What type of bike should I use?

This is a very open ended question. Depending on the budget and how seriously you want to take the sport, the more you might invest in some top notch equipment. There are some things that will make you faster, but what I’ve learned in my short triathlon experience is that the main issue with speed is generally related to your own weight, so you can save a few grams here and there, but if you don’t lose weight yourself, it’s not doing much for you.

With that being said, I have two bikes: a Scott’s CR1 Pro and a Scott’s Plasma 20. I think both bikes are awesome. The key thing to note is that one is a road bike and the Plasma is a triathlon bike. The main difference here is that triathlon bikes are like time trial bikes (and more differences are explained here). Your butt sits higher and you are meant to ride it in “aero” position where your arms are extended down the center of the handlebars, not on the sides like traditional bikes. Triathlon bikes are more aerodynamic and aren’t meant to ride alone. Keep in mind they are more difficult to climb in since the aero position is not the best for climbing, which is where a road bike really comes in handy. People can use either in triathlons, but if you’re doing fairly flat tris, an tri bike will be faster.

What goggles/running gear should I get?

For goggles, I wear Aqua Sphere Kayenne. I’ve tried a lot of googles from TYR to Barracuda’s, and the aqua sphere’s are the best. I like the Kayenne’s because they don’t fog up easily and fit my eye very well. I like aqua sphere’s because they generally have more peripheral vision and are very easy to adjust. I have three pair: clear lens, smoked lens, and a blue lens. I use each one in different light situations (smoked for heavy light, blue to simulate little light, and clear at night time).

For swimming trunks, I tend to swim in either Speedo long cut or Zoot’s tri shorts. I’ll talk more about tri shorts below.

For running gear, I wear mostly Brooks. I’m a Brooks ID member, so I get a discount on there stuff, but after wearing it for nearly a year now, I’ll buy Brooks forever. Their infiniti notch short is so comfortable (built in compression is awesome) and their HVAC tanks and shirts are so cool. I love their shoes as well. I wear the Brooks Ravenna. I’ve tried nearly 7-8 pair of Brooks shoes, and I’ve found these work the best. I’m a slight over pronator, and I need a mild stability shoe.  I also wear Newton’s, and I just got the Newton stability racer, so I’m excited to try that one out. These shoes promote more forefoot running, which I think is key to staying injury free.

What is best to wear during a triathlon? Do people change?

In a triathlon, I like to wear tri equipment so I don’t have to change. In the ironman I’m signed up for, I am debating whether to change into more comfortable clothes for the bike and run, but to be honest, the Zoot tri shorts are very comfortable and have enough padding to use on a bike. I’m used to training in these. I swim in them, then hop on a bike (where they dry in about 10-15 minutes), then I run in them. It takes some time to get used to wearing such tight clothes in public, but eventually I learned that function trumps appearance

I usually wear the tri shorts/tri jersey underneath my wetsuit, yank off the wetsuit in transition, and hop on the bike. If the tri is short enough (sprint or olympic), I even clip my bike shoes into the pedals and run out of transition barefoot. I hop on the bike and then slip my feet into the shoes. I use Shimano tri shoes to do this as they’re designed to drain water, wear sockless, and be easy to slip in and out. My race report from my first tri has some more info about this, but it’s not as specific as this.

Do you wear socks? If so, what kind?

I try to avoid wearing socks, but this depends on the event’s distance. In my first tri, I went sockless on the bike wearing the Shimano shoes mentioned above and I wore a pair of Zoot triathlon shoes for the run, which are designed to be sockless, breathable, and drainable. This was fantastic. No problems, no blisters, no pain. In my half iron this year, I went sockless on the bike but decided to put socks on for the run. I blistered by mile 8 and had a terribly painful last few miles. In my ironman, I plan to wear socks on the run, but wear my normal Ravenna running shoes and not the tri shoes. I also will debate putting socks on for the bike. I always like to calculate the time given up to do this RELATIVE to overall time. In a sprint tri, this is meaningful. In an ironman, it is not.

I believe in paying for socks. When you’re out there pounding out miles, it’s critical to keep your feet healthy. I mostly buy brooks socks, and I always buy the best performance socks I can get. I opt for the low cut, thinner socks. I have tried the Injinji socks with individual toes, and they’re ok, but I don’t notice much of a difference from regular socks.

Do I need a wetsuit?

No one needs a wetsuit. It’s not a requirement. But in water temps <70 degrees F, it REALLY HELPS! It also is great for buoyancy. Your hips will definitely sink less, which means you can swim faster due to less drag. If you do use one, try practicing in one. It’s definitely more restrictive when you swim, and if you swim a lot with your shoulders (like I have and many triathletes do), then you may get tired a bit faster from the restriction.

What do you eat? How do you fuel during training/racing?

I posted on this one here. Hopefully this helps. If not, let me know.

Thanks everyone for the great questions. If there’s anything else you want to know, please let me know!

Eating

I think I’m doing pretty well at this. I have 3 normal meals, and then tons of snacks (dried fruit, almonds, granola bars, oatmeal). I wake up with coffee (i have to for work) and either granola with yogurt or raisin bran. I try to bring my lunch to work most days, which is a turkey/roast beef sandwich on whole grain (slice of cheese and mustard) with two apples, a banana, and a balance bar. For dinner, I eat chicken, fish, carne asada, tacos, or pasta (variations of those). I try to have brown rice now, and some greens. Greens and fruit are critical, and anyone who says they’re bad because they’re carbs needs to wake up and stop doing fad diets. I’ve tried to eat more whole grains as well, so I’ve given up the white rice and regular pasta for the brown stuff. It took some getting used to, but now it tastes pretty good!

Fuel

When I run/bike, I try to fuel every 20-45 minutes, 45 minutes with GUs (and now, PowerBar Gel’s since that is what is offered in the Ironman, and even though it didn’t taste as good at first, I actually like these better than GUs now, and they have way more sodium, which is critical)  or 20 minutes with two clif bloks (I get the Margarita mix because it has more sodium, and I like the taste a lot, although having 5 packages of clif bloks on a 5 hour ride can be painful). Make sure that you stick to a very specific schedule when eating/drinking so that you don’t suffer later in the workout. For me, that’s every 20 minutes or every 40-45 minutes depending on what I’m eating.

I take two water bottles with me, filled sometimes with cytomax, and sometimes with infinit. Infinit is great because it can be tailored to any formula you want, and because of it’s protein component, can replace any actual food during an endurance event. I try to take in about 300 calories per hour on the bike (including food/drink). I’m very specific about this. I check the nutritional facts about this, and I have a strict plan for each workout that factors in this many calories. I also sometimes add hammer endurolytes to get more electrolytes/sodium.If I ride more than 3 hours, I have to find a gas station, drinking fountain, or in the worst cases, beach bathrooms to refill the water. If I’m working out > 4 hours, then I often bring small bags of cytomax or infinit to dump into the refilled water, and I just shake it up.

