4-Day Update

I weighed in at 179 the last few days. That's good, but I'm concerned. I'm begining to believe that this weight loss might be from overtraining and not healthy weight loss. The last week or so it's been somewhat tough to get motivated to train and that's one sign of overtraining. Rapid weight loss is another sign. We'll see but I'm feeling much more trim now, too.

Wednesday was a missed core workout. Work juts got in the way.

Thursday was suppose to be a LT bike workout with Texas Iron, but the sky opened up and drowned the earth on our warmup lap. No real workout for me, then. When it started to rain, I put my bike in my car and then left. I wished I stayed and played in the rain for a bit.

Friday was a rest day.

Saturday was a 60min swim and then a 90min bike ride. My swim was actually only 52:07 and in that time I swam 3000yds. The workout was 400yds warmup, 6x400yds, and then 200yds cooldown. The 6x400 intervals were brutal. I went from 6:14 on the first one down to 5:57 on the last one and that last one really hurt, too. I think each one was faster than the previous one, too.

After that was an easy 90min ride. It was fairly uneventful until I was heading back to ATC. I was hammering it, put my head down, looked up just in time to see something in the road which I hit. Blew the tire out immediately. I changed the tire and noticed a slit in the side of the tire. At this point, another cyclist came up and helped me out and his name was Jim. He gave me some tape to use as a boot. I pumped up the tire and the tube was sticking out. Then, I had to get in touch with my inner McGyver and find something on the road to use as a boot. I used some thin cardboard found on the side of the road. It worked and it got me back to ATC. I was quite surprised because I was able to get 2 fillups out of my CO2 cartridge.

Today, I did a 8.2 mile run around Town Lake. Total time was 69:30 which put me at a 8:29 pace. That's OK since it was an easy run, but I really feel like my running fitness has gone to shit lately and I'm not getting it back at all. Also, my foot started to bother me again as well. This is a very annoying injury.

Shoe Mileage: 28.5 Miles

12.2%

I got my body fat measured today. I weighed in at 180lbs with 12.2% body fat. That means I have a lean mass of 158lbs and 22lbs of fat. That's not too bad. My last measurements were at 14.8%, 27.2 lbs fat, 156.8 lbs lean with 184 lbs overall. I think that was about 3 months ago so I've made a decent improvement in the last 3 months. I'm watching weight and I'm frustrated that I'm not losing weight that quickly, but I've lost 5 lbs of fat and gained 1.5 lbs of lean mass in that time. That leads me to the next thing. My body loves to put on weight. I'm doing endurance exercise and I have a calorie deficit almost every day, but I still put on muscle. What the fuck?

I had an easy 60min spin this morning. I have a core workout tonight. It'll hurt since I haven't been in a week.

BS Swim

Swam at BS this morning. Did 6 laps. Nothing special, but I get some chaffage on my the right side of the back of my neck. I need to start using BodyGlide there.

I've been having problems in the ball of my left foot. I called my PT yesterday and she said it might be a stress fracture. I went to the doc and get my foot X-rayed. No stress fracture which is good. We also ruled out Morton's neuroma. It's probably just some soft tissue problems of various degrees including plantar fasciitis. I'll be working on that for the next few days until I see my PT on Monday. Also, on Tuesday I'm getting reevaluated for my orthodics. They are suppose to last 2 years with normal use, but I'm in the middle of Ironman training so I'm sure that I've worn them out quicker. Also, I think my feet have changed since it seems like I need a metatarsal pad on my left foot.

My weight is steady at 179.5 this morning.

14.5 Miles - My Longest Run Ever!

I did 14.5 miles today around Town Lake Trail. That was my longest run ever which is awesome. The run felt fine. The last 2 miles were tougher, but they were easy. I was suppose to do 30min easy, 75min moderate, and then 15min easy. I soaked in Barton Springs afterwards and because of that, my legs are feeling fine right now. I need to stretch a bit, but other than that, I'm not hurting. I was suppose to swim, but BS was way too busy to attempt swimming there.

Speaking of pain, the ball of my left foot was bothering me, but not that badly. Well, it was maybe a 5 on the pain scale. It hurt but I could still run. Everything else with my legs felt fine.

Shoe Mileage: 20 Miles

I'm such a slacker

Today, I was suppose to do a 4 hr ride (70+ miles) and then a 50 min run afterwards. All I did was a very easy 56 miles at 16.2mph average. I rode with Meg and Logan and we didn't get started until 12:30. It was very, very hot. Also, the ball of my left foot is causing me trouble so I wanted to rest it again today before I put in 14 miles tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty bad about skipping the run though. Next week is a recovery weekend, the weekend after that is a hard weekend that I must complete everything, and then the weekend after that I'm in TN for my sister's wedding. I'm about 3.5 months out from IMFL so doing 70 mile rides and hour bricks afterwards may be a little too much. I'm also starting to feel slightly fatigued and overtrained so having an easier today isn't such a bad thing.

About my foot, I don't think the ball of my foot is bruised. I really think that there is something wrong with it. It even hurts when I'm cycling and it's been this way for over a week now. I'll see my PT next week and see if there is anything else that I can do. Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good. Not much is hurting on me. The back of my left knee/hamstring/gastroc issues have subsided a bit as well as my plantar fasciitis. I think the kinesiotape is a miracle tool for me. It just works and fixes things. I'll order some more soon.

Ok, time to weed eat the yard, run some errands, and then go drink a bit tonight.

It was hot yesterday

It was hot yesterday. Very hot. I went for a 40min run and I was completely drenched in sweat. I did a Texas Iron bike workout in the afternoon. Still freaking hot. Nearly 100 degrees. I had a decent run, but a great bike workout. Nothing special to report.

This morning, I weighed in at 179.5. I dropped 4 pounds since yesterday for some reason. It's probably dehydration because I was really, really thirsty after the workouts and I don't think I was taking in enough fluids. I'm also feeling sick with some head stuff going on as well. Not cool.

I'm really enjoying the tour this year. It's fun to watch not knowing who the hell is going to win. I think it would be a great slap in the face to the French (sorry guys, I'm biased against the French) that after Lance, another American wins Le Tour. Everyone still has a shot, but I'm pulling for Landis. He's having one hell of a year and after hip surgery after Le Tour, his cycling career is probably over. Way to go out with a bang, though.

Shoe mileage: 5 miles

Weight Is Back Up

My weight is back up to 183.5. I've been eating a little more lately because I've been hungrier and working out more, but I've been eating mostly clean foods, too. I'm going back to tracking my calories again. This is ridiculous that I'm working out 6 days a week and I'm gaining weight. I think I'm looking more toned, but I'll get my body fat % checked out soon, too.

I swam 2600yds yesterday. 400 warmup, 5x400 with each 100 faster than the last, and 200 cooldown. Nothing special. I skipped the J&A workout yesterday because I wasn't feeling that hot and I got caught up with work.

Today is going to be a tough day. I have a 50min run and then 1 hour+ bike ride. However, I got less than 6 hours of sleep last night with me waking up at 4am, having a lot of stuff on my mind, and not being able to go back to sleep. I also remembered that I had my alarm set for 6:15, but I walked out the door at 6. That'll wake my roommates up. Oops.

Felt good today

Did a swim with Texas Iron this morning at Barton Springs. Nothing special but I had slight problems breathing today. I was a dumbass though and though Jamie meant laps instead of lengths. I almost did a little too much this morning.

The run this evening was great. Did a 15 minute warmup. Then, we did 2x1 mile, 1x0.5 mile twice. A total of about 1.5 mile warmup and then 5 miles for the main set, and then another mile cooldown for a total of 7.5 miles. Wow, now that I think about it, that's a decent run for tonight. Each mile was at about an 8:00/mile pace which what the workout called for tonight.

I've been having issues with the ball of my left foot hurting after a run. I talked to Geoff and Jamie and they said to get new shoes. Well, the problem is that I only put 150-200 miles on the Brooks Glycerin 4's before I start getting foot pain. I went to RunTex, Geoff was working today, and I ended up getting a pair of New Balance 1060's. I'm breaking them in now to see if they are any better than the Glycerin's.

Now, I'm about to shower and then go to bed. Hopefully, I'll take a nice huge dump in the morning. If not, I'm eating 3 bowls of All Bran tomorrow.

Something's Missing

Oh, I know what it is. I haven't taken a significant dump in over 2 days now. I think this weekend really fucked up my system and I haven't had to do a #2 in 2 days now. This is very, very odd for me because I'm usually going to the office twice a day at least. Yay, fiber. I don't feel bad because of it, but it's just weird that my bidaily dump isn't happening.

12.3 Miles

That's how far I ran today. I tried to take in nice and slow because I haven't done any distance since BSLT and I barely did any distance the couple of weeks before BSLT. Also, I had very dead legs from the ride yesterday. Like I said, I started off slow because my goal was to just make it through. It was tough immediately and it didn't get much better. I took in a couple of gels and some salt tablets. My iPod died at about Mile 4 or so. I was really, really thirsty the entire time and every water stop I took in 6 cups of water whereas most of the time I only take in 3 or so. I also rested a lot at these stops. I wasn't trying to simulate race conditions, but I was just trying to get through the workout today.

Afterwards, I went to Barton Springs, soaked my legs, swam 3 laps, and didn't see any boobies. Walking back to my car was very tough because my legs hurt so badly. Now I'm at home and I'm going to stretch out my legs and do some PT while I watch the World Cup.

You ain't experienced pain until you experience taint pain

I had a 3.5 hour ride to do today. I got a route from Mark and headed out at about 10 this morning. I got all the way to San Marcos before I had to turn around. I stopped at some light and when it turned green, I tried to take off. I attempted to put my right cleat into the pedal. Instead, it slipped and the entire weight of my body fell onto the nose of the saddle. It hit right in my taint and let me tell you that that doesn't feel good at all. My balls hurt, my dick hurt, and my asshole hurt all from one finely placed saddle nose. I tried to keep moving through the light, but the pain was way too much. I pulled over to some store to let the pain subside and I'm glad that I did. I was starting to see spots, I was getting lightheaded, and I felt like vomiting all at the same time. Not good at all. I got off my bike pretty quickly and laid down on the ground. After a couple of minutes, the pain in my kidneys, my crotch, and my stomach subsided. I don't think I did any major damage, so I gingerly got back on my bike and kept going.

