Brooks Adrenaline GTS 12's

Have officially arrived at my doorstep c/o Amazon. These are the bad-boys I will be wearing on September 9th that I am hoping will carry me to the finish line. Love these little buggers...

Creatures

Between Saturday and Sunday's workouts I had three separate incidents where I saw deer (twice on a 6.5 hour bike ride and once on my run on Sunday).  Those episodes made me think back about all the creatures I've seen this summer while out on the open road.  I'm sure I am forgetting some of them, but here are a handful of my favorites so far to date..... 

Turkey

Garter Snake

Fox coming out of the woods with squirrel or some other varmit in his mouth.

Peacock.  The most amazingly long tail feathers (at least 6 feet) draped behind him as he crossed the road.

Sand Cranes (very noisy)

Deer - This picture actually taken by me on a run into work.

Wicked & Wild Weekend

OMG....That was a hell of a weekend.  Saturday was a real test of a training day.  The plan called for 8.5 hours of endurance work and in a nutshell here was my plan on Saturday:

4:00am - Wake up Call.
4:05am - Breakfast (bagel with peanut butter, greek yogurt, bananna, endurolyte tablet, water, coffee). General streching & yoga.
5:45am - Arrive at pool
6:00am - In the water to swim 95 minutes (or 5,025 yards or about 3 miles).
8:00am - On the bike leaving the Tosa WAC to ride 103 miles out and around Holy Hill (6.5 hours on the bike).
2:30pm - Arrive back at WAC and immediately run for 30 minutes.
3:00pm - Finish, shower up and go home.

This was a good plan except for one broken link.  Upon arrival at the WAC at 5:45, I discovered it did not open until 6:30.  I was not going to sit around and waste 45 minutes on this very busy day, so I decided to start the cycling portion first and worry about the swim & run when I got back.  So I began what was to be a fairly technical ride with a very hilly theme featuring at least 6 "major" climbs.  The total elevation climb on this ride was 5,059 feet.  The final route ended up looking like this and as expected, it was definitely challenging......

These longer rides continue to include various experimentations with nutrition and proper fueling in order to find the ideal mix for me.  I confirmed a couple more important pieces to my puzzle that helped me eliminated Perpetuem and gels (in the bottle) from my nutrition plan. Both of those seem to make me ill on the bike.  I've also eliminated Cliff bars from the menu as those did not sit well with me either (probably too much protein & fiber).  However, I did discover that my newest and most effective munchable are a type of granola bar with about 90 calories and no fat.  I ate 4 of them on the bike with no issues. In fact I was craving more of them and could definitely have used a few more for additional calories.  In addition, I have also had success with gel blasts, pretzels and jelly beans.  If I can combine all of those, I believe I might have my personal key to a good nutrition plan.  I will continue to experiment with this mix, but at the moment, I am happy to report that I have found something effective!

So I finished the bike portion in 6 hours and 30 minutes which was perfect.  I made it back to my car in the WAC parking lot, loaded up the bike and made the sweaty transition to the run.  I also kept this run easy because I knew I had a very long, hard swim afterward.  I had a decent amount of energy left in my legs and the run went fairly well, so I considered that another win for me (don't worry, the loss is coming up on the swim)!

Here's where the fun really begins. After 103 miles on the bike and a 30 minute brick run, I did not feel like doing the swim at all (can't imagine why?)!  After 7 hours of endurance work, I was quite ready for some food, drink and rest.  There is a reason today's workout had the swim planned first and I quickly understood why.  Unfortunately the WAC not being open early on a Saturday morning, messed me up a bit.  Yes, I like to blame others (ie the WAC), when my workouts go sour.  Anyway, I began the swim very slow and lethargic and knew I would never be able to complete the 8x400's at TH pace that were planned. So I went along and just did everything the best I could.  I was hopeful I could just get in the full 95 minutes.

After about 40 minutes of swimming I felt some general calf cramping, but nothing too serious. I did have to stop once, but the calf loosened up very quickly and I continued on without issue. Unfortunately at about 53' my right calf cramped up completely and I was in tremendous pain. The thing was locked in that position for several minutes and was not loosening up.  I rarely have cramping and when I do it is never this bad. Even after it finally "un-cramped" it was very sore, stiff and irritable.  I knew I could/should not continue on and had to pull the plug on this workout at 53 minutes instead of the full 95.  I decided I would make up the time on Sunday when I had another swim on the schedule.