If I workout for <2 hours, I only do the water bottles with cytomax and maybe 1 GU. After workouts, I have muscle milk shakes, sometimes smoothies, and eggs or pancakes. During the week, it may only be a muscle milk shake and then dinner. It’s critical to eat 30 minutes after a workout > 90 minutes as this is a key time in which your body starts rebuilding, and it needs fuel to replace what you just depleted! By the way, I use these blender bottles to mix up my drinks. It’s awesome, and it makes it so easy to make a quick protein blend with water at work or home without a blender.

I find almost all of these things on Amazon’s Subscribe and Save. This way I don’t remember to have to purchase it, it’s cheaper on amazon, and I get another 15% off if I subscribe (and I can cancel any time).

Sleep

I don’t sleep enough. That’s what I figured out this past week. I sleep about 7.5 hours a night, which I think is fine if you’re not working out 15 hours a week, and especially high intensity workouts (yes, I’m doing probably 65-70% of my time at fairly high intensity now). I also think 7.5 hours during the week is fine, but at some point, it helps to catch up to get some additional rest in the form of naps or some longer sleep sessions. It’s difficult to do this though when you’re waking up early to beat the heat and try to have a normal weekend with family/friends. But every once in a while, a workout in heat/wind is worth it if you get some more rest. Turn off that alarm and get more ZZZs!

So that’s how I approach nutrition and sleep. I’m happy to answer any specific questions you may have. Hit me up below or shoot me an email!

I want to capture some of my thoughts on Team EN’s philosophy and how it applies to their high intensity workouts and training plans. I was writing a friend this week explaining this to him, and when I really thought about what Team EN does, I was able to break it down quite simply. Before sharing though, I think it’s interesting to think about what the coaches say about pain, and I think these points pretty much capture it.

Coach Strauss said this directly in response to my post about dealing with the adjustment to high intensity: “When I’m feeling the pain, the stuff I put in my head is:

• The only way to make it stop hurting is to make it hurt worse. The more I push it the sooner it stops to hurt. Backing off just means it’s gonna hurt for longer .
• Work is speed entering the body. Seriously, it really is that simple. When I’m drilling myself with absolutely no regard for how much further I need to go, I’m absolutely confident that work is making me faster.
• Volume does NOT necessarily equal work.”

– Coach Rich Strauss, Team Endurance

Team EN captured more of their philosophy here in their two part series on self coached athlete (first part here), but their workout plans (which you can purchase here) can be summed up in the following few points:

• 2nd half of workouts should always be harder. If the 2nd half isn’t harder, it’s because the 1st half is so hard, the 2nd half is merely a test to see if you have the mental power to last
• When you workout hard one day, tomorrow’s workout is relatively easier, but it’s still hard
• If your workout today was tad easier than yesterday, then don’t worry, tomorrow’s workout is going to punish you

So that’s my view of Team EN’s plans. It may scare some of you who don’t want to work hard but just want to survive an endurance event. I want to get faster, and that’s why I buy into the Team EN philosophy that work works. That’s right, work WORKS!

I would believe that I’m a sophisticated Garmin user. I don’t just turn it on and run, I program workouts, build courses, and do lots of fun things with it. That’s why I love. That’s also why I hate it so damn much on days like today.

I just spent about 45 minutes building my workouts for the week in Garmin Training Center. I then tried to sync with my device to send the workouts and their scheduled days to the device. This has worked everyday for the past 30 days or so. No problems. Today, connection fails. Each time. So what do I do? I disable pairing to try to repair the device with my computer. Now, my computer won’t even recognize the device. So what do I do? Hard reset. Now all my data on the device is gone and i have to reprogram all my data field screens. Oh, and it’s still not pairing. The thing will not find my device. It has found it twice, but for some reason, the pairing failed.

What’s amazing is that if you check Garmin forums, this is a common problem with the Garmin community. I mean, REALLY COMMON. And Garmin just continues to release crappy software. What’s most frustrating is that my Garmin works ALMOST all the time. It’s just every 30-45 days, it decides to fail. To me, that’s the ultimate in a crappy product because it’s unstable.

So yes, I hope that this thing works by the end of tonight, but once again, I’m wasting a good two hours of my weekend on this stupid device.

Garmin: get your act together. Either outsource this software, test it more, or get it to work consistently. Your products are awesome. But the 1/30 times I boot up and it fails, I get really pissed off. Please stop wasting my time. Literally. I may start a log from this day forward. We’re at 2 hours and counting…

This past week, I did my first series of tests, and I really needed it. The testing was awesome and something I recommend to ALL athletes out there. I surprised myself quite a bit with the outcomes. Particularly since I’m not racing, these tests give me feedback as to how far I’ve come. What I’ve also realized is that if I push myself harder then what I think is mentally possible, I can surprise myself with my capabilities.

Bike Test

My first test was on the bike. I did a 12:30 warmup followed by 4×30 spin ups with 1 minute rest after. I then did 3×2 minutes zone 4 (Z4) hard with 1 minute rest in between. Seems hard, right? That’s just the warmup. I then did 2×20 min interval (with 2 minutes of rest in between). This is HARD AS YOU CAN GO but last the full 40 minutes. That’s not easy to do mentally because you’re trying to push hard, but you also have to be reasonable. Anyways, I recently purchased an iBike power meter, and I was able to measure my watts. I have a feeling the watts were overestimated, as my FTP watts for the 40 minutes were 271 watts. My W / kg was 3.6, which was way better than what I was expecting (hence the belief the watts may be overestimated). However, in my ride yesterday, my wattage was significantly below this, so we’ll see what further testing brings. My experience on my rides with my power meter over the next few weeks should help me figure this out.

Run Test

My run test was two days later, and I was actually pretty pumped for this. I had to do a 15 minute warmup or so that consisted of 4×30 seconds at 5k pace to get used to running hard, and then a 5k for the test followed by a decent cooldown. The 5k is hard as you can go so that you finish strong and then walk. I’ve been dying to know my 5k time for a while, but I could never justify a race because it’s just not long enough. So now I have the excuse. I ran HARD, and halfway through, I was averaging 5:55 pace, and I’m thinking, I can do this…I can keep it under 6 minutes. I did, and I ran a 18:24, or 5:56 pace for 3.1 miles.  This test surprised me the most. I was hoping to break 20 minutes, and I shattered this goal. I didn’t think that time was possible. I was stoked.

