I'm a genetic freak

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

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

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

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

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

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

And on that note, goodnight!

Ran 66 Minutes

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

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

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

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

Saturday Ride & Run

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

Friday was a rest day. Nothing special.

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

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

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

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

No Swim, Swim, Run

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

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

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

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

Shoe mileage: 55.5 miles.

IMFL Bib #

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

10 Days

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

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

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

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

That's it for now.

I'm not sick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shoe mileage: 49.5 miles

I hate the cable guy

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

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

Shoe mileage: 47.5 miles.

I shaved my arms

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

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

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

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

15 days!

Tuesday Update

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

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

Shoe mileage: 46 miles

Super Swim

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

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

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

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

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

I changed my mind

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

Weekend of Burnout

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

Yes, a Friday workout!

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

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

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

The main set was this:

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

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

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

Pushing it

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

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

The effect of crap food on your body

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

After work . . .

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

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

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

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

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

Two more days before I can run again.

Shoe mileage: 44 miles

Random Stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

So cold!

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

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

Update

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

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

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

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

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

Elliptical & 4th Day of Swimming

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

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

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

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

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

Fatigued Tuesday Swim

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

Oh, 31 days until IMFL.

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

Massage & Swim

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

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

4 Hours in Barton Springs

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

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

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

Friday & Saturday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, only 33 days away now.

LT & VO2max Results

So, I'll just go ahead and post them.

Old one:
http://marajade.dyndns.org/media/doc/LT-VO2max 01-11-06.pdf

Latest one:
http://marajade.dyndns.org/media/doc/LT VO2max 09-21-2006.pdf

My LT went up slightly, but my VO2max went from 56.6 to 62 which is about a 10% increase. My weight didn't go down much so it seems like it's just improved fitness. My VO2max probably won't change much unless I drop some lbs and that's the plan. I'm going to concentrate on increasing my LT next year. It seems that my LT right now is 155bpm @ 268w which I think for me is pretty good. For IMFL, I'm not going to push myself that hard, but it's good to know that I can do it for short periods of time during the race.

Any thoughts from everyone else?

Other thoughts:
- My weight is steady at 180.5. Water exercise sucks.
- My gastroc is hurting again, but my 3rd met seems to be fine.
- My body is craving a lot of sleep and food lately.
- Still no alcohol, sweets, or much other junk in my diet.
- I'm tracking my calories again.

Lots of Stuff

Ok, lots of stuff to post.

Monday was a rest day. However, I went to the core workout. It seems like my core has gotten weaker lately. All the ab exercises actually stress me out and I give up fairly quickly. I also did 7 pullups on my own and that's a new personal best. Afterwards, I tried to cheer Meg up since she got some bad news. I tried bouldering her car, but she gave me "the look" when I asked how strong her door handle is.

Tuesday was a morning swim at Barton Springs. I did 6 laps. Nothing special. I took it really easy though. I was freezing until about noon that day, too. That night I was back at Barton Springs after acupuncture. I only did about 70min of a 90min aquajog. I just couldn't take it. Came home and went to bed.

Wednesday was a morning spin bike ride. I didn't cut it short, either. No core workout though. I need some sleep though so I'm going to bed soon.

After Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm sure I have to get out of the water. I was hungry all day on Tuesday and I barely burned any calories from working out in the cold water. Today, I was hungry, but I burned about 1200 calories.

Ok, I'm way too tired so I'm going to bed now.

Weekend Update

It was a low training weekend. 2 hour base ride on Saturday with a 30min aquajog brick in Barton Springs. The wind was horrendous on Saturday and I estimated that we had 20-25mph headwind the entire time. I was doing about 16mph on the way out and then about 27mph easily on the way back in. It was crazy.

This morning was light as well. I did a 90min aquajog in Barton Springs. Pretty much any shorts that I use will chaff the insides of my thights. Not cool. Also, my aquajogger belt is chaffing me as well. Double not cool. I was completely frozen this morning because it's getting colder here. It's nice but not when you are wet. I came home and napped for 1.5 hours to warm up. I had all my blankets on me and I was wearing my flannel pants and a hooded sweatshirt, too. Still cold.

Nuun!

I got more nuun today in the mail. I'm so happy. I got a 9-tube multipack and also picked up a 3-tube pack of Tri Berry since that's my favorite. I love this stuff!

Had my VO2max tested today. I'll get the results next week but it's definitely higher than last time. I think part of it is because I'm on Advair for exercise induced asthma and I'm breathing better because of it.

I had an Oreo today. Well, half of one.

At the beginning of last week, I implemented my "no junk food" rule and cut out a lot of crap from my diet cold turkey style. I gave in a bit today. There has been some Caramel Creme Oreos sitting on the fridge for a few days now. They've been tempting me all week. I decided to indulge in one today for some reason. I ate half of the Oreo and threw the other half away. It was nasty. I didn't like it because of the flavor, but most importantly it was too sweet. They say that it takes 21 days of doing something to form a habit. On the reverse side of that it should take 21 days to break a habit, right? Ok, that makes no sense, but that's been my goal: 21 days of no sugar. I'm on Day 12 right now and I wanted to vomit because I ate an Oreo. I haven't had any chocolate or donuts or candy bars or cupcakes or other sweets which are so prevelant at work. I've been good and I'll keep being good. Hopefully this will disappear my sweet tooth (except for ice cream) and that's a good step towards living healthier. I still crave some foods that are unhealthy like pizza and breakfast tacos, but they aren't the sweet things that I seem to have an addiction to and constantly defeats my will power. Well, no more.

I had an LT test done today. I'm getting my VO2max test done today. My finger hurts from getting stuck like 8 times. Ouchie. I'll post the results once I get them.

