I hate legs and back

Today was legs and back day. I do not like this day. Last week I attributed my problems to being the end of the week of my first week of the program. No such excuses this week. This is not a good set of exercises for me. I've always had issues with light headedness, and this day really sets it off. It's tons of up and down style exercises which makes it much worse for me. Like last week I felt so lousy at the end I couldn't do the ab program. Which was unfortunate because unlike last week I'm no longer scared of it. It still kills me but I can do it. Even though the other days are harder than this one, the act of constantly squatting and standing really gets to my head. I had to take lots of breaks and not necessarily because of being out of breath or tired, I was just dizzy as hell and couldn't stand. Not sure what to do about this. It's frustrating because I don't feel like I'm getting as good a workout as a could if I were able to go at it non stop, as well as being able to go through the full range of motions.
Oh well. I just want to get through a few months of this and get back to tri training. Oh how I miss you tri training! I miss the pool, the bike, even running! I think it's the outdoors I miss. Training in a gym is so insanely boring, I dont know how people do it permanently.

39 days AI(after Ironman)

I wasn't sure if I'd ever get back to this blog again or not, or start up a new one. Well, I'm going to keep this one going. I figure I'll still talk about current, future training and new races that come up. First off, post ironman thoughts...It's been a really strange month for me. I started training for that race just about a year ago. So between the time of January and November of this past year, my thoughts were really focused on the Ironman. Every training session was done thinking about how I was going to go about that race. Everything I ate, did, etc. My life was getting ready for that race. Then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, it was over.
The days since have been weird. I actually had a hard time removing the countdown clock from my phone, but fortunately I didn't have to remove it so much as change it to an even more exciting event...the birth of my son. In the time since my race I first took about 2-3 weeks off from exercise completely. That really felt great, but I did start itching to do something pretty quickly. I thought the idea of training would make me sick after that but it was the opposite. I actually started to miss it. I did a few short runs, but no cycling. The weather hasn't been great, plus, cycling tends to be more involved and take more time. I haven't swam yet either. Part of that was because of my awesome new tattoo :)

So what I have done was started P90X last week. I figured since tri season doesn't start till April I was going to try and get through the full session. I know strength is one of my biggest deficiencies so this will definitely help. Then I get back into the full swing of tri training. At this point I'm 11 days in. This is the second farthest I've made it! Once I made it three weeks so we'll see how it goes. I'm at least past the soreness. The first week was absolutely brutal. Everything hurt and it even hurt to sleep. Now at least I struggle through the workouts but I feel fine the next day. It's giving me more encouragement that I'll be able to keep going.

As far as the coming tri season. I'm really excited about it! I got permission from my very sweet and understanding wife to go ahead and get a tri specific bike. That's one thing that will really boost my times, plus make it more fun, and well, give me less excuses. I have a tri helmet on the way too, xmas present courtesy of some cash the inlaws gave me for christmas. So my plan for this season is to really work on speed. I spent an entire year training at low heart rates, and had races that pretty much followed that. Very slow, but easy races. This year I want to move up. My goal is to go from a middle of the pack to top of the pack. I believe I can do it. I was sitting in the middle without feeling like I was pushing myself, especially in training. With the new gear, intense strength training, and tri training geared more towards speed I think I can make the move.

I haven't planned out my race schedule yet, since I wanted to look at them with Rachel and see if there were any places she'd like to go. But the definite races are the Clemson Tri in May, Enka Tri in June, Lake Logan Intl in August, Lake Lure Tri in August. I also want to do at least one 1/2 IM towards the end of the season, and maybe a couple destination races, either charleston, hilton head, myrtle or savannah. Anyway, I'm really excited about the coming year.
I plan to write more often on here in the coming weeks, might be slow for a little while though.
Oh and of course a few Ironman pics....

Ironman Arizona 2011 Race Report

Ironman Arizona Race Report
11-20-2011
2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run
14:18:20

Here I sit on the place, about 36 hours, give or take, since crossing the finish line of Ironman Arizona. It’s hard to believe that it’s all over. This entry is probably going to be quite long, so I applaud you for sticking around to the end if you can make it that far. Of course, I did exercise for over 14 hours, so sitting and reading about it shouldn’t be that difficult! So first off, the basic metrics of race day.
The weather couldn’t have been better. The high was in the mid 70’s, the low was probably in the mid 50’s. There were some strong winds out in the desert, however not so strong that you had to kill yourself going into them. More on that later. It was sunny all day, but never hot. The water temperature was a balmy 61o.

Swim: Dream time – 1:15:00, Expected time – 1:25:00 Actual time – 1:15:00
I actually nailed my dream time on the swim. I couldn’t believe it. First off, they had all 2800 of us needing to get through the inflatable gate to work out way into the water. That was quite a site. Nearly 3,000 people standing around in wetsuits and swim caps very very slowly walking towards the gate. Once you got through you worked your way over to the ramp, where you pretty much have to jump in. No easing yourself into that water. However, the whole thing about if you don’t jump right in you get pushed in…not really. There was a lot of space along this ledge, and most people did just jump in. However, if you were one of those who needed a minute to prep yourself for the plunge, you were free to take it. No one forced you in. I only paused to make sure my goggles were on snug and sealed and I made my plunge. Even with the wet suite and neoprene vest under it that water took your breath away. I did go with a neoprene cap and ear plugs. For anyone out there reading this who plans to do a cold water Ironman, I’d wear the cap and plugs. I can’t comment as to what it feels like without them, but I can say that my head never felt the least bit cold. I did have a sleeveless wetsuit and although my arms were freezing at first, I felt completely comfortable after just a few minutes. Get in the water early, swim to the start and you’ll be fine. And I don’t have the highest of tolerances for cold water, considering even in the 80 degree pool, the first plunge still makes me cold. So, I slowly eased my way to the start line. I did do the practice swim the day before, fortunately, because I knew that I’d get over the feeling of not being able to breath and my arms feeling numb. Upon jumping in again on race day, my lungs did contract making it hard to breath. But I knew the procedure. Easy breast stroke taking short quick breaths. Relax, gradually taking in deeper breaths until I could breath normal. Within 50 yards I was completely at ease. I found my spot and hovered there. I started out about 50 yards or so from the front of the pack. I found a nice open area, right in front of one of the bridge supports, my reasoning for that was that I wouldn’t have to worry about some overzealous racer who felt the need to take off like a bat out of hell climbing over my back immediately. Some people out there forget that we have over 2 miles to swim…what’s the rush? So, Mike Riley(the voice of Ironman) gave our prerace pep talk. That got everyone fired up. Then, there was no countdown, the canon blasted signaling the start of Ironman Arizona. I paused for a second to think to myself, “You are now racing in an Ironman,” then I put my head down and took my first stroke, first step, into what was going to be an unforgettable day.
The swim was nothing like I expected. I had watched video’s, read reports and heard stories. I was fully expecting something more like full combat swimming, where I would be deflecting as many arms and legs as strokes I’d be taking. It was nothing like that at all. Now, don’t take this to mean it was like a relaxing swim with nothing but my thoughts, there were 2800 people in a fairly tight space, however, as long as you kept your wits about you, and kept your head on a swivel, you could find your own space fairly easily. I could only really remember about 2 people being idiots and clobbering me. Most other people would hit you once, adjust, and you’d never be bothered again. I was able to really keep a nice smooth pace throughout. It really is amazing though, how far 2.4 miles is when you look at it over water. The turnaround was about 1-1.1 miles away. You couldn’t even see it from the start. You knew you had to go under the bridge, which was somewhat visible, unfortunately, I was thinking it was immediately after the bridge. It was not. I got to the bridge and realized no one was turning for the foreseeable future. So I just kept on going. Finally after a few more minutes I spotted was a huge orange buoy(the sight buoys were all yellow) which signaled the turn around. I made it to the turn around, and for future notice, do not take the turn tight. Stupid. Everyone tries to take the turn tight so it winds up more congested there than even at the beginning. So congested in fact that no one can even swim. The best you could manage was a weak doggy paddle or breast stroke. It was about 50 yards till the turn buoy to head back the way you came. So the first thing I did was swim across the line of swimmers to get away from the buoy. That worked like a charm. I made the next turn without so much as even touching anyone. I made a slow smooth turn without breaking my stroke. I took a peak at my watch, expected to be in the 35-40 minute range, and to my surprise it said 25 minutes. I was shocked. I knew I wasn’t quite halfway there, but I was way way way faster than I expected. So, now that I’m on the return trip, I knew all I had to do was just keep up the same pace and I’d be golden. I was tired, breathing heavy or anything. I was really able to just make it a nice long relaxing warm up for what lied ahead. I wish I had some more excitement to talk about for the final mile or so but it was such an easy swim that it was completely uneventful. So, skipping ahead to the final turn, which lead to about 100 yards away from the exit point I just kept on at that pace. I kept eyeing the exit stairs and before I knew it I was reaching for the hands of the volunteer who helped pull me out of the water and just like that, my ironman swim was done. Getting out was pretty funny. I knew they had wetsuit strippers, but I didn’t really know what to think. That is truly what they are. You get your arms out, they really do the rest. They’ll pull them down, you get on your butt, lift your legs up and two people in a matter of seconds rip the rest of the suit off you. In a time of just 1:15:00 I was well ahead of where I had hoped to be. I ranked 108 in my division and 874 overall.