Swim Test

The swim test was a day after the run test, and this consisted of a 5ooM warmup of kicking and swimming, followed by a 1000M at race pace. It’s pretty boring swimming 1000M in a pool, but I’m used to it now, and it’s surprisingly pretty easy for me given my training. I swam hard and could of gone probably a bit harder. I did it in 15:52, which was about 1:35/100M. Not bad for an ironman swim time goal, but I’d probably want to go a tad easier than that. But it gives me something to build on.

What these tests established was that you don’t have to race to test your rate of improvement. I like to be competitive with myself, and these tests are the best way to do it. Now I get to work hard for several weeks to see if I can improve these test results based on my training. Trying to improve…hmmm, that’s a good motivator So here are my results that I can hopefully improve upon in 4 weeks, if that’s possible (note my heart rates -  I don’t understand why I can’t get it higher. I’m hoping I can learn to keep my heart rate higher for longer periods)

Bike: FTP 272 LTHR 151 W/kg 3.6
Run: Pace: 5:56 LTHR 165
Swim: Pace: 1:35/100M

LTHR = lactate threshold heart rate

Insert Endurance Nation. Endurance nation is a community of people (400+) who train for half and full ironman races. They’re regular age groupers trying to make the most of their time. The team/business is run by two very awesome coaches on both sides of the nation, Rick Strauss and Patrick McCrann. It’s not cheap. It’s $99 a month, but with what you get, I think it’s worth it.

The most important element of team endurance is the training plans. They analyze your season based on the races you tell them you’re going to do , and they put you on one of their training plans. These training plans are in season 7, so they’ve been pretty well refined and I can trust that I’m in good hands. That’s critical because when a plan tells you to take a day off, you usually feel strange doing that. It’s important to trust the philosophy, and that’s a big deal when you think about their philosophy – it’s completely different than anyone else’s out there. But given how much people talk about their success following it, it’s hard not to trust experience.

Most importantly, they give you the option to ask for Macro feedback (e.g this plan isn’t working for me, or should I insert other races into the schedule) as well as Micro feedback (e.g. this week, I’m on business travel and can’t bike so what should I do). It’s good getting advice from some very experienced people when these situations come up.

So what is this philosophy. Well, the coaches realize the importance of life and that this tri thing is a hobby, but an important hobby. So they say, work HARD in every workout that you do, but do less hours. That’s right, LESS hours. Essentially, make the most of your time. In typical periodic training, 4-7 months before an Ironman, coaches recommend 5-7+ hour workouts to “build a base”. I understand that and get it, but to me, I found I struggled quite a bit with trying to do that and “live” the rest of my life. Team Endurance believes instead of working out easy for 6 hours, work out hard, and really hard, for 3 hours. Then, when you have to do the same even in a long course race, you do it at 70% of what you’re used to, it will feel easy, and the extra few hours won’t matter.

That brings me to the second thing you get with Team EN. A community of people who are following the same plans, are bought into the philosophy, and are willing to help you and talk to you via the Team EN forums. These forums are rich with tons of information, and anytime I’ve posted something, I’ve had a response within hours. AND the coaches almost always respond as well. Plus, you can email the coaches anytime and they’ll provide feedback. This community then comes out strong at your events. At each Ironman, there’s near 30 Team EN athletes. That’s an awesome support network during the race.

Here’s an article written by the coaches on active.com. It’s not specifically about Team EN, but as you can tell from their advice on 140.6 strategies, they’re quite different than the norm. I’m sold on their philosophy. I had one hard week under their plan, then a rest week with testing. This week is back to the hard stuff again, so we’ll see what I have to say about em next weekend

If you have any questions about Team EN or are interested in joining, comment below. I’d love to help you out with it!

Ok, easier is relative, but after putting on a lot of miles over the last three weeks, I feel like adding an hour here or there really isn’t too bad. My body is recovering faster, and although I’m suffering from recurring blisters and constant hamstring pain, I’m getting through the workouts. I keep training at this level because I know in an Ironman, I’m not going to feel 100% through the entire race, so training tired is critical.

See below for a weekly recap of what I did the last three weeks. The big workouts were a 6:30 workout on the Saturday of the 6/28 week (5 hour bike, 1:30 running) and a 6 hour workout during the Saturday of the 6/21 week (4 hour bike, 2 hour run). The moment I was most proud of though was getting up the Sunday after the 6:30 workout and doing a 3 hour workout (1:10 swim and 1:50 bike). It shows I can workout tired and still perform.  I also ran to work once each week (18 miles round trip) and biked 1-2 times per week.

I’m in a rest week now, which is SO NICE! My body is recovering. It’s strange to workout about 8-9 hours in a week and consider it resting, but when you see the mileage / time above, I think you can understand why. During these down weeks, I try to get in a few tests to see how I’m improving. Last night I did my swim test and lowered my 100 meter swim time by almost 10 seconds. WOO HOO!!!

I do a test that includes a 10 minute warm up, primarily kicking. I then do 3×300 meters with 30 seconds of rest in between. Then I just swim to get in more time. I average the three 300 meters together to get an average 300 meter time, then divide by 3 to get my average 100 meter. The reason for this is to get my general average 100m for pacing when I do my swim training. The key is to not just do these tests on a 100M because it would be much faster and not factor in any endurance. Also, the 300s have to be within 10 seconds of each other or they don’t count. This prevents you from killing yourself on 1 or 2 of them and sacrificing the other. I did this test when I started seriously swim training earlier in the year, and I was at a 1:41 100M. Not fast at all. Last night, I was at 1:32. A noticeable improvement. Something is going right in the pool

The issue I’m debating now is whether to shorten my run mileage from the 30-40 miles a week I’m doing to about 25 and add another 2-3 hours on the bike. I know my bike is the weakness, and I also know that no matter how much work you put into running, the marathon of your first ironman is going to be hell. Given these things, I’m thinking of trying to get in two long rides a week, one of 5-7 hours and one of 3-5 hours depending on my weekly requirement. I’ve even thought of doing some of this on back to back days, with the 5-7 hours being aerobic and the 3-5 being slightly harder with a few more hills. I’ll try it out this next (and final) base period and see what happens.

For those of you training, I hope it’s going well!

