Post Triathlon -- Pre Marathon - WHATS UP?!?!?!

I have successfully made it a week of no structured S/B/R training. Do I miss it? This is the least amount of training and most amount of sitting on my butt I have done in 8 months. Post partem depression anyone?

NOPE! Not me!

Its been a good season, albeit a long season, but a GOOD season. I hit my #1 goal of the season, and that was to improve by a LOT at Timberman Round #2.

Mission Accomplished!

Am I going to miss the incredible bike and swim fitness that I currently have?

YEP!

But will I miss the 56 mile hammering rides every weekend?

Yes and No. I won't miss the prefuel and 3 hours of pain, BUT! I will miss the finishing of the ride, seeing my time and wattage output and saying to myself, "Thats RIGHT!!!!"

So now it's time to mentally tell myself that it is OKAY to ride slower on the bike and to swim slower in the pool. In fact, my time trial bike is being put up until January and the road bike is coming back out. Time to rediscover what riding my bike is all about again.

So now what?

Well, my foot is kinda on the ugly side right now AND there is the NYC Marathon on November 7th. That is basically the next and final goal of 2010.

(now pretend my foot is all better, okay? thanks!)
But before then, there will be some organized runs/races leading up to it. I can still do the NYRR's 9+1 program (run and finish 9 races, and volunteer for one) and I will be automagically qualified for the 2011 NYC Marathon if I so choose to run that one as well.

On my plate (aka I am signed up and paid $$$ for) coming up are:
September 19th: 18 mile training run around Central Park (3 loops). It's fully supported with water/medical/food, etc. Boo ya!
October 2nd: Greta's Great Gallop Half Marathon. I will need to sneak in 6 extra miles that day, but perhaps it is time to break the 1:45 half marathon barrier?
October 31st: Poland Springs Marathon Kickoff 5 miler. Will be in serious taper mode for this "race" when it will be a one week out marathon inspiration-fest. I have a feeling the marathon is really going to "hit" me at this "race." Folks will be sweating marathon on this day!

Other goals that I have in the meantime involve the pool. I want to learn how to:

• do flipturns
• backstroke
• dolphin kicking

None of the above will help me in a race directly, but indirectly, I hope they will give me more confidence in the water and will help give me some more core strength and positioning. Besides, my next swim in a competition won't be until next spring sometime. NO need to burn it up till then. I see learning these things as mini goals to pass the time and to keep my feel for the water and strength up. I HATE starting all over again in the pool, and swimming freestyle yards with no race directly ahead is BORING!

Hopefully this will keep me busy for the next 10 weeks!

Of course everything mentioned above (minus the pool goals) is dependant on what becomes of my current foot issue.

Speaking of which, I have been icing it and wrapping it and resting it as much as possible. Today was a BETTER day walking around!

I can run, BUT! I can't walk? Brace yourselves folks....

As of right now, I am still calling it a "let's wait a week" Injury. Yep, the "I" word.

Noooooooooo!!!!!!

So in my last post I mentioned that whatever hurts immediately following your race usually disappears quickly and that whatever new hurts a day or two after is what lingers and that that is the REAL soreness. Mine was my calves, which are good now. But what showed up 4 days later was the bottom of my left foot starting to hurt.

Crap! The dreaded PF?!?!?!?: Plantar Fasciitis? I have had a bout once early early this year, but it went away after two days. Done and out.

Well this time it just moved to the outside left of my left foot.

AND STAYED....the bottom of the arch of my foot is fine now, as is the heal.

It doesnt hurt when I press, push, twist that part of my foot with my hands; it only hurts when I put weight on it while walking or standing.

Now get this!!!

I can run on it FINE. I ran 5 miles on it this morning and felt barely anything. But yet I am grimacing my teeth while walking.

WTF?!?!?!?!?

Sooooo, are any of you fellow bloggers/readers a foot expert in any form that has had experience or has knowledge of what part of the foot that is and why it hurts?

Circled in RED is the area of pain while walking

In the mean time, ICE will be my new best friend!

Jon's current status: "HAHAHAHAHAHA"

So I did my first post Timberman run this morning. My body was basically screaming at me for the entire 3 miles. I think the first run is very telling after a hard race. It tells you what REALLY hurts. You know how you finish a race and let's say your foot or ankle hurts and you fear that you injured it? Chances are that that is a mute injury and that the REAL soreness will show up within a day or two.

That happened.

This time around it was my calve muscles that really took the brunt. On Tuesday when I got back to work, while walking around the office, folks kept noticing, "You aren't walking too well!" Yep! I could hardly walk.

Tuesday night I was up all night going through the "evacuation" stage of recovery. By the time I woke up Wednesday AM I felt 100% better.