T1:
That led to the first transition. I didn’t realize how far away it was. Now, my swimming ability FAR exceeds my overall Ironman ability. So, I basically exited with people who were in it for far more than just finishing. My plan was to walk the entire transition chute, which became exceedingly difficult with not just the hundreds and hundreds of screaming fans, but all the other racers who were running past me. I really felt like I should’ve started running, but I said to myself, “What’s the hurry? We all get the same medal.” So I kept on walking. Finally got to the bags and the volunteer was in way more of a hurry than me. He went jumping over lines of bags to retrieve mine. He grabbed it, and came rushing back to give it to me. I smiled, sort of laughed, cause he thought I cared about my time, thanked him and proceeded to walk to some open grass to throw on my bike gear. That proved to be pretty difficult, as expected. I followed some advice that I read about wearing a long sleeve shirt under my jersey. Not so much for warmth but protection from the elements. It was actually a bit cold starting out leg 1. So I was extra glad for it, but more on that later. It was difficult because getting a tight shirt on wet skin is surprisingly difficult. It took my three tries to get that shirt on over my arms cause it kept twisting on me. One stupid thing I did was not pre pack my GU’s into my jersey pockets, so that was just extra pointless time packing them in there. I should’ve had everything I was going to take on the course in my jersey. But that wasn’t a major mistake. I probably also didn’t need to bring my GU belt, I only did so to store my salt tablets in. They’d have been fine in one of my jersey pockets. I had a remarkable slow transition time, 5-10 minutes slower than I anticipated, but I also didn’t anticipate a 5 minute walk to get there. But it gave me a lot of time to rest. Still a lot of day ahead of me. So after finally getting all my gear on I headed out to the bike area, but not before getting a nice lathering of sun screen from the sun screen volunteers. They really have someone out there for every aspect of the race. All you did was stand there, tell them where to put it and they went to work. Next stop was to pick up my bike. Again, more volunteers to do that for you. You yell out your number, someone goes running and grabs your bike, you just stand there and your bike is delivered to you. From there it was time to head out to the desert and solitude.

Bike: I caught my first glimpse of my family and Rachel starting out on the bike. They were waiting for me in the chute that you rode out to get to the main part of the course. I was so glad to see them there before getting out cause I knew it would be a long time until I had another chance. Plus I knew they were most concerned about the swim, because of the stories I had told them. So I was able to relax knowing they knew I was safe. The first ¼ mile of the bike is absolutely awesome. Maybe longer I don’t know. There are literally thousands of screaming spectators cheering you on as you make your way out of the city. It’s perfect. For me the start of a long bike ride is the hardest. Your computer is still showing not just minutes, but seconds and you know how far you still have to go. So having them out there really gets your energy and your spirits up. Thus I began the longest leg of the day. The course consists of three loops of about 37.4 miles. The loops are 18.7 mile out and backs. It consisted of 8 miles with a bunch of turns in the city, then 10 miles continuous through the desert. From a mental standpoint it was easy to break it down into 6 shorter sections. I broke down each leg into city, desert, desert, city, and so on. You just couldn’t go out there thinking 112 miles to go. So leg number one was a really tough one for me. As I stated before, I’m a strong swimmer, far stronger relative to cycling. So for my first leg I was out there surrounded by much stronger cyclists than myself. So I was being passed constantly, and I had to really force myself to keep my speed down and ultimately my heart rate(henceforth known as HR) down. It required going a lot slower than I had anticipated. I was hoping to be able to maintain 17 mph for the race. That hope was shattered quickly as my HR got up to 150 only going in the 16’s. I needed to keep my HR under 140 for the first leg or I’d have a lot of trouble with the run. I did know that the outbound trip was slightly uphill, so I had hoped to make up some time on the return trip. I was able to keep my HR in check by slowing down a bit. For most of the first 10 miles I was able to keep my pace around 16 mph with my HR in the mid 140’s. That first leg became tougher and tougher as we approached the steeper section. The final four miles start turning into a legitimate climb as you approach the turn around. What was also not so pleasant of a surprise was the stiffening head wind as we were trying to climb. My speed eventually slowed to between 11-13 mph. But that was as fast as I was able to go while keep my HR down. Even at that, by the time I reached the peak I had hit 170. I would never reach that number again. After the turn around though was sheer joy. Without even trying, I was coasting down the hill, with the wind at a comfortable 25-27 mph. It was great! I was able to get my HR back down below 120 before the hill finally leveled out. Even at that I was able to continue at around 20 mph for most of the return trip. After that first leg I thought I might be looking at a 7.5 hour bike. I did not want to be that slow. That’s just a long time to be sitting on the bike. Not comfortable. Upon approaching the turn around the crowd support began to increase again. Once you got back into Tempe I was again riding amongst thousands of fans. Their energy was intoxicating. It was incredible, I was feeling like a rock star. I’ve really never experienced anything like it. It was a huge lift to help you get started again on loop 2. I think loop 2 was the worst. Nothing bad happened, but you’re just in the middle of the grind. The excitement of loop 1 is over, you’re no longer fresh. You’re not beat or exhausted but the weight of the day is starting to hit and you know you still have another loop to go. I also knew that this leg was much tougher than the return trip due to climbing and a head wind. Oh well, suck it up and get moving. So I just buckled down, put my head down, dropped into my aero bars and proceeded. There was a noticeable increase in speed on lap 2. It seemed that I was finally settling in and was able to cruise along. Lap 2 was actually pretty cool cause it was my first view of the pros. I saw them on lap 1, but they were going the opposite direction and everyone looks fast coming at you. But they passed me on this leg and it was amazing how fast they were able to go. I can explain how incredible it is to truly be sharing the same playing field with athletes who are the best in the world. So back to me(that’s what this is about anyway, right?). I finally reached the desert section again. This time however, my speed was up, my HR was down and I was feeling good and strong. I was going significantly faster than the first leg. Almost 2 mph faster. I thought I was just having a second wind kicking in. I was locked in and slicing through the wind. After about 20 minutes or so it hit me like a ton of bricks. On the first leg I felt a lot of wind on my face even though I was going slower. I realized that the wind didn’t feel light on me, I didn’t feel any wind at all. As if there was more wind coming from behind than I was going through. For instance…I was going 17 mph, and the wind from behind was going 20 mph. I started watching the vegetation closer….Yep. Sure enough all the shrubs were being pushed down in the direction I was going. I was not getting stronger, I had a huge tail wind. My spirits were dashed, but I did realize that I would not be having a massage negative split like I was thinking. So, I quickly changed my tune towards being grateful for having a tailwind to help push me up the climb. The climb was far easier this time around. What I did at 12 mph with a 170 HR last time, I was able to move around 15-16 mph with an HR around 155-160. The moment I hit the turnaround I felt the wind instantly. It was powerful. This return trip was not the fun cruise it had been a few hours prior. Fortunately, the first 2 miles were steep enough that you were still able to cruise though it with little effort. Although, what had once been a 26 mph screamer, turned into 17 mph push. Once it leveled out though, it was definitely a solid challenge. The return trip of the second loop was definitely the most difficult. My first leg was slower, but I also knew I’d have a fast downhill afterwards. This time I knew when it was over I’d be turning around to go back uphill. Upon arriving back in Tempe and nearing the turnaround the spectator energy really got you amped back up. Riding through that crowd completely reenergized you for the final leg. It was also an awesome feeling knowing you were heading out for the last time. The final leg was probably my strongest. I did a great job pacing myself on the first 75 miles and still felt fresh. We still had some wind at our backs for most of the way out, which made that final uphill leg very easy. Funny thing happened on that leg however. As I was about 5 or so miles from the turn around all of a sudden the wind was back to being in my face. This made me happy. I knew I could cut through it for the rest of that trip, and I also knew that meant I’d be able to get much more rest than I thought I would on the final trip back into town. At the turn around I just dropped back into my bars and coasted the whole way down the first few miles of hills. Fortunately, there was nothing too eventful about the return trip. I did the best I could to rest, not push, after all, I still had a marathon to run after this. Hitting the 100 mile mark felt great. What was even better was knowing that I wasn’t the least bit tired yet. My legs felt great, even more importantly, my head was in an even better place. I knew getting through the bike would be the toughest thing. It’s the longest and loneliest part. The run is littered with spectators, you can talk to other runners, you can walk, etc. About 10 miles out, I knew I’d be finishing the Ironman. The final few miles of the bike felt great. Chatted with a few other fellow racers, soaked in the crowd energy and really loved riding through the final chute with spectators lined up cheering us as we finished up the remaining few feet in the epic 112 mile bike ride. My dream time was 6:00 and my expected time was 6:30. However, between the wind and the unaccounted for stops at the bathrooms and special needs station, I finished the ride with a total time of 6:50:23. At this point I was 180th in my group and 1782nd overall.

T2:
The second transition was a bit quicker than the first. Not surprisingly considering how much more you have to put on for the bike. But I grabbed my bag and went into the changing tent. One of the fantastic volunteers helped me with just about everything short of putting the stuff on for me. He got everything out, laid it either on the chair or ground. And when I say everything, I mean a lot of stuff. There’s quite a few things you need on you when you’re about to head out for a 26.2 mile run. Hat, shoes, new socks, GU’s, salt tablets, fuel belt, GU belt, new shirt, etc. I chatted with him for a bit while I got my stuff on. And after getting all ready to go I made my way out of the tent, had them put more sunscreen on me, used the bathroom and set out to run a nice quick marathon. My time was 7:33 in transition.

