Ironstar Race Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shoe milage: 282 miles

Lazy

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

Also, my race report is coming soon.

Inked! Pt2

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

Calf pic after clean up
Closeup pic after clean up

Inked!

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

Pic 1
Pic 2

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

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

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

Healthy Update

I swear sometimes it's only been a day or two since my last update and then I look on here and it's been nearly 4 days.

I'll be brief with workout updates because they have been brief. Tuesday was a short 35 minute, 4 mile run and a swim that didn't happen. Wednesday was a 60 minute spin bike workout and a core workout that didn't happen. Thursday was a transition workout and a swim workout and neither of those happened. Today is a rest day. On the other hand, I have finalized the stuff for redoing my guest bathroom (Tuesday), I mowed my yard for the first time this year and the knee high weeds are gone (Wednesday), and I fertilized my yard as well (Thursday). I have a race this weekend so I'm tapering this week. It's my first race of the year and we'll see how I do.

Now, time for a health update. My weight is down to 184 and that's good. Once I get decently serious about it, I can drop weight pretty well. I went to the nurse at work this morning and just got some basic numbers done. Here they are:

BP: 110/72 - Easily in the normal range, but I've seen a lot lower for me but I've been stressed lately.
HR: 48bpm - I told the nurse to check it just to see her reaction. She was amazed that it was this low.
Triglycerides: 47 - I was at 67 back in September so this has gotten even lower which is good.
Total Cholesterol: 160 - I was at 127 last time so I'm shocked that it's this high again. It's not bad, but I'm just wondering why they are so high.
HDL: 52 - This is the highest I've ever seen it and it was 45 before.
LDL: 98 - It was 69 before so this something I'm doing is causing this to be higher. This is just good motivation to cut out the crap but I thought that I was doing better about eating crap now than I was back in September.
VLDL: 9.4 - 13 was the number before and I just found out that this is related to triglyceride levels and that's why this is lower since last time.
TC/HDL: 3.1 - Was 2.8 level so my ratio has gotten worse, but I'm still well in the optimal range.
LDL/HDL: 1.9 - It was 1.5 before so both ratios have gotten worse and from what I can tell, that means my blood chemistry isn't quite as good as it was in September. I really want to get an LDL/HDL ratio of below 1 though and I know it does no good for me besides bragging rights.
Glucose: 89 - It was 90 so this is maintained. I ate a lot of sweets as a kid and I think I've developed a mild insulin resistance. I'm very cautious about this because I'm really scarred of getting diabetes. This number shows that I'm fine, but if I lapse into my old ways, which is highly doubtful, I could be at risk for insulin resistance and eventually diabetes.

So, that's a check up of how I'm doing health wise.

Random Monday Thoughts

Completely random stuff:

1) My weight is at 186lbs this morning. Being sick last week and having a big dinner last night probably kept my weight from being lower.

2) If you wonder why everything in your gym bag smells like chain lube for the last week, that means that there is probably a bottle of chain lube in the bottom of your bag leaking.

3) Gu can be dangerous. I have a method for eating Gus. I tear off the top and then squeeze the majority of it in my mouth. Then, I fold it in half and stick it in my mouth with the open end towards the back. I put pressure on the package with my teeth and then pull it out squeegying all the remaining Gu into my mouth. Well, I did that yesterday and cut my tongue and it really hurts today because it's right on the tip of my tongue.

Weird Dream

I have to get this off of my chest and why not here. I had a really weird dream last night. It started off camping in the woods. I like camping so this was pretty cool. It was fall and the leaves were starting to fall and it was very pretty. I'm wandering around the woods for awhile. Don't know what I was doing, probably looking for a place to pee, but I was wandering around in the woods. All of a sudden, a little bobcat type thing comes out of the bushes and is pissed off at me. I stand my ground, puff up to make myself look bigger and I eventually scare him away. As soon as he runs into the bushes, his pissed off bigger brother of a mountain lion starts charging at me. I try to do the same thing to scare him away and I pick up a big branch and try to fend him off. The mountain lion bites the branch in half and then I decided to get the hell out of there. I start running and finally look back and the mountain lion is gone. I think I'm saved. I'm relieved and I'm about to start making my way back to camp. The bushes rustle a bit and then a grizzy bear appears. I can't believe this because it just keeps getting worse and worse. I fend off a bobcat, and then a mountain lion, but I'm going to need help with a grizzly bear. Then, all of a sudden, I hear more rustling behind me and I turn around to see what it is. It's my saviour. It's Gene Simmons from KISS in full KISS makeup with guitar in hand. He scares off the grizzly and saves me from being a bear lunch. I thank him and then he teaches me to play the guitar. I'm a natural and master it in about 5 minutes. Then, we have a jam session and I wake up. I couldn't sleep after this because who could sleep after a dream like this? All I wanted to do was to check myself into a clinic to figure out what the fuck is wrong with me where Gene Simmons and being chased my mountain lions would appear in the same dream.

I just watched the season finale of Battlestar Galactica. It was fucking awesome! This season has been on the downslope and this episode had some redemption.

Ok, now my work outs. I ran this morning. I dida nother 8.2 miles around Town Lake. First lap hurt a bit. My joints weren't hurting bad like usual, but I just hurt. I think my body was still in recovery mode from being sick. I eventually loosened up quite a bit and was feeling much better. I could tell my form wasn't that great and I wasn't picking up my knees, but I was running still. The temperature was OK in the high 60's, but it was really, really humid today and I was sweating almost immediately. The trail was bare because the Capital 10K was going on today. I had no interest in running in it and I didn't know it was today until 2 days ago. The first lap was done in 35:05 with an avg HR of 141. Not bad. Second loop was 34:28 with an avg HR of 136. I know that's not right though because my HRM strap was slipping down and getting incorrect measurements. Total time was 1:09:33 for a pace of 8:28min/mile. I'm happy with that because that is easily Zone 1 for me. After I got warmed up, it was a good run. For the rest of the day, my knees didn't hurt that bad, either. They are usually aching for the rest of the day, but not today.

After the run, I went for a swim at Barton Springs. I also wanted to get in my wetsuit since I haven't worn it since November. I got in and swam all of 50 yards before I got out. Since Barton Springs is a natural body of water, it's subject to high bacteria counts. These bacteria counts go up when it rains like it has the last few days. Also, the rain washes sediments into the water. Cloudy water usually indicates bacteria and sendiments in the water. I swam and I couldn't see anything. With my immune system being low from being sick last week, I didn't want to risk it and cut the swim really, really short. I soaked my legs and then came home and had a Sunday Smoothie.

BTW, I hate the song "Arms Dealer" by Fallout Boy. It's played way too much.

Shoe mileage: 271 miles
Weekly run mileage: 18 miles

Feeling better

I'm feeling a lot better now. I didn't go to work on Thursday and slept a bunch, cleaned my house, and did nothing. I skipped working out on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and just rested. Went to Hong's dinner party on Friday night. It was funny because everyone ate until they were stuffed and then started doing crazy yoga poses in normal clothes and stuff like that. BTW, doing pigeon pose or crow pose in jeans isn't fun. There was one guy that teaches yoga and his girlfriend and another guy that used to take gymnastics for years and then there was me who was a little more husky than those two guys. It was a blast, though.

Did the ATC ride this morning. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do since I really wanted to take it easy today. I ended up holding on pretty well at first. It felt like I was going to puke a few times though. Once we turned on to Bee Caves, I was blown and took it easy the rest of the way. I did the the Hwy 71 hill in the big chainring as well. I'm starting to feel really strong on the bike again. I can push a hard gear and not get that tired. Hopefully, I'll do better on the ride when I'm not recovering from being sick.

After that, did a brick run and it actually did not hurt that bad at all. I ran at what felt like a very easy and comfortable pace but my HR was elevated. After the run and for the rest of the day, I felt fine. Most of the time, my legs hurt a bit in different spots. Some days my knees will hurt, others my hamstrings and sometimes my calves. Today, everything felt great. Quite surprised.

Shoe mileage: 262.5 miles

Down with the sickness

Well, I woke up this morning after about 8.5 hours of sleep and I felt pretty tired. I went to swim and didn't feel like it so I went straight to work. At work, I started feeling worse and worse. I decided to skip my workouts today and rest up a bit. I don't feel run down, but I actually feel sick. I may take tomorrow off of work depending upon how I feel in the morning, but I'm sure the workouts tomorrow are out as well.

I know a lot of people that are so into training that when they start not feeling well, they still find any reason to keep working out. However, they aren't doing themselves any good because they are just wearing themselves out further. Their body needs to take care of itself and exercising while sick is just taking away resources from your body getting healthy again. There are some people that say if the illness is above the neck, then exercise is OK, but if the illness is below the neck, then to rest. I disagree with that slightly so if I'm feeling crappy at all, I'm going to rest. I used to be one of those completely obsessed triathletes that would do anything to not miss a workout. I'm a little more relaxed now. I realize that there are other things to life than training all the time. Also, training is designed to be cumulative so missing a workout here and there is not going to matter that much in the long run.

Not Pissy Tuesday

I was in a much better mood today, luckily. Still not perfect, but definitely in a better mood.