I did a 60min bike workout with Texas Iron yesterday. 2 easy laps and then 3 hard laps with 3min rest in between. It was fun to get my heart rate up. My legs were dead, heavy, and tired at first, but they loosened up quite a bit. I talked to Jamie about my foot and this is what he recommends. In 2.5 weeks so the week starting 09 OCT, to do 2 15min runs. Next week, 3 15min runs. Week after that, a 15min, 20min, 15min run. Next week, do 2 20min runs before IMFL on that Saturday. He says to get my body used to some impact so IMFL will be easier. I'll take his advice because I really want to run again and these runs will be short enough and at a low enough intensity that they shouldn't bother my foot too badly. So, I will be running somewhat before IMFL and that makes me happy.

I love the smell of chlorine in the morning

I went to Stacy today. It actually wasn't too bad. The water was actually cooler and I was cold for about 400yds so it was about 76 degrees or so. I just did an easy 2000yds. Yesterday, I did 30min on the elliptical machine. I didn't have the heart to go to Barton Springs to aquajog.

Also, it's almost that time of the year. What I'm talking about is the portion of the year from about October to about March where I freeze my ass off. I'll still swim at Stacy at 6am when it's 34 degrees outside, but I'll be bitching about it the entire time. I need to get some more cold weather gear, too. I want to pick up another piece of REI Power Stretch longsleeve top, but it's $75 a pop, but it's totally worth it. I also want to get another warm hooded sweatshirt and a swim parka. On a side note, my work's webfilter blocks http://tyr.com and http://lanefour.com.

I'm only doing 30-45min of exercise a day and I feel lazy because of it. Most people don't get 60-90min of exercise a week and I'm complaining because I feel lazy. I've also been very good about restraining from eating crap. I had a piece of birthday cake at work yesterday. Well, I ate two bites and threw the rest away. Right now there are half a dozen cupcakes sitting in the fridge and I haven't had one either. Will power strong! Fat cells weak!

Well, that might make some sense

As I've been vocal about lately, I've been plagued with injuries this year, all in my left leg. One contribution to them is the wart on my foot. I think the other is my plantar fasciitis. Now, the plantar fascia are thick connective tissues that support the arch of the foot and run from the heel to the toes. I started having PF problems in December of last year and I thought I worked through them, but if I slacked off at them even for a week, my PF would come back. Now, let's say that I didn't really work through them that well. The pain has gone away, but the fascia are still tight given the quickness at the pain coming back when I didn't do anything. What I've also noticed is that compared to me other foot and the other fascia in my left foot, the 3rd fascia is really tight. I work on it with a ball and stretch it and stuff, but it's still tight. Let's assume that it has been tight for so long that it has actually caused my metatarsal head to become misaligned and actually bring my 3rd metatarsal head down. With the 3rd metatarsal head in this position and not in the natural arch shape, it hits first when I take a step or run and caused the bruising that I started experiencing back in June.

Now, is this a plausable explanation or it just a pure coincidence that my 3rd fascia is really tight and my 3rd metatarsal head has fallen and become bruised?

"They" are staring at me

All day long, whenever I go over there. They are staring at me. They won't quit. I wish They would go away, but They won't. Who are They? They are They! They are the bowl of chocolates and candy that is a mere 10 feet away from my chair at work. Every time that I go to the fridge to get some fruit or yogurt, They keep whispering to me in the wind ala the voices in LOST. But so far since last week, I have resisted the sweet whispers of milk chocolate, crisped rice, peanuts, and caramel. And I won't fall into temptation until after 46 days from now.

Sunday

2+ hour aquajog. Boring as fuck. I have the thought in the back of my mind to not do IMFL because of my injury, but I don't want to do it. I want to back out because I want to be completely prepared for my first IM, but then again if I don't do it, pretty much everything that I've worked for over the last 45 weeks has been for nothing. It's just really, really frustrating that I spent 4 years playing ultimate and plagued with injuries and now that I'm doing triathlons, I'm still plagued with running injuries. My goal next year is just to not have any injuries.

Saturday Workout

I went on a 5 hour ride today. I got in almost 90 miles and I average about 17mph. I went slow today because I just wasn't up to working out today and it was windy as hell. I did 3 loops and each loop was windier than the last. And this was my second attempt to ride today. The first time, I went out and it started raining. So, I headed back to my house and watched TV for an hour. I really need to find a way to stay hydrated. I was drinking 2 bottles of fluid per hour and I was still feeling parched after about 3 hours of riding. I think I need to up my fluid intake during IMFL. Also, I was noticing that my heart rate was slowly climbing throughout the entire ride. Something is up.

I went for a run afterwards. I did 2.5 miles in 22:15 or so. It hurt like hell to run and IMFL is going to be a huge drag if I can't run before then. This really fucking sucks.

Ok, time to shower.

Shoe Mileage: 42.5 miles

Friday Update

181 pounds. 60min on the elliptical. 3200yds in 60min swim.

50 Days!

50 days to IMFL. Shit, it's really close now. But one good thing is that I weighed 183 yesterday and 180.5 today. I think I had a lot of water weight after last weekend and I'm slightly dehydrated to. Also, no alcohol and no candy at work so far this week.

Tuesday was a Barton Springs swim. I did 1 warmup, 3 easy, 2 mod, 1 fast, 1 cooldown. On the 1 fast, I was swimming with some other guys that had wetsuits on. I beat them to the dam and I wasn't wearing a wetsuit. That one fast was really fast for me. I was wheezing about a third into it but I kept up the pain. That night, I was going to do a 75min aquajog, but did 60 minutes on the elliptical instead since it was raining. My knee was bothering me so that's not a good sign. I'm going to have to watch that closely when I start running on land again.

Wednesday was a J&A core workout. I'm a little sore from it now. Then, I did about 80min on the bike with some hill sprints. It was slightly painful. I also had other knee problems going on as well. I had this weird popping on the outside of my knee. That's a first.

I got some acupuncture done today. I heard it can help the healing process and since my entire left leg is fucked, I thought it wouldn't hurt. We'll see how it helps me out.

Today is the last day. . .