Run:
The run was one of the more interesting runs I’ve ever done. It consisted of three loops of 8.7 miles each. Mostly flat, with 2 climbs, neither of which were too bad. Between resting at the end of the bike and taking my time in transition I was able to get my HR back down to the 130’s. My prerace plan was to keep it under 151 for the first loop, 160 for the second, and 170 for the third. I also planned to run 5 minutes and walk 1, unless it climbed too high at which point I’d walk it back down. The plan changed about 15 minutes into the run. There was no way I was able to keep it under 150 and still run. My legs felt fine to run slow, but I wasn’t ready to walk just yet. So I changed my plan to 158, 170, 170. So the first loop it did climb up and over 158 a few times so I was forced to walk a bit more than I wanted. I brought perpetuem in my fuel belt because that’s what I used during training and I didn’t want to change things up on race day. I was getting really really sick of that stuff by the run. But I forced myself to keep drinking it every 10 minutes or so. It’s not too bad when cold, but warm, yuck! Not to mention the massive weight of a full fuel belt was very annoying when running. I felt it bouncing around the entire time. That was about the only good thing about drinking it was that the weight became less and less each time. The stuff did serve me very well though because I never felt hungry, thirsty, bloated, nor felt any GI issues whatsoever. My nutrition plan worked perfectly for the course of the entire day. I also increased my GU intake for the run, from every 45 minutes on the bike to every 30 minutes on the run. I also continued taking a salt tablet every 30 minutes. I actually enjoyed myself on the run. There were just so many people out there cheering us on. The sun began setting during the end of my first loop and the desert really makes for some stunning sunsets. I was also able to see my dad at the end of that loop so that helped brighten my spirits as I headed out on loop 2. Unfortunately, I also missed Rachel, Mom, and David, so that was a small downer. Now that I had already seen the loop I knew what was coming. I knew the stops, the hills, the turns, etc. I was better able to break this loop up into a lot of small sections. Once again, I continued the same nutrition and run/walk patterns and felt really good throughout. Finally on this loop I found my Mom and David, but of course this time Rachel had to finally quit waiting and run to the bathroom, just minutes before I got to them. I didn’t care. I had a 6 hour marathon, I really didn’t care about waiting 5 minutes for her. It was really big for me to be able to see her. It was difficult out there, and having missed her on the first loop really sucked, I was going to wait as long as it took till she got back. Finally after a few minutes she showed back up. I chatted about the race for a second, gave her a hug and kiss and headed back out to continue loop 2. Right after that meeting I saw my dad who was just waiting on the other side of them. Right after that was about the half way point and I was finally able to dump my fuel belt at my special needs bags. I figured I’d be fine using perform and whatever else they were offering. The rest of the second loop went without much issue. It was on this loop that they brought out the chicken broth and oh wow was that stuff good. It was cold out there, so the nice and warm chicken broth tasted oh so good. The Perform was wonderful. After drinking my warm to hot sport drink all day, the cold perform was terrific. At this point I was walking the aid stations as well as my 5/1 ratio. I didn’t care about time at all. My goal all along was to finish and I knew at this point it was definitely going to happen so long as I kept doing what I was doing. Finally I got to the straightaway leading to loop 3. This was the last time I’d be passing the divider separating you from the finish and another loop. This was when I finally started feeling some major soreness in my legs. Despite the pain my heart rate never rose again. I stopped paying attention to it all together because I just wasn’t an issue at this point. I was obviously running extremely slowly, but it sure didn’t feel like it at that point. Anyway, I kept on moving, kept on walking the aid stations taking in everything they had to offer, except food. I don’t know how people eat solid foods when they run. My GU was plenty. And I never actually got sick of it. This loop I started trying the flattened cola and even that wasn’t bad. I wasn’t sure how much I’d want that stuff, but at that point I was enjoying anything and everything they were offering my way. I kept on moving. However at this point, around mile 18-20 it was getting to the point that it was harder to start running from a walk than it was to just keep running. I decided here on out that I was just going to walk through the aid stations but other than that no more walking. It was just easier not to stop. My legs were hurting so bad at that point, but I still had a huge smile on my face, despite the pain. I knew I was an hour or so away from being an ironman. The final 6.2 miles was broken up mile by mile and each one was dedicated to someone in particular who offered me extra support along the way. Those people(in no particular order) are Mike/Cindy, Drew, Maria/Jeremiah, Dad, Mom/David, and Rachel. Each mile I spent focusing on the support and encouragement each one of them offered me throughout my training period. Finally, after 5 hours and 45 minutes I was allowed to make a left into the finishing chute. It started out up a long parking lot, then you were corralled into the final chute. And oh my god this was what it was all about. It felt like me, and thousands of screaming fans. It was an experience like nothing I’d ever felt before in my life. It made the previous 14 hours and 15 minutes worth every grueling second. I slowed down even more. I wanted to take this in as much as possible. The chute bent to the left up ahead so I couldn’t see the finish line just yet. So I went from side to side high fiving as many people as I could. My smile stretched from ear to ear. I was becoming overwhelmed with emotion. As I rounded the bend I saw it. The huge arch with the words “Finish Line” written on it. The main clock. The grand stands. The thousands of people screaming endlessly. I continued going from side to side high fiving everyone. I let out a huge scream. Then about 10 feet away I began running one last time. Each step bringing me closer….the finally, the last time, I crossed the finish line, and that was it. Josh Wexler is an Ironman.

12 months in the making, 10 months of training. Hundreds and hundreds of miles on the bike and pavement. Countless hours in the pool. I can now proudly say, my journey from man to Ironman is officially complete.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

Week 19 wrap up...1 week left!!!!

101 miles,9 hours.

So this was taper week 2. The last full week of training, next week is a few short sessions plus traveling, so this week really wrapped up the last significant training session. My workouts this week were mainly low intensity and a lot of miles on the bike. Everything is looking good. I had a terrible workout on thursday which I couldn't explain. Only a 40 minute run, but no matter how slowly I ran I couldn't keep my heart rate under control. However, today's run was a 90 minute run and I had a much easier time keeping my HR down. Weird, but whatever. Happens I guess. Now I'm truly in rest mode and I'm bored!!!! This next week is going to go slow!
Still a few things left to do. I dropped off my bike yesterday at the bike shop for a final tune up and to be packed up for the flight. Tomorrow I hit up REI for some last minute needs.
I can't believe I'm here. I actually go to arizona in 3 days. This week seemed so incredibly far away when I got started and now it's here. Exactly a week from this moment, I'll be doing the marathon segment of the Ironman.
I don't even really know what to say at this point. This training session has been by far the most difficult thing I've ever endured in my life. I thought marathon and then half ironman training was challenging but this surpassed them by far. Marathon training was really one tough workout per week. Half IM was a lot of training sessions but nothing very long. This was basically the toughest elements of both combined. Tons and tons of very long sessions. The training locations were brutal as well. Because the race is mostly flat I had to seek out flat terrain, which in Asheville is a very difficult thing to do. I was left with really one option for the bike, and two options for the run. I probably logged 400-500 miles on Riverside Drive, which is basically a 10 mile stretch of relatively flat terrain that I had to go back and forth on over and over again. I did virtually all my runs at either Carrier park or the Biltmore estate. The only two places I know of near me that are flat. Needless to say, the running became very dull and monotonous. Fortunately training like that has really helped build up my mental toughness to help with race day, where both the bike and run are loops that are repeated three times each. So I'm used to spending hours and hours on the same terrain.
It seems so strange to be at this week. I never thought I would do an Ironman. I never thought I could stick to the kind of training required for a race of this magnitude. Now that I'm here, I have the feeling that it's not that hard, which I know is crazy. I mean, I've done two 100 mile rides and I felt fine after. I've done several 14-15 mile runs and they too were pretty easy. I have not however, done those kinds of distances after the massive bike rides. But, my short runs following the long rides have gone well. My legs felt really good, even if my HR was pretty high. I really do believe that I'm not going to have a problem. I have trained my butt off. I trust my training and I trust my body. I trust my nutrition program. I also know that I'm going to be hurting out there. But I have persevered through extremely painful ordeals in the past. I survived a stabbing pain in my rib cage during an olympic distance. I managed to finish a run despite a torn up pinky toe that screamed in pain with every step. I survived my first half IM when I experienced horrific "man pain" around mile 4 of the 13 mile run. I know now that I can push through any pain I may experience out there. If it takes me 7 hours to do the marathon so be it. I will cross that finish line. I'm excited, confident, but still incredibly nervous about the race. I have never swam in such cold water, but from what i hear, you adjust to it pretty quickly. I'm a strong swimmer so I know I'll come out of the swim feeling just fine. My 100 mile bike rides taught me a lot, but mostly that I can do that kind of distance and still have a lot of energy left. I really think I'm going to enjoy myself out there. It's going to be a hell of a day and I can't wait to push myself to the brink. There's nothing like the feeling of pushing the boundaries of what your body can do. Crossing the finish line of a mega race is an absolutely indescribable feeling. I've had that experience twice now, each time I reached a new peak. Crossing the marathon finish line and the first half Ironman finish line. Both times the feeling was indescribable. I can't even begin to imagine what it's going to feel like to hear those words, "Josh Wexler, You are an Ironman!"

Woah...10 days to go...