I will workout 16 hours this week. I’m going to do a lot of heart pounding anaerobic (or at least, more than aerobic) working out over the next three days. I’ll then swim in the ocean on Thursday with a co worker, and shortly after jump on the bike for one-legged biking drills. I’ll follow that up with an easy swim on Friday before the Saturday doozy: a 7 hour love affair, 5 hours with the bike and 2 hours negotiating with myself to complete a painful run. Finally, I’ll end with a 2-3 hour workout on Sunday, consisting mostly of a swim, but probably some more riding as well. I’m hoping to get 4-5 bike rides in this week. It’s my weakness, and I need to start treating it as such. So here’s how it breaks down

• Monday: 30 minutes strength, 1 hour muscular endurance on the bike
• Tuesday: Run to work – Fartlek style, Run home – Zone stepping
• Wednesday: More bike pain, in the form of 3, 3, 3s – which are 4 x 3 minute intervals in some hard gears. I’m determined to build this leg strength
• Thursday: Ocean swim at Corona Del Mar followed by 40 minutes of those lovable one legged drills
• Friday: More strength training tied in with an easy swim
• Saturday: I’m taking it home with this one: 5 hours of low heart rate, pure aerobic love on the bike followed by more zone stepping on the run. Hopefully some run goals will make that two hours seem shorter than the 2 this past Saturday
• Sunday: Another lap swim, most likely focusing on upper body strength with an aero position trainer ride to continue to get used to the “lounge chair”

And that’s about 16 hours my friends. In base 3, i get up to 18 hours for the peak week, and in the three build periods, I’ll be hovering around 15-16 hours each week for 3 of 4 weeks of each month. So this is pretty much the norm for the next five months. I promise you that July 5th is gonna feel damn good. a DAY OFF!!! WOOOO

I’ll try to post more workout summaries, and even attach my garmin workouts for those who want to upload them. I find that Garmin is one of the best motivators – nothing like a beep/vibrate to push you along. Have a great week!

I laughed at this. Because I know how painful it can be running off the bike. However, I didn’t really understand it until today. I did a four hour ride and a two hour trail run. The trail run was in El Morro canyon off PCH in newport. I didn’t realize this, but there are some SERIOUS hills there. We experienced 1700 feet of climbing, which forced the not too common run/walk…A LOT.

It was hot out. I took a break from the bike to drive with my buddy Cale to the trail run, and I was feeling good. We started off on a quick downhill followed by a steady ascent and then another descent. About 1 mile into it, we reached these very short 10-15% grade hills. The type that aren’t too bad if you did not ride your bike for four hours before. Well I got to the first one, started up, and nearly passed out. And not, hey, i was kinda tired, I may pass out. I was dizzy and had to instantly stop. Cale was still talking to me and I was nowhere near him. I walked up to hill where Cale was waiting for me, took a gu, drank some water, and carried on.

I got to another one of these short intense hills and the same thing happened. At this point, that quote popped into my head. On any other day, I’d have no problem with these hills. But after grinding away my legs on the bike for four hours, these were intense. At that moment, I was negotiating, not with God, but with myself. Can I move? Can I finish this run? Or will I quit? I hate quitting. And what about Cale. He drove me here. I don’t want to make him leave and cut his workout from 2 hours into 15 minutes. I could sleep in the car. But it’s hot. Is that a snake? Look at the beetle. Maybe I could just sit down here. Or sleep here. Would I get bit?

Seriously…all that when through my head in about 3 seconds. I didn’t know what to do. I negotiated with myself…take a few more steps. One foot in front of the other. You never know what might happen. Just get up this hill, get to another downhill, see how you feel. I did that, and things went well. Got to some steep inclines, slowed it down, drank from my WASP, and pushed on. I won the negotiation. I was able to pull myself out of the rut, and once I got about 30 minutes in, I was ok. I didn’t know how I would last two hours, but just over 2 hours later, Cale and I came off the trail (i did leave out the fact we got totally lost and ended up going on a 10% hill or so that last over 2 miles – it was miserable. We were conserving water – that’s how lost we felt. But once again, we figured out).

It’s scary how powerful the mind is. How we must negotiate with ourselves constantly. How some of us convince ourselves to turn back and others convince ourselves to move forward. I think there is a lot of value in applying this to life – to work, training, family.  Think positive. If things get tough, turn the impossible into small possible steps. There’s usually a way, just negotiate with yourself to find it!

The Fartlek workout was created in Sweden in the 1930s. The goal is to mix up speesd so you can add intensities (think anaerobic) to an aerobic workout. To sum it up, you sprint, HARD, in the middle of longer endurance workouts. I have a running workout book that is simply a list of several types of workouts, and it suggests doing one of these a week. Maybe not for Ironman training, but generally if you’re running. So not the best idea when I’m supposed to be working on my aerobic endurance, but come on, who doesn’t want to get faster?

Here’s this Fartlek workout: I started with a 20 minute warm up. About 12 minutes into the warm up, I did 5 15 second strides (full sprints) with 30 seconds of rest after each one. I followed this up with 2 30 second strides with 30 seconds of rest. I then had a 3 minute easy run before the real workout started. The goal of these strides was to get ready for the stress that lie ahead. It was so I could mentally prepare for quick steps and an increase/decrease to my heart rate. Important to not skip this!

After the warm-up, I proceeded to do a pyramid workout. What I mean by pyramid is you build up to a time/mileage, then work back down to where you started. I did 1 minute as hard as I could, then 30 seconds rest (1/2 the time of the all out), then 2 minutes as hard as I could, 1 minute rest interval, 3 minutes as hard as I could go (1:30 rest interval), etc…The pyramid was this

1 minute (:30 second rest interval)
2 minute (1:00 second rest interval)
3 minute (1:30 second rest interval)
4 minute (2:00 second rest interval)
5 minute (2:30 second rest interval)
4 minute (2:00 second rest interval)
3 minute (1:30 second rest interval)
2 minute (1:00 second rest interval)
1 minute (:30 second rest interval)

The goal is to do the downward side of the pyramid (second half) faster than the first. This workout is NOT easy. It’s quite painful, particularly the 4-5-4 in the middle. The rest interval can be a walk or a jog. I like to jog to keep my legs from tightening, but its up to you. The key here is to learn to pace yourself to know what you can handle.

Anyways, here are my splits. I was able to do my second half faster, but I was more surprised at how slow the first half was. In hindsight, this pacing was correct as I felt like I was going to hurl towards the last 2 minute run. Something was definitely wrong with my heart rate monitor, which is disappointing. Unless I’m superman and can wrote those sub 6 minute paced minutes in 110 heart rate. Not likely.

Anyways, try adding this workout to your weekly routine. There are numerous other Fartleks out there, but this one is challenging. And I’m pretty sure you’ll get faster if you can grit through it. Keep in mind that each “hard as you go” is just that – even if you are going slower than prior intervals, just go to what your body can take. Quick tip: lean forward slightly, light feet with quick pounces on the ground, and shorten the stride.

Good luck! Feel free to comment with questions or your own personal experiences!

The past three weeks have really been a struggle. I forgot what it was like to train long hours while working a very busy job. And these training hours are starting to get long. I just finished a 14 hour week (that I completed in 6 days since I’m leaving for Stockholm tomorrow at 4AM and lose my Sunday), and that very long difficult week is going to start being the average or even the low end of what I’ll be doing for the next few months.