. . . that I'll weigh 185 pounds before IMFL

. . . that I'll drink alcohol before IMFL

. . . that I'll eat candy and other crap at work before IMFL (this will be the toughest)

Sunday Aquajog

Today, I had a 90min aquajog. Nothing special, but I got Laurie's waterproof mp3 player to work. I thought that I had screwed it up so that makes me happy. My left leg was bothering me eventhough I was aquajogging. I really need to do something about it. No matter what I do, there still are a lot of problems with my left leg. I stretch it. I strengthen it. I quadroll it. I massage it. Nothing really works to help it get better except for time. A lot of time. But I'm about to go do some worthless quadrolling to hopefully help it a long.

Saturday Ride

I rode for about 40 miles on Saturday. I was suppose to do a 30min run (aquajog) afterwards, but I left my wallet at home so I went and had breakfast tacos at ATC afterwards instead. I was going to go and do an aquajog later, but I was busy for the rest of the day. Making my workout plans around aquajogging is really a fucking pain in the ass. Barton Springs is closed next weekend and I have to do at least one 2.5 hour aquajog. I don't know where I'm going go now. Maybe Deep Eddy but that's really a short distance to aquajog. That's nearly like a hamster running in a wheel, but if I have to do it, I'll do it.

I'm trying to come up with ideas about coaching for after Florida. I'm on a limited budget for tri coaching. I want to start taking a masters swim class so that I have others to swim with and I don't have to deal with the people at Stacy in the morning. I feel like I get much faster much quicker if I do this instead of swimming by myself. I also want someone to work with me on my running form. Anyone have any suggestions?

Not so smart

Today I did the J&A core workout. I did 55 pushups, 41 situp (pitiful), 103 dips, and 5 and 3/4 pullups. Afterwards, I tried to go swim. I went and swam 4 laps and I was done. My arms were just toast after the core workout and I called it quits. I wasn't going to have a quality a workout so I decided to skip it.

Also, DeSoto tri shorts suck for aquajogging. Too much chaffing in odd places.

Jack's Generic Tri & A Setback

I did Jack's Generic Tri on Monday morning. Nothing special since it's a local sprint tri. It was going to be interesting though since I had a tough weekend of training. I got up and got ready for the race. I was thinking about cleaning off my bike since it was nasty, but it was going to get dirty at the race anyways. I got to the race site and set up everything. I saw some of my friends and chatted with people. I only had 3 RP's with two of them at the race site. I found Meg and hung out with her a bit. We went to do a bit of a warmup swim. Meg tackled Charles and caused him to drop his goggles into the water. While Meg tried to find the goggles, I went and swam an easy 250yds or so. Then, it was time to start.

My wave went off first and that was nice. I lined up to the outside like I usually do in races. A lot of other people lined up there as well. The gun went off. It was crazy. It was just a clusterfuck. It really seemed like no one was moving anywhere. People were flailing their arms, but weren't going anywhere. I got in the water and I kept getting hit. People were swimming on top of me and I was swimming on top of people. I went out right more to get away from people and that helped. This flogging by people was good because I think it was good prep for IMFL. I went out and turned left at the buoy. Well, Noah was swimming in the inside of me and when I took a left, he kept swimming straight for at least 5 yards past the buoy. Well, I swam over him, pushed him out of the way, and kept going. As usual, I kept passing people towards the end of the swim and that makes me feel good. I tried drafting off of people, but I always end up on some feet that are slower than me. I usually rest behind them for a few strokes and then keep going past them. As I was reaching the end of the swim, I picked up the pace a bit. I found one guy that was slightly slower than me. I went on the inside of him and tried to get to the first buoy before him. Well, I kind of made it. I tried to push him over since I was mostly in front of him. Well, he kept trying to swim on top of me. I started kicking pretty hard to try to get him off of me. Well, a foot landed in some soft tissues on this guy and then he was gone. Whoever you are, sorry for kicking you in the nuts, man.

I headed into transition and was pretty tired. It was a fairly quick transition and nothing special or that I could've done better. Then, I was on the bike. It took a bit to get into my shoes. I headed up the first hill. I kept going on the bike and my heart rate was kind of high. At this point, I already had dead legs. Actually, I had dead legs on the swim so this was going to be an interesting race. I kept going and I was going pretty quickly. I played leap frog with the eventual female winner and some other guy. I kept pushing though. At one point, I checked my computer to see how far I was into the race. I thought I was 8 miles or so. I was at 4. Shit. I slowed down a bit because I was going too hard. The roads were in pretty good condition and this is worth noting because I heard that they were a little rough. They weren't bad. There were a few hills but nothing too bad until we got back on the I35 access road. That was the toughest hill the entire course.

I headed into T2. My T2 was slow because I had problems putting my socks on my feet and then I had to tie my laces instead of speed laces. I was running! Woohoo! I think I paced myself fairly well on the run. It felt like my speed was maintained the entire time and this was good since I really hadn't ran in 6 weeks. The run hurt, but I kept it up and I didn't walk the entire time. No heart rate monitor either the entire race so I had no clue how hard I was pushing. The run course was very boring; just a simple out and back. My foot started to hurt. Well, I think it was but I can't remember now. I'm pretty sure it was and I should've stopped and walked, but I got caught up in the moment and just kept running. My form was crap though. I dropped at least one place on the run though when Noah finally caught up with me and passed me. I came into the finish line area and heard Adam announcing. I picked up the pace a bit and ran through the crowd. I heard people yelling my name, but I had tunnel vision and really didn't see anyone. I crossed the line and I was done. I felt pretty good, too.

I did pretty well. I finished 6th in my age group of 32 and 46th overall of 452. That put me in the top 20% of my age group and top 10% overall for this small sprint tri. If I didn't ride 107 miles 2 days before and then aquajogged 2 and a half hours the day before, I might have done a little bit better. I'm really happy though with the run. I averaged 7:43/mile for a total time of 23:09. My swim was great with 30th place overal and a time of 8:06. T1 was fairly quick at 1:00 flat and T2 was slower at 0:54. I was disappointed with my bike at 41:03 which is 21.6mph. Final time was 1:14:14.