This morning, I started out with a workout on the spin bike. I had to do some longer intervals today. Got in a total of 60 minutes on the spin bike. After that, I did some shoulder exercises to get them back into shape since they've been hurting lately. After work, I ran 6.1 miles around the track at work. I was quite surprised that I got that far, actually. It got me thinking that I've noticed some decent changes in my running in the last month or so. Either my fitness has really improved or I've changed my stride enough that I'm running much more efficiently now. I've noticed that if I keep the same heart rate, I'm running much faster than I was 6 weeks ago. For instance, I ran the first 1.6 miles at work in 13:30 which is about 8:27min/mile. My average heart rate during this period was only 138bpm. Total time was 51:26 for the 6.1 miles which was a pace of 8:26. That's odd because I definitely felt like I was going a lot faster during the intervals tonight. Either way, I felt like I was flying but maybe my perception was off. Max heart rate was 164bpm and the last 10 minute build period was an avg HR of 156bpm. I would've like to seen that closer to 165 but I'll get there eventually.

After the run, I did some more shoulder exercises. My shoulders were feeling better towards the end of the day and that's a very good sign.

My calorie intake was decent today. I had some chocolate and ice cream, but that was because I could afford to eat that because I burned a lot of calories today. Yes, I know I shouldn't eat that stuff, but I'm a lot better at this than I was a year ago. Even splurging a bit, I still have a calorie deficit of over 1000 calories today.

Time for bed now to get ready for a Barton Springs swim tomorrow. It'll be the first time that I've worn my wetsuit since IMFL.

Pissy Monday

I was just pissy today. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and it just continued all day long. Not cool.

I went to swim practice with Longhorn Aquatics. I'm pretty sure that right now I'm not going to go with LA and go with T3 instead. The facilities at UT are great, but the lanes were really crowded. I started out with 6, maybe 7 people in a 25m lane. I would rather swim with T3 and 2-3 people in a 25yd lane. Also, there are a lot of people that the coaches have to watch and I'll probably get more attention with Maurice and Crissy. I have until the end of the month before I decide, though.

My shoulder was hurting again today. I really need to get this problem taken care of soon. I'm working on it though. I also rubbed the skin off of my toe using the fins today.

After my crappy day at work, I went to the core workout. I didn't do anything that would hurt my shoulder or my back so it wasn't that bad for me.

Lazy Weekend

Man, I've had a lazy weekend. The only thing that I've done as far as exercise is I ran for 50 minutes tonight. Did 10 minutes easy and then build every 10 minutes after that and finished with 10 minutes easy again. It wasn't a good run, though. It felt like I couldn't breathe the entire run. Also, I couldn't get my heart rate up that high, either. My legs felt fine though and I felt like my form was decent as well, not great, but decent.

I took it easy this weekend because I needed a break. I had a few drinks for St. Paddy's Day and slept in both days. I slept 12 hours on Friday night. I actually got up at 5:30 on Saturday morning. I walked out the door around 6 to go for a run. It was cold and my legs were hurting. I turned around about 25 yards into it and went back to bed. I think it was a good decision, though. I also did some, uh, calorie replenishment, this weekend as well.

I did some PT exercise today on my legs. More importantly, I did some exercises on my left shoulder. It's been bothering me decently since I started swimming a lot again. I don't exactly know what happened to it. It's always has bothered me. It might just be from something like I've slept on it wrong for years. My personal trainer at the gym thinks that I had a rotator cuff tear when I was younger and it never healed correctly. I'm thinking about going to see my PT about it to get it fixed, but my goal this year was to not see the PT at all. I can't be stupid, though and if I hurt, I should go get it fixed. My back has been having spasms as well. I could feel it getting tight yesterday and then today I started having outright spasms again. Not cool. Like my hamstrings, calves, and shoulder, I need to work on it as well. Oh, I could see Dr. Laurie and see what she thinks is wrong and could get me fixed up. I'll think about that tomorrow, though. Now, I'm tired and need to go to bed to swim with Longhorn Aquatics again.

Shoe mileage: 253 miles
Weekly run mileage: 11 miles

Update

I can't believe I haven't updated all week. Life has been crazy with work and house stuff. I just want to say that it feels good to feel like you are totally kicking ass at your job. However, it is getting in the way of more important stuff like working out.

Monday was a rest day. I really needed it. My hamstring was bothering me after last Sunday's run. I tried to get some good sleep as well, too.

Tuesday was just a swim with T3. It was a good swim. I hate paddles, though. I felt like a one legged duck swimming with them. I was in the faster lane and I could keep up with them swimming, but they lapped me doing paddles. Also, my shoulder was starting to bother me. I really need to do some PT exercises to get this from getting worse.

Wednesday was suppose to be a bike ride, but work got in the way. I just never got around to it.

Thursday was a run after work with Texas Iron. It was hot! It was something over 80 degrees and I'm just not quite used to that yet. I'll get there though. After the warmup, it was a track workout. Each interval was 2 laps around the track. First 400 was at 10K pace, next 200 was building up to a 5K pace, last 200 was easy. We were suppose to do 5-8 of them, but I only did 5 of them. My right hamstring was letting me know that it wasn't happy. It was getting worse as I ran. I also started out a little too fast and fell off towards the end of the run. The intervals were 2:14, 2:32, 2:30, 2:38, and 2:35. Ok, except for the first one, I was pretty consistent. My max heart rate for the entire run was 179 even though I was pushing it at the end of a few of those intervals. I can't believe I can't get it that high anymore because I've seen 188 on the bike within the last 2 years. That should put my running MHR over 190. Maybe when I do more speed work, I'll get it up there.

Friday was a swim with Longhorn Aquatics. It was OK. I think I like T3 more, but the facilities at UT are awesome. Coach Whitney told me that I was pausing too long and losing momentum. I tried swimming differently and it felt like I was just flailing my arms around. I finally found a stroke where I wasn't losing momentum but felt a lot better for me. I was also faster because of it too. However, I couldn't put my shoulder under my chin like Maurice was trying to teach me. Having 5 coaches in 2 years has caused me to learn how to swim depending upon who is watching. There were some speed sets today. Those were fun. However, on the last 50m sprint, as soon as I dove into the water, my calf cramped up. That was pretty much the end of my practice because after that, my calf wasn't feeling good. Also, my right calf was hurting pretty badly from the run the night before. I need to get on the TP massage ball and work it out this weekend. Oh, the UT pool was set up for 50m long course and that was fun swimming that. The water was great and clear. Very nice.

Now, does anyone have any opinions on why I should choose Longhorn Aquatics over T3? For one thing, when I swim with T3, I don't get parking tickets like I did this morning. I hate paying for parking and when I get a fucking ticket, man that's a major downer of my day.

But it didn't phase me that much today because I have some good news. I weighed in at 184 this morning. Holy shit! I'm really dropping weight now. How did I do it? I took a pretty big dose of starvation this week. Ok, not really, but I was definitely hungry a majority of this week. I think my feeling of "full" after I eat is probably larger than normal. What I've accidentally been doing and what I'll do on purpose next week is that except for breakfast, I'll always be a little bit hungry after whenever I eat. It probably isn't the healthiest, but I felt fine this week and I'm losing weight. This weekend I need a break though and I'll probably drink a lot. I just need a day to cut loose and it's going to be tomorrow after I get all my workouts in for the day. Should be fun.

I went grocery shopping tonight. I got a bunch of groceries since I'm going to make some large batches of food. I'm going to make some black bean lasagna and then make my couscous/quinoa mixture with some Unbelievable Chicken Marinade. Man, that stuff is good.

Now, it's time for bed since I have to be up at 5:30 to run.

Return to Barton Springs

I went for my long run this morning around Town Lake. It was a little bit hot today. Ok, not bad, but it was in the upper 70's when I finished the run. This was the longest run since IMFl at 8.2 miles. Total time was 70:45 so it was a pace of 8:38 per mile. Not bad for a base run. I seem to be getting faster. I tried to keep it an easy pace and a base run as well and my heart rate never got really high. Max was actually only 157bpm. Average was 145bpm. The first 4.1 was done in 35:14 with an avg HR of 143bpm. The second half was done in 35:31 with a HR of 148bpm. It was getting a little tough towards the end but I kept it up. My hamstring on my right leg was slightly hurting me at first but eased up after awhile. It was bothering my stride a bit. After the run, my knees were bothering me a bit. They've been bothering me for awhile now. My patellar tendons on both knees are sore. It's right where the tendon connects to the patella. It's sore when I do movements like standing up or squats where I load the tendons. Yoga today hurt because of it. Anyone have any ideas?

Afterwards, I went to Barton Springs and swam for a bit. It was the first time that I was there since before IMFL. It was still cold. Not as bad as I remember, but not exactly enjoyable. I did 3 laps and called it quits. I just wanted to get in the cold water to help try to get my legs to heal. I was working on the shoulder underneath my chin while swimming. It's still not completely natural yet but I'm getting closer to it. I also learned a new visualization on Slowtwitch today. When I begin my pull, try to visualize pulling my hand to my opposite hip. This helps to keep the arm close to the body and also promote rotation as well. I'll work on it some more.

Later in the day, I went to yoga. It was good and loosened up my hamstrings a bit. They hurt as well as my patellar tendons. It was relaxing though and I tried to breathe and really get into it. Oh, one more thing. I actually did the Crow Pose in yoga today. I wasn't able to balance for more than a couple of seconds, but I was expecting to come out of yoga today with a broken nose but it didn't happen.

So, that was my day today.