Do any of you swim in a 50 meter pool? I just swam for the first time in one Thursday morning. OH MY GOODNESS!!!! How have I gone this long without swimming in one? It was amazing how after you get past your usual 25 yards that your form starts to break down because you are used to a short 1 second break at that point. I really started to notice where my form started to stink by the time I hit the wall and was out of breath. What a workout! I did 1800 meters and was cooked! Perhaps it is time to make the $92/month investment and make this 50 meter pool my new swimming home, especially for 20IIRonman. I think this pool is less than 2 years old? SO NICE!

BIG TIME shoutouts to Colleen @ IRONDIVA as she tackles her THIRD Ironman, Louisville. Go Colleen! Knock this one out of the part! Last shoutout goes to Kevin @ IronmanByThirty as he tackles his 3rd Half Ironman of the season, the Breakwater Triathlon. Go knock that run out of the park, Kevin! I know you want to PR that sucker!

Have a good weekend everyone! Get some quality distance in! Or rest, like what I am planning on doing. Suppose to run 15 miles this weekend per my marathon schedule. My response?

"HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH"

and in case you are worried. I am NOT running 15 miles. That is crazy talk!

Maybe next time she will say yes? ;)

She said, "Only if you win Kona!"

Does it look like she is going to strangle me?

I am never washing my left shoulder ever again!

Maybe I will just settle for an awesome picture with her and call it that :)D

Taking a Well Needed Rest

There is a reason why I stop tri season at the end of August. Every pool around here shuts down for two weeks until after Labor Day. I learned this the hard way two years ago and lost a lot of swim form leading up to my last tri of that season. Major bummer!

But this is a good thing now. My body is tired. I don't "have" to swim anymore. I "want" to, but in reality, I "can't" unless I want to jump into Long Island Sound (yuck!).

And then there is something that I kept to myself the last 2-3 weeks:
My body was REALLY tired. I wasn't recovering like I used to! Early this season I could just go and go and go and go and recover fully within 24-48 hours. After Rhode Island and then a big training weekend in Lake Placid in July, my recovery time started to change for the worse. A Wednesday morning hammerfest on the bike took me until Saturday to recover from. Eventually I was hitting the point where I wasn't recovered from the previous weekend until the next weekend! 7 days to recover fully? OUCH!

And that right there meant that my body had one last race in it. Eventually the large base that you build up runs out. My base was enormous from all of the easy, huge volume work that I did back in January-March and it held out until now. I think what I did was perfect for this season. It shows that the larger the base, the bigger you can go.....but eventually it will wear out, which is a good thing! You can't go forever! You need to stop and heal your body in the offseason.

Have you ever heard of accumulated base? It's not just one base building block that gives your body that huge engine. It is those YEARS of base building and speed work that once you take a break, and let all of that stress marinade and sink into the deep core of your body, that that is where your true speed and power comes from.

This off season, I am going to get out of shape, and it is going to be frustrating. But come next winter when I hit my first short running race, I know that my running form will still be crap, but yet I will prolly PR that sucker because this season will have fully sunk into my muscles. And then imagine how much bigger you will be able to go next year? And the year after that?

Stay consistent my friends!

Mentally, I am still sharp and am ready to tackle the NYC Marathon on November 7th. However, my body is wondering if this is still possible. I woke up this morning and I think my body finally turned the corner. I was up all night going through the "evacuation" stage of recovery. This means that my body has realized, "Hey, I don't need all of this fluid for survival!" FLUSH!

And now my legs are still sore, but not as sore as yesterday. I could hardly walk yesterday! I kept sending messages over to Mandy @ Caratunk Girl (she just rocked her first HIM @ Timberman) on facebook exclaiming that amputation was the only remedy!

What a difference a night makes! Last night I went to Outback, had a big ole steak and a glass of wine. This morning, I am starting to see the light. Perhaps a short run is in order tomorrow?

Ironman Timberman 70.3 Race Report

On Sunday I did my A++++++ race of the season, Ironman Timberman 70.3, my fourth and last Half Ironman and last triathlon of the season. Never have I ever trained so hard for an event that I wanted to just KILL and exact revenge upon.

This past season has turned into the "Season of the Half Ironman." When I did 5:55:xx @ Timberman last year, my first Half Ironman, I had such a miserable time on the run, a 2:23:xx, that I swore off this distance for a few years. I wanted to do olympic distances and figure out the short distances first a bit more. Well that thought lasted for a day and a deep burning fire ignited within me: REVENGE.

