Oh Boy, Here We Go

IRONMAN 70.3 ROCKFORD TRAINING – WEEK 15 & 16 WRAP-UP – June 16, 2025

As I wrapped up a really bad Week 15, I got busy focusing on this last week of training before the race on Sunday. Commonly called the “taper week”, this should really be called “madness week.” It’s pretty common to have some pre-race nerves leading up to the race, but man, everyone is freaking out, including myself!

Let’s rehash last week. I was up in northern Wisconsin and went out for my Tuesday run, an 8-miler, that has been the norm for the past several Tuesdays. It was cool, and I felt like pushing the pace a little bit. Welp, just before I got to the 6-mile mark, my right hamstring stopped me in my tracks. Yup, I pulled a hammie and had to walk the remaining two miles back to my truck. I got a little down thinking that I had just jeopardized my run race for the 70.3, but I spent the rest of the week laying off running, and it seems to be doing better. It didn’t affect my cycling at all, nor was it bothering me while working around the yard.

Then I tried an open water swim. I haven’t done an OWS in over a year, and silly me thought that it would be old hat. Nope. It was cold in both the air and the water temperatures. It was brutal, I’m talking the mid-50s. Garmin actually gave me the “Arctic Swim” badge after I hit stop on my watch.

A Garmin badge I never wanted and never intended to earn.

I started too fast, and quickly was out of breath. Fortunately, my wife Kari was kayaking alongside so I could take a break if needed. I took three, or maybe four, I don’t remember because my brain was frozen. My planned mile-long swim lasted 866 yards. It was not the confidence booster that I had hoped for. However, my coach-wife and I discussed it and tried to make it a positive experience instead of focusing on the failure. I was reminded that I need to start slow, very slow, and get myself under control. A lot of the high heart rate and being out of breath was due to the cold temperature, and my just not being able to focus on slowing down. But, I definitely won’t have to worry about it being that cold on race day because it’s predicted to be 94 FRICKING DEGREES FARENHEIT ON RACE DAY!!!

Oh boy, here we go again with another triathlon in miserable heat. Fortunately, I have experience in that area. I was a proud finisher of the 2019 Ironman Chattanooga race, a day that was in the mid-90s with a heat index in the low-100s. Somehow, I got through that non-wetsuit swim and the very warm ride and run. Maybe I should re-read that race report: 2019 Ironman Chattanooga Race Report I’m sure I can survive this as well, that is, if I just THROW AWAY THE WHOLE RACE PLAN THAT I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON FOR 16 FRICKING WEEKS!!!

Yeah, the plan was to go sub-six hours; have a great current-aided swim, not dawdle in transition, rock the bike like I stole it, then dial in for a sub-2-hour 1/2 marathon. Best laid plans… Now I will shift my focus to wrapping my head around the swim possibly not being wetsuit legal, and dialing it back on the ride and run to avoid heat exhaustion. And pray that my hamstring doesn’t flare up.

Time to stop focusing on what I can’t control, and get my mind in a better place. I’m off to sort through 13 years of triathlon related crap I own to figure out what I need to bring to the race. Next post will be the race report! Stay tuned.

Grading Myself

2021 IRONMAN CHATTANOOGA TRAINING

WEEK 16 – June 20, 2021

Happy Father’s Day!

I was enjoying the company of my children on this humid Father’s Day and was proud of how their young lives had turned out so far. I know my wife deserves most of the credit because she is an awesome mother, but I would like to think that I had done pretty well as a role model too.

My son was discussing his recent workouts and how he was just hoping to get “B’s” on them. Which prompted me to ask why was he getting B’s on his runs? I would have thought that he would not have been happy with any effort that wasn’t an A. Ben and his girlfriend Emily usually are pretty high achievers regarding their running and to give himself a B seemed like he was being a little too hard on himself.

I thought about the 10-mile run I had done earlier in the day and wondered how I would score it. Ben asked if I thought I had met the goals of the workout. Did I do the distance or time I intended to do? Yes, I did ten miles in about 93 minutes. Did I run at the effort I hoped to run? Sure did, I managed to keep myself in the zone that I had intended. And did I feel good afterward? I guess so, I wasn’t too beat or too dehydrated and had a sense of accomplishment of getting in ten miles on a day in which I was soaked to the bone from the humidity. So I guess I get an A. Yay!

But do all of my workouts get A’s? I don’t think they do. I sometimes will push out of the zone or do more or less of the workout than the plan calls for, so for those instances, I guess maybe grading myself after the workout may be beneficial. Or at least think about the grade I want prior to doing the workout. If you are looking for A’s every time, then thinking about the objectives of the run or bike workout prior to doing it may be a smart move.

Ben and Emily were happy with B’s because being new homeowners and having busy work lives were making their run efforts take a backseat to the more important things at hand. And they don’t really have many running goals right now, so just putting in some miles and getting by with a B was working for them.

I’m going to be looking to get some more A’s in the weeks to come.

Swims: 2 – 2600 yards

Bikes: 3 – 87 miles

Runs: 5 – 30 miles

Another Two for One Training Wrap-up

IRONMAN CHATTANOOGA 2019 TRAINING

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WEEK 16 – Monday 6/17/19 – Sunday 6/23/19

WEEK 17– Monday 6/24/19 – Sunday 6/30/19

These past two weeks seemed like a whirlwind of training and life. Week 16 went really well, I even got in a 5K race which I placed 2nd in my age group. I had to do some juggling of the weekend workouts to fit them in around a trip to Minocqua to deal with some work around the lake home. I ended up doing the Saturday long run on Friday afternoon prior to heading to the Rolling Stones concert in Chicago.

Waiting for the Stones to take the stage. Glad I had a front row seat so I didn’t have to stand on tired legs.

When I left for Minocqua Saturday morning after the concert I decided to not even bring any of my workout stuff. Too much to do, like mowing the grass and cleaning the house and getting it ready for our 4th of July family get together.

am++82q8Q12pQGof6ljBxQ — Got the new (new to us anyway) boat in the water and on the lift. The water looked good enough to go for a swim. Didn’t happen though. Swimming sucks.

After that quick trip, I decided that I would make up the long Saturday bike ride on Week 17’s Monday/Rest day, which of course was done in the rain. I figured the safest bet was to stick to the local trail in case the weather got out of hand, but it forced me to ride more conservatively and slower due to the wet paved trail that was really slick from the rain and the trail junk. I probably should have ridden on the local roads instead, but I got it done.

FzsNGOQNR6GZ8IhKcDdmkw — Another wet ride meant I had to take time to clean the junk off of my bike post ride. Again.

The most notable part about Week 17 is that summer finally made an appearance. It started to get warm finally, but it brought humidity with it. On Friday I had a 75-minute run to do and it about KO’d me. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for me, it just wiped me out. It took me a couple hours of feeling pretty low after that to finally feel better. I did that same run again on Sunday and it went much better. No matter how much you think you know about running in hot/humid conditions, sometimes it reminds you that you can’t neglect what Mother Nature throws at you. And sometimes it throws Bambi at you.

Week 16 Training Totals:

Swims: 2 total / 4200 yards > Rides: 2 total / 29 miles > Runs: 3 total / 20 miles

Week 17 Training Totals:

Swims: 2 total / 4200 yards > Rides: 5 total / 151 miles > Runs: 5 total / 30 miles