Shoe mileage: 242 miles
Weekly run mileage: 18 miles

Great ATC Ride

I did the ATC ride today again. This time, I actually held on for a bit. The ride was huge this morning. It was probably the biggest group that I've seen do the ride at around 75-100 people. Yes, the peloton was huge going out and we took up so many lanes. I was actually feeling really good today. I was sore from sprint workout on Thursday though and my quads and hamstrings let me know it, but I kept pushing. We turned on Southwest Parkway and I was actually using a few stragglers to put me back into the back of the pack. I was actually gaining ground on them and then I hit a stoplight. I almost had it today. After the light, I was in the front with Missy and Tim who wear also wearing ATC jerseys. They are both strong riders and I stuck on their wheels. We had a pack of about 8-10 guys and the 3 of us were in the front pretty much the entire time up to Jack Brown Cleaners. I took one or two pulls but I felt it was good enough sitting on Tim and Missy's wheels. By hanging on their wheels, they were able to push me and kept my heart rate at 160-175 pretty much the entire time. It was a lot of fun. We got to Jack Brown's and rested for a few minutes. Missy's husband was waiting for her and Tim waited for his girlfriend, A-Pack Annie. Then, the 5 of us took off back to the shop. I got dropped at one point, but I was able to catch back up to them. Truthfully, I think they slowed up for me, but I was still pushing hard.

Pretty much the entire ride, I felt like my legs were toast. I was suppose to do a brick, and I was debating whether to do it or not because I thought my legs were going to be trashed. Actually, my legs would feel fine after taking it easy for a couple of minutes. I finished the ride and decided to go ahead and do a brick. Problem was that my hamstring wasn't feeling well. Since I've had hamstring problems in the past and I know how hard they are to heal, I cut the run at 5 minutes and went back to ATC for some tacos. After that, I went to Barton Springs and soaked my legs for about 20 minutes to help promote healing. I have a base run tomorrow so I'll see how my hamstring feels.

BTW, the weather here is absolutely gorgeous. A high today of about 82 which meant a ride in the 60's today. Sunny as hell. Just awesome.

Another great swim

I had another great swim this morning. Also, I had someone to pace off of and push me so that was the main reason why I joined a masters swim program. This guy pushed me so much more than I would have done on my own. There were so many points where I felt like my eyeballs were going to explode. I swam 3500yds.

Last night was an evil workout with Texas Iron. After the warmup and drills and strides, we did 10x1min all out, 1min rest. We didn't keep track of our watches so we had Jamie and Andrea yelling "Go!" and "Stop!". They said to do every one as fast as possible. Man, did it hurt really badly, but it was good. I couldn't get my heart rate above 180 so I think that might be my new max heart rate. That concerns me because it was up around 190 only 2 years ago. Today, my hamstrings are sore from the sprint workout.

I skipped the core workout on Wednesday night because my body was saying "Rest" to me. I slept almost 10 hours on Wednesday night.

Also, this morning I weight in at 187lbs. I'll probably be at 186.5 or below after the weekend. Woohoo! I'm excited that my discipline is paying off and I'm finally starting to see decent progress.

Shoe mileage: 233.5 miles

It's 8:30AM and I've been up for 4 hours already

I woke up at 4:30 this morning. I was expecting to be bleary eyed, grumpy, and not really motivated. However, I popped up out of bed and got ready in time to leave by 5:00. Why? I had a masters swim practice this morning with T3. It is kind of a drive from where I live, but at that time in the morning, it isn't bad. I swam a total of about 3800yds which is huge for me. I normally swim about 3000-3200yds when I was swimming on my own last year. Also, I've swam at most 2600yds since IMFL. Also, I've been really easy on swimming since IMFL. Today, I was doing some decently hard intervals and I was holding them anywhere from 1:28-1:35/100yds. Not too shabby. However, I got tired pretty quickly and then the speed dropped of a bit. The speed also dropped off a bit because Maurice showed me some things. I feel like I'm a pretty quick learner when it comes to swimming. From doing a combination of swimming and yoga, I can notice pretty subtle difference in my body when I'm doing things. Maurice wanted me to drop my shoulder more when I was extending out at the beginning of a stroke. This felt weird to me but it forced me to roll over more since I know I tend to swim flat. He wanted me to concentrate on putting my shoulder underneath my chin every time. I did it and it was awkward at first. But after about 200yds, my body realized that this was probably a better stroke and the different muscle recruitment started kicking in and working better. I swam slower when I started doing this, but I know in order to get faster, I need to get slower first when I change my stroke. The biggest difference is that it sounded different. The way that I was sinking my shoulder, it caused a hole in the water that would crash together instead of my old stroke where I would gently slip into the water. It was just weird realizing that my stroke sounded different. Overall, it was a good swim.

Last night, I had a fantastic run. I was suppose to do a 40min run with 5x2min fast, 1 min easy. I went wandering around in a neighborhood next to mine and almost got lost. I went a total of 37:55 instead of the 40min and MapMyRun said that I did about 4.77 miles. That's a pace of about 7:56/mile which is way faster than I have been running lately. It felt like I was flying last night and it looks like I was. My heart rate never got above 170bpm or so so I had some gas left in the tank if I wanted to go faster. I didn't because I'm trying to ease into this speed stuff. What made the difference last night? I have no clue, but I just concentrated on high knees, relaxed and down shoulders, and weight forward. Wow, I think this made a difference. I'll do another run on Thursday with Texas Iron and see if I get similar results. I'm just feeling really good because of this today since it seems like my body is back to the point where it wants to get faster again. I just have to watch out for injuries. And I almost broke my ankle off last night stepping into a hole in the road running in the dark. That wasn't fun.

I did a 60min spin on Tuesday morning. It's hard trying to simulate hills on a trainer or spin bike. Didn't feel good during the workout and couldn't get my heart rate up.

Monday night was a tough core workout at J&A. He got pissed off because some people were talking during the workout, including myself. He yelled at us and I shut up. One other guy kept talking and that's where Adam got pissed. It hurt, but I stuck with it because I knew it was only going to be 45 minutes and it was going to be a challenge which I needed. I'm still sore today from that workout and was feeling it in swim practice this morning. I'm going to go again tonight, but do no upper body stuff and do only core work.

Another indication that I'm starting to get into great shape again. Before I went for my run last night, I had my HRM on. I wanted to see how my resting heart rate was. I sat down on the couch and just watched it for about a minute. Once I calmed down, it was in the 46-49 range for over a minute. I'll probably check my resting heart rate the next day that I sleep in, but this is a first for me to see it under 50 consistently.

Shoe mileage: 229 miles

Yum, dinner

I've posted this before, but I just want to reiterate how good my new staple dinner is. I cooked up some tomatoe and lentil couscous while the inca red quinoa was cooking. Once it was done, I threw the couscous in with the quinoa. I also put in a can of chick peas, tomatoes, and red bell peppers. For spices, I put in kosher salt, black pepper, cumin, ginger, garlic, rosemary, basil, oregano, and paprika. Oh, put in some olive oil as well. I cooked up my spicy crusted salmon which had canola oil, kosher salt, black pepper, cumin, paprika, basil, and rosemary put on it. It turned out really well. The salmon was fresh since I was home from the grocery store for less than an hour before the salmon was out of the oven. I had a spinach salad with some fat free ranch dressing and some black pepper. I'm so happy right now because it's such a good feeling to be full off of healthy, good quality food.

Brandon, is this a good, nutrient dense dinner?

Long Post

I have a lot to talk about so this may be a long post. We'll see how it turns out though.

Thursday, I dropped my bike off at ATC on Thursday. I was having problems shifting from my ride on Tuesday. Brad looked at it couldn't figure it out immediately. I dropped it off and then headed to practice with Texas Iron. Let's just say that I hate traffic in Austin. It took me over an hour to go about 15 miles to practice. Not fun. The freeways were Ok, but the surface roads up north were absolutely horrible. Damnit. I was late, but not too late. We did a hill repeat workout. After the warmup, we ran warm up a hill, then a long descend down the other side. I was doing these in about 5:30 each. My body isn't used to running uphill or downhill, but I think I was doing the uphills better than the downhill. I felt like I was running like Phebe from friends when going downhill. I kept my heart rate at around 170bpm. I've could've gone harder, but like I said, I was keeping my heart rate in this range for almost 6 minutes and I'm not used to that yet. Did a 400yd active recovery after each one and then went right into the next one. Tough but good.

Friday was intended to be a swim. I woke up, it was cold, and I didn't make it. I keep being lazy about swimming but that's about to change. I've gotten in contact with T3 so I should be swimming with them next week.

Saturday was another ATC ride. It was either because I was on my Dual which is faster right now or because the group started out slower. I was able to hang onto the main group for awhile with a heart rate of around 170-175. I held it there for a few minutes. Once my heart rate hit 179-180, I blew up and dropped off the pack. I'm happy because I was able to hold on longer. I kept riding at a pretty good pace but not too hard the rest of the ride. However, the wind was absolutely crazy. It felt like it was always either a headwind or a crosswind. My bike was getting blown all over the place and I had to be very careful in my aerobars. Being in my aerobars was squirrely in the first place because I haven't been in them for 4 months. I also had an incident that could've been a lot worse. I was going down a hill on Hwy 71 at 30+mph. I've been buzzed on this hill many times before and I've learned that when I'm going down this hill to go ahead and get in the middle of the lane. Well, I was in the middle of the lane and some asshole tries to pass me on the left. Not like in the lane to the left of me, but in my lane but on my left. Missed me by about 18 inches. Scary as shit since the wind was blowing me all over the place. After he passed me, I moved further to the left so no one behind me would think about doing it again. Man, it just shows how some people in cars have such little courtesy for people on bikes. If I'm going as fast as traffic or close to it, I should have my own lane. Enough of that. I kept riding and there was wind the entire way. I was doing OK until the last big hill. I was going up it and it felt like my quads blew up. They were just done at that point. I got back to shop fine though.

