Smoke Training

MB preview

2012-02-16T07:58:00.000-05:00

Work has been totally nuts the last few days. Like 14 hour days this week. Luckily, tomorrow I'm knocking off around noon to head to Myrtle Beach and run the marathon. You know you're having a rough week when the shortest task is running a marathon. Especially one that you're barely prepared for.

I've been enjoying the taper this week, getting my yoga done and some strength training. I did have a nice time on the stationary bike on monday, and got in a good treadmill run on tuesday. But since the Charleston marathon there really hasn't been that much activity. First I had that foot problem that required 10 days off. And there was only about 4 weeks in between marathons here. So with 2 weeks to recover and 2 weeks to taper, it doesn't leave much time for a build. Still, the longest run I've had since Charleston has been 5 miles. That can't be good.

My plan is to enjoy the weekend. We're going to go down there, visit with friends, run long, and have a good time. I'm going to start out somewhere around an 8:30 or 9:00 pace, and then try and pick it up a bit in the second half if there is anything left. No official time goals, just finish, don't die, and don't get injured. It's supposed to be nice weather down there, so just enjoy the beach and visit with friends. If you're down there, we're having a meetup at Mellow Mushroom saturday night at 6 pm. Come say hi!

Last year before the start of the MB half. Great race!

Last year we had a blast. Set a nice PR in the half, broke 2 hours for the first time, and had a great weekend overall. I think Kelley is sharing my goals as well. Finish, don't die, don't get injured. She also hasn't been long since Charleston.

Good luck if you're racing this weekend too!

Run for the Roses

2012-02-13T08:44:00.000-05:00

The 5k Run for the Roses race was in Raleigh yesterday, Kelley and I both ran it in spectacular fashion. Well, at least she did great. I was a little disappointed. But we were entered in the Couples Competition so it all worked out well.

It was only about 36 degrees out there at the race start, which was at 2 pm. At least we were running in the warmest part of the day. It didn't feel that cold once we got moving a bit. My strategy going out was to stay just under a 7 m/m pace for the first half, then drop it down closer to a 6:30 pace for the second half. We drove the course the night before, and I knew there were two big hills in the second half. So I knew that was a bad strategy.

self portrait before the race while still in the car

The gun goes off and I take off too fast, as usual. Kelley remembered to give me the garmin since I've forgotten it the last few races. The first time I look down to get a pace it said 5:45. oops. At least I knew this time. So I slow it down a bit. I was actually really well placed at the starting line, I didn't have to pass a ton of people right after the gun went off, and nobody passed me at the start.

We take the first few turns and this part of the course is mostly flat/downhill as I was expecting. I was coasting along pretty good, not pushing it too hard in the first mile but not slouching off either. Strategy is working so far, but my abs start to fatigue about a mile in.

At the halfway point they had an aide station, and the guy right in front of me was the first person to take water. I took some too because I was really thirsty, and walked 3 steps to chug the juice. Now it's time to drop the hammer for the second half of the race.

Of course right after that halfway point there is a slight uphill, followed by a steep uphill. I'm kind of cruising those, knowing I can push the pace back down when it flattens out again. And I know it will. There is one little out and back spur on Marshall St right after the mile 2 marker, I know the out is slightly uphill, and the back is the best place on the second half of the course to really fly. So I turn it loose coming back down Marshall, and fly as much as I still can. There's a bit of a side stitch creeping in now, and my abs are really fatigued. But there's less than a mile left, tough it out.

At 2.6 miles the last tough uphill hits me like a ton of bricks. It starts really steep into a turn, and once you make the turn it goes straight up for two more blocks. And we turned right into a headwind. So I walked the curve and took an easy jog up the rest of the hill. It flattened out for about 5 steps then went back to uphill grade, and I had to walk again. The core just had nothing left, and I had to find something else for a strong finish. That hill cost me somewhere between 45 seconds and about 1:15 off of my finish time.

The last turn went into a parking lot then back onto a street heading to the finish line. It feels good to know you're giving the race everything you've got even if you did miss a goal. Put it all out there, kick it hard, and see what happens. If you puke, that's something that happens. Luckily, I did not. I did finish in 23:04, which is considerably slower than the 21:50 I was shooting for.

At least I totally froze my cherries off.

Kelley, however, finished in 30:05 smashing her PR of 30:11 set back in 2010. She did really well, negative split the course, and got a rose at the finish line!

With the rose after the race

We finished 12th among 24 couples in the couples competition based on our combined gun times. The winner finished in 16:07, my 23:05 time put me in 95th place overall, and Kelley's time placed her in 277 out of 485 runners. Being in the couples competition, we didn't get an age group placement, but I would have been 11/26 and Kelley would have been 9/29 in her age group.

Any day we can walk away from a race with a rose and PR is a good day to be running. I'm just glad we were able to get out there. Now it's time to taper for the Myrtle Beach Marathon next weekend.

Old and New

2012-02-08T10:41:00.000-05:00

I've been quickly filling up the "2012 race list" on the left there. I knew it was going to be a busy year, but this is getting out of hand. Actually it's just getting condensed, like I'm prepping for a big offseason next year. Mostly because I can't come up with anything that I really want to do into the fall. But lately I've been biting the bullet and paying the registration fees for more stuff.

One of my goals for the year is to race in the 2012 USAT Oly Age Group National Championships in Burlington Vermont in August. USAT still hasn't actually announced the 2012 regional championships and special qualifiers for all of the regions yet, but I did find the Mid-Atlantic region list was up. You can only race nationals if you qualify, and it's tough to get in. The regional championship is the Nations Triathlon, and as much as I want to race in DC this year, I'm not going to pay $200 and two nights in a DC hotel to race an oly. Just not going to happen. The special qualifier this year is the Lake Logan International, which I raced in 2:33 last year and missed qualifying for nationals by only 3 minutes. The tricky part is that Lake Logan is on August 4th, and Nationals is August 18th. So if I qualify there I'll have to register, line up hotel and travel and childcare arrangements, and recover/train for the race all in a couple of weeks. Still it will be worth it if I can qualify, that's sure to be an experience of a lifetime to be out there competing against the best in the country. I bit down and signed up for Lake Logan as soon as I saw the list.

Goal abandonment: The long course nationals is in Oklahoma this year, and I set the goal to qualify but not race. The long course qualifier is the Patriot's Half, which I ran in 2010 and did enjoy overall even though the swim was tough and it was my worst half ever. This year the OBX half is the same day and I'd rather go back to OBX. My mom wants to come with us too, and we're going to take the kids and stay a few extra days this time. I haven't paid this registration fee yet, but I will. Still trying to find the place to stay first.

Side note: When you Google "OBX Half Iron" the registration page from FSseries is the first link, and my race report from last year is the second link. I didn't expect to be that noticeable.

I'm competing in (and I think Kelley also wants in) the Second Empire Grand Prix series for the spring. It's a series of 10 running races in 5k, 10k, and 13.1 mile distances. They take the best 6 overall finishes and add up points. So you only have to race in 6 of the 10 races to get points into the series. The top 5 overall point getters, as well as the top 5 point getters in each 5 year age group get awards and get into a banquet. The Run for Young 5k I did in January was the first race in the series. Picking out the other 5 races is not proving to be difficult.

Kelley and I are both registered for the Run for the Roses 5k on Sunday. It's unique because we entered as a couples competition. The female finishers get roses at the finish line, and it's just a couple of days before Valentines day. In the couples competition, the combined time for the couple gets registered for awards, but the overall male and female standings still get computed for the series points.

The next weekend is the Myrtle Beach marathon, and the weekend after that is the Torch Run 5k from the Second Empire series. So we're going to be racing three weekends in a row. I'm already signed up for the Torch Run, Kelley is not (yet).

Anytime you start a year with three full marathons to Maniac and 6 - 10 running races in a Grand Prix series, add on three Aquathons and you've got 12 races already. And we haven't even gotten into triathlon season yet!

I went ahead and registered for the Jordan Lake Open Water Challenge, a one mile open water swim. At the same time I got into the Big Duece two mile OWS and the Battle at Buckhorn Sprint triathlon. Last year I almost finished in 6th place (if I hadn't missed a turn on the run) overall, so this year I'm going back to win that sucker. I did all three of those races last year.

Me after one of the Aquathons last year. Brutal, but so much fun.

So far I've actually paid for seven running events (and still need to register for at least three more in the grand prix series), three Aquathons (swim + run), two open water swims, and two triathlons. 14 races already plus three more running races, the fall half iron, and hopefully the age group nationals. I still want to run the Beaverdam oly again to get an april triathlon as well, but I'm having trouble making that commitment. And maybe another oly in the summer to give me three chances to hit that 2:15 oly finish time goal instead of just at Lake Logan.

This is shaping up to be a busy year. Especially if it's all going to climax at the half iron in OBX September 8th. Fun times! I'm just glad it's all starting to come together.

SC Visit

2012-02-06T08:49:00.001-05:00

It's always fun to head back to Greenville for a weekend to visit with the family when you have a weekend free. Friday after work we went down to SC. We didn't get to see as many people as I'd hoped, but it was still a lot of fun. Mom made some really cute dresses for the girls out of some scrap material she had laying around.


What an adorable princess!

How cute is that! Bigun got an all white dress that she refused to put on. little stinker.

Speaking of little stinkers, After last sunday's poo drama I fully expected a repeat this sunday. It wasn't quite as bad, thank goodness she did it while we were at Grandma's house and not on the highway somewhere. And it didn't take any begging pleading or phone calls this time, but still made quite a mess and caused quite a stir.

That young'un ain't right, as we say here in the deep south.

Saturday night my brother Morgan and his girlfriend came over, as did one of my grandmothers who wanted to see the girls. We had a fun dinner hanging out with them.

Sunday was a bit of an adventure. We are hosting Bigun's Indian Princess meeting here at our house tuesday night, so we had to start making the invitations in the morning. we didn't get very far. I wanted to leave between 1:30 and 2 pm to head back to Raleigh, and it ended up being closer to 2:30. Not too bad. The best part of sunday, by far, was this:

Getting to meet Lisa! She was in Charlotte for work and her flight happened to come in early enough on Sunday that she was there while we were driving through Charlotte on our way back home, so we got to stop and visit for about an hour or so. We've been blog friends for years but since she lives in MN I never thought we would get to meet in person. Turns out, she's just as incredible in real life as she appears on her blog. Exactly the same!

