't that bad riding in the rain. The problem with riding in the rain is if you have glasses on, it's nearly impossible to see. If you don't have glasses, the rain hurts like hell. Finally, it cleared up. When I rode long the last time a few weeks ago, I hit a wall about 3 hours into the ride. Today, there was no wall at all and I think that's a good sign. I came home and had gotten in a total of 4:05. I went for a run and it hurt. But the important thing is that I kept running. I ran the entire time that I was suppose to run though. I got back in about 50 minutes which was a very good thing. When I run, I don't have access to any fluids. I only had 5 bottles on the bike when I should've had close to 8. I wasn't cramping, but it got H-O-T towards the end of my run. The sun came out and the wind died down. When I left my house, the idiots at weather.com said it was 90 degrees and there was a heat index of 104. I felt it the last 10 minutes of the run. I was getting in bad shape. I was light headed and I would get cold flashes. My hands and arms were tingly, but I kept going. Once I finished, I didn't feel that great because the dizziness and tingling continued for about 10 minutes. I started feeling better and had a smoothie. Seriously, I'm really happy that I got the entire workout done today and that I powered through the heat on the run and didn't give up at all.

New Balance mileage: 99.5 miles
Nike mileage: 123.5 miles

EDIT: I wanted to add some other things. I trudged through the run at 9:05 miles, but it worked. I ran a total of 5.5 miles today. At first, my knees were sore, not still, but they loosened up as I ran. I felt good about 10 minutes into the run until about 35 minutes into the run. This is something that I should expect in the future. I also came home and took about a 2 hour nap. This was one of the naps where I was on my couch trying to type up the post and the next thing I know, I'm rolling around on the couch waking up 2 hours later. I guess I needed sleep.

Wow, I thought I had bad swims before. . .

I swam this morning. My lats were still very fatigued from the core workout on Monday still. Seriously fatigued. They're still sore to the touch right now and it's been over 4 days. I was very pokey in the pool and I was actually trying. I only swam about 2700yds and I got out because I needed to get to work.

Yesterday was another naked run in the morning for about 30 minutes. It wasn't a good run. I didn't feel good the entire time. After work was a 60 minute spin with 2x5min hill climb, 2 min rest and then 5x2min fast, 1min easy. My weight was 186.5. Not much else to add.

New Balance mileage: 99.5 miles
Nike mileage: 118 miles

Body Fat Check

I went in this morning and got my body fat checked. It was 16.2% It's higher than I would like but here are the stats:

Chest: 14
Abs: 25
Thigh: 16
Weight: 184
Pounds fat: 29.8
Pounds lean: 154.2
Body fat percent: 16.2%

Higher than I wanted and I was somewhat surprised that it was that high. I'll just use it for more motivation. For other motivation, I'm really, really sore from the core workout on Monday. My lats, chest, and shoulders are hurting somewhat badly. I want to keep going to get back in shape from the workouts.

Tuesday's workout was a spin in the morning that didn't happen. I got to the gym and I had everything set up on the bike except for my shoes. They were at home. I spun after work and then went on a hilly run workout. After a 15min warmup, I was suppose to do a 6-8x1 mile hilly loop that we did 2 weeks ago. I only did 5 of them. It was 98 degrees when I started at 7:30pm so it was hot. Also, my legs were just really, really fatigued on the 5th loop. My time fell off by 20 seconds so I called it a night. I went to soak in Barton Springs for 10 minutes to cool off and that felt good. I was going to swim today, but I couldn't fit it in. I decided to rest since I'm still sore and I had to work on the house today since my countertops were installed.

New Balance mileage: 99.5 miles
Nike mileage: 115 miles

Q: What do you call a broken gecko?