After the ride, did a 30 minute brick run. Because my quads blew up on the bike, this run really, really hurt. I don't think I was going that fast, but I kept going. I estimate that I did aboub 3.5 miles and my avg HR was 144 but that can't be right because it felt a lot tougher than that.

I spent the next couple of hours at the bike shop. Don helped me out refit me on my bike. Here is what I looked like before.



My back isn't flat and my shoulders aren't over my elbows very much. It felt OK, but not great. I ended up moving my saddle forward and flipping the stem over. Before, I had about 48cm from nose of saddle to end of stem. With this new position, I have about 50.5cm. Here is what it looks like.



I not subtle but not drastic change but still a change. Don recommended that I put on a shorter stem to get my torso over my elbows more and here is what that looked like.



However, I didn't feel as good in this position as I did when I just flipped my stem. In the original and this shorter stem position, I felt like my back was curved more. When I flipped the stem over, it felt like my back was in a more neutral position and was flatter. This just felt a lot better. Also, the angle from ankle, knee, hip was 148 degrees so it was close to the recommended 150 degree angle. My torso and hips were at 90 degrees as well as my arms and my torso. I just felt really comfortable in this position. My seat height seems to be a good height as well. I may go lower in the front in the future, but I'll start here for now. I still have about a 4" drop from my saddle to my aerobar pads and that's pretty significant. My saddle is almost all the way forward. The last time I had it in this position, I had an 80.5 degree geometry which is pretty damn steep. What do you think of my fit?

After that, I helped Don set up his computer so that his video camera can download pics onto his computer so that he can post them on his website. We helped each other out that day.

Today was a 60 minute base run. I ended up going on the Shoal Creek Trail today. I've been hearing about it for awhile now and decided that I would take it today for a change of scenery. It's was pretty cool. Some parts of the trail were pretty overgrown, but nice most of the way. However, this is something that I wouldn't want to run on at night. Lots of dark, foreboding places. I had a really good run today. I usually do my base runs too hard and today I took it nice and easy. It really felt like an easy base run. I worked on my form and tried to pick up my knees, keep my shoulders relaxed and down, and kept my weight forward. I think it worked most of the way. My body was feeling pretty good as well. The weather was fantastic in the upper 50's. Windy again, but that doesn't matter as much as when on the bike. I just can't see enough that today was a fantastic run.

I was going to swim in Deep Eddy afterwards, but anything downtown was packed due to the kite festival at Zilker park this weekend. The DE parking lot was full and I was done for the day.

Oh, some other good news. My weight was down to 188lbs on Friday. My next goal in sight is 185lbs. I'll be there by the end of March, damnit!

Shoe mileage: 224 miles
Weekly run mileage: 15 miles (I'm going to start keeping track of this)

Jealousy of fish and chafpples

I've been reading one or two other tri blogs from people who are fish. And I'm really jealous of them. I really wish I was a fish. I don't know why since it's the shortest leg of a triathlon, but I just wish I could swim like the dickens. Because of that, I'm probably going to join a masters swim program soon. I really think I can make huge strides in my swimming by swimming with people much faster than me. I'm going to try T3 first. Yes, I do currently train with Texas Iron and this is kind of like going to the dark side, but I know a couple of people that participate in both. Also, I've dropped in to a few of Texas Iron's swim practice and I was already one of the fastest people in the pool. I remember one day I actually was the fastest and from what I here, T3 has some of the fastest swimmer triathletes in Austin with them. I'll check it out for a week. Then, I'll try the Longhorn Aquatics maybe.

This morning, I did about 2600yds in Stacy. It was kind of slow, but I'm just now getting back into it. I was able to do it no problem though and I'm not hurting at all. The only thing that is missing is my speed in the water. I was actually lucky to get to Stacy this morning since it seemed like everyone on the road was trying to kill me. I guess that is one thing that I miss when I'm leaving my house at 6:00 in the morning instead of 7ish like I did today.

I went running on Sunday and got a chafpple (chafed nipple). It's 3 days later and that thing still hurts. Ouch.

Sophia, Sunshine, and Cycling Gods

Well, today was the first time I took out Sophia, my Cervelo, since November. Since then, I totally torn down the bike and rebuilt it. Let's just say that I didn't put it back together quite right. The front derailleur wants to shift down to the little chain ring all the time. When I'm in my aerobars I pretty much have to keep my hand on the bar end shifter because it wants to slowly drop down. Also, I can't pull the shifter up all the way either. And my handlebars aren't on straight. And I did a very shitty job on my handlebar tape. Other than that, the bike is fine. The rear derailleur works like a champ.

The weather in Austin has been awesome lately. Actually, it's a little warm because it jumped from high in the 50's to high in the 80's. It almost completely skipped oven the 70's which is perfect riding weather. Either way, it was sunny out and I went on another 30 mile lunch ride today. IT was great being back on Sophia and getting in the aerobars and just going hard and fast. I used to think that I was faster on my road bike, but I felt much stronger today on the Cervelo. It was windy as hell and the bike was squirrely from the crooked handle bars, it being a tri bike which isn't fun in a crosswind, and I'm not used to steering in aerobars. I kept getting blown all over the place which made the ride interesting especially when big garbage trucks buzzed me. I just did the 30 miles at a hard pace and I noticed that even when I was going strong, my heart rate wouldn't get as high as it would on my road bike but I was going much faster. This is good.

I did have one problem. I got a piece of glass in my tire and had a flat. I changed the tube and got out my CO2 to fill it up. It was empty. OK, I'll just get my spare cartridge. It was empty as well. Wow, I'm such a dumbass. Well, I'll just call some people at work and try to get a ride back to work. It wouldn't be that big of a deal since it was beautiful outside and relatively close to work. Eh, it was still a good day since I got out for at least 45 minutes. I started calling people and about the 5th unanswered phone call, I saw another cyclist coming down the road. I waived him down and told him my situation. He hand a hand pump and after about 4 minutes of pumping, I was back on my way. Then, as I was about to get back on my bike, another cyclist rode by as well. The cycling gods wanted me to ride today and I sacrificed a package of chocolate covered donuts in their honor after I got back with the ride.

Overall, I had a great ride today. Unfortunately, I was at work at 5:30 this morning and didn't leave until 8:30 tonight so I didn't get in a run. I'm about to hit the sack now and get up for a swim tomorrow.

Man, it was just a great day to be alive and ride and I'm very happy about that.

Heavy on my feet running

I did a 7 mile run aronud Town Lake today. The weather was great at around high 50's and there was a lot of scenery out as well. Very nice and sunny.

The run started out a little rough. I would just describe it as heavy on my feet. Yes, I'm up to about 190 lbs, but I've been in shape at around 185 lbs before and I don't feel as bad as I did today. I just feel really, really heavy and slow. I'm not light on my feet at all and I don't get the feeling that I'm flying when I'm running fast. It may be because I'm running slower since I'm trying to get back into running. Hell, it could be because I'm somewhat heavy right now unlike what I first thought. The run started out bad but then it got better. My training program had me doing a run today and to build throughout the run where I start pretty easy and then end doing a pretty significant clip. The first 4.1 miles was done in 34:05 with an avg HR of 145bpm. The final 2.9 miles was 23:47 with an avg HR of 161bpm. The first lap was a pace of 8:20min/mile which is somewhat faster than what I've been running lately especially with an avg HR of 145. The second lap was at a pace of 8:12min/mile. Now that I'm looking at those numbers, the first lap was pretty good compared to the pace on the second lap. I felt like I was going a lot faster on the 2nd lap. Hmmm, this is interesting. My body was feeling OK. My hamstrings felt tight and my knees were hurting a bit as well. My knees have been bothering my lately. Not bad, but I can feel them hurting a bit, especially in my patelar tendons on both knees. Overall, the run was great even though it started out rough but finished awesomely.

After that, I went and swam 1000yds at Deep Eddy. Wow, it was cold. First time I've been in the Austin area cold water swimming holes since before IMFL. I got warmed up after about 200yds and was actually feeling pretty good towards the end. I think it helped my legs feel better because they haven't been bothering my that badly today. I guess that's a good sign. Then, I came home and had one of my smoothies that I look forward to having on the weekends. Yummy.

Sunburnt in February

I love Austin because of the title of this post. I decided to screw work on Thursday and went for a ride during lunch. My work is kind of the outskirts of town and within 10 minutes from the parking lot at work, I was in an area where there are very few cars and plenty of open road. I've done this loop before I like it a lot. It's also part of the Tuesday Nighter route. Well, I did it and it was windy as usual. I tried to go pretty hard and caught a nice tailwind on the way back in to work. I got a total of 30 miles in so it was a great, tough ride. Also, I was quite relaxed at work after that. I was in the sun for almost 2 hours and I didn't put any sunscreen on my arms. I ended up getting a nice little sunburn from the typical sleeveless bike jersey. Now that I got one burn in for the year, I'll be covering up with sunscreen every single ride.

