Ironman – Page 10 – an amazing run

2016 IMLP Training – WEEK 29

WEEK 29 – July 11, 2016 – July 17, 2016

29 Weeks down, one to go! Race day is almost here, and this week is full of lots of preparation and getting ready to go. And a lot of “hold on there, bub” going on too.

I took my bike into the bike shop for a race day check-up. Normally you drop the bike off and get it back a day or two later, but seeing that I bought the bike at a bike shop in Wheaton, Illinois and it takes me about 45 minutes to drive there, I begged the kid to work on it while I waited. Maybe he was a little more understanding when I told him I needed it for an Ironman soon. Maybe he was impressed that an old fogey like me can do an Ironman, I don’t know. They put it on the rack and checked, cleaned and lubed the chain, and examined the rest of it while I strolled through the store. After about 20 minutes the kid (must have been 18-19 maybe) and his supervisor (another kid maybe 5 years older than him) found me and said they were done. But from the look on the the older kids’ face, I could tell he had something really important to tell me. He asked me if I clean my internal “Fuelselage” device that holds my water and is contained within the frame of the bike. Now anyone who has one of these things knows that you need to clean it or else it might grow something funky. I was getting the sense that he was scolding me about it. I told him that I clean it out all the time and never put anything in it other than water. It’s just three years old and looks it. In typical kid fashion, he advised that I should replace it. I had just spent 20 minutes walking the store actually looking for a replacement, but they were out of stock and I advised him of that. “Yeah, I know” was his response. Well kid, it’s kind of hard to replace it when you don’t have any in stock.

Upon getting home I rode the bike and was glad to see the shifting was a little more crisp and nothing out of the ordinary was going on, except the rear brake. After that ride I took a look at it and found that the brake wasn’t releasing after I pull the brake handle. It had done this a couple of years ago, and it’s usually caused by road junk, sweat and Gatorade getting into the brake components and gumming things up. I cleaned it as best I could, lubed it well and got it to operate as designed. I need to figure out how to fully service my bike. I don’t want to rely on a kid and a kid supervisor anymore. They should have caught that.

As for the rest of the week, training was easy. I spent more time worrying about making sure I have everything for the trip to New York, thinking about what to bring and planning out how to approach the race. But life will through you a curve and as the week ended we found that we have some car issues with the car the kids drive. This is troubling, as we are leaving the kids home while my wife and I take the trip to Lake Placid. Also, our dog is showing signs that he might be ready to move on to the big dog house in the sky. He’s 14, and the past week has been really struggling. He’s stopped eating and taking water and might not be here for much longer. As if the anxiety of doing an Ironman race in a week wasn’t enough, I have this squarely on my mind. I’ve got a couple of days to deal with those things first, and then I will deal with the trip. Fortunately for me, I have done the race once before and I am confident that I am prepared.

I’ve learned a few things over the years. Thankfully, I’m no longer a kid.

Lucky. He’s a good dog. No longer a pup.

WEEK 29 TOTALS:

Swims: 3 total, 3 hours, 8600 yards

Bikes: 4 total, 4:45 hours, 75.5 miles

Runs: 7 total, 4:10 hours, 30 miles

2016 IMLP Training – WEEK 28

WEEK 28 – July 4, 2016 – July 10, 2016

When my wife and I were expecting our first child we were introduced to a phenomenon of sorts called nesting. It’s where the expectant parents, and in particular the mother, start preparing for the new bundle of joy to enter their lives. Baby junk gets purchased, walls get a new coat of pink or blue paint, and other things get done for the impending arrival. We have a similar type of nesting in Ironman triathlon called “WHAT THE HELL DID I GET MYSELF INTO?” Also known as the “Taper.”

Even though we were so happy to be done with the massive endurance stage of training, especially Week 27 and it’s crazy long weekend, the taper is something everyone welcomes but it drives us crazy. After doing so much training the taper starts drawing you back down in an effort to recover for race day. Sometimes just trying to go from runs that lasted over an hour to runs only 30 minutes long can make you question whether or not you are doing enough.

