There’s not really too much to report about the race. I more less used it as a long training run and I successfully kept Ego at bay. Not that Ego didn’t try, but luckily I kept convincing him every mile marker that we were going to drop the hammer at the next mile marker. I finally caved into his request at mile 12, but he only had 1 mile of fun. :)

It was a gorgeous day. It was a gorgeous course. Thanks to Trimama for suggesting the race to me. Sorry that I didn’t see you out there. I arrived kind of late and between running to get my race packet, running back to my car (parked several blocks away) to drop off my goodie bag, running back to the venue to use the little boys room, and running to the start line, I only had a couple minutes to spare. At least I got a nice warmup in. ;)

Mile Splits:

1. 8:50
2. 8:42
3. 8:28
4. 8:35
5. 8:26
6. 8:22
7. 8:22
8. 8:21
9. 8:25
10. 8:28
11. 8:24
12. 8:26
13. 7:22 (! Go Ego !)
14. 0:42 (last .1)

Final Time: 1:49:51

You’ll have to forgive me if I ever seem especially hard on myself… or if I call myself slow or anything like that. I don’t know really how it happened to come out like this, but of all my local triathlete/athlete friends that I know and/or train with occasionally I’m generally a BOP finisher among them. Aside from the swim where I usually am able to come out ahead, the folks I know here are much faster bikers and runners than I. Here’s the breakdown:

• Best Friend: On the cusp of qualifying for Kona this year at Wisconsin. Has four Ironman finishes. Consistently has a top 10 overall bike split in races (read: 24+ MPH averages) and has had a couple of first place finishes in his AG this year. He also qualified for Boston this year running a 3:07 marathon.
• Ex-Coworker: Two time Ironman finisher who has now focused more on his running. Ran the above marathon with my friend to “pace” him, meaning he was more less just cruising along and used it as a training day. I think he just ran some insane 30 mile run or something in Vermont with over 1,000 feet of climbing and where you can to cross a river in water up to your neck. I think he’s planning on running some 100 mile race soon, but he was to qualify for it by running a 50 miler first. :P
• Ex-Coworkers Friend: Don’t know too much about this guy except for the fact that he’s one of the top runners in the state. I think he holds various state course records for a bunch of trail runs. He hasn’t been training all that much in the past year or two. He’ll still just “show up” and run 5:30 pace or something like that.
• Ex-Coworkers Friend’s Wife: She was on the cross country, indoor and outdoor track teams at the University of Minnesota. As if competing at the D1 level isn’t enough, she’s also done an Ironman several years back. I think she coasted in her run split at something like 3:20 or something at the end.
• Random Neighbor: I met a fellow triathlete just riding on the nearest major cross street by my house. Last year was his first year of triathlons. He did his first 1/2 IM in 5:02. He usually has run splits for shorter races in the low 5 minute range.

So really, when I call myself “slow” or complain about how bad I am at something, I’m not fishing for compliments or trying to make anyone else feel bad. I know that I’m not slow relative to the rest of the field, but in my own circle of friends I’m probably the slowest of the bunch. Not that I should complain, I guess. I think you get faster by training with people that are faster than you. But still, it’s weird to finish in the top 25-30% of your AG and to see that all my friends who also raced that day are already finished and probably have eaten a recovery meal and taken a nap by the time I cross the line. :P

One of these days, I’ll be “fast”…

I had a nice easy day yesterday to recovery from my disastrous workout last Tuesday. Today was supposed to be a typical 30 mile loop and a four mile run. I felt so good coming back from the bike, that I decided to do the six mile route instead. It was just one of those no-chain/I-feel-like-I’m-running-on-a-cloud kind of days. Easy and effortless. It’s amazing what a 20 degree drop in the mercury will do for your performance (and for your self-esteem, for that matter).

Totals for last month:

* Swim: 10h 15m - 31,950 yards
* Bike: 27h 6m - 524.2 miles
* Run: 11h 55m - 81.1 miles

Looks like I had less overall work in the pool and on my bike than I did last month. I’m guessing that’s because I had two recovery weeks during July and only one in June? But my overall running despite that is up, so I guess that’s good.

First they change from Motorola to Intel chips. Now a mouse with more than one button? The end of the world must be near…

I registered yesterday for the 1/2 marathon. I’m not going to run hard and just use it for a training day… or so I tell myself now. Hopefully Ego doesn’t make another guest appearance.

