Another long workout checked off the books. I thought about going for five hours, but decided against it since Going Long didn’t say anything about doing it. I wanted to do something longer and harder, but I’ll trust the experts in knowing what they’re talking about. They haven’t failed me yet. I was planning on doing 4.5 hours but I had a big tailwind coming home and ran faster than I thought I was going to so I only ended up at just over four hours for the workout. It felt GREAT! I felt really strong the whole way through my ride and I was able to hold a pretty fast run pace after my longish ride. If I can feel anything like I did today in a couple weeks, watch out!

I woke up this morning and found my weight back down to a more respectable 155. After I got back from my workout, I was 152. Guess I was a little dehydrated. :) Now it’s back to eating various weeds and such. Only two more weeks…

158.5 pounds is what I am. I’ve been floating around 153-154ish for most of the week. Guess I ate a little much today. :) Before I even got to the fair, I had pizza buffet for lunch (salad, soup, four pieces of pizza, and five chocolate chip cookies). Then at the fair, if I remember correctly, it was cheese curds, an elephant ear, pork chop on a stick, a butter garlic pretzel, and 2-3 chocolate chip cookies. Was that all? Really, no sarcasm at all, that’s not that bad. I know that I’ve been to the fair and done FAR worse. I’ll post back early next week and let you know what my non-bloated weight is.

Tomorrow is the last chance that I’ll have to gain any real fitness before IMMoo. I have a fourish hour bike ride tomorrow followed by an hourish long run. Time to go to bed so I can be ready for my lovely day tomorrow. I’m so glad this is my last long workout for the year!

1. Iph you could give a wannabe triathlete one piece oph advice……and it can’t be ‘just have phun’ ……what would ya tell ‘em?

Consistency is key. No need to go out there and kill yourself right out of the gates. Start slow and always feel like you could have done more. That’ll make sure you’re able to get out there again tomorrow.

2. Where do you pheel you have made the most improvement in the past 6-8 months?

Probably on the run. I’m in better shape all around, but running is where I’ve made the biggest improvements in pace (although I’m still slow).

3. How many bottles/cannisters/jars oph varied nutritional supplements and perphormance phood products are currently open in your house?

Not too many. Few bottles of hammer gel, some accelerade, and a tub of carbopro.

4. In your tenure at TNO, how many phellow TNOer’s have you met in the phlesh? Who’s on the top oph your ‘To Meet’ list and what question would you ask ‘em phirst? Well, aphter saying ‘hello. nice to meet ya’ and all that.

I’ve met a handful which is pretty good for only being here less than a year. I’d like to meet the rest of the local MN folks that I didn’t get to meet this year. I always look forward to the TNO gathering that are bound to happen at the bigger “away” events.

5. Hardly seems possible, but my time as Phunster is coming to an end. Yup, it’s been a whole year since Jephph dumped…….errrrrr…….awarded me the job. Now I’m looking phor my replacement. Tell me why you want/deserve to be the new Phunster. Be brief.

I don’t want to, nor do I deserve to be the new Phunster. If you look at my replies, I can’t even get my “ph”s right. Great job this past year, Gail! Thanks for taking the time to do this for all of us! :)

My taper started for IMMoo. And what a nice feeling it is! This week hasn’t been too easy. I still had a two hour run and I probably will do a four to five hour workout this weekend. But really this is the last long stuff that I’ll have. Next week is even lighter and the week after that is race week! I know it’s right around the corner and it seems like just yesterday that I started this IM journey. I feel like I should be doing more these last couple of weeks, but everything that I’ve read says that I’m supposed to feel like I’m not doing enough. I sure hope they know what they’re talking about!

Work has been surprisingly busy this week. I’ve had multiple requests for documentation that got sprung on my last minute that I had to get completed ASAP. I had a “Customer Care Refresher” course that I (well, everyone that I know) was required to take that was perhaps one of the biggest wastes of time that I’ve done this year. I was sure to let them know on my comment card exactly what I thought of their training course though. I was supposed to give a presentation over the phone tomorrow to our VP, but that got cancelled in favor of me giving the presentation live next month when he visits Minneapolis. Joy. I’ve been really bitter about work lately. Perhaps more on that at another time though. It’s something that I don’t even really want to think about right now…

The Minnesota State Fair started today. Probably not the best time of the year to be happening since I’m trying to watch my intake for IMMoo. It’s basically just a huge unhealthy feeding fest with deep fried everything on a stick. Still, I’m sure I’ll be there at least once as it’s one of the few things that I look forward to in this state. Ugh… it’s the end of August and I’m already dreading winter. :(

You piece of crap embarassment to the United States. You did not win the gold, you pathetic loser. How do you sleep at night fully knowing that you received an award that you do not deserve and that there’s another human being on this planet that worked just as hard as you did that you’ve now cheated and stole from?

Do the right thing and give the medal to that South Korean athlete who legitimately won it, or forever be known as a cheating loser who has a gold medal (notice I didn’t say win) because of a technicality. You make me sick.