Wow, I'm really getting down to it. Only 10 days till race day. I can't believe it's almost here. Less than a week till I get to Arizona. Two more considerable workouts and then, for all intents and purposes, I'm done. the next week really only consists of very short, easy workouts. basically keeping my body used to the sports, without any intensity or duration. I had a pretty crappy workout today unfortunately. Had a short 40 minute run where I just could not keep my heart rate down despite going incredibly slow. so about halfway through I just gave up on monitoring my heart rate and just started running. It still didn't feel all that hard, but my HR was pretty high. Maybe it was the wind and the cold, I dunno. Just lousy. I hope this weekends goes better than that. Should be perfect weather for it though. I have a 45 min swim/3 hour ride brick on saturday. I really don't feel like doing it, but what are ya gonna do. I'm done cycling workouts after that. Not a moment too soon either as my bike is really not running all that smoothly. Making a lot of clicking noises and it's very annoying. Probably just a matter of needing a tune and clean up. Hope anyway.
It's been quite a ride so far. It's almost over. I'm excited and nervous about race day. I've read a lot of stories about it and it really could go many different ways. However the 10 day forecast is calling for ideal weather. Upper 70's, no rain, no humidity. No mention of winds though, which is going to be the big thing. The race has been known for it's winds. So I'm really really hoping for a calm down. I think I'll be solid if the winds are calm, if they're not...gonna be a long bike ride.

Week 18 wrap up

12.4 hours, 144 miles.
My first week of two, of taper period. Man if feels good to be here. After the crazy workload over October this week was a breeze. The workouts dropped off significantly this week, although I still a few good solid workouts. Had a nearly 2 mile swim, a 2 hour run, and a 3 hour bike ride. But all workouts at this point are light and easy, mostly aerobic affairs. At this point like the program author said, it's about keeping the sword sharp, but rested. This next week is even less. I did about 50 miles yesterday and it was a piece of cake. The only thing slowing me down lately I think is the weather. My speed was peaking just at the end of summer. When it was still warm but not hot. Once the cool weather came in my speed started to slow. I don't know if it was due to being more worn down or the cold weather, but it definitely coincided. For a while, even on my long bike rides I was averaging around 18.5 mph, but now I'm closer to 16.5. I'm hoping its the weather cause Arizona's weather is going to be closer to what the weather was during my peak performance period. But whatever, I want to finish. Faster would be better, but ultimately I want to cross that finish line. I don't think I'm really going to care what my time was, I'm just going to cherish the memory of completing such a huge accomplishment.
So I only have 14 more days to go will the Ironman. Two weeks from today. Only about 10 days till I actually ship out. Holy crap!! I'm starting to get very excited for the big day. The nerves are finally starting to hit me. I just want to get there. I think getting into the atmosphere of everything is really going to get me excited. I can't wait to see the stars of the sport. I'm definitely going to attend the pro media session. That'll be pretty neat and inspiring to see the best in the world. Well thats about it for today I suppose. Only one real week of training left, and even at that, it's not much. Only two days are really significant. I have a brick consisting of a 45 min swim/3 hour bike, then the next day a 90 minute run. At that point, training is basically done. Until next time....

week 17(hell month) wrap up

62 miles, 6.5 hours
This was a wonderful week, despite getting sick. Not surprisingly, as a lot of endurance athletes will attest to, I got sick this week. Two days after my longest workout of the season, and the most intense and brutal month of training I've ever endured in my life. During hell month I racked up a total of over 800 miles in about 70 hours of total training. Some of the highlights of that month were rides in length of 80, 87, 100, 100. Runs of 13, 14,15 miles, and several 2 mile plus swims. I also did a half ironman during that time. It was an unbelievable month of training and I can't believe it's finally behind me. I had been looking at that month since the beginning of the year, before I ever started training, but had decided on a training program. I wondered how I'd get through that time. I'm amazed with how far I've come. Now, it's nearly November and the race is really just around the corner. With the worst of training behind me I'm entering the taper period. Training isn't "easy" at this point, it's certainly a lot less intense but there are still quite a few big workouts ahead of me. I have two more 3 hour rides. One of which will come immediately after a 45 minute swim. I have a 3 hour bike/run brick, with an hour of cycling and 2 hours of running. But honestly at this point, that seems like nothing. I should breeze through the remainder of my sessions.
I had a really good run yesterday, FINALLY! It's been a while since I got done running and was happy with it. I really need to continue eating smart, hydrating, and not quit quite yet. Although the training is lighter, its still not easy. After this week it really tapers off, to almost half of what I'm doing this week.
I'm just so excited to see the race around the corner. I'm feeling great about every aspect of the race. I'm not scared about the swim, I know I can ride 112 miles. I know I'm going to get out of the swim feeling just fine since I did a 75 minute open water swim a couple weeks ago and wasn't the least bit tired after emerging. Once I get to the marathon, I know it's a matter of just grinding it out. I don't care if I walk the entire thing, but I do know that I will cross the finish line and hear those magic words. I really hope that every who's able will try to follow me on the big day. It will be so motivating to know that my friends and family who weren't able to make it will still be back at home cheering me on and following my progress throughout the day.
Well, I guess that covers it. Time to get back to school work and training!
See ya soon!

Week 16(hell week/month) wrap up

Week 16, 188 miles, 17 hours

Holy crap what a week! I remember looking at this week nearly a year ago, when I first signed up to do the Ironman and wondered how on earth I would ever get through such a grueling week. The highlights of this week included starting out with a 2.2 mile pool swim, a 3 hour run, a 6 hour bike ride. Those were just the highlights, on top of that I had another nearly 1.5 hour run, a 3 hour brick(swim/bike), among other things.

So to summarize, the long sessions didn't go as well as I'd have liked. The run, I expected to be near 16 miles based on previous sessions, wound up only being 14.3. I was a lot slower than I thought I'd be, considering the week before I did over 15 miles in 5 less minutes. The bike ride, where last week I covered 100 miles in 5:40, this week it took me 6 hours to cover the same distance. One thing may have been that I forgot to fill my tires so there was a bit more drag than there normally would've been, and the wind was a bit strong. Still, not valid enough for the huge drop off. I'm not feeling great today, so I might be fighting off a cold as well. However, one huge positive to come out of it was my nutrition was solid. I never felt even the slightest pinge of hunger. I used 3 scoops of perpetuem per bottle and used GU every 45 minutes. My legs still felt really good for the short run portion. Unless I can figure out how to keep my HR down on race day during the bike leg, I full expect to spend a very large amount of time on the run walking. Thats ok, a finisher is a finisher!

It was quite a feeling to finish up yesterday. The hardest workouts are now behind me. I had the long run(3 hours) and the long bike(6 hours). Now I have a recovery week this week. Hopefully it does me good. I'm down to 26 days till the race, and really only about 19 days of any real serious training sessions. At this point the longest run left is 2 hours and the longest bike is 3. Still some opportunities to build some confidence and work on keeping that bike HR down. I'm thinking the cold weather may be playing a part, especially on the bike. My body is having to work harder to keep my body warm. It's crazy to think about how far I've come. I remember when the 2 hour bike ride was the long ride. A 1.5 hour run was a long time. Those have now become my typical midweek distances(well, not the run, that's still pretty long). But 2 hour midweek rides have become the norm. It's so exciting to know the race is just over the horizon. I'm finding myself thinking about it waaay too much, especially when I'm trying to get to sleep at night. I imagine I won't sleep a whole lot the night of the race.

Well, I guess that about covers it for this past week. Hell week/month is finally over! I've been looking forward to saying that for a long long time. Now it's time to take it easy, enjoy recovery and tapering and start setting my eyes on the prize....IRONMAN ARIZONA HERE I COME!!!

The final month begins.....

Holy crap! In one month I'll actually be competing in an ironman. I still vividly remember thinking a few years ago several hours after I completed my first Half Ironman that I would still have several hours to go for a full ironman and there was no way in hell I would ever do a full. It wasn't that I didn't think I could, I had no desire to ever put myself through that kind of torture.
Well, It's amazing what a year of marriage will do to you. After a year of marriage, a full ironman can't be all that bad, it's only 15 hours or so :) haha!!!! I hope rachel reads this.

But I digress, it's truly amazing to look back and what I've accomplished so far. Before getting into this the longest I ever swam was about 1.5 miles or so. The longest bike ride I'd done was 68 miles. I had run a marathon, however, running a marathon first thing in the morning, after a nice breakfast, on fresh legs in 55 degree weather and dressed exactly how you want is a whole different affair than starting out in late afternoon, god knows what kind of weather, after 1.5 hours of swimming and 6.5-7 hours of cycling, and likely food deprived and slightly dehydrated. It's truly a war of attrition with yourself. Nothing can really prepare you for a run like that. Even in training you don't come anywhere near running that distance after a ride like that. Hell, you don't come anywhere near that distance with fresh legs. I'm likely to max out around 16 miles tomorrow, and that'll be first thing in the am on fresh legs.

That all being said, I'm feeling super confident. Some of my milestones so far are multiple 4000 yard pool swims, which is about 2.3 miles. I did an open water swim of about 2.2-2.3 miles in 1 hour 15 minutes and it felt super easy. I did my first 100 mile ride, as well as several 80-90 plus mile rides and although i didn't run far after them I did do short runs afterwards and my legs felt surprisingly good considering. When I look back several months ago, before training even began, I was looking at the weeks I'm going through now and wondered how I'd ever get through this month. I'm currently 3 workouts away from completing the most tortuous section of the training schedule. So far this week I've done a 35 mile ride, a 25 mile ride, a 2 mile swim a 6.5 mile run and a 4 mile run, plus the 25 mile ride came right after 1 mile swim. Still left ahead of me this week is a 16 mile run tomorrow morning, an hour long swim, then on monday the beast, a 6 hour ride with a 25 minute run. Best guesses are I'll be around 105 miles on the bike and a 2 mile run. Four months ago the idea of that would've terrified me, but sitting here now I'm not remotely worried. I'm not really looking forward to the ride cause 105 miles on a 10 mile road that you go back and forth on over and over is one of the most boring things imaginable. But the good thing is that every minute I ride, is one minute closer to closing the chapter of Base 3(hell month). Just today I had an extremely encouraging ride. It was fairly windy and my past few rides I haven't been very disciplined. I had been intending to keep my HR down, but as I watched my speed, the HR thing sort of flew out the window and I wound up hovering around 150 most of the time, far far too high for such a long period of time. Come race day I have GOT to keep my HR down if i want to be able to run a marathon after the bike. Today I finally stuck with it and focused on keeping my HR in check. It was a shorter ride, but I've never kept my HR down this low for 2 hours, and I wasn't overly slow either. I was right at 17 mph and kept my HR in the 120's for teh whole ride. There were a couple spikes, which is to be expected since there are a few tiny climbs(enough to make you work) and there were a few patches of stiff head winds which forced me to work a bit. All in all it was quite encouraging and I hope to be able to put that to the test on monday, which will really be my final bike test.
It's been quite a ride so far, and it's weird to be this close after so much work.

