so i think i have changed a bit swimming, when i started ( all of a year ago ) i kept my head above water way too much... i think it was always.
but now i try to keep my head in the water as much as possible. the big change is of course that i am spending i would guess 75% or so of the time looking under water rather than the spinning world as i turn my head sideways for air.
seems like now the real world is underwater and the odd place is the air. pretty nice change!
:-)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
slower ;-)
hahahaha! thats what i get for mentioning how awesome i was on sunday.
didnt last long. i use the royal 'we' a lot in my posts because it is both me and the resa doing everything together. we like to run, swim and bike together. we are about the same speed in all events give or take some effort. but on any day it is beyond weird how totally equal we are. i can be faster or slower on all three events with the same amount of effort we are that close. once a few months ago we got separated at a half marathon and ran it about 70 secs apart as far as time goes.
so i usually write up a bit on how she is doing as we really are teamed up about 99.8% of the time.
so sunday i was feeling pretty darn great.
monday: found out my best client is going out of business and i probably have to find more software work. kinda a bummer. the resa's knee fell apart on her for no reason and totally unexpected and could hardly walk ( we skipped several workouts the rest of the week ) and lastly my brain scan came back and i have some tumors in my head - which is also a bit of a bummer.
so, the week started out a bit icky and stayed that way for most of it. on friday we finally got back to trying hard. we kinda dabbled in working out the other days - just didnt have the mojo.
friday went well, and then the weekend comes and to pick our spirits up we go shopping! i ended up with a new set of bike pants. ok - some background on this. about 12 years ago i met the resa. after a few hours we decided to get married in vegas by elvis and then she told me i would have to learn to ride a bike.
and i get on this old 1990 mountain bike. weighs about 45 pounds and i go riding on the green monster. our first ride was called Zoo-de-Mac. its a ride about 50 miles for partyiers and newbies. you ride 50 flat miles and get on a boat at the end and ride to this island called mackinaw in michigan. sounds like fine fun so i agree to go. she has done it a few times and is a biker. so we start off. i take the bike out of the truck, get on and ride! wooohooo!!! for about 4 miles. then i am gassed. totally blown out. i gasp out how much farther it is. she says something like 49 miles. and i stop. biking is not for me. well, we sit there the two of us and i am thinking its about 4 miles back to the truck. i can drive up and meet them. and she is looking at me and the bike.
"put any air in the tires?" she asks
"air?" i ponder
"well, there is plenty of air OUTSIDE the tires, did you put any in?"
"in the tires?"
they are both totally flat. she has a small bike pump on her bike. and since they didnt lose any air the rest of the day - i am sorta guessing they started out flat.
so we ride ride ride the brutal flat no wind 60 degree day to the island where my legs fall off.
but!!! my butt was not sore. at all. which now i think is pretty shocking. and remembering back to the green monster ( which later broke friends bones ) i remember the seat is about the size and shape of a barker lounger.
i think it even had the wood handle on the side that makes the feet thingy go up.
so i changed bikes 3-4 times in the last 12 years. but... i kept the seat. that monster seat just jumped bike to bike. it wore out a bit = looks really nasty now, and i got a LOT of comments on it through the years. so with the latest bike ( about a month ago ) i switched seats finally. swapped out the 1980s ginormous seat with a thin sleek thing.
this helped my legs move better - rather than feeling like i was riding a horse all the time my legs now go straight down to the pedals - which as i use the aero bars more now than ever is pretty huge. tried 2 different seats as the first was pretty painful. the second was not. was pretty nice. hurt after about 80 miles but so did the old one. so i would call it a draw on pain and a win on efficiency.
3 days ago i bought a my first bike shorts. ( i know insane ) but all along i didnt need them as i had the UberSeat. just figured even lance armstrong wears bike shorts, how faggy could it be? was great. really great. i think i am going to wear them every ride now. ( i know i am like 10 years behind the curve here )
so - anyway. the resa's knee is pretty focked up and we were planning on a 100 mile ride saturday. going out there we decided on a 40 mile slow ride. but as happens when you feel good... you go a little more. she felt great - if nervous. and we ended up with a 95 mile fairly fast ride.
learned a lot about eating on the ride. we as an experiment ate the whole time. goos, candies ( first ever snickers - thanks julie! ) sadly the snickers was a bit of an effort as it was 99 degrees out and it was a puddle of goop. but you can sqeeze it out like a goo packet. all sorts of other stuff to eat too.
and it was the best i have EVER felt for riding over 40 miles. after 95 miles i felt like it was a 20 mile ride. seriously - both of us were feeling great! wow - what a huge difference that made.
we felt so good we went home and jumped in bed and..... !! !! slept.
got up the next morning and went running - we ran 13. then swam 2.
but i was dehydrated from the day before and she was without dinner and pretty much breakfast too.
and some thoughts on "Tired":
after trying to get to tired we have come up with this set of thoughts:
A - dehydrated: not enough water ( me ) and you have a lot of energy, but every time you start running again you start breathing hard. your heart needs to pump a lot of less efficient sludge through your body. so if you feel strong and get a high heart rate - drink.