So what can be learned from this crazy day?  Actually quite a bit and most of it was very valuable to me.  The sole negative was that I didn't quite finish the workout due to the cramping issues.  However, these types of things will happen when you engage in 8.5 hours of endurance work and the good news is that I will never have to finish an actual Ironman race with the swim being the last leg!  Some of the big positives include being very happy that I finished a 7 hour and 53 minute workout or 92% of the total time of 8:30.  That is not an easy thing to do.  In addition, I completed a very difficult century ride through the hills and I continue to make great discoveries and progress in formulating my nutrition plan for race day!  This is all very, very good and encouraging as I continue to move forward in my training!

Oh, as a side note, the weekend wasn't all about workouts. Saturday definitely was, but on Sunday I was able to remove five of our exterior light fixtures on our house and replace them with new ones that Colleen had purchased. And I did that in between a 12 mile morning run and a 2700 yard afternoon swim. It felt nice to finally do something valuable around the house!

Totals for week 14 looked like this:

Swim - 10,172 yards (5.78 miles)
Bike - 146.38 miles
Run - 32.1 miles

The Love and Hate of Friday's

Recently I have started to develop a love/hate relationship with Friday's.  Strange, because I used to only LOVE friday's.  Lately the "love" part has changed a bit where I am happy because my workout schedule provides a full day of rest with no workouts (although I usually do some core work and general stretching).  I also still love the fact that it is the end of the work week and the start of the weekend.  Who doesn't like that?  I also love them because I know the weekend will have some challenging workouts on the schedule.

However, the "hate" part is fairly new to me.  I think the reason for this disdain stems from the amount of time and energy the weekend workouts require.  It seems they are officially taking over the entire two days leaving little time for anything else.  Yup, this must be a sign that I am in peak training for Ironman.  Don't get me wrong, I generally enjoy working out, but I have found that an 8.5 hour workout on Saturday followed by a 3 hour workout on Sunday doesn't leave me with too much time for anything else.  Unless you have trained for an Ironman, it is hard to describe the feeling after an 8.5 hour workout.  For me, I usually spend the first couple hours after the workout trying to eat and hydrate.  Sometimes that can be difficult because the stomach is often stressed and not cooperating.  After those couple hours and a shower, you start feeling better but the legs, hamstrings, calves and quads get stiff and you become tired and really like the thought of relaxing on a comfy couch.  You are rearely rejuvenated or motivated enough to take on any big project.  Furthermore, by this time it is getting close to dinner and your appetite is really beginning to surge.  It is also around this time that you realize you should get to bed early because you have to get up early the next day to beat the heat and do the next day's workout.  And that closes out Saturday.

Lets face it, Ironman is a selfish pursuit that eats up a ton of time.  Nobody can really argue that.  It begins to feel like you are always working out or recovering from those workouts on the weekends.  Chores and social activities become limited and eventually seem to disappear.  Before you know it you start to feel like you are not contributing around the house (because you are not).  In addition you start to realize that the people you care about (friends and family) are also paying the price in this selfish endevor.  I am thankful to have a supportive wife who agreed to let me take on this lifelong goal and I truly appreciate her help, support and understanding in all of this craziness!

This is all part of the package of becomming an Ironman.  Hell, if it were easy everyone would be an Ironman.  However, there is no doubt in the second half of an Ironman training plan, my perspective on Friday's and the attitude towards the weekend has changed.  It hasn't been easy and it won't get easier in the next few weeks, but I continue to hold my head up high and continue moving forward regardless of how I feel mentally or physically.  Perhaps Charles Dickens summed it up best....."It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness".

Weekend featuring 160 miles of Biking

It was definitely a weekend featuring cycling for me.  Ironic that the Tour de France also concluded this weekend with a awesome win for Bradley Wiggins.  What a great win for his country (Britain) and congrats to Team Sky for their part in the win.  Just a great tour and I always hate when it wraps up because I LOVE watching it on TV.

Anyway, my weekend was filled with my own Tour which I will call "Tour De La Central Wisconsin".  I logged over 160 miles of cycling including my first century ride of the year.  Lots, and lots of good riding and despite some heat & humidity I was happy with my results and also happy that the 'ole body is still feeling pretty good (even as I write this on Monday!). 