Let me tell you that that saddle nose hit just the right spot to make all of my intimate areas hurt really, really badly. Not fun.

After that incident, I kept up the ride fine. I ended up doing 70 miles in a time of 3:37 for an average speed of 19.2mph. This has been my longest bike ride in a long, long time. Then, I stupidly tried to run off the bike after that. I was suppose to do 50 minutes, but I thought I would try 30 minutes around my neighborhood since this was a long ride and this was my toughest workout since Buffalo Springs. I'll just try to ease back into it. Well, the run was the most painful run that I've had in quite a long time. I walked about 10 times and took me about 35 minutes to do a loop that usually takes me 31 minutes. I just hurt and was worn out.

With all of this riding, I took in I think 9, maybe 10 or 11, bottles of fluid during the ride by filling up at gas stations. After the ride, I weighed 177.5 which is 3 lbs off of the 180.5 that I weighed this morning. That means I dropped a fucking shitload of fluid out there today through sweat. I didn't take in too many calories today; 2 bottles of InfinIT, 2 rice crispy treats, and 1 Gu. Ok, that's maybe 1000 calories so that isn't so bad. Towards the end of the ride, my legs were getting pretty tired. Ofcourse the run sucked and now that I'm sitting on my couch, I don't want to move at all. I'm completely wiped out right now. I'm not really sore, but just tired and struggling to keep my eyes open while I watch Stage 7 of Le Tour. Man, it's a shitty day for American riders.

It was good that I'm trashed today because it shows that I still have a ton of work to do before IMFL and this just gives me more motivation to do what I need to do to kick ass at IMFL. It's less than 4 months away!

Thursday

Thursday was another brick workout with Texas Iron. After 2 warmup loops we did bike loop, run loop, bike loop, run loop, bike loop, run loop. Nothing really special, but I should've pushed it harder on the last run loop. I had too much energy left afterwards. It hurt running though since I hadn't run in about 5 days.

I weighed in at 181.5 this morning. I should be lower after this weekend since I have some long, tough workouts ahead of me.

One problem though. I have a monster wart on my foot. I went to the doc today and he froze part of it. Now I can't walk very well because it hurts a lot. I'll try it out tomorrow on my brick workout and see if I can run on Sunday since I have a 1.75 hour run. If not, I'm not going to get anymore treatments for this wart since IMFL is less than 4 months away and I have to run.

Swim

I swam 2100 yds this morning. Did about a 500yd warmup and then 16x100yds steady pace. I was pushing a bit and I did the entire workout in about 40 minutes which is great freaking time. Deep Eddy was very cold and very empty which is nice. I would've swam another 4x100 and then a 200yd cooldown but I had to get to work. My lats and arms overall are still sore from the workout on Monday. I really wish I could hit every one of those workouts for a month but fucking work gets in the damn way too often. If I hit them up for a month, I think I would make great progress.

I'm also feeling fat and lazy today. I weighed in at 183 but that's expecting since I drank 3 times this past weekend. Man, the older I get the less place alcohol has in my life. I drink from time to time but I can't remember the last time I was actually drunk. I'll be drinking when I go home for my sister's wedding and even then I'll probably have just 3-4 drink throughout a night with my family and that's saying a lot that it's that few.

4th Update

Yesterday was suppose to be a rest day, but as usual I did the J&A core workout. Today I'm pretty sore in my arms and my stomach. Swimming this morning was interesting. I was also suppose to run today but I skipped it. I just didn't feel like it and I wasn't feeling good either. I feel bad because I really needed to run because I'm not going to get another run in until Saturday or Sunday. Well, there is the TexasIron brick workout on Thursday so that'll be a run. I don't think I'm fully recovered from Buffalo Springs yet, but resting up a lot this weekend will probably help a bit. I also have gotten a lot of sleep lately.

Le Tour

Man, I'm excited that the Tour de France is back, but it's tough to go out for an easy 75 minute ride like your coaches said to when you watch Le Tour in the morning.

Today was McDonald's Day

As I posted before, I ate McDonald's today. I had a Number 2 combo which is a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. I also had an extra cheeseburger which was horrible, but the Quarter Pounder was actually decent. Well, now when someone says "I can't remember the last time I ate at McDonald's!", I can turn around and tell them exactly when the last time I ate McDonald's. Also, I'm feeling like crap already.

Buffalo Springs Race Report

After almost being done with my report on Tuesday night and me doing something stupid on the computer to erace the entire report, I've now found time to rewrite the report. Right now I'm watching the Prologue for Le Tour so since I'm sitting on my ass, I might as well type at the same time.

Buffalo Springs was my first half Ironman that I attempted and expected to complete. I tried to do Ironstar last year, but I DNF'ed about 1 mile into the run. Life was really rough at that point and my training wasn't there. Also, during the run, a running injury was acting up so I was expecting to DNF if something bothered me. I was prepared for the race and I wasn't going to risk further injury at a race that wasn't going to be phenomenal.

I was ready for Buffalo Springs. Of course I've had some running injuries acting up back in April, but those are mostly recovered. I left on Friday with Mike Coker. We met up with Meg, Charles, Anna, and Logan. The trip up to Lubbock was quite boring. The only interest things were the trail mix and the FlyingJ. About the trail mix, we stopped at a gas station. I got out my trail mix and left it on the top of my car. I drove off, heard this scraping sound for about 5 seconds and watched the trail mix fall off the back of my new Outback. BTW, my Outback did great on its first road trip. So, trail mix falls off, but it is saved! It falls off and lands on my rear window wiper. And with the joys of modern technology, Mike took a picture of it:

http://tri.phat32.com/photos/Buffalo_Springs_2006/P6230680.JPG

Yeah, that's a one in a million shot right there.

The FlyingJ was interesting. We stopped in Abilene to get some food and we just couldn't find anything healthy. All we could find were various Asian cuisines and fast food. We drove some more and stopped at the FlyingJ which had a Country Market restaurant attached. It was funny watching 6 fit, healthy people go into the restaurant, check out the buffet bar, walk out with their noses turned up, and say "Ugh, I guess I can eat here. There's nothing better around." We discovered an Italian menu that was better to eat from, but we completely stuck out in that place.

We pulled into Lubbock at around 9:30pm. Unfortunately, the only room that they had left when I made my reservation was a smoking room. Yay, it reminded me of my parents' homes and why I don't go home anymore. I think I had withdrawal symptoms for a few days afterwards. Other than smelling like ass, the room was decent.

Saturday wasn't that special. Mike and I got up, went to the race site, did a short swim, bike, and run, and then headed back to the rooms. We picked up our packets and headed back to the hotel room. Mike wanted to chill out in his room so I went to dinner with some Texas Iron folks. I was OK about this race until around 4pm that day. For some reason at that point, I started getting really nervous about the race. I was worried about the descents on the bike and the entire run. I mean, I've done the training and I know I'm ready, but I just got really nervous and anxious, mostly because this is my first race over an Oly where I have a shot at finishing. I had a ton of pasta at the Italian place and then went back to the hotel room. I chilled out and tried to go to bed at around 8:30. I just couldn't sleep. I was up until around 11:30 or so that night. Nerves and anxiousness for the race as well as other stuff going on in my life lately were on my mind. Not a great way to spend a night before a half Ironman.

I woke up the next and felt like crap. Well, I was just tired because the entire night before was very restless sleep. I got up, ate and got ready. I had everything laid out on the other bed so it was pretty easy to pack everything up. From training so much the last almost 2 years now, getting up at 4am isn't so bad anymore. I had 3 RP's even before I left the hotel room that morning. I met mike at 5 and we left for the course. I'm glad I talked Mike into leaving early because there was a long line to get to the parking area for the race. I like showing up as early as possible because you just never know what'll happen. Got parked, got our bikes out of the car, and started heading down to the transition area. Of course, I was still full of nervous energy.. It seemed like it took me forever to get my gear ready in the morning. I just felt rushed and nervous. I chatted with some other TexasIron guys as well. I got ready, and headed out of the T area. I ate my last ClifBar, had my Gatorade, and had my 4th and last RP.

At this point, it was about 20 minutes from the start of my wave and the pros had just gone off. I put on my wetsuit and got into the water. Once I got in the water, I relaxed a bit because I had a way to burn off some of my energy. Got out of the water and queued up behind the wave in front of me. I was still quite nervous though. The wave before us went off and now it was the fast, aggressive, and mean 25-29 men. I was still very nervous, but I lined up in an aggressive swim start position. I lined up on the inside and the second row from the front. finally, though, I calmed down. About 2 minutes from the horn blowing, I became absolutely calm and collected. I knew I could do this. I've done the work and I had nothing to worry about. I wished Geoff from TexasIron good luck and just chilled. The horn went off and my race had begun.

The first 500yds or so of the swim weren't fun. I wasn't comfortable and I couldn't get into a rhythm. I was breathing on almost every stroke on the right side. I got hit in the head a few times, I was swimming on top of people a lot and had people swimming on top of me. I had some guy's chest on my feet but a couple of hard kicks later and miraculously, my feet were clear. After the first left turn, I went to the inside of the course and just stopped. I took off my goggles, cleared them off water, put them back on, and just sat there for a few seconds. I had to catch my breath, scope out the rest of the course, and just regained my composure. I'm glad that I did this because after that I had a great swim. I relaxed, got into a rhythm and kept going. I passed 2 huge packs of swimmers from the previous wave, but I was also started to pass some orange caps, my wave, as well. I tend to do this where I get dropped fairly quickly in the beginning, but I end up passing people after awhile. I took the final left turn and started heading to the swim exit and I passed what seemed like at least 5 people in my age group in the last 500 meters.

I got up to the swim exit and had people help me out of the water. I really like this because I'm always dizzy and discombobulated out of the water. I had people trying to get my pull cord free and I was waving them off. I can do that on my own. I ran through the T area, but not that fast. My platar fasciitis was acting up so it didn't feel good to run on asphalt in bare feet. Also, I was just taking this race easy. It took me forever to get out of T1. I had a ton of stuff to put in my jersey pockets. I came out of T1 and passed the mount/dismount line by a few yards. Everyone bottlenecks up there and I just wanted to get out of that mess. I don't do the shoes on the pedals thing because with my current pedals, they unclip way too easily and I've dropped shoes twice in races this year alone.