That’s Trimama and now me. Any of you other locals signed up?

You have good days, and you have days like today. I braved the heat today to get my long ride of the week in. Here are some ways that you know that things just aren’t going your way today:

• You keep looking down at your tires to check if one or both of them are flat.
• Your normal route is blocked by road construction and are forced to go another way, bypassing your normal refueling stop.
• You wonder if the temperature gauge on your bike computer only has two digits and that’s why it’s reading 99. (I found out later that my bike computer does, in fact, have three digits and can display them all :P).
• You get to the half way mark of the ride and seriously contemplate calling someone to pick you up because you feel so bad.
• You’re no longer able to pedal and keep your heart rate below zone 3 no matter how much you let up.
• You’re unable to think clearly and nearly pull a Rasmussen, riding off the road and almost crashing.
• You resort to Cherry Coke (aka. sugar) for fuel because the other stuff isn’t working.
• You’re barely able to inhale without coughing like mad. You wonder if this is what people with asthma and cystic fibrosis feel like.
• You lose 0.2 MPH off your average speed in just the last 30 minutes of your 5:10 ride.
• You pretty much want to lie down at 4 PM and not wake up again until tomorrow.

Today’s ride gets a place in my top 10 worst workouts of all time. In hindsight, I didn’t have nearly enough to eat last night for dinner nor did I have a big enough breakfast to go ride 100 miles. I also need to stop worrying about eating too many calories during my workouts in fear of gaining weight.

But it’s over and done with. It was hard, but I got it done and (in a few days after I recover) I’ll be a stronger person because of it. I’ll remember today the next time I’m suffering during a workout. Whenever I put myself into difficulty, I always remember workouts like these and they motivate me to keep pressing on.

“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.”

- John Quincy Adams

Just two more long rides to go…

Well, it seems that the heat is back. This afternoon, I rode 30 miles and followed it up with a four mile run. I felt like I was melting out there while running. I took the first mile out in about eight minutes, and then kept getting slower and slower… and slower! The thermometer said it was 94 degrees out there. And that’s just the raw temperature, not the heat index. Tomorrow, it’s supposed to be even hotter! Weeeee!

In some kind of sadistic way, I actually like training in this crap. The way I see it, if I’m out there in the worst of the worst heat conditions during training, if it turns out to be a scorcher on race day I’ll be ready. And anything less than what I’m used to training in will be a treat! Right now though, my lungs hurt. It actually is hard to take a deep breath. It reminds me back when I lived in California and would workout during a smog alert day or something. Oh well, it’s nothing that a good evening in a nice air conditioned house can’t fix.

Tomorrow, I might take the day off and try getting my long ride in. I’m still toying around the idea of running the Urban Wildlife Half Marathon this Saturday that TriMama clued me in about. I need to get a long run in this week and it seems like it would be more fun to do that race than to just run solo. I just need to make sure I don’t go crazy and run it fast. Heh. As if I could do such a thing. I don’t get how runners just trot along at 6-7 minute pace while I have to be red-lined to run at speeds slower than that. I’m going to need to do something about that in the off-season…

Apparently, I’m an idiot and thought that I still had seven weeks left until IM Wisconsin, but I only have six! Egads. That’s one less week of base training that’s going to get done. Not that I think it’ll matter that much, but the fact that I didn’t account for an entire week of training this close to the race is well… scary. So it’s probably 2-1/2 weeks of base training with a 1/2 week of recovery. Then it’s peak, peak, and race weeks. Man this whole thing is just right around the corner!

What else? My friend Jon and I did manly car stuff a bunch on Saturday morning and afternoon. Then in the evening, Carol, Jon, his wife, Amy, and I all had dinner at Famous Dave’s and went to go watch Wedding Crashers. Dinner was yummy and while the movie started out a little slow, it got better towards the end. It’s not going to win any academy awards, but it was good for a dumb laugh.

I didn’t do an ounce of training all weekend and I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty either. I did get up this morning for my masters workout and am motivated to get back on my bike and get my running shoes back on, though. All that rest seems to have done me good! Now if I can only get my diet back in order… This weekend was another weekend of epic eating. I’m scared to weigh myself. :( And the Minnesota State Fair is right around the corner, too. That’s not good…