Of course after leaving Charlotte, the kids started getting sick. We think Bigun has an ear infection, and that must have kicked in some motion sickness or something. Maybe it's viral, who knows. but I think we did get to spot a clear difference between the two kids. We were circling a parking lot after picking up some dinner when Evil Genius tries furiously to open the car door and get out while the car is still moving so she doesn't puke in the car. Of course the doors were locked and she still had her seat belt on so she couldn't go anywhere. We stopped and got her out, and she spit out some mucus but didn't puke. All prep, no puke. Then about an hour later we stopped to get some more tissues at a drug store, and while we were waiting in the parking lot Bigun puked all over the back seat. We were stopped, she was unbuckled and the door was unlocked and it would have been perfectly safe for her to puke outside the car. But no, that wouldn't be challenging enough. So she covers the back seat with kid vomit. Bigun's all puke no prep, and EG's all prep and no puke. If we were in Texas I'd make a joke about cattle and a hat.

But I can promise you that cleaning up that much puke after we got home was no joke, and it was all daddy. And it was disgusting. We finally made it home about 8:30 (really? 6 hours to make a 4 hour drive?) and they went straight into the shower, then to bed. It took almost an hour for me to get the car cleaned up after that. So nasty. I really felt bad for Bigun having to ride the last 90 minutes of the drive with all of that bile around her and under her car seat. It couldn't have smelled good. We cleaned up as best we could onsite and rushed home without stopping again.

What was missing from this weekend? We had tons of family and friends, and lots of puke. Running. There was no running of any kind. We've got races the next three weekends in a row with a local 5k next sunday, then the Myrtle Beach Marathon on the 18th, then another small 5k the weekend after that. I think we're going to organize a meetup in myrtle beach, so let me know if you want to get in on that and I'll be sure to send you the facebook invite. And now more cute kid pics from this weekend when they weren't feeling sick....

Evil Genius Story

2012-02-02T09:44:00.002-05:00

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Welcome to February

2012-02-01T08:48:00.001-05:00

It's supposed to hit 70 degrees in Raleigh today. I don't know what this is but I kind of like it. Actually I'm hoping for a good hard freeze this month so it will kill off all of the insect larvae before they can hatch and we get overrun by mosquitos this summer. And if it's 70* today, it's going to get up to about 170* in August. So, pleasant as it may be, it could be more destructive long term.

That doesn't mean I won't put the top down when I drive out to lunch with some friends today.

So what happened in January? Well, there was a marathon and lots of yoga.

Swim: 10,400 yards, 4 swims
Bike: 82 miles, 4 rides
Run: 61.8 miles, 9 rides, 2 races
Strength: 5 workouts
Yoga: 26 sessions

Yes, I'm well on my way to the 300 yoga sessions on the year. I've really gotten the beginning Ashtanga poses down and can see some real progress in my flexibility, comfort and strength for those particular poses. That's really cool. The Charleston Marathon was great overall, but it should have been called the "North Charleston Marathon" because the majority of the course was outside of Charleston on rough unkempt roads that destroyed many body parts of the runners. It was great having that much time with our friends Joe and Gina, and we loved getting to hang out with my brother Michael and Summer, but I came home with a torn up foot, Gina tore up a foot too, and Kelley's knee is still trashed. Not Cool.

My other race was the Run for Young 5k that was also kind of a disaster, but still fun. The hills got me, and I missed the sub-20 goal by a long shot.

Overall I have to be pleased with the mileage for last month. It's not huge, but I don't need to put up 100+ mile months of running during the off season. February marks the time to start training for the spring tri's, so it's time to make some decisions, pay some entrance fees, and get back to work. Lots of short, fast runs, and getting back on the bike. Februaray's targets need to be 15,000 yards in the pool, 200+ miles of biking, and 80+ miles of running. And I still have to work the Myrtle Beach marathon in there and recover from it.

I'm starting to think that sub-20 5k and 3:30 marathon may not happen. I ran 5 miles on sunday in just under 41 minutes, and it felt ok. It had been 10 days since my last run. The foot was fine during the run, then started the inflammation again about an hour after I finished. My legs hit muscle fatigue really early, and my breathing was more labored than it has been at that pace in a long time. When you do marathons and ironman your overall muscular and aerobic capacity builds like you are climbing to the top of a mountain, and now it feels like I'm coming down the other side and losing all of that speed again. And that feels like a good thing. You take the time off to heal and recover, then come back and start climbing that hill again. Like you have to get slow to get faster. So if getting slow now means no sub-20 5k or 3:30 marathon (at least for the spring), then I'm ok with that. I have to be.

It should also mean a fast triathlon season in the summer. Maybe I'll crush some run splits there. The swimming is starting to feel really comfortable and fast this year. I'm still mentally having trouble getting back on the bike, but I'm sure that will pass in this warm weather. And I'm pretty sure this foot thing will heal up ok too in short order. Here's hoping that your January was that good! Now get on the mat!

p.s. I forgot to mention the new header image. Evil Genius came up to me while I was working the other day and showed me an MDot that she made out of play-doh. She was very proud that she made it, and I didn't prompt her for the idea or anything. It was so sweet I took a picture of it and turned that pic into an awkward blog header image. I wish I had zoomed out more, and made the image shorter and wider. Alas, my photoshop skills are not that good.

Winter Inning

2012-01-30T07:55:00.000-05:00

The Indian Princess people do the big winter event indoors, so they call it an inning instead of an outing. I thought that was cute. They filled the Dorton Arena with fun activities and we let the kids run wild. So much fun!

Bigun wanted a rainbow painted over her entire face. They used a marker, I still haven't gotten it to wash off.

Bigun and Grace going up the hill slide

Fun with a lemon head

Evil Genius and I going up the hill slide

She was so scared to come back down.

Waiting in line for the Wizzer

The Wizzer would spin us around really fast

EG and I on the Wizzer. Fun ride!

EG climbing her way up

The whole arena packed with rides

We ended up with an extra ticket so Bigun brought a friend of hers. Afterwards we all went out for pizza and back home for a nap. Everyone (including me) was completely exhausted. Evil Genius was totally fried, she could barely eat the pizza. And to think they were actually riding a mechanical bull earlier.

Sunday it marked 10 days since my last run, so I was getting anxious about getting a few miles in. I ran 5 miles in about 41 minutes which is pretty decent. I was surprised at how fast my muscular endurance went away. Those 5 miles felt like harder work than it normally does. The foot felt ok during the run, but then about an hour later the inflammation wonkiness started coming back. Not fun. But it really wasn't that bad. I'm going to take it kind of easy for another week just to play it safe. It felt good and strange to be back out there, like I couldn't really find my form easily. I know if I have some patience here it will come back so that's what I'm trying to do.

You will not believe what Evil Genius did on sunday. It requires its own post.

Young and Old

2012-01-26T10:14:00.000-05:00

It happened again. I got tagged by KDub and JoyRuN with an "11 things about me" meme. And since I rarely get tired of talking about myself I'll throw it out there. I still think that the last "10 things about me" post is one of the funniest things I've ever written so I doubt I can top that one. So you should really be prepared for disappointment now. Here are the rules:

1. Post these rules
2. You must post 11 random things about yourself
3. Answer the questions set for you in their post
4. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer
5. Go to their blog and tell them you’ve tagged them
6. No stuff in the tagging section about you are tagged if you are reading this. You legitimately have to tag 11 people!

11 Random things about myself: (I'm going young and old with these, so nothing random about right now. all stuff when I was younger and people that are older than me)

1. Freshman year of high school I was on the wrestling team for three days trying to compete in the 120 lb weigh class. I was already almost six feet tall. That is anorexic kind of skinny. Not a good look at all, and I was really self conscious about it.

2. I also ran the mile on the track team that year. I ran in every meet, one time I beat one other kid. Every other meet (like 8 of 9 meets) I finished dead last, usually by a lot. My times ranged from 5:55 to 6:10, not bad by most standards. But my team also had a Feduric on there, and she won the state championship in the mile 6 years in a row (from 7th through 12th grade) with average times around 4:15. And I wonder sometimes where my competetive nature comes from?

3. Sophomore year I didn't feel like getting my butt kicked in the mile anymore, so I threw shotput and discus instead. Because anorexia runs rampant through the shotput community. WTF? I was throwing around 17 feet before the offensive lineman put out his 40 foot throws. I don't know why I thought I belonged in there, but again I competed in every meet. That was my last year on the track team (spring 1991), and the last time I tried to play sports at all until I found triathlon in 2008.

A crop from the team photo sophomore year track. Bushy head, skinny, with a mullet. oy.

4. I graduated high school in 1993 at 6 feet tall and only 135 lbs. Mom still complains that I used to eat an entire box of cereal every night before bed. And I still couldn't put on weight. Oh the metabolism of teenagers.

5. A few weeks ago I advised someone that naturalized social and leadership skills would only develop properly when you were in an appropriate comfort zone. I never really felt accepted on any athletic team, and didn't have any kind of star qualities. I found my comfort zone in music, specifically chorus. And that's when I started to shine. Senior year I was the president of my school's Concert Choir, and my chorus teacher is retiring this year. I was the first student to make the SC Honors All-State choir all three years I was eligible to audition. I was accepted into every choir I auditioned for, and usually put into leadership roles like President, Jr Conductor, or Lead Choreographer. I even had one of the lead roles in Bye Bye Birdie the only year we did a school play.

6. Those leadership roles also gave me a lot of confidence and popularity. I did a lot of countywide and statewide music programs. My advise to single people? Confidence is all you really need to be attractive to others. Most people dated a handful of others in high school. I loved dating, and I like to think I was pretty good at it. I took over 200 different girls on dates back then. Greenville county had 14 high schools, I dated girls from 12 of them as well as from 3 other neighboring counties. Over 90% of these girls I met through a music program so we always had something in common. I found there was such a small percentage of people at my own school that I liked, it was easier to find the same small percentage at other schools and just keep dating than to tolerate other people I didn't like.

7. Finally senior year one girl snared me into a serious relationship. We actually stayed together for about 3 months and broke up after prom because she was valedictorian at her school and wasn't interested in going to Appalachian State like I was. So really she was too smart to stay with me. As much as I would love to reconnect with her on facebook or something, she's married with a couple of kids now and I haven't heard from her for almost 20 years. Still, you never forget that first love.

Before my senior prom

Before a 70's theme event. Yes we did 70's stuff the way you young people do 90's stuff today. It makes me feel old.

8. I never put on the freshman 15 at college. I may have found beer and lost my virginity, took five years to graduate, and changed majors once, but I never did gain much weight. Graduated in 1998 with a degree in radio and tv production at 6' 1" tall and 145 lbs. I only looked borderline anorexic then, with a BMI of 19.1, and anything below 18.5 is considered underweight. So I was right on the border of unhealthy and could do absolutely nothing to gain weight.

I tried to gain weight by adding hair.

9. The internet was just starting to gain popularity my senior year of college. We had email the whole time, which was kind of rare then. But I found a web site for the Dukes of Hazzard tv show, and that was the only site I read in college. once. Yes, I am that old.