I’m in a constant mental battle as to why I’m doing this. With each long workout and as each week’s hours cumulatively build, the workouts become a mental battle of quitting versus pushing. Today, I worked out for 5.5 hours, and from the 10 minute mark, I was wondering how I was going to finish. I just kept pushing on. With workouts like that, I end up doing them slower, but I get the time in and I feel like I am victorious against that part of my mind that tells me I can’t, that tells me my body won’t do it. As these workouts build, I can only imagine that battle getting fiercer, but I’m determined to win it. And with each victory, I really feel accomplishment. Even if it is only a workout, there’s something special about overcoming fear, anxiety, and exhaustion. I realize how much more I can do when my mind says it can’t.

My base is building (when i say base, i mean my base level of endurance – the number of hours I can continue to workout). I’ve decided to take these base periods and build distance, and then take my build periods and work on making those distances faster. I enter a step back week now of about 8 hours of training, and I feel like I got over that big hurdle of getting back into training. I think my body is slowly adjusting, and I’m hoping I’m in slightly less pain in the weeks to come.

One thing that really is keeping me going is my girlfriend Adrienne. After just the first of six main training periods, I’ve realized how lucky I am to be with someone who supports this hobby of mine. If there’s one person who bears the brunt of my complaining and who I’m definitely sacrificing some time with, it’s Adrienne. I’m thankful for her support through this process. Her understanding of my desire to do this is great, and despite the hours of wah wah wahing she’s heard from me in the past few weeks, she just ignores it and provides compassion. Thanks Adrienne! You are awesome!

With that, I’m off to Stockholm. I hope to get back to this blog as my travel schedule dies down. After this trip, I will have flown nearly 60,000 miles since March 6th. Crazy, huh?

On a side note, I love June gloom. It was so cool this week in my AM workouts. I loved it. As the heat of summer rises, I’m interested to see what my body can handle.

Here’s a summary of my mileage/hours for my first three weeks. 37 hours in 20 days – not too bad. Base 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 (in order of 10-12-14 hours approximately)

Then it hit me yesterday. As I resume my training regimen, I’ve decided to focus a lot on hills for both my bike and run. I figure that hills develop leg strength, and they also push your anaerobic threshold, so when I’m not building my base, why not build my power. I’ve been riding San Joaquin Hills, which is about a 4 mile trek from the back bay to newport coast. The thing about it is that there’s barely zero downhill in the entire climb. It does level out at points, but leveling is very different than going downhill. It’s 4 miles of a fairly stead upgrade, with some serious 10% grades, a lot of gradual 4-6% grades, and very few flat areas.

This is different than Pacific Coast Highway, which is a series of ups and downs, AKA rolling hills. With rollings hills, you build momentum going down a hill and into the upswing, and the real challenge isn’t until you’re about halfway up, sometimes more sometimes less depending on the length of the hills. Well, I realized I’m good on rolling hills. I can attack the upswing and I’ve learned to actually attack the downhill too in order to get a few more MPHs out of it. However, I suck at well, hills.

Hills don’t have the benefit of having significant momentum going into it. Yes, you can ride fast on a flat into an uphill, but it’s different. My guess would be that you have 50% more speed going on a downhill than on a flat. That’s quite a bit more momentum. Plus, what’s killer is that in some hills, it goes up, then flat, then up, then up a little steeper. You never get to chill, so the heart rate stays high, the lactic acid builds, and it hurts. At one point of the 10% grade hill yesterday (into the wind on a windy day), I thought my heart was going to bounce out of my chest. And then how was I rewarded by completing that 10% grade, a 10 meter flat across a street and then an 8% grade.

I’m not complaining, I’m just distinguishing. If you think you’re training on hills and you’re doing rolling hills, then trust me, it’s very different. The challenge is signficantly harder and I recommend finding hills that just go on and on without declines if you want to get better. I was awesome on rolling hills, which I originally thought were hills, but I learned the hard way in Oceanside. When studying elevation charts for a race, keep in mind the descent before an ascent. If you don’t see one, then that climb is going to be much harder. Not all climbs are created equal, so 2500 feet of ascent on one course could be very different than 2500 feet on another. Study what comes before those hills. Also study the length of the incline. Climbing 200 feet in .3 miles versus 1 mile is VERY different. Think grade %. That’s the difference of a 5-7% grade versus a 12-14% grade (roughly).

So back to my workouts…I’ve been ambitious the last two weekends, hoping I could handle San Joaquin, chill down Newport Coast and then PCH to Laguna, then climb back Newport Coast (1.5 miles of 5-7% grade with no give). I haven’t been able to get my psyche up to go back up Newport. In time I guess…I did add hill sprints this past weekend though, which are 30 seconds bursts up a 12-14% grade, then back down and all over again. This was actually great work. It really teaches you power. Now I just need to turn those into 1 minute bursts.

Anyone else hill training? How is it going?

By the way, some random training pics from this week…i’m wearing some SHORT SHORTS, but man they are comfortable.

- Frequency – how many times you workout
- Duration – the length of any one workout
- Intensity – how difficult the workout is
- Volume – the amount of working out in a given cycle

In the prep phase, you have high frequency, low to medium duration, low intensity, and low volume. This is essentially a maintenance time where you try not to lose too much fitness. In addition, when you get to the base phase, your duration and volume pick up, and it picks up fast. So you have to maintain that fitness so when the base starts, you’re ready to go.

Since I’ve been traveling for work and have been quite busy, I’ve de-emphasized working out for the time being. I’ve worked on my strength (thank you TRx, particularly since I can travel with you) with a focus on my core and general resistance strength. I’ve stretched a little more. And when possible, I’ve done one of the three sports. All short workouts. Some high intensity at times when I’m bored, but rarely. It’s really a time to work on form, but mostly to recover. And not just have the body recover, but the mind as well. I’m using this time to realize the importance of days off and get motivated for my upcoming training cycle. The focus of this period is rest, strength, and cadence (both running and biking).

This week, I did about 5 hours (see summary below). I’m slowly building this prep phase so when I hit 10 hours the week ending May 23rd, I don’t want to kill myself. I also bought a pedometer I use for running – check out that run cadence!! Slowly improving. I hope to be mid 90s by mid summer. The road biking and lap swimming workouts were brutal. Pretty amazed at how quickly fitness disappears. During both workouts, it took a lot of mental prowess to keep going. My body was tired. But I guess that’s why these are training cycles…the rest is worth it

I’ve also been working on the schedule for that cycle. I’ve decided to not schedule any races until Ironman Arizona in November. I want to have flexibility so I can travel for work, make time for my family, and focus exclusively on this Ironman goal. I’ve worked on my schedule, and man it’s brutal. I have several workout weeks of 15-20 hours, which is actually low for an Ironman, but all I can afford with, well, life. I’ve got my hours set, and now I just need to plan my weekly workouts.