I got clipped in and I was on the bike. Turq gave me some advice before the race. He said to not power up the first 2 hills and just to take them easy. I followed this advice pretty well. I got up out of the saddle, but I just needed to get my legs moving, but I didn't spike my heart rate at all. After these 2 hills, we were on some flats in the park with a decent tailwind. Nice! I headed out of the park and then headed back into the wind. Not nice! I tried to ease into the bike. I felt fine at first and like I wasn't pushing too hard. It felt good, but fast. Around Mile 18 though, I started having problems. One thing were that my hip flexors were starting to hurt already. Secondly, I was getting chaffing on some soft tissues in my crotch that don't feel that good. I found out that it is probably the edge of the pad in my shorts that's rubbing. Nothing I could do so I kept going.

Headwinds were punishing, tailwinds were great, and crosswinds were squirrely. I was bombing the straight downhills and taking it strong but not too strong on the hills. My fluid plan was working out well. I started out with a bottle of InfinIT with about 320 calories in it. I sucked on this for 30 minutes and then switched to a bottle of water for another 30 minutes. I kept up this pattern for the race which yielded me 3 bottles of InfinIT with about 1000 calories and 3 more bottles of water. I was also taking in Thermolytes, based upon Jamie's suggestion, the entire race. I was feeling good, but starting to hurt a bit. The first 20 miles took forever to go through, but 20-40 were better. The course is straight and mostly flat, but there is nothing to really look at which makes it very, very boring and therefore mentally challenging. I kept riding and my chaffing pain went away, but my hip flexor pain was growing. Not a good sign. I was actually looking forward to the hills so that I could get out of my saddle and stretch my hip flexors. I was also having lower left back pain which I only get in races, never in training. Weird.

At around Mile 40, I had some issues. I looked down and back and saw that my saddleback wasn't doing good. I should've replaced it before, but I just didn't. The two saddle straps had come off and it was hanging on only by the seatpost strap. I reached down, took it off, and put it in my jersey pocket. About a mile later, I hit a bump and the saddle bag came out. What happened is that my race belt was going around the middle of my jersey pockets which kept the saddle bag from going all the way into the pocket. I stopped, picked up the bag, and kept going. I was passed by about 5 guys and I had caught up with all of them within 10 minutes. I got stopped on hte bottom of the longest hill and I was able to catch up with them by powering up the hill.

I was heading back to the transition area and I was feeling good. My average speed was a little lower than what I wanted, but my hip flexors were on fire. I was also trying to push but yet save myself for the run as well. Luckily, heading back into the race site was a great tailwind. At one point, I saw Eric Gilmore, a fellow TexasIron athlete, ahead of me. When he heard me yell at him, he picked up the pace and of course, I kept up. For most of the race, I was in the 95-100rpm range. At this point, I had nice, flat, smooth roads with a tailwind. I was pusing 80-85rpm in a big gear and doing 25-26mph. I finally passed Eric and kept going. He said something like "I'm just waiting to get my running shoes on!" or something like that. It seems that Eric and I have developed some friendly competitiveness which is good because I push him on the swim and the bike and he pushes me on the run. I turned into the park and hit a headwind. Not fun going back into the transition area. My hip flexors were gone, but I don't need them on the run. Other than that, I felt pretty good.

I came down the last hill and headed into the T2 area. I came in fast and stopped short of the dismount line. Once again, I wasn't in a rush through T2. I didn't have much stuff to grab, but I grabbed it and headed out. I saw Megan on the way out and gave her a high five. This run was going to be brutal and it was going to be a test of my will power and determination to get through it. I realized a few days later that before this race, I had run more than 12 miles at once only twice before. Interesting.

Of course, the first mile and a half hurt. I stopped at the first portapotty and peed. It was the only time that I peed the entire race even with taking in almost 150oz of fluid on the bike. I then stopped at the first aid station. At previous races, I've taken in 2 cups of fluid, poured 1 cup on my head, and poured 1 cup down my crotch to cool me off. Well, this last step wasn't that fun this time. I poured the water down my shorts, and immediately stopped in my tracks because of the pain. Apparently, my chaffing issue got worse even though it really didn't hurt. The cold water mixed with the sweat and completely stung my chaffed area. I was wondering how I was going to keep going because this hurt really badly. Well, I just kept putting one foot in front of another and kept pushing. After about 45-60 seconds, the pain from my crotch went away. I was still hurting getting used to the run, but I eased up at about 2 miles into the run. I got my running legs and did pretty well climbing the first hill. I wasn't pushing myself, but I was still passing people. At around Mile 3, I saw Mark sitting underneath a tree. I also saw Betsy coming in from the bike at this point as well and I cheered her on. I was chatting with people as well and then we turned and hit a downhill. I've been practicing downhills and I try to put some time between me and others on the downhill. Having big quads and being a little heavier than other runners makes this easy. I powered down the hill, hit the Mile 4 rest stop and kept putting one foot in front of the other.

My nutrition plan for the run was to take some gels that have 150cals and 230mg of sodium per packet. I think I took them at Miles 2, 5, 8, and 11. In between, I took a Thermolyte at each rest stop. Because of this, I felt fine, no cramps, but I was a little tired. After Mile 4, there was another big hill. This one, I walked a total of about 10 seconds up that hill whereas everyone else was walking. That felt good. I topped the hill and then took a right turn down the most brutal part of the run. This was a little more than 1.5 miles out and then 1.5 miles back. Going out was a false flat up and then a slight downhill after the midway point. There was absolutely nothing to look at except other runners. I was talking to people and cheering on people I know and this helped me to keep going. After turning around, I started struggling mentally. I was walking the aid stations a lot and actually walking about 10 yards before the aid stations and 10 yards after the aid stations. I shouldn't have done this because it wasn't really giving me that much race. I just need to be tougher mentally next time. I finished the out and back and then turned left to go back down the hill.

I powered down the hill again and was cheering on others. At the bottom of the hill, I hit Mile 9 and it was getting tough. One guy in my age group started battling back and forth at this point. He got a head of me, but I passed him on the last big hill. He passed me on the flat, and I passed him on the downhill. At the bottom of the hill, I think I had about 20yds on him. I stopped at the aid station and he just flew by. I couldn't keep up because my energy was waning quickly. I tried to get some Dr. Pepper at that aid station to keep me going because I've heard of several people that do that. The caffeine and sugar keeps them going. I tried some Dr. P and I didn't like it. Too sweet and syrupy. It would have been great if it was warm and flat, but cold and fizzy is not cool.

I kept going. At some point, a 37 year old woman caught up with me and she and I ran together for about a mile. I was getting really, really tired. At the last aid station, I stopped again and she kept going and put some time on me. Well, I had nothing else to lose so I just kept going. The last mile was very, very tough. I walked maybe a total of 4 times the entire run and 2 of them were in the last mile. I almost stopped a couple of other times but someone passed me or someone cheered me on and kept me going. There was no reason for me to stop. I was still going strong, but I was just getting lazy and tired. I finally started hearing the announcer at the finish line and I was so happy about this. I was almost done. Someone said "100yd to the finish!" and I picked up the pace the best I could. As I was approaching the line, I tried to raise my arms. I couldn't do it; I was zapped on energy. I tried one arm. A little bit better. Finally, as I crossed the line, I put both arms up and I was done. I kept walking and I felt drained. I left everything on the course. I kept walking because I did not want to stop. I walked past the med tent and went to get some food and water. Damnit, no pizza! All I want afterwards is pizza! Bagels, fruit, beer, water and Gatorade.

I saw Andrea, Geoff, and Jamie. They asked my time and I said I think I crossed at 5:08. I crossed at 5:28 minus 20 minutes because of my wave and yep, 5:08ish was what I did. I was happy about this. I kind of wanted sub-5, but 5:08 is amazing and I'm happy with it. When the results came out, my official time was 5:07:59. I had a swim time of 28:31 which is good with a pace of 1:30, but the swim was about 150m short. Put me 19th in my age group. T1 was 2:10 but I knew that was slow. My bike was good with a 2:43:10 which is an average of 20.59mph which is also 19th in my age group. T2 was 1:43 which is OK, but I had a run time of 1:52:25. That put me at an 8:35min/mile pace and I'm happy about that considering this run course was very brutal. That put me at 22nd on the run, but 19th overall in my age group. This race was odd because I'm usually higher on the bike, higher on the swim, but lower on the run. I was pretty consistent in my age group across each leg which is odd. I'll take it because it means that my run is getting better.

I learned a lot this race. I want to run more and get better at running off the bike. My fluid intake technique worked this time and this race is hot and brutal. I need to do something about my hip flexors because it isn't going to be fun in Florida with burnt out hip flexors at Mile 20. I can do well in the heat, and I just need to not worry about the races. I'm sure I'll be nervous for IMFL, but I won't be for another HIM anymore.

Of course, my coaches have been great and they helped out a lot with training. Well, I don't have much to say but it took me almost 2 hours to write this, no wait, almost 4 hours since I lost it all on Tuesday night.

Well, I had a good race, it hurt, but I had fun. Thanks everyone for your support.

It's the "cheese"!

So, I've posted a decent amount about the afternoon GI issues that I have. At one point, I thought that it was something in lunch meat that causes me issues. Then, when I bring in chicken or salmon to eat for lunch, I don't have the GI issues that afternoon. I've been playing around with different lunch items that may cause me to cut the cheese all afternoon long. Well, I think it's the "cheese". I put fat free cheese on my sandwiches for lunch. Today, I didn't put cheese on my sandwich and my afternoon gasiness is nonexistant. That's about the only thing that I can think of that's different today. Next week, I'll play with putting the fat free cheese on my sandwiches and then not putting it on the next day.

Man, if it's the "cheese" that's causing me to cut the cheese, I'll feel so much better when I'm not eating it anymore.

Not Sore

I'm no longer sore. Well, not just walking around, but if you touch me the right way, I'll hurt a bit. I've been hitting the foam roller and TP ball every day and that is helping a lot.

Regarding my afternoon GI issues, I think regular lunch meat causes me the issues. Yesterday, I had salmon and Spanish rice for lunch and I didn't notice much GI issues. Today, it's 3:30 and my stomach is starting to feel funny. I'll try some more stuff out though, but I think it is the lunch meat.

My race report is coming soon. As I said before, I was almost done with it and then the computer ate it.

Suckage

You know what sucks? When you are typing up the next to last paragraph of about a 20 paragraph race report and you do something stupid to make to go away. Fuck, that sucks. I'll work on it again tomorrow at work.