10. Proof that North Carolina women are smarter than South Carolina women: I was only unattached for about 4 months in college. It was hard freshman year going from being king of the social castle to, well, being a freshman. Nobody dates a freshman. At the start of my sophomore year I started dating this crazy chick for about a year and half. So around new year's eve my third year in college I got rid of her and was blissfully dating again until April of that year (1996) when I met Kelley. Of course I wouldn't trade my sweet boo for any youthful freedom in the world, but damn. If I had known those would be my only 4 months of dating freedom I wouldn't have wasted any time grieving the loss of the crazy chick. Now I refer to those four months as "the fun times". Maybe that's just proof that NC women are more manipulative than SC women? I want to eat dinner tonight so we'll go with smarter.

11. Five months after I graduated college we got married. I was up to 180 lbs at that point. It was not a muscular 180 like I am today, but a flabby 180. So at 23, all of the metabolism powers I had dried up and blew away and I finally started gaining weight. Really skinny arms and legs, no shoulders, but a giant belly. That was 1998. I really think that 23 was waaaaaay too young to get married. but that's another post. The older I get the more I have to fight genetics and keep my weight in check now. It seems odd to be body conscious now, but I deal with getting old the best way I can. Stay active, know the difference between healthy and unhealthy, and make smart choices today.

11 random questions from the two people that tagged me:

1. Favorite vacation of all time (Karen)? Kelley and I drove in circles one weekend. Literally, we left Greenville on friday afternoon and went to Atlanta for dinner that night. Saturday drove up to Chatanooga TN and visited the Tennessee Aquarium, then on to Knoxville for saturday night. Sunday we drove across the mountains to Asheville and saw the Biltmore House before heading home to Greenville. A wonderful circle indeed.

2. Favorite Running workout (Joy)? Treadmill intervals. I can ladder the speed and hold a consistent duration. My absolute fav is to use half mile sets, where I run 0.3 miles fast and recover for 0.2 miles slow jog or walking. Increase the speed by 0.2 mph each set, start with half a mile warm up and half a mile cool down and you end up with a 4-5 mile total workout where you ran 0.3 miles at a blazing fast speed. My fastest is a 10.5 mph on the treadmill.

3. Do you track your dietary intake (Joy)? Not anymore. When I was losing weight to get fast last year I used training peaks to track everything, intake and workouts, and I absolutely love that software. Read my How I Got Fast Part 1 post for all the details.

4. What were you doing around this time 10 years ago (Karen)? In 2002 I was in my crazy weightlifting phase. I was reading Muscle & Fitness magazine, training like a bodybuilder and trying to add as much mass as possible. Really I was trying to take the rapid weight gain I found after we got married and turn it into something positive. I got over 200 lbs that year by chugging whey protien and creatine like they were going out of style. I was working for a consulting firm as the head of their software development department in my first professional management role (and I sucked at it). I got up to about 215 lbs, got laid off in 2003 and the rest is history.

I was very excited to get my first convertible in 2002, no matter how it looked.

5. What's your favorite cheat meal (Joy)? Five guys cheeseburger and fries. I know it's loaded, but I don't care. It's my reward meal after a big race or a comfort meal when I'm feeling blue. A close second is the cajun chicken sandwich, fries and a corn dog from the Cook Out here in Raleigh. So good, cheap, and I do that one about once a week.

6. What was your favorite memory of 2011 (Karen)? The ironman trip. Not just the race, or the finish line, but the whole thing was so special to me.

7. Have you ever been hospitalized and how were your nurses (Joy, she's a nurse)? In 2003 I had sinus surgery and a double vericocele removal surgery for male pattern infertility treatment. The nurses were great both times. Before the fertility surgery I remember calmly laying on the operating table and seeing how big the room was and was surprised at how many nurses there were for the operation. The bad part was that the nurses were all really hot (come on, you've had that fantasy too), so here I was getting a little chub on when they were about to operate on my sack! awkward!

8. Do you prefer to train alone or in groups (Karen)? Alone, for sure. It's just about timing. I'm not ready to workout until I'm ready to workout, so meeting someone else is usually impossible. Setting a specific time to meetup is useless, I'm going to be late. And I hate trying to match speeds with other people. Either they can't hang with me or I get dropped from the group ride.

9. What's a more appealing look, designer clothes or fit, workout clothes (Joy)? I love 'em all. If spandex makes your ass look good hop on that bike. My favorite part about a race is usually finding a hot chick running in a sports bra and bun huggers and just hanging behind her for a few miles. Casual office wear can be really attractive as well. But the clothes don't make the woman. Being nice, funny, and confident is what really makes you attractive.

10. What's your resting heart rate (Joy)? I don't really know, but the doctors usually tell me it's around 68? It's really unfair to compare resting heart rates or thighs with non-runners, so I try to avoid it.

11. What accomplishment makes you the most proud (Karen)? Last week Evil Genius was talking to Kelley about having her boyfriend over (she's only 4) while he stays with his dad for a week at a time. Normally we only get to see him when he's at his mom's. As Kelley was explaining this to her, she asked if we could have him over at least while his dad was out "to run, or bike, or even to swim"? My work here is done. She thinks every dad trains like I do. She thinks regular exercise is a part of how normal people live their lives. She will never know the fat chain smoking dad she used to have. I have affected her expectation of normal, and set her up for a healthy, confident, active lifestyle. That is my biggest accomplishment to date. You were expecting Ironman, weren't you?

Tag 11 more people and generate 11 questions for them? I don't think 11 people actually still read this, so I can't do it. I would love for Sophie and Caratunk Girl to give it a whirl. But I can't come up with 11 questions either, so steal the questions I answered. I know "total cop-out" isn't usually my style, but I've got to get back to work today.

A Week?

2012-01-24T08:22:00.000-05:00

Anytime I think I'm having a rough year, I'm going to remind myself about Joe Paterno. He went from having the most stable job in the world 4 months ago, to scandal --> resigning --> fired --> cancer --> dead. In just over three months. Now that's what I call hitting a rough patch.

I went to a podiatrist-orthopedist yesterday to get my right foot checked out. They took some xrays to rule out a bone fracture, and they came out clean. There are two tendons that start outside of the ankle and wrap around the bottom of the foot. One of those is causing some swelling for some unknown reason. This inflammation is quite painful just walking around the house all day, I mentioned it briefly in the last couple of posts because I didn't want it to be a big deal. I don't think that it is a huge problem, but we'll see.

The first treatment option is ice, advil, and rest. No running for 7-10 days, and I have to wear supportive shoes around the house. Well, since I work from home I'm normally barefoot all day. The naturalist in me that wants to wear minimal running shoes for runs less than 10 miles doesn't want to wear supportive shoes all day. Barefoot runners would say that the foot naturally knows the best way to heal up and I need to go see the chiropractor. I tend to agree.

I can still swim and bike during the weeks' rest, and yoga/strength work is good too. Swimming will aggravate the tendon if it is anything worse than an inflammation, so that's a good test. If it hurts after swimming then something is more wrong. If I'm still having problems after 7-10 days the doc wants me to come back in for an MRI. There could be a slight tear in one of the tendons that could be treated by wearing a boot for six weeks, or it might have to be surgically repaired. But first I'm going to try the easy approach, not running for seven to ten days.

Not running is naturally not that good when you have another marathon coming up in three weeks. I"m just going to do what I can and take what I can get. At least I'm not having as bad a time as JoePa.

She's such a camera hog.

But hey, when you got it, flaunt it right?

They got some new costumes from the Kids Exchange recently. They love them (Stitch and Buzz Lightyear), and it's too cute not to post a picture of.

Just being goofy with Bigun.

What a marathoner (shouldn't) eat

2012-01-19T09:59:00.001-05:00

I do this every time, and it drives me crazy. Marathons or other big races that you are prepared for but not conditioned to run every week have a short term impact on your mind and your metabolism. I average burning about 150 calories per mile that I run. It can be exactly calculated using a formula that includes your speed, body weight, and duration (the last mile burns more calories than the first mile), but I don't know the exact specifics for the formula. The treadmill does it for me. So running 26.2 miles will burn off about 3900 calories on that day, but the metabolic effects stay strong for about a week afterwards. This post is about what that does to my appetite.

Every time I eat through the roof. I love to eat, and I love the way eating healthy foods makes me feel. But for the week after a big race like ironman or a marathon, I always relax the rules and let that metabolism ride me through it. Here's what I ate after the Charleston Marathon on Saturday:

Saturday: ran the race in the morning. It was very cold and windy, temps in the mid 30's most of the time and I was out there running in shorts. We brought some chicken and dumplings from home, Kelley's recipe, which is not really health food but not as bad for you as most recipes are. I had two big plates, it was warm and wonderful. Then we took Michael and Summer out to a local seafood restaurant for a huge plate of fried fish, shrimp, french fries, and hush puppies. Huge plate VERY high in sodium. I finally felt full for about an hour. From volume, nobody should consume that much food in 4 hours, ever. I also had a bowl of cereal before falling asleep around 10 pm.

Sunday: Cereal for breakfast, then we hit up the Kickin Chicken for lunch. It's one of our favorite places in Charleston, the sandwich had fried chicken strips on it, buffalo sauce, and a side of fries. Fried stuff and hot sauce are both very high in sodium and fat. Drove back to Raleigh and had a Five Guys cheeseburger and fries for dinner. One huge fat cheeseburger and fries is my traditional reward meal after a big race or milestone. Breaking 4 hours in the marathon was that big race and milestone. More cereal before bed.

Monday: Oatmeal for breakfast. Finally something normal and healthy. I got scared after seeing the Monday Morning Naked Weight (MMNW). Leftover vegetarian shepard's pie for lunch. Imagine if you will, the hunger you get a few days after marathoning. Then go out for all you can eat tacos on monday night. This place near the house has $5 all you can eat tacos every monday. Normal sized meals would be maybe 3 of these tacos. I usually eat 5 or 6 when I'm hungry, but marathon hungry took that to 7 tacos. We fed the entire family for under $20. I love this place. I ate myself stupid and still had some cereal before bed.

Tuesday: Oatmeal for breakfast. My buddy Jeff wanted to meet up for lunch, I haven't seen him in a while so that was great. We met at a wing place with a 59 cent lunch special, so 10 wings had me way stuffed and over full. seriously. During the ironman training build phase I would get the same 10 wings with a side of fries and still lose weight. that's how much you work off during the ironman build. For dinner, Bigun had an Indian Princess meetup at a pizza place with the tribe, so I gorged myself on pizza there too. Pizza and wings are healthy right? That's like a 5000 calorie day. At least I skipped the cereal before bed.

Dehydration
Running will leave you dehydrated. Especially long runs like 26.2 miles. It was so cold and windy, my clothes were dry when I finished. But just because I didn't actually sweat I still lost a lot of body water through evaporation. It's more than you think. Cold races are still dangerous. You cannot possibly take in enough water with or without electrolytes to replenish what you lose during a marathon, so post-race hydration is so important. Electrolytes are salts, and you lose a ton of body salt during a race like that too. Even if it's not visible (sweat) it still happens. I promise.