My workout focus is going to be mostly on endurance, but I plan on having hill workouts and speed workouts every week, particularly during the week when I don’t have the time for endurance workouts. And I plan on KILLING THE HILLS! I know there aren’t hills in Arizona, but that doesn’t matter. Hills make your heart stronger, and I’m going to go up and down them, over and over, for 6 months. The hills will be friend. I will love the hills…

One last note before I sign off – I’ve finished the book It’s Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong. All I can say is WOW! I knew the Lance Armstrong story, but not like this. What an inspiration. I seriously cried when he wrote about winning the Tour de France the first time. The beauty of this book was it gave you a psychological perspective of cancer, both pre-cancer when you start to experience symptoms, when you find out you have it, when you go through chemo, when you beat it (if you do), and the precious few months after when you hope you don’t relapse. Lance is my hero.

Happy training everyone

Weekly Summary

Fortunately, it’s not true. So Boston 2012, oh how I want thee…

Here’s the link.

The last 6 days have been great for learning about myself and my addiction. Yes, I think I have an addiction. Despite being tired and having fairly extreme exhaustion in my legs, I wanted to get out and workout nearly everyday this week. I would say I was even compulsive about it, often feeling kind of down for not being able to get out there. And this is week 1 of rest. What will week 4 feel like?? (Side note: I rode my bike for the first time today. 16 miles in about 50 minutes. Is it weird that I worked out for 50 minutes and I felt like I didn’t even workout? I’m doing a 10 mile run tomorrow, and I think, this is an easy workout? What happened to me in the last year? I think this is good, but I’m starting to realize I’m not normal. I like being not normal…)

I try to think of why is it that I feel compelled to workout when my next even is nearly 8 months away. I come down to a few reasons:

1. Vanity
2. Health
3. Stress relief / Emotional Pain Relief
4. Competitiveness

When I look at those four reasons, I think, are those good reasons to do this? Let’s go through them.

Vanity – Hmmm. I guess it’s cool to have a good body. To be defined in my muscles. To have a six pack. But seriously, who gives a shit? When I have kids, working out is going to come behind work / family, and although I think I’ll maintain a healthy life style, I will certainly never be as fit as I am now. And will it matter? Does the joy of raising kids and having a family outweigh the feeling of being fit? But I keep coming back to the fact that I care about vanity. I wish I could admit that I do not, but there is something about the feeling of being fit, not necessarily the feeling of looking good in a mirror or to others. By the definition of being anorexic, I almost thing this is a form of anorexia. It’s not that I want to be super skinny, but it’s a general fear of gaining weight. Instead of eating very little, I eat what I want, and I work out more than most people feel is humanly possible (for at least a person who works full time). And people think it’s great what I do. Is it? Is a healthy addiction, healthy?

Health – Of course it helps to exerise to improve the heart. I enjoy life and I want to live longer. I want to be the 60 year old doing half ironmans. I want to enjoy life even at 100 years old. A lot of people say they don’t want those extra years. I do. I want to keep learning and enjoying life till the day I die. But I could also probably live as long working out 4 hours a week. At some point, is my active lifestyle going to impact my health. I have more recurring pain in my legs than ever. It hurts nearly EVERY time I go up and down stairs. I don’t think health qualifies, although it’s a good excuse.

Stress Relief / Emotional Pain Relief - When I was going through my divorce a year ago, I could say that I worked out to deal with pain. When things are tough at work, I like to run to clear my mind. I love biking to work because it feels stress free for those 30 minutes before and after work. In a car, there’s really not a lack of stress, especially in Southern California. However, as I train for these endurance events, it’s not about relief. No way is a 5 hour workout about stress relief. It’s about something else.

Competitiveness – Of all the reasons mentioned above, this is the one that seems the most likely. I’m ultra competitive. But I am at a stage in my life where I don’t like competing with others. Since this is a hobby and not a full time gig, I don’t think it’s right to compete with others. Everyone has their own circumstances, and it’s not right to say that we’re all fully dedicated to something and therefore training is comparable across people. But damn, I love beating my times. I am tired as hell when I get up, but when I put on those running shoes and head out the door, I love knowing that today I can try to run faster than last time, or longer, or even different. I love getting in the pool and trying to work on my stroke so that when I do my swim test every month or so, I can try and get better. I don’t think I’m completely normal in this category because I have this inner competitiveness that pushes me to do things I didn’t know were possible.

Sidebar: when I was a freshman in high school, I started playing golf. My parents told me to pick a sport (to keep me out of trouble I’m sure), and I chose golf since I lived on a golf course. Well, here, I was competitive with others since all high school players were comparable (for practice time, etc…, although some cared more about school than others). So I worked hard. I mean harder than probably anyone in high school. I golfed before school, after school, in my room (putting/reading) at night, all day on weekends. I got a net for my back yard so I could hit balls at night. I was driven to shoot lower scores. I love numbers (I’m an analyst). So when I can be competitive and see measured results, I’m in heaven. Well, when anyone told me I couldn’t do something, it just pushed me to prove them wrong. When everyone told me I wasn’t going to make varsity because I cussed out my JV coach (longer story here), I worked harder. I beat everyone my sophomore year except one guy. By senior year, I was top in my county, and one of the top 10 juniors in California.

Through golf, through my sister telling me I wouldn’t do well in school, through some of these adverse moments in life, I never got down. Something in me, that competitive spirit turned these negatives into positives, and I motivated around it. I do it today. The Ironman for example. This is competition against myself, since one year ago, I felt there was absolutely no way I could do one. Well flash forward a year, and I’m proving myself wrong. I have a long way to go, but I think this is my main reason for working out. If this energy was in something else, like drinking, video games, drawing, whatever, I’d find ways to excel in it. Fortunately, this addiction is healthy.

So I think healthy addictions are good. But only if you channel it constructively. By that I mean to not obsess and be ok when I have to rest, be smart about the limits so I know when I need to stop, and make sure that trade off decisions of giving up time with others are made by the loving  person inside, not the competitive animal that lives within.

But back to the yesterday’s event. IM California 70.3 was much harder than I expected. The reason was the elevation climbs on the back that were unexpected (more unexpected because I’m an idiot and didn’t study the elevation chart), and these climbs really took the strength out of my legs for the runs. I accomplished my goal of under 5 hours, 30 minutes (barely), and i came in 94/240 in my field, with 74 DNFs (so really, 94/304, but that’s not the official stat). I’ll recap each event and then list my takeaways at the end

Pre-Race: Up at 4AM, ready by 5AM and not that nervous. Got to the race, parked, rode my bike to the start (and it was quite cold at about 5:15AM). Got to transition, found my spot, setup. Funny thing here is that I had to pee SO BAD. The type of pee where if you don’t go soon, it feels like you may have to pee blood because of the pain build up. Well, the bathroom line was about 40 minutes long, so I decided to pretend like I was doing a warm up run down the rocks of the harbor, and when I got to the end, I unloaded. I seriously think it felt better than having a first born child. After I got this out, I went back, setup my transition, put half my wetsuit on, and as the first wave went off, I got into the restroom line for my second potty trip.