Sore, not anymore

After Buffalo Springs on Sunday, I was pretty sore immediately after the race. I loosened up a bit during the day though. Monday was pretty painful, especially with my hamstrings, IT band, and lateral quads. I worked with a TP massage ball and the foam roller for about an hour last night. Today, I did an easy 1500yd swim and then 40min on the spin bike. I'm almost back to normal now. I'm actually recovering pretty quickly and that'll be sped up by more TP ball and foam roller work tonight.

Also, my race report is coming soon.

179.5!

Hah, I'm finally under 180. Woohoo! I'm starting to carb load today so by race day I'll be up to 186 or something crazy like that in 3 days. Then, I'll drop it all next week.

I went for a swim this morning. Short swim of 1500yds with 500 warmup, 6x100 at best average pace, and 2x200 cooldown. The water was cold this morning, or my comfort zone is changing because I'm losing weight. Even dropping 2 pounds in the last 2 weeks has really affected me. I'm almost always cold now and it isn't fun.

Swimming @ The Dick

I went swimming at Dick Nichols pool again this morning. I like that pool. It's clean, not crowded, and 25yds. It's kind of warm, but most pools are at this time of the year. I did about 1800yds with a 500 warmup, 5x100 build each 25, 12x50 with 25 fast, 25 steady, and then 200 cooldown.

As I was eating an apple for breakfast this morning, I realized that I haven't had any good produce in awhile. The Pink Lady apples are tasty, but the texture of the flesh isn't good. They are soft and aren't as crips. I really like Braeburn apples, though. And Gala. I had an absolutely horrible orange yesterday. It was just nasty and I couldn't finish it at all. I've had some bad strawberries lately as well. Man, I just want some yummy produce.

For supplements, I'm on a new fish oil, glucosamine & chondroitin, and a multivitamin in the morning. At night, I take ZMA when I remember. I haven't noticed the crappy feeling like I did last time and I'm not on the B complex vitamins anymore. I was on the B complex vitamins because my nutritionist said that antidepressants tend to deplete your body of B vitamins. Since I'm not the Lexapro anymore, I shouldn't need additional B complex vitamins.

My weight this morning was 180.5. I was also up at 4am because I couldn't sleep. Way too much crap on my mind right now, but the swim this morning helped it out a bit.

181, kinda

Yesterday I weighed in at 180. Today was 181 and that was after me going out and having about 4 beers last night. So, I take this as a good sign that I'm actually starting to lose weight again. About damn time! I think I'm getting slightly more toned as well.

Today is suppose to be a rest day since Buffalo Springs is coming up next weekend, but I'm going to do the J&A core workout today. I think doing some strength training/core workouts like that really helps me out in the long run, especially when I'm trying to lose weight. It's weird, but that's what I did when I dropped 15+ lbs in 2 months in college. I did some cardio, watched what I was eating, and lifted weights a lot. Man, that was fun. I still can't believe that I weighed just 168 at that point. Hopefully I'll be able to get down there again. Right now, I'm looking forward to 179.

The beer last night was part of a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Fund put on by the Austin LUNA Chix. It started at about 6, I showed up at 6:30, and I was home by 8:45. Man, I passed out on my couch at about 9:15. Four beers and I was gone for the night. I'm getting old or something.

Weird

Ok, I swear today's workout was like a Seinfeld episode or something. Just a bunch of weird stuff happening.

First off, I pulled into Zilker Park at around 8:30 to try to get in there before I had to pay for parking. I told the parking attendant, some youngish girl, that I was going to Barton Springs. And she says "Wow, you have beautiful eyes!" and waved me on. I said "Thanks", smiled, and went on. That's a nice way to start my day.

I got in the water and aquajogged a lap. At this point, it was 9am so I got out and paid. When I got back in, I finished up 3 more laps of aquajogging. Damn, it's boring, but I think now that I can do 4 laps of aquajogging, I can do any mind numbingly boring task. It used to take me about 25 minutes to do a lap, and I can now do a lap in under 17 minutes. I'm not using my arms much at all either, I'm just using the running motions to propel myself through the water very, very slowly, but not as slowly as I used to.

Towards the end of my aquajogging, it happened. I've always heard about it, but I've never witnessed it with my own eyes. Topless girls. Yep, there were two girls swimming around Barton Springs topless. Now, they weren't that attractive, but it was cool more for the novelty of it. It was funny though because when I was doing a recovery swim, I was heading to the dam at the far end of the pool. I was heading into the shadows and I saw something right as I was grabbing for the pipes. I look left and it was Topless Girl #1. I look right and Topless Girl #2 was about 3 feet away. I apologized for almost crashing into the topless girls and I kept on swimming. It was funny because all of these old perverted men were trying to find anything to say to them.

I did my 4 laps and got out of the water. I'm freezing right now, but I'm drinking my vanilla yogurt, protein powder, lowfat chocolate milk, peanut butter, strawberry, and mixed berry smoothie right now which is also cooling me off.

At PT last week, Kathryn found that my left hamstring is still super tight. I'm going to take my TP ball and try to work on the hamstring about twice a day to get it to loosen up a bit. I'm going to do a full round of PT exercises as well. I need to stick with this PT a little bit better so that I can recover fully.

July 1st will be McDonald's Day

July 1st will be McDonald's Day. What does that mean? I'll eat at McDonald's at least twice, probably 3 times that day. I'll do it to get it out of my system. After July 1st, I'll never eat at McDonald's again. How many people you know say "I can't remember the last time I've eaten at McDonald's!" Well, I currently can't remember, but I want to remember right down to the day that I last ate at McDonald's. The last day that I had a cigarette was January 4th, 2006 and I've gone nearly 6 months without a single puff. I've been tempted, but I won't smoke again. I want to do the same thing with McDonald's because it represents all of the fast food industry. Now, I'll still probably eat fast food because I occaisionally eat at Wendy's, Whataburger, Taco Bell, Taco Cabana, and Sonic from time to time, but it's maybe 2-3 times per month at most.

It's funny because I used to work at a McD's in high school. I was a damn good employee, too. I worked there for over a year and ofcourse I ate their food all the time. I was working 40 hours per week while going to school, still made straight A's, but all of my food was coming in the form of greasy burgers and fries. Man, when I was a teenager, my metabolism was through the roof and I ate a ton of food. I can't imagine what damage I did to my body that year and a half I worked there. I wouldn't even consider it now. I only have 1 more day of eating at McDonald's and then I'm done with it, hopefully forever.

Rainy day turned sunny

Shit, I was in a foul mood this morning. I had been on Friday because I hadn't worked out since Wednesday night. Thursday was the date (no core workoutns involved) and 2 doctor appointments. Friday, I felt like crap in the morning, I sold my car, balanced my finances in Quicken, and went to bed. I wasn't feeling well and I decided I needed sleep more than a swim. I woke up this morning after about 10 hours of sleep to thunderstorms. Damnit, no taco ride then. I went and ran some errands instead. Later in the day, the sun came out and it was in the 80's. I went for a 2.5 ride and got in about 50 miles so I was averaging close to 20mph. That was with all the stopping and crap that I had to do as well. It was pretty damn windy today. Very swirly and just all over the place. I felt good the entire ride and went through 5 bottles of fluid on the ride. I only peed once, though. I seriously think I need 60oz of water per hour or something like that. I started off with 2 bottles of InfinIT IM formula which has 300 calories per bottle and 2 bottles of water with a single Nuun tablet. I also stopped at some bike shop on Bee Caves and filled up with plain water there. I felt fine the entire ride. I actually felt great when I was done. I could tell that I worked today, but not fatigued at all. I was suppose to do a 30min run afterwards, but my doctor doesn't want me running for a few days.

Oh, that reminds me, I saw the doc on Thursday about my wart. I wanted him to nuke it from orbit to get rid of it because it's screwing up my running gait. He said to lay off of the acid that I'm putting on it and lay off of running for a few days. The acid is creating fissures in the healthy skin around the wart and running is causing a callous to form on top of the wart. He'll take a look at it in 2 weeks and scrape off some of the skin to see how it looks. This sucker is huge and I can't wait to get rid of it. I have pictures of the original wart if anyone wants to see it.

I feel like crap

I'm feeling slightly sick today. I only had 2 drinks last night, but I was feeling wiped out last night from them. This morning I have some head stuff going on and I'm really, really tired. I'm suppose to swim tonight, but we'll see if I do that or not. I may just call it an early night, get 10 hours of sleep, and then go ride in the morning on the taco ride.

BP

I got my BP checked today at the doctor's office. It's 118/68 with a pulse of 61bpm. My blood pressure is much better than it was about 2 weeks ago when it was 135/78. My pulse is still high which is strange because it should be lower from all the training that I'm doing. I would expect it to be under 54 by now, closer to 50.

Wednesday was crazy

Wednesday was crazy. It was probably a little too much, but I felt like I had to do it anyways. I did about a 6 mile fartlek run at lunch. I should've done it in the morning, but with Buffalo Springs coming up, I'm trying to get as many workouts in the heat in as possible. This one was hot and my arms were tingly afterwards, too. Not a good sign, but I felt like I ran pretty strong the entire time. The loop around work is weird because it doesn't matter how fast or how slow I run, it always feels like I always finish a loop within 30 seconds of every other loop that I've done before.

I went to the J&A core workout again. I really need to keep getting to these because they kick my ass. My abs were so sore from Monday that I could only do 1 pullup at the beginning. I just had shooting pain down the front of my torso when I did that first pullup. After the workout and I was warmed up, I think I did 5 chinups and 4 pullups which surprised me that I did that many when I was that fatigued. Afterwards, I did a 10 minute cooldown run with Meg.

After that, I went to Deep Eddy and swam about 8x200yds there. It was nice and easy and I was working on my form. I also wanted to do a cool water swim since it was really hot outside and my legs are starting to feel trashed. Speaking of, I need to schedule a massage with Ron next week.

Nice calves!

I was walking into work this morning and 2 ladies that I work with were walking behind me. They were making comments about my calves. Of course I had to stop and flex for them and they enjoyed the show.

I was suppose to do a run workout today, but I'm not. I just don't have time. I'm worn out from working out the last 2 days, I have 2 doctor appointments today, and a date later tonight. So, no time for me, but it's OK.