Saturday was the century ride and an incredibly long day.  It started with a 4:30 wake up call, followed by breakfast, stretching, slopping on several ounces of SPF protection and out the door with a 30 minute car ride to Oconomowoc to meet up with Leslie and her husband Jim.  Leslie and I were doing the century and Jim was doing the 45 mile option. 

This event was perhaps the best deal of any race I have ever done.  The cost was a mere $25 and it gave us an organized, well marked ride, SAG wagon support and about a half dozen rest/water stops (the mile 65 stop even had Buffalo Wild Wings!).  In addition, the event had a very good post ride spaghetti dinner.  I have never paid so little for any event and got so much.  It was a real deal.

I include a map and profile picture of the ride which covered a lot of terrain.  We ended up having a great day and although it go hot, it was slightly overcast so the sun was not has hot as it could have been.  There were some hills, but definitely not as techical or difficult as the Ironman course.  But still a very good challenging ride through some great midwestern countryside.  There is no doubt that I will consider doing this ride again in the future.  The day finally ended somewhere around 3pm after the ride and a post ride 30 minute run.  WHEW...a long day indeed.

On Sunday I rode a solo 60 miler that included more substantial hills and rolling terrain (profile pic below).  Sunday was a bit hotter, but I got out early at 6am and was done between 9 and 10am.  My post-ride run on Saturday was with Leslie around the Lac La Belle area (in the heat), so on Sunday I decided to skip the heat and do the post-ride run in the comfort of my basement and on the treadmill (that sure made it a lot easier). 

The last noteworth cycling top of the week was that my new race tires arrived.  I've been riding around on some older tires that are still holding up pretty well, but definitely have a lot of miles on them.  So I ordered these about a week ago and they just arrived.  I suspect I'll put them on bike a few weeks before Ironman so that I get comfortable with them and "break them in" a little bit.  I'm sure they buy me some additional speed....just not sure how much!

Weekday Summary

It’s been a good full week of (weekday) training. There were many workouts but a couple that stood out were Tuesdays 30 mile ride with the Tri-Wisconsin group (followed by post ride beers in the parking lot). I also had another outdoor swim in Lake Mini-Donka featuring 2,700 yards of continuous swimming. The weekend will be the real test in which I will be logging 100 miles on the bike on Saturday followed by a 30 minute run. Then on Sunday it will be 55 miles on the bike followed by another 30 minute run. The century ride is the Bayview Bicycle Classic event (http://www.bayviewbikeclub.org/classic.htm) which will be fun because I am doing it with my fellow Ironman-in-Training friend, Leslie. It will also be nice because the ride is fully supported with rest stops, food, water, etc. It should be a good time! Stay tuned for more.....

Recovery Week

Although this week was considered a recovery/easier week, it really wasn't all that easy. I did a total of four workouts over two days (Sat & Sun) and one of the workouts was a maximum distance for me. On Saturday I swam 5025 yards (nearly three full miles). That is the most I have ever swam in a single workout, so that was anything but easy. In addition, I did the swim later in the day after already doing a 30 mile bike ride up to and around the Holy Hill area (which is indeed hilly).  I joined a fellow BT'er buddy (wibadger) who was doing a 75 mile ride and I got to spend 30 miles riding with him.  Anyway, the climb up to the top of Holy Hill, you find one of only two Catholic Basilicas in the state of Wisconsin.  Here is a picture I took...

On Sunday things did seem a bit easier with a 17 mile bike ride followed immediately by running for 1:45 (an hour & 45 minutes).  I decided to do the run inside the Petitt National Ice Rink running track instead of outside.  Because this was a longer effort, I really wanted to get in some quality miles where I was not overheating outside and running slower than normal.  The running track proved to be the perfect place.  It was almost 90 degrees outside, but a cool 50 inside the Pettit.  I was able to get a very good, quality run and was happy with the result.  I was even more happy that I did not feel so physically drained and exhausted after the workout like I often do after I run in extreme heat.  I have plenty of time to acclimate to the heat once I get closer to the race date.

So in a nutshell, that concluded my easy weekend and the next two weeks coming up feature big volume as I approach peak hours in preparation for the big event!

Open Water Swim Training

July 12^th and I finally got out for my first Open Water Swim of the year.  Met up with fellow swimmers Janet & Amy at 5:00 am in the creepy lake Mini-Donka that we all know and love.  It’s a fairly small body of water so it gets a bit warm and weedy this time of year.  All of that adds to the excitement of doing an outdoor swim.