Later that night, I came home and did the 3.1 mile ride around my neighborhood. Did it in 26:45 so I was about 10sec/mile faster than usual. At first, it was tough but it got a little bit easier later on in the run.

Friday morning was a swim at Stacey. I actually swam for about 50 minutes and got in about 2200yds. I did some drills and the fins I have caused a sore spot on my toe that's itching like crazy right now. It's on the last toe bone between the joint and the toenail so it's in a bad spot. It was a good swim though.

Saturday was another ATC ride. It was a smaller group and once again, I got dropped almost immediately. My heart rate is either at 140 or 175 on these rides and it's tough for me to get into different zones. It was also very, very windy which made it more difficult. Did a 30 minute run afterwards and both the ride and the run just hurt today. I felt really slow on the the run. Had 3 breakfast tacos afterwards and successfully denied myself a 4th one which I wanted very badly. The weather was amazing today and it was almost 70 degrees at the start of the ride. Right now, it's around 76 degrees and very sunny. Perfect winter day in Austin.

For the rest of the day, I think I'm going to take it easy. The last 2 weekends have been busy with house work and I just want to sit on the couch with the windows open and do nothing. Maybe I can find someone to go get some beers with me and sit on a patio all day long.

Ok, time to do nothing.

Shoe mileage: 202 miles

Wednesday Update

Well, let's get my fan club caught back up with my training. Monday was a core workout and I was a little sore afterwards. Tuesday was a fartlek run at the Austin High track. Did a 15 min warmup and then 8x400 fast, 200 easy. I was shooting for 1:45/400 and I hit it. My heart rate was in the 170-175 range each time so I could've gone a bit faster. Since this was my first speed workout since Christmas, I wanted to take it slightly easy today. Did another 15 minute cooldown run back to the car.

I meant to work out today, but I forgot my towel so I couldn't swim this morning. Then, work got in the way of going to the core workout so I did jack shit today. I feel fat and lazy and I'm trying to break my sweet tooch so if anyone has any advice, let me know. Sweets, especially chocolate, seems to by my last bane of weightloss and healthiness.

Ok, back on track. I have 3 hours scheduled out of my work day tomorrow to go ride my bike. It should be sunny and 80 degrees tomorrow and that's too perfect to pass up. Work can suffer for a day.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty good right now. I'm really, really tired because I've been working out more and harder lately and my body is requesting more sleep to adjust. I slept 7 hours last night and was completely exhausted today. I'm about to go to bed now and that'll give me 9 hours for the night. My ankle is slightly sore for some reason, maybe from the speed work last night, but my body is Ok. My knees are very, very slightly achy, but they wouldn't bother me if I wasn't being so mindful of my body.

Ok, time for bed.

Weekend Update

Well, it's been awhile since my last update. Well, that's because there isn't much to talk about. Monday, I fully intended to go to the core workout. Work got in the way. I meant to bike on Tuesday. Work got in the way. Wednesday, I meant to do a bike ride and that didn't happen because of work. See a trend here? On Wednesday, I realized that I had worked out only once in the last 6 days. That changed on Thursday when I got up and ran the 3.15 mile loop around my neighborhood. The extra rest must have paid off because I clocked that loop at 26:42 with an avg HR of 147 and max of 159. I felt great during the run, too. Didn't get to ride my bike later that day at the Texas Iron workout. I showed up, but forgot my trainer at home and they didn't have any spare trainers. Sucks, because I really wanted to ride.

Now, I haven't been working out all week. And I've been eating a decent amount of crap due to V-Day and stuff like that. Well, I weighed in at 190 surprisingly. After my run today, I should be under 190 tomorrow.

Saturday, I did the ATC ride. Like the last time I went on an ATC ride, I had a flat at the begining. Totally sucks, but I got some practice at quickly changing my tire and I made the start of the ride in time. I got my ass kicked again. I got dropped even before I hit Southwest Parkway. I tried hanging onto a group and whenever I looked at my HRM, my heart rate was around 170. I was suppose to do a base ride that day. Oh well. I just kept going and kept hurting but I never gave up. Got done with the ride and did a 30min brick. Nothing special. Hurt, but felt decently well. A little tired since I went so hard on the bike before. However, I think this is good considering that I'm doing sprints and Olys the first half of this year.

Oh, bike ride was 30.8 miles at an avg speed of 18.6mph. Avg HR was 151bpm and max of 180bpm. 52% of the ride my heart rate was in the 157-175 range. Wow. The brick was 28:28 with an avg HR of 157bpm, max of 168.

Today, I did a run around Town Lake. There was almost no one out there because a lot of people were doing the half and full marathon. Did a full 7 miles today and I felt fine. A few small aches and pains but nothing that really registered as a potential problem. Total time was 1:00:43 with an avg HR of 148, max of 164. First 4.1 miles was 34:36 at 145bpm and the second 2.9 miles was 26:07 at 152bpm. What's great is that my pace was 8:40 and I'm happy about that. It felt good today. I've also been working on picking up my knees when I run. When I started running again, I shuffled a lot. My coach yelled at me about it and I've been trying to correct it. It really gets my hip flexors on fire but that's a good thing.

I'm trying to get back into swimming, but it's just too cold. I just need to suck it up and and get my butt in the water.

One more thing, personally, I try to strive to see how low I can get my pulse and my blood pressure. It's another to be competitive among other triathletes. However, we forget the dangers of low pulse and low blood pressure. Here is an email from my coach:

Hi Guys,

I'm not sure how much you may of heard but I had a fall last Sunday at the
long supported run and had to go to the hospital. At the time it was
diagnosed as low blood pressure which caused me to feint and smack my head.
I went home with 3 staples, a concussion and a nasty headache.

Yesterday (Thursday) I had to go back in to the hospital because I thought I
was having a stroke. I lost feeling/control in the right side of my face
quite suddenly. At the hospital, a second CT scan showed a small contusion
on the left frontal lobe of my brain and a fractured skull behind the right
ear. The fracture had allowed blood to pool around a nerve that controls the
side of my face and thus my symptoms.

I am back home but not quite back up to speed. I am on steroids (I'm
juicin!) to promote the healing and reduce the swelling but time is the best
cure. I will be working on schedules and what not in the coming days but I
would ask for your patience with me as things may be a little slower than
normal. I have a large backlog of e-mail which I will be working through and
I promise you a response. if you have sent me an e-mail in the last 36 hrs
the chances are its sitting unopened in my inbox.


I've had issues getting lightheaded from time to time and this is something that to any well trained athlete. I know my blood pressure is about 104/58 and it keeps getting lower as I work out more and let work bother me less and less. This is just a reminder to everyone to be careful and watch your vitals and low as possible always isn't the best.

Shoe mileage: 189 miles

Bike Tire Fun & Run

Well, I didn't get to ride yesterday. I was busy working on my house and I got a lot of stuff done so it was worth skipping my workouts. However, I still have some interesting bike stuff to talk about. Remember how last weekend I flatted on the ATC ride? Well, here's a pic or two of why you should always check your tires after you get a flat.





You know what's crazy. I didn't notice this little knobbit until Thursday for the trainer workout. So, after I flatted last weekend, I rode on the tire with the tube sticking out for a good 7 miles or so and I didn't have any mishaps. I'm quite surprised that it lasted without another incident. I want to save the tire, but this picture shows the damage and I will probably have to get another tire.



I had another fantastic run today. Partly cloudy and around 50 degrees. I was wearing my REI Power Stretch and I got really, really hot. I ended up having my gloves off and the zipper on my shirt unzipped all the way. That thing is very warm. I did about 6.1 miles like last Sunday. Total time of 56:05 with an avg HR of 151, max of 166. The first lap was a time of 26:03 with heart rate of 148. Second lap was 26:31 with an avg heart rate of 155. Something was odd. Maybe one of these days I'll get in a run where I eat and drink beforehand instead of just getting up and running. Eh, it was awesome either way.

Good News

Good news. My weight is now down to 189.5. I'm under 190! I lost 4 pounds in the last 11 days. I guess this keeping track of your calories and exercising thing works. Who woulda thought that. And to celebrate, I went out and ate pizza and drank beer last night.

I swam on Wednesday. I think it was the first time in over a month. I really need to get back into swimming and that's one of my goals for this month. I only did about 1600yds. I was fine and I just need to start doing hour long sets again. That afternoon, I actually got out of work on time and made the core workout. My abs are still a little sore today from it.

Thursday was a great day. I ran during lunch with one of the guys from work and I ran "naked". No heart rate monitor, no iPod, no watch. Temperature was great at about 58 degrees. I did 3 laps which was 4.5 miles and it felt great. That night, I did the spin workout with Texas Iron. My knee was hurting at first and I decided that I need some rest from running for a few days.

Friday was a rest day.

I'm feeling more fit. I have more energy as well, too. I'm absolutely starving all the time though. My body is holding up pretty well, but my knees are starting to give me slight trouble from time to time.

Well, that's it for today. I still need to get more workout in for the day today though.