B - bonked: not enough food in your body ( resa ). you are not out of breath but have dead legs. - eat!
C - hurt: cramped/hurt/pain: well, this is pretty item specific, so not much to say here.
D - lame: mentally dont want to do it. need to watch some ironman videos before the workout!
SCORES:
mentally: 6 - had a pretty tough week outside of training. ahh well.
physically: 9 - no injuries, tired from weekend workouts. feel good.
workouts: 7 - skipped some with resa's knee, made up with great weekend!
didnt last long. i use the royal 'we' a lot in my posts because it is both me and the resa doing everything together. we like to run, swim and bike together. we are about the same speed in all events give or take some effort. but on any day it is beyond weird how totally equal we are. i can be faster or slower on all three events with the same amount of effort we are that close. once a few months ago we got separated at a half marathon and ran it about 70 secs apart as far as time goes.
so i usually write up a bit on how she is doing as we really are teamed up about 99.8% of the time.
so sunday i was feeling pretty darn great.
monday: found out my best client is going out of business and i probably have to find more software work. kinda a bummer. the resa's knee fell apart on her for no reason and totally unexpected and could hardly walk ( we skipped several workouts the rest of the week ) and lastly my brain scan came back and i have some tumors in my head - which is also a bit of a bummer.
so, the week started out a bit icky and stayed that way for most of it. on friday we finally got back to trying hard. we kinda dabbled in working out the other days - just didnt have the mojo.
friday went well, and then the weekend comes and to pick our spirits up we go shopping! i ended up with a new set of bike pants. ok - some background on this. about 12 years ago i met the resa. after a few hours we decided to get married in vegas by elvis and then she told me i would have to learn to ride a bike.
and i get on this old 1990 mountain bike. weighs about 45 pounds and i go riding on the green monster. our first ride was called Zoo-de-Mac. its a ride about 50 miles for partyiers and newbies. you ride 50 flat miles and get on a boat at the end and ride to this island called mackinaw in michigan. sounds like fine fun so i agree to go. she has done it a few times and is a biker. so we start off. i take the bike out of the truck, get on and ride! wooohooo!!! for about 4 miles. then i am gassed. totally blown out. i gasp out how much farther it is. she says something like 49 miles. and i stop. biking is not for me. well, we sit there the two of us and i am thinking its about 4 miles back to the truck. i can drive up and meet them. and she is looking at me and the bike.
"put any air in the tires?" she asks
"air?" i ponder
"well, there is plenty of air OUTSIDE the tires, did you put any in?"
"in the tires?"
they are both totally flat. she has a small bike pump on her bike. and since they didnt lose any air the rest of the day - i am sorta guessing they started out flat.
so we ride ride ride the brutal flat no wind 60 degree day to the island where my legs fall off.
but!!! my butt was not sore. at all. which now i think is pretty shocking. and remembering back to the green monster ( which later broke friends bones ) i remember the seat is about the size and shape of a barker lounger.
i think it even had the wood handle on the side that makes the feet thingy go up.
so i changed bikes 3-4 times in the last 12 years. but... i kept the seat. that monster seat just jumped bike to bike. it wore out a bit = looks really nasty now, and i got a LOT of comments on it through the years. so with the latest bike ( about a month ago ) i switched seats finally. swapped out the 1980s ginormous seat with a thin sleek thing.
this helped my legs move better - rather than feeling like i was riding a horse all the time my legs now go straight down to the pedals - which as i use the aero bars more now than ever is pretty huge. tried 2 different seats as the first was pretty painful. the second was not. was pretty nice. hurt after about 80 miles but so did the old one. so i would call it a draw on pain and a win on efficiency.