I also weighed in at 180 this morning. I think it's mostly due to me being dehydrated slightly so I'm not that excited about it. I'll be excited when I register at 178.

Abs Hurt

I did the J&A's core workout on Monday. I'm sore now and it hurts to sneeze. My lats are pretty sore as well. So sore that it was an interesting swim on Tuesday morning. I went to a new pool, Dick Nichols, that is near my house actually. It isn't as crowded as Stacy, it is cleaner than Stacy, and it's cooler that Stacy. And it's 25yds so I'm quite happy with it and I'll be swimming there from now on. Problem is that lap swimming is open only from 6:30-7:30am so if I want to get an hour swim in, I have to be there right at 6:30.

I did the Tuesday Nighter last night. I was told to meet at Pure Austin at 5pm and there would be a group riding out from there. I showed up and the only person that I recognized was Amy Marsh, Brandon's wife. Well, she didn't know anyone else and it was her first time there as well so we rode out there together with the group. She also had some cash and bought me Gatorade because I forgot my wallet at work. It was over 100 degrees when we left so it was going to be hot!

We rode out there fairly easily and I got better at riding in a group. I don't have problems taking turns behind someone, but I'm a little sketchy on turning next to someone. I practiced these skills out there. Once we got there, I recognized Scott and maybe one or two others. This is definitely a roadie race because there were few triathletes there. The A's left and then the B's waited about 5 minutes. Then, I was off.

The first half lap was kind of slow. About 3 miles, the pace picked up a bit and at one point there were some guys that tried to pull off the front. They were separating from the pack and I didn't want to get dropped so I powered through and caught on to the back of that pack. We were absolutely flying and I was loving it. It was scary as hell but it's what I expected. Taking some of the corners were pretty scary though and it was good that I was getting used to it. I was sticking with the main back pretty well, but it was tough because they were moving fast. I'm just not used to that type of racing, but I'm pretty good in time trial efforts. I tried to rest whenever I could. There was one right turn that I didn't know about and there was a hill after that as well and I was totally in the wrong gear. I had to work my ass off to catch up with the rest of the group.

I kept up with the lead pack for the 1st lap. Amy got dropped at the right turn with the following up hill, but I was able to recover. On the first lap, I climbed up the hill pretty strongly. Well, that was my downfall. As I was cresting the hill, there was some random guys attacking and I tried to keep up by barrelling down that hill. This didn't allow me a chance to rest at all. After another right turn and some rollers, I quickly dropped off the back of the pack while I was fighting so hard to stay on, but I just couldn't. My race was done, but I was still going to push. I kept pedaling and I had the pack in sight for awhile. At some point, I passed two other cyclists and we ended up working together for the rest of the lap. Each of us would take about 1-2 minute pulls in front. I got us up 1 big hill and I switched off. That was fun as well because I was learning when I needed to pedal harder to stay on someones wheel when I dropped back. It also felt like I had slightly more energy than the other guys because I would pick up the pace slightly when it was my turn to pull. I kept my cadence higher in the 95+ range as well. I completed the 2nd lap and I was done. I met up with Amy again and we rode back to Pure Austin.

Overall, I did about 40 miles on Tuesday. It was freaking hot and I had 4 bottles of fluid and I still felt horribly dehydrated. It was fun though and it was very tough on my cardio system. I needed something like that and I'll be back at some point soon.

My weight this morning was 181 which is down from 184 from yesterday. My new car is awesome and I still have to write up my Tejas Triathlon race report. BTW, I got 6th in my age group and once again I had a great run for me.

Lung Busting Workout

First of all, 184lbs. I fucking hate my body.

I had a lung bursting workout this morning. I was suppose to swim yesterday, but work kind of got in the way of that. Today was suppose to be a rest day, so I just swapped days. Jamie told me to do a warmup and then do 12x75 as 25 fast, 50 strong. Well, since I swim in a 33yd pool, I ended up doing 12x100 as 33 fast, 66 strong. I also did a 600yd warmup and a 200yd cooldown. Damn, I freaking hurt this morning. Total lung bursting workout. I was exhausted and I was trying to push each 100, but each one hurt worse and worse. I got through it though and the reason why is because I know doing sprints like this will make me faster. My shoulders were hurting and even my pecs were tired towards the end. Man, it felt good though. I was asked to circle swim, but the guy that asked me was pretty much the only other regular competent swimmer that I've seen at Stacy. We were lapping the other guy pretty badly so circle swimming wasn't that bad this time.

Also, I'm going to Houston tomorrow to pick up my Outback. I can't wait.

New triathlon-mobile

Well, it looks like I'll be getting a new car this weekend. It's a 2002 Subaru Outback that is loaded and in great condition. Here is the link to the Autotrader ad. It's quite nice and I'm really excited about getting a new car, especially one with AC. This will be my first car paymenth though so I'm not happy about that. Eh, it's a new car though. Man, I can't wait to actually get it. Woohoo! I finally have a car that is a lot more triathlon friendly than my 2 dr Honda.

Tired Legs

I have tired legs. Don't know why. Well, OK I've had 2 tough days the last couple of days. Tomorrow I'm suppose to swim, but I think I'm going to take it off instead. Plus, work is pretty busy tomorrow. After my run last night, I had another 30 minute run this morning. Running fartleks without an HRM is somewhat difficult.

The bike tonight was tough. I should've ridden outside, but I did the spin bike instead. I hate it, but it's safer and easier to deal with. Plus, I got to talk to Janee and I haven't talked to her since she started the night shift. She did say that I'm looking trim which is like the 3rd person to say that to me in the last 2 weeks. I guess that's a good sign, but my weight has changed maybe by like 2 pounds in the last 2 months. I'll take it when I can get it. I'm crashing now because I'm exhausted.

I really need to stop swimming at Stacy

I went swimming at Big Stacy pool this morning. I either need to be there in the water at 5:58 or I need to find another place to swim. I can't stand circle swimming unless everyone in the lane is about the same speed. The reason why I don't want to swim at Stacy is because I'm almost always the fastest person there and I never get to circle swim with people the same speed as me. Circle swimming with slower people just screws up my workout way too much.

I also ran 8.2 miles tonight. It was hot, but I felt pretty good. I had some stomach upsettedness issues and I think I might have figured out what is causing this. I think it might be turkey that I ate at lunch today. It always starts at about 4pm in the afternoon and lasts to about 7 or 8pm. No heart rate monitor or watch so I have no clue what my time was or my heart rate was either.

Weight was 182 yesterday and 183 today.

Oh, I'm pissed about CapTexTri. I looked at the results today and somehow I moved down to 11th place. Someone else's results came in and they place above me. Damnit, I really wanted to place in the Top 10.

Weight Games & a bunch of other crap

Over the last couple of days, I've been playing some weight games. When I woke up yesterday, I weighed 182.5lbs. After my workout, I weighed 179, so I lost 3.5 lbs during the workout. This was after drinking 5 containers of fluids as well. Yeah, I really need to up my fluid intake. Today, I weighed in at 183.5. That was higher because I was hydrating last night with alcoholic beverages which tend to dehydrate me and make me retain water at the same time. It's weird, but that's why my weight was higher this morning. After my run this morning, I came back and weighed 179. Yep, I lost 4.5 pounds. It's interesting though.

My run today was fine for the first 2 laps. As soon as I hit the 3rd lap, it got painful. My legs were heavy. I felt like I could keep up a decent pace, but once I hit a hill, I would reduce to walking. I had Gu's this time so I think it was just the heat and the drinking last night. I had a ton of water at the water stops and I started my day out with some InfinIT. I planned on doing a full 3 4.1 mile loops, but on the 3rd loop, I stopped and talked with Betsy. She had bonked and I was having a painful run, so I stopped and walked with her. I ended up actually running about 11.5 miles.

Speaking of, my InfinIT came in yesterday. I have a formulation that I call "316cal/24oz". I can either put 2 scoops in one bottle and then take one plain water bottle with Nuun per hour, or I can put 1 scoop each in 2 bottles and use that per hour on the bike. Well, I got the stuff with minimal flavor and let me tell you, there sure is minimal flavor in it. My next formulation will have slightly more flavor because right now it tastes very bland and bitter almost. I'll be trying it out on the bike soon though. The formulation is thin which i good because it'll be a lot easier for me to take it down.

After my run, I soaked in the free part of Barton Springs and now it's been almost 2 hours since I got out of the water and I'm still shivering. There's something wrong with walking around your house with the temp set at 78 and your wearing a hooded sweatshirt and you're thinking about putting on more clothes to keep warm. That is partially because of my weight loss. I think I'm starting to see the outlines of some abs. Maybe. My weight is definitely declining, slowly though, and it'll be just a matter of time now. I will have washboard abs, damnit!

Bonk

This morning I did a 43 mile ride with Meggers, Logan, and Charles. It was a slower ride and I averaged only 17.1mph. We started after 9am so it wasn't until after noon that we were done. Then, we met back up at J&A's and left for a run. I peeled off after about 20 minutes because I only had to do a ~30 minute run while everyone else was doing 10+ miles. Man, I nearly bonked. All that I ate today was a PB&J sandwich for breakfast and then 3 bottles of about 175 calories in each bottle. I felt good at the start of the run, but by the end I felt horrible. I had no energy and it was tough to keep my legs moving. I was getting loopy mentally as well. I needed food and I went over to ATC and ate some pizza. They threw the tacos away! Of course, it was 2pm by this point so it's understandable. My lesson learned today is that I now know what'll happen when I don't take in enough calories while training.

Yoga

I went to yoga today for the first time in a month. It was good. I almost fell asleep during shavasana though. I think I might have been snoring a bit as well. I feel a lot more relaxed because the last couple of days have been stressful But they've also been relaxing as well; it's been very weird. Also, today was a skinny day as well, but I didn't weigh myself. I'll do that tomorrow.

Also, I can't believe how good I feel from the CapTexTri. I'm still high and full of energy from doing so well on Monday. Man, I absolutely love racing. I have so much fun during a race. The only workouts I've done this week was a 300m swim on Thursday and then yoga today. I don't like taking this much time off of training especially since I didn't feel tired after the race at all. I should've done more training, but it's good to rest. But usually when I'm resting, I should be sleeping as well.

Holy Weight Fluctuations!

As I said before, Thursday I weighed 183 and 181.5 on Friday. Today, I weighed 188. Damn, my body does not like to maintain a steady weight. Damnit, this is so freaking annoying.