Although I’ve had my new Garmin 910xt for close to six months now, today was the first time I got to use the full GPS functionality during an outdoor swim.  There is no more guessing on whether the floating pier is 250 yards from our start point anymore because Garmin said it WAS!  It was nice being able to know precise distances during the swim and also being able to see the metrics afterwards including the cool map of the work done…..

We basically swam intervals from one side of the lake to the other with each being in the neighborhood of 250-300 yards.  Initially we stopped and chatted a little longer after each interval than was desirable, but after each set we reduced that rest time significantly.  I also made an attempt to do the first 100 yards easy, the second 100 moderate, and the remainder at a HARD effort.   The total time and distance below includes the rests and I wound up with 2612 yards in 52 minutes and 12 seconds.  Also listed below are the specific intervals I did along with the average pace on each.  All of this information is thanks to the Garmin 910xt (that is not an advertisement, but instead my glowing approval of the device):

52m 12s  2612 yards 2m/100 yards

Dist       Time      Pace     Rest
=====   =====   =====  ======
260yds   0:04:34   0:01:45  0:01:43
290yds   0:04:27   0:01:32  0:01:35
260yds   0:04:34   0:01:45  0:00:56
266yds   0:04:46   0:01:47  0:00:19
278yds   0:05:02   0:01:49  0:00:27
291yds   0:05:01   0:01:43  0:00:45
301yds   0:05:17   0:01:45  0:00:31
346yds   0:06:55   0:01:59

I feel very content with where my swim fitness is these days & I am very comfortable in the lake.  Today’s swim was very comfortable and easy to me and I tended to use this workout to focus on sighting in the open water and swimming good tangents.  I came away satisfied with the work done and had only one “issue”.  I forgot to put the body glide on my neck which caused some wetsuit  rubbing and post-swim irritating around my neck line.  That problem is always solved with body glide…..I just have to remember to use it.  All things considered today was a very good swim!

Ironman Bike Course

The weekend ended up being as tough as I had expected. The biggest obstacle ended up being the heat. A cool front was “supposed” to come through our state on Saturday morning providing warm, but not scorching heat like we’ve had the last week up to that point. Unfortunately that cool front never hit Madison until late Saturday evening and this led to some very challenging conditions in my two loop ride of the bike course.

Got to Madison around 6:30am and began my ride at 7am sharp. I was able to link up with 3 guys who were all riding the course for the first time and were also doing their first Ironman’s at Wisconsin this year. We were prepared for the heat and at 7am the temperature was already 75 and fairly humid. One loop of the Ironman course is 42 miles and by the time I had finished the first loop it was in the 90’s leading to an entire second loop featuring temperatures well into the 90s with full sun.

As far as endurance work, over years of experience I have discovered that I struggle more than most people with extreme heat. I am a heavy, salty sweater and I need to drink an exorbitant amount of water to stay hydrated (almost an unreasonable amount). I also need to eat salt tablets like crazy to keep my system in balance. Part of my problem on Sunday during my first loop was that I was socializing a bit too much with my riding partners and not paying enough attention to my hydration, salt intake and nutrition. As any long distance endurance athlete knows, once you fall behind in these disciplines, you pay the price downstream.

Although I finished the full two loops totaling 84+ miles, I struggled for the last 15-20 miles of the second loop. I was dehydrated, nauseous and didn’t feel like eating (which makes things worse). All of that led to a second loop that was about 2 mph slower than loop one. Although it was not a perfect ride for me, it was a great reconnaissance mission of the course and it helped reaffirm how important it is for me to pay attention to food & water - especially during extreme conditions. It is unlikely that it will be 95 in September for Ironman, but the last several years have had some warm temperatures into the 80’s. I learned a lot about myself on Saturday’s ride and I am proud of the way I handled the adverse conditions. I just pray we don’t have similar conditions on September 9th!

4th of July Week

Been a great week.  My mom and Step-dad have been in town for the last several weeks and have been staying in both Chicago (at my brothers place) and in Lake Geneva. Several days over the 4th of July week, they spent some time with us and it was a good fun week but it was definitely tough getting in all my workouts.  Several days this I was up at the crack of dawn squeezing in a bike ride and/or a run before anyone else was awake.   Things finally wound down yesterday when my parents went back to Chicago.  Here are a few pictures from the las couple weeks....