32 days left till Ironman

Wow. I'm really starting to get down to it. One month from tomorrow is the big day. I can't believe how far I've come. This is the final week of intensive training. I remember looking at this week almost a year ago and wondering how I was going to manage to get through it. 18 hours total. A 2 hour swim/bike, a 2 mile swim, an 80 minute run, a 3 hour/16 mile run and a 6 hour bike ride(the last two I haven't done), but so far I've made it through all the rest, and I have no worries about completing the remaining workouts done. I'm feeling great, very little soreness. No trouble with sleeping, my weight has finally stabilized.
Today was a fun run. I thought I had waited out the rain, turns out I only waited out a window. It was nice to start and about 30 minutes into the run the rain began, and then the downpour began. Oh well. Got through it. Soaked to the bone, but managed to get through.

I'm getting really excited about race day at this point. By monday afternoon I will be finished with my toughest workouts. Then I'll have a recovery week before I begin the 3 weeks of tapering. I can't believe I've made it here! Only a short time to go!

Week 15 wrap up

I haven't posted in about two weeks. I just completely forgot. Been a crazy couple of weeks since the half IM. I've put it some massive bike rides and runs. The swimming has been going well, and did my longest open water swim I've ever done.

So this past week I did about 16 hours and 175 total miles. I did my longest bike ride and run this week to the tune of a 100 miler yesterday and a 15 mile run on thursday. I did my longest open water swim on friday which was about 2.2 to 2.5 miles. It was pretty hard to judge how far I went, but I swam for 75 minutes. During my Half IM, which was a 1.2 mile swim, it took me 38 minutes. I did twice that time and I felt that I was faster on friday, so thats my best guess. I'm feeling surprisingly good today, despite the 100 mile ride yesterday. I thought I was well prepared but of course, I got out there and I was missing gloves. The temperature at the time I started was 38 degrees and the sun had not yet risen. I can confidently tell you that it takes about 5 minutes for your hands to start screaming in pain from cold and about 15-20 more minutes for that pain to turn to numbness, at least the pain went away. I was plenty warm otherwise, but the temp rose about 25 degrees while I was out there so I had to shed a few layers along the way.
Anyway, I'm still having a hard time determining how fast I might be on race day. I think the cold weather jacks my heart rate up just like the hot weather does. It takes me a pretty long time to settle in and warm up on the bike, because my HR shot up to 160 in the first 20 minutes until it finally settled in around 140-145 for the most part. Still I feel thats a little high considering the speed I've been riding. I am expecting to be slightly faster on race day with warmer temps and less changing gradient. Despite the relative flatness of where I've been riding, there are still some stretches that have some gradient for a long period of time. I am averaging just a tad under 18 mph once I get myself settled in. It's been interesting, my first lap has been far slower than the rest of them lately. I guess it just takes some time to warm up. Fortunately on race day, I'l be plenty warmed up for the bike after 80 minutes of swimming.
So I finished the 100 miler in about 5 hours 40 minutes. I was only supposed to ride for 5:30, but had gotten to 97 miles, and just couldn't finish short by 3 measly miles. Let me tell you though...those 3 are some seriously tough miles! I went through 6 GU's, 3 bottles of sport drink(2 perpetuem, 1 HEED) and 2 bottles of water. On race day I need to take in one more and still have to figure out my strategy to have plenty out there. I only have one special needs area that I can have more of my sport drink available. I experience a few random aches and pains in my knees and hips, but they all went away as soon as they came up. I had a short 20 minute run after that was a bit tougher than the others have been. It was hotter, I was more worn down, and there were a couple steep hills to go up. Very short, but very steep. On race day I will probably run out of the TA, however, I think I will probably walk for a good while till my HR comes down to a reasonable level, 140 or so. I am still feeling very confident about race day.

So I had two runs in the past two weeks that were very long. One went great, the other went horribly. The run two weeks ago was a 2.5 hour run, with the middle two hours being a tempo run. This run also came just 5 days after the Half Ironman. I don't think I was completely recovered yet from that race. Right off the bat my HR was pretty high, up to the 140's within the first minute. Not a good sign. So by the time I got to 15 minutes I was already in the 150's as I had to start the tempo pace, not a good sign. So I took off, at first averaging under 10 min/mile. That didn't last long. Over the two hours I slowed down pretty quickly and wore down badly by the end. By the end I was "running" around a 14 min/mile pace and had an HR in the 180's. Even during my walk breaks it didn't drop at all. I was light headed and could barely hold my body up. I felt extremely dehydrated and improperly fueled. I hadn't eaten nearly enough carbs and wasn't drinking enough water that week. I think I could've handled that run much better had I been properly prepared. Despite it being a tempo run(fast pace), it turned out to be one of my slowest, if not the slowest, run I've had this season. I averaged over a 12.5 min/mile pace over the course of the whole thing. Despite how badly it went, those are the workouts that really give you confidence because I still finished. Despite how awful I felt, and wanted to quit, I refused to, and still finished, while at the same time, learning a valuable lesson.
Contrast that to the long run this past week. Fortunately, I learned from the mistakes of the week before and drank tons of water and ate a ton of carbs. I went into thursdays run feeling very good, but still nervous after the previous weeks fiasco. Plus it was the longest run of the season. This run went precisely as I had hoped. I maintained a good pace(11:37 min/mile) while walking for a minute every five minutes, so my running pace was under 11. My HR averaged only 141 and maxed at 174. I'm not sure when I hit that max cause I don't remember every feeling that I was breathing hard. I went through a GU every 30 minutes and 5 small bottles of HEED every ten minutes. That breakdown seemed to work, but I still wasn't beaten up from a long ride before hand. I will probably need to take in extra nutrition on race day, plus electolytes. Chicken broth has been highly recommended to have at the special needs station so I will heed that advice.
Lastly, my big swim. There wasn't much to say cause it went so well. I went to lake james and found a large cove and just swam back and forth till I made the time. The water was in the low 70's, cold, but not nearly as cold as arizona will be. But I warmed up fairly quickly and eventually didn't notice it. I hope that happens on race day. I felt really good in the swim, never pushed real hard, and was able to maintain bilateral breathing the whole time. There was some chop as there was some heavy winds but nothing too bad. I'm hoping that with all the swimmers a current may develop and make the swim faster. But who knows. It'll definitely be a tough swim with 2500 of us starting at the same time. I'm very confident in the swim at this point and all I want to do is get out of the water still feeling good and relaxed. I finished this swim with an HR of around 120, so that was very encouraging.

So all in all I had a very good two weeks. Swimming is as expected, solid. My cycling is still slow, but I'm able to ride super long distances and I'm feeling comfortable with it. No serious issues, and my legs are proving to still work after such a massive ride. And my runs are feeling easy and comfortable. Race day can't get here soon enough!

South Carolina Half Ironman Race Report

10/1/2011
Ninety-Six, Sc
South Carolina Half Ironman

Total 6:17:15
Splits: Swim 38:40, Bike 3:12:10, Run 2:23:11

Venue and Race Setup: For the most part I was very happy with this race. The volunteers were phenomenal and the course and direction from volunteers was terrific. The weather was perfect, so I’m really glad they pushed it back from August. The post race food was very good too. And it was a beautiful finish line. Up on a hill overlooking the lake. Almost nothing to complain about. The only problem I had was there was a lot of very rough stretches of pavement that was really really uncomfortable. But again, nothing the race people can do about that. I would definitely consider doing this race again. It was a really good time.


Pregame: The day started off amazing for a race. We got there nice and early and it was still pretty cool. However, by the time I got all my gear set up and ready to go, the sun started rising over the lake, which made for an absolutely gorgeous sun rise, the temp started rising just enough to make it comfortable. It was probably in the mid 50’s by the time the start gun was starting, and it was looking like a perfect day for a race. The water was a balmy 76, which made getting in easy, but the thought of getting out terrifying. Who wants to get out of 76 degree water into 55 degree air? But oh well. As we all started walking towards the swim start, one fellow racer was kind enough to make the comment, “I hope that current isn’t as strong as it looks. Thanks dude…I hadn’t noticed, but after he mentioned that I took a look…there was clearly a strong left to right breeze, which had the main channel of the lake looking more like a river than a lake. And of course, the swim course took a left turn, and took the bulk of the swim straight into the current. I’ll worry about that later.