Good race overall. I'm happy with it. One problem though is that my foot is hurting again. Not a very good sign. I'm pretty sure that the next time that I run will be IMFL. I called my PT today and she'll call me back tomorrow. I think the bone bruise is probably back. I did some exercises today and I think it might just be soft tissue stuff. The new orthodics are great, but I'm in the old one to help ease the pressure off the 3rd met. We'll see what Rebecca says and I'll keep up the work. I'm very disappointed that this happened, but I gotta keep pushing forward.

Shoe mileage: 40 miles

Exercise Induced Asthma?

I posted a thread on Slowtwitch over the weekend. I posted that I thought I had exercise induced asthma and based upon what others said, I probably do have it. When it's happening, I get a tightness in my chest when I take a really deep breath. It hurts right where my trachea and bronchi are located. Afterwards, that same area is sore for a couple of days when I take a deep breath and I describe it as "sore lungs". Also, sometimes after I race really hard, I'll get these monster coughing fits that last for minutes. I don't think I have a bad case of it, but I think it's enough to concern me when I get this "sore lungs" feeling.

Lots of Stuff

Let's start with Saturday. I was suppose to do a 5.5 hour ride and I actually completed the ride and I even followed the schedule pretty closely. I got 8 hours of sleep on Friday night and woke up naturally on Saturday. I got kind of a late start since I wanted to be on the road at 7am, but 8:30 will do. The plan was to do 2 loops that were about 50ish miles each and start from my house. That way, I could circle back to my house and do an extended special needs stop to top off my water bottles and stuff. This was critical this weekend because I was dehydrated last weekend. I had to have 6 bottles in 3 hours to see how my body would do. I also used the stock IM InfinIT formulation since I wanted to see how I would handle that alone. I started with 3 bottles of Infinit and a single plain water bottle. I would stop along the way to fill up 2 more water bottles once I poured my second bottle of InfinIT into my aerobottle. I also had some gels as backups though. I also took some Thermolytes with me and some nuun. By the end of the day, I ended up using almost an entire tube of nuun. I also discovered that each tablet of nuun has 360mg of sodium which is quite nice.

Ok, I was off on my ride. The first loop was fairly uneventful. It was slightly overcast and wasn't too hot for Texas summer standards. It was pretty windy though and heading south or west wasn't much fun. I did the 30mile ATC/Bee Caves loop so this was the first time in a few weeks that I saw any hills. They were torturous to me. One thing to note was when I started doing this loop back last winter, it seemed like it took forever. Now, I would consider it a very quick ride. I stopped at Southwest Cycleworks to pee and to fill up my bottles. I had to pee and that was a very good sign. I was also on scheduled drinking 2 bottles every hour. My plan for IMFL is to take 1 bottle of InfinIT in 30 minutes. That will give me 600mg of sodium. The next 30 minutes will be plain water with 1 nuun and then a couple of Thermolytes. Since I don't have this new formulation yet, I had to add some nuun to the InfinIT to give me more electrolytes. Once I was done with this loop, I headed south on Mopac and went and did the Autobahn. At this point, I was in a big gear workout for an hour heading into the wind. This really, really wore me out by the end of the day. I caught the tailwind going back north and headed back to my house.

I took an extended special needs stop. I filled up my InfinIT bottles, grabbed some nuun, had a Rice Krispy treat, and peed again! I was feeling pretty good at this point. My roommate had just woken up and I asked him if he wanted to join me. He said yes so I waited until he got ready. We were dicking around in my driveway and I tried to take off. I was in the wrong gear, I had something in my hand, and I had the wrong cleat clipped in. I fell over. No permanent damage was done except I felt like a dumbass. Well, we headed out and I started to get tired fairly quickly. I think Mile 80 was the breaking point. I wasn't bonking and I wasn't dehydrated, but I was just tired. The hills that day took a lot out of me. I was still pushing a decent amouth though but I just had dead legs. I kept going though, but I really wanted off the bike. Chaffing was in the usual spots, too. It felt like my calves were about to cramp, but they didn't. I also passed 100 miles so this ride was my first century. I was feeling slightly better towards the end because I was getting towards the end of the ride. But I still felt beat.

I finally got home. I logged about 107 miles today. I went inside my house and got my shoes. I headed out for the run and this was the first brick that I've done in almost 2 months. Wow, they hurt a lot. I did 2.5 miles around my neighborhood. My first run on Monday was a 21:45. Today, I did 22:54 so I consider that pretty good consider I'd just ridden 107 miles.

From today, I really need to get my new InfinIT formulation here. Like I said, I'll take 600mg from the InfinIT, and then 360mg from nuun and 300mg from two Thermolytes. That should be enough electrolytes. Also, I should probably take average 5 bottles of fluid instead of 4 over 2 hours. I was feeling a little parched at the end of the ride. I didn't have to pee for the last half of the ride and I thought that I might have stopped sweating too, a sure sign of dehydration. I was sweating on the run though so that's a good sign that I wasn't dehydrated. Also, I think I need to take an extra Gu per hour on the last half of my race.

The rest of the day, I was fatigued, but I really wasn't sore. Well, I'm slighly sore but not bad consider how much I did on Saturday.

Sunday was an aquajog at Barton Springs. I did about 2:15 today which was my longest "run" so far. Richelle let me borrow her aquajogging belt and Laurie let me borrow her waterproof mp3 player. Both of these made my run today much, much better. I peed in each of my first 4 laps eventhough I wasn't drinking water. It took a while before my hip flexors were getting tired. Not much to say about that.

Overall, a good weekend so far and it's not even over yet. I do have a sprint tri in the morning.