3 days ago i bought a my first bike shorts. ( i know insane ) but all along i didnt need them as i had the UberSeat. just figured even lance armstrong wears bike shorts, how faggy could it be? was great. really great. i think i am going to wear them every ride now. ( i know i am like 10 years behind the curve here )
so - anyway. the resa's knee is pretty focked up and we were planning on a 100 mile ride saturday. going out there we decided on a 40 mile slow ride. but as happens when you feel good... you go a little more. she felt great - if nervous. and we ended up with a 95 mile fairly fast ride.
learned a lot about eating on the ride. we as an experiment ate the whole time. goos, candies ( first ever snickers - thanks julie! ) sadly the snickers was a bit of an effort as it was 99 degrees out and it was a puddle of goop. but you can sqeeze it out like a goo packet. all sorts of other stuff to eat too.
and it was the best i have EVER felt for riding over 40 miles. after 95 miles i felt like it was a 20 mile ride. seriously - both of us were feeling great! wow - what a huge difference that made.
we felt so good we went home and jumped in bed and..... !! !! slept.
got up the next morning and went running - we ran 13. then swam 2.
but i was dehydrated from the day before and she was without dinner and pretty much breakfast too.
and some thoughts on "Tired":
after trying to get to tired we have come up with this set of thoughts:
A - dehydrated: not enough water ( me ) and you have a lot of energy, but every time you start running again you start breathing hard. your heart needs to pump a lot of less efficient sludge through your body. so if you feel strong and get a high heart rate - drink.
B - bonked: not enough food in your body ( resa ). you are not out of breath but have dead legs. - eat!
C - hurt: cramped/hurt/pain: well, this is pretty item specific, so not much to say here.
D - lame: mentally dont want to do it. need to watch some ironman videos before the workout!
SCORES:
mentally: 6 - had a pretty tough week outside of training. ahh well.
physically: 9 - no injuries, tired from weekend workouts. feel good.
workouts: 7 - skipped some with resa's knee, made up with great weekend!
Monday, June 21, 2010
faster
monday again. :-) weeks are flying by now. in the back of my head i sometimes wish we had another year of training before the event. but then when will we ever be ready?!
the resa finally got her new bike. its the same one i have just a bit smaller (56 rather than my 58) and as mine its 8 pounds lighter than she is used too. we took them out on our first ride a few days ago to shake out the twitchies. seems in pretty good condition - need to adjust some stuff of course to make it fit better, but otherwise ran smooth.
after a few adjustments we took them out yesterday for a 2 hour ride. all along i have told her how much she was going to like the bike - which is a bad move usually as she will find a way not to like something if i tell her she should like it. kinda stubborn i guess. :-) well, she was smiling pretty big as we road down the tow path. its a bit rutty here and there and mostly dirt or crushed fine limestone. so you are not doing your best times for sure - but there are very few stop signs and no cars and mostly flat. so a fun ride. i notice the mph creeping up as she takes her times in the front. soon we are riding about 3-5 mph faster than the old bikes and just chatting away. didnt even bother drafting, just rode side by side grinning at each other. we added an hour or more to the ride since it was so much fun.
we plan on riding this coming sunday in anger for the first time on the new guys. going to see what we can do a 100 miles in. shooting for under 5 hours including stops. will depend on the weather a bit, and the route is pretty hilly... but wow are these new bikes fun. we got the tank that fits between the aerobars set up and that makes drinking a ton easier too. now we can stuff our water bottles full of food! :-)
not much in other news. other than we swam our longest ever swim on sunday also. 3200 meters. so thats about 600 short of the event. we went very moderate. slow enough to never be remotely tired or out of breath - just had fun splashing around. did it in about 1:20ish. did some math on what we would have done in an ironman with a suit, no turning and maybe just a bit more effort and we think we could finish in 1:25ish. but our goal is to finish of course. no real reason now to think we wont. and that all along has been my biggest fear. also our cruising speed for running under a half marathon is now in the 9 minute per mile times. pretty big change from 12 minute miles about a year ago. :-)) and last of the bragging - as i will look back 4 weeks from now and hate the guy thats writing all this glowing love stuff. i weighed myself after a longer workout to see how much water dept i am in. 183. gads. about 35 down from my start weight a year and a half ago.
we are going to concentrate on getting our bike pace up for the next 8-9 weeks. thats going to be our strategy. to not go too hard on the swims and run and divert to the bike. we waffled quite a bit on that. whether to go with run heavy or bike heavy. the pros as we added them up came out to:
more running: probably be lighter for the event. better cardio shape. would probably help bike too by getting a better power to weight ratio.
more biking: less chance of injury ( other than of course a nasty wipeout ), good chance to see a ton of time on the last stage rather than busting to beat a bike cutoff.
in the end we figured we would rather get off the bike an hour earlier rather than be ready for a run which we might be both very stressed and very tired for.
plus we have new bikes!!! ( already resa is talking about a cervelo. *sigh* )
in other stuff - i have another question for all of you out there, what do you guys do for recovery? we currently soak our legs in cold water and try to eat a lot right after working out. other than that? ? ? ?