Truthfully, this week isn’t that big of a taper adjustment. The long Saturday bike was 4 hours long and the long Sunday run was 2 hours of joy (no, not really). The next two weeks is when you really cut back until the day of the race on July 24. But you still get weird things happening in the taper whether you are in the first week or the third. Things like being able to unclip from your bike pedal and falling over. I did that in 2013, my Gunner buddy John did it yesterday. The bike trail rides in March were typically void of bike trail idiots, but boy are there a lot of them out there now. Saturday I was cruising along the path when a goofball pulled onto the trail from a side path without stopping and bothering to look for people that were actually using the trail at the time. I almost t-boned him. There are things you can control, and things that are way out of your control.

Sometimes it’s little things that make you crazy, like the little piece of buckled tape that my hand touches on the handle bar. Every time I touch it I think “what is that I am touching for the 1,000th time?” It’s really an easy fix, but by the time you get back from 6 hours of riding, your mental checklist of things you promised to remember have left the grey matter many miles ago.

But cutting back the mileage is just part of the taper. The nesting part of the taper consists of making sure that you got all the non-training stuff covered – the hotels booked, the equipment you are going to use, the bike check-up that you have been neglecting, the travel plans, the tri suit you are going to wear… Oh yeah, that reminds me – our custom tri suits arrived! And they are sweet!

New Gunners team tri suit is here! This is what a 52 year old man who still thinks he’s 22 looks like. Yes, I am trying to suck in my gut. And in less than 5 seconds after my wife handed my camera/phone back to me, I let go of my bike and it fell over. I forgot to keep holding on to it. Stupid taper.

Since I have been through the taper before, I am blessed to know what to expect and how to handle it. It will still be the same crazy things happening, but I just won’t cry this time.

WEEK 28 TOTALS:

Swims: 4 total, 2:45 hours, 7850 yards

Bikes: 4 total, 7 hours, 123 miles

Runs: 7 total, 6 hours, 42 miles

2016 IMLP Training – WEEK 27

WEEK 27 – June 27, 2016 – July 3, 2016

The dreaded Week 27 is over! The toughest of all the training weeks has been conquered!

Week 27 is the one that my training buddies and myself come to fear, with the Saturday long ride of six hours followed by an hour long run brick, and the Sunday three hour run and 1.5 hour bike spin. But thanks to a great weekend weather-wise, I found the weekend workout to be quite enjoyable. I got to ride with one of my Gunner teammates and lifelong friend John, and ended the seven hour day on Saturday feeling awesome.

I sent this photo to my wife and she asked “Shouldn’t you be riding?” We stopped to take a nature break.

The ride started out in the upper 50’s, and I wasn’t expecting that. I brought along some homemade arm warmers that I made out of tube socks that I purchased at Walmart. It’s a good thing I had them. It took about 1.5 hours before I didn’t feel cold anymore. Kept them on for the whole ride though. I will have to stick a pair in my bike special needs bag or my T1 bike bag for the race. I’m holding out hope that we will have a race day like this weekend.

Saturday’s bike/run: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1239986725

That’s 101 miles. John and I covered a lot of rural Illinois.

The weather sure made for a different ride than the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago I filled up my bottles three times in the 80 degree weather. This time I started with three full bottles and really only topped off two of them once. Just goes to show how much the temperatures effect hydration.

The three hour run on Sunday I was sort of dreading, mainly due to worrying about what lingering soreness I would still have from the 7 hour training the day before, but I felt great all through the run. I turned around at 1.5 hours/10.25 miles and headed back with the idea of pushing a little. That worked until the wall was starting to creep up around the 19 mile mark just as I was hitting the hills near home. I got through it okay and got home and jumped in the pool. Then I mowed the grass. My neighbor used to tell me that she considers mowing the grass as her workout. I guess after a three hour/20.5 mile run I got my workout in as well.

Sunday’s run: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1239986917

My wife helped me finish off the biggest training week of the plan by riding the 1.5 hour bike spin with me. I chose to do it on my hybrid for comfort sake, and even though I was giving an effort I was marveling at how much faster I ride the tri bike on the same stretch of trail. Good ride and a good finish to the hardest week of the plan.

