Pre-Race:

This is the race that almost wasn’t. I couldn’t decide until the last minute if I wanted to do the race or not. I took a day off work to do my long ride midweek, which forced me to do my long run this weekend. It was either run by myself in the heat, or do the race and eventually I decided on the latter.

I had a heck of a time getting registered. active.com wouldn’t let me register because it was too close to the race and the bike shop where you were supposed to drop off entries weren’t accepting them anymore either. I tried calling the number for the event series (which tells you to “call anytime”), but I got some girls voice mail and never got a return call. I finally winged it and saw that they had registration going on at the same time packet pickup was happening. I crossed my fingers hoping that it wasn’t full and made the 35ish mile drive out to Chisago Lakes to register. As luck would have it, they were still letting folks in. I figured, “Who in their right mind is going to sign up knowing that it was supposed to be over 100 degrees with a heat index around 110 today? Surely, there has to be openings.”

I got to the race area about 45 minutes before the race would start. I got setup in transition and said hi to a few of Carol’s co-workers who were doing the sprint tri that was also taking place. Then went to wait in the ginormous line for the porta-pottys. The minutes kept passing by and I knew it was going to be a close call. About five minutes before the first wave was going to go off (I was in wave two!), I was up. I did my business, grabbed my stuff quickly from the transition area and headed down to the beach.

Swim:

As most of you know, it’s been abnormally hot this July. I forgot the exact statistic, but it hasn’t been this hot of a month in Minnesota in a long time. As such, the water temperature was a warm 79 degrees. The race wasn’t USAT sanctioned, so you could wear wetsuits if you wanted. I opted to go without as I tend to overheat fairly easily. Most others that I saw heading to the beach weren’t donning them anyway.

Or so I thought. It turns out that pretty much everyone that was doing the half were all sporting wetsuits - it was the mass of sprint folks that were going without. I wondered how much time I’d be giving up without the floating crutch, but it was too late to go back and suit up anyway. Oh well.

The first wave of folks went out and I stood in position for the second wave. I started off in the front, but on the side since there were already people in the middle. The countdown comes and our wave hits the water! Folks were making a mad rush like there was some kind of prize to be won by the first person to swim the first 50 yards. I didn’t get it, but whatever. :) I think I was in a heat with fairly slow swimmers because it wasn’t long before I was out by myself. Normally I usually see one or two other folks around me, but really… this time it seemed really sparse.

I swam easily and comfortably. I reminded myself that this was a training day and a long one at that so no point in killing myself in the swim. The swim itself was more less uneventful. I managed to catch probably most of the folks in the wave before me. I got kicked pretty hard once in the shoulder. The guy was nice about it and stopped to see if I was ok. I think he thought he clocked me in the head. I assured him I was ok and not to worry about it.

On the last straight of the swim triangle, there was a bit more chop in the water. For whatever reason, it really messed with my ability to swim in a straight line? But eventually, the people on the beach started getting bigger and I hit sand.

I had a minor panic when I stood up and felt my timing chip fall off. I looked back and didn’t see it, but a second or two later I saw it float up. Phew! I didn’t need to waste time looking for that!

Time: 31:57 - 1:39/100m (1:30/100 yards) pace

T1:

The run up to the transition area was uphill, but wasn’t terrible. It’s always a little weird going from horizontal to vertical though.

I took my time in T1. I put socks on for the race. Got my stuff on and went off on my bike.

Time: 2:35

Bike:

Ooops! I forgot to take my HRM off my wrist and put it onto its bike mount (my HRM also acts as my bike computer). I stopped right out of T1 to fix that and kept on going.

The plan was to take the bike really easy as well. I really only needed to do a long run for training so everything else was just going to be filler. I took a good 15 minutes, but my HR finally did drop down into the 130 range.

“That’s where I’ll likely sit for Ironman so that’s a good place to be.”

So I ride for an hour or so and it’s nice and easy. But the course would turn and the tail wind would soon turn into a sidewind/headwind. I saw my speed slowly dropping and rode for a while at 15ish MPH. AND, I’m pushing harder to maintain that slower pace.