Tuesday Fartlek

I did a fartlek run on Tuesday. Ran a total of 4.5 miles in 40:53. As usual when I'm getting back into running, I can't get my heart rate that high and keep it there. It's just something that'll come with more speed work and training. One problem that I had yesterday was that it felt like I was going to bonk about 30 minutes into the run. I just had no energy at all. I went to lunch afterwards and ate everything in sight, it seemed. I run during lunch and at the time, it was sunny and 62 degrees. Absolutely gorgeous.

I did yoga on Sunday. It was great as usual. Unfortunately, my hottie yoga teacher has a ring on her finger. Damnit.

I'm having issues with the Strassburg sock that I got. It's putting pressure on some of my toes and it actually started to hurt this morning. I may look at another option to help out my leg problems.

Shoe milage: 164.5 miles

Nice run

First of all, kitty vomit on the carpet isn't a pleasant thing to come home to after a workout.

Also, I used to go to Chipotle a lot after workouts because there food is good and I thought it was healthy. Well, go to Chipotle Lovers and plug in your typical burrito and see what you find out.

I went for a nice run today. It was suppose to be somewhat chilly but the weather was great for running. Somewhere in the high 40's but warmed up to the high 50's in about an hour. I did 6.1 miles in 57:06 for about a pace of 9:20. I definitely run slower at Town Lake because of the crushed gravel trail. I felt like I was running much faster than 9:20min/mile though. It's frustrating because I used to do 8:00min/mile for 10 miles with an avg HR of about 150-155bpm. Today's avg HR was 145bpm with a max of 162. However, it felt like my heart rate was 150+ bpm for a long time. I felt fine though. I'm still a little sore from the tough workout on Thursday though. As usual, my left piriformis was cramping afterwards. Sucks. I need to do some work with my TP Massage ball today.

I bought a Strassburg sock yesterday to help out with my left heel and Achilles issues. I slept with it on for about an hour last night and I then I took it off. It was just weird with it on. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually.

One thing that I forgot to mention yesterday. I really noticed the difference in bike components on my ride. On my road bike, I have Shimano 105 components but on my tri bike, I have Ultegra. When I was shifting under strenuous load on my road bike, it didn't shift very smoothly at all sometimes.

Odwalla has a new flavor of bars called Strawberry Pomegranate. Very tasty.

Shoe mileage: 160 miles

My butt hurts

Well, I posted about the speed and strength workout on Thursday night with Texas Iron. Well, I've been sore the last 2 days because of it. My butt really hurts as well as my hamstrings and my groin. It feels nice to be sore again, though.

It was butt ass cold this morning. I got up and weather.com said it was 28 degrees. I wasn't going riding in that shit! I decided to ride later in the day when it warmed up to about 50 degrees or so. Still cold, but much better because I didn't have to wear every piece of clothing that I own. Did 33 miles in about 1:50. I really don't like riding later in the day because there are too many other cars out on the roads. Even in the 2.5 years that I've been in Austin, the traffic has gotten much worse. I was buzzed 3 times today and got honked at by at least 2 different people. Not very friendly today, the locals weren't. But I was still out there enjoying it.

Went for a 2.5 mile brick afterwards in 21:21. I'm about to take a shower and head to bed now. I'm tired.

Test Results

I hate shaving my legs.

I've been working a lot lately and I was worried that it would cause my blood pressure to go up because of all the stress. Well, I went to the nurse at work and my bp is 104/58. Not bad at all. Also, I might have posted this before, but I find it strange that my resting HR is actually lower now than it was during training for IMFL. It's about 50 now and it was about 54 then. Not much different, but still different.


Back in December, I went and did a study at UT. Well, here are my results back:

Mass - 87.8 (I'm a tubby bitch)
VO2 (watt) - 377
VO2 (mL/min) - 4702 (I think this is OK considering that I have mild exercise induced asthma.)
VO2/kg(ml/kg/min) - 53.6 (Could be higher if I wasn't a tubby bitch)
VO2hr(bpm) - 190 (Wow, this is new for me. Usually, I can't get it that high.)
LT (watt) - 225 (I'm pretty happy about this.)
LT VO2 (mL/min) - 3097
LT HR (bpm) - 148
LT (% of VO2) - 65.9% (Hopefully, I can increase this substantially this year)
Sweat Rate (L/hr) - 1.6 (This is pretty high.)
Sweat sodium loss (mg/hr) - 1839 (Ok, this is really freaking high. My maxed out InfinIT formula is only about 1/3 of my sodium loss each hour.)
Sweat sodium loss (mg NaCl/hr) - 4715
Hct (% of red blood cells) - 43.5% (I don't know if this is good or not.)

Tonight's workout was a 15 minute run that consisted of 8 minute warmup and 3x1min fast, 1min easy. It was a core workout where we do 5 exercises around a lap of the track and then run strong another lap. Most of the exercises were OK except where we had to hop up a flight up stairs with our feet together. I did it too fast the first time and it was a mistake. Immediately after the stair hops, we were suppose to run but I look down and my heart rate was 175+. That hurt. Did that loop group twice since I'm easing back into things and then 1/2 mile cooldown.

Feel good now and I'm about to go to bed.

Shoe mileage: 151.5 miles

Feeling Good

I'm feeling really good right now. I just wanted the world to know that.

Tuesday morning was a run of 3.15 miles around my neighborhood. Total time was 27:26 with an avg HR of 147bpm. I don't know how this compares to the other 3.15 mile runs that I've done. I should put a graph together and show this because it could be interesting. Also, max HR was 159bpm. This run felt great, really. I could breathe the entire time and I'm no longer dreading the first part of a run. I tried to keep my heart rate low and consistent as well. The only problem was that my left Achilles hurt for about 5 minutes and then loosened up. It was coldish outside as well so that might have contributed.

Wednesday was a bike workout. 20min w/u, 10x1min fast, 1min easy, 10x30sec 1-leg drills, and then a cooldown. The intervals hurt but I only got my HR up in the 160-165 range. I could've gone harder. Skipped the core workout tonight. I'm sore from Monday, I have a strength workout tomorrow with Texas Iron, and work got in the way.

As I'm keeping track of my calories, I'm definitely increasing my physical exercise, I'm cutting out junk more, and I'm actually getting a 400-900 calorie deficit every day. For example, today I've eaten 2800 calories, exercised about 900 calories, and my RMR is about 2600 calories since I've been up and moving a lot today. That's about 700 calorie deficit and I feel slightly hungry, but OK overall. I think this is a good thing.

Shoe mileage: 147.5 miles

Much Needed Update

Unlike some people, I like to keep my fans update of my training on somewhat of a regular basis. Yes, that basis may only be twice a week like lately, but I'm going to try to update every day. Ok, let's begin:

Wednesday: I did about 60 minutes on the bike. I can't remember exactly what I did, but there were some simulated hills and fast breaks in there. Oh, yeah, this was at the gym at work on the spin bike so I had Janee to keep me company for awhile. I meant to go to the core workout but work got in the way.

Thursday: All it was was a 3 mile run at the track around work. 3 miles was in a time of about 27:11 or something like that. Bicycle Sport Shop had their pro night that night and I went and had some free beer and pizza. Quite nice.

Friday: Damnit, can't remember what I did. Oh, I lifted weights that night. Nothing special.

Saturday: Started off on the 30 mile ATC taco ride. I actually had a flat at first and I started out 5 minutes behind everyone else. It sucks because that tube had never been ridden before. Well, I finally caught up with everyone else which surprised me. I actually stayed with the main group until the hill going up to William Cannon Dr. That's about 3 miles and I usually get dropped almost immediately. I just tried to stay calm and keep my heart rate low. After that, I was blown and slowed down a bit. I caught my breath and then ended up sucking the wheel of a couple of girls. Nice view, but pretty sad that it took a lot to stick with them. About 5 miles from the end, I was going hard to keep up with the group. I put my head down, look up just in time to see a rock in the road. I hit it and popped my front tube. I pulled over and I then replaced the second tube for the day. Got back on the bike and pushed myself hard again back to the bike shop. It was a hard ride and it felt good. After that, I ran about 2.5 miles and it was my first brick since before IMFL. I really didn't feel that bad. After that, I came home and was lazy.

Sunday: Did a 4.5 mile run. Nice and easy and I actually did it in about 40:47 which is a pretty good pace of about 9:05min/mile. Avg heart rate was about 150bpm. I felt fine the entire run, too. I came home and had a Sunday smoothie which I always enjoy.

Monday: I went to the core workout at J&A. It was tough but it was worth it. Afterwards, I went to Casa De Luz for dinner. Wow, it was awesome! Basically, it is an organic vegetarian restaurant. The dinner that night was actually gluten free as well. It was very, very enjoyable and was probably one of the best meals that I've had in awhile. I can't say enough about this place but it was excellent. Also, it was $12 all that you can eat and that included tax and tip as well. If any of the out of town fans come to visit me, I'll take you to this place because it's excellent.

Ok, that's it for now.

Oh, weight today was 194 pounds. I'm back to keeping track of my calories so that's why I'm stating it.

Shoe mileage: 144.5 miles

Tuesday Run

I went on another 3.15 mile run this morning. Total time was 28:11 with an avg HR of 147, max of 173 (WTF!?!?). The run felt nice and easy the entire time. My left Achilles where it inserts into the heel was bothering me a bit. Not a good sign.

I weighed in at 191 yesterday. Down is awesome! Hopefully, next Monday I'll be under 190 and that puts me at ease.