My super secret recovery strategy is to drink three bottles of water at the finish line. Really as soon as you can swallow again, drink three bottles. of water. Then you can chase it with something else like chocolate milk, muscle milk, Endurox, Recoverite, beer, whatever. But it has to start with lots of water.

Since dehydration removes lots of water and salt from your body, the nature of recovery is to retain as much water as possible to prepare for the marathon you're going to run the next day. That's just how the body thinks. Even though you know you're not going to run another marathon the next day, that's still mother nature's reaction. So what do I do? I take in lots of salt from the fried foods, then lots of water, and the body goes into ultra storage mode retaining water like it's going out of style.

The crazy thing is that the way to get rid of all that retained water? Drink more water. It will eventually flush the salts and retention water from the cells in a few days. I think vitamins A, C & D help too, but I can't tell you why.

The weighty issue
Before that Ironman - a scant 70 days or so ago - my weight peaked at a low point like it should around 165 lbs, which is my ideal racing weight. I don't like to harp on numbers on the scale, but I'm trying to make a point here. 10 days after Ironman I was back up to 176 lbs. Same eating pattern as above. My comfort zone is officially 170 - 180 lbs, I like to be around 175 with a body fat percentage in the mid-teens. I'm 6'1", that's a normal weight for my height and a BMI of 23.

Before Charleston, I came in at 178 lbs and 18.4% body fat, which is pretty ok for a Friday. By the time I got this week's MMNW, I was up to 185.4 and 20.2% body fat. So how did I burn 3900 calories during the race and gain 7 lbs?

It's all water retention from the salt and fried foods. Monday morning at 6 am is only partway through the food log above. I start every morning with a 22 oz bike bottle full of water, then four cups of coffee after my oatmeal (don't judge me). Then another 32 oz bottle of water on my desk all day at work, sometimes I'll fill it up twice. Plus 3 more cups of coffee or tea in the afternoon and another bottle of water after dinner. That's a lot of hydration. It is flushing the retained water out though. Tuesday I was down to 183. Who loses weight after all you can eat tacos? Wednesday was 182, and today was 181. I should be back to normal in a few more days.

So don't freak out if you gain some weight during marathon training or put on a bunch of weight quickly after running the big race. Sure, I'm still freaking out a bit and I know better. Have you ever freaked out like that? it's tough mentally to deal with.

Other news:
As cold as it was during the race and all day Saturday, I forgot to mention that Sunday we woke up to bright, sunny, 61 degrees with no wind blowing. Perfect conditions. Where was that on race day?

I ran three miles yesterday very slow in recovery format. Just trying to work out the kinks. During the race my right foot got some new pain. There is a swelling/fluid buildup thing on the outside of my right foot, right in the middle where there is normally a joint of the foot bones. The pain went away (but not the fluid), but came roaring back with yesterday's run. So today I'm going to find a doctor to tell me what that is and how to treat it. I don't like this at all.

The yoga practice is going great. I took Saturday off as planned for the race, but still got on the mat Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and last night Kelley and I both went back for the yoga class we've been getting into at the gym. It has actually felt really good and helped the muscles recover from the marathon. I'm still in the beginning poses, so nothing harder than down dog or warrior 1. But it's a lot of fun.

Charleston Marathon Race Reports

2012-01-16T13:34:00.000-05:00

We had a great time in Charleston. I finished the marathon in 3:54:10 for a nice 30 minute PR, and Kelley finished in 5:39:33 for a 17 minute PR. We had a blast hanging with my brother and our friends Joe and Gina, so it was a good time all around. Official Results are up here.

How did I do with the goals?
1. PR - a 31 minute PR no doubt is a success. Yes.
2. Go sub-4, beat The Snail. Yep, I put a few minutes on him. Success! I went sub-four, and beat Thomas's PR by about 5 minutes. But he deserves some serious props for running his first 100k in 12:57 on saturday too. He ran for almost my entire Ironman time!
3. I'm not overtrained 3:30? fail. I may be a bit overtrained or under-recovered, depending on how you look at it.

Friday we got out of Raleigh about 1 pm and made it into Charleston about 6 and went right to the packet pickup. We ended up meeting Joe and Gina there, got the packets and headed downtown for some dinner. We ended up at Joe's Pasta for some unbelievable chicken & pasta in a gorganzola sauce. Amazing stuff, and perfect for the night before a big race.

After dinner we made it out to James Island to Michael's house and visited with them some before crashing hard. I slept pretty good, Kelley did not. 6 am came around way too early Saturday morning.

Turns out, it was much much colder than I was expecting. I thought it was supposed to be in the mid-50's all day, turns out it was more like the mid-30's. Luckily, the race shirt was a technical long sleeve shirt, so I wore it during the race over the singlet and nip band-aids I had planned on wearing. Kelley happened to have a pair of non-throw-away gloves that I stole (she bought some toss-gloves at the expo), we grabbed all of the gear and got out there. Turns out it was only a 20 minute drive from Michael's house on James Island to the finish/parking area in North Charleston; I was expecting it to be longer than that.

Self portrait in the car before the start

It was only 36 degrees when we got there, but it felt like 27 with the wind blowing. And yes I was still running in shorts. There was a huge line for the bus from the finish area to the starting area in downtown, I think they had a lot more people running this year than they did last year and it caused some logistical confusion. The bus ride took about 30 minutes, and we got to talk to some nice people. But still, we arrived 2 blocks from the starting line. We had to stand in the line for the bus, then stand up on the bus because all of the seats were taken, then jog/walk the 2 blocks to the starting line, so we were already on our feet for about 45 minutes before ever getting to the start area.

Turns out, the bus ride was long enough that we missed the start. The race was chip timed, so our clock didn't start until we crossed the starting line. But there were an awful lot of people to pass. My plan to line up with the 3:30 pace group was completely hosed. There was at least one other busload coming in after us, so we didn't start at the very back, but it was far enough. There was also no pre-race excitement, nerves, jitters, hearing that gun go off, anything like that. it was so strange.

So the immediate job at hand was to pass people. I hit start on the garmin as soon as I crossed the line, and I knew I had to get up to my 8 min/mile pace and just try and hold it. All of the slow people that started in the back of the pack had a four minute head start on me. I caught them pretty quickly.

I caught the 4:45 pace group by the 1.1 mile mark. The course was absolutely beautiful. It started out in downtown Charleston, ran south by the battery (waterfront portion on the mainland), then all the way up King street towards North Charleston. I was watching my pace and the crowds pretty consistently. Downtown is clean and very historic, but not very wide. And with 3000 runners it got a bit congested at times. Sometimes I wished they would have let the half marathon people run the second half of the course instead of the first half. Ha! That would have made things easier.

The good thing about an eight m/m pace is that it's easy to calculate split times in your head. Five miles should be around 40 minutes. I hit five miles at 41 minutes. So I was a minute behind. blame the traffic, hold pace, don't sweat it. Actually, I wasn't sweating at all yet as it was still barely in the 30's. A 3:31 is still an unbelievable time. I caught the 4:30 pace group in mile 4 somewhere and passed them. By mile 8 I passed the 4 hour pace group. I know 8 miles should hit at 64 minutes in, and 10 miles should hit at 80 minutes in, but I don't remember my time when I passed the markers. That part of the course wasn't very well marked, I didn't see any mile markers or anything but the crowds were so big it's not like you were going to get lost.

I took a gel right on schedule at 4 miles, then the 8 mile aide station came at 7.6 miles and totally caught me by surprise. So I slammed a gel and stood at the aide station to get the water to go with it, then had to start running again after getting colder. Not fun.

Also, there was "that familiar grumbling" going on. I was planning to poop at the mile 8 aide station before I remembered to take the gel. Then I didn't see a port-a-let anywhere anyway, so I forgot about it and rolled on. Just before the mile 10 aide station, I found the crapper I was looking for. There was no line, and I saw somebody run out of there after it came into my view, so I thought I was in good standing. Then someone else jumped in, and someone else decided to start a line. I didn't have much of a choice but to stand there and wait it out. Needless to say it was still in the low 30's, quite windy on this part of the course, and these guys were taking forever! Other people suck. I finally got in, dropped my duece, and got back to running 200 ft before the aide station. Grabbed a couple of waters and had to re-warm up all over again. There's no way I was only one minute off pace now.

At 12.4 miles the half and full split. The finish line was in the Navy Shipyard in North Charleston for all the half, full, and 5k distances. Once the course got out of downtown, we occupied a four lane road with lots of abandoned industrial buildings. This is not a "nice" part of town. There was no tree cover so there was lots of wind. lots of wind. It was not pleasant or fast or pretty. But it was only for a few miles. Then the half people got out of the way and we ventured out to the second half of the course.

I know my half split should be at 1:45 for my pace, and I hit the half mark at 1:52. So I was now 7 minutes behind. Not that bad. Anything in the 3:3x frame would be great. I was also really feeling the day now. Still so cold and so windy. My legs had no feeling left at all. My right knee was hurting pretty good, and a spot on my right foot was also picking up some pain. There was certainly some muscle fatigue going on. Nutrition and hydration were going on plan, so that was great. But for the record, it's a bad idea to serve icewater at aide stations when it's only 36 degrees outside. When I grab a cup of gatorade that was not iced (pleasant) and a cup of water that gives me brain freeze from drinking it too fast, that's not cool. Not cool at all.

The second half of the course got up through lots of new residential development, some parks and greenways, and lots of school grounds. There was lots of circles and out-and-back spurs, so when I was in mile 14 I saw the leaders coming back in towards the finish. The crowds were very thin and manageable here, so I was able to just hold my pace as best as the wind would allow. In mile 17 I was coming back down when I saw Kelley coming up the course, so I got to see her for a quick kiss. I was really feeling slow and beat up at that point, so I was really very glad to see her and get a little pick me up. Guess what she told me?

I have to take a shit real bad.

Uplifting message received. Now I was ready to slug out the last 9 miles. ha!

While we were still in the pretty parts of the course, all of a sudden there were tons of walkers. I knew there was a time cutoff, and anyone who missed it would be given a shortcut to get them back to the finish line. So I thought these were the people missing the time cutoff. Turns out it was the walkers in the 5k race, as we had caught up with their course. I was not exactly enthusiastic about suddenly having about a hundred people walking in front of me that I had to dodge on this narrow greenway winding through a park with lots of fun turns. Sharp turns. I'm not going to admit to running into some of them, but I came close.

The course came out of the pretty parts and back into the industrial parts. The Navy Shipyard was as pretty and colorful as you would expect an abandoned navy shipyard to be. That is, not at all pretty. There was nothing but abandoned buildings, unmaintained roads, and train tracks for miles. I knew the 20 mile split should be at 2:40, and I hit it at 2:55 instead. 15 minutes behind is still not too bad. Not as bad as I felt. I knew I could knock out the last 10k under 1:05 and still break 4 hours. How many 10k's did I run under 45 minutes this year? surely a 1 hour 10k is within my grasp. This gave me confidence to finish strong.

