Rehoboth Beach - FLAT - ride

Well, Hurricane Danny turned out to be a no show. So under cloudy skies, some heat and of course, humidity, it turned out to be a nice day. It was a brutal drive down to the hotel Friday night as traffic was horrible trying to get over the bridge, but after that it wasn't too bad. Got to the hotel around 11:00pm and I was asleep at 11:30 and got a SOLID 6-7 hours sleep. Needless to say I was WELL rested for this ride. Up at 7 and on the bike around 8:30am.

Overall, it was a solid ride to complete a solid 2 weeks of training. After feeling pretty exhausted throughout this past week, I felt it did not affect me on this ride. The ride was 3 loops, 49M, 33M and 22M for a total of 104 miles! Yeeahhhh. Finally broke the century mark and the first time at this distance since IM CDA. We averaged 17.6, 16.9 and 17.6, respectively, for an overall average of 17.4 or total time of just under 6 hours. Heck - I'll take it. In fact, if I can average just over 16 for Ironman Florida I will be quite pleased!

After the ride we rested for a little bit then headed to Dewey for dinner and fun! Who knows what time I went to sleep last night after a "few" beers, but I was up at 7am and on the road 15 minutes later to get home to Carol and Thomas. I missed the little guy - and of course the wife too.

Here are the totals for the week:
Swim: 3 miles
Bike: 129 miles
Run: 6.6 miles
Total: 139 miles, 10:32 hours.

Didn't get the runs in this week that I wanted to. Need to keep working on that. This week coming up is recovery week - thank goodness! Time to catch up on life.

Moving on up!!

This mornings swim was good and solid. Although sleepy at the start, I was able to move up a lane, yeeeeeahhhhhh!!!!!!!! and am back to the lane I was swimming in over 2 years ago when I was training for CDA IM. For those of you who don't do master's swim - the lanes are in order from slowest to fastest and I am now 2 lanes away from the fastest swimmers in the team. I think there are a total of 10 lanes but can't remember. Anyways, it was good swim and we ended the workout with 8 x 100m at Zone 4 (hard effort) pace. That was tough!

Tonight's run was just painful - at least just to get started. I was so tired that I came home from work and took a nap, woke up and forced myself out the door. And interesting enough, I had one of the best mid-week runs in quite a while. It was a solid run where I just flowed. It's amazing on the day's I'm most tired and it is the hardest to get started - they turn out to be the better workouts!

This weekend we are headed to the beach for a nice 100 mile flat ride. We just need to dodge some Hurricane Danny coming up the East coast. should be fun!

Not feeling the love in these workouts!

Yesterday morning's swim I just wasn't feeling the love. Nothing like slugging through the water at 5:30 in the morning. The workout ended up being a pretty good one as I was swimming with some faster swimmers and able to keep up. In total, we did 2600yds (~1.5miles) in the hour. In a few weeks the 5am swims will begin - can't wait for those.

I rode home from work last night and my legs felt like lead, must be the left over feeling from the weekend workout. I had a pretty good pace but felt slow, even though I was keeping pace with previous workouts. I stayed in the big ring the entire time which was good on the hills. Worked out roughly 50 minutes.

This morning I rode to work and took a nice easy pace. Rode for about 40 minutes (shorter route) and did stomach exercises in the gym in the building. Skipping run tonight so I have some energy to get up tomorrow and do the swim - but will definitely need to run tomorrow night.

These mid week workouts get harder and harder as you try and recover from the weekend and try not to overdue it so you will be ready for the following weekend. It's a balancing act - but a lot of fun!

Reston 3/4 Century Ride ?!?!?!?!?

So we skipped the nice, FLAT, Easton ride for the hilly Reston Century Ride. The plan for Mark and I was to do the Century today, all 100 miles, but after Taylortown hill - and it was one very long STEEP hill, we decided to make it the Reston 3/4 Century ride. It was an interesting day with me and bugs as I ate one while riding - flew right into my mouth, got nailed in the cheek but a very large bug and then later on got a bee sting on the lip while riding. Quite the drama! The ride was very organized and glad we did it. Definitely will be on my list for next year. The ride took just over 5 hours and I averaged 15 on the bike.

I tell you what though - my legs are really tired - 16 mile run today and 76 mile hilly bike today. Tonight will be a Tylenol PM night so I can sleep. The last couple of nights I have gotten much sleep. Another tough week of training this week then recovery.

Summary of the week:

Swim: 1.4 miles
Bike: 108.4 miles
Run: 25.1 miles
Total: 135 miles, 12:38 hours

I was able to get my runs in and got an extra bike in this week, missed one swim but that's okay.

Run is done!

