Sunday Rest Day

Wow, I actually had a weekend day that was a rest day. That was quite a surprise. However, it wasn't a rest day. I worked in the yard for 6 hours today and I'm exhausted. I mowed the yard, redid the soaker hose around my new bushed, cut down a lot of weeds that had grown to about 8' tall between my yard and my neighbor's yard, and cleaned some vinyl siding. Also, I saw some snakes in my yard when I moved my spare vinyl siding. Pretty cool. This day has me more exhausted than a long run day.

Other than that, I biked about 30 miles and then ran 5 miles yesterday. Friday was a rest day as well. Tomorrow will be my first swim in about a month. Should be fun. Also, I'm going to pick up some new running shoes this week.

Shoe mileage: 322.5 miles
Weekly run mileage: 9.5 miles

Update

Well, let's do the usual update my training for 4 days in 4 sentences when I've been lazy and haven't updated my blog in awhile. Tuesday was an easy 4.5 mile run during lunch at work. Wednesday was a 27 mile bike ride with some guys from work at an easy 17.1mph average. Thursday was a Texas Iron hill repeat bike workout. Ok, this will take more than 1 sentence. The hill repeat was 1.2 miles to the bottom and then 1.2 miles back up with a gradual incline, but long climb. I did 6 of these intervals and I got faster at each one. My heart rate did climb for almost every interval. I also discovered something. Well, I've been thinking about this for awhile but this workout kind of just convinced me. I'm a better climber in the big chainring. Common practice is if you are climbing to spin up in the small chainring. However, I found that when I climb, my cadence is higher, I feel better, and I go faster if I'm in the big chainring. The only down side is that my heart rate is 3-5bpm higher. I'm going on the ATC ride tomorrow so I'll try all the hills in the big chainring and see how I feel during the ride.

My weight was 187.5 this morning. For some reason, I just haven't been that disciplined with my weight loss. Next week, I'll get back on the wagon. One reason for that is because I can swim again. My tattoo has healed enough that I should be able to swim so I'll be up at 5am on Monday morning to swim with T3. Another benefit about my tattoo healing is that I can shave my legs again and the tat looks great with my legs shaved.

I'm thinking about getting some new aerobars for my bike. I'm kind of bored with it and I want to do something to upgrade it. I'm thinking about getting the Vision Tech flat base bar and the Vision Tech TT clip-on aerobars. I was thinking about going with an integrated setup, but I like the adjustability of having separate components. I also want internal cable housing just to clean up the appearance of my bike as well. Oh, and I'm going to put on red bar tape to match the paint of my bike. Does anyone have any suggestions about this?

Shoe mileage: 317.5 miles

Weekend Workouts

Eh, nothing special this weekend. I did about a ~25 mile bike ride and then a 2.5 mile run. I was suppose to do a lot more, but a night of drinking on Friday kind of kept that in check. Man, it's amazing how a workout will get rid of a hangover and make you feel so much better.

Today was a long run of 9 miles. The first 45 minutes were an easy run and then build for the last 30 minutes. Ever since Galveston, running just hasn't been easy for me. I've put on a bit of weight and I've noticed that even a difference of 3 pounds will have an effect on my running.

Shoe mileage: 313 miles
Weekly run mileage: 14.5 miles

Tough Bike Last Night

I had a tough bike ride last night with Texas Iron. After a 20 minute warmup, we were suppose to do 45 minutes sustained effort in a paceline of 3-5 people with people switching off when they were done. I started off in a group and let's just say that I was in the wrong group. The first lap of 3 miles I wasn't even trying that hard. I kept encouraging the guy in front of me to close the gap behind the lead. It was tough for him. After the first lap, I told everyone that I wanted to pull. I got out in front and quickly dropped everyone. I waited for them and took off and dropped them again so I just went on by myself for the rest of that lap. After the second lap, I saw a group coming up behind me pretty quickly. It was Joe, Allie, & Loadman! Hey, this is a group more my speed. I hopped on the back and stuck with them for the rest of the time. I pulled a couple of times but not for long but I could suck their wheel pretty well, though. Joe was pulling most of the time with Allie pulling some. Loadman wasn't pulling at all for some reason. During this time with them, I don't think my heart rate got under 165 and most of the time when I looked down, it was 170 or above. I kept it like this for about 30 minutes. I finally blew up going up a little hill when my calf cramped at the same time. I was done and did my cool down laps and that was the workout. My avg HR for the entire interval was 159 but the majority of it was much higher when I was riding with Joe, Allie, and Loadman.