Pre-Race2: Yup, last wave, so around 7:20 AM, I did potty trip #3. Fortunately, I saw my family and girlfriend right before I was ready to go out, as well as Zsolt, Cale, girlfriend’s Mom Marian, and Matt. It was very cool to have a mini cheering section!!!

Swim: As I ran down the chute to the swim start, I was excited. Not nervous at all, which is strange given how nervous I was for my last tri. When I got in the water and swam to the wave start line, I immediately realized I was in a bad position. I was behind two guys, sort of like a triangle, and two guys behind me. But there wasn’t enough time to find a better spot. When the horn went off, the two guys in front of me kicked me in the head, and then the guys behind me swam over me while hitting me. Not the ideal start position. I tried finding a good swimming lane while I got hammered over and over. After about 300-400 meters, I found that lane. From here, I got into my rhythm, my heart rate slowed, and I was truly starting the IM 70.3. After we made the turn around the last buoy and started our way back to the transition zone, we caught the slower swimmers from earlier waves. This made sighting a challenge because now I not only had to look where I was going but also the fastest way to get there without swimming over other people. I think I swam quite a bit extra distance as a result.

Sidenote: it’s extremely frustrating that some people who do these triathlons do not sight! I can’t tell you how many people swam diagonally across me as a result. Even one guy swam across me BACK STROKE! If you’re going to do a triathlon, read up on sighting! It will save you extra energy as well as the frustration of those around you

T1: Ok, so after 34:46, I came out of the water. I slowly ran to my transition spot. I mention slowly because I was tired. I had cramped trying to get on the ramp out of the harbor, and my shoulder hurt pretty bad from bumping into people on the swim, and that didn’t help in trying to get my wetsuit off. I thought I handled T1 ok, getting out in 4:03, which isn’t bad for those long IM transitions. I was quite amazed at how far you had to run to get out of transition. They said 75 yards per length, so 150 yards total per transition. That’s about 1/10 of a mile. The one thing I could of done better in T1 was not clipping my shoes into the pedals. I ended up getting behind two bikes coming out of transition that were almost walking with their shoes clipped in, so I picked up no time by being able to run clipless out. Then I struggled to get my feet into my shoes. For an event this long, I think having the shoes out of my pedals may be better.

Bike: Let’s just say that I wish my bike was stronger. The elevation climb was only 2500 feet, but it felt like 10,000 because the hills were sudden, short and steep. Sudden is my fault for not studying the course before the race, but I couldn’t overcome the short and steep. The first hill was an 11% grade for about .75 miles. I’d say 1/3 of the people were walking their bikes up the hill. This came at about mile 31. At mile 35 or so, we hit hill 2, which was about the same distance of 8% grade. Hill 3 came a few miles later and was nearly identical to hill 2. This didn’t account for the steady incline that accounted for miles 30-44. For those reading, you could say what goes up, must come down. I agree, but what hurt me was that I didn’t really expect the bike to be so difficult on the legs, so I used a lot of energy on those hills that really came out of my run. My legs even cramped at one point. Plus, the wind was opposite it’s normal direction, so although the last 12 miles we had a tailwind, all of these inclines were into the wind, making them that much more punishing. If I could do it again, I think I’d do a little more hill training, and do more running after hill training. More importantly, I needed to take in more calories on the bike. The 100 per hour was not enough, and I had no salt replenishment. My body was covered in salt by the end of the race, and that’s not a good sign.

The bike course was beautiful. I just was in a lot of pain and didn’t get a chance to enjoy it as much. I wish I could do the back side of Camp Pendleton for fun because it was truly gorgeous. Here’s the bike course:

Here’s the elevation chart (note the elevation increases aren’t great, but they’re sudden, and that made it tough):

My Cheer Squad

Gun to my Head

T2: After 2:58:06, or about 19 mph, I came into transition. It felt good to get off the bike. I was worn out and ready for it to end, but a half marathon remained. Here was the debate – socks or no socks? I loaded my bike, and said screw it, I’ll put on the socks. And this decision may have cost me about 5 minutes on my run. I never trained in these shoes while wearing socks, and I know the golden rule is to never do something different on race day than you’ve done in training, but socks make everything better, right? Not in this case. I was blistered by mile 5, and it was PAINFUL! The type of blisters I could pop the same night. So in transition, I took the extra 30 seconds to put on socks, I grabbed my Clif Bloks and Gu and ran out. Both the Bloks and Gu fell out of my pockets before I exited transition. Thank you Zoots for making crappy pockets in your tri jerseys. Total T2 time of 2:39

Run: The run splits are below (and note it’s 12.6 miles because my Garmin didn’t kick up until .5 miles in). These don’t account for the pee break I needed at mile 1 or the 20 seconds at each mile for walking through the water stations. The run wasn’t too bad, but as you can see, as the blisters settled in, each step got progressively harder and my time slowed down. There were so many times I wanted to stop, but I just forced myself to never stop running, even if I had to slow down. Just keep going. At one water stop, my legs cramped pretty bad, and this was the sign that if I did start walking, my day may be cut short. So I just took each painful step forward, gutting it out until I finished. You can see from the run videos below that the stride wasn’t too bad, it just hurt. And as you can see from the finisher video, I really wasn’t in a hurry to get across that finish line!

Total run time of 1:45:33. Run Splits (see how it got a little harder as time went by)

My total time was 5:25:05. As I posted in my race strategy, the only really disappointing time was the swim, and fortunately, although I missed it by about 15%, it only accounted for 5 minutes. So I like to recap what I learn from these events, and this one is not different. Here are my main takeaways:

• The Ironman Arizona is going to be HARD. I knew it would be hard, but once I have half the distance as an example, I realize truly what’s in store. I will need to seriously train, and really build a good base of miles on the bike and run. Yes I would like to do it in under 12 hours, and 5:25 + 5:25 = 10:50 does make 12 hours seem possible, especially since I wasn’t thrilled with my time. But the key will be to finish. This race hurt so bad at so many times that the thought of dropping out happened constantly, and I haven’t had that in a race before. I can only imagine what a full Ironman is like. So I will train with more bricks and more endurance, building a base before I build speed.
• I’m going to do more ocean swimming. I haven’t swam in the ocean since my last tri in October, and the wetsuit felt very strange for the first 500 meters. I plan on doing more ocean swims this summer simply to get used to the feel of a wetsuit
• I’m not that scared of the ocean anymore. I was deathly afraid before my last tri, and yesterday, it felt great to be out there. This is all about conquering fears, and I’m slowly breaking down barriers
• Transitions are important, but an extra 2 minutes in transition to get your head right is worth it in an event this long. Next time, I’ll spray sunscreen on too so I don’t end up with the sun blisters that I have this time around
• Races are fun, but I think I enjoy the journey more than the end. To truly master something, you have to enjoy the journey, and I’m thankful that a race is just part of that journey
• Do not break habit. Running in shoes with socks that I’ve only run in without socks is NOT a good idea
• Learn more about nutrition and what my body needs. Train that way and take in more calories on the bike. Buy salt replenishment pills

So thanks for taking the time to read my race report. If you have any questions or want to know anything about the race, feel free to comment below! Happy training!