Swim: The swim wave was the largest wave I’ve ever been a part of. They had all male category’s start out together, which is not something I’ve ever seen before. But it wasn’t a very big race, so I guess it made sense to start everyone together. There were probably 60 or so people in the wave. Bigger than I’m used to, but still not quite the 2500 person wave I’ll be seeing in a few weeks. Didn’t matter, I didn’t have too many collisions with anyone else, and those I did have weren’t bad. I did get whacked in the back of the head by someone…not sure where that guy learned to swim, that his arm flew that wide, but I digress.
What did make the swim so difficult was the fact that the sun was rising almost directly in front of us on the first leg. As my goggles fogged up, it became incredibly difficult to see anything in front of me. I could barely see any of the buoy’s, so I had to rely on the rest of the swimmers for sighting. I just made sure I was going the same direction as they were, and that worked for the most part. Every now and then if I took extra time I could make out a buoy, but not usually till I was a lot closer to it. I just wanted to get to the turn, cause then the sun would be behind us and I’d be able to see better. Well, I got to it, made the turn, and no, the theory was incorrect. The sun was behind us, but the current was rough. This time you couldn’t see because every time you looked up you got smacked in the face with a wave. That was fun. I think I took on as much water as I did air. If that next leg was 1/3 of a mile, then I probably swam 2/3 of a mile. I wish I could have had my swim tracked cause it probably would’ve looked like a huge S shape. At one point I was on the far left of the main bulk of the swimmers, so I tried moving closer to get back into the draft…the next thing I knew I was on the far right of them. I don’t know how that happened. I just remember thinking, “what the….? “ Well, that leg still managed to go better than I had expected and I got to the final turn buoy and the final leg, still feeling great by the way. The final leg went very smooth. I felt like I actually went straight for once, there was no current and no sun. Sighting was easy, I tried to take it nice and easy, I still had another 6 hours of race ahead of me, and I just wanted to get out of the water feeling relaxed. Well, mission accomplished. I got to the end and felt like I could easily have done the swim again. I was faster than I planned and felt more relaxed than I expected to. All in all, very happy with the swim.

T1: Wasn’t too bad of a run from the swim to the transition area. I took my time, jogged a little bit, but nothing too much. Really took my time when I got to my bike. I had already had my chest strap on so I just had to put on my watch, gloves, and socks aside from the normal gear. Didn’t really rush, but didn’t slack either. My total time was 1:52. Not great, but considering how little I rushed it seemed faster than expected.

Bike: Once I got out on the bike, my HR started at a staggering 176. I couldn’t believe it was that high cause I wasn’t breathing heavy at all, and unfortunately the first mile or so was mostly uphill so there was no bringing it down for a while. Finally once I got on to the main road I was able to settle in and bring my HR back down to a reasonable level. The course was mostly rolling with a few long flat stretches. The first 20 miles wasn’t too bad and I maintained a pretty strong pace considering my effort level. I can’t remember for sure what my HR was for the first half, but I do remember running a bit high the whole time. Miles 20-40 were a bear. Mile 20 was at a sharp right hand turn, and the moment we made the turn, there was a nasty head wind that smacked me right in the face, and it really never let up for a long time. For the next 20 miles I had to deal with a stiff wind that went from mild to tough the whole way, but never really stopped. There was one flat stretch that I couldn’t go more than 13 mph. Then every now and then a big gust would come up and almost stop you. After mile 40 it let up a little bit, but still never totally stopped. From about 40-52 the wind would come and go. I tried to take breaks as best I could but there were really hardly any long stretches were you could coast and recover. The best I could do was get it back down to the 130’s but whenever that happened there would be another hill to climb so it would just go right back up. The final 4 miles were really about the only time you could truly rest and recover because it was mostly downhill and the wind finally starting blowing from the back. I don’t remember what my HR was when I finished but I felt pretty good, though my legs were starting to get kind of sore.

T2: This was a pretty easy transition. Already had my shoes off, so it was just a matter of removing the helmet and gloves, putting on my running shoes, hat, belts, and I was off. The run started out really hard. The run consisted of 2 out and backs of 3 miles. So it was 3 miles out, 3 miles back, repeat. The way out was significantly harder than the return trip. My strategy was to run for 5 minutes and walk for 1. It worked exceedingly well. I felt great through the entire run. On the out trip my HR stayed around 170 or so, and would drop to the 160’s on the walk. However, the return trip it tended to stay in the 160’s, and dropped into the low 150’s, even the 140’s on the walks. There were a lot more opportunities to recover even while running on the return trip because of the more downhill nature. I felt great after the first leg, and felt that if I still felt good at mile 10 I would start pushing the pace a bit more. I think for the first 10 miles or so I was averaging around an 11:30 mile. I got to mile 10 and new I still had a lot of gas left, so I picked up the pace. Probably to about a 10 min mile. I knew if I could make it back to the park road, it was about 1.5 miles from there, I could pick up the pace further cause it was almost all downhill from there. I made it back there got my final gel and water, and picked it up again. I picked up to a 9 min pace, and once I hit the 12 mile sign I knew I could finish without another break. I probably slowed slightly but not much. I just kept moving cause the finish was in my sights. I knew at this point it was just a quick run around the parking lot, around the finishing hill, and then the short, but steep climb to the finshing line. I knocked out that finish and still felt pretty good coming through the gate.

Sumary: This was a great prep for Ironman Arizona. I tried to employ a lot of the strategies and pacing goals that I had for the full Ironman. A couple differences: The rolling nature of the course compared to Arizona. There were a lot of opportunities to coast were there will be very few in Arizona, however, there also will not be any HR rocketing climbs. I should be able to maintain a more stready HR in the Ironman than I was able to do at the Half. I have got to be more disciplined in keeping my HR in check in the full, regardless of what that does to my overall time. My goal is to finish, not get a certain time. I need to keep it around 140 for the full, not 161 like I did yesterday. That is too high. I still felt fine going into the run, however, add 56 miles to that and it might be a different story. I need to take in more calories on the bike. More gels, drinks, whatever, I got too hungry on the run, and another 6 hours out there would’ve been incredibly difficult. I think for race day I will consume a gel every 30 min instead of every 45. Rather take in too much than not enough. Need to do some more adjustments on the saddle. Everything felt good except my back. I haven’t felt that back pain in some time, however all other pains have been alleviated with the new seat. I have no complaints about my run. I stuck to my plan for the whole race. Early on it was kind of tough because I felt really good, I was doing my walks when I still felt strong enough to run, but I stuck with it. My run will be even better if I stick to the plan on the bike. The run I will stick with the 5:1 strategy on race day. Again, if I’m feeling great towards the end I’ll pick up the pace, but I’m going to keep the ratio.

Goals for my next bike rides….we’re going for easy HR NOT speed. I have got to keep my HR in check on my future rides. That will help me keep disciplined on race day if I start working on it now. Forget about reaching certain distances, keep your HR in check.
The next long run I am going to switch to the 5:1 but maybe increase the pace a bit. The 5:1 didn’t seem to be all that much slower, but I walked a bit faster. I’m going to see how that goes for my next long run. But all in all I’m happy with my running, very happy with the swim, and I need to get more disciplined on the bike. Great day for a race and I’m very happy with my performance. Next stop IRONMAN ARIZONA!!!!

week 12 wrap up

Total Miles 151.72, Total Hours 13.39

So I had to switch weeks up to accommodate next weeks half ironman. This week was supposed to be the recovery week but instead I did the next base period's week 1. Which worked out cause next period is a 5 week time frame, so fortunately I'll only have three grueling weeks before the final recovery week. Anyway, on to this past week...So this week I had two brick workouts. One was a 2 hour bike and a 1 hour run the other was a 4 hr 20 min bike with a 30 min run. Both went well. The bike was the longest of my life and was tough, but felt good for the run, surprisingly.
My long run was over 11 miles, with the final 30 minutes at a tough pace. The swims were long, but felt nice and easy. All in all, quite a good week but very ready for my recovery week.
Still feeling excited and confident about the ironman. Everything is falling into place and I'm rearing to go, and ready for the big day to get here. I just have 3 of the toughest weeks left after next week. If i can get through october, I'm good to go... Feeling good!

Day 121 of Ironman training, 59 days till the race

So today was brutal. Today was a 130 minute run, with 100 easy and the final 30 hard. Even the easy part wasn't all that easy. The humidity returned, though it wasn't hot, and made it a pretty tough day. My heart rate was pretty high for the whole thing, and then screaming high for the final 30. I think we did about 11.2 miles in 2 hrs 10 minutes. Pretty slow pace, but for the end. I'm still worn out from it, and I still have another workout later tonight. 2400 yard swim. Well, just thought I'd write up the run. It was a doozy.

61 days left until Ironman

Training is really starting to just move along smoothly. As hard and long as the sessions are becoming, they're becoming easier and easier to do. Today I did a 3 hour workout which consisted of a 2 hour ride followed by a 1 hour run. The rides are getting so much better. I'm amazed at the difference in comfort level by switching shorts and getting my seat set up slightly different. I'm not experience any more major pain. The run was about as easy as you could expect a 1 hour run to be, especially following a 35 mile bike ride. Legs felt good and fresh. Almost as if I was the first workout of the day. Today was also one of the more miserable weather rides I've had so far. It wasn't terribly cold, but it did rain on me for the first hour of the bike. The roads were also wet, so it took about 10 minutes for my socks to become completely saturated and cold. It didn't stop me, or even slow me down. I just kept moving along and it didn't bother me in the least. I was SOOOO thankful to myself for remembering to bring a new pair of socks for the run. The run would've been pretty miserable had I not thought about that. So far in training I've dealt with heat, extreme humidity, rain, and cold. Nothing's stopped...thought the extreme humidity was by far, the most difficult for me to deal with. I was slow and miserable throughout the entire ordeal...but at least of all the weather elements, that is one that I know I won't have to worry about in Arizona. Maybe heat, cold, even rain, but humidity is the only one that will stop me

Week 11 wrap up

Week 11, 212 miles, 13.9 hours.