Weight & Update

Oh, I forgot to log this. My weight on Thursday was 183 and on Friday it was 181.5. I'll see how much I weigh tomorrow morning. I'm sure my weight is around 185 because I was drinking beer after the race.

Today, I'm not feeling very sore at all after the CapTexTri. My hamstrings are a little sore and that's it. I don't think I gave enough credit to my coaches, Jamie & Andrea, from Texas Iron. They're great coaches. I also want to thank the entire tri community. Everyone is always friendly and helpful. Lauren has been an awesome training partner since we are both similar speeds at everything and both of us are super competitive which makes competing against each other fun. The spectators at races are great as well. I always have a blast at races just watching the spectators. I had several people cheer for me during the race on Monday and even though I barely recognized who they were, since I was going by so fast ;-), it's greatly appreciated. I also said "Thanks" to as many volunteers as I could find while I was out on the course.

CapTexTri

This morning I raced in the CapTexTri here in Austin. I'm still feeling really, really good from my performance at the race so I'll just get into it.

Pre Race

I got up this morning and got ready. This was a B race, actually more like a C race for me. I wasn't focusing on it at all. Hell, I rode 50 miles and swam for 2 hours 2 days before the race. I should've been resting. I wasn't too worried about doing well in this race. Over the last few days, I've been eating crap. Not crap, but not well since there were so many Slowtwitchers in town. I had a lot of ice cream, Salt Lick BBQ on Saturday night, and even beer on Saturday. Sleep was also lacking as well.

On the morning of the race, I got up at about 4:30am. I just like taking my time to get ready. For breakfast, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, yogurt, a granola bar, and an apple. For the rest of the morning, I drank 32oz of Gatorade. I ate about half a Clif Bar and half of 20oz of Gatorade right before the race. My stomach was full this morning. Also, I didn't carb load because I find it more painful than what it's worth. So, no more carb loading for races Oly and below.

As usual, my stomach was a little upset and I had 5 RP's this morning. I tied a record. I doubt I will ever beat my record of 5 RP's because this morning my entire GI tract was empty by the time I got into the water. I had two problems this morning. The first one started a few days ago. I lost my HRM strap so this race was going to be based on effort and not heart rate. Then, I left my HRM watch at Lauren's place yesterday and this race was going to be interested. I had no HR to go off of and then I had no clue what my time was either. This was the first race without any feedback on how I'm doing during the race so we'll see how I do. The second thing was that I had put my Gatorade bottles in my gym bag. Well, they leaked. Everything in my bag was sticky with diluted Gatorade. Messy.

The race started at 7 but my wave didn't go off until 8:20. It was a pain in the ass waiting around the entire time. The waves were messed up this year. Last year, my age group was near the end and it was the same thing this year. The first few waves were males under 19 and over 40. The ladies were next and then it was men 35-39, men 30-34, and then males 20-29. Everyone wasn't happy with that. I didn't get my wetsuit on until 8. I had my knee taped up so I was good to go. Like I said, I couldn't finish eating and drinking all of my stuff.

It was about 15 minutes before my wave started staging up for the swim. It seemed like we were waiting to get into the water forever. Just a bunch of guys standing around. I started getting nervous about 30 minutes before the start of the race. I usually get nervous, so it was good that I only got nervous that close to the start of my wave. We were staging up, and then they gave us the signal to get into the water.

The Swim

We got into the water and it was about 73 degrees. It was cool enough to feel good. I had my sleeveless wetsuit on and it was perfect for the race. I lined up in the front, where I should've been, but in the middle. We were in the water for about 3 minutes before the gun went off. I was talking to people about how fast everyone was going to go. No one answered about their intended pace so I decided to make people try to swim over me. And if they tried to do that, then they would get kicked a lot. The gun went off and the race was on. There wasn't much bumping and grinding at first. There was a bit, but not much. I noticed that there seemed to be 2 packs that formed up on the first stretch. Of course, the fast A pack was on the inside of the buoys. There seemed to be a B backed that formed up on the far left of the course. As I swam, I moved closer to the buoys to get a better line. I tried to find some feet, but I couldn't find too many. I found one pair of feet and they seemed slightly slow for me, but I stayed behind them. I think I went out a little fast and I couldn't get my breath, but staying behind the feet allowed me to slow a bit and rest a bit. The first turn came up pretty fast and I took it pretty well. I veered to the outside and added a few yards on while making the second turn.

I then found a pair of feet and I stayed on them for awhile. At this point, I felt really good in the swim. I was taking good strokes, not dropping my elbows much, but breathing was a problem. I developed a breathing pattern. Right, right, left, left. Basically, I was taking two breaths on a side, taking 3 strokes, then two breaths on the other side, 3 more strokes, etc. That worked for me much better than breathing only on my right side. I have no problems on my left side, but I just needed air. I was pushing myself on the swim.

I stayed with my feet for awhile and then I wanted to push myself more. So, I left my feet and passed that guy. I got in front of him and I was looking forward sighting for buoys. I couldn't see anyone. Well, I ran into a few people, but they were other waves that I was passing and getting in the way. At this point, it seemed like I was in the lead of the B pack of swimmers. I felt like I had people behind me, no one drafting off of me because I couldn't feel hands on my feet, but I just had that feeling that there were others behind me. I just kept putting one arm in front of the other and trying to get nice, long strokes. I had problems sighting because my goggles fogged up a bit. Not bad, but enough to be annoying. The swim was overcast so I should've had my clear goggles on, but I opted for the tinted ones in case the sun came out. This was important because I almost missed a buoy. It was underneath a bridge in the shadows and luckily I was swimming straight enough that I didn't completely get off course. I was zig zagging a lot today, but not that badly. Ok, ok, I need to work on swimming in a straight line. I got the buoy under the bridge and kept going. After that buoy, I lost all sense of direction. I overshot the buoy for the last turn around because it wasn't a normal turning buoy and I had no one to follow. I was about 25yds further than I should've and I turned and swam to the other buoy. The rest of the B pack caught up with me and I turned it up a notch to beat them to the buoy. I got turned and I was now in the home stretch.

I was still having problems. I almost hit a canoe. I was wondering what the fuck the canoe was doing so far in the path of the swimmers. Well, the question was why was a dumbass swimmer so far in the path of the canoe. On the far right there was a bridge support. To the left of it was a buoy and to the left of that was another bridge support. There was maybe 25 yds between the buoy and the left bridge support. Well, I swam to the left of the farthest left bridge support. Yeah, I was a dumbass. My 1500m swim was more like 1600m between the missed turn around and then the missed bridge support. The zigzagging helped as well.

I kept going and I finally had the last turn buoy in sight. Since I wasn't going to use my arms anymore and I was pissed about being so far off course, I picked it up a bit. I turned the buoy and sprinted to the ramp. I swam up pretty far to the ramp and when I tried to stand up, the water was up to my mid thighs. Some volunteers pulled my left arm but I was still extremely dizzy. I reached out my right arm and it took a few seconds before someone grabbed it and helped me up. I was out of the water. I was looking for a clock and there was none there to check my time. Since I had no watch, I had no clue how I did. I felt like I did really well though so I felt happy. I went up the steps and I was in the grassy chute to the T area. I was in almost a fullout sprint. Why jog through the T area because it's still a race? I passed like 8 people but I was really winded when I got to my spot on the rack. I need to perfect getting my wetsuit off. I had to sit down and take it off which costs a lot of time, but I was winded and still dizzy. I threw my cap and goggles down and had my wetsuit off. To get ready for the bike, I had only 2 things to do: sunglasses and helmet. I unracked my bike and started running out. A shoe fell out the pedal immediately so I took the other out shoe and I was off. I ran through the T area pretty quickly with my bike. There were some sandy areas that were a PITA to run through. I took a right out of the T area and passed like 5 more people who were either walking or just doing a light jog with their bike. I almost hiked my bike over my should and ran it through the area that way. I would've spilt my aero bottle though. I crossed the mount line and got off to the side. I had to put my shoes on and then clip in. I didn't seem to take me too long to get in the shoes and I was then on the bike.

The Bike

Geoff, the new assistant coach for Texas Iron, told me about 2 days before to take the 1st loop slow, go harder on the 2nd and 3rd loops, and then slow again on the 4th. I was worried about my running off the bike since all of my bricks are very painful and I'm always running at about an 8:30-9:00 pace for the first couple of miles. Well, I threw that advice out the window when I got on the bike. When I was on the main course, the first half loop I absolutely hammered it. I needed to get my legs going and I was pushing myself. I knew I was pushing but it felt good. After doing the hairy part with all of the turns around Congress, I took a left onto Congress (more to come about that later) and it was a slight downhill. I got up some speed, kept my cadence around 95-100 and got into a groove. I took the right onto Cesar Chavez and kept my rhythm going. I felt really good at that point. I was in a groove and kept it up while settling down. I was heading out on Cesar Chavez and saw Lauren heading back in. That was the only time that I saw her.

The first couple of loops were fairly uneventful. The course was really, really crowded and it seemed like corners were more scary this year than they were this year. I lost a water bottle when it was ejected from my rear bottle cage. I felt bad about it, but I avoided that bump after that. Also, I took my other water bottle and put it in my jersey pocket. I felt good on the bike. I knew I was pushing myself, but I didn't know how hard since I had no HRM. After the second loop, I checked my time and I was done in about 33 minutes. Not too bad. I was out for my 3rd loop now. My legs were feeling it a bit, mostly in my quads. I was worried that I pushed too hard and my run would blow up, but I still had 2 loops to think about that. On my 3rd loop, I was heading south on San Jacinto, took the right onto 11th, and I was building up speed to make the fast left onto Congress. I noticed an older guy on the right where I was lining up to take a hard line through the turn. He was only going 14ish while I like taking that turn at 20+ because I can. He cut across me so I decided to go on his outside. Well, he was taking a pussy line through the turn and started to drift way to the outside. I yelled, "On the outside, on the outside!" and he heard me and reacted accordingly. But it was almost too late. His handling skills weren't that great so he still tried pretty hard to run me into the curb. At this point I'm fucking freaked out. I'm doing 20+ mph. On the left, I have some old guy pushing me to the right. On the right, I see a curb that is quickly approaching. Before I hit the curb, I see a major crack in the concrete that is much bigger than the width of a bike tire. Seriously, I'm expecting to crash, but I'm looking for ways to get out of it. The old guy is backing off a bit, but is still leaving me very, very little room. Enough to get through, but not without some magic. At this point, I'm out of my saddle and I hit my brakes. This causes my back tire to lock up and fishtail to the right to the curb. Luckily, my right pedal is coming up to top dead center and I push my weight forward. By pushing down on the right with my weight forward caused the back of my bike to kick out to the left and clear the curb. I hit the crack in the concrete at an angle so my tire didn't get stuck. Through all of this, I remember hearing some either gasp or say "Oh my God!" while watching all of this. I put you it looked like a high speed wreck was about happen, but due to my bike handling skills and fucking lightning fast reflexes, I missed it. Once I passed the old, slow, dangerous guy, I yelled because my heart rate jumped up about 30 bpm because of the adrenaline rush. I yelled "Woooooooooo!" in excitement from saving my ass from that close call. I got out of the saddle, hammered it some more and kept going totally pumped up now.