Shoe Mileage: 37 miles

"You need to eat more fat"

That's what the nurse at my work told me this morning. I came in to get my cholesterol tested just because I like to see about twice a year how my numbers are doing. This is what I had about a year ago:

Total Cholesterol: 155
Triglycerides: 64
Glucose: 92
HDL: 49
LDL: 94
TC/HDL Ratio: 3.2
LDL/HDL Ratio: 1.9
Blood pressure: 112/64

These are my numbers today:

Total Cholesterol: 127 (I've never seen it that low before)
Triglycerides: 67
Glucose: 90
HDL: 45
LDL: 69
TC/HDL Ratio: 2.8
LDL/HDL Ratio: 1.5
Blood pressure: 104/74

My TC and my LDL have plummeted which I'm happy about. Blood pressure is good as well. The nurse told me that I need to eat more fat to get the triglycerides up a bit. I told her that I do eat fat, but it's mostly healthy fat. I wish my HDL was higher though but my LDL/HDL ratio is really low since 3 is the bottom of the normal range. Having a lower HDL level like this is probably a genetic thing since I don't think I've ever seen mine above 50 and I know some people that have 70+.

This morning, I checked my resting heart rate again and it was 50bpm. So, the average over 3 days this week is 51bpm and that is now my new official resting heart rate. My weight is down to 181 so I'm happy that I'm making some progress there as well.

Last night, I ended up running for 32 minutes. I didn't really have many issues. It felt like I was protecting my left leg and that's probably true. My 3rd metatarsal was starting to hurt very slightly towards the end of the run. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was a 0.5. I could feel something down there but not much. Today it seems perfectly OK. If there is any pain in my metatarsal, it's towards the 4th metatarsal and it's closer to the toes than the bone. I see my PT today and I'll discuss it with her. The met pad has raised my 3rd met up, but now it seems like the 4th met takes the brunt of the impact now. I'll discuss that with Rebecca today when I get my new orthodics.

Shoe Mileage: 34.5 miles

3000yds, 6 pullups, 7 chinups, Texas Tri Series

This morning was the first time that I swam at Stacy in months, probably like 3 months. I don't miss it. The pool was really warm, like 85-90 degrees. It wasn't comfortable swimming at all. I was doing nice, long, slow intervals. Nothing special though. There was this cute girl, but I thought she was a lot less attractive once I saw her horrible swim stroke. That's just so wrong.

At the core workout tonight, I did 6 pullups at the beginning and then 7 chinups at the end. Both are new PR's for me.

Finally, Adam announced the Texas Tri Series. It's a series of tris similar to The Distance Challenge. There are 6 races starting with a short sprint capping out with the first that I know of half Ironman distance race in Austin in October. This is a new race as well as a new Oly race through downtown Austin on Labor Day Weekend. Hopefully, the course of this race will be different than CapTexTri just to mix things up a bit. We'll see, but I'm really looking forward to next year. Like The Distance Challenge, if you participate in all the races, there is a party and stuff at the end. However, if you volunteer for a race instead of participating, it still counts as participation. This is another awesome thing put on by Jack & Adam's.

Resting Heart Rate: 51bpm

I measured my resting heart rate this morning. I woke up naturally and I had my HRM beside my bed. I put it on and ran the stopwatch for about 6 minutes. The average rate during that time was 51bpm. I'll probably measure it again later this week to get another data point, but I was worried a few weeks ago that my resting heart rate had risen to 60bpm for some reason. Usually that's a sign of something not right. I wanted to get another baseline because right now I feel well rested and like there's nothing wrong.

Ok, time to go for a quick bike ride.

EDIT: I'm off the bike now. I did 75min easy spin so nothing special. The only was that I wanted to ride outside today since this is the first day in awhile where I could do that, but it was threatening rain this morning. Here's the catch, if I went and rode, it would've rained, but since I stayed inside and rode on the trainer, it didn't pour outside today.

My quads are slightly sore from the run yesterday. That's to be expected and I'm trying to get ready for a lot more soreness soon.

I ran today!

Woohoo, I ran today for the first time in like 6 weeks! I ran for 22 minutes around my neighborhood which was probably about 2.5 miles. I didn't stop the entire time and I took it nice and easy. It was a little hard at first but once I got warmed up, it was a lot easier. I felt like I could go and run about 6-8 miles at that pace. It wasn't fast at all, but I didn't need a fast run; I just need a slow but constant run. There weren't any problems with my 3rd metatarsal either after the first couple of minutes. The met pad was pressing into my foot at first but that went away. Also, the rest of my body had some little aches and pains but nothing major, even from the knees.

I'm so happy that I can run again. I'll do a 30min run on Thursday with Texas Iron and then I see my PT on Friday and we'll reasses how I'm doing and I'll get my new orthodics.

Shoe mileage: 31 miles

Core Temp & Aquajogging

After my dehydration episode yesterday, I've been hot and more sensitive to the heat. It felt like my core temp was higher than normal and almost like I had a fever. Very strange so I don't think you can recover from dehydration that quickly. This morning, I was suppose to do an aquajog. I was debating on doing it or not since I wasn't feeling that great, but I thought it would be a good idea since Barton Springs is so cold and I was so hot so I decided to go ahead and do an aquajog. I aquajogged for about an hour and 40 minutes and it was boring as hell as usual. I saw some Texas Iron chicas and they were correcting my form. After the jog, I came home. Now, usually after I get out of Barton Springs, I'm starving and I always thought that I got this way because my core temp is lowered due to the cold water. Today, I wasn't so hungry, but I wasn't cold afterwards. I think that since my core temp was high from yesterday that it was lowered to a normal temp from the cold water and therefore I wasn't starving afterwards.

Any thoughts on this?

Also, tonight I get to do my first run on the land in like 6 weeks. I'll post how that goes.

Dehydrated

I went for a swim and a ride with Charles, Tiffany, and Mike this morning. We went for a longish swim. Total time was about 45min which is about 2400yds with some rest in there as well. That swim was probably the most comfortable open water swim that I've had in awhile.

We got on the road at about 8:15. As we headed out, it was fine. We turned east and had some crosswinds. We turned south and we hit a wall. The wind was absolutely brutal and demoralizing. I was trying to push, but I just couldn't go. Our plan was to do a 56 mile loop, go back to the cars to do a special needs stop, and then do another 56 mile loop. We got back to the cars and I was beat. There were no convenience stores along the way. The problem is that this is a 3 hour ride and I need 6 bottles of fluid or 2/hr. I only had 4, 3 with InfinIT and 1 with water. I thought I was going to be in trouble when I finished the 2nd bottle at about 1:20 into the ride and I was getting thirstier. By the special needs stop, I was dying for some water. Charles filled up his bottles and gave me the rest and I got about just over a bottle of water and he also gave me some Gatorade Endurance.