A: A reptile dysfunction! (say that out loud to yourself)

Today's workout was actually a workout. Usually Monday is a rest day but I decided to tell work to fuck off and left early to go to the first core workout that I've been to in over 4 months. I wasn't that out of shape, but I have a feeling I'm going to be a little sore tomorrow. My lower abs were the weakest as well as push ups. It'll get better, though. After that, it was an 8x200yd swim in Deep Eddy. There was some nice scenery there today, too. That water felt great because it was over 95 degrees outside today. It was relaxed and I worked on form. It was a great swim.

My knee hurts

My knee hurts today. I think I did something to it running yesterday. It is more on the medial side of my right patella and it's more muscular than joint related. That's good. My PF has been acting up lately and I did some exercises for it this morning. My back also spasmed when I was putting in my contacts so I nearly poked my eye out because of it. I did some exercises for that as well and it seems to be a bit better now. I keep getting scar tissue and heel spurs in my left foot. I'm thinking about getting something done with it because it's pretty bad. Whenever I roll a ball under my foot, there are about 3 different places where it goes "Crunch!" because of the rough materials in my heel. It doesn't really hurt, but it can't be good either. Ultimately, I know that I need to get rid of the PF, but that just seems really difficult at the moment. I'm really worried about it when marathon season approaches over the winter. I've said it before, but I just need to get serious about this PF.

Also, a weight update. I was 185.5 on Friday and then 186.5 today. That's not the correct direction. I probably should get my body fat tested to see how much of my weight gain is muscle and which is not muscle. I'll try to do that this week.

EDIT: Since I'm at work and I'm being super passive-aggressive today and avoiding all work and everyone that'll give me more work, I've been surfing the net. One of my guilty pleasures is the Starbucks pumpkin scone. I know these aren't healthy for me, but I have one maybe once or twice a month if that often. Well, here's the nutritional info on one of those suckers:

Pumpkin Scone: Zone 20/22/29 (710 cal/37 g fat/1 g fiber/90 g carbs)

Zone 29 for Starbucks is the Austin/San Antonio area. I found this information from here and as you can see, this zone has the worst pumpkin scones. I think I'll be putting more thought into it when I decide if I want a scone or not. However, all things pumpkin are one of my guilty pleasures so this is going to be a difficult decision.

Another naked run

I do these from time to time where I go out and run without an HRM or a watch on. Pretty much the only thing that I go by is distance. Today, it was 7 miles around Town Lake, I mean Lady Bird Lake. When I got out of the car at 9:45, it was already 91 degrees. I think not having an HRM was beneficial today because I would've been frustrated running at 9:30min/mile and having my heart rate at 160bpm. I just ran at what felt like a comfortable pace. It was getting tough after about Mile 5 but I kept it up. I tried working on my form a bit but I don't think it went that well. Also, it was 97 degrees when I finished running. It was hot today. Overall, the naked run felt pretty good and I probably need to do more of these runs without being constrained to a number on my wrist.

New Balance mileage: 99.5 miles
Nike mileage: 108 miles
Weekly run mileage: 13 miles

1 second!

This week has been a recovery week. I love recovery weeks. I can have somewhat of a normal life again. It's nice! After my Tuesday run, I swam on Wednesday. Nothing special. I moved up a lane and I was the slowest person in my lane which is expected. Nothing special from that night that I can remember. Thursday was my favorite workout. The 8 mile time trial around South Mopac. I just love TT'ing for some reason. Well, I know I love it because I'm good at it. I did the loop in 19:37 which is one second faster than my last time. 1 second! That's nearly insignificant but it's still an improvement. Also, the conditions were bad. It was about 95 degrees and somewhat windy. I still beat guys with disc wheels and aero helmets which makes me smile because I have a normal helmet and my training wheels. It's all about the engine, baby! My 19:37 time is an average speed of 24.4mph. I'll get sub 19min soon enough. Friday was a rest day and Saturday was suppose to be an easy ride of 90 minutes and then a 60 minute swim. However, I ended up doing a really easy 2.5 hour ride with Rachel so that was fine for me.

Well, that's it so far. I'm about to go on a recovery run in about 15 minutes and I'll write more later.