I’m in a better mood now. Thanks for your concern. :mrgreen:

I’ve been having some issues with my bike computer not registering speed for the past week or so. It would work intermittently, so I thought it might have been a weak battery problem (I haven’t changed the battery since I bought the setup over a year ago). I replaced the batteries midweek and everything seemed to be working ok the following ride. Yesterday, I started having the same problem again. :mad: I finally took the computer off the mount and held it closer to the sensor to see if it was a distance problem or something (I have a wireless unit) and it did pick up signal. After toying with it for a while, I found that it would pick up the signal everywhere except while it was mounted! After looking at it for a while, I realized that my the computer mount was installed “upside down” after I broke my aerobars and had to have them replaced. Not that I can see why this would really cause any problems? The mount is just a piece of plastic with a screw holding it on either on the top or on the bottom. But I guess the screw did cause some interference because it seems to be working fine again. We’ll see if it stays that way.

Hmmm… what else. I ran a 10k yesterday morning. I thought about running it hard, but decided against it with IM Wisconsin being just a few weeks away. I didn’t want to leave myself shelled for my first peak week next week. I ran 50 minutes and change which is a hair over 8 min/mile pace. It was a nice comfortable pace. I ran with a friend of a friend’s wife (our runner at the Turtleman Triathon relay). It was a nice comfortable temperature around one of the nicer lakes here in the Twin Cities.

I skipped going to a wedding yesterday. It was for some people who used to be in my small group but that I didn’t know very well. I may have talked to them for a few minutes during the months that we were in the same group and certainly didn’t know them well enough to feel comfortable being a guest at their wedding. What really rubbed me the wrong way though was seeing their registery (my girlfriend ended up going and getting them a gift). They registered for some pretty expensive stuff, but their wedding seemed to have been a very thrifty (for lack of a better word) deal. Most certainly, their wedding wouldn’t have cost any more for 100 people than it would have for 150. So the whole thing makes me think that they were just inviting people for sake of receiving more gifts instead of them wanting those individuals to be a part of their special day. It was brought up too that perhaps they didn’t want to offend anyone and just invited everyone? I don’t know but it seemed shady to me. I hate to say it, but I’m glad I didn’t go.

I went to go watch Open Water last night. I was pretty disappointed. I didn’t have high expectations, but some folks were saying it was good. I didn’t think so. It was rather boring with an ending which I didn’t really care for, but I won’t go into details in case you’re planning on watching it. There are still a bunch of movies out that I’d like to see. I should see if I can cram them all in today - last day of my recovery week. :(

I’m still alive, but have been feeling rather irritable lately. But it’s not the training causing it this time. I’m actually on a recovery week this week and my volume is way down from where it normally is. It’s the same old feeling where I want to just disappear from everyone and everything for a while.

I have a bunch of vacation to burn before the end of the year (it’s use it or lose it at my company). Maybe I’ll take a week long trip somewhere relaxing by myself to just get away from everything. A nice trip to someplace warm and tropical may be in order. Hot sun, ocean waves, white sand… and not having to talk to anyone or do anything. Mmmm… dreamy!

I did what should be my last long ride (100+ miles) today. I hate doing them on Sundays because it’s just such a depressing way to end a weekend. But whatever. It’s over a done with. I wish I could say that it went well or that I’m psyched that it was my final one. Mostly, I’m just tired and in a foul mood from battling a double digit headwind for hours today. Bleh. All of my century rides have been within three minutes duration of each other. I suppose if anything, I’m consistent. How I’m supposed to be able to run a marathon after doing such a longish ride, I have no idea. Nothing much I can do about it at this point, though. IM will certainly be interesting.

All for now. My bed awaits!

I guess I spoke too soon about my Friday the 13th luck. I was out doing my afternoon ride and got a little more than half way out on my ride. I wasn’t really paying too close attention to what I was doing and went over a manhole that I probably should have steered around. I was fine, but I heard this snap on my bike. I look down to see this:

There are (or were, I should say) two bolts holding that arm rest up and one of them just snapped completely in half rendering it useless. So I got to ride home the rest of the way on my bullhorns (not the most comfortable thing in the world). I called up my LBS and told them about my aerobars and the owner jokingly said, “This is the part where I ask you where you bought your bars from.” He didn’t have any in stock so I mail ordered mine from an on-line retailer. To my defense, I did check with him first to see if he could get them in! But being the nice guy he is <shamelessplug>http://www.gearwest.com - ask for Kevin</shamelessplug>, he said he’d take care of the warranty issues for me. So I guess all is ok. I was planning a century ride tomorrow that will now have to wait until Sunday. :( I hate having it hang over my head, but it could certainly be worse!

This “evil” day wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t crowded in the pool this morning (which is abnormal - it’s been a zoo for the past couple of weeks). My boss was nice and decided to cancel our Friday afternoon meeting with just a little pursuading. I had Fuddrucker’s for lunch today - a rare treat from my normal diet of twigs and berries. And in getting my haircut today, they told me the cut was free because it was my ninth cut there.

Now watch me get hit by a car or something on my bike ride that I’m about to go on…