We headed back out and I was debating on whether or not to go back out. I was sick earlier this week and I think I might have not recovered. the wind beat the shit out of me. It was also getting hot, but I headed back out. At about Mile 62, I was starting to feel bad. I dropped back to ride with Tiff and Charles went ahead. I was starting to fade fast and I finally cracked at Mile 65. We took a right and headed into the Wall of Wind again. I was just done. I turned around and headed back by myself and faded even faster. I finally had to pull over and stop. My heartrate was elevated, I was getting a headache, I couldn't push any harder, and I was slightly lightheaded.

I'm pretty sure that I was dehydrated. I don't think I was bonking because I was taking in at least 300 calories per hour, but it was hot, probably 96+ at this point, and I wasn't drinking fluids. After I stopped in the shade, I peed a bit which was the first time that I peed the entire ride which was 4 hours into the ride. Even now which is 4 hours later, I still haven't peed again. I kept going and I stopped at a church to get some water from a faucet. I had one bottle almost immediately and then filled up 2 more bottles. My resting heartrate there was 95 at rest. Not good. I got on the bike and kept going. I figured I had about 15 miles to go and it wasn't going to be fun. It was hot, it was windy, and I was by myself. Also, my right calf was wanting to cramp a couple of times, but it never siezed up hard.

The last 15 miles were painful. I couldn't generate any power. I was doing everything to keep my legs turning over. I eventually got back and I wasn't feeling good the entire time, but I got back. I got in my car really quickly and headed out. I needed food and fluids. I stopped at HEB and got a turkey sandwich and some Gatorade. Like I said before, I'm at home now and I finished my ride about 3 hours ago. I lost 4 pounds during the ride and I haven't peed since then. I'm about to get some more water and try to rehydrate.

The next time I go out for that long, I'll make sure that I bring enough fluids. Other than that, the InfinIT only seemed to work. Also, my Desoto tri shorts tend to chaffe on my ass and not my crotch. I need to put some Chamois Buttr there next time. The bike rode fine after the incident last weekend.

And that's about it.

100% RDA of Sodium

As I stated before, I'm sick. Well, what does one do when they are sick? I ate some chicken noodle soup. Then I looked at the nutritional facts. 39% of my RDA of sodium. Wow, that's a lot. Then I looked at the serving size which was 2.5 servings for the can. Wait, that gave me nearly 100% of my RDA of sodium from one can of soup. Shit, that's disgusting!

I got my bike back. The damage was a new derailleur hanger, 8 new spokes, 2 new sprockets for the derailleur, new chain (upgraded to DuraAce), and a new tire. $125 total so it wasn't that bad, but it still sucks.

Sick

Well, I'm home sick today. I have some head stuff and that isn't fun. Sucks. I took off yesterday and today from training. I may get a short swim or bike ride in tomorrow, but we'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow.

Tuesday was a Tx Iron swim. I swam only 5 laps when I was suppose to do 6. I ran out of energy fairly quickly because at the time, I thought I just went out way too hard. I think I didn't have much energy because I was getting sick. Also, my back was getting sore that day and it was really sore the rest of Tuesday. Today, it's still sore. Tuesday evening was an aquajog for about 50 minutes. Since Jamie showed me the proper way to aquajog, it really, really wears me out. My hip flexors were toast and I was actually breathing pretty hard after each lap. Hopefully all of this really, really boring water running actually pays off.

Also, I get to start running on land again this weekend. I get to run 2 30min stints next week before I see my PT again. At that point, I can start ramping up the land running. Woohoo! Hopefully I'll start losing some weight as well since I think running is the key to me losing weight.

6 Pullups!

Yesterday, at the J&A core workout, I actually did 6 pullups on my own. Holy shit! When I first started doing this, I could do 2 and maybe struggle for 3. I'm actually making progress.

Also, for the record, I ride a 56cm 2004 Cervelo Dual with Ultegra components for a tri bike and then a 58cm 2003 (?) Fuji Roubaix with Shimano 105 components as my road bike. I'm very happy with both bikes, but I would be thrilled if I road a 55cm P3SL and a 56cm Litespeed instead, but that would be about $7K in bikes, and right now I only spent just over $2k for my bikes.

Thursday Swim & Sunday Aquajog

Oh, I never mentioned my swim last Thursday. We did a workout at Lake Austin again. Traffic was horrible and I was late, but I swam 1500yds and then 2x800yds. My arms were pretty sore the next day, too. It was a good swim.

Yesterday, I did about a 2hr aquajog at Barton Springs. I'm really starting to hate BS because of all the AJ that I'm doing. Later that day, I went and did a 30min swim. I was going to do another 30min of aquajogging, but I really hate my Sugoi tri shorts now. They caused me a couple of chaffed spots yesterday and I couldn't do my evening aquajog last night because of raw spots in my crotch. Not fun. Today, my hip flexors are toast after the AJ yesterday so that's a good sign.

Finally, I had some really, really good pluots today for lunch.

Mile 95, Mile 96, Mile 97, Kablammie

Ok, I'm having really shitty luck on the bike lately. 6 weeks ago, I sliced a tire. The weekend after that, my boot on the tire blew out, I bent my rim, and got another flat. Last weekend, I broke a pedal. Yesterday was another mechanical issue, but this one was major.

I went on a ride with Mike, Charles, and Tiffany. It was way the hell up in Plugerville, but at least I'm riding with others. I was suppose to do a 4.5 hour ride with a 30min run. Instead, we did a 30min swim to start and then headed out on the bike. The bike was nice with nice roads, smooth pavement most of the way, and wide shoulders. After about 65 miles, we had to make a decision. Head back to the cars for 75 miles or go out and do 30 more miles. We did 30 more and tried to get in a century. I quickly started falling apart. My crotch was sore from the saddle and my legs were dead. I was also losing mental focus. Hey, this sounds like a bonk. I started taking in a lot of calories and about 15 minutes later, I was feeling better. I was definitely tired, but I kept pushing myself and I felt like I could keep it up.