“I’m never going to get off this bike course if I’m riding this slow! This is going to take forever.”

I turned it up just a notch. I’m in the 140s now which is higher than I train at, and I really don’t want to be racing. But I didn’t want to be going 15 MPH either? I just told myself that I’d keep it up for a little while longer until the wind was more favorable. We did eventually turn again away from the bad winds, but the road we turned onto was terrible. It was hella bumpy I’d say for the next 15 miles or so. I’m going to need to see a chiropractor to put my spine back into place after that stretch of road. Bleh.

More pedaling and we turn again - it’s somewhere around mile 40 at this point? This time, the roads are smooth and we have what was that nasty headwind going in our favor now. Yaaahhooooooo!! I’d ride for the next 30 minutes or so around 25-27 MPH. I was in the big ring and the small cog pushing 85 cadence with HRs back down around 130 again. That was an awesome feeling!

Sadly, we didn’t get that tailwind all the way back to T2. There was about 5 miles more riding into the wind, but it wasn’t too bad. Soon enough, we were back to the base station and ready to hit the run. It’s start to heat up at this point.

Time: 2:46:32 - 20.2 MPH average

T2:

Again, I’m in no hurry. I changed shoes and tied my laces. My spectator friends stopped by while I was changing. I asked how their sprint went and they both had a good time. Maybe a couple more folks to be hooked on the whole triathlon bug. :) We said our goodbyes, I grabbed my race belt and visor and was off.

Time: 2:02

Run:

“Start off SLOOOWW. It’s going to be a long, hot day.”

So I start shuffling my feet, trying to go slow. It’s getting hotter at this point but not too terrible. Plus, it’s still quite windy and that’s helping to keep me cool. I approach the mile 1 marker and hit the lap time on my watch - 8:02.

“Gah! What part of SLOOOWW do you not understand? You can’t run your first miles this fast at IM because it’ll kill you.”

OK… lets try that again. Mile 2 - nope 8:25. Mile 3 - nope, 8:27. But just when I’m thinking to myself, “Self, maybe you can do something impressive here?” I start slowing down on my own. Similar HRs as I would see later, but just slower paces. 9:00, 9:12, 9:19 and so fourth.

I read someplace on their website that the run was flat. I need to hunt down whoever wrote that and have a talk with them. That run was NOT flat. Well, at least the middle miles were all rolling all the way. Not huge hills, but hills enough that it affects you.

There were lots of nice folks who turned their sprinklers on towards the street to give us some reprieve from the heat. It felt so good, but that eventually turns the shoes into sponges which isn’t so fun. I’d say my run felt pretty comfortable until mile 8 or 9. At that point, I was still holding pace, but it was just getting hot and I was ready to be done. I still had a decent amount left in the tank, but didn’t want to use it because I’d just get hotter. :P

“Just another 5 miles to go… Come on!”

I plodded along to mile 12. There was a guy on my tail that had been sitting there since the turn around. And there was a guy in front of me that was running faster than I was, but was taking walking breaks. He’d walk and look back and when I got closer to him, he’d start running to open a gap back up. He did that for about 2 miles. So with a mile to go, I decided to have a little fun and drop the hammer. I was willing to suffer for a mile and have the added benefit of being able to stop moving afterwards. :)

So I went. Went fairly hard and didn’t look back until I saw the finish area. I looked back and neither of those two were around anymore. I glanced down at my watch and had to do a double take. I’m almost positive that they didn’t measure that last 1.1 mile right because allegedly, I ran that last split in 7:01. No way. Something doesn’t jive. As much as I’d like to imagine that I could run that fast at the end of a 1/2, I’m too in touch with reality for that. :)

Time: 1:56:10 - 8:52 pace

Summary:

Overall time: 5:19:19. I actually was a little surprised at the time. Doing Ironmath on the course, I thought I was going to be a little over 5:30, so 5:19 was a pleasant surprise. I finished 42nd of 188 overall and and 8th of 26 in my AG. I’ll take all of those numbers for a long training day. One of these days I’m going to do a 1/2 to race a 1/2. Pushing harder on the swim and bike and not doing a race when it’s so hot… I think I have a sub-5 hour time in me somewhere. Given my effort and the race conditions today, I’m happy with my times in all three disciplines.