WEEK 27 TOTALS:

Swims: 3 total, 2:45 hours, 7600 yards

Bikes: 4 total, 10 hours, 167 miles

Runs: 7 total, 7:45 hours, 50 miles

2016 IMLP Training – WEEK 26

WEEK 26 – June 20, 2016 – June 26, 2016

“😖 I hate this sport!” – Alex

Week 26 was a tough one. And it elicited the above statement from one of my training buddies. It’s his first time going through the 30 week training program in his pursuit of Ironman immortality, but having been through the training once before I can certainly empathize.

To me the weekend training workouts are the true efforts that are reflective of what it takes to get ready for the race. The other days are hard as well, but much shorter in duration. But the long Saturday ride and the long Sunday run really give you a taste of what the race will be like. I write this post on Sundays mostly, and by then the early parts of the week are distant memories, while the weekend distance events are still rather fresh in my mind.

So we bantered around a little in a group text about whether or not we all hate this sport. We don’t really, it’s just that doing a 5.5 hour ride followed by a 1 hour run on a 90 degree and humid day really makes you think about why we like triathlon at all.

But my friend Dave and I both agree that the training is tough, and although there can be some rough patches and good days of training as well, the training is truly the hard part. Getting through the 30 weeks prepares you for being ready to handle the distance. I’ve thought many times that since probably Week 20 or so that I was ready. This week really drove home the point that until you get past Week 26 and Week 27 (next week – yikes!), you really don’t know that you are ready. You may think so, but this week and the next will really tell you all you need to know. The race is really the easy part, utilizing the skills and endurance earned over 30 weeks. It’s now less than a month away. Mike Reilly may be at the finish line telling everyone that they are an Ironman, but what’s impressive is that we prepared for 30 weeks to get to the finish line after 140.6 miles to have him tell us that.

As for me this week, the swimming pool is finally done. I had missed quite a bit of swimming since the high school pools changed their summer hours to a time I couldn’t go, and then opening my own pool to find a torn liner delayed my training. But all is good now and I have decided to supplement the three swim days of the training plan by adding a 30 minute swim every weekday, and dropping the Friday 3500 yard swim, because of the fact that I never did it anyway! I should get my endurance and build some of the lost speed back in the next couple of weeks.

We had a graduation party for my high school graduate this weekend, so I had to swap Saturday’s long ride with Sunday’s long run to have time to help prepare for the party. I think I got lucky because I got the long run done early before the heat had time to get going on Saturday. And although there was a brief downpour before I started the 5.5 hour ride on Sunday, the skies and humidity cleared nicely and I didn’t really suffer like my Gunner teammates did.

At the two hour and 45 minute turn around. I was soaked from sweating so much.

Oh yeah? Well I’m not stealing your water to put in a pot anyway!

The ride was the same as last week, a 5.5 hour ride, but I made to 95 miles last week and was kind of disappointed in myself for not hitting the century mark. So this week I rode a little extra and ended up at 101.5 miles on the bike. In 2013, I never reached that plateau until race day. So it is a nice reminder that I am pretty close to that race distance of 112 miles.

So yes, Week 26 was a challenge. But the challenge just proves that I have the stuff to become Ironman.

WEEK 26 TOTALS:

Swims: 4 total, 3 hours, 8550 yards

Bikes: 4 total, 9:50 hours, 162.5 miles

Runs: 7 total, 7:10 hours, 49.7 miles

2016 IMLP Training – WEEK 25

WEEK 25 – June 13, 2016 – June 19, 2016

Crazy week this week. Lots going on as I ramp up to the final month of training heading into the race.

The pool is finally getting a new liner, but it wasn’t without drama. I may post another blog about that craziness, but I am glad the new liner is being installed and the pool should be ready for swimming next week. Fingers crossed.

Since there was pool stuff going on that I needed to be home for, and my high schooler had to be picked up at noon every day, and that my world traveler high school grad was coming home from Italy this week, there wasn’t really any time to go find somewhere to swim. So no swimming for me again this week.

