Posts from — July 2008

This is where those in the FitBricks Title 9 and Pumpkinman race training will post comments and questions.

This week was my rest week to not think about triathlon.  It is supposed to be my mental break between the 1/2 and the full IM.  Fortunately (as Jason says “I’ll take all the help I can get”) my work was crazy this week with people in from out of town.  We had all day meetings and nightly dinners to attend.  When combined with my coaching duties, this puts a real damper on training for myself.  But, it was the perfect week for this to happen since I was supposed to be resting anyways!

So now it is Friday and I did my swim this am with the WTSC team and I coached a 1/2 hour run session.  I am coaching a bike/run with the Danskin team on Saturday morning, going to my grandmother’s for the afternoon, and then on Sunday doing a casual ride in Martha’s Vineyard.  That should suffice for a great rest week and rejuvination period.

As a coach, I know how important it is to do this every now and then, as an athlete, I know how difficult it can be when the weather is nice and you feel rested.  But, I see the rest of my plan for the month and the volume is increasing, so I’ll continue to follow the rules

Let’s just say that on mile 8 of the run, I said “what the heck was I thinking signing up for IMFL”. OK, so maybe I said another word instead of “heck”, but what’s the diff

The good news is that I did PR the race, although the bike portion of the race was 58miles this year and was 60miles last year. But even with 2 miles less, I beat last year’s time by 27 minutes. The bad news is that my swim was 6 minutes slower than last year! I felt fine, but I guess swimming a mile yesterday was not a good idea. I also think something is up with my new full wetsuit. I definitely see a sleeveless in my future. I did lose about 3 minutes when at mile 5 on the run I REALLY had to go to the bathroom (as I did last year!) and someone ran in there right ahead of me, so I had to wait. But, there is no way I could have finished without going LOL.

I am so sore already , I can only imagine how tomorrow is going to feel. I don’t remember this from last year, I remember feeling great, but Cary laughed when I said this. He said I couldn’t even drive home last year. And here I am at 7:05 pm and I’m still up, watching a movie, and writing this blog. So, I guess I am better this year. UPDATE: At 5:30am on Sunday, I could go down stairs a little better than yesterday, so I guess today isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was so hungry I had to get up and make myself breakfast! It’s amazing how little I sleep after a race like this. I’m so tired, but can’t sleep. I guess I’ll be napping today. I might try to play golf to stay loose.

Let’s discuss this IM thing. I had a feeling that I would feel this way, but I’m very worried about doing the IM. I’m trying to stay positive, because I know it is a completely different beast and I won’t be averaging 19.5 on the bike like I did in this race, but really, how DOES one do a marathon after riding 112 miles!??!?!

Big Mike, Chris and I are going to need lots of encouragement over the next 4 months. Chris did the race today too. His comment was “I’m glad I signed up for IM before I did a 1/2 or I’m not sure if I would have had the guts to sign up”. Oh boy, we need positive vibes

Oh, and lest I forget, that of course it rained at the race. It is now Sunday at 5:30am (couldn’t sleep- too hungry and sore LOL), and I am looking forward to cleaning my bike–yet again. I’m getting so good at this!

Nutritionally, I did OK.

Here was my plan:

Dinner night before (5pm)- IHOP multigrain pancakes

Dinner actual (5:30pm)- IHOP pancakes, but ate them ALL- too much

Breakfast (5am)- oatmeal, 1/4 cup nuts, banana, G2

Breakfast actual (5am)-oatmeal, 1/2 banana, some nuts, G2-still full from too many pancakes at IHOP!

Bike- 1/4 cliff bar every half hour/gel at 2:30/3 bottles G2

Bike actual-almost 3 G2/ I only did 3 of the 4 cliff pieces/ so I moved the gel to 2:15 because I was ahead of pace and I missed the last cliff piece.

Run- water at each stop with gel at mile 3 and 8

Run actual- water at each stop with (I’m guessing I do about 3/4 of the gel since I do one gulp of it) gel at mile 3 and 9. At mile 8, I wasn’t feeling so well. I thought I was going to throw up. I also started getting cramps in the chest and upper stomach. So I decided to wait on the gel and did it at mile 9 and drank extra water. The cramps went away. I did an orange slice at mile 8 and 11 too and that tasted REALLY good. I also sucked the salt off of some pretzels at mile 12.

So, I didn’t do too badly sticking to the plan, but a few things I noticed:

1. when I am riding the bike, my math skills are a little lacking (scary since I taught math for 3 years). I tend to think I’m doing the cliff pieces on time and I’m not.

2. I need to take in more salt on the longer races. This should be resolved somewhat when I switch to Gatorade Endurance as I plan to from now until IM FL.

3. I need to eat a lot less the night before the big day