Rocked the swim this morning

After struggling on the swim for the first 15 minutes doing butterfly and backstroke, I smoked the freestyle swim the rest of the day. We did 2400 yards today but it's time to move up another lane. It's the little things in life that make me happy. : ) Coach says I need to work on my form because he says I look like a hola hoop dancer in the water with my hips going all over the place. nice, really nice....

Slacked all weekend!!

Welp, after a tough week of getting in 6 workouts between Monday and Thursday, Carol and I went to Wisp with friends and hung out in the house as others went skiing. Yup, we did not ski because we didn't want something happen before the wedding. Well in my case, of course the wedding but also the ironman. I could not imagine screwing up my knee skiing when I have spent thousands of dollars so far for on this season in race fees, hotels, airfare, coaching etc.... No way!

Recap of the week. Since I blew off this weekend, the distances are light. Here's the recap. Swim=2.7M, Bike=26M, Run=8M. Total: 37M, 4:50 hours

Exhausted!!

Man, it is only Tuesday night and I am wiped! I ran last night for about 40 minutes, was at the pool at 5:00am this morning for an hour swim and tonight bike for 50' on the trainer. It took everything I had to stay awake today at work and it seems like the weekend has caught up with me.

The swim workout was great. Today I got up to 2500 yards in an hour. That equates to 1.4 miles in 60 minutes or 2.4 miles (IM distance) in 1:42. I want to get my swim time to about 1:10-1:15 for 2.4 miles. Finally, I feel like I am getting into a groove with my stroke. It's taken a month, just like I thought. good nite!

Week recap 2/12 - 2/18

Ahhhh, the beauty of recovery week. Take it nice and easy in the workouts and wear yourself out doing other things. My other things consisted of insulating three rooms in my house. This week, I missed Monday night run and Tuesday morning swim, but hit Tuesday night bike (30' easy), Wed run (30' easy), Thursday am swim (awesome swim! 2300 yards), Thurs pm bike (30' easy), Sat run (5 miles easy), Sun bike (30 miles easy). Total for the week: swim=1.3M, bike=42M, run=8M. now the ramp up! Total: 52.4M, 5:35 hours

This week I got an email from Chad of DC tri. The guy is a mad man and just completed his first IM in Florida in Nov 06. He had this to say about the finish of an IM. "You know how you see those sports movies and the athlete is coming down the home stretch...the crowd is behind him/her and they start to well up inside....and you can feel the warmth from inside you as you watch the movie....that is the last mile of the Ironman...it is a feeling like no other...the culmination of months if not years of preparation...the manifestation of your determination, dedication, and motivation all in a single moment...you forget everywhere you have been up until mile 139.6...and then just like that...it is over...and your legs start to hurt, tighten, and a big smile comes across your face...you are an ironman...."

Incredible.

Finally, a decent Ride

We did 40 mile bike ride today. Temp was in the 20's and I kept warm. Ride was much better then that hellish ride last weekend. Course was also flatter but I held back, kept the heart rate down and had a good ride. Garmin crapped out on me today. Not sure what that is about.

Had a good training week, Swim = 2.8M, Bike=61M, Run=13M, Totals: 77M, 8:03 hours

Easy run

Nice easy run in Zone 2, 7 miles and flat. I better take advantage of this now because in a few weeks our coach is going to have some killer workouts.

I will not be cold again!

After yesterday's hellish ride, I went to REI today and bought hand/feet warmers and a pair of lobster gloves. I'm still scared from yesterday's ride.

Hellish Ride

Today absolutely sucked! We rode 40 miles and it was pure hell. The temp was 18 degrees and the course was all hills. I went out to fast in the beginning and I paid the price the second half. If there was ever time a time I wanted to just get off the bike and walk, this was it. But I pushed on slowly and finished. Thank god this ride is over. It has to get easier!!

Totals: S:0, B:40M, R:5M, Totals: 45M, 4:06 hours