Life Happens

IRONMAN 70.3 ROCKFORD TRAINING – WEEKS 7/8 WRAP-UP – APRIL 27, 2025

Sometimes the best-laid plans of a triathlete in training often go awry, to paraphrase poet Robert Burns, and the past two weeks have been that way for me. Last week, I took a trip to Florida with the family over Easter to visit my in-laws, which made for a nice escape, and that included an escape from my training. I ran a couple of times over that extended 5-day excursion, but did little else other than enjoy my family being together and enjoying a break from our busy lives.

This past week also had some conflicts: my wife Kari’s birthday, a memorial service for an old friend, an appointment to have my sprinkler system fixed, and the ever-changing weather around here causing disruptions to the training plan. Somehow, I managed to get back at it until I got derailed again with a very sore throat at the end of the week. I could feel it coming on, and thought that maybe it was just a reaction to the bad pollen levels we are experiencing. Nope, it turned into a cold.

Wednesday’s call for a bike/run brick workout that I normally let myself push pace, but found that my calf muscles were not happy about that, cramping up occasionally while I tried to get through 45 minutes of biking followed by a 30-minute run. I grabbed a Gatorade after the bike and took a big swig from it, hoping that a swig of electrolytes would set me straight, but I thought that I better bring it with me. I’m glad I did. Normally, I never cramp while running, but the bike effort had already done its damage. Nevertheless, as I moved forward slowly, sipping away at the Gatorade, I was able to find my stride again. It was a wake-up call, though – I need to focus on hydrating more and making sure that I’m taking in enough electrolytes.

The weather is starting to look warmer here in the Chicago area, and I started thinking about opening the pool. Closing and opening a pool both include a fair amount of work, but there’s definitely more cleaning up with the spring opening. So while the sprinkler guy worked on the sprinkler valve, I gathered my pool opening supplies and read through my notes. Even though I have opened my pool by myself for almost 20 years, each year I forget how to do it. I’m losing it.

I held out hope for feeling good by the weekend, and on Saturday morning, I decided that I felt good enough to run. I planned to take it easy and just run and walk through the 1:45 run, but I felt good and changed my mind, running it straight through. I felt pretty good, but after getting home, my body didn’t like that. I was drained, and now my sore throat was accompanied by a cough. Time to take some medicine.

I opted to skip the long ride this weekend, and instead I filled the time opening the pool and mowing the grass. The pool was pretty clean, and didn’t take much time to vacuum and start the heater going. I should be swimming by Tuesday, or maybe Thursday.

So, life threw some curveballs at me this past two weeks, but experience has taught me not to worry about it. I will pick the plan back up this next week and keep moving forward.

Week 7/8 Totals: Swims 0 – Bikes; Far too few – Runs: Nowhere near enough

Happy Mother’s Day

IRONMAN LOUISVILLE 2020 TRAINING

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WEEK 8 – May 4 > May 10, 2020

IRONMAN TRAINING IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC – PART VIII

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there! I certainly miss my late mother and think of her often. If you are fortunate to have your mother and father around, cherish the time you have together.

My mom never knew me as a triathlete. She would tell me to be careful when I was just a runner, worried about the marathons in particular. I wonder what she would think about the Ironmans I have trained and raced. I’m guessing she wouldn’t have been too happy about it. That’s what mothers do, they mother.

Week 8 was a drawback week as far as training goes. The training plan sneaks these in occasionally and it is always a welcome surprise. It always seems to come just when you need it. So this week ended with a reduced ride and run, and I reduced the run even more by eliminating it because it’s Mother’s Day and it’s a rainy Mother’s Day. Maybe I will do it tomorrow on my normal rest day in Week 9. It’s an easy hour run that I can do without much effort.

While training for my ultramarathon this past winter I had developed some nagging little injuries, but when the pandemic hit and the event got postponed, I was happy to slide into the Ironman training which heavily reduced my running workload. I realized in Week 5 or 6 that I no longer had those injuries and was feeling pretty good. But I’m starting to feel the little behind the knee thing starting to come back. Maybe taking off from running on Mother’s Day is a good thing to give it an extra day of rest. I’m guessing Mom would approve.

TOTALS FOR WEEK 8:

Swim: 0 / 0 yards
Bike: 3 rides / 66 miles
Run: 3 runs / 14 miles

Gunners-2-1 — My wife is an awesome mother! Happy Mother’s Day Kari!

I’d Be A Horrible Judge

IRONMAN CHATTANOOGA 2019 TRAINING

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WEEKS 7 & 8 – Monday 4/15/19 – Sunday 4/28/19

Ironman makes announcements all the time and I usually don’t give them much more than a quick glance. But this was shared on a couple Facebook group pages and it caught my eye:

The reason I didn’t pay much attention to it at first is that it looks like your standard “Register Now” announcement for Ironman, and I’m already signed up for it. But then I read a few comments and realized this was for a relay. Say what? An Ironman relay? NO!!!