It's hot!

It's now hot here in Austin. Not, kinda hot and humid. It's hot and dry. I like this weather. Much better than the humidity. I went on a fartlek run of 50 minutes. It was 15min warmup, 5x3min fast, 1min easy, 15min cooldown. Nothing special. Also, my Monday weigh in was 184.

Last week's run mileage: 13.5 miles

New Balance mileage: 92.5 miles
Nike mileage: 108 miles

Venting (helmet issues)

You know how I thought I lost my helmet over the weekend. Well, I just got to work now and it's sitting on my desk. I came into work and checked my desk twice on Saturday. It wasn't here. I'm trying to be cool about this, but one of my coworker's joke cost me $130 and I'm not happy about it.

Fatletes can podium!

Well, I guess I'm proof that fat athletes can get on the podium. Ok, I'm just kidding. I finished 3rd place in my age group in the Jack's Generic Tri today. Now, here is my race report from last year. I guess it worked out that I didn't work out hard yesterday. I got 7 hours of sleep last night and woke up pretty rested this morning. I also wasn't very stressed about this race. I got to the race site and got everything set up. I still find it amazing how little stuff that I have in my transition setup compared to most other people. I saw a lot of people that I haven't seen in awhile. I went for a swim to warm up. I never run or do anything like that for a warmup swim. I almost always just go for a short swim and that's it. I just waited around until the gun went off.

The Swim
The water was warm, but not that bad. Obviously no wetsuits were allowed. The warmup swim helped me to figure out to sight better on the swim. It was kind of rough at the start but I need to get used to that. Actually, there were people around almost the entire time. I got kicked in the calf a few times and it felt like my calves were going cramp but they didn't. Also, I didn't kick anyone in the nuts like I did last year. I came out of the water in 8:35 which is about 30 seconds slower than last year, and it was a pace of 1:43/m for 500 meters. However, I was 6th in my age group so that's not bad and I was 69th overall.

T1
My T1 time was 1:18. My T1 times are usually pretty fast and I was actually the fastest T1 time in my age group. I'm pretty happy with that. All I had to do was put on my helmet and go. I had my shoes on the pedals. I didn't go with sunglasses today because it wasn't that sunny and they tend to get covered in sweat. I didn't feel like dealing with that today. I grabbed my bike and was out of T1.

The Bike
The last time I raced, I had issues with my shoes and pedaling and crap. This time, I was able to actually start moving and not nearly crashing 4 times. That was actually the guy in front of me. I started out on the bike and I kept remembering to take it easy because that was my goal. The bike was pretty uneventful. I passed a few people in my age group and I was passed a few times. Overall, I didn't drop any places on the bike. I kept my heart rate at around 155bpm for most of the way. It would go up on the hills but that's to be expected. Nothing really hurt since I'm used to my left lower back hurting. When I go hard on the bike, my legs get tired and crampy. That didn't happen at all today. It was different. I came off the bike in 41:15 for a pace of 21.5mph. That was good enough for 6th in my AG and 68th overall. Avg HR was 154bpm or something like that. My time was only about 9 seconds slower than last year.

T2
I came into T2 and noticed something was different immediately. I didn't have jello legs when I got off the bike. Oh, it was kind of cool at the dismount line. I came in hard and fast and scared the crap out of people. I also locked up my rear wheel and fish tailed a bit. That was fun. I got to my spot and saw Noah right behind me. I put on my socks, my shoes, grabbed my race belt and hat and started running. Noah ended up passing me in T2 and was on the run course before me. Damnit. T2 time was 1:06 which was 7th in my AG. Not bad, but I could shave a few seconds off my T2 time. I just need to figure out how since I don't think I could shave off more time besides putting on socks or just running faster. Socks do take up a lot of time, though. Fastest T2 was 0:56. Ok, back to the run.