I also did a 3.15 mile run in the morning with 3 strides in 26:20 for a pace of about 8:20/mile. I also did the J&A workout on Wednesday. I wasn't sore moving around, but I could tell during the workout that I was sore from Monday.

My weight this morning was 187. Down, but I've been cheating a lot every day this week so I'm not surprised that I only last 1 pound this week.

Shoe mileage: 301.5 miles

Quick Update

Quick update here. Sunday was a long run of 8.2 miles. I did it in about 1:09 and my heart rate seemed elevated the entire time. Monday, I weighed 188 lbs and did the J&A core workout. I wasn't sore on Tuesday from it, but I didn't do anything on Tuesday because I was feeling sick. I got some cherry pomegranate juice and it's really good. I made 4 pounds of mixed fruit (cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries) on Sunday and I'm sick of fruit by now. I also made a Mediterranean batch of my couscous/quinoa mix and it's great.

Shoe mileage: 298.5 miles
Weekly run mileage: 16.5 miles

New Max Heart Rate!

On Thursday's workout, I set a new max heart rate! Woohoo! The workout was a 20 minute warmup on the bike. Then, Jamie had us do 1-3 of a loop that was about 4 miles long, but there was a very tough climb for the first mile or so. Then it was about 1 mile trail run through puddles, steep dropoffs, rocks, and of course, a trail. The theme of the workout was pushing through mentally in inclement conditions. It was very windy and most Texans can't stand hills and the trail run wasn't a normal trail run. Usually in the Texas Iron workouts, I'm definitely not an A packer, but I'm usually the lead B packer and this workout also backed that up. I went out and quickly dropped almost all the other cyclists that left in the B pack. The climb was tough but I kept pushing myself. On the top of the climb, we headed downhill and it was straight into the wind. And I hammered through the wind. I really needed this mental toughness at the Galveston triathlon. I came in and did the run. As usual, I got dropped on the run but nothing surprising there. After the first loop, we had 4 minutes rest. The second loop was going to be my last so I went out a little harder. The climb got steeper as it went up and about 80% of the way up the climb, I looked at my HRM and I saw 184 on it. Holy shit, I haven't seen a number like that in about 2 years. When I did all of my lactic threshold and VO2 max testing, the most that I hit was 181-183 so hitting 184 in a real workout was quite impressive to me. What was more impressive was that I didn't crack when my heart rate hit that high. I just cooled it a bit and kept going hard up the hill. There were 2 more cyclists in front of me and I was going to pass them. I pushed harder into the head wind and kept playing leap frog with them. I finally got in front and get pushing hard to stay in front. Unfortunately, both of them passed me right before the transition area. I was right behind them on the run and they both dropped me on the run because I was freaking tired. After that loop, I checked my HRM and I averaged 172bpm for that 14 minute interval. Wow! Talk about some LT work for me. Did a 10 minute cooldown on the bike and that was the workout.

Today, I did about 1:15 on the trainer and a 3.15 mile neighborhood run. Nothing special. It was chilly and windy today so I didn't feel like getting outside. Yeah, I'm a wuss. Tomorrow, I have a long run though and I'm looking forward to that!

Shoe mileage: 290 miles

My first workout in 13 days. . .

. . . was today. I ran 3 miles after work. I should've done more with some speedwork, but since it's my first non-race exercise in 12 days and first real exercise in 8 days, I'm kind of just easing back into it. I ran 3 miles in 25:03 which is about 8:20min/mile. Eh, that's not bad.

Shoe mileage: 285 miles

Downfall

My current downfall is Peanut Butter M&M's and Cadbury Creme Eggs. Ugh.

Ironstar Race Report

Last weekend, I did the Ironstar Triathlon in Galveston, TX. It's the first race of the Texas Tri Series. It was also my first race since Ironman Florida so it's been about 5 months since my last race. I was taking a very relaxed approached to this race.

I drove down the day before the race. The weather was very nasty and rained about half the drive. That prevented me from getting my prerace workouts in. For lunch, I met with some people that I know from Slowtwitch and we met at Mosquito Cafe which was very, very good and I highly recommend this place to anyone. I wish they had this place in Austin and that's saying a lot. I just chilled out all day long, ate a lot at the pasta dinner that night, and actually went to bed pretty early. I actually got 8 hours of decent sleep the night before the race which is a first for me.