In mile 21 we ran very close to the finish line. The last part of the course was an out and back spur on some old roads. I twisted an ankle on some train tracks in the shipyard, that wasn't fun. But it didn't really hurt or slow me down much either, it just took me by surprise and forced me to pay attention to my footing. I decided then that court was in session, and I was totally going to put my speed on trial. Here goes nothing (and I mean nothing, I was totally gassed).

Much to my surprise, the 8 m/m pace came quite easily. I just knocked it down. I looked at the garmin and saw 7:57, then 8:02, then 7:55, checking every few minutes. I felt the way you are supposed to feel 23 miles into a marathon, not totally hitting the wall but I knew I was putting some work in. Then I found out why.

Towards the end of mile 23 I hit the turnaround and started coming home to the finish line. The 8m/m pace I hit so easily on the "out" part was thanks to a tailwind, that was now a headwind, and slowing me back down to a vomit inducing 9:30 pace when I was able to look down at the watch. I saw 3:30 come and go, then 3:45 just watching the overall time. That headwind didn't play games. And it wasn't the time to play games either. I did listen to tunes the whole way, and I heard five of Michael's songs come on. The last one was right after the garmin rolled over to 24.1 miles, that headwind had slowed me to a walk, and the first line of the song was "I fucked up".

poetic, no doubt. That's why he won all of those songwriting awards - for his comedic timing.

I battled heartily with the "back" part of that last spur, made the last turn to be able to see the finish line chute, and pushed hard to get there as quickly as possible. Stopped the garmin one second too late, apparently. I had a nice 31 minute PR and broke four hours for the first time.

Chip time: 3:54:10, gun time: 3:57:33
8:56 per mile pace
264/850 overall (top 31%)
34/76 Male 35-39

I'll take it and I was glad to be done. Now the fun part starts. I have to wait on Kelley and Gina to finish. At least I can enjoy some of the free beer and food before they get there. I didn't expect Kelley to finish until they got closer to 5 hours. I grabbed some water, caught my breath for a bit, found a cup of coffee (thank God) and started to pull myself together. It only got up to about 45 degrees, so I was still freezing. Never really broke a sweat. But I knew I was dehydrated anyway. Seriously, how do you run a full marathon without just being drenched? it was that cold out there.

Of course since we got there that early, hopped in line for the bus, I drove and still had no idea where we parked. So I spend the next hour mindlessly roaming a huge parking lot looking for ours among 3000 other cars. Turns out I ran into a guy from Durham that has done a lot of the same races I have, so we talked for a bit. Mind you, I have pants in the car. That was my only focus. Find the pants. Find the sweatshirt. Get the camera and get back to the finish line before Kelley crosses.

Turns out we parked behind a building that was next to the big parking lot. No wonder I couldn't find my ride. I did hear the race announcer call out "you guys still broke four and a half hours" and then later "and you guys still did better than 4:45" before I ever found the car. It's still 45 degrees, and I'm still in shorts.

Found my sweatshirt, self portrait with the medal

Found my pants. Found my warm shirt. Found the camera.

Finish time on the garmin with the medal. My distance was 26.53 miles. Notice the shorts. The yellow is the bib on the race shirt, it was the only tech long sleeves I had.

I talked to Joe then since my phone was also still in the car. I saw him walking at my mile 20.5, and he said he saw Kelley and Gina near that same spot a little while ago. So Kelley was in mile 22 then and Gina was about 10 or 12 minutes behind her. This is a surprise because Gina is typically matching my speeds. Joe was going to walk it in with Gina so I knew I had some time. I got in the beer line. There was still plenty of food, but the beer line was slow so I got one and abandoned. Back out to the finish line.

Coming into the finish area

Here she is! Bring it on home girl.

Crossing the line! Well done!

Kelley crossed in 5:39:33 chip time, 5:42:57 gun time, 794/850 overall, 51/58 in her age group for a 13:05 pace. Guess how she could have sped up? Well, turns out that in mile 22 she got bored, so she called her cousin for some motivation. Then found an aide station with muffins. That was on the last out and back spur on the course, so she was walking back, talking on the phone while eating a muffin and getting lots of strange looks from the other (but still slower) runners. Don't hate unless you're faster than she is - other people on the course.

She collected herself at the finish line area and we hung out waiting for Gina to come in.

Bring it on home! Gina finished in 6:18:39

We also found our friend Charlotte and hung out with her for a while too. Gina's husband Joe ended up walking over 11 miles trying to find us on the course, he still had blisters on his feet poor guy. By that time, they had run out of shrimp and grits at the finishers tent, but we still grabbed a couple of extra beers each. Then they packed those away, and we sat in a few chairs before they could pack those up too. With a 6.5 hour cutoff, most people had already abandoned. We hung out for a bit and then headed back to Michael's, getting there about 2:30.

Me, Gina, and Kelley with the finishers medals on.

After showering, we had some chicken and dumplings that Kelley made (before driving to Charleston) as our primary recovery food. We also got to go out to dinner to Bowen's Island seafood, which was really good. Nothings better than salty fried stuff when you're dehydrated, right? We tried to watch the patriot's game after that, but we both fell asleep about halftime. Slept for 12 hours each, got up and drove back to Raleigh.

Overall, the race went through some rough parts of town so I'm not sure we'll do this one again. The 5k results show that a sub-25 minute time would have given me an age group award, so I might give that a try next year. This weekend was fantastic, and overall the course was beautiful and I am satisfied with my results. Good times all around.

Goals for Charleston

2012-01-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

Saturday Kelley and I will both be running the Charleston Marathon in Charleston SC. It will be my fourth marathon, and her second. We are setting some goals to reach out for.

Kelley's first marathon was Myrtle Beach in 2009, she ran a 5:56 that included time stopped chatting and hanging out with her family on the course. This time she's going to line up with the 5 hour pace group, but I feel confident she'll finish before then. My prediction is a 1 hour PR for Kelley.

My first marathon (if you haven't been reading since 2009) was the Hatfield/McCoy where I finished in 5:07 and ended up in the emergency room in middle of nowhere West Virginia with extreme dehydration and heat exhaustion. That was fun. Then in 2010 I smashed the 5 hour barrier with a 4:31 in the Tobacco Road marathon, which I loved and will be returning to this year. That was a March 2010 full, and I didn't run another full until November 2011 in Ironman Florida. During that 20 month span between marathons, I lost a bunch of weight and got fast. So I actually set my marathon PR during the Ironman while trying to hold back and run as slow as possible to avoid hitting the wall. PR 4:25 set a few months ago.

Marathon Death March at mile 25 of Hatfield/McCoy

At the finish line of Tobacco Road marthon in 2010

Goal #1: PR
Sounds simple enough. Surely if I take a smaller warm up than that 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike ride I can pull a 4:24 or faster.

This also includes my normal every-time goal of Finish, Don't Die. This is the first race in our attempt to qualify for the Marathon Maniacs, where you only have to finish (preferably alive) to qualify.

Goal #2: Sub-4
Right now The Snail is sitting on a 3:59:56 PR from his marathon in Savannah the same day I ran IMFL. We have mutual targets of beating the other one by 5 seconds. So if I can go 3:59:51 or faster it's a win. Granted he's all into trail ultras this year, which is cool, but I still want to pwn him at this distance. by 5 seconds.

I'm-Not-Really-Overtrained Goal: 3:30
All of my run training before and after Ironman has been focused on 8 minute miles or faster. Finishing the marathon in 3:30 is exactly an 8:00 per mile pace. If I start out too fast, I'll bonk out at the end. I've finished plenty of 20 mile runs in 2:40 and I think I can hold the same pace for another 10k, but you never really know until you get there.

They have a 3:30 pace group listed out. I'm going to line up in that group at the start and try not to get ahead or behind. I will have the garmin on, and will note my important mile splits. The plan is to take GU's every 4 miles, advil and Endurolytes as needed. They have aide stations every 2 miles until mile 21, and every mile after that. 4 miles at an 8 m/m pace should mean that I'm gelling every 32 minutes with one other water stop in between. This should keep me with enough electrolytes to be good for the duration, as long as I can also get enough water.

Part of me still has the haunting suspicion that I didn't take enough time to recover from the Ironman. I've been fighting some of the signs of overtraining, like insomnia and fatigue. The speed and comfort isn't always there when I expect it to be, like it was before Ironman. One of my old coaches even warned me on facebook that I might be overtrained. So I'm just going to pay attention to the 8 m/m pace. If it's not there, I could bring some serious wrongs by pushing it too hard that could screw up the whole year. That's not the goal. So officially I'm going for a sub-3:30, but I will not feel guilty about slowing it down if I think it's going to wreck my season. There are still two more marathons in the next two months to finish.

It's supposed to be sunny with a high of 53 on Saturday in Charleston, so it should be great conditions for a marathon. The course is very flat, incredibly scenic, and goes through lots of downtown and historical Charleston without leaving the mainland. We're staying with my brother Michael for the weekend, and our friends Joe and Gina are also coming down. Gina's running, they've never been to Charleston before so they are in for a treat. Lots of fun with friends and family is the name of the game.

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On another fun note, the Bone Island triathlon exists now. Full and Half Iron races, and it's the second full Iron triathlon put on by Setup Events director Jeremy Davis. He's also the race director for the PPD Beach 2 Battleship that I wanted to run as my next full iron race. Bone Island is Jan 12, 2013 (one year from today), it's the first year for the race, and it's in Key West Florida. Registration is already open, and it's only $400 right now. Racing ironman on Jan 12 means the last weekend of the build phase is going to be Christmas weekend, then it makes for a tough time to go out binge drinking on New Year's. But then, starting a new year with a fast ironman also has some appeal. I've never been to Miami, but always heard great things about it and I have some friends down there that I haven't seen in a long time. Setup doesn't produce a bad race. This has some appeal. But it still requires five levels of approval signatures and a mental acceptance.

Ashtanga Primer

2012-01-10T10:04:00.000-05:00

One of my goals for this year is to hit the yoga mat 300 days with a focus on Ashtanga yoga. There are two confusing things called Ashtanga yoga: Patanjali's Ashtanga yoga mantras, which is a text written in 300 BCE outlining eight (Ashta) limbs (tanga) that branch out to spiritual enlightenment, and the Ashtanga movement practice developed by Sri K. Patabi Jois through most of the last century. Make no mistake about it, I'm a Christian not Hindu so I stick with the movement patterns. Not that there isn't validity to the eight limbed approach. You can still see a lot of influence in the Jois approach from the ancient texts. I think the same basic premises are still achieved.