What an awesome week of training! This was my bike focused week and the one I was most dreading. Biking has not exactly been my strong suit or something I ever look forward to doing. Swimming has been my strongest sport for some time, running is something I'm finally seeing a lot of improvement in, and am feeling more and more comfortable at longer and longer distances. Cycling has been the one sport where I've been the most reluctant and worried about come race day. I haven't felt strong, I get sore easily, and haven't felt like I've seen any improvement. This week started changing my thoughts on that. The first three days were cycling with constant increases in distance. Wednesday was a tempo ride, where I maintained nearly 20 mph for 90 minutes straight, with 2 significant climbs mixed in. Saturday was another long ride, followed by an easy 30 minute run. Sunday was the monster day. It was my longest ride of my life and it felt really good, and gave me another huge jolt of encouragement. It was a 4 hour long ride and I rode 75 miles. Another discovery I made was that I was actually more comfortable in tri shorts compared to cycling specific shorts. I didn't feel the same incredible pain in my nether regions that I did with other shorts, with more padding. Still felt some obviously friction pain along the top part of the inside of my thigh, but nothing I wasn't able to tolerate.
Awesome weekend of riding and I feel a lot better about my cycling skills as a result of this week.
Normally I'd be entering my recovery week now, but because of the Half IM in two weeks I've switched weeks. So i'm going on 4 straight tough weeks now, and next week will be a recovery. At least that means that after that week I'll only have two tough weeks till the next recovery. Cycling and running are both going to really start ramping up in the coming weeks. Going to be a very tough next month. However, I have no doubts as to my ability to get through it.

Week 10 wrap up

Totals: 106.3 miles, 12.4 hours.

This was the Run focused week. This week I ran 36 miles. I did a total of 106 miles, and a total of 12.4 hours. This week was far better than last and I felt great through most of my workouts. I say most because I had a pretty tough run on friday. Was very slow and sluggish, but it was the third day in a row of running. However the virtual day off on saturday, where all I did was an easy 1500 yard swim rejuvenated me. I did my first, "half marathon" distance in about a year but it was one of the easiest runs I've ever done. I felt great the whole time, even had a negative split. My HR started rising to the 170's by the end of the run but I never felt out of breath. I felt as if I easily could've gone on for a while longer. I had some really good swim sessions. I had two high intensity sessions which was the run on tuesday and the bike on friday. The run session was 90 minutes consisted of seven 10 minute repeats of 7 minute tempo sessions with 3 minute rests. The bike session was a 90 minute session with 6 repeats of 12 minute tempos with 3 minutes of RPE 3.
All in all it was a really good week of training, especially considering how rotten last week was. Next week comes the bike focused week which should be a joy. Though sunday I will perform my longest bike ride of my life. The week after was supposed to be my recovery, however because of the Half Ironman on Oct 1st, I'm switching weeks, so I'm going to be pretty beat by the time that week gets here.

Week 9 wrap up

Week 9 - Swim Theme week....Total hours: 6.75, Total Miles: 56

This was the first week of the sport specific weeks. This week's focus was the swim. Fortunately, the swim being my strongest event this was the one week I could afford to screw around, and boy did I ever. I missed two workouts this week...the first time all season I'd missed a single workout, and both of them were swims. My Saturday workout was by far the most challenging and it consisted of a 60 min run, 90 min bike, 30 min swim. All in that order, all back to back. Basically the equivalent of an Olympic distance triathlon. I sucked in all three. I mean, seriously sucked. Hoover would've had nothing on me. My run was absolute garbage. My bike was even more pathetic. I normally can routinely average about 18-19 mph on flat ground for 2-3 hours and I averaged a whopping 13.7. PATHETIC! My swim was hard to gauge. It came at the end of the bike and run, and it was in the ocean, which I've never done before, and hope to not have to repeat any time soon. That was REALLY tough by having nothing to site by and having waves crashing on you while trying to breath. So I won't whine too much about those.

All in all, it was an absolutely horrid week of training. I feel like it was a complete lost cause. As a result I'm going to push myself a lot harder in the coming week and probably increase some of my training day durations to make up for what I feel like was a waste of a week. Already had a couple good workouts so far this week, but I'm going to up my biking distances since that is easily my worst sport. Part of that could be due to the fact that I really think I'm riding on either the wrong saddle or an incorrectly positioned saddle. Going to mess with that a little bit before my long ride on friday. Hopefully I can fix it.

Well, that's that for week 9. What a waste.

Week 8 Wrap up

Week 8, Recovery Week: 84 miles, 10.8 hours

Well, my recovery week is over. It was a very welcomed and highly needed week. I had a couple really lousy workouts this week, which was kind of weird, considering I was more rested than normal. My thursday run was 45 minutes, and within a minute or two my heart rate jumped up to 140...normally it would take closer to 15-20 minutes before it gets that high. My walk breaks did nothing to bring it down and by the end I had topped out over 170. My legs felt very sluggish and heavy and felt like crap the whole time. I did a bike ride following a short swim saturday and my HR was higher than normal for a bike ride, and I was slower than I normally would be. Things changed on the run today. I did a 90 minute run and did 8 miles. My HR averaged 143 and barely went over 150 until the very end. I felt good the entire time, so I was at least happy to end the week on a high note. Next week is going to be a swim focused week which I'm super psyched about. But I'm trying to not think about that and enjoy the rest of my day.

Week 7 Wrap up

Week 7: Swim 8,950 yards, Bike 128 miles, Run 19.9 miles Total 155 miles, 14.6 hours.

This was by far the most difficult week to get through. The long bike on Saturday was a bit slower than the the same ride the previous week, but I was only on my 9th consecutive day of training without a day off, and it was the first time I started questioning why I was doing this. I really started thinking that I wished I wasn't doing this anymore. However, the run following the ride again went really well, slightly easier than it felt the week before. This was the first week with 7 days of training without a break. Somehow I got through it. It also had the longest run of the season so far of 2 hours, just over 10 miles. It was actually quite an easy run considering the duration. I felt good the whole time and probably could've gone considerably longer. I also had my longest swim of the season at 4,000 yards, nearly the distance of the race swim. It too wasn't very difficult, though it was broken up into several sets instead of just a long slow grind. This was the hardest week, and unfortunately I have tougher one's coming. But I am about halfway through the most grueling part of the schedule. The coming week is a recovery week and should be very easy. The next two base periods will consist of 6 considerably more challenging training weeks with 2 recovery weeks, then the final period will be tapering down. So I feel that I'm about half way through at this point. I'm going to make it! I'm definitely going to make it. I'm excited about the race day and think about it a lot. I'm going to start my race day planning, such as figuring out where the water drops and water stops are. Where I'm going to catch and say hi to my family, most of all my wife! I hope to be able to see them a lot so I can break the race up into smaller segments. So I can think about just seeing them each time instead of the long grind of the day! Its going to be a hell of a day. I haven't even done a 4 hour training session yet, and race day will be between 14-17...holy crap!!!!

Week 6 wrap up, a few days late

I finished up week six a few days ago, just haven't gotten around to writing it up yet. For this week, I ended up logging about 143 miles and . My big workouts of the week were a 9 mile run, a 55 mile bike/2.5 mile run brick, and a 2 mile swim.
The 9 mile run consisted of 75 minutes easy, and 25 minutes at basically tempo pace. I did the last 25 at a bit under 9 min/mile. I was very happy with that, especially considering I did that after running for 75 minutes already. The brick was my best workout of the season so far. After running into an old training coach from charlotte, who told me I really needed pick up my mileage I started doing more flat rides of more distance. This was another of those, I averaged around 18 mph for 3 hours, then did 2.5 miles of running after. The run felt surprisingly good, as I expected my legs to feel sluggish, however I felt surprisingly fresh. I certainly wore out towards the end, but that may have been due to the fact that the final half mile was up hill. I was ecstatic about that workout and it gave me a lot of motivation going forwards. My long swim was 3500 yards, or roughly 2 miles. It was a mental grind, as it consisted of 2 sets of 1500 yards that was not easy to get through. Felt like a very long day, but I made it.

So for the week I logged about 14 hours and 143 miles. Very happy with my progress so far, but still a long road to go.

41 days down, 99 days to go, and my best workout of the season!

So today was one of the workout days I've been dreading for some time. The always scary, brick workout. This is when you do a long bike ride and follow it immediately with a run. The run usually involves hopping off the bike and initially hoping your legs hold you up. Then the run typically feels as if you cut a tennis ball in half, and glued those halves to the bottom of your shoes. Then once your legs begin to resemble a normal feeling, you realize you're gasping for air and just hoping to finish.
Well, fortunately for me, nothing like that happened. I did a 55 mile bike ride in just over 3 hours. I hopped off and surprisingly my legs felt nearly as fresh as they did at the beginning. I went off on my run and to my amazement I had a hard time running at my typical slow pace, i was running nearly 2 min/mile faster. I had to force myself to slow down and pace myself. I wound up running about 2.5 miles in 30 minutes. Overall it wound up being a shade under 12 min/mile but the goal was to do it and feel good after. Granted, on race day i'll have to cycle twice as far and run 10 times as far, but it was a great confidence boosting day and made me feel very good about my cycling, which is the section I'm most fearful of on race day. I'm really glad to have had this workout and even more glad that it's over, at least until next week when I get to do it again. Weekly wrap up comes tomorrow night.