For the rest of the day, I plan on either swimming 45 minutes or going to the gym. I'm leaning towards the gym because I think I need it more. The schedule now is tough. I have at least 1, most likely 2 rest days a week. The other 5-6 days usually are double workout days and I'm suppose to throw in 2 weight training sessions per week. That's a busy schedule. I really need to fit in the weights because my focus right now is weights and running since both have been neglected for quite awhile. Plus, both of these are great for weight loss for me. I'll edit this post later today and inform all of my fans what I did today.

Also, yesterday, I posted that I had to make a choice between doing Buffalo Springs and volunteering for Ironman CdA. Right now, I'm leaning towards CdA for various reasons. I've done BSLT before and doing it again this year wouldn't be anything special. If I go to CdA, I get to volunteer which I don't do enough of right now. Plus, I know someone that's doing their first IM there and I want to be part of that. Also, I have some friends that live 2 hours away from Coeur d'Alene and I want to go see them as well. Plus, I get to take 2 weeks off of work and have a nice vacation in the middle of the year. My mind has pretty much been made up already and luckily I haven't paid for BSLT already.

AFTERNOON EDIT: I lifted after work today. Nothing special except that I didn't get out of work until almost 9pm. It's sucking lately.

Shoe mileage: 134 miles

2007 Race Schedule

Here's pretty much the solid portion of my race schedule for this year:

Texas Tri Series

I'll also do Buffalo Springs. I might also do PrairieMan, IronStar, and the Tri One O One. I also expect to spectate and volunteer for Ironman Couer d'Alene as well. Should be a fun year with anywhere from a minimum of 6 up to a max of 10 races and volunteering for an IM. Should be fun.

Ok, here it is in a better format:

01 APR - Lonestar Triathlon, Galveston, TX - Sprint/Oly/HIM (haven't decided which distance yet)
12 MAY - The Rookie Triathlon, Austin, TX - Sprint
28 MAY - CapTexTri, Austin, TX - Oly
24 JUN - Buffalo Springs, Lubbock, TX - HIM
24 JUN - Ironman CdA, Coeur d'Alene, ID - Ironman volunteer
15 JUL - Couples Triathon, Austin, TX (I need to find a girlfriend for this) - Sprint
05 AUG - Jack's Generic Triathlon, Austin, TX - Sprint
03 SEP - Austin Triathlon, Austin, TX - Oly
09 SEP - PrairieMan, Grand Prairie, TX - HIM
07 OCT - Longhorn Triathlon, Austin, TX - HIM
28 OCT - IronStar Triathlon, Conroe, TX - HIM
11 NOV - Tri One O One, The Woodlands, TX - 3km swim, 130km bike, 30k run

Shit, CdA and Buffalo Springs are on the same weekend. That's going to be a hard decision. Do I race a HIM or do I volunteer for an Ironman and see some people across the finish line for the first time?

Thoughts (Long)

This will be somewhat of a long post, so grab a cup of tea or a beer, get comfortable, and enjoy.

Training this week has been off and on. Lots of stuff like weather, laziness, and work have gotten in the way. But here's a run down of what I did this week.

Monday was a rest day on the schedule. I also didn't go to work due to the weather so I sat on my couch all day long watching TV. I hate that.

Tuesday was very nasty as well. Schedule called for a swim and a run. Neither of those happened.

Wednesday was a trainer ride. It was about an hour long with 5x1min fast, 2 min rest thrown in there. Avg heart rate was 127bpm. My heart rate at the end of each of those intervals was anywhere from 161bpm to 168bpm. I was pushing it. I meant to run after that, but the weather was nasty. Also, whenever I lay on the couch all day, that's the toughest to get up and do stuff and that's when I'm the most tired. When I get up and do stuff, I actually feel better than doing nothing.

Thursday was going to be a strength training and run workout with Texas Iron. Since I'm a complete pussy when it comes to the cold, I decided to skip that. I went to yoga after work and intended to go for a run after that. Instead, I went home, ate and went to bed.

Friday, I got up early and went for a run before work since I skipped running pretty much the entire week. I'm really glad that I did that. Most days, it's just really tough to work out after work before shit just comes up at work. I meant to go lift weights after work on Friday. That's kind of tough to do when you go in at 8am and don't leave until just before 10pm. I wasn't happy about that and work pissed me off that day. The good thing about that is that in strengthened my resolve to go back to school and become a physical therapist and get away from dealing with the bullshit at my job. For the run, I have an avg HR of 150 with a max of 165bpm. Total time was 27:30 for my 3.15 mile loop. Once again, about a 8:45 pace. At times it felt my heart rate was too high. I'm trying to run slower, but I just want to go faster.

Saturday was a trainer ride. I really hate the trainer at my house. I can do the spin bikes at the work gym pretty well, but the trainer at home just sucks. I watched a movie and that helped a bit. Did a total of 1:17:00 on the trainer with an avg HR of 120bpm, max of 147bpm. A very easy ride.

Sunday was a "big" run. I did 4.5 miles around Town Lake. That was the first time that I've been to Town Lake since right before IMFL. Ran that 4.5 miles in a time of 44:02. Max heart rate of 168bpm and average of 151bpm. I felt like I was above 150bpm for a significant amount of time and I don't like that. Once again, I wanted to run fast but I know that I shouldn't be doing that right now. Speed will come with time. I could start doing speed work, but my goal for this year is to just run injury free. Speaking of, I woke up this morning and my left Achilles was tight. That was the leg that gave me so many problems last year so I'm very aware when something hurts. I have to make sure to stretch a lot to keep it loose and to sleep with my foot hanging of the end of the bed to keep it lengthened at night. I may invest in a Strassburg sock to help prevent anything happening in that foot. During the run, I felt fine. Once again, my periformis in my butt cramped when I stopped. That hurt. Overall, it was great to run out there again. I missed it and the nice "scenery" in Austin. Supposedly, there was a Lance sighting but I was so in the zone that I must have missed him. Average heart rate was 151bpm. Max was 168bpm. The pace for the day was 9:47min/mile which is a whole min/mile slower than my 3.15 mile runs around my neighborhood at the same heart rate. Strange.

This morning, I checked my resting heart rate. It was at 55bpm. I think something is up with my body because it's usually slightly lower than this. Maybe it's the stress from work on Friday is still affecting my physically. Maybe I'm getting sick. Maybe I just don't know. I'm going to take it easy the rest of the day and try to rest up and get some sleep.

I had a mole removed from my butt. Yeah, I know that's funny. The unfunny part were my test results. It was benign, but they also said that it was slightly atypically and changing. Looks like I caught it just in time. That's the second mole that I've had removed, but luckily both have been negative. It's just scary to be 28 and have to worry about cancer already. My grandpa has had it at least 4 times already and I have similar skin to him. I'm pretty good with sunscreen and I will start going to the dermatologist once a year to get my moles mapped out. I just decided on a whim to have him check me out while I was getting another injection into my wart on my foot and luckily this one mole was caught. It was just scary.

Speaking of, my troublesome wart is finally going away. I've tried duct tape occulation, freezing, a prescription strength salicilic acid, lasers, and candida. Finally, I'm getting a response by injecting it with bleomycin which is used to kill cancer. It's working so far.

Finally, some deep thoughts. I'm having trouble with motivation lately. I really want to get back into training. I miss doing 10 workouts a week and having most days be double workouts with the occasional triple workout day. However, most of the time the weather outside is frightful and I'm content to sit on my couch and watch TV. I really, really do want to get trim and lean again, but something is just missing. Maybe I don't have a training partner to challenge me. Maybe I just have the winter blues and I don't like being cold even if the pool is heated. Maybe I'm just being a pussy and I need to suck it up and kick some ass. Maybe I'm letting my foot injury hold me back. Whatever it is, I don't like it. I really think I just got used to not doing the workouts right after IMFL. I know that there are at least 2 people reading this blog that'll be doing their first IM's this year. My advice to you is to schedule something immediately after your races. Ok, not immediately, but schedule a fun run 5k about a month after your IM. Doing an easy 30 mile charity ride 6 weeks afterwards. Get back in the habit of working out and training and don't get too used to sleeping in on Saturdays and enjoying beer most nights of the week. My early season is pretty light this year, but my late season is going to be tough with at least 3, maybe 4, HIMs and the Tri One O One within 10 weeks at the end of the year. To keep me going after this, I'm probably going to be doing the Distance Challenge in 2007-08 with the season finale being the Austin Marathon. After that, I'll be picking up my training to hopefully do two Ironman's in 2008. It's a lot between now and then, but I just need to keep having goals to prevent myself from getting lazy. Once you're lazy, it's hard to get motivated again and I need a swift kick in the butt right now.

Finally, I think I found a new sponsor: Get Big Guns. I'm sure this is the best way to get all the tri chica hotties to swoon over me.

Shoe mileage: 131 miles.

Nasty Weekend

This weekend is completly nasty here. It's about 35 degrees and rainy and this to me is the worst weather possible. Hopefulyl, I won't have to go to work tomorrow because it'll be nasty outside, but that's just wishful thinking.

The weather this weekend limited my workout options. I did 45 minutes on the trainer yesterday. I actually didn't get up until almost noon and then went to bed at like 10:30. All I did was watch TV so it was kind of nice.