The primary focus of an Ashtanga practice is to "get on the mat". Students are supposed to practice 6 days a week, taking saturdays as a rest day. Also we should rest on the day of the new moon and full moon each month, which in 2012 occurs 25 times. It is acceptable on these weeks to practice on Saturday and take the moon day off instead. This is how I can still hit my 300 target. 52 saturdays plus 25 moon days of rest means less than 300 sessions for me. It's also worth noting that women should not practice while on their periods.

There is a defined set of movements for Ashtanga that are categorized as beginning, intermediate, and the advanced A, B, C & D series of movements. There are only one or two people in the world that are actively practicing the advanced C & D series. It's a slow practice to learn, and should take at least five years before getting into the intermediate series. I bet most people get bored taking that long and either abandon the practice or move on anyway. Patience is a virtue that has its own rewards here.

For instance, one of the first poses is a standing forward fold, but you are supposed to be able to touch your head to your knees. My head doesn't come anywhere close to my knees. This will take some time to achieve, but once I get there the foundation is laid for the intermediate moves.

Ashtanga's primary focus is on breathing and movement. Specifically this is known as yama and priyama, translated as "movement and rest" or "effort and relaxation". So each pose in a sequence sets up the next pose, and we are supposed to find relaxation and resting in every pose once we get there. I find that the breathing really helps this target. You move to find a pose, then hold it for five breaths before moving to the next pose. Take deep breaths in and out slowly breathing through the nose, and try to find relaxation in every pose. If you can hold some of those for five breaths, you will be more relaxed.

What do I really like about this practice? Tons. The benefits are enormous. Yes, in running flexibily is easy speed. That's great. But the practice should end with some deep breathing in corpse pose, which is just lying on your back and trying to relax as much as possible. As long as the kids aren't throwing things at me or yelling while I'm trying to relax, this time is worth its weight in gold.

Today is January 10th. I rested on Saturday - no yoga just a 5k race. And Sunday was the first full moon day of the year, so I took it off as well. But after getting on the mat 8 out of 10 days so far this year, I feel like I have a more relaxed, and more focused approach to everything. I'm finishing better projects for work. It just feels like I have more clarity in my decision making. I feel better most of the time, and the rest of my workouts seem to go smoother. I'm really looking forward to see where the rest of this practice can take me.

Next Ashtanga post will be a book review about "21 Things to Know Before Starting an Ashtanga Yoga Practice".

Run for Young 5k Race Report

2012-01-08T11:57:00.001-05:00

Run for Young 5k
Finish time: 22:28
7:15 /mile pace
7/23 age group

Not exactly the race (or the course) that I was hoping for. Started out nice enough. The race wasn't until 10 am, so I got to sleep in a bit, eat breakfast, and get out the door at a reasonable time. The weather was unbelievable, sunny and in the mid 60's. I took the little camera and got a couple of shots before the start:

Proof that I was actually there

The start/finish line. Not too crowded 40 minutes before the start.

Eventually it did get crowded. We had 343 finishers so that was a great turnout. Lots of high school kids, so the competition was fierce. The race was established in memory of a high school kid who was killed in an alcohol related car accident in 2005.

I made my way near the front and lined up with a kid who was expecting to go 21 something. Found some really nice people to talk to at the starting line, that made it easier to start without nerves. Somebody said the course was basically uphill all the way out, turnaround at one of my favorite restaurants (the Player's Retreat), so it was downhill most of the way back. I knew, however, that the worst two uphill parts were on the way back, that's why Kelley opted not to do this race with me. So I was in for a nice challenge. That's always something you want to find out at the starting line.

The gun goes off and we take off fast. Too fast. I had been coughing a lot that morning, and 200 yards into the run it felt like my heart was stabbing my lungs. How did my heart even get a knife? Oh, now my lungs are on fire! Wow, the cold air (at 60 degrees?) was really doing a number on me. I accidentally left the garmin at home again, so I was going naked. So I'm pretty sure I went out of the gates too fast, but not really sure how fast that was.

Made the turn from Edenton onto Hillsborough street, and held pace. Nobody really was passing me, and I wasn't really passing anybody else either. So I was in good company. Until I completely ran out of gas about a mile in. Since it was an out and back course, I saw the leaders coming back in and was surprised at how quickly I saw them. Then almost instantly after that I saw the turn around point. I think, at the turn around, I was still in the top 30 people or so overall. I made the turn around and walked a bit just to regroup.

Then I picked it back up, but my abs were really fatigued at this point, so I was having a tough time holding proper form for any decent distance. I knew the toughest two hills were coming up and the rest was a slight downhill, so I walked about halfway up the two hills as well. There was an aide station at the mile 2 marker, so I grabbed a cup of water there. That was also the only mile marker I saw.

The second bad uphill was close to the end. I started walking at the bottom of the hill, and about halfway up started a slow jog again. By the time I got to the top I was powering up again, and increased my foot turnover once it leveled out. By then the finish line was in sight. My abs were completely gone. Totally unable to support the weight of my upper body anymore. My lower back started to compensate, and it got very sore as well. That's a first for me; I never had the lower back go out like that. I was also audibly and involuntarily expressing my displeasure with the current state of my abs with language that should not have been used that close to a church. I got a few funny stares when I crossed the finish line, then immediately doubled over, grabbed a water bottle, and found a nice quiet sidewalk to cry and puke on.

The winner came in at 15:23, the winner of my age group was 17:04 (4th overall), and the first female was 18:44. I should also mention that the winner was 19 years old, I bet he never smoked a cigarette or had to lose 70 lbs in his life, and does nothing but be out of high school and run. punk.

I am pleased with my time, but I could have managed the course better. I took the first half of the course too fast without knowing that it was mostly uphill, then had nothing left for the easy return. Kelley might have been right to skip this one. It is, however, the first race in the Second Empire Grand Prix series, so I have the first race down for series points. Five more to go.

My next race is the Charleston Marathon next saturday, then the Myrtle Beach marathon in February before my next 5k and attempt #3 at going sub-20. Charleston has its own set of goals.

Good luck if you ran Disney! Hope it was magical!

2012 Goals & Races

2012-01-05T09:09:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm late jumping on the bandwagon. I've ~~had my thumb up my butt~~ been refining the list for several weeks now to be sure I want to put that out there. I've also been planning the races, some I want to do again and some new ones to try. The 2012 Races gadget on the left will always have an up to date race list with the ones that are definitely on the schedule.

Goals:
1. Time Goals:

5k under 20 minutes
10k under 42 minutes
13.1 under 1:40
26.2 under 3:30
Oly under 2:15
70.3 under 5:30

2. Qualifiers

USAT Age Group Nationals Short Course Qualify
Race is in Burlington Vermont on August 18. Qualifiers should be announced mid-January. This one is qualify and race, which will likely take a sub-2:15 oly to make the cut.
USAT Long Course National Championship Qualify Only. The race is in Oklahoma City OK, and I have no desire to race there.

3. Places

Top 3 age group in a triathlon
Top 3 age group in a running event
Top 3 age group in an open water swim
Race in a new market, preferably Washington DC

I would love an overall win/place, but living in Raleigh and working in Washington, DC this year means I'll be in two very competitive markets. I've seen others take an overall win with a 22 minute 5k time. Around here you've got to be in the 15:xx or 16:xx time frame to get an overall win. A good friend posted a 17:30 at my last 5k and still came in 4th overall.

4. Join a sponsored triathlon team. I joined the Delta Team last year just to get discounts at my local tri store and discounted race registrations. I got nothing else out of it, never made it to any of the group runs or rides, only went to one social event. I did make some new friends who were also on the team, but I don't think I'll be signing up for that one again. There has been an application already submitted for the EvoTri team, but they had a fair number of applicants so it's going to be pretty competitive. There are some other teams out there, but I'm not going to make any predictions yet. I just hope I end up on the right team with good people.

5. Yoga - Going along with this years themes of speed and dealing with other people, I'm seriously considering starting an Ashtanga Yoga practice. Ashtanga has very specific guidelines for a practice, namely "get on the mat" six days a week. There's a lot more to it than that, and I'll be posting more about it as I learn and start my practice. It takes at least 5 years of 6 days a week to be called a "beginner", so this is a long term thing. There's also an intermediate and two series of advanced poses.

This year's commitment is for 300 days of yoga. In Ashtanga, you are supposed to rest every saturday, and every new moon and full moon (and for women, rest during the "monthly women's holiday" as they call it). Last night I finished reading 21 Things to Know Before Starting an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, and will be writing a review soon.

300 days of yoga. Flexibility = speed, yoga also gives me an inner peace that is otherwise hard to find.

6. Professional - Learn mobile development. I'm getting into some more sales and leadership roles at work, and might soon be managing product development on a mobile platform. I need to learn how to code iPhone and Droid apps and have some emulation platforms setup to be able to do this. I haven't set a career goal in a long time so this is a biggie.

Race List:

5k's - In Raleigh, there is the Second Empire Grand Prix series of races. To earn series points, you just have to compete in 6 of the 10 races listed. I already have date conflicts with some of them, but I really want to run as many as I can in the series and see if I can win an age group series award. I'm already signed up for the Run For Young and the NC State Torch Run. There will be many more. Well, at least four more.
Marathons - All of the marathons for this year are coming up. Kelley and I are both going to try and qualify for the Marathon Maniacs by running the Charleston Marathon in January, Myrtle Beach full marathon in February, and the Tobacco Road Marathon in March. I can't believe Charleston is only 8 days away. I'm going to attempt to go under 3:30 in Charleston, and I'm feeling strong for it. If I make it easy enough, I may try to BQ at Myrtle Beach (3:10 for my age group), but it's highly unlikely that I would actually make it. The local one here in Raleigh I'll just do for fun. Maybe break four hours, but just get out there and enjoy the environment.
Triathlons

Battle at Buckhorn - last year if I hadn't missed the turnaround I would have come in 6th place overall. Loved this race, can't wait to do it again.
Spring oly qualifier - USAT hasn't announced the races for the age group nationals yet, but I will run at least one of these in the spring. Last year the Lake Logan international was also a special qualifier, and I missed qualifying by 2 minutes. I wouldn't mind doing lake logan again anyway. And the Nations Triathlon in Washington DC has been a qualifier in the past as well.
Kure Beach Double Sprint - this one is in June, it's a new format for me and it's supposed to be a fantastic race. Really looking forward to this one.
Spring half? The White Lake Half has been a USAT regional long course qualifier for the last few years. If it makes the list again I will certainly run it this year. Got a lot of friends doing this one too.
Fall half? I would love to do either the Patriots Half again, or the OBX half again. Patriot's has been a long course qualifier in previous years. I could also be talked into doing the Rev3 half in Anderson SC since it is basically a hometown race and I'll get to hang with plenty of people on the Rev3 team!