As far as running and biking were concerned, it really boiled down to the two long events on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday went pretty well. The plan called for a 5.5 hour bike ride followed by a one hour brick run. I decided to head south following my usual route, but would venture west and south to explore some of the roads. I am glad I did as I ended up almost all the way to Kankakee, IL, actually making it to Kankakee State Park. I made it into the park and explored a paved path until it turned to crushed limestone. I rode a little bit on that path until I felt like a dope riding a tri bike on a trail not really suited for one. But the two hour and 45 minute turn around point hit, and I backtracked home. 95 miles total in 5.5 hours.

Maybe I shouldn’t be on this trail with my tri bike.

Upon getting back home, I felt a little drained. I took about 15-20 minutes to down a couple Gatorades before heading out for the hour long run. It went okay, but not at my typical effort. I think I needed to hydrate and fuel a little more as I ended the ride. Here’s the Garmin info:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1218914843

After the 101.5 mile day Saturday, I kind of dreaded having to run on Sunday. But I got up at 5:30am and ate and got ready to hit the trail to beat the 90 degree temps forecasted for the day. Of course when I went to get my Garmin 910 watch it wasn’t charged even though I connected the dumb thing to the charger the day before. Fortunately my wife has a Forerunner 10 that I grabbed and used for tracking the workout. Before I had a GPS watch I wouldn’t have cared, but now it I have become somewhat of a convert and addicted to the dumb device.

After the 2.5 hour run, I chugged a couple of Gatorades and talked myself into doing the hour long bike spin that I probably should have done before the run. My butt was not happy with me after the long ride on Saturday, but eventually I got used to it. An easy effort, high cadence spin for an hour went by pretty quickly.

Those long efforts leave me with my thoughts for way too long, and boy did I have a lot of thoughts. Too many to add here. Maybe I will save those thoughts and share them when the Ironman is over. I’ll need something to talk about after the race.

WEEK 25 TOTALS:

Swims: 0 total this week

Bikes: 4 total, 8:35 hours, 144 miles

Runs: 7 total, 7:10 hours, 49.5 miles

2016 IMLP Training – WEEK 24

WEEK 24 – June 6, 2016 – June 12, 2016

A day by day account –

Monday: Rest day. But I did 2 miles of running to satisfy the running streak. It now stands at about 1.5 years of running at least a mile every day!

Tuesday: I finally got into a pool! I ended up going to the YMCA off of Briggs Street in Joliet and used their pool. It cost me $15 for a day pass! I spent the 3000 yards swimming calculating how much each 100 yard segment cost me (50 cents/100 yards, if you must know). Overall, I felt pretty good for missing two weeks worth of swim training, but I did notice a little fading in the end. A seven mile run finished off Tuesday. I was aiming for the planned 1:15 run, but I saw a friend in the forest preserve and she is running her first marathon in the fall. I chose to walk a couple of miles and talk running with her.

Wednesday: Bike/Run brick day. Nothing out of the ordinary in this workout. The bike did increase by 15 minutes. Nice of Don Fink to throw that into the plan.

Thursday: 1.5 hour bike ride on the trainer and followed with 1 mile on the treadmill. We had a little rain on Thursday.

Friday: A hot day for an afternoon run. Managed 10.5 miles in 1:33. Felt pretty good.

Saturday: A mid 90’s day is not ideal conditions for a 5 hour long ride, but I got it done and averaged about 17.1 miles per hour. I think that will be a pretty good tempo for Lake Placid. The ride was supposed to be followed with a run, but I opted to do it indoors on the t’mill. Had I run in the heat I would have ended up walking a lot of it because I knew that it was going to be tough. So I chose to run tempo indoors on the dreadmill. Plus I knew that I was doing a sprint triathlon on Sunday, so I thought it best to play it safe.