SCORES:
mentally: 10. wow. feel pretty darn great. even the food worries are starting to go away, we are both finding more things we can eat. so we will have quite the special needs and transition areas stocked up. feel faster in all three events from just a few months ago even. things are good.
physically: 10. no injuries, hard workouts are pretty easy on the new bikes and bodies. lol. feel great.
workouts: 10. was a harder than usual week, did all the workouts - did them if not in raging anger, at least briskly.
first ever clean sweep. never felt better.
:-)
the resa finally got her new bike. its the same one i have just a bit smaller (56 rather than my 58) and as mine its 8 pounds lighter than she is used too. we took them out on our first ride a few days ago to shake out the twitchies. seems in pretty good condition - need to adjust some stuff of course to make it fit better, but otherwise ran smooth.
after a few adjustments we took them out yesterday for a 2 hour ride. all along i have told her how much she was going to like the bike - which is a bad move usually as she will find a way not to like something if i tell her she should like it. kinda stubborn i guess. :-) well, she was smiling pretty big as we road down the tow path. its a bit rutty here and there and mostly dirt or crushed fine limestone. so you are not doing your best times for sure - but there are very few stop signs and no cars and mostly flat. so a fun ride. i notice the mph creeping up as she takes her times in the front. soon we are riding about 3-5 mph faster than the old bikes and just chatting away. didnt even bother drafting, just rode side by side grinning at each other. we added an hour or more to the ride since it was so much fun.
we plan on riding this coming sunday in anger for the first time on the new guys. going to see what we can do a 100 miles in. shooting for under 5 hours including stops. will depend on the weather a bit, and the route is pretty hilly... but wow are these new bikes fun. we got the tank that fits between the aerobars set up and that makes drinking a ton easier too. now we can stuff our water bottles full of food! :-)
not much in other news. other than we swam our longest ever swim on sunday also. 3200 meters. so thats about 600 short of the event. we went very moderate. slow enough to never be remotely tired or out of breath - just had fun splashing around. did it in about 1:20ish. did some math on what we would have done in an ironman with a suit, no turning and maybe just a bit more effort and we think we could finish in 1:25ish. but our goal is to finish of course. no real reason now to think we wont. and that all along has been my biggest fear. also our cruising speed for running under a half marathon is now in the 9 minute per mile times. pretty big change from 12 minute miles about a year ago. :-)) and last of the bragging - as i will look back 4 weeks from now and hate the guy thats writing all this glowing love stuff. i weighed myself after a longer workout to see how much water dept i am in. 183. gads. about 35 down from my start weight a year and a half ago.
we are going to concentrate on getting our bike pace up for the next 8-9 weeks. thats going to be our strategy. to not go too hard on the swims and run and divert to the bike. we waffled quite a bit on that. whether to go with run heavy or bike heavy. the pros as we added them up came out to:
more running: probably be lighter for the event. better cardio shape. would probably help bike too by getting a better power to weight ratio.
more biking: less chance of injury ( other than of course a nasty wipeout ), good chance to see a ton of time on the last stage rather than busting to beat a bike cutoff.
in the end we figured we would rather get off the bike an hour earlier rather than be ready for a run which we might be both very stressed and very tired for.
plus we have new bikes!!! ( already resa is talking about a cervelo. *sigh* )
in other stuff - i have another question for all of you out there, what do you guys do for recovery? we currently soak our legs in cold water and try to eat a lot right after working out. other than that? ? ? ?
SCORES:
mentally: 10. wow. feel pretty darn great. even the food worries are starting to go away, we are both finding more things we can eat. so we will have quite the special needs and transition areas stocked up. feel faster in all three events from just a few months ago even. things are good.
physically: 10. no injuries, hard workouts are pretty easy on the new bikes and bodies. lol. feel great.
workouts: 10. was a harder than usual week, did all the workouts - did them if not in raging anger, at least briskly.
first ever clean sweep. never felt better.
:-)
Thursday, June 17, 2010
1760
did a little quick math on how many hours we will have worked out since starting the ironman training.
started jan 1009. and at our current and expected pace we will have worked out roughly 20 hours a week for 87 weeks making 1740 hours. and we added a few extra long workouts so i am going to bump it up to 1760. which is the number of yards in a mile. just going to try to have that in my head for the last mile come august. :-)
http://www.ironman.ca/index.php?dir=RaceVids/imcan&vidname=RaceVid-2009-CAN-high&playtype=mov&w=480&h=400
started jan 1009. and at our current and expected pace we will have worked out roughly 20 hours a week for 87 weeks making 1740 hours. and we added a few extra long workouts so i am going to bump it up to 1760. which is the number of yards in a mile. just going to try to have that in my head for the last mile come august. :-)
http://www.ironman.ca/index.php?dir=RaceVids/imcan&vidname=RaceVid-2009-CAN-high&playtype=mov&w=480&h=400
Monday, June 14, 2010
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.
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.
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