Open Water Swims - I really want to do the Jordan Lake Open Water Challenge again, as well as either the Big Duece or the Little Uno, depending on what kind of distance shape I'm feeling come registration time. There are two other races in the series that I would love to jump into if the dates don't conflict, and they've added a championship race that you have to qualify for, so that's also an option for September.
Aquathons - I'm already signed up for the Old School Aquathon Series again. These were fantastic races last year, really hard to run in, and very competitive. They are just swim/run races, local to Raleigh, on wednesday nights, just swim, run, and eat.

Nothing out of the ordinary here. Keep an eye on the race list in the left nav on the blog, and come on out to any of the races I end up doing! I'm really screwed until the USAT announces the regional championships and special qualifiers race list. I'm going to end up doing a ton of races this year. No Ironman. Just speed, flexibility, and teamwork. Come on out and join me! I'd love to see you out there.

New Years Redux

2012-01-03T08:49:00.001-05:00

If New Year's Day is supposed to predict how the rest of the year goes, then 2012 is going to be a real whopper. This is so ridiculously insane I have to document it.

New year's eve was great. Our friend Kayte came over to watch the ball drop, we had a few beers but not too many, Kelley made some cookies, we had a fire going in the firepit outside, Evil Genius went to sleep at a reasonable time but the Bigun stayed up until midnight to see the ball drop on TV for the first time. I went to bed about 12:30 and read some before turning out the light and trying to sleep. That's where the fun starts.

Insomnia - I could not get to sleep. I am an old man here people. Anything up past 11 pm is going to leave my knuckles dragging the ground the next day, I just can't do that anymore. About 3:30 am I decided to go into the living room to watch tv for a bit.
Actual Death - I find 8 cop cars and 2 fire trucks outside my front yard with the lights flashing. We live on a busy four lane road, and someone was trying to walk (or I bet stumble) across the road when they were hit and killed by a car. No other details were released about the victim or the car. There are large skid marks in the road. I timed 19 seconds that you can see a car coming on that road from that direction, the intersection is well lit and it's not like the car was cresting a hill or coming around a curve. The victim didn't look, might have been drunk, the driver might have been drunk or didn't have his headlights on. Something funky had to be going on there. It's really quite obvious when there is a car coming or a person standing in the road.
Hangover - The hit happened about 2:45 am. I got up about 3:30 am, got something to eat, posted the accident on facebook, watched some tv and went back to bed about 5 am. The cops were still cleaning up when I went back to bed. I felt fine when I went to bed. Got up about 10:30 with a horrible headache. Actually, I was woken up at 10:30 by a reporter from the local news asking if we saw or knew anything about the accident. I answered the door in my boxers thankful that there was no cameras on me at the time. As I was describing what I saw when I got up, I realized I had a terrible headache and was dehydrated consistent with over-intoxication from the night before. I only had maybe 3 or 4 beers and one glass of wine. That's not nearly enough to induce that kind of headache.
Superstitions - After re-hydrating some, I ran out to grab some lunch from the Cook-Out. Kelley's family has always practiced an old superstition about New Year's, and it was apparently on the news this year too. If the first visitor to your front door is a tall man (I'm 6'1") you will have good luck throughout the year. If the first visitor is a woman with a unibrow, you will have bad luck throughout the year. The reporter that came to our front door was a woman, did not cross the threshold into our house, and did not have a unibrow, but that's still too close for comfort. So I stopped on the way to grab lunch at Kayte's house and went to Kelley's dad's house, being the first visitor to both. I think maybe the superstition was just a way to get people to socialize, but should still be taken seriously.
Lack of Football - my lunch was great, but I didn't get to eat it until about 3:30 pm. Since NYD fell on a sunday this year, there were no bowl games on what is supposed to be the best day in college football. I had enough other stuff to take care of to not get involved in any of the NFL games, and I have a tough time getting into the NFL anyway. I was finally starting to feel better when it got too dark to get in my planned 12 mile run on the day, so I did some strength work and yoga instead. Then the kids wanted to go to Waffle House for dinner.
Bad Food - Going to WH can be an adventure by itself. We used to go to one in SC, order the same thing every time just to see what we actually got. It was always different, and rarely what we ordered. Of course, Evil Genius ordered eggs and only actually ate Kelley's toast. Then she was hungry for the rest of the night. Imagine that!
Bad Movies - we ended up watching a movie called Warrior after we put the kids to bed. I had really been looking forward to this one quite a bit thinking it was a boxing movie, and it turned out to be an incredibly predictable MMA movie. It was well produced, but so much of the flick was hokie and predictable. An irish schoolteacher with an italian brother that's twice his size? please.

If that pattern holds true there will be nothing but death and disappointment for us in 2012. Of course, being the eternal optimist I don't want that to hold true. All I can do is stick to my training plan, work my heart out, and keep my head held high. How insane was that?

Monday Jan2 was much better. The kids did the calisthenics and yoga with me, I ran 10 miles, the football games held some insane delayed gratification. Oregon won, Stanford lost, USC won big, and we found a place with all you can eat tacos on monday nights for $5, so I was able to feed the whole family at a restaurant for only $18 plus tip. Then we got the new season of The Batchelor, with more trashy crazy women than I dream about. It was incredible. And I had the day off from work. So let's hope 2012 has more Mondays than days like Sunday. And that starts the list of things I never thought I would say this year.

2011 in Review

2012-01-01T14:13:00.000-05:00

Another great year of training and racing has come and gone, and 2011 was pretty special. First, let's take a quick check on December:

Swim: 5 swims, 12,100 yards
Bike: 3 rides, 43 miles
Run: 13 runs, 90.76 miles
Strength: 4 workouts
Yoga: 1 class

Can you tell I'm not loving the bike over the winter? Marathon training is still in full effect with over 90 miles running, and the Charleston Marathon is in 12 days. My only race in December was a single 5k that gave me a nice PR. The swimming was pretty consistent, but I really wanted to see two swims a week over the winter. The biggest gain has to be a return to regular strength training and yoga. After completely abandoning the practice during Ironman training it feels so good to start getting strong again. I know next years speed gains aren't going to come from form improvements, as my form in all three sports is pretty solid. So it's time to start working on some strength gains.

Overall numbers for 2011:

Swim: 62 swims, 143,585 yards, 81.58 miles
Bike: 130 rides, 3135.5 miles
Run: 173 runs, 1100.01 miles, average 6.4 miles
Strength: 29 workouts
Yoga: 23 workouts

There's a concept put on by a local triathlon store called the Cast Iron Club that looks really cool. If I was going to do another Ironman in 2012 I would probably sign up for it. The theory is that you train and race (and log your miles) for the equivalent of 30 Ironmans in a single calendar year. This turns out to be 72 miles of swimming, 3360 miles of biking, and 786 miles of running. I didn't sign up for 2011 because that sounded like way to much work. But turns out I only missed it by about 200 miles of cycling that easily could have been accomplished in December. This is pretty nuts. Swimming 81 miles? Biking over 3000? Those are unheard of numbers.

Recently I've seen a picture floating around facebook that says "140.6.... Don't ever question my commitment". Seeing numbers like that and knowing that I did finish my first Ironman makes me truly appreciate the type of commitment I made to my health this year. That's insane.

Friday I ran 9.56 miles over lunch to wrap the annual total to 1100.01, just to mess with anyone who has OCD and thinks I should have capped it at an even 1100. This includes my wife and father-in-law. The nerd in me now thinks I should have thrown the extra few feet in there to stretch it to 4 decimal places and look at the binary conversion.

As it stands, 00110001 in binary = 49, and I had 173 runs which is 10101101. If you add those binaries together you get 10011100, which is 156 numeric. So 49 + 173 = 156. 4 + 9 + 1 + 7 + 3 = 24 and 2 + 4 = 6. If you add the numeric 49 + 173, you get 222, and 2 + 2 + 2 also = 6. Which has to lead you to the ultimate conclusion that I am really a gigantic nerd. But I'm sure you already knew that.

At the beginning of the year I outlined my 2011 goals. How did I do?

1. Ironman on November 5th at IMFL = Success! I did indeed turn Iron at IMFL, finishing in 13:06. It was a glorious trip.

2. Single digit body fat % and maintaining a healthy weight throughout the year. = partial success. I did get the BF% down to about 16%, which is very good. So the problem was in the goal there. I never should have shot for single digit. The real goal was 11% anyway. I did, however, complete my weight loss target by the time Ironman training started and hit my ideal racing weight for the big day, getting down to 165 lbs just before the race.

3. Age group placement in something - Fail. I never did any better than 4th in anything. So close! Next year. I even finished 13th overall at one race, a 5k in April and was still 5th in my age group (I think).

4. Time goals:

5k under 22 minutes: Success!
10k uner 50 minutes: Success!
5 mile under 40: Success! no races, but plenty of training runs in 36:xx.
13.1 under 1:55: Success! I actually ran 7 halfs under 1:55 in 2011.
26.2 under 4:00: Fail, but the only marathon I ran was in the Ironman at 4:25, which was still a PR
Century Ride under 6 hours: fail, the one century ride was just over 6 hours and unofficially timed.

5. Have a garden: Partial success here. I had a garden, it was small, and nothing actually grew there.

6. Live in a way that makes others proud: Success! I completed a heavy workload for Ironman training without abandoning family or friends, became much closer with some local friends. I changed jobs, started working from home again, and was truly able to put my family first.

Here's some highlights in pictures from the year.

The year I turned Iron has turned out to be pretty incredible. I can't wait to see what 2012 has in store!

Christmas 2011 in pictures

2011-12-29T09:08:00.000-05:00

Well, a few words too. I know you're already disappointed.

Christmas eve we went to Kelley's dad's family in Biscoe NC. Lots of fun, lots of people, seriously lots of food.

She loves a bald eagle. What can you say?

Evil Genius fell in love with these earrings and had to give them to Kelley.

Santa Claus dropped off a load of toys for the good girls this year. Thanks to a coal shortage, the bad girls and boys got Nickelback cd's. We ended up with two very happy little girls and no Nickleback cd's.


Dad, his mother, my mother

Summer and Michael just got back from a European tour for 6 weeks. Incredible trip.

These girls are ready to open presents

Bigun is terrified of this giant horse

Our family photo this year. Appropriate for fridge placement

All the grandkids and great-grandkids. Natalie, Morgan, Bigun, me, Grandma Flynn, Evil Genius, Kelley, Summer, and Michael

After the typical Christmas morning breakfast and Santa party, we headed back to Greenville to visit with my parents and brothers. We found out that Summer is pregnant, and I am unbelievably happy about being an uncle again. They are going to go nuts over the kid.

Making biscuits with Grandma. Nothing could be finer.

Grandmother Barnhill (86) and my Aunt Angie

Sombody got completely worn out after all that Christmasing. Turns out, it was mommy.

