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!
Monday, October 31, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
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!!!
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!!!
Thursday, October 20, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
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!
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!
Monday, October 17, 2011
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!
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!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
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!!!!
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!!!!
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