Another event on the 3rd lap was that I was passed on the bike. I only was passed maybe 5 or 6 times and most of them were at the beginning, but this was the first time that I got passed on the bike by somebody in my age group. Some guy in a yellow jersey. I'll remember him later and get my revenge. He passed me and I kept going. 4th loop wasn't eventful either and I was taking the turns much more conservatively. Going out on Cesar Chavez was still a hammering point, but coming back I upped the cadence and as prep for the run. I had downed 2 Gu's and 2 bottles of diluted Gatorade and Nuun. I felt well hydrated. It was still overcast, but not cool. My quads were feeling it and I was getting worried on how the run was going to turn out. My speed on the bike was fast and I don't even want to know what my heart rate was for the ride. One thing that I was practicing on the 4th loop was drafting. Not blatant drafting but I would ride up behind someone in their draft zone and when I got about 2 feet from their wheel, I would wip over. I should've stayed on a wheel for a few seconds to get rest, but everyone was going so slow. I did this on the 4th loop because the headwind picked up a bit. There were some good things to this. I benefitted from a draft for a second or two, but it was scary. I was doing this to a lot of people that weren't great cyclist and they seemed to weave a lot. I was also in areobars making quick motions. The good thing was a lot of time I would yell "On your left" and the person would move to the right without my jerking around them.

Ok, I was coming into T2 now and I was spinning to get my legs ready. I made the turn into the last chute and got out of my shoes. I rushed the dismount line and passed 2 people right there. I didn't run as quickly through T2 as I did in T1. I racked my bike and took off my helmet. Socks and shoes went on and I grabbed my hat, my race belt, my water bottle, and my Gu's. Having that much crap was a problem. I couldn't run that fast because I felt like I had too much crap. I was running through the T2 area, but not fast. My sunglasses were bouncing, but I was having fun. I crossed the mat, heard the beep, and I was on the run course.

The Run

I passed up the first aid station right away. I didn't have any free hands anyways. After the aid station, I stopped and got everything situated. I put my Gu's in my jersey pockets, put my hat on, put my race belt on, and kept going. I was expecting to be trashed on the run, but I really wasn't. I was somewhat tired, but I usually feel that way on bricks. I kept going and putting one foot in front of the other. Man, I was happy too. Last year, I DNF'ed after I got out of T2 because of my peroneal tendonitis. This year, I was so happy to actually be running. I was feeling better and kept going. Since I had no heart rate monitor or anything, I kept running off of perceived effort. I felt fine, like I was pushing, but not too much. I felt like I was at a pace that I could run for the rest of the race. At a turnaround point, I saw Eric Gilmore behind me. I knew I would beat him out of the water and I thought he might catch me on the bike, but I knew I had no chance on beating him on the run. Well, this confirmed that I got him off the bike. But that didn't last long.

The first water stop was at about Mile 1 and it was sponsored by Jack and Adam's. My plan for this race was something that I learned from Lauren's race at Ironman Arizona. Every water stop, I walked, I had at least one cup of water on my head, at least one down my shorts, and then I drank at least 2 more. This stop had some ice water so it helped out quite a bit. I was feeling really goofy so Jack gave me a cup of water and I threw it right back at him. He looked like he needed to cool off a bit. That cheered me up a bit. And I kept running. I had no clue the pace that I was running at, but I wasn't getting passed much. Just kept plodding along. I was Lauren turn in to finish her race after I stopped at the J&A's water stop. She looked strong.

I turned left on Congress to go up pretty much the biggest hill on the course up the Congress Ave bridge. At that point, someone else in my age group passed me. I was down 1 spot from the bike and 1 spot from the run. Not much else happened. I saw Leary and Suzanne at the turn left onto Congress and they cheered me on. Eric Gilmore passed me at that point so I guess I held my ground pretty well to that point. I high fived some TNT people and kept it up. Barb and Ron cheered me on near RunTex. After that, I finished my first loop. Only 1 more to go.

I got water and did my usual routine. I think I took my last Gu at that point as well. I think I threw a couple of Gu's away at some point as well. They were in my jersey pocket and I had too many back there. They kept bouncing and annoying the shit out of me. I was feeling pretty good when I hit the J&A water stop the second time, but I was starting to get slightly fatigued. I walked about 10yds after the water stop just because I like walking a bit. I think my form was good, but I would notice that I quickly lost it and then I would have to think to get it back again.

I kept trash talking people kinda. Someone would pass me, I would check out their age group, and yell stuff like "The only reason I'm letting you pass me is because you aren't in my age group." I was just joking around, but I was having a great time. I absolutely love racing. I didn't have fun at the Texas Tri, but pretty much every other race has been absolutely enjoyable. I was thanking volunteers and high fiving people from time to time as well. I felt great and I was enjoying the race. Having a spectator friendly course is great. Once again I turned left on Congress up the hill, the race got really interesting for me. I found someone in my age group. I think it's the guy that passed me on the run earlier. I was thinking on how I should pass him. If I caught up with him, I should be fine for the rest of the race. He was looking somewhat tired. I tried passing him once up the hill, but I was pushing myself too hard. I backed off and held on. We turned right onto some other street and there was another surprise for me. The guy in the yellow jersey that passed me on the bike wasn't doing so well on the run. Shit, I caught up with him! I'm about to pass 2 people in my age group. I never do this. I was running my pace and I think I was slightly faster than them. I picked up a burst of speed and left both of them. Once I settled back into my pace, I just get going. I kept giving them "The Look". I was looking back at the guy in the blue that was actually keeping up with me fairly well. I kept checking to see how he was hanging on. A water stop came up and I walked it. Blue Jersey Guy passed me and I was pissed. I wanted to drop him, but I've been feeling sluggish since the turn onto Congress. I just sat back, kept an eye on him, and bided my time. We took another left onto Congress and I saw Leary and Suzanne again. I said to Leary "That guy is in my age group and I'm going to run him down!". Suzanne said something like "Pick someone out and run them down!" Hell, yeah, I was about to do this. Well, that turn onto Congress has a slight downhill. I've been practicing my downhill running where I pick up my pace quite a bit and then recovery. Well, time to pass this guy who was at this point about 5 yards in front of me. I hit the downhill and put almost 15yds on this guy in no time. Seriously, over the course of maybe 20 seconds I had passed this guy and put a decent amount of time on him. There was still a slight downhill so I put my head down, concentrated on form, and kept up my speed on this downhill.

On the Congress bridge, I passed two more people in my age group. Well, they had numbers on their calves that were in my age group, but I have no clue if they were on their first or second lap. Either way, I kept up the pace and was picking people off left and right. This was feeling good because I felt like my pace was fairly constant the entire race. I picked it up at the end, but instead of the last 100yd dash, I had picked up the pace for the last 1.5 miles. And I kept it up. I had to keep it up to make sure no one decided to try to run me down. If they were going to pass me, they were going to freaking work for it. I turn onto Barton Spring and passed that water stop. I was less than 1/2 mile away and I didn't need water. I saw Adam and told him that I had just run down 4 age groupers in the last mile. I high fived Ron and Barbara and I kept going. I was hurting now, but I kept it up. I saw the finish line ahead of me. I couldn't sprint the last part, but I could keep up my pace up. That's a good sign that I paced myself well and that is really good because I have no feedback this entire race. I was about to take the turn to the finishing chute. I turned my race number around to make it look good. As I crossed the finish line, I took of my hat and sunglasses with my hands in the air.

The Results

I checked the time and it said 3:42:ish. Taking into account I started 1:20 late, I had an unofficial time of 2:22 and change. Holy fucking shit, man. Before this race, I had no expectations. I didn't feel like I was in great shape because I've had an elevated heart rate lately and my running has suffered due to injuries. My swim has improved, but I haven't been training for hard fast stuff like an Oly distance race. Everything has been HIM and IM focused. Crossing the line that quickly shocked me. I would have been happy with something under 2:30, but I can't believe I beat it by that much. I finished and I felt great. Ok, a little tired, but not to the point where I had trouble walking or anything hurt, including my knee. I taped up my knee for the race and it was fine the entire time. Now, it sounds like a bowl of Rice Crispies, but during the race it was great.

Once I got the official results, I PR'ed St. Anthony's by 2:43. This is great for many reasons. 1) St. A is a salt water swim 2) The transition areas were much, much smaller and therefore much quicker 3) The bike is a single loop course with fewer turns, fewer people, and much flatter and 4) The run was flatter as well. Today was hotter than St. Anthony's and more humid, but wind wasn't bad and it was overcast. Either way, I just totalled rocked the house today. Compared to last year at CapTex, I was 2 seconds slower on the swim, but the swim was about 100-150yds short. On the bike, I was only 36 seconds slower. That's big because last year I was maxing out my heart rate since I knew I didn't have a run afterwards. Average heart rate was maybe 165-170 range so I was moving. My transitions were also much quicker this year as well. I had no comparision on the run since I DNF'ed, but compared to St. Anthony's, I felt much more comfortable and I didn't walk at all except for the aid stations.