40 days down, 100 days till the Ironman

Hit the century mark today! 100 days to go. And it's going to be a brutal 100 days. Still so early, yet the training is really killer. I had a day off Wednesday, and my next one won't come till next monday. Yep, 9 straight days. 2 are down, so that leaves 7 more...that'll be a glorious day of nothing.
Today I accomplished another personal high. I swam 3500 yards in 1:06. My previous high was 3000 yards. I did it fairly easy, as easy as that distance can be. The main set was 2x1500. Basically getting some training in easy, long distance swimming. Good god is it boring! I'm hoping race day will be a bit more exciting, plus I won't be in all that much of a hurry considering my prize for getting done is a 112 mile bike ride through the desert. Maybe my swim will take longer than I except!
Feeling good, but quite tired these days. Tomorrow I have a brick, 3 hour bike ride followed by a 30 minute easy run. Course, nothing will be easy bout that run. Tune in tomorrow to see how that goes.

39 Days down, 101 days to go!

Since my last entry I've done a few more days that I meant to write up and as usual forgot. Today's friday morning,and if I remember(highly unlikely) I'll write up today's swim tonight.

On monday, the day after my 50 mile bike ride, I did a swim and a bike. The swim was about 2650 and I did it in about 46 minutes. It was more of a long swim training session with the main set being two sets of 1000. I don't remember it being overly difficult. The bilateral breathing is really making a huge difference. Not only in comfort level, but in technique and speed. I feel that I'm able to do more gliding since I'm taking my head out of the water much less frequently.
For the bike ride, the weather looked to be unpleasant(thunderstorms) so I did an hour long group cycling session instead of the 90 minute ride I was supposed to do. I think they are nearly equal in challenge, as I kept my HR up in the 140's the whole time, about the same that I'd do on the road bike, however the boredom level doesn't come close. Not to mention you get a lot hotter with no wind on your face and you can't rest at all. I was almost thrown off the bike multiple times, because, unlike a normal bike, the stationary bike pedals don't stop turning if you stop pedaling. Out of habit I tried to coast a couple of times, only to be lifted up off the seat by the constantly moving pedals. I didn't exactly follow the class because my schedule called for easy spinning so I just kept the resistance fairly light so I could keep my legs moving. I don't think the instructor had a problem with it.

On Tuedsay I had a 60 minute run which I covered about 5.4 miles. My HR averaged about 150 so my speed is starting to pick up. I don't know if that's due to conditioning or to cooler weather, but probably a combination of both. I've been running exclusively on flat terrain because that is what I'll be encountering on race day. That evening I did a 2 hour ride on Riverside drive again. I covered about 38 miles and muscle wise I felt fine, wasnt' too difficult, however my butt has been killing me on these longer rides. I really hope that's just cause I did several long rides in a row, and not something that is going to be a repeating pattern. 3 hours in the saddle is really hurting now, 7 hours is going to be unbearable. I hope to not have to go and buy another seat.

Wednesday was an off day and it was glorious.

Thursday was a long run day, speed swim day. The long run was 100 minutes, 75 of which was done at my slow easy pace and the final 25 were at tempo pace. For the first 75 I averaged a shade under 12 min miles(still an improvement as I had been closer to 12:30 for that distance) and my HR was 139. I felt good going into the final 25 and I upped my pace to just under 9 min miles. I held that pace for the entire time, aside from my 1 minute walks. I actually think my speed picked up as the time went on. I averaged about a 175 HR for that time period, and maxed out at 190. I was kind of anxious to get to 9 miles so it took some serious pushing to get it there.
My swim was a speed workout. The main set consisted of 20 x 75 at an RPE of 5. I did really well with this and might've gone a bit faster than I needed to. I did make an interesting discovery. I had a few sets where I felt I had gone too fast and did the set in about 1:11. I decided to do a more relaxing set where I focused on gliding more and doing less strokes. When I did that I did the set in 1:08 and felt more rested. So I was actually faster when I focused on technique and gliding. Something to make sure and remember in the future.

So that brings me up to date. Off to the pool for a VERY long session.

Lake Logan International Triathlon - Race Report

This was an absolutely wonderful race. The venue is beautiful, it was organized very well, and had very good post race food.
My goal for the race today was not to finish fast or even place in my category, but to treat it as a training session and keep my pace nice and easy, and finish the race feeling like I could keep going for a while longer. For future reading when I mention my goal times, those are the times in intended to finish slower than as opposed to faster than. Like I said, I wanted to to go slowly not fast.
Everything started out well, got there on time and with plenty of time to take it easy and get everything set up. The water temp was 74 and wet suit legal. I haven\'t swam in a wet suit since may so I wasn\'t used to the feel of it. But wow, swimming without it, made swimming with it SO much easier. My goal for this segment was to be slower than 30 minutes. I really felt that I took my time and went nice and easy. As usual, making it to the turn around buoy is always harder than making it back. And I don\'t know why that is, but I always feel stronger in the second half of a swim. Maybe I need to warm up longer? Anyway, I took the swim nice and easy and didn\'t really encounter too many other swimmers. The sight buoys were set up terribly out of line, and I think a lot of swimmers were fooled by them and swim a longer distance than need be. I swam straight at the turn buoy and stayed pretty much alone. One fun aspect of the race was that the river which feeds the lake is MUCH colder than the lake, and you finish the swim by swimming up the river a tad bit. And wow could you feel the separation. Anyway, I finished the swim in about 28 minutes. Faster than I intended, but I definitely was not pushing it.
The transition was FAR. It took about 2 minutes of running just to get to my gear. I ran, but ran slowly as I was really in no rush. Getting the wet suit off is always a fun time and I as usual struggled like crazy getting the stupid thing off. But I did, got my gear together and headed out on the bike. Overall I think the transition took me 1:56 according to the official record, but i think they counted a good bit of that run as swim time.
Next came the bike. The bike course was beautiful for the most part(i\'ll get into that in a minute). It started out with a fairly long climb, but nothing overly difficult, and then came to a half mile screaming downhill. From there it was 12 miles of rolling hills, but generally downhill. And all around you were surrounded mostly by sprawling farm land and mountains. It was a beautiful ride. I was taking my time, averaging about 18.5 mph. Faster than I intended, however I was getting passed constantly, it was a pretty fast course. It was very difficult maintaining my pace with everyone else going so fast, but it was a good lesson in mental discipline. At the turn around we encountered the only ugly part of the race. The race course turned around in Canton, and we were treated with an absolutely lovely view of the disgusting paper mill spewing toxic crap into the air. That was the only eyesore of the course. Upon the turn around there were no more rolling hills. It was just about 6 miles or so of steady, not steep climbing. It wasn\'t easy. Eventually the course rejoined the out part and it started rolling a bit so there were at least a few small stretches where one could rest a bit. Eventually we hit what was a screaming downhill on the way out, which means it was a crying uphill. It was the only stretch of the bike course where I actually passed people. I guess it was the only place where my taking it easy paid off. Most people seemed to really be struggling up the hill but I was able to cruise up it fairly easily. Then once hitting the top it was fun. I was able to push over 30 mph while resting and getting ready for the 10k that was coming. I wound up finishing the bike in about 1:20, about 10 minutes faster than I intended, but the course was faster than I thought it would be too, so it was a good ride.
I had a really fast and uneventufl transition from bike to run and I was off. The run course was equally beautiful. It was an out and back up a road that ran right along side a large creek. The first half was all up hill, varying steepness. I really took it easy up the hill and paced just under 12 min miles. There was nothing overly eventful on the run, I ran the whole time except for about 10 second walk breaks when I reached the water stops. When I got to the turn around i was about 35 minutes, and 2:30 min into the race. I had a chance at breaking 3 hours, despite my goal of 3:10(again, finishing slower than), I decided to just let myself go a bit faster and see what I could do. My pace quickened, to a bit under 10 min/miles. I still felt really good, despite the quickened pace. For the final 3 minutes I picked up the pace further cause I just wanted to come in under 3 hours and I did just barely make it. I was kinda dead coming through but recovered quickly and easily could\'ve kept going after a small walk break. I ended up finishing the run in 1:05:55. Which was probably about a 10:40/mile pace, but I had the largest negative split I've ever had in a triathlon. I did the first half in about 35 minutes, and the second half in about 30. Like I said, I felt really good on the second half.
I wound up finishing in 2:59:17. It was a great race and one I intend to do year after year.

5 Week wrap up. 37 days of training, 103 days left to go

Yea, so as usual I haven't been updating this blog. Here's another write up of last week. I'll try and remember to write up yesterday and today tonight, but likely, I'll forget, but alas, I digress.
So I made a huge increase in mileage last week. I did 146 miles in a total of 12 hours. I did a couple long rides this week, including a 28 miler up the parkway and my long ride of 50.5 miles. The parkway ride was extremely difficult with about 2500 feet of climbing or so all one way. I rode along riverside rd back and forth multiple times. This week also included an Olympic distance Triathlon, the race report will be written up in a separate entry on here. The long ride felt good in my legs, however my sit bones were in agony towards the end. I'm hoping that was mainly due to having been on the bike for a while the day before in the race. The swimming is going very well. I have the bi-lateral breathing down very well now and am comfortable breathing out of the left side as well. With this came increased speed. I'm about 4-5 seconds faster per 100 now at the same effort level just by breathing out of both sides. Running is improving the slowest and I hope the bike and swim can make up for what I'm lacking in the run.
All in all this week really kicked up the training to a whole new level, and I guess I can assume its going to keep going at this rate. The prep period is clearly over and training is getting going hard core now.