The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

2021 IRONMAN CHATTANOOGA TRAINING

WEEK 19 – July 11, 2021

My in-laws have been staying with us this past couple of weeks and my father-in-law’s cellphone ringtone is the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which is a pretty good metaphor for training this week. First up…

The Good

Coming off a pretty easy week which ended in four straight rest days, I was hoping for a week of training that would feel pretty good. For the most part, I wasn’t disappointed. The legs felt strong, and the efforts weren’t killing me.

I joined the Saturday group ride and coaxed my coworker Tom into joining me. I planned to ride with Tom regardless, but when the fastest of the usual riders showed up, I knew that I wouldn’t be pushing myself to join in with their crazy tempo. Tom and I had a great ride out to the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery and back. We split apart at about two hours as Tom headed back and I needed to extend the ride another two hours. Saturday called for rain, but fortunately, it held off, stayed a cool day, and I was able to ride for a little more than 70 miles and then have a decent 30-minute post-ride run.

The Bad

I have been dealing with some numbness in my left foot when riding my bike to the point of it being somewhat painful. It’s a little embarrassing to have this pain because I felt like I knew how to deal with it, but the way I dealt with it in the past wasn’t working this time. No matter how I adjusted the cleat on my cycling shoe, I wasn’t getting any relief. I added a piece of foam padding under the insert of the shoe and it seemed to make it a little more bearable on Saturday’s ride, so I will continue to adjust that until I find some relief. The troubling aspect of it though is that it has also been carrying over to my running. The shoes I run in have about 250 miles on them but don’t really feel worn out. On Sunday’s 10-mile run, I broke out a new pair of running shoes, and although the pain was much less it wasn’t gone. I’ll give it some time.

Sunday I was determined not to miss breakfast. I have been missing out on pancakes and sausage/bacon on the weekends too often because of training and I wasn’t settling for that on Sunday. As usual, Kari’s pancakes were outstanding, and I left feeling very satisfied. But I think it affected my run a little as I was somewhat laboring through the first four miles or so. Whatever. The pancakes were outstanding.

It was the swim for me this week that was the main “bad” part of training. On Thursday, I attempted a swim after pushing pretty hard through a bike ride. I was getting some cramps in my calves on the ride, so I decided that this swim would need the pull buoy to take kicking out of the equation. It didn’t matter because about 10-minutes into the swim my left calf cramped up with one of the worst Charley Horse-type cramps that I can remember. I pulled the plug on the swim and limped around on a sore calf for the rest of the day. I already do the bare minimum for swimming just putting in two 30-minute swims a week, so maybe it’s time to rethink that. I may move swimming to the off-day Monday to remove it from a post-run or post-bike workout during the week. Maybe an hour-long swim with some drills and intervals added may be a better idea. I don’t like swimming.

The Ugly

During the group ride, we had to deal with a jerk in a minivan. Apparently, he couldn’t stand being inconvenienced for a few seconds by some cyclists. He hit the gas, squealed his tires, beeped his horn, and tore off around us like we should not be on his road. People can really suck sometimes. He’ll get his karma someday. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I ride with a front and rear flashing light/camera device. Here are the videos:

From my rear camera

From the front camera

Swims: 1 – 510 yards

Rides: 3 – 109 miles

Runs: 5 – 32 miles

Sun Tans, Group Ride, & Racing!

IRONMAN CHATTANOOGA 2019 TRAINING

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WEEK 14 – Monday 6/3/19 – Sunday 6/09/19

You sure are getting tan.

A few weeks ago I started getting compliments on my tan. I never really notice getting tan because it’s a gradual progression for me, but others who are less tan than I seem to notice it quite easily, and are sometimes envious and will point it out. I guess getting sun exposure and developing a tan is easier for a runner or triathlete, as we are outside doing our thing a lot. But there are some downsides to getting tan. First, the danger of exposing yourself to the harmful UV rays is pretty evident. If I am heading out on a sunny day, I will always spray myself with SPF 50 or cover myself well. Even so, I will still start developing a good tan. The other downside is triathletes can develop some really strange tan lines. I generally wear mid-length socks that will protect my lower leg from the sun. Also, tri suits cover your thighs which leaves just a small portion of your leg exposed for tanning. That’s a weird look. Wearing a hat also adds to that weird tan line on your forehead, like pro golfers get.