The Run
I was on Noah's heels the entire first half. He would get about 10 yards in front of him and then I would get back to about 2 yards. He passed me within the last mile at The Rookie Tri. I was expecting him to break me but that didn't happen. I just kept him in my sights and I was exactly where I wanted to be. I run a lot faster chasing someone than when I'm getting chased. I noticed that I would gain on him on the uphills, too. This course isn't flat and has a few small rises on the course. The last rise is up to the turn around point and I closed to within a few feet of him. He stopped to get some water and I grabbed a cup, poured it on my head, and didn't stop. I dropped Noah very quickly after that and I dropped him pretty quickly on the subsequent downhill. I'm pretty good at the downhills because I know how to use my weight to gain moment and get going quickly without taking up to much additional energy. I kept running expecting someone else to catch me but I kept pushing myself. I got passed but it was by people in other age groups. I just kept running and I never stopped to run the entire run. It seems like my experiment with going easier on the bike paid off. I came off the bike with fresh legs, I felt good, and I had a great run. I crossed the line at 21:27 for a 3 mile run. That's a pace of 7:09 which is the fastest I've ever run in a race, including The Rookie Tri back in April which was 7:14 pace for 2 mile run. I just can't express how good I felt this run and it shows. I was also 1:40 than my run time from last year's Jack's Generic. However, I still need to work on my running because I was 17th in my AG and 98th overall. That doesn't matter as much as me having a great run for me! I'll get there. I'm sure of it.

Overall
Like I said, I came in 3rd in my AG with a time of 1:13:43. 1st place ran a 15:43 run and was just smoking. 2nd was 5 minutes in front of me so no chance of running him down soon. My time was 49th overall out of 755 people. I did a lot better compared to last year's race. I'm just really happy with my race today and I was able to get on the podium. Also, I just want to note that I was 6th on the swim, 6th on the bike, and 17th on the run but I was 3rd in my AG. I think a lot of it was my transitions and that I'm pretty consistent across all 3 sports. Oh, I was about 30 seconds faster than last year. What other numbers can I put up here? Oh, I was top 5% of my AG with 59 people in it. I was also top 7% overall because I was 49th out of about 755 people.

Ok, I'm done now. I'm going to bed pretty happy tonight.

I promote safe blogging!

And why do I do that? Because I'm wearing a cycling helmet as I type this post? Why am I doing that? Because I'm a dumbass. Why am I a dumbass. Well, just because, but the most recent excuse is that I know I woke up with my Giro Atmos cycling helmet in my possession and when I woke up this morning, I was no longer in possession of said helmet. I have absolutely no fucking clue where the damn thing is at. The problem that I have is that I have a race tomorrow. So, I went to Jack & Adams and bought a Bell Speed R helmet. I'm wearing it to make sure I don't have any problems with it before I race tomorrow. So far, I think it's more comfortable than the Atmos and it fits better. I like the Atmos' adjustment system slightly better though. I kind of needed a new helmet but I didn't want to drop $130 on a helmet today though.

Ok, now my workouts. Thursday was an easy 30 minute run during lunch and a canceled Mopac time trial. Friday morning was a swim with T3. I really think that I just hate swimming that early in the morning. Today, was suppose to be a 3.5 hour ride and then a 45min run. I didn't do that because of my missing helmet conundrum. I mowed my yard instead. My intention was to go the long run and run today and then do the race tomorrow. I'm doing the race just to do the race so I didn't care that much if I had tapered for it or not. Now that I accidentally tapered, I guess I gotta do well now or something. Speaking of, I'm going into the race tomorrow with a different strategy. I'm going to try to go easier on the bike and then see how that affects my run. I usually have cement feet once I get off the bike and I'm going to experiment a bit with that tomorrow.