We finally got back to our cars and it was Mile 96. Since we were so close to a century, we decided to head out to log a century for the day. Since I didn't have to run afterwards, I headed out pretty hard, but not too hard. The odometer clicked over Mile 97 and I kept riding. I was approaching a hill so I shifted to an easier gear. Click, KACHINK, SCREEEEEEEECHHHH, stop. My wheel had stopped spinning and I was going about 22mph at the time. I quickly stopped and I'm surprised that I didn't fall over, but I did have time to get unclipped.

I looked down and my derailleur and it was above my chainstay and between my seatstays and my seat tube. The chain was completely twisted up as well. My riding buddies came by and saw what happened to me. Charles turned around to get his truck. Luckily, I was only 1 mile from the cars, but I was pissed that I was 3 miles away from logging my first century ride.

I took the bike to ATC. The derailleur went into the spokes, broke off the derailleur hanger, broke at least 2 spokes, scratched the paint on the bike as well. The derailleur might be salvageable, but I need a new hanger and at least 2 spokes. They are going to try to rebuild the wheel by replacing the spokes that were damaged when the chain got stuck between the cogs and the spokes.

Now, I'm trying to figure out how this happened. I was in the 5th cog and shifted to the 4th cog. Then the derailleur went into the spokes. I wasn't in the biggest cog, but somehow the derailleur went into the spokes. I might have dropped the chain in the front but I doubt it. Who knows what the hell happened exactly but it fucked up my bike.

Well, I had a good training ride. It was my longest ride ever but I was fine. I had some comfort issues from being in the saddle so long and I had some minor chaffing issues. I also had some nutritional issues, but it was from not taking in enough calories. Towards the end, my stomach wasn't feeling great but it was barely noticeable.

Triathlon Compound

I now official am the owner of a triathlon compound. I found a 2nd roommate who is also a triathlete so we now have 3 triathletes and at least 6 bikes under one roof. This new guy will only be here for 3 months, but that's better than not having anyone. I go from having 2 frat boys living with me to have 2 other triathletes. Much better!

Update

Man, I haven't posted in like 4 days. I'm starting to slack on this.

Monday was a rest day with the J&A core workout. Nothing special, except we did 2 sets of 10 pullups at the end. The first set, I did 5 on my own. The second set was quite impressive since I thought I would be dead after the first set. Well, I did 4 on my own. Also, I'm not getting so sore after these workouts anymore.

Tuesday was an aquajog in the morning. Jamie showed me how to aquajog properly. It freaking wore me the hell out! Basically, I have to exaggerate the high knees and the push off at the end. Very tough doing it that way. I went back to Barton Springs later that night and got in a swim in the dark. It was very womby. It was just dark, wet, peaceful, but not warm so it wasn't quite womby. A ton of people were there that were getting in the way though.

On Tuesday night, my roommate got me my new Shimano SPD-SL pedals. I put them on and rode a test ride on Wednesday morning at the spin bike at the work gym. I like them. They seem easier to get into, but kind of tough to get out of even with the release tension completely released. Maybe they'll loosen up after I use them more. One problem that I had is that I didn't tighten the screws down all the way. Therefore, when I clipped out, the cleats rotated on the shoes. When I clipped back in, it felt like my heels were kicked out and that was causing me knee pain. After about 30 minutes, I couldn't take the pain anymore, got off the bike, borrowed some tools, and relocated the cleats and really tightened down the screws. It worked. Then, I did a 20 minute brick on the elliptical machine since I can't run yet.

Right now, my weight is at 183.5. I'm up 4.5 pounds in like 3 weeks. This is what happens when I'm not super strict about my diet. The thing is that I'm eating more food, but it's mostly clean foods and not crap. My body just loves to gain weight and I doubt that I'll ever be able to get down to under 170 and maintain that. I'll keep trying though. I'll get strict about my diet again and cut out all remaining crap that I'm eating. I can't stand the fact that my body is like this. Any ideas on what I can do to change this besides picking up a cocaine habit?

Another broken bike thingy

This time, I broke the pedal. I did about a 55 mile ride with Texas Iron. The ride left before 7am so it was nice and coolish. We left and I was riding with Joe and Suzanne for a bit. I got whacked in the thigh by a branch. It hurt and left a welt. It felt like I was in Singapore and I got caught putting gum underneath the subway seat. At the turnoff point, I rode by myself since Joe and Suzanne were doing the 100 mile loop. I kept riding by myself and I was pushing pretty good. The route took us on Hwy 12 and man, that is a nice road to ride on. It is smooth and fast. Unfortunately, there isn't much of a shoulder and a decent amount of traffic. I stopped at the last stop with Robbie. I ate a cookie and kept riding. At some point, I couldn't get clipped into my pedal. I kept trying and trying and nothing was happened. After a few miles, I stopped and looked at my pedal. Well, I broke the damn thing. The back part of the pedal that clips into the rear of the cleat was loose. That assembly is held in place by two springs and the springs had came out of place. I rode the rest of the way, about 10-15 miles, without being clipped into the pedal. Basically, I had one clipped pedal and one platform pedal. That didn't stop me from hammering it for the rest of the ride. My calf was sore from slipping off the pedal.

Sunday was a 60min aquajog. Boring!

Wed & Thurs

Wednesday morning was an easy bike ride with some fast 1min intervals thrown in. Wednesday night was a core workout. First one in a few weeks. I'm a little sore in the abs today but not bad at all, but I met a cute chick. Thursday morning was an aquajog. I'm to a point where my body is used to aquajogging so I can really work hard at it. I was actually breathing hard today. Tonight was a great open water swim with Texas Iron. We did about 7 150yd intervals. We started from the shore so it was simulating a mass start. We took a right turn around Andrea in a kayak and headed towards Jamie in a kayak. Turned around him, headed towards Andrea again, and then went to the shore. Like I said, it was great mass swim start practice. I got hit, I hit people, and I ate some weeds. It was awesome.