I learned a lot today. I think I'm not going to race with a HRM anymore unless I'm doing an IM. I went totally off of perceived effort today and it showed that I did better. I normally keep my pace throttled back because I look at my HRM and my heart rate is too high. I *KNOW* I was pushing it on the bike. I could just feel it in my chest and legs. I was worried that I would suck ass on the run. Nope. I can hammer it on the bike and be OK on the run. I also just ran my race instead of looking at my watch every 60 seconds to check my time and my pulse. Lauren's method of water station worked well. I was soaked after every water stop and I came out feeling great. My shoes were soaked though and that felt weird, but I didn't develop any blisters. I ran with my white hat and I think that helped. I need to work on my open water swimming and sighting. Having the shoes on my Bebop pedals isn't such a good idea. I need to chill out on the turns at CapTex next year to avoid wrecks and stupid people. I only need to take as many Gu's as I need and not carry any extra. Well, one extra so for the run I should've had 3 instead of 4.

Finally, I feel like I'm almost there. You know the point where you think you are fast. I'm not quite there, but I'll be there some day. I finished 10th in my age group so it's a big deal to break into the top 10. There were 76 people in my age group so I did very well. I have room to improve as well. My swimming is progressing well and my bike gains are slower, but I'm still improving. I have a lot of work on the run, but that'll come with weight loss and time. I'm really looking forward to Buffalo Springs now to see how I do at completing my first Half Ironman event. I should do pretty well since I feel like I'm better at longer distances. I have a mental edge to keep my body going. Most importantly, I had a blast today. I tried to have a smile on my face the entire day and I was chatting with people and having a good time. I still feel high at 3am from my race today. And speaking of, I need to go to bed now. I just feel so good.

Let me tell you about my "rest day"

According to Jamie & Andrea's schedule, I was suppose to have a rest day and walk the CapTex course. That didn't happen. Paulo Sousa is in town this weekend to hold some run and swim clinics and then to get his butt kicked in the CapTexTri sprint on Monday. Lauren had to do a 3 hour ride and invited me to go along. I love riding so I figured I would take my road bike out since I had better gearing for climbing and I'll just go easy. It was a good ride. I just took my time and spun up the hills without pushing myself too hard. We did the Dam Loop with the ATC ride starting at 8:30. It was a good ride. Of course Lauren and I got dropped almost immediately on Southwest Parkway because we weren't hammering. That was fine though and I was trying to have a nice easy ride and I did. I accomplished my goal of just spinning up the hills and not pushing too hard. There were a couple of points that I picked up the pace or powered over the top of a hill, but it just feels good to do that from time to time. At the end of my easy ride, I checked my avg speed and it was 17.8mph. Last week, I average 17.9 and I was pushing hard too. The difference was that today I was on my road bike and last weekend I was on my tri bike. Yeah, I'm definitely faster in the hills on my road bike. After the ride, I had about 3 breakfast tacos and my legs didn't feel tired at all. It felt like I had gone on a nice easy ride and I was ready to run a half marathon afterwards.

After the ride, we went back to Lauren's place to hang out until 2pm for Paulo's swim clinic. Then, we went to the swim clinic. It was good. I learned some things and some new drills. I'll just take all of that information and incorporate it into my repertoire of swimming knowledge, pick it apart, and apply the things that I think I work for me. I asked him by Big Question when it comes to swimming and I think asking this question is very beneficial for me. I asked him "What is the single biggest problem that I have that I can work on to improve my swimming." His answer was "Just swim more." I've felt for awhile now that my stroke is pretty good. I admit that it isn't perfect, but for someone that's been swimming for just over a year, I think it's pretty good and my times reflect that. I don't think it's worth it for me anymore to work on drills are changing my technique that much because I'm not going to get that much benefit from it. For me to get faster, I just need to swim more and swim faster. His answer just confirms what I've been feeling about my swimming for awhile now and I now have a firm plan on how I can get faster in the future.

Also, to anyone what my key to swimming is, I'll tell you. It's mental discipline. When I'm in the water, I'm thinking way too much. I'm thinking the entire time about good catch, strong pull using my lats with elbow up, end the stroke short, rotate with high elbow recovery, enter, and extend. I'm always thinking about everything, but I'm not stressing about it so it appears that I'm really relaxed. Also, when a coach says something like "Try to not drop your elbow when you pull.", I don't try to do it, I do it. I have to use a lot of mental concentration to do it, but I start swimming that way really quickly. What I liked to do is when I was with TNT, we started out with 500yds warmup and 100yds cooldown usually. For each of these 100's, I would break it down into first 25 I would work on body roll, second 25 would be a good catch, next 25 would be high elbow recovery, and last 25 would be strong pull. By doing this, I practiced with awareness how each of these small steps feel and muscle memory started to kick in to make it easier to swim.

Friday

Friday's update is a little late. I just want to apologize to all of my fans out there for the delay. I know how much you need to here about my workout to make yourself feel complete. That day wasn't much to say. I was suppose to do a short swim that day, but I didn't get a chance to do it until after work. Of course I was an idiot and I thought Stacy might be OX to swim in, but there were already 3-4 people circling in each lane and about 6000 kids in the pool. No way. That day, my leg hurt really badly. I didn't have any kinesio tape so that's what I'm thinking it was. My ankle wa hurting as well which was surprising. I was limping a few times while walking around. There is no big surprise that that running tears up your body, but it feels like running really tears me up. All of my issues are in my left leg, damnit.

Today's Events

This morning was a bike ride on the trainer. 60min ride with 3x4 min fast and 2 min RI. It was fine. I felt like I was getting sick this morning, but after the bike ride I felt fine. I tried to get about 8.5 hours of sleep last night, but I kept waking up off and on about an hour before my alarm went off.

Tonight's workout was a run workout with Texas Iron. 15min warmup followed 4x800m at Barton Springs. This is known as the "gate to gate" workout. I only did 4 of them because I'm racing on Monday. My times were 2:32, 2:30, 2:45, and 2:38. Yeah, I went a little too hard the first couple and I was feeling it. After I finished the last interval, I felt like I couldn't even talk for about 3-4 minutes. The next part was 4-8 hill repeats but I skipped out on them. I was done after the intervals. Maybe I am getting sick. I did my cool down run of 10 minutes and then soaked in the water.

Now, I keep having this gastrointestinal problems. Basically, every afternoon I get some pretty bad gas. It starts at around 3pm and lasts until 6pm or so. It's almost every single day and I was feeling it on my run today. My stomach is all sloshy and I just have to fart constantly. Does anyone have any ideas on what to do about this? I've tried not eating and I get gas. I've tried eating and I get gas. Maybe it's because of my high fiber diet that is causing it or maybe I'm slightly lactose intolerant and all of the yogurt and milk and cereal I eat causes problems.

Any ideas?

30min Swim

The only workout today was a 30min swim with some fast 25's in there. Well, since I swim in a 33yd pool, I had to do some fast 33's instead. My 600yd warmup swim is getting awesome. Yesterday was a 9:06 time and today was a 8:54. I averaged under 1:30, 1:29 to be exact, for a warmup swim and it definitely felt like a warmup swim. Ok, it was a little fast, but I felt like I wasn't overexerting myself. After that was a couple of 100's and then I did 3x33 fast, 66 active rest, 3x33 fast, 66 active rest, 4x33 active rest, and then 200yds cooldown (at a 1:34 pace). Overall it was almost 1500yds.

Also, I checked in today at 185lbs.

Bike felt good

Tonight's bike workout was 60min with 5x1min fast thrown in there. This is a rest week so Jamie & Andrea have me doing shorter workouts with a little bit of intensity thrown in there as well. On the 1min intervals, I got my heart rate up to about 160 which felt good. During the easy parts, I kept my heart rate at about 145 whichi is excellent because that felt comfortably hard but easy if that makes sense. Before, I felt like I was going to die if my heart rate got above 135. Hopefully my biking pain threshold is up. I'm wanting to do more fast stuff because I have some stressful stuff going on right now and doing painful intervals makes me feel good. Yeah, I'm a masochist, but it makes me smile.

If you see me today, remember that I'm not wearing any underwear ;-)

So, this morning after my swim at Stacy, I forgot underwear to change into. I do this about once every 3 months. It doesn't bother me because I'm usually free balling around the house in athletic shorts, but its, uh, a little disconcerting being in public all day like this. Remember if you see me today, we are a little bit closer than you probably would like.

I had a great swim this morning. I got in the pool and split a lane with some guy that was doing the backstroke all over the freaking lane, but I hopped in and did a 600yd warmup. I busted it out in 9:06 which is about 1:31/100yds. That's just my warmup. I felt like I was effortlessly flying through the water. It just felt gooooooooood. After that, I did 10x100 and I averaged about 1:27 and 0:20 rest. Not too bad. Then, my cooldown was 400yds and that was done in 6:16 which is another 1:34 time. Yeah, that was my easy "forever" pace as well. It felt like I couldn't swim any slower without modifying my form to be very bad. There are some good things and some bad things about this. One good thing is that my form and fitness has improved so much that my effortless swims have gotten really, really fast compared to where I started. The bad thing is that I'm not going that much faster when I try to push myself and I'm using a lot of energy when I try to push myself. I can only still get out about a 1:15 at my fastest 100yd time. The range between my bottom end swim and my top end swim has narrowed greatly. But overall, the bottom end has increased substantially which is probably more important.

After that, I went back to Kathryn for PT. She rocks. We got a new PT routine established and I'll work on it. She gave me more kinesio tape which I love. That stuff works wonders. Kathryn also has fingers of steel and really finds all the spots that are sore and tender and she thinks she's not digging into them, but I'm about to jump off the table because of the fingers of steel.

184.5?!?!?!?

Today's weigh in was 184.5. what the fuck? I mean, I usually drop a pound or so over the weekends. I rode for 2.5 hours on Saturday (2000 calories), did a 20 minute brick (300 calories), ran 11 miles on Sunday (1800 calories) followed by a 30 minute swim (300 calories). I've burned a total of 4400 calories this weekend and I gained weight. My food consumption was slighly higher, but nothing was that bad except for 3 breakfast tacos (I usually have 4) after the ATC ride and then a mocha milk shake later that day. I have one milkshake or bowl of ice cream per week and that's my treat. Damnit, this can be frustrating sometimes.

RHR: 57bpm

I tested my resting heart rate this morning using the same methodology I did yesterday morning. It came in at 57bpm. Still higher thand my expected of 50bpm.

Oz?

How many ounces are in a large bicycling water bottle? 28?

Nips

Man, running lately has really caused my nipples to chafe. It isn't fun because after a long run like today's, my nips have this slight tingly sensation in them the rest of the day.

And I think this is a record 4th post in a single day.