I did it again!

Wow did the taper pay off.  My total time was 35min faster than two years ago.  I was a little faster in each event and transition times.   I did not seed myself very well in the swim and found a lot of people blocking me from going as fast a would have liked.   The first lap of the bike was awesome.   Ran out of steam on the second lap.   The first 10K of the marathon was very hot....but once the clouds came in it cooled down.  I did not have any calf issues.....but did have some hamstring cramping for the last 10K.    I am very happy with my time.    I wont be doing an IM next year, but definately a volunteer.   Who knows....maybe this will be an every other year thing if my wife will let me.

2 weeks left

Holy Cow!   Welcome to Taper time.  Each workout is less in time.  Now comes the nerves.  Did I train enough, hard enough?  Have I thought about everything needed?  Now is the time of being paranoid about all aches and pains....ouch.. will that affect the race.   I swam in Lake Cda on Saturday....very windy.   It was like someone threw me into a washing machine for an hour cycle.  I had to skip a few breaths due to waves hit me on my breath cycles.  My bike goes to the shop for a tune up, new tires and tubes tomorrow..  I hope he can do a little magic and get me 1-2 mph faster on the course.   I road my bike 36 miles yesterday.  Flat but very windy.   Lots of animals on the Rail to Trails system.   Like a mini Yellowstone park.  No alcohol or carbonated beverages for the next two weeks.   Time to fix all of the little tears in my wet suit.   I need eat well, but not over do it as I dont need any extra weight on my bike seat.

Have a good week.

3 weeks to go

HA!  I am almost ready.   I had a good ride of 95 miles on Monday.  Still need to take in more liquids and Gels or I will be in trouble for the marathon.   What am I saying...the marathon is going to be trouble no matter how much I take in.   But I will survive.  Open Water Swims are going well.  Daytime temperatures are coming up so,  so will the lake temps.   My achilles tendons have been hurting for most of my training, so if they can hack one more week of full training, I will give them a rest in the up coming two weeks.   The last two weeks of training are called the Taper.  Less time and endurance in each sport.  Usually the work outs are shorter with portion of the workout more intense.  Hardly any time spent exercising on the last week.   I am starting to get excited and nervous.  I will take my bike to the shop next week for a pre race tune up.   Since getting the bike in January of 2011, I have put more than 8000 miles on it.

I have added up my miles and by the time I am done in 3 weeks I will have swam 96 miles, ran 600 miles, and biked 3,600 miles.

Asta la vista baby

4 weeks to go

Finished a good week last week.   Finally starting to lose a little weight.  My weight has been around 174 for most of my training.   Ideal body weight for my height is 155.    In the last week my weight has dropped to 165.  Had a nice ride with the family on the Hiawatha trail.   We road to the 1/2 way point.  From there they started back to the beginning and I went to the end.  I turned around and tried to catch them before they finished.   Was close but they beat me.  Good workout. 

This week has a lot of 90-100 min workouts.  Week 3 will be my last Big-ish week.   Hope to do one more long bike ride.  80-100miles.   Still need to fine tune my nutrition and hydration.   Hard to do this on my training rides, then on race day prepare for what they have to offer.  

Have a great week.

5 weeks to go

Last week I put in 16 hours of exercise.  This week has 18 planned.   I am still nervous.  My body aches with each long run and long ride.   I am able to complete 18 mile runs and 100 mile bikes in the same week, but there is no way I feel confident that I could do one back to back.   I am getting stronger in the swim and feel pretty confident there.   Weather is still making it hard to get bike rides in.   Cant believe it is supposed to snow tomorrow night.  Ick!  

State track is over.  Baseball is in full gear.   Christina is home from college and looking for work.   The 4H pigs have had their "weight-ins" and are now tagged.   Garden is in and growing.  Will have to protect it from the frost tomorrow.  

Stupid automobiles....one has ball joint problems, one's transmission died, and our spare wont start....what the heck.

More next week.

6 weeks to go

Last week was a blurrr.   So busy I didnt even get to blog.   My wife had surgery and everything went well.   Still has weeks of rest before she can resume normal activites.  My oldest is back from college and nice to have a full house again.  Track Districts and soon State track meets.  We moved the 4H piglets to their pen and they are adapting well. 
 The weather turned quite hot and so work outs were very hard.  My body has not adapted yet.    I am feeling aerobically very good and feel like I am almost in shape enough for the race.  My body on the other hand is scaring me.  My neck is quite stiff after my swim workouts and long bike rides.  My calves are always sore and on the verge of cramping on runs.   My achilles are sore after long bikes.   Sucks getting old.  
The next two week are some of my longest thus far and it is sad to see the rain in the forecast.   It is hard to get 100 mile bike rides in the rain.   I need to train my body on how 100 miles feels and it takes many 100 mile rides to build confidence.

Last weeks totals are:  140miles on the bike, 26 miles running, and 6 miles swimming.

8 weeks to go

OOOOOh no!   Winter is back. Say it is not so.    We have had snow on and off again for the last week.  I had to put the sweats and gloves back on.   It has snowed at the last two Highschool track meets.  Yuck.
In April I swam 16miles, Ran 57 miles, and road my bike 500 miles.  

Now the real work out begins.   My weekly hours will go from 12 hours to 18 hours over the next 4 weeks.   Almost all of my long rides will be 100 miles and my long runs will be over 13 miles.    My wife laughs at me as I whine after every long workout.   She says, "Who does this?  Who pays 600.00 dollars to inflict pain on themselves"   No mercy.   

On the lighter side we now have four piglets for 4H.   They are really cute and really stink.  They look really good and I hope the kids cant get a purple ribbon this year.

Cheers.