I realized that the only way you are only going to get better at something is to do it over and over again. Practice makes perfect, right? Well I practiced hard this year and made a ton of mistakes. Repeating Timberman turned into adding Mooseman in June, and then New Orleans was added early in the season in April due to some serious base building. I then on a whim snuck in Rhode Island in July to break up a 12 week monotony between Mooseman and Timberman.

So 4 FOUR Half Ironman races were added this year; the year that I swore off the distance.

NEVER SAY NEVER!!!!

I compare doing these distances to my experience in art school. I created a lot of shitty art work in school for about 3.5 years. I had art teachers flat out laugh at my work and ask, "What is that?!?!?" What was it? It was getting the shitty art work out of my system before I finally learned how to create my masterpiece, which got me my job 7 weeks out of school.

Turning to triathlon, I suffered and had some shitty races (with highlights!) during my first four Half Ironman prior to this race. I made my mistakes, in particular going too hard on the bike and ignoring nutrition. I practiced and practiced and practiced and fixed those mistakes, and they PAID OFF today. Everything finally came together! I PR'ed every part of this race.

Now for the report:

Overall, 5:08:20, 395/2141 total participants, 50/162 in division

18.44 percentile overall, 30.8 percentile in age group (I had a FAST age group!).

47:27 min improvement over 2009's time.

Pre-Swim:

Saw my family and friends after warming up. They asked how I was doing, and I responded with, "I have peed my pants 3 times in the water and it felt GREAT! There are only so many times a year that I can pee my pants, and I take every opportunity I can get!"

My mom, sister, me, dad

Lake Winnipesaukee is not a polluted lake, it is a peeluted lake. Get it? It was also 75 degrees, and the air temp was 70 degrees. Staying in the water was NICE. Saw Andy Potts lead the PRO men's field on the swim and the rest was history. Dude is gonna podium @ Kona this year. Nuff said!

Swim, 1.2 miles, 34:12, 37/162 in division:

I lined up pretty close to the front and as far right as possible to get an aggressive position. Swimming is not my strength so my plan was to draft off the fast guys for as long as possible before I am on my own.

But! Before our wave went off, the starting music changed from some awesome-get-your-blood-moving-lets-kick-the-shit-out-of-this-race-ACDC-type-song to Coldplay's "The Scientist." It was like someone just pulled the plug! Here, 200 men, aged 25-29 all started looking at each other going, WTF?!?!?!? Two guys even embraced! hahahahahahaha! Now, I like Coldplay, just not Coldplay as I am starting a freaking race!!!! hahahahaha!

I am somewhere in that mess

We got going and I had little contact and found myself alone. It was ok; tried to and would have loved to draft, but I just did my thing. The course was a box shape, so the first leg out was fast, the 2nd leg, which paralleled the shore got a bit choppy due to being way out there, was pretty fast, but the third leg back towards shore was not great; I kept drifting left! I would aim right, and drift left. SO frustrating! Also, I started to lose energy at this point.

Not a great way to finish the swim, but was SUPER happy to see the clock turn 34 mins as I was coming out of the water. 2+ mins faster than last year! SWEET!

I was blind as a bat

T1, 2:00:

Wetsuit strippers are awesome! Got to use em 4 times this year :)D

I felt fast and I think my time showed. I am not the fastest transitioner, but that was a super fast T1 time for me.

Running like a penguin!

Bike, 56 miles, 2:41:40, 20.78 mph, 54/162 in division:

I felt "off" on the bike. I was fast!....but I didn't "feel" right, and I knew it from the beginning. I think I actually went too hard on the swim and was hungry. Turns out the swim was my fastest split of the day! The entire day was battling hunger on the bike. I brought an extra GU with me and consumed it at a 15 min interval instead of my usual ever 30 mins. It helped, but I was still hungry! Perhaps because it was cold and raining that my body was using up more energy to stay warm? And since I have been training in heat all summer that my body was used to cooling rather than staying warm?

I hit the turn @ 1:17:08 for a 21.78 mph average. Well, duh! Its a net downhill for the first 28 miles. I was ahead of schedule and starting to get worried. Why?

I was going too hard on the bike. Was my wattage higher than it should have been?

CRAP. This screwed me on the run here last year and at Rhode Island this year.

So I backed it off on the 2nd half. I think this helped. It showed. I held a 192 watt average on the way out, and a 181 watt average on the way back. I find it interesting that I held a 10 watt less average than 3 weeks ago, and yet I went 2 mins faster.....hhhmmmm. Wind?

Up to this point on the bike, it had been overcast, but no rain. I got sprinkled on a bit, but at 1:40:xx on the bike the skies opened up. No big deal though, I was still on the flats. The rain came and went, but totally opened up only when I was only flying downhill. GAH!

I finished the bike almost 2 mins ahead of schedule overall, and my legs felt like crap-ola.