After a tough night last night with Baby Thomas - I was up every couple of hours with him, I finally got start this morning around 8:15 and ran in Rock Creek. The weather was very humid and it was pretty warm. I ran 16 miles and averaged about 10:35's doing my run/walk approach. It took 2:50 hours and I ran 9' and walked 1'. My pace was consistent the entire time and I used my new mix from Infinitsystems and used no gu's or electrolytes! This stuff is awesome!! No cramping and no fatigue and did not have to worry about pills, gu's, etc. Just a simple cocktail drink of this stuff. After my run I took a nice cool bath and iced my lower back to get ready for tomorrow's ride!!

Busy weekend ahead!!

Right to the point - biked home last night from work and the bike felt fast and the legs did what they could to keep up. It was hot! Got up this morning at 3:30am to feed Thomas, back to sleep at 4:30 and up at 6:30am and biked to work. I took it easy though because big weekend ahead. Tomorrow I have a 16 mile run and Sunday 90 mile bike! I'm pretty tired now so I hope to get to bed early tonight so I am a little rested for tomorrow's run!

Metabolism is in Overdrive!!

We will get to my metabolism in a second. First, a quick update - got in the 40 minute ride workout Tuesday night, got my first speed workout on the run since February last nigth and smacked the swim this morning!! I am starting to focus more on increasing my weekly milage since I believe I have figured out my little injury or some would say pain in the ass - literally! We'll see how it goes as this injury has been hampering me for over a year now and trying to figure out what causes the pain and how to get relief. So far I have determined that getting a massage of the high hamstring, lower back area is key to relief! I was not able to get a massage last week but will do so shortly.

Now, onto more interesting stuff - my metabolism. When I'm training, my body goes through 3 periods. At the start of training season, I'm burning some calories and my weight stays about the same or slighly increases, somewhere in the middle, I start burning more calories and I start trimming down - NOW, it has just started, where I can not eat enough food and need some serious calories. The is the best part because you just keep eating eating and eating, and I still can't get enough food. Problem is the more fit I get, I stay away from all the good greasy foods because it affects my workouts. So I'm eating more and more healthy foods instead of the nice greasy food like Five Guys - I really like Five Guys which I have about once a year. Chipolte is good for you - right? And chocolate - I just can't get enough of it!

Sleep or Swim??

Got a nice run in last night for about 50 minutes and then made Carol and I a nice salmon dinner with asparagus on the grill - YUM!!!

I have been extremely tired lately and have not been sleeping that well. Last week was recovery week and I felt I did not get the sleep I needed. Since Luray, I have been tossing and turning each night and this morning it finally caught up to me. I was up around 3:30am with Thomas for a little bit and went back to sleep. The alarm went off at 4:30am and I knew it just wasn't going to happen. It's a challenge sometimes and I know I need the swim practice but I felt sleep was more important. Now I await Peapod for the grocery delivery so I can go workout on the bike.

Catching up

Well last week came and went. Being that it was recovery week, I took it easy and seemed overly tired. I got a morning swim on Tuesday and a morning bike in on Wednesday. Couldn't seem to get a run though as the week just flew by.

Saturday was Luray Oly and I did okay. I took off early from work on Friday and went down to Luray, VA with Mark. We did all the things we would not normally do with our women. We ate dinner at the Luray firehouse where they had a great spaghetti dinner for the triathlete. Then afterward we went to see District 9 - some scifi movie I knew nothing about but turned out to be one of the better movies I have seen in a long time - note that Carol continues to rent chick flicks and the latest being I'm a Shopoholic - so District 9 brought me back to reality.

The race on Saturday was at this park in Luray. Water temp was 80 degress so I swam no wetsuit and had a slower swim time then usual. This was due to no wet suit and me still struggling on my stroke technique. The bike course was hilly and it was hot but bike split was a little faster then columbia at around 16.7mph. The run course was again hilly and it was roasting and I averaged about 9:13's but it seemed slower then that. I had good transition times and my overall time was 3:05, about 7 minutes slower then Columbia in May.

I need to start getting move of my runs in and continued to work on my stroke technique. My biking is coming along but there is always room for improvement.

Totals for last week were:

Swim: 2.2 miles
Bike: 33.6 miles
Run: 6.2 miles
Total: 42 miles, 4:42 hours

Next two weeks are going to be tough!

I think this ride left a scar...

Man, it was hot and humid today on the bike! We did the Apple Blossum ride, same one we did back on May 6, 2007. Just read my posting from then and it looked like I had one of the best rides at the time before CDA. However, at that time, we did 112 miles and the temp was between 40 and 50. Certainly not the case today. 95 degrees hot, sunny and humid! I was doing well, had a good pace but felt groggy the whole time. I started to push the pace around mile 70ish, thinking we only had 8 miles to go and wouldn't you know - we missed a turn because of a slight error in the cue sheet. At mile 79 we came to the realization - where the hell are we and how far do we have to go? I was spent, Mark was wiped, and Brian was definitely shot, but we were lost. So after riding in circles for a little bit, we found a few others from the team and they lead us back to the school and we ended up doing 83 miles. Yeah yeah, I hear ya, how bad could it have been to go 4-5 extra miles - Let me tell you - IT WAS TOUGH AND LEFT A SCAR!

