Thank gawd its monday!

used to not like mondays! har... well. not no more.

cause monday is TAPER DAY. lol. the hardest parts of the schedule are over the next 8 weeks. and its a bit tricky. we ran a half iron over the weekend. so i think we will be doing that every weekend for the next 2 months.

the swim was in the pool, so we just got in and started running laps back and forth. i just cant keep track of what lap i am on. so i set my spare goggles out on the pool edge and move them one letter at a time on the sign that says "No Diving 4ft." every 4 or 6 times back to the edge. all i have to do is keep track of 1 through 4. i mean a 3 year old can do it. my focking Parrots can do that. but not me.

"ok. ok... ok... i am on lap one. ONE! i just started. just now. i am on lap one... ok... all is good. pretty soon i will be on lap TWO. wait. am i on two or one? i was just on one. going to two, no wait! no, no... i am going to three. three comes after two. but wasnt i on one? boobies!!! oh wait. i must have been on three. i was just thinking about three."

the resa on the other hand says "how many laps are we doing?" and i say "30 one hundred meter laps, hon." and she says "k" and starts counting. doesnt split them up or whatever. i can stop her 45 minutes later. what lap are we on? "23" and then start swimming again. *sigh* i heard, and am gong to check if there is a pool lap counter computer that you put at the end of the lane. ( no, not a watch - which is not a bad idea maybe... ) but a thingy that hangs over the edge. you press a button and it tells you lap time, count and total time. ( hmm... maybe a watch would be less dorky. )

the bike was pretty fun. if very hot. it was 90 degrees and sunny out. pretty warm. during the triple triathlon a month ago they handed out something called hammer gel. was a packet of gooey happiness. resa didnt like it much, but i did. so i bought about 300 of the things over the net the next week. ate 3 of them on the ride and felt great. didnt drink enough though. as some of you know, i sweat a ton. and went from 188 pounds pre ride to 183 after 4 hours of hot. i think we went something over a half ironman in distance, but our goal was 4 hours. mostly gentle hills, some pretty strong wind coming back. but not too bad. just breezy. the thing that bugs me the most about road riding around canton is that the people in cars are really new to the idea. we get told to get off of the road 3-4 times per ride. no kidding. mostly by women. the guys usually honk their horns for 4-6 seconds as they go by. sometimes we catch them at the next light and they are staring at us like we are retards or something. for riding a bike on the side of the road. usually i do the "WTF?" thing to them, nobody will roll down a window and chat though. they are not so tough when they are not moving at 40-50 mph. would love to have the cops have a guy ride a bike around, with a partner in a patrol car in the area. they could pull over a good 1 person per hour i think. just educate them. ah well. :-)

and then the run! woooo were we tired already. so as always we decide what kind of effort we are going to put in before we start. this usually works. we think medium and stay there, or fast or,... sometimes "disaster recovery" mode. which we were toying with, but went with medium instead. it was nice out, we had water staged every 2-3 miles and wanted to run the 1/2 marathon. ( which is my favorite run ) its not too out of breath, it doesn't go into huge hours and you are not really hurt afterwards. just a fun run distance. so we start out at medium pace. but... here is the great part. we start out at our "new" medium pace. which was pretty good compared to a year ago. we go the first 3 miles and stop for our water. was nice to see that on the side of the trail. we are ALWAYS a bit nervous if it will be there or not. i would say maybe 10 times in 12 months the stuff is gone. but there it is and we get a good drink and head out again. we are running on the ohio tow path, which follows a river and runs through pretty thick trees. its awesome. we are running uphill for the first half. then back down coming home. we staged water and gatorade at miles 2.5 and at mile 5 we also included a yummy cliff bar. so we trot along, see a big hawk with a mouse fly by. our pace is pretty level. it is still pretty hot out. probably about 80 degrees but the sun is behind the trees so we are not getting scorched. of course i am sweating a ton and at mile five of this long day i say to the resa "if the water is gone i am going home." and she says she would too. so we trot up to where the water and cliff bar should be. and... of COURSE! gone. ARRRRGGEHEHHEHHHAHHG FOCK ALL. i turn of the watch and stare at the ground. maybe we are in the wrong place? nope. watch says 5.01 miles, and i used the bike computer to put the waters out. one tree looks like another and we do it pretty accurately so we know how much further we have to run. so we look a bit and find the two drinks laying in the area. the gatorade is open but looks full. full of ants crawling around on it. the cliff bar is open and there is a huge human bite mark in the corner. the water was just tossed away and we got that back too. so i blew the ants off the gatorade and looked at it - seemed fine so we drank that and the unopened water. the bar i tossed back in the woods as it was anty too. kept the wrapper in my pocket of happy trash.

come work out in canton ohio if you want some bonus stuff to think about. ;-) but anyway we now hide the leftovers of the two drinks behind a tree. and start running again. this is the hilliest section and the next 1.6 miles out and back are the hardest and then the easiest of the run. as i was saying earlier i took along a bunch of hammer gel packets for the bike. i am hoping they are my main food source during the ironman now. so i was/will be testing eating a lot of those. probably one more more an hour. but i didnt want to push it too hard the first time at it. three earlier and i took along two in my shorts on the run. but i didnt think i would eat them. until i lost the cliff bar. they went down great - felt great. we kept our pace even. got back to mile 8 which was the hidden drinks. still there, so we finished them. ran down the trail as it grew dark to mile 10.5 for the second set of drinks... and!!! guess what!?!?!?!?!?! still there. weird.

ran it in home on the same pace as we left at. resa asked our time... after i told her she looked puzzled. "hey... " and i was pretty surprised. we havnt run a half in 5 months. longer and shorter but not a half on purpose. new personal best ever times for both of us. :-)

great ending. tired now! thank gawd its monday.


SCORES!

mentally: 9 - almost a ten. i feel pretty darn happy. :-)

physically: 8 - weekend beat me up. tired right now. but healthy. no ouchies, just a bit sore and ready for the day off.

workouts: 10 - did them all, did them well, went faster than we thought we could on the half marathon.