A tough run was ahead!

Now that I think about the bike in general, overall it was a very non-exciting ride. But I think that was a good thing because it meant that I did the proper training and I knew the course very well.

T2, 2:45:

Due to being hungry on the bike and getting pretty chilled from the rain on the bike, I didn't have very good dexterity getting my socks, shoes, etc on. I just did the best I could and got out onto the run.

Can't feel my fingers!

Run, 13.1 miles, 1:47:43, 8:13 pace, 65/162 in division:

The first mile HURT, and the time showed. Here are my splits for the entire run:

Mile 1: 8:37

Mile 2: 7:51

Mile 3: 7:54

Mile 4: 7:56

Mile 5: 8:13

Mile 6: 8:10

Mile 7: 9:39

Mile 8: 8:25

Mile 9: 8:27

Mile 10: 8:15

Mile 11: 8:48

Mile 12: 8:32

Mile 13: 7:20 (includes last .1 miles)

As you can see, I hit mile 2 and calmed WAY down. I was panicky after that first mile. I did a trial run of this course after the bike three weeks ago and dropped a 7:xx on the first mile. I hope you can see why I was panicking after this first mile! BUT! You can see my 2nd and 3rd miles calmed me even further. I went into autopilot mode until I was back to transition to start loop #2.

Heading towards mile 7, I started to run out of gas. This is the same place last year that I bonked. OH CRAP! NOT AGAIN! Fortunately the Gu that I shot @ mile 6.55 kicked in and I went back into autopilot mode. However, I had lost a step at this point, but it was fatigue rather than energy that was slowing me down. This was expected and I trudged forward as best as I could.

Finishing up the first loop of the run

At miles 9 and 10 I was mentally done. I wanted this over with already. It was not physical anymore. I knew that I was busting my PR wide open at this point, and it was my mental will to see how much I was going to PR. I knew miles 10-12 were hilly and were the hardest, so I just tried to shut my brain off as much as I could and GO. I guess this worked. They weren't the fastest miles.

At mile 12, I knew it was all downhill to the finish and that it would be over soon, and that it was mind over matter, so I said, "F*&@ IT!" and went!

I think my 7:20 split for the final 1.1 miles says it all :)

Almost there!!!

Was happy to see 6:08:xx on the clock, which meant subtract 1 hour and that was my time.

8 months of hard dedicated work paid off!

Chrissie Wellington was at the finish line and she put the finishers medal over my head and I asked if we could get a picture together. She said SURE! She is the best! She also won the women's race JUST as I was about to head out on the run. Dang....she is FAST!

So this half marathon is my 2nd fastest half marathon EVER for me. My fastest is still NYC at 1:45:19. Me thinks it is time for that PR to go down this fall during marathon training. The only thing is! is that I can't run fast now unless I have biked prior to riding for at least an hour to warm up. I guess this fall will be all about the run warmup.

Post Race:
I was actually hungry and could eat! I found my family and hit up the food and didn't care what they had. I just piled EVERYTHING onto my plate and grabbed a big thing of ice cream. Aaaahhhhhh.....sitting down was easy. It was the standing back up part that was hard :)

FOOD!

I will do another post soon about what is left for the season, aka training for the NYC Marathon, and off season goals.

Quick update; and you are the BESTEST!

You all should take some credit for my race today. It's all of your wonderful comments and reading about your experiences that drives me to get up at the crack of stupid every morning to abuse my body into oblivion in either the pool, on the bike, or in a pair of smelly running shoes. Without all of you fellow AWESOME bloggers, 50% of my motivation just wouldn't be there.

YOU ROCK!!!!

Some of you stalked me today, thank you! I asked you to :)

So here is a quick recap of what went down today:

• Peed my pants three times
• Ate 11 Chocolate Gu's.
• Blew a bunch of snot rockets on the bike.
• UUUUuuuuuuuummmmm......
• Am totally hyper and loopy and coked up on caffeine @ the moment from the 11 Chocolate Gu's ;)
• And did a Half Ironman!

Went 5:08:20 total

Swim: 34:12

T1: 2:00

Bike: 2:41:40

T2: 2:45

Run: 1:47:43

That is a ~47 min improvement over last year's Timberman experience, my first Half Ironman, and a 24 min PR for the distance over my New Orleans time from April earlier this year.

It was 70 degrees and overcast the entire day with some downpours on the bike. Couldn't have asked for better racing conditions! I am serious, btw, I like racing in the rain. It keeps me cool = I go faster!

Full race report will be up soon.

Chrissie said "NO," but I did get a picture with her.....will have to find it in the lost & found most likely.

.....I never asked her. hehe