Today was pretty nasty as well. I slept in once again today. I just cleaned up the house and stuff like that. I decided to go to yoga. Since I missed the teacher I usually go to, I decided to see who else was teaching this afternoon. Well, of course I decided on the hottest teacher, Lizzie, and I wasn't disappointed. Besides being very cute, she was a great yoga teacher as well and I was quite pleased since this was the first time that I went to a hatha flow class. Afterwards, I went for another 3.15 mile run. Did it in 27:36 again with an average heartrate of 147bp with a pace of 8:46. That isn't bad at all. I felt good but my ass muscle cramped at as soon as I walked inside my house.

Shoe mileage: 123 miles

Morning Run

First off, I weighed 192 this morning. I've lost 2 pounds this week and that's very good. Hopefully in about 2 more weeks, I'll be back under 190 which puts a smile on my face.

I ran this morning. Did the normal 3.15 mile route from my house. Did it in 27:35 this morning since my coach told me to run faster. I tried to keep my heart rate below 150bpm and I did pretty good at that. Overall pace was about 8:45 and I'm pretty happy with that with my heart rate around 150bpm. I felt fine, too. A little sore from the tough run on Tuesday, but nothing bad.

Oh, I also cycling for 55 minutes yesterday morning with some intervals thrown in. I've noticed that when I consider myself "out of shape", my long, slow endurance is maintained pretty well, but it hurts to go hard too quickly. I have to warm up to it and after awhile, it doesn't hurt as bad. I did 5 4min intervals on the trainer yesterday. The first couple hurt really bad with a heartrate of 160bpm. By the last one, 160bpm felt like nothing.

Dinner

Last night, I had this for dinner:


- Spinach salad with fat free ranch dressing
- Far East mushroom & herb couscous mixed with quinoa with roma tomatoes, red bell peppers, salt, pepper, cumin, ginger, garlic powder, and paprika
- Spicy crusted salmon that's my own recipe

I tried the couscous/quinoa mixture earlier this week but this mixture is a lot better. It has more color and the flavor is a lot better. The other mixture was missing raw veggies and now that's included. This is so much better than eating spaghetti 4 nights a week.

I missed the smell of chlorine

I went for a swim this morning. It's over 12 hours later and still smell like chlorine after a shower and a run. Oh, I missed that smell. I did 8x200yds at the warm, nice waters of Stacy Pool. Just trying to get back into it since this is the 3rd time I've swam since IMFL. I'm surprised at how well I did. I thought I would be out of breath or forget how to swim, but my stroke was about 97% on. It felt good to be back in the water, but I still hate the jaunt from the water to the locker room when it's 40 degrees outside.

A run tonight was actually a little harder than I expected. I did a 1.5 mile warmup nice and slow. Did some strides and then did 4x0.5 mile repeats with 90 seconds rest. I did each repeat at around 3:47 which is about a 7:35 pace. Not bad, but I did feel like I was going a little too hard. Right now, I feel fine though. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. Finally, did a half mile cooldown.

I talked with my coach about my running recovery plan. This week and next week will be a run every other day. He wants 3, 3, 4.5 or so. The 3 mile run will be faster than what I'm running now so my heart rate will be in the 145-150 range whereas now it's in the 130-135 range. This will help me clean up my form since I definitely know that I run better when running faster. After the end of next week, I'll go to a 2 on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off, 1 on schedule. Basically, I run an Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Monday. I'll do that for about 3 weeks and then I'll try to get back into the normal training schedule. The only thing that I don't like is my coach wants me to do 1 aquajog at least every other week. After doing that for 3.5 months last year, I don't want to do another aquajog. I asked him even though I'm running 3-4.5 miles at a time if it'll really beat up my body that much and he said yes. I just don't know if I can through it again.

I was going to mention something else, but I'm completely enamored with the announcement of the iPhone. I'm completely looking forward to this device because this is exactly the thing that I've been looking for and Apple can pull it off. Wow.

Shoe mileage: 116.5 miles

Funday Monday

Yesterday, I did a short pick up for the last half mile of my run. Today, I'm sore a bit in my quads. It's a nice feeling because even after all the IM training, when I started back, I wasn't sore. I miss being sore but I guess that's one of the downsides to being in shape like having to buy new clothes because you lost weight or you save money because you can't stand eating out anymore.

I went back to the J&A core workout tonight. It wasn't that tough, but it was still a great workout. Afterwards, I talked with Adam and a couple of other people about nutrition. I'm glad I stayed because I think that was the kick in the gut to get my off of sweets and crap at work. Tomorrow, I'm going cold turkey with the sweets and candy at work again.

As part of that, tonight I came home and made dinner and I actually didn't have spaghetti! I made up some broccoli and cheese couscous made by Near East. It's usually a pretty strong flavor so I made a cup of quinoa as filler. The thing is that it's very nutricious and is actually really healthy for you. I grilled up some chicken, added some garlic powder, cumin, ginger, and pepper. Mixed it all up and had some dinner. It makes 3-4 servings and was actually pretty good. The spices flavored the chicken and the flavor of the couscous mixed well with the quinoa. Very delicious.

Toenail Pics (Gross)

I'm warning you that some people can freak out and get totally grossed out, but if not, here are some pics of what happens when you get a black toenail and it then tries to fall off during yoga class.

Toenail Pics

Weekend Update

Not much to talk about this weekend. I did a bike ride on Saturday. I intended to do a 10 mile warmup, do the ATC taco ride, and then 10 miles back home for a total of 50 miles. It was kind of cold and nasty. I met up with the ATC ride and kept going. Usually, the "race" doesn't start until we turn onto Southwest Parkway. Well, some J&A guys joined the ride and tried to upstage the ATC people and started going hard on the hill on Mopac. Assholes. This isn't going to be good at all because if they keep doing this, everyone will start bitching about the ride and it won't be fun anymore. Not good at all. Anyways, I went on the ride and got dropped almost immediately again. So, warming up didn't do much for me. I kept going and I felt like I had completely blown up. Also, I got cold all of a sudden and it started raining. I turned around, then decided to not quit. Then, I quit 5 minutes later. I was working and I was still cold and that wasn't a good sign. I headed back to my place but I still put in about 30 miles. And it was a hard 30 miles, too. My punishment for being a pussy on the ride was no breakfast tacos for me.

Sunday was yoga first and then a 3.15 mile run. Yoga was good and loosened up my ankles a bit. The class was packed. The teacher was Angela and she's good, but she talks a lot. The run was good. I did the 3.15 mile loop and I was feeling good. The weather was about 62 degrees and sunny. The last half mile of the run, I decided to pick up the pace a bit and push it. I did the last half mile 03:43.9 which is a pace of about 7:30/mile with a heart rate in the mid 160's. Total time was 29:08 and average bpm was 133. The pickup was good because the pace that I ran at was about what I ran at before I got hurt last year. It just felt awesome to actually run with a lengthened stride instead of a short stride. Hopefully this running slower to get faster thing will pay off.

Shoe mileage: 112 miles

Random Thoughts

1) I haven't worked out in a few days. I was busy on Wednesday since I was out late Tuesday hanging out with friends. After work, I went out with the same friend for my birthday and was out until 2am. Thursday, I was tired and had to take my car into the shop which took all day. Today, I had a doctor appointment at 8am and ran errands before going into work. I may run tonight but we'll see.

2) I went to get my tattoo tonight. I made sure to call first. Apparently, the tattoo guy that I was going to go to worked there on Wednesday, but doesn't work there today. Sucks.

3) I didn't shave my legs for like 2 weeks until Wednesday. I have really sensitive skin so I now have the back of my legs covered in razor burn. It's itchy and nasty, but not nearly as bad as the first time I shaved my legs.

4) I'm so fucking sick of spaghetti. I'm going to the grocery store tonight and I'm not buying spaghetti. I'm forcing myself to eat something else. Anyone have any recommendations?

5) Even though I'm barely working out, my cardio system is awesome, still. At the doctor appointment, by blood pressure was 112/66 and my pulse was 49bpm. Having my pulse below 50bpm is the magic number and I would love to get it down to 45bpm resting and keeping it there. I think it's low now because I was always slightly overtrained during IM training and now I'm not overtrained. I'm just a slightly pudgy guy with a great heart and lungs.

6) 194lbs. I'm getting serious this weekend!

Shoe mileage

Shit, I lost track of my shoe mileage.

I ran 3 yesterday (02 JAN). I ran 3 on Sunday (31 DEC). I ran 2.5 on Friday (29 DEC). 2.5 on Wednesday (27 DEC). 2.5 on Monday (Christmas). 1.5 before that but since IMFL. That's a total of 15 miles since IMFL. After IMFL, I had a total of 93 miles so I now have 108 miles. Throw in another mile for random walking.

Shoe mileage: 109 miles.

Update

Let's see, Thursday was an off day. Friday was a 2.5 mile run. Saturday was a 30 mile bike ride with ATC. Sunday was a 3 mile run. The runs are going OK. I'm keeping my heart rate in the 130-140 range and I'm doing about 10min/mile. I wish I was running faster though. It's hard to keep my heart rate that low though because I feel really slow. I may do an experiment soon and go out and run at a heart rate of 160bpm for 3 miles and see what my pace is from that. Nothing is hurting when I run though.

The bike ride was tough. The group goes out too quickly for me since I'm not warmed up. During the second half of the ride, I'm riding strong and at that point I think I could hang with the group. Next weekend will be an experiment where I ride my bike to the ATC ride to get warmed up first.