Second loop of the run:

Across the finish line:

My photo set on Flickr

Either way, I have a long endurance event to complete very soon, and I’m eager to have the experience. Here’s my strategy:

1. PreRace: Transition opens at 4:45. I plan to get there around 5:30 since I have an hour to setup before it closes and another hour before my wave starts. Therefore, I’m going to get up at 4 AM, eat a granola bar, have some cereal, maybe have some muscle milk, and go through my usual 4 potty breaks before leaving the hotel. 15 minute drive, so I’ll leave around 5 AM.
2. Transition setup: the rules said we cannot clip our shoes into the pedals and slide them in the first leg of the race. That sucks, but I’ll clarify this with the rules official tomorrow at the expo. This definitely impacts my transitions strategyI plan on having one towel, a bucket of water to wash my feet in very quickly to make sure no rocks get between my feet and the shoes, race belt, sunglasses, gels, bloks, water, cytomax, and running shoes.
3. Swim: When the swim starts, I’m going to just try to avoid the chaos, but I’ll be aggressive as long as I don’t use up too much energy. Since I’m starting in the last wave, I don’t know how many people will be going slow from previous waves. I guess we’ll see. My goal is 30 minutes here, which equates to about 1:33 / 100 meter. I don’t think that’s unreasonable since I’ve been swimming a lot. My stroke has improved since my olympic distance tri where I did 1:36 / 100 meter. To be honest, even if I was a lot slower, 10 seconds, that’s only about 2 minutes 30 seconds more, so not a big impact on overall time. I plan on getting into a consistent groove and making a nice swim without a lot of hard grinding. I’m surprisingly not that nervous for the swim.
4. T1: Pulling off my wetsuit as I run to transition, I plan on doing this in under 2 minutes assuming the in/out of transition isn’t too long. Wet suit off, race belt on, sunglasses on, helmet on, shoes on, bike and go. And this time, I won’t let my GU and Bloks fall out of my pockets
5. Biking: 56 miles is no easy task, and due to the late start, we may get a little bit more wind then the other waves. Hopefully it’s not too bad. My goal here is to do 20 mph. I don’t know if that’s reasonable or not since I haven’t done this bike course, but my training dictates that if I didn’t have to stop, I could pull that off. I plan on having a heart rate in the mid 150s, and I’ll save most of my energy for the hills in Pendleton and try to maintain a cadence of 100 for the first 5 miles.  Goal here is 2:45, but I’m expecting something between 2:50 and 3 hours
6. T2: So the big debate is do I continue to go sockless? I’m bringing socks, but at this point, I plan on using my Zoots shoes and hoping for the best. I may even slip the socks into my back pocket in case it gets bad on the course. I hope to do this also in less than two minutes. Run in, park bike, helmet off, bike shoes off, running shoes on,  grab more GU, GO….
7. Run: This  is where the race will get interesting. It feels like it will be over, but there’s a half marathon left. However, running is my strong suit. I was explaining this to a friend this week. Because I’m about 50 percentile swim, 50 percentile bike, and about 30 percentile run, then I end up being about 25 percentile triathlete because a lot of people are terrible in one sport, awesome in another, and mediocre in the third. I tend to be mediocre at all three but upper third on the run, but then again, I need more races to test my skills. My runs off the bike have all been under 7:30 minute miles. I’ve even had a number of them less than 7 minute miles. BUT, I’ve never had to swim before the bike, and I don’t know what that will do to my legs. I’m shooting for 1:45 minutes, but my goal is 1:40. That will put me at mid to high 7 minute pace. I think I’ll maintain a low 160s heart rate and really try to push it the last 5 miles. We’ll see what happens
8. T3: CELEBRATION! Drinking, eating, looking forward to days off ahead, and a little massage at the resort before a wonderful evening with AK

That’s it. I guess we’ll see how it goes. Good luck to everyone participating. I hope for good weather, good competition, and a nice challenge.

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What if I entered my email address in wrong?
Our deepest sympathies are being sent to you via UPS because you haven’t read any of this.

Much Love,
Timbuk2 Designs

My training was going really well, but work really picked up and I found it a struggle to find time to be with family, handle life’s duties, work, and train. In the weekly summary for this year below, you can see that I was sticking to the plan until the last week of February. I had to go to Greece for a management meeting for work, and I lost both weekends, which is where I usually get about 60% of my weekly training time from. Why I lost BOTH weekends is another story (thank you German airports – you SCREWED ME/US).

I tried to pick it back up last week before tapering, but I definitely lost some of my fitness. I can handle the distance, but the speed at those distances that I was becoming accustomed to was much more difficult. I feel comfortable in finishing, but I think I need to lower my expectations for what time I can achieve. Prepare for the worst but accept the best!

The one thing I’m really looking forward to after this weekend is a much needed break. I’ve been training pretty hard since last March when I started training for the July 2009 SF Marathon, and I’ve been going nonstop since. That’s over a year of training without a break, and a huge ramp up in the winter when most people take time off. After this race, I’ll be working out, but not really training. I hope to pick it back up in May/June when I start the long road to Ironman Arizona! I hope to have more time at that point to really detail my progression towards Becoming Ironadam.

If you have any interest in checking out the official Ironman event on Saturday, click on the link above. There is also an athlete guide that breaks down the rules, the places to park, the course, etc… I’m the last swim wave, starting at around 7:40 AM. Transition closes at 6:30 AM, so that may be a long hour If you have any interest in meeting up with me after the race, send me an email/text and I’ll let you know where we can meet! If time permits, I’ll follow this post up with my race strategy before Saturday.

One last note: in that athlete guide, check out the rules in biking related to passing, drafting, etc… Gnarly! I wonder how much those are enforced. 20 seconds to pass…20 seconds if passed to move back…no clipped in pedals for transitions. I guess I hope I don’t get penalized for anything (imagine sitting in a tent for 4 minutes)