Got up the next day and had a bagel, peanut butter, yogurt, apple, Gatorade, and water. I also did my usual 3 RP's in the morning with 2 at the hotel room. I was still pretty calm most of the time. I got a little nervous, but I think the prerace jitters are fading as I become more of a veteran triathlete. I did a warmup swim which was the first workout in 3 days. Instead of giving the results at the end of this report, I'll give them to you know. BTW, this is a quarter Iron (965m swim, 28mile bike, 6.5mile run) so not quite an Olympic distance race.

Event - Time - Pace - Age Group Place - Overall Place
Swim - 19:01 - 1:58/100m - 5th - 82nd
T1 - 01:38 - N/A - 4th - N/A
Bike - 1:22:29 - 20.4mph - 6th - 84th
T2 - 01:13 - N/A - 10th - N/A
Run - 49:32 - 7:37min/mile - 10th - 110th
Overall - 2:33:56 - N/A - 6th - 74th

The Swim:
The gun went off and I thought I was going to get kicked in the nuts. I was jockeying for position and kept hitting other guys just treading water. However, no crotch kickage occurred and I was really happy about that. The first leg of the swim wasn't that rough, but I felt like I was getting off course a lot. I remembered my coaches training and tried to hop on someone's feet to draft off of. Well, I found some feet and these feet also knew that I found them. Every time I would touch them, they would start kicking and thrashing a lot trying to get me off the feet. I quickly recognized this and I started having some fun. About every 10 seconds, I would "Boop!" and touch the feet and the feet would begin kicking and thrashing again. I was quite amused with this for some reason. This guy was trying to get my off his feet, but all that it did was to make a lot more bubbles to make it easier to follow him and to waste energy kicking. It was fun for awhile but this guy would stop and look up to sight every few minutes. I decided to swim on my own and found another set of feet. I was on those feet for awhile but that guy also would stop swimming and look up to sight. This again, made me realize how good my coaches are and teaching us how to swim and sight at the same time. I would swim and look up just enough to get my eyes above the water to see the big orange buoys. It saved me from starting and stopping and just made it more efficient to swim. I was by myself for awhile and I saw some guys about 5m to the right swimming in a line. I tried to get over there but I thought they were too far off the buoy line so I decided to just go on my own. Well, that last guy that I was drafting off of got on my feet. Eh, nothing I can do really about that so I just kept swimming. I turned the last buoy and headed towards the swim exit. I picked up the pace a bit trying to get out of the water. I breathed on the right side about 80% of the time because that's just what felt comfortable this race. I felt like I had a pretty good swim. I was very relaxed and actually drafted off of people on the swim. I checked my time and I thought it was a little slow. I think the course was long especially considering that with my slow swim time, I still placed pretty high in my age group on the swim. I'm happy with my swim.

T1:
I had a pretty good T1. Very quick and I don't think I could have done much better. I had my shoes on my bike so I put on my sunglasses, my helmet, grabbed my bike and then I was off. I really like this T area because I call it a fair transition area. The swim in and the bike out are on the exact opposite corners so everyone has to go an equal distance through transition. I crossed the line and was on the bike.

Bike:
I pretty much stopped right and had to put my bike in the correct gear. I had it in the big chainring and that is something I forgot to do before the race started. I had some problems with getting my feet in my shoes and they were annoying me for about 1.5 miles. We got out of Moody Gardens and it was just a wall of wind. Not cool at all. A straight headwind for the next 13 miles wasn't fun. Felt like I was peddling in mud. The volunteers were great and the course was well marked. Not much to say about riding into the wind for 13 miles. My usual lower left back problems started up again and it wasn't fun. I drank 1 bottle of fluid going out and grabbed a bottle of Gatorade Endurance before the turn around. I turned around and I don't think I got under 25mph the entire way back. The tail wind was fun. Only problems that I had were the lower back problems which caused me to get out of aero a few times. I really need to figure out what the hell is going on with that. I came into the mount line and did my usual flying dismount. I really like it because it's fast and efficient. What I do is take out my feet from my shoes about a mile out so that I'm pedaling with my feet on top of my shoes. As I'm approaching the dismount line, I take my right leg and cross it over the top of my top tube. I put my right leg between my left leg and the bike frame. I usually lean the bike to the right give my right leg more space. I come in hard and fast and slow down just before the mount line. I usually slow down to an acceptable running pace so my right foot hits the ground and then I start running with my bike. This time, it felt like I was going to collapse though because my legs felt like jelly. Oh, I remember that feel now. Not fun. Oh, biking in a wet bike jersey isn't fun and I really need to get a Texas Iron tri jersey.