Immediately I made up my mind that I hated this idea. A relay for Ironman? C’mon man, this shouldn’t be. Triathletes that do Ironman do them for the challenge of doing three tough events in one day, 17 hours typically. To do just one part doesn’t make any sense to me. The whole purpose of Ironman was to prove an argument as to who was the toughest athlete of three disciplines, the swimmer doing a 2.4-mile swim, the cyclist racing a century or more, or the runner running a marathon. Do all three events in one day and find out! – was the reason behind creating Ironman. (Note: It’s the runner if you are wondering. The strongest swimmer never wins the race. And if you followed Ironman Texas this weekend you witnessed Andrew Starykowicz destroy the bike course only to be caught on the run. And Daniela Ryf made up a significant time gap on the run to win the women’s title. Always bet on the runner. Unless the runner is me, then bet on my buddy Dave. Actually, always bet on Dave, he’s 3-0 in our Ironman racing.) But seriously, what are you proving by just doing one segment of the race? After the swim leg, what do you do while the rest of us are still busting our butts? I better not hear you call yourself an Ironman.

As I read through the many comments I was seeing a lot of similar reactions to this announcement and I was hitting the “like” button for every comment that I agreed with.

“Give me a break. It’s an Ironman! This cheapens it. The last thing I want is some fresh-legged relay athlete zip past me as I’m actually enduring an Ironman. Save the relays for the Olympic distance. I’m not ripping on the athletes, but the Ironman has been the one true test for individuals in triathlons. That’s the beauty of it. The individual challenge mentally and physically.”

“It’s called Ironman, not Ironmen.”

“It’s about that adversity. I’m signing up for the relay as “me” doing the swim, “myself” on the bike, and “I” for the run!”

But as I sorted through those comments others started making valid points.

“Embrace it. It is good for the preservation of the sport or these races go away. Those who do the relay many times will do the full.”

“This opens the door to people who have injuries or are thinking of working up to doing a full one day to experience it. The more people outside doing something, the better! Run your race, meet your goals and let others do the same!”

“Sad that people rip on the relay! I’ve done two full Ironmans and now knee injury. This is a great idea. And for all those who knock it, I hope you always stay injury free and continue being able to do fulls. Not everyone is that lucky!”

So now I am conflicted. I definitely will defend the tradition of the race and what it means to be an Ironman. But if we can get more people involved, I’m all for that too. I don’t really know what to expect when I will be racing Chattanooga in late September. If I see a faster cyclist fly by will I assume he’s doing the relay? When I’m gassed on the run and someone trots by like they haven’t done the previous 2.4-mile swim and the 116-mile bike ride, will that make me angry? I’m not sure. A few commenters mentioned that everyone should do the race their way and not worry about the other group. I guess I will need to focus on myself like I usually do. This is why I would make a horrible judge. If both sides made valid arguments, I wouldn’t be able to make a decision on a winner.

TRAINING FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS

Last week was Easter and we had out of town plans, so I did some creative moving of my workouts and got the job done. And since I was out of town last weekend I didn’t have time to write my weekly wrap-up of training. So here are the details from the last two weeks.

Week 7 was jumbled around a little. I had the opportunity to run with the local running club F’NRC in a group run on Wednesday, which meant I ran twice that day. It was fun running with the group on a nice weeknight. I ended up skipping the long bike ride up north in Minocqua on Saturday, as they still had snow and ice on the bike path up there. Instead, I opted for doing the Sunday run on Saturday as I had a long drive home on Sunday with an additional trip to Valpo to take Ashley back to school.

Week 8 was looking to be a normal follow the plan training week. But the forecast for the weekend weather was terrible. A record-breaking late April snowstorm was predicted for Saturday, so I moved my Saturday 2-hour long bike ride to Friday and made it a bike/run brick, keeping my 1-hour run that was scheduled for Friday. That reminded me how tough brick workouts can be. I was pretty low on energy after that. My Gunner teammate Jeff asked this week as to when we start using gels on our weekend rides. I laughed at him because he’s a two-time Ironman and should know the answer by now, but I now found myself bonking because I didn’t remember that I should probably be adding more energy replacement into my workouts. Jeff’s not the dumb one, it’s me. At least he’s trying to be prepared for it. Although Saturday’s weather was crappy, we didn’t get anything more than a few ice pellets/sleet type stuff. I took Saturday off and had a great 1-hour run on a beautiful Sunday morning. So in all, the week ended well.

Week 7 Training Totals:

Swims: None > Rides: 2 total / 29 miles > Runs: 3 total / 22 miles

Week 8 Training Totals:

Swims: None > Rides: 3 total / 65 miles > Runs: 4 total / 23 miles