However, overall my pace was better then two years ago, granted the distance was less, but the weather was worse. I am quite pleased with today's ride, no euphoric feeling like in May 2007, but it was solid. Also, used new nutrition for the ride - www.infinitnutrition.com where you mix your own formula and you don't need gu's or any other food. I think it worked well today and I avoided cramping however, I think need some solid food. I'll call them this week and find out what they recommend.

Totals for the week:
Swim: 2.7 miles
Bike: 118 miles
Run: 8.4 miles
Total: 129 miles, 11:24 hours

This week coming up - RECOVERY WEEK and Luray Oly on Saturday!

Slighlty bruised...

To catch up - Had a good ride home Thursday night but skipped the run. Therefore, I got no weekday runs in for the week, but at least I was able to spend time with Carol. I rode my bike to work Friday morning and was taking it easy until I passed this guy and he started drafting off of me so I picked it up - why is that?

This morning I did a trail run with Kerri and ran just under 9 miles. This trail is beautiful and takes you right along the Potomac that has waterfalls, rock climbs and even a switchback that make your legs burn! During the first few miles of the run I just happened to trip on a rock and fell and landed on my left hand/shoulder. The shoulder is okay but the palm of my hand is pretty bruised up. nothing seems broken, which is good. Trail running definitely beats your body up in a different way, but it is so much fun. To go 9 miles, it took us 1:50 minutes because of the hills, climbs, etc... What an awesome workout. It will be interesting to see how tomorrow goes - it is going to be brutally HOT and HUMID and I hear it is a tough route - 80 miles, my longest in since CDA!

solid swim this morning

Couldn't get my run in last night so no work out yesterday. The time I got home, watched Thomas, made dinner and Carol got home at 8, knowing I had to get up this morning for swim, i decided to bag the run.

Solid swim this morning as I focused on extending my left arm out. Got in roughly 2200 yards with some good zone 4 work. now going to bike home and possibly try to get in a run.

Yesterday's workouts

Up at 4:30am to make swim at 5:30am. On the way, called Mark to make sure he was up - just like old times. Got a pretty good workout in expect I kept pulling myself under water when I went to breath (had coach Ed look at my stroke and it turned out I was pulling to soon with the left arm - need to work on that). Swim was an hour, shower, and head to work.

At the office by 7:30 and worked to 4:00, left early today to get home by 5 and check on Dad watching Thomas for the first day since Carol just went to work part time. Watched, played, fed, hung out with Thomas, made dinner for Carol and I. When Carol got home at 8, I jumped on my trainer for a 45 minute bike workout, showered, ate dinner and in bed by 9:30pm.

It was a busy day!

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Just add a little soap to this WET ride!!

Sunday morning, waking up. Uggggggggg. 5:30am the alarm goes off - sore, knowing I need to go ride 75 in a couple of hours. I forgot these mornings. Legs are sore, body is aching but somehow I get up, pack the car and head to the ride.

Today’s ride was pretty solid, although I felt like a wet rag for most of the ride as it rained except for the last 30 minutes or so. The rain actually felt pretty good since it was warm outside and it beat being under the hot sun and then getting a lecture from my wife for not putting enough sun tan lotion on. I rode the first 55 miles on my own since there was no one at my pace that I knew of and my buddy Mark, who I was suppose to ride with, DOGGED! But that’s okay – it was good for me mentally. Around mile 55 I did start riding with the couple, Ron and Courtney, who I guess got lost and ended up next to me. It helped big time the last 20 miles because I was getting tired and the rain really started pouring for the next 10 miles and then it started to clear up. With 5-6 miles to go, I totally slowed down going up this hill and they slowed down for me to catch up, I almost waved them to just go, but then I dug deep and caught up telling myself, just keep up, I don’t have that far to go. It turned out to be a solid ride today. In total, I averaged about 16.3 on the bike today and was pretty consistent the whole ride.

Totals for the week:

Swim: 1.4M
Bike: 101M
Run: 19M
Total: 121 miles, 10:32 hours

Saturday's run...

Saturday’s run was good, be it hot and very humid. I stuck to my plan of running a mile, walking a minute for the entire time and averaged 10:30’s. I never thought I would be pleased with an average of 10:30’s on a long run. It seems my run time has slowed down about a minute per mile since last year. Not sure what the cause of it – maybe because I have not been running as frequently or other issues. In any event, I would be very happy if I can average 10:30’s on the run during Ironman.

So, after a nice long run, how do you spell relief? I C E B A T H! Ahhhhh, I took a long ice bath in my Jacuzzi tub and listed the Grateful Dead on XM for about 30 minutes. Aside from the shrinkage, it felt really good to get me ready for the next day’s ride.