Liz, Sarah, and Will. Will is about to graduate high school, and Sarah is getting married October 20th. That date sounds familiar....

There's an old family tradition about building a gingerbread house...

and promptly destroying it. Mission accomplished.

We did the Barnhill Christmas the next morning. We knew my cousin Sarah was engaged, but the first thing she said to me was "don't plan a race for October 20th, we've already booked the wedding venue". That also happens to be the date for the Beach to Battleship, so I won't be doing another Iron distance race in 2012 after all. Oh well, refocus.

It was also revealed that my cousin Emily is pregnant! She just got married in April, so it happened fast which is more of a blessing than a surprise. By next Christmas we'll have two new babies and a new husband joining the Barnhill family Christmas. This year my cousin Ben had to be with his in-laws so he couldn't make it with this year's only new baby. I still haven't met his new son, so a return trip to Greenville is quickly in order.

After the Barnhill Christmas we headed down to Kelley's mom's house in Prosperity SC for the Blackwell Christmas. We always have lots of fun on the lake. This year the kids got these crazy blanket things with hoods on them. EG's looks like a monster, and Bigun's looks like a monkey with her face as the monkey face. I think that one's quite appropriate.

We are really glad to be back in Raleigh and have lots of unpacking and cleaning up to take care of. I put on plenty of extra holiday weight that needs to come back off before the Charleston Marathon. Also last night I got into the first yoga class at the new gym! It felt so good to be back on that horse, and I really liked the instructor.

Still to come: a 2011 year in review and setting the 2012 goals!

Crazy Holiday Times

2011-12-22T09:23:00.000-05:00

With the kids being gone for the last week, you might think it would be calm and peaceful around our household. And you would be right! Kelley and I have been running around getting stuff done. I've been able to work in peace and quiet. Still, they come home today and I am ready to see my girls again.

We ended up changing gyms. The Gold's Gym I was going to before got bought out by another company, and their promotions/pricing was too good to pass up. I have completely lost all motivation to do the yoga and strength training at home like I was doing before Ironman training. I used to roll 5 days a week, hitting strength m/w/f and yoga t/th before work. The Planet Fitness was so cheap because they didn't have group classes, or any other kind of amenities. And $10/month made it worth giving up all of that stuff I never used anyway. The new gym is Fitness Connection, they have 6 locations, some with pools, and all with group fitness classes. So I'm going to start hitting the yoga and pilates classes there to make up for my home motivation loss. And it's only $20/month, well worth it. Of course, we signed up on Saturday and I haven't been there yet. but really, it is going to happen. someday.

Monday was Kelley's 40th birthday. I give her a lot of crap about being older than me by more than 3 years, and she deserves it. But she also deserves a chance at a nice birthday, which meant I had to keep my trap shut. Our solution was to get together with some friends. Friday night we went out to the Flying Saucer in downtown Raleigh with Joe, Gina, and Kayte. I had a blast. Kelley had a headache. And being old, we called it a night about 10 pm. Lots of fun with great friends is always a fun way to celebrate a birthday. Our friend Robin also has the same birthday (Dec 19) and was supposed to meet us out there, but she never made it.

Saturday is completely a blur. Neither one of us remember anything that actually happened on saturday. But I know something did happen. surely.

Sunday I got in my 12 mile long run with a pretty fast negative split. I did the first 6 in 48 minutes, and the last 6 in 45, so it got 30 seconds per mile faster as the run went on. Nice little split there.

Monday was Kelley's actual birthday so we went to her favorite restaurant Porter's, and got her favorite drink, a Cosmojito. It was lovely. Afterwards we went to visit with her dad for a bit.

Yesterday was quite interesting. We went to the ballet to see the Nutcracker. I love going to broadway shows, operas, and orchestra performances. but I had never been to see a ballet before. It was incredibly well done. The dancers were great, orchestra was flawless, and Tchaikovsky's music came to life beautifully. It was a lot of fun. We even ran into some old friends from college while leaving. And luckily one of Kelley's cousins is doing an internship with the ballet company this spring, so he was able to score us some great tickets, and we had dinner with him and his parents before the show. Good times all around.

Once the kids get back here today the doors of insanity will fly open again and the Christmas whirlwind will begin. We're going out of town some, going to be here plenty, and have fun all the way around. Have a great holiday if I don't get to post again before Sunday!

Cute Christmas Program

2011-12-16T08:54:00.000-05:00

Wednesday was Evil Genius's Christmas program with her K4 school program at the church. It was amazingly adorable. As cute as you would expect a group of 2, 3, and 4 years olds could get standing on stage and singing Christmas songs. We have the pics to prove it:

One of her teachers was able to write down EG's version of the Christmas story. Here's the account she gave:

An angel goes flap, flap to a shepherd and the shepherd says "AH!". The angel says "Don't be scared! I have good news! Baby Jesus is born!" Then a donkey takes Mary & Joseph to Bethlehem where baby Jesus was born. Angels sang "Baby Jesus is coming today!"! There is a star on top of the marriage carriage (stable). All the sheep & all the camels & all the people came to see baby Jesus in Bethlehem.

ZOMG. From the mouths of babes. I've never heard of the manger referred to as a Marriage Carriage, but that's why EG has the G in her name. That's kind of impressive.

Later on Wednesday they went to Kelley's dad's house to decorate gingerbread cookies. They are really good.


EG looks drunk. Still, she has mad skills.

I really wanted to see how he got up from that chair.

Finally, maybe, a pic of our Christmas tree this year. EG got to put the star on top.

Yesterday the kids went to stay with Kelley's mom for about a week. Gives us the freedom and time to do what needs to be done to finalize all of the holiday plans. Yay!

Have a great weekend!

Jolly Elf Pics!

2011-12-13T08:13:00.001-05:00

Saturday Kelley had to stay home with the kids while I went out for the Jolly Elf 5k trail run where I crushed a PR. So we had no pics, but today I got an email with the official race photos. I never even saw the photographers out there so I didn't expect anything. Feel free to critique my form.

This was at the end of lap 1 right before the first mile marker. We ran along this ridge at the top of a hill above the field where the start/finish line was. I crushed the first mile in 6:31, so I was feeling really good here, and looking at the clock on the field below which is why I didn't see the camera man.

On the field coming into the finish. I like the one legged pirate look, but I think my left arm is coming too far across my body, and that's pulling my left foot too far into the center line. Also kind of looks like my right foot is coming down too far in front of the center of gravity.

There, that's more like it. Only my right ankle seems kind of twisted.

Any way you look at it, I'll take a 21:58 5k and a PR anytime I can get it. Great race!

Big congratulations to Coach Marty Gaal and wife Bri on the birth of their son yesterday! Marty still ran a 20:22 at the Jolly Elf, then Bri went into labor yesterday. Maybe now that Marty is going to be sleep deprived I might actually have a chance at beating him this year. Maybe he'll turn out to be human after all.

Also today I'm a guest writer over at Healthy Ashley! I wrote a good post for her about planning out your 2012 season. Give it a quick read.

The Jolly Elf without pictures

2011-12-12T08:36:00.001-05:00

Saturday I ran the Jolly Elf Trail Run and set a fantastic new 5k PR in 21:58 for a 7:04 pace. It felt great to go sub-22 for the first time. My original target was sub-20, but with it being a trail run, my first attempt to really go sub-20, and a large crowded race I had kind of low expectations. The winner ran a flat 16:00, and my friend Jason came in fourth overall with a 17:30, both incredibly impressive. According to the official results, I finished 72/599 overall, and 5/27 in the M35-39 age group. I'll take it for that big of a crowd and that kind of race.

The course broke down into three sections. We started from the middle of this giant field. I tried to get as close as I could to the front, but there were too many smart-ass kids on the very front row. Of course they got caught up in the mad sprint at the start, claimed they went out too fast, and ended up just being in my way. Every time I heard somebody say they went too fast at the start I would sprint past them. The first section went winding through some paved greenway and dirt trails, then came back around to the same field, only we ended up going up a huge hill to get to the next section. The one mile marker was at the top of the hill, and I could see the finish line clock read 6:31 when I hit the marker.

I accidentally left the garmin at home, so I was totally running naked and just relying on my own pacing efforts to maintain. But a 6:31 first mile was exactly where I wanted to be. So that worked out pretty good. They said before the race that the second section was all single track with roots and rocks and stairs to deal with. So do any needed passing before getting into the single track. Really the track was wide enough to still do some passing. I didn't realize this until the people in front of me started running out of steam, and I continued to match their pace until I started getting passed. I even got passed by one guy pushing a baby in a jogging stroller. Who brings a baby to a trail race? He ended up beating me by about 30 seconds. I know I lost about a minute in the single track. At least a minute. I was still surprised by how quickly it seemed like the mile 2 marker came up.

Just after the mile 2 marker we ran across a parking lot where the only aide station was sitting. I was the only person in my group of runners to take some gatorade. I know you should be able to run for 22 minutes without having to take in water, but I did anyway, mostly out of habit I think. The third section of the course was a repeat of the same loop we ran for the first mile. Again it went by so fast it just seemed like a short course. That's what I'm thinking as I make it through the turns. This is a short course, I'm going to end up with an 18 minute finish time or something stupid like that because it's not actually 3.1 miles. Just when I feel like I'm about to keel over dead or puke, I turn the corner and can see the field again. So the finish line is right there. The mile 3 marker is at the edge of the field. I can see the clock, it says 21:45. I have absolutely nothing left for a sprint to the finish, but I can't drop pace now. Must. Push. Through.

I give it all I got and cross the line and I see 21:54 on the clock. The official results put me at 21:58, so we'll go with that over my bloodshot eyesight. I promptly try my best not to puke on the volunteer trying to tear the chip off of my foot or the girl that finished right behind me. My abs were so shot I couldn't hold my upper body upright anymore. Bent over and limping, I made my way out of the finishers chute and over to a water bottle table. They had a ton of food, so after I could stand upright again I grabbed a bagel and a cup of coffee and milled around for a while looking for my friends. I never did find them, so I trucked it on back home. I knew Kelley also had a 20 mile run on the books for Saturday, so I didn't want to delay her start.

For the record, her 20 mile run saturday ended up being 2 minutes faster than the 19 mile run she did 2 weeks ago. That's pretty cool.

Sunday I was supposed to hit a 20 miler as well, and I ended up cutting it short at 17. It was still my longest run since Ironman, I held an 8:00 pace the whole time, but I was a little underfueled, sore from the 5k, and just really didn't feel like pushing out those last 3 miles. I've got another 20 on the schedule in a few weeks, so we'll see what happens then. Actually that's Christmas Day. How am I going to run 20 miles on Christmas day? ah, deal with that later.

So, great 5k PR, didn't break 20, ran another 17 on sunday. How was your weekend? I also went ahead and registered for the Run for Young, another local 5k in downtown Raleigh. This one is all roads that are pretty