T2:
I took my time in T2. I didn't have speed laces on so I had to tie my shoes. Before that, I actually sat down to put on my socks. I just needed to do it because I was going to fumble with my socks for awhile standing up otherwise. I grabbed my hat, race belt, a bottle of fluids, and Gus and ran out of T2. Once again, I have a very simle T2 set up. When I was setting up in the morning, Eric Gilmore and I both noticed that we have minimal set ups compared to others. The common denominator here is that both of us are coached by Texas Iron. Hmmm, don't you find that interesting.

The Run:
I was now on the run. It hurt at first and I walked a bit as usual. I had 2 Gus in the back of my jersey and I threw them away because they were annoying me. I still had 2 more in the pockets of my shorts so I was good to go. Oh, I also threw in a small tube of Sports Slick shorts as well and that really paid off. My right arm and back was chafing so I put that on to help out. Also, I was getting chafed nipples and the Sports Slick helped. I get going but as usual, I had a ton of people passing me the entire time. It took me about 2 miles to feel like I was in a groove and getting comfortable, but I still put on my rally cap (upside down and to the side) though because I felt like I really needed it. After that, fewer people passed me. I kept plodding along and walked only 3 times for a total of 25 seconds the last 4.5 miles. Nothing really special. The course was really twisty which kept it interesting, but you really couldn't tell how far you were going. Volunteers were great. About the last mile or so, I picked up the pace and I actually passed one or two people shockingly. The last 400yards was close to a sprint as I could manage and I crossed the finish line. Total time was 49:32 for a pace of 7:37. That's a lot faster than I thought I could run so the course was either short or I had a really, really good day. It felt like I was running 9:00min/mile but that race is actually a PR pace for me for around a 10k race. Not bad.

I was done with the race with a time of 2:33:56. Not bad at all and I felt pretty good. I could've pushed a bit harder on everything, especially the run, but it's the first race of the season and I have a bit to work on. It was a good race and I'm not that disappointed with it. It was just a race to knock off the cobwebs. Now, I need to get my butt in gear and start training hard again.

Shoe milage: 282 miles

Lazy

Since my race last weekend, I haven't worked out at all. I've just been busy all week long. Monday was the new ink job. Tuesday was buying stuff to redo my bathroom. Wednesday was busy with work. Thursday was suppose to be a workout, but traffic was crazy so I went home and mowed the yard instead. Today was suppose to be a swim but can't swim with the new tattoo. I'm stressed out from work so I'm just sitting at home and trying to decompress. I need to get back into it because I've been grumpy all week long. Unfortunately, I'm getting lazy and I probably won't do my workouts tomorrow because the weather tomorrow is suppose to be a high of around 46 and rainy. Not fun. Maybe I'll get on the trainer tomorrow and go for a short run afterwards. Also, my weight is down to 186.5 after being at 192 on Monday which is up from 184 last Friday.

Also, my race report is coming soon.

Inked! Pt2

Here are a few other pics that are hopefully less shocking to SkiRough.

Calf pic after clean up
Closeup pic after clean up

Inked!

Well, I finally got my tattoo to celebrate my Ironman finish. Warning, these pics are of the bloody tattoo so you have been warned. IMO, they aren't that bad, though.

Pic 1
Pic 2

Whatcha think? I'm happy with it but I'm excited to see how it turns out once it's healed. The big "6" is suppose to be a medium gray and look to be in the background to get a 3D effect.

Getting this wasn't about as bad as I thought. It was very, very annoying but not really painful. I was the worst client though. I kept twitching throughout the entire time and almost messed the guy up a few times. He was saying stuff about it. I couldn't really control it that much. Afterwards, he suggested that if/when I get anything else done, to make sure I don't get any fine line stuff done until the twitching thing goes away. After that, I got up and kicked over a thing of ink. Then, I forgot to tip the guy because I didn't exactly know what tattoo etiquette was so I want back and gave him a tip about an hour later. I felt like a jerk, but I'm glad it's done. Will I get another one some day? I can't say yes or no at this moment.

BTW, I went to Michael at Southside Tattoo which is owned by Chris Gunn.