I'm feeling pretty good after my rest the last week or so. I think it's exactly what I needed to recharge. Tomorrow is a rest day and then my training will ramp up again after this weekend. It'll be awesome.

Bad Luck & Rest

I swear I have the worst luck when it comes to my knees. At my sister's wedding this weekend, one of the groom's cousins is in a wheelchair. After the wedding, someone asked me to go and get it. I went and got it and I picked it up. Well, I picked it up by the wheels and the actual seat part swung down and clipped me in my left knee. This is the same knee that I've dislocated twice and it has bothered me for years. 3 days later, it has a nice bruise on it and I can't even aquajog with it because it hurts and then I start compensating for it. I'm just going to rest it until I can aquajog again.

This morning was the first workout that I've had since last Tuesday. I took a few days off to rest and I'm feeling better now. This is a recovery week so I'm just easing back into it before my IM training really ramps up over the next few months. We'll see if this really helped, but I'm feeling better mentally.

I'm up to 183.5. I feel fat and lazy. Ugh.

Wow

I found a video of Rick and Dick Hoyt. I don't need to say anything because the video says it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg

And a little more about their story:

http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/6/6_1/famed-fatherson-team-hoyt.shtml

This puts things into perspective.

The Ride. From Hell.

Man, the ride on Saturday was a bitch. I went out drinking the night before, but I wasn't out that late or drank that much. I still woke up with a slight headache. I headed out and the headwind was a pain in the ass. It was completely unrelenting. I just went out and headed around down south. Other than the wind, the ride was fine. However, I headed back and caught a great tailwind. I crossed over east of I35 and kept riding. After a bit, I flatted. The boot that I used last weekend blew out. I ate a Gu and used the wrapper as a boot. It worked fine.

I kept going and about 15 minutes later, I was heading down the road that I haven't ridden in months, but was great asphalt 6 months ago. It's a fast uphill, a left turn at the top of the hill, a fast downhill, and then a long right turn onto some more nice asphalt. I peaked the hill, turned left, and headed down the hill. I was going pretty fast and then I noticed something. There was a ravine in the middle of the road. Ok, it wasn't a ravine, but the asphalt washed out or something like that. So, here's what's going on through my mind. shitshitshitfucKfuCKfUCKFUCKKABLAAAAAAAMMMMMMwobblewobblewobblewobble I tried to jump the ravine Evil Canevil style and I got the first tire over it, but the back tire hit pretty hard. I thought I jumped it perpendicularly, but I guess the side of my rim hid the ditch. My back wheel was wobbling and I pulled over to check it out. There was a decent dent in the rim and it was definitely wobbly. I'm surprised that I didn't blow out the tire because I hit teh pothole so fast. I adjusted my break and kept going. I wasn't going that fast and I decided to cut my ride short because I just was having problems.

I headed back on Slaughter and I was feeling better. I wanted to add a few more miles to get over 70 miles so I headed past Brodie and went to Mopac. I turned north on Mopac, hit something in the road, and flatted fucking again. This time, I put the old busted tube from the first flat in first. After I wasted half a CO2 cartridge on that, I got the right tube in and slowly got home. I was ready to get off the bike. No brick run because of my foot.

Sunday was an aquajog in Barton Springs. 1:40 of aquajogging is boring. Nothing special to write about there.

Today, I just spun for 1:10 easily with some faster work in there as well.

I posted on Slowtwitch about my training lately. I'm feeling overtrained or bored with my training. My mental motivation is just gone. I'm not looking forward to workouts and stuff like that. I got some great information there and I'm going to take 3 days off this weekend when I go to Tara's wedding. Hopefully this will help jump start me for IMFL.

Another Overdue Update

I can't remember when I posted last. I think it was Monday. Monday was a short (75min) spin and then the J&A core workout that night. Tuesday was a 5 lap swim at Barton Springs with some sprints thrown in. Those hurt. Afterwards was a 40min aquajog. Wednesday was a swim at The Dick (aka Dick Nichols pool). I did 400 warmup, 3x800 pull, swim, pull, 200 cooldown. It was a good swim because I felt strong on the long intervals. No J&A workout because I wasn't feeling well later that day, but I did get my new cleats adjusted.

Thursday deserves it's own paragraph. I was suppose to do a run in the morning, but I skipped that because of my foot issues. However, there was a Texas Iron time trial on the Mopac (aka Autobahn) loop. This is the same course that Run-Far puts on once a month. The last time I did this course, I came in at 20:13 for a speed of 23.7mph. I kicked the course's ass last night. I came in at 19:45 for a speed of 24.3mph. Also, there was a very strong wind and Jamie said that it was the toughest conditions he's ever seen at a TT on that course. I had Chris Spencer pass me but after that, he slowly pulled away from me. I passed everyone that started in front of me. I went out strong, but not too strong. I powered up the first hill and that was when the pain started to hurt. I was also getting blown around a lot by the wind. At the turn around, it was tough because I was now heading back into the wind. If the course is going to be windy, I prefer it to be like the wind today. A strong tailwind helped me going out since it's uphill, but the headwind coming back wasn't as bad because it was downhill. Yes, I had to pedal harder but the gentle slope down helped. About half way back, I was starting to hurt a bit mostly with a beating heart that was about to explode through my chest. The last time I did this TT, I was hurting really badly at the turnaround. By the finish line, it took everything to get my across the line. This time around, I had enough juice to pop it into a 54-13 gear and power up the last hill. I was throwing my bike around so hard that my front wheel was popping off the ground. I finished the TT and I new I had a great ride. I was hoping for something under 20 minutes and I got 19:45 and I was 6th overall and only 60 seconds behind the 1st place guy. I think next time I can cut about 20 seconds off my time. Also, I had absolutely nothing special like race wheels or an aero helmet so I consider my performance on Thursday quite a good one and I'm happy with it, but I can always do better.