Sunday: The plan called for an hour long bike spin and a 2 hour 15 minute run, but I did a sprint triathlon instead in Batavia, Illinois. Sunday was the opposite of Saturday weather wise. A little breezy but temps in the upper 60’s. Matter of fact, the water temp was warmer than the air temp for a change! I ended up with a 6 minute PR over my time from 2014. I guess I smashed the bike, and the run was pretty quick as well. I only counted one guy passing me on the bike, and no one passed me on the run. I was gunning for it. I placed 22nd overall, and 3rd in my age group. Since this race is a USAT Nationals Age Group Qualifier, I should be qualified for the Nats in August. Probably won’t go to it, seeing that it is in Omaha, Nebraska and I have a daughter entering her freshman year at Valparaiso University, a daughter heading into freshman year at Lincoln-Way Central, and a son who is turning 21 as he heads back to his senior year at Loras College. All of that happens in the last couple of weeks in August!

Pool News: Finally got word that they should be out to replace my pool liner this week, tentatively on Thursday which is forecasted for rain. When it finally gets in, I think that I will probably do 30 minutes of swimming daily on the non-swim days, and do the planned swims as well. I have some catching up to do!

WEEK 24 TOTALS:

Swims: 2 total, 3400 yards, 1:10

Bikes: 4 total, 8:15 hours, 138.5 miles

Runs: 7 total, 5 hours, 35 miles

2016 IMLP Training – WEEK 23

WEEK 23 – May 30, 2016 – June 5, 2016

A couple of noteworthy things happened this week. First, for the second week in a row I missed my swim workouts. I’m not all too concerned about it, but it made me think about why I didn’t have a contingency plan in place for when the school would be closed. Well, I sort of did have one, and that was to have my own pool open and swim at home. But I am still waiting to hear from the pool guys as to when they can put in my new liner. I have looked into swimming at a local YMCA, but at $14 per swim that may be a little stiff.

One of my Gunner teammates Jeff, has definitely been utilizing his contingency plan as he rehabs from a back issue. I should be taking lessons from the new guy!

The other big news is that after having consistently passing on a triathlon watch, I decided that I would take the plunge and join the cool tri kids. What did I buy? A brand new, in the box Garmin 910XT. Don’t laugh. Even though this watch hit the market in 2011, and Garmin has since released the 920 and the 735, I got a deal that I just couldn’t pass up. A local sporting goods store in Chicagoland, Sports Authority is going out of business and was having an everything must go sale. I walked into the store and found that they had several new, never opened 910XT’s. Normally they list for about $400. Over a couple of weeks, I watched the price plunge until there was only one of about a half dozen left on the shelf, and it rang up at $159. I made the decision to get the thing. The receipt said all sales were final, and at the bottom said I had saved $240! I think I got a good deal.

A painful selfie with my “new” Forerunner 910XT

Since I already owned a Garmin Edge 500 bike computer, I found my new watch to be somewhat familiar, and the learning curve was not much of a challenge for this sometimes technology challenged geezer. I have all the screens set up the way I want, and transferring data from my workouts to Garmin Connect is a snap when I get into range of the computer, transferring everything wirelessly!

Of course I had to use it on my long ride/run Saturday brick.

The last thing of note is that I seem to have entered a stage of training that I totally forgot about the last time I did the Ironman – the “I’m always angry, sad, moody” stage. Lately I have been so down and moody, and it is compounded by the fact that two of my kids graduated junior high and high school, and my son is entering his last year of college. It also didn’t help that I asked my wife to buzz my hair with the smallest clipper, effectively making me look like an older geezer than I actually am. I guess to combat this I guess is to let my hair grow out some, get some good rest and keep eating. They say that when you are sad or angry during the race you need to eat. I have no trouble eating.

WEEK 23 TOTALS:

Swims: No swimming this week😦

Bikes: 3 total, 7.33 hours, 124.5 miles

Runs: 7 total, 6 hours, 42 miles

2016 IMLP Training – WEEK 21

WEEK 21 – May 16, 2016 – May 22, 2016

Another week of playing catch up. The totals for last week were down because I missed my long run on Sunday. So I ended up doing it on the Monday rest day. 14 miles in 2 hours. Tuesday I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon, so I had to cut my swim short and ended up doing 2500 yards instead of the 3500 the plan called for. Since I needed to pick up my son from college on Friday, I skipped the planned swim. I don’t mind skipping the third swim.