This weekend will finish up week 11 of 20 and it is certainly going to be a tough one.  Tomorrow I am making the trek out to Madison to ride two loops of the Ironman course and a bit of the stick (roughly 90 miles).  I also have to swim 4000 yards later in the day.  Sunday will conclude with about 18 miles of running.  Hopefully the temps are down a bit, because these workout will be plenty difficult without extreme heat! Either way the weekend will definitely be another stern test of my Ironman-worthiness.  Looking forward to the challenge.

Wrestling with Senior Citizens for Pool Space

Fourth of July week is always when my local pool is drained, cleaned and refilled.  Because of this, I have to use the other Wisconsin Athletic Club pools around town to get in my swims.  Monday I went to swim at the Greenfield club in which I remember they keep the temp way too warm because they utilize the pool for both lap swimming and various water aerobic classes.  On that note, I was hoping it wouldn't be too hot, but was expecting the worst.

Upon arriving to the club after work, all four lanes were occupied with swimmers, so I joined a lane with a lady swimmer.  Much to my surprise the water temp was definitely warmer than most pools, but not quite as horribly hot as it was last year.  Needless to say, I was happy about that. 

I had a big hour and a half swim on the schedule, so I knew I was going to be in the pool for a while.  After about 30 minutes I got kicked out of my lane because water classes appeared to be starting at 5:30pm and the instructor apparently needed two full lanes for water zumba for about 8 senior citizens.  I guess those seniors really need their space!  I politely moved over a lane and joined another guy who was swimming.  At this point we have 2 lanes for lap swimming and 2 lanes being used for 8 seniors doing water aerobics.

Then, a few minutes later the instructor came up to me again and said she may have to also take the third lane if any more people showed up for the class. That would have given 5 lap swimmers 1 lane and the 10 water zumba participants a full 3 lanes (keep in mind...25 yards long).

The good news is that she did not have to take the third lane and I think if she wanted to, I might have had to bargain with her for pool space.  It just seemed way excessive to me for the amount of people in the class, but I guess I have never done water aerobics, so maybe I am the dumb one?

Anyway....that's it for random thoughts today.

Week of June 25th

This was a big build week for me in training volume and in addition I also got to play around with some new cool stuff on my bike that I recently purchased. 
First, my week wrapped up with over 155 miles on the bike, 24.5 miles running, and almost 7600 yards (4.3 miles) of swimming.  Interestingly the weekend was very tough on me because on Saturday I biked 80 miles followed immediately by an hour long run featuring hill-repeats.  It was tough because I had to run up a steep incline will for about 3 minutes getting my heart rate up to my threshold.  I then would jog back down, and immediately start running back up the hill again.  Doing this 7 times in a row seemed like eternity especially in the noon heat of the day.  I would rank that as one of the hardest workouts I have ever done because it ended up being somewhere in the neigbhorhood of 6 hours of straight endurance work.  Glad that is over but I still have more fun like that coming up in the future.

Lastly, I wanted to mention some new cool stuff I picked up.  I think the consensus is that most people think the cyclists who wear the rear view mirror clipped to their helmet are quite nerdy.  I have decided to jump on the nerd bandwagon myself.  If nothing else, I wanted to try out a mirror to see how it functioned and whether the benefit was worth the Nerd-Factor.  Turns out the benefit highly outweighs the nerd-factor.  I must admit, the mirror device does look obnoxious, but it allows a wide range of rear vision that provides me with knowledge with traffic creeping up behind me.  Furthermore, I never have to turn around and it makes preparing for left-hand turns a snap.  I don't plan on racing with this on my helmet because surely adds additional drag, but I will certainly continue to use it for all training rides.  Well worth the cost for the additional safety.  HIGHLY recommend it. 

The other item I tried out this week was a $2.99 cue sheet clip.  Any time I create a new cycling route, I often have to refer to my cue sheet for directions and often find myself having to stop and review things.  I saw this cue sheet on Amazon and was skeptical about how well it would function when moving fast.  However, I think I found another winner.  The holder stays firmly on the handlebars and keeps the paper in place remarkably well.  I also thought it might blow all over the place, but it really didn't.  I am now able to easily refer to my directions without ever even having to slow down.  Another great buy IMO.