New Balance mileage: 89.5 miles
Nike mileage: 102 miles

Feeling Good

For once, I'm feeling pretty good this week. On Monday, my weigh in was 182 which is a number that I haven't seen in awhile. Tuesday at lunch was an easy 75min spin with 4x5min simulated hill climbs. Tuesday night was a run. After a 15min warmup, I did 5x1 mile on a hilly loop. I held the intervals pretty well. The last one was the fastest at 7:42 and that was because I wasn't saving anything. Did a cool down for a total distance of 7.5 miles. Today was a swim at night instead of the morning. I think I like night swim better than morning swims. I lead the lane the entire workout, too. Well, that's about it. I just feel like I'm having a good week with workouts.

New Balance mileage: 89.5 miles
Nike mileage: 99 miles

A 4 hour ride doesn't lead to a 2 hour run very well

I tried to run today. It hurt. A lot. It was hot, humid, and my legs were friend from yesterday's workout. That's pretty much the only thing that I can say. I ran 9 miles in 1:33 which is around 10 minute miles if that puts it into perspective. I was suppose to do 2 hours but there was no way that I could do it today. Ok, I could but I didn't want to. I went to swim and my feet kept cramping. It hurt, too. My toes were pointing in directions that they've never pointed before. I only got 600yds in and then I was done. I'm not going to complain more about my workouts this weekend because I know why they were bad workouts. However, they give me more motivation for the future. Now, I'm home and I'm recovering.

New Balance mileage: 89.5 miles
Nike mileage: 91.5 miles
Weekly run mileage: 24.5 miles

3 Hours

That's about the amount of time that I can ride my bike now before my legs get really tired. I'll get to that in a minute though. Thursday's time trial was canceled due to the rainy weather. It sucks but it happens. Friday morning was a swim and I made a conclusion. I'm just not enjoying swimming lately. I almost despise it, actually. I just get in the water and put one arm in the water. I don't have the passion for it that I used to. I just can't wait to get done. I don't feel like pushing myself as much as I used to. It's just annoying at this point. I'm not getting any faster. Maybe part of it is that I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to swim and I'm doing good to get to bed by 10:00 the night before. Lately, I've been loving my sleep so when I'm not well rested, I'm grumpy. When I get up to swim at 4:30, I'm not well rested and I'm grumpy and I don't like being grumpy. What am I going to do about this? Hell if I know.

Saturday was actually on OK day. I rode 3:40 and the weather was pretty good. Started off somewhat cool and cloudy. Later on, the sun came out and of course, it rained a bit. Luckily, it just sprinkled about 5 minutes from the end of the ride. Like I said, it wasn't until about 3 hours into the ride where my legs starting hurting and I was getting a bit slower. This was my longest ride in a very long time. I was suppose to do some 45 minute intervals at race pace, but I just needed to see if I could do this long. From today's somewhat painful ride, I need to make sure I do the rest of the long rides until my HIM in October. I also did a 42 minute brick run after the bike ride. It was better than my usual horrible brick runs, but it still hurt. I would be going really slow trying to keep my heart rate down and my heart rate would stay 160+ and sometimes I would hit around 170 when I didn't feel like it should be that high. Also, I was completely burning up during the run. I had 4 bottles of fluid during the bike which is a lot lower than it should've been. I felt like I had enough calories in my though. I don't know what to do to get over this besides just keep training for it.

New Balance mileage: 80.5 miles
Nike mileage: 91.5 miles

Another 3800yds but I was tired

I swam 3800 yards this morning. I was tired though. Very tired. Not physically exhausted, but just sleepy tired. I have been ramping up my training lately and I think my body is requiring more sleep because of it. Then, when I don't get 7-8 hours, I feel it a lot more. It makes sense though. Other than that, not much else is going on right now. I'm resting the rest of today and then I have a South Mopac time trial tomorrow night with Texas Iron. I love those! However, I don't think I'll be able to improve on my time from last time. I feel like my biking has been suffering lately since I've been putting focus on running and then swimming which is to be expected. We'll see how I do. I have been slacking off on my long rides on Saturdays due to the weather. I need to get my ass in gear because I have a half Ironman in just over 2 months and my longest ride so far this year has been about 35 miles.