The rest of the week went well with no big issues. The best part of the week however was the long Saturday ride and brick run that most of my Gunner teammates were able to make. Dave and his son Alex made the trip to my home to ride together, but we ended up delaying it a little so John could join us as well. We were missing our Gunner friend Jeff, who is still rehabbing from his minor back surgery and is limited to riding a stationary recumbent bike and using an elliptical. So what does a Gunner do when those are his options? Jeff did 4 hours on the elliptical. Gunner. Can’t wait until he can join us again. He had a really good base built up and should be able to get back up to speed easily.

It took us several tries to take a selfie. My arms are too short.

We rode for about an hour and then met with John, then we decided that heading east and west might be our best option due to the wind blowing from the north. Unfortunately, most of the good riding for me is south of my town, so with a south wind it is hard to avoid having to ride back into the wind.

So we decided to explore a little, and that meant discovering gravel roads and busier highways. But we weren’t on them long, and eventually made it out to Elwood. When we got to the north side of Midewin National Nature Preserve, we decided to ride into it and see what the old abandoned arsenal had for us. Essentially it was just a couple miles of choppy road in the middle of nowhere. Now we know.

I’m the odd ball with the non-Speed Concept. Oh well. We weren’t sure if we should go in, but we did anyway.

Since we had been riding about an hour when we caught John, we decided that we would compromise and do an extra 1/2 hour to give him 3.5 hours and us 4.5 hours of riding. In all, we covered about 77 miles in 4:30, give or take a couple of minutes. I did notice that we passed the half-Iron bike distance of 56 miles at about 3:17, which is a pretty good time for a training ride if you ask me. Matter of fact, the ride was quite a confidence booster.

The brick run was impressive to me. I had always thought that it wouldn’t be long before Dave and John started to catch up with me tempo-wise on the run. They certainly had some speed at the end of that 5.5 mile run. I took them through a local neighborhood that has some really big houses, which they seemed to enjoy. Then it was back home for a quick shower and a dinner at Fuddrucker’s, a hamburger joint that I hadn’t been to in probably 25 or more years. I didn’t even think this place still existed. But the food was hot and good, and the end of day conversations and recaps were awesome.

The Sunday workout consisted of a 1:15 hour spin, which I did with my wife. We rode into New Lenox on the trail and then made it back home. I took a minute to clean the Gatorade and gravel dirt off my bike, then headed out for the 1:45 long run. It ended up being 12 miles. I should have hydrated more because I was suffering a little in the 80 degree 100% sunshine. I brought one water, but could have used more. I think I needed to hydrate a little more from yesterday’s effort.

The last thing of note for the week is that we have all ordered our custom tri kits from Epix. They did a really good job designing a logo for us and creating a kit. I hope that all of us find the kit to fit well and be comfortable. Can’t wait to get them in early July.

A screen shot of our tri top from Epix. They did a really good job with the Gunner logo and the design of the kit. I really like them.

WEEK 21 TOTALS:

Swims: 2 total, 2 hours, 6000 yards

Bikes: 4 total, 7:40 hours, 121 miles

Runs: 7 total, 7:55 hours, 54.7 miles

2016 IMLP Training – WEEK 20

WEEK 20 – May 9, 2016 – May 15, 2016

Well, I have reached the end of another week of training, but it was not without its imperfections. Stuff happens, and it certainly was an interesting week.

First of all, what a crappy weather week. Basically rainy and 50 degrees for most of the week, which is somewhat unusual temperature-wise for northern Illinois. I hit the trainer and treadmill for most of the weekday workouts.

The swims were interesting as well. As the school year winds down, I noticed for the past few weeks that the freshman classes that are required to take swimming must have all gotten through the program because I had the pool pretty much to myself. (The school dedicates two lanes for Adult Community swimmers, and the kids swim in the deep end.) But I forgot that as we reach the end of the year, they let any class that wants some pool time to come an goof around. That means kids doing cannonballs off the spring board, football wannabes tossing a football around and tackling each other, water polo balls flying into my lane, etc. Makes for an interesting swim.