It’s not like I seek out sunny days to exercise – I take whatever day I get and prepare for it. But when it is sunny, I make sure that I place more emphasis on protecting myself from the sun than getting that envious tan.

Group Ride!

Riding with my teammates and buddies is always better than going alone. Last week Dave was in town but I wasn’t, so we couldn’t do the Saturday ride together. But Dave ended up making a return trip to visit this weekend, and he coaxed Jeff to come down from the city and do our 3.5-hour ride, 1/2 hour run Saturday workout together. The weather turned out great for us, except for that pesky wind that always seems to be in our faces in the second half of the ride.

We turned around a little before making it halfway out from home because we thought we were going to need to fight the wind back home. But we ended up having about 15 extra minutes we needed to ride, so we took a trip through a local neighborhood called Prestwick, a neighborhood where STYX lead singer Dennis DeYoung used to live back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We also saw an old neighbor Bill Goldschmidt out riding. He was a dad who lived on the street that Dave lived on and I virtually lived on and a long time rider. He was very excited to see us on the trail and we had a short but nice conversation with him.

We finished the ride and then headed out on a fairly easy paced 3.5-mile run that took us more than the 30 minutes the plan called for. They let me hear it for making them run longer than what the plan called for. Whatever, it’s good for you.

After a quick splash in the pool, some great conversation, and a nice lunch, we all headed back to our busy weekends.

The required post-bike selfie that I demanded they participate in.

Racing

On Sunday, I once again drove myself to Batavia, IL to race the ET Batavia triathlon and did quite well for myself. I ended up 27th overall and 1st in the Male 55-59 age group. I was very happy with that result. You can read my race report here:
2019 ET Batavia Triathlon Race Report

Week 14 Training Totals:

Swims: 3 total / 4600 yards > Rides: 5 total / 102 miles > Runs: 5 total / 25 miles

Gunners-2-1 — Almost halfway done with this! Here comes Week 15!

Teammates Make It Fun

IRONMAN LOUISVILLE 2017 TRAINING

WEEK 25 – September 4 > September 10

As I get closer to Ironman Louisville race day, the dread starts to build thanks to the massive amount of time the weekend training plan requires. This week was another 5.5 hour Saturday ride, with a 2.5 hour run on Sunday. But then my teammate Dave texted the group and suggested we get together for the Saturday ride/run brick. The plan was set to meet at my house and share a great day.

I took them on the same route that I rode last weekend, even though I did that ride in a little over 5 hours. I knew that we would ride a little more leisurely so we could chat and that the day was a little more windy than last weekend.

The ride went great, with no issues at all. We got to the turn around point at exactly 2:45 riding nice and easy. But I knew we would have to push pace a little coming back because we were riding straight into the wind that made that first half of the ride easy. It wasn’t too bad, and we made it back right at 5.5 hours.

The team did a quick transition to our running gear and I took them on a route I like to call the “Seven Deadly Hills.” That hour went by really quick as we chatted through most of the hour long run. We finished back home at an hour on the dot, with about 6.75 miles of running. A quick dip in the pool, some fruit and salty potato chips, and I think we were all happy with our day.

Sunday was back to the loneliness of the long distance runner, and I threw on my running clothes and hit the trail for a 2.5 hour run. Once again, the weather was awesome – cool, light breeze, and I felt great. I dialed it back to mostly a Z1 effort and got in 16 miles.

All in all, Week 25 was awesome thanks to great weather and great friends. I am looking forward to another group ride on Week 27 – the dreaded 6 hour ride.

TOTALS:

2 Swims – 4200 yards this week / 87750 yards total

3 Bikes – 136 miles this week / 10102 miles total

7 Runs – 47 miles this week / 820 miles

I’m hearing the BIB numbers will be out next week!