Oh, I guess I can talk about my medical terminology class. I'm learning about the different systems of the body. It's not quite an anatomy class, but it is close. I have gone through most of the chapters so far and most of the time I'm fine. However, the urinary system, especially the kidneys, and the section about the skin completely gross me out. Most of the time, people freak out about the digestive system because they have an aversion to poo or something like that. For me, seeing a diagram of a cystic kidney just grosses me out. Also, seeing all different kinds of skin issues like lesions and different forms of advanced skin cancer just turns my stomach. I'll get over it by the time I'm done with anatomy in the spring or I'll end up throwing up on a cadaver. Right now, I'm studying the endocrine system. This shit is tough because I have to memorize a bunch of hormones, what their 3 different names are, what they control, and where they are produced. Also, I have to say that it's pretty amazing about how much of the body these very tiny glands control. The parathyroid glands are each the size of a grain of rice. The function of the pineal gland is poorly understood and the function of many other structures of the endocrine aren't that well known either. I also find it amazing that these tiny glands produce so many different hormones and I'm really curious about how they do it. How much of a hormone is needed in the blood stream to make a noticeable change in the body? Is just a single drop enough to use for an entire year? It's amazing stuff and I love learning about it.

Good run and good wine

My weigh in yesterday was 184.5. The yoyo is getting shallower but hopefully it'll start a downward trend soon. Part of that work for a downward trend is the run that I did tonight. It was very similar to my Tuesday run 2 weeks ago. After a 15 minute warmup, it was 8x1 mile repeats. Each odd one was on the track and the even ones were on the trail. The track mile repeats were coming in at about 7:20-7:35 or so with a heart rate of around 160-165bpm. Oh, these were suppose to be at half mary pace and I think that was about right, maybe just a little too fast. The trail repeats were fine. It's tough to judge since I go by time instead of distance. After a 10 minute cooldown, I did about 11 miles. Once again, I feel absolutely fine. I'm really happy that my body is adjusting to running distance now. i skipped swimming this morning. Shit has been bothering me from work and I couldn't sleep last night and I just needed to sleep in this morning. I almost took a "sick day" today, but I had a glass of wine last night and I'm having a glass of red wine tonight as well. It's decent wine. Somewhat on the dry side with a bit of fruitiness as well. Also, I'm on track to run 31 miles this week if I get all my run workouts ins this week. I'm running with my orthodics and they are feeling fine.

New Balance mileage: 80.5 miles
Nike mileage: 87 miles

Yoga, Swim, Run, No Bike

I went to yoga on Friday night. I thought it was going to be bad, but it wasn't. I was a little tight at first, but I eased into it and was fine. I was a little bit tight and not as flexible, but it wasn't bad at all. My balance was a little off, though. I'm surprised that I didn't lose much flexibility because I almost never stretch these days. Afterwards, I went to the Central Market Cafe and ordered the thai yellow curry noodles. Now, I normally don't send food back because I'll eat almost anything, but I had to send this back. The texture was just disgusting to me because it was made up of mostly slimy, clear noodles that I've never seen before. I got the penne pasta instead and it wasn't much better.

Saturday was a skipped workout because I was working on the house. I did make some quinoa and salmon again though. It also rained about 4 times on Saturday.

Sunday was a 3200m swim. Nothing special. Then, I did a 75min run which was slow and was a distance of 8.2 miles. I feel great so far today. However, I think I got sunburned on my face, though. I'm usually pretty good about putting it on but I just forgot today. Part of it was that I was still wet from my swim and it wasn't going on very well.

Oh, something interesting. I get a lot of free gels from various things. I decided to take a HammerGel since I don't like them that much. I looked at the expiration date and guess what it was. 07/22/2007. just in time!

New Balance mileage: 80.5 miles
Nike mileage: 76 miles
Weekly run mileage: 14 miles