An update for my pool situation – I ordered a new liner to replace the ripped one, so I anticipate it being open sometime mid-June, hopefully because I believe my wife has a graduation party scheduled for the end of June. Yikes! I saw a duck in there this morning.

I had to cut short Friday’s workout so I could go watch my son run at least one track meet this year. I picked up Grandpa and off we went to Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa to watch him run his event, the Steeplechase. 4.5 hours of driving there. 9:55 minutes of him running. 4.5 hours driving back. Very proud of him though. He set a personal record by 15 seconds or so, and finished 8th in the race which earned a point for his team, Loras College.

The lad doing his thing. Interesting race, the steeplechase. Of course it rained.

Saturday was another day that I had to make some changes. A family acquaintance passed away and I attended the funeral. Good man, raised good kids, and went above and beyond serving his community as a board member of the high schools.

So I did about a third of the biking that was in the plan for Saturday, and did another 2.5 hours on Sunday. Which meant Sunday’s long run took a hit. I will move it to tomorrow, which is normally a rest day. Two hour run. That’s something to look forward to.

The Week 11-20 Build phase totals up to the following:

Swims: – 19 total, 18.5 total hours, 115,800 total yards
Bikes: – 38 total, 53:45 total hours, 850 total miles
Runs: – 70 total, 45.5 total hours, 324 total miles

WEEK 20 TOTALS:

Swims: 2 total, 2:20 hours, 6800 yards

Bikes: 3 total, 4:45 hours, 77.75 miles

Runs: 7 total, 2.8 hours, 24.75 miles

2016 IMLP Training – Week 19

WEEK 19 – May 2, 2016 – May 8, 2016

Just a quick wrap-up for this week as it was pretty uneventful. But there were some noteworthy items.

I learned a lesson about doing a half marathon last weekend. It’s aftermath was painful. I was very sore on most of my runs until about Friday. Need to do some more stick rolling and stretching and I should be back to having that “normal” worn out feeling that I usually have.

Although the plan has a swim on Friday, I have decided that I will do them when I can. It’s just that when you are doing training you end up neglecting some things that have little consequence, and others that have more significant consequence. Like not mowing the yard, which at this time of the year can be more like a jungle if I don’t tend to it. And since I feel the weekend long efforts on the bike and run are vital to the training, I think I can still be okay by foregoing one of the three hour long swims to devote time to household responsibilities. I’ve been averaging about 2:05 minute splits per 100 yards over 3000 yards, which I am very happy with.

Speaking of the swim, I finally decided to pull the cover off my pool and try to open it. Swimming in my own pool saves time, and even though it is a lot of turning around, I don’t mind it much. I expected a green pool when I pulled the cover off, but got a much bigger surprise – a black lagoon!

Cleaning this will be a chore, but it would probably be ready in a couple of weeks. But surprise number two came when I saw this:

So, now it looks like it may need to be replaced, and that may delay the pool opening for a while. I’ve got two kids graduating 8th grade and high school this year, and the Ironman to train for, so I need that pool open!

The long bike was a four hour long trip this week, but I got to ride with a couple of friends, my normal riding partner Todd, and my other Ironman Gunner teammate Dave. Todd is not interested at all in doing tri’s, but loves to ride. He left us around 2:45 into the ride and Dave and I finished it off. We pretty much have to ride south for good roads to ride, which meant with the wind going out. Coming back was tough! But we got through it.

Looking fresh after a 4 hour ride and 45 minute run. So much more fun when you have someone to train with.

Wrapped up the weekend with a Sunday long run of 12 miles. I was set to only do 10 miles, but just as I was turning off the trail to run the mile back home, my wife jumped on. So I enjoyed running an extra couple of miles with the mother of my children on a nice Mother’s Day. She was the anti-runner when I met her, and now she’s starting to get pretty fast. I converted a non-runner into a running lover! Just need to get her interested in the marathon!

WEEK 19 TOTALS:

Swims: 2 total, 2 hours, 6000 yards

Bikes: 5 total, 7.8 hours, 112 miles

Runs: 7 total, 5.5 hours, 38 miles