The heat was present but it wasn’t terrible. I finished just before the mercury hit 90 so I missed the 110 heat index - no complaints there. :) It was cool enough that the wind actually helped instead of feeling like a hair dryer, so that was nice.

Lastly, the pretty graph for Bolder and whomever else likes to see that sort of thing: :)

Looks like it was four to three in favor of doing the race. I tried signing up on-line this morning, but active.com wasn’t allowing any new registrations. Sooooooo, I had to drive over to sign up in person. I am now officially registered!

It’s going to be hot! It’s going to be fairly windy! It’s going to be a wonderfully miserable day! At least it’ll be a nice deposit in the “mental toughness” account.

Race report coming soon…

That is the question? Two days out and I still haven’t signed up for the 1/2 this Sunday. On one hand, it’s nice having options to decide on races so late (unlike IMLP 2007) but all that happens is that I agonize over the decision for that much longer.

It’s going to be hot here again this weekend with heat advisories and all that sort of thing until Sunday night. Temperatures in the upper 90s with dew points around 70. Forecastfox even drew me a little pretty picture of what it’s going to be like through the weekend:

I’ve been out there in hotter and I suppose it would be good mental training if nothing else. But it just seems a little silly to pay to suffer through a race that probably won’t be fun come the run, doesn’t it?

I’m a little uneasy about doing something this close to Wisconsin too, although I would really be using this as a long training day. Just cruising through the swim, intentionally backing off on the bike and riding at IM pace (or slower?), and just running at a slow pace to have a supported long run. Heck. I might even walk through aid stations if I need to or not. I don’t think I’d build up any unnecessary fatigue and I have a rest week due next week (yay!) anyway, so even if I need a couple extra days from the effort I’ll have it.

I don’t know. What would you do? Would you pay to do a 1/2 if you had the fitness, but you knew it was going to be really hot and sticky out? Or would you do as the National Weather Service advises and, I quote, “seek shelter in an air conditioned building to avoid heat exhaustion and heat stroke”?

Man, where do I start. I did my third century (or what I set out to be a century) yesterday. I should have known that it wasn’t going to be my day when I starting having issues before I even pushed out the door. It started out with breakfast of cereal with just a teeny bit of milk because that’s all that was left - nothing like a bowl of pseudo dry cereal to start the morning! Then I couldn’t find my wallet. I searched all the usual places but just couldn’t find it anywhere. Carol had some cash (so I could stop for Gatorade on the ride), so it wasn’t a huge deal but I usually like to take my drivers license with me in case I end up in a ditch someplace unconscious.

Anyway, I pushed off around 7 AM and hit the park reserve that I normally ride through. It was quiet and steamy humid like it has been this whole summer. For the first hour and a half, I couldn’t even wear my sunglasses because they fog up too bad from all the humidity. But I stick them on my helmet and keep riding along on the trails and notice that one section of trail has been recently resurfaced. I’m thinking to myself, “How awesome!” I love riding on new, smooth blacktop. It was like buttah! Only one small stretch of road had been repaved though and I normally ride through this twice. Well, as it would happen, my second time through they were in the process of adding another layer of tar onto the road. It was still fresh and wet so what does that mean for me? THAT MY BIKE ENDS UP GOING THROUGH ALL THAT CRAP AND GETS COMPLETE TRASHED!?! I was sooooooo mad. I had just given it a thorough cleaning a couple days before and here it was getting a fresh coat of tar caked all over it.

I get off the path at my nearest exit and assess the damage. My bike and legs are now caked with tar. Not what I needed to start a long ride. Grrrrrrrr!!! I tried cleaning some of it with water, but it just wasn’t happening. So I angrily pedaled on… and on and on as the ride would go. I had issues with my HR monitor yesterday. For whatever reason, the whole stop and start your watch thing was too daunting for me yesterday, so I ended up cancelling out my ride data not just once, but three times. Setting out to do 100 miles and not having the full data of your ride in one complete graph is not good for the OCD. So I don’t have a pretty graph to show you all. I have three separate graphs which are missing some sixish miles because I forgot to start it a couple times. Oh well.

On my way back home, I rode back through that park (but not on the trails) that destroyed my bike and see that they’ve now put up signs saying that the trails are closed for resurfacing today. SOMETHING THAT COULD HAVE BEEN BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION BEFORE THEY STARTED THEIR WORK!! So I missed doing my final loop through the park. I tried to improvise to compensate for the loop I missed, but I’m horrible at making up new routes on the fly. My best attempt got me at my house at around 92 miles and I was too annoyed by then just to do loops around the neighborhood for eight more miles so I just called it a day.

I spent the next four hours of my day getting all that damn tar off my bike. It was everywhere! I basically had to strip down the entire drive train and sit there and meticulously clean each and every component, all the way down to disassembling the rear derailleur so I could clean off the pulleys. So, so, SO annoying. Definitely not what I really wanted to do after five+ hours in the saddle. I should have taken before and after pictures to show you all. Imagine a mountain bike after some wet off-road trails, but with tar instead of mud. Maybe it’s better I don’t have a visual memory of it. My blood pressure is rising sitting there thinking about it.

But it’s all over and done and I’ve given myself the option to do that 1/2 now this weekend. I’m not sure what to do as there is another heat advisory this weekend basically telling people to stay inside in the AC. We’ll see. I need to get a long run this weekend anyway. Why not do it after a 3:30 warm up? :)

(Oh, and I didn’t lose my wallet. *phew!*)

There’s a thread over at SlowTwitch that registration for Ironman Lake Placid 2007 closed in a whopping 30 minutes. 30… FREAKING… MINUTES!!! That’s what someone was told from a representative at active.com, anyway. Others were saying that registration was still working after that time? Whatever the case is, it’s definitely sold out right now.

I expect Wisconsin 2007 and Florida 2007 to go just as quickly. Pretty soon, it’s going to be easier to get seats at the NBA Finals and to the American Idol Finale than it will be to register for an Ironman. Unreal.

(EDIT: Actually, according to Placid’s website they say it was officially 90 minutes that the race sold out in. Still, that has to be the record for fastest sellout of an IM event!)

I got another century in the books for the season. The plan is to do three during this base block and another couple next block with maybe a full 112 (or more) next block as well. In the previous years, that seemed to be good enough to get me into T2 without feeling too trashed. But back to the ride… I had one of my best centuries today! It was more less a “no chain” day with no real discomfort until somewhere around 85-90 miles. And really, that was more saddle discomfort than aerobic or muscular discomfort and all you can really do for that is ride more. Low HRs and better than anticipated speeds made just for an awesome ride all around! I attribute the success to my two plates of spaghetti I had last night. It’s the most I’ve eaten in probably two weeks. Give a starving body some food and it’ll reward you, I suppose.

In other news, I’ve been debating what to do with myself next weekend. The options are (1) going to Vegas, (2) an IM camp (in Madison) hosted by local coaches, or (3) a 1/2 IM. I’m heavily leaning towards option #3 at this point since #1 will likely make my fitness move backwards in a rapid direction and #2, while fun, is a rather expensive trip and I’m not sure I really want to make the drive out to Madison for the weekend (#35 on 50 Things). Doing the 1/2 means that I need to take one day off work this week to get my other century in because I won’t sacrifice a 100 mile ride for a 1/2. But I have a day or so to spare as I get more vacation than Carol does and she’s completely tapped out already. I’m thinking I’ll wait until Tuesday to see what the extended forecast for the weekend looks like and make my decision then?

What else… oh! I totally caved and went out last night at 9:30 pm to buy a couple bags of Jalapeno chips. I couldn’t take the craving anymore - it was killing me! I was fairly good though. I’ve had two servings since then and I haven’t hit the bottom of the first bag yet which is impressive for me!

That’s about it I guess. Maybe another hour or so of working out tomorrow, but just some junk miles to get my volume a little higher for the week. Oh yeah! And it’s totally my friend’s birthday tomorrow. If you recall back to this post, I granted myself a free meal for this day - guilt free. Woohoo!! I get to eat something besides fruit or Subway! :)

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Well, we’re in the crux of things here during IM season and things are going pretty darn well. I had my first big volume week last week and my body is handling the load quite nicely. Almost too well? I would have expected to come off my honeymoon and really struggle through my first week, but I’m still here plodding along with no major aches or pains or major signs of fatigue. It actually has me feeling a little uneasy about this whole thing. I think once you lose respect of the distance, you’re setting yourself up for a harsh dose of reality. But I’m feeling relaxed and comfortable here and not stressed out at all. Either the past two years has prepared me quite well, or I’m in for a rude awakening come September 10th.

Really, the only thing that I’m struggling with is my diet and I’m actually doing well with that too. It’s a mental struggle more than anything else. I have soooooo been craving some Lay’s Kettle Cooked Jalapeno Chips for the past four days now. But I can’t buy a bag as they only come in single serving sizes of 1,260 calories per bag and once I crack open the bag, I won’t stop eating until I hit bottom. Better not to have it in the house, although it doesn’t stop me from asking Carol if she bought me any on her way home from work - I’m sure that’s driving her nuts by now!

I’m not seeing the pounds drop on the scale as quickly as I’d like, but my finger calipers tell me that I’m making progress so am starting to get some positive motivation with that. I don’t remember struggling as hard to get my weight down in previous years, but I never started this late either so I get what I get.

What else… I skipped out on Heart of the Lakes Triathlon this past weekend. I was going to slam the race publicly here, but whatever. I’ll just say that after hosting a race for 20 years, if you’re planning on making the race suddenly draft legal from non-draft legal in the previous 20 years, you should publicly advertise that fact. And I mean in big, bold letters on the front of your website; not have it mentioned hidden in the “What’s new in 2006″ link (who reads that for a 20 year old race anyway?). Oh yeah… and respond back to folks’ emails. My friend and I both wrote letters to them about the change and they didn’t have the courtesy to as much as respond to either of us. In any case, I won’t be going back to Annandale ever again to race or volunteer which is a shame because it was a fun race in 2005. But the whole thing left a foul taste in my mouth. OK… so I guess I did slam them here. But it’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to? :)

I’ve been watching lots of the tour. I was really disappointed when all of the big contenders were cut out of the tour just a few days before the event. But it’s really shaping up to be a very exciting and interesting race. I loved watching Lance demolish the competition in previous years, but it’s turning out to be nice not knowing what it’s going to happen tomorrow. I can’t wait for the TT on Saturday!

Anyway, I’ve already gone and rambled on too much. It’s just about quittin’ time. Time to get home and get a few more hours in…

… and (next weekend) I will ride 100 more. I tried putting up one of those fancy video clips like I’ve seen on so many of you guys’ blogs but the video for “500 Miles” by The Proclaimers wasn’t working. Oh well.

So the ride yesterday was OK. I’ve had better, but I’ve had worse. I pushed off at an early 6 AM and managed to beat nearly all the heat. I carried a whopping four water bottles with me on my ride and boy could I tell - it was like trying to maneuver a tank! Two of the bottles were monster sized bottles and I can only guess what the weight of the four was all together? I was happy to get my hydration underway and to get some of the weight off my frame.

It did get a little warm towards the end, but really only the last 30 minutes felt like I was riding into a hair dryer. It was hot, but not as hot as I thought it was going to be. Just a couple of bad patches during the ride, but as always the patches get better a few miles down the road. Hope you all had a good weekend of training or R&R! Tomorrow starts another work week. :(

For those that don’t already know, we’re having a minor heat wave here in the Twin Cities. It’s been into the 90s the past couple of days and we’re supposed to have two straight days into the 100s (according to the radio) which hasn’t happened here since like 1988 or something like that. Couple that with the fact that I need to ride long this weekend and I’m not exactly looking forward to this weekend. But it will be a huge deposit into that Ironman bank account. I’m talking palettes of phat bills, y’all.

The national weather service was nice enough to put out a bulletin, too:

Excessive Heat Watch

/O.CON.KMPX.EH.A.0001.060715T1700Z- 060716T2300Z/ HENNEPIN-RAMSEY- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF… MINNEAPOLIS…ST. PAUL 303 AM CDT FRI JUL 14 2006

…EXCESSIVE HEAT WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM SATURDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH SUNDAY AFTERNOON…

AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM SATURDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

WITH POTENTIALLY LIFE THREATENING CONDITIONS FOR SHUT IN SENIORS OR ANYONE CURRENTLY IN POOR HEALTH WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING… PLANS SHOULD BE MADE NOW TO ENSURE THAT SAFE…COOL LOCATIONS CAN BE PROVIDED DURING THE UPCOMING WEEKEND.

AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WATCH MEANS THAT A PROLONGED PERIOD OF HOT TEMPERATURES IS EXPECTED. THE COMBINATION OF HOT TEMPERATURES AND HIGH HUMIDITY WILL COMBINE TO CREATE A DANGEROUS SITUATION IN WHICH HEAT ILLNESSES ARE POSSIBLE. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS… STAY IN AN AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM…STAY OUT OF THE SUN…AND CHECK UP ON RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS.

It just goes to show you that all my ranting about Europe and their lack of AC isn’t totally without merit. :)

As for training, I’m up to 10 hours and 35 minutes so far this week. I’d like to get another run in and hopefully somewhere between 5-6 hours tomorrow on the bike, so I should be up at 17 hours come Sunday. That’s a solid week, for me, and will be a big confidence booster for Moo (barring any unforeseen circumstances with my ride tomorrow).

I’ve still been eating fairly well. I’m going slower in all my workouts and I’m not sure if it’s due to the lack of training that I had while on vacation, the heat, or if it’s the lack of calories that I’m taking in? Or some combination of the three? I do know yesterday that about 1/3 of the way into my ride, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it back home. I was really hungry and just felt totally depleted energy wise. I got back home and had almost a whole can of reduced fat Pringles, but still managed to be barely over 2k calories for the day so not all was lost. I’m thinking of giving myself a larger dinner tonight with more carbs and what not so I have adequate fuel for tomorrow’s ride. Feeling like I did yesterday but for 5+ hours instead of 1:30 would totally suck.

I’m planning on pushing off tomorrow at the crack of dawn to hopefully beat some of the heat. 90+ degree temperature with humidity and wind! I’m sure it’ll bring back fond memories of IM Wisconsin 2005. :P

Have a great weekend everyone!

So, I got through my “threes” workout yesterday (3,000 meters of swimming, 30 miles on the bike, and 3 miles of running in 3 hours). It wasn’t too bad except for the run which I sort of crawled through. But today, I planned to man up and was going to try and run long. I was planning to run 13 miles, but my friend advised me to just do 10 since I had recently taken so much time off. So I opted for a nine mile loop starting from my house after which I would decide if I wanted to do another shorter four mile loop after that.

It wasn’t too bad at first, but as I kept running it seemed to just get hotter… and hotter. I still have this thing about not running with my fuel belt, so I was only able to stop at a water fountain every 30 minutes. And for whatever reason, I have it in my head this year that if I’m not working out longer than two hours, I don’t need to take any supplemental fuel with me? Anyway, I should have known once I setup my route to pass my house that it would be trouble. I felt like I was melting and despite not really feeling too fatigued otherwise, my heart rate was absolutely through the roof. Honestly, I felt OK based on my RPE, but I looked at my watch and had to do a double take. Turns out, my HR near the end was around 166 which is about what I’ve raced my sprints at! So at nine miles, I wussed out and called it a day. I checked the Internet when I got home and found out it was only around 86 here today. I would have sworn it was in the 90s (actually, my Polar HRM said it was as high as 93). I have no idea how I toughed it out for so long last year at Wisco. Hopefully, my fitness comes back quickly. Ten days off definitely took its toll and I’m paying the price for it now.

So far so good on the eating front. I’m probably eating too little, but I tend to like to play it safe than sorry.

It looks like it’s going to keep getting hotter right through the weekend. This weekend’s long ride should be an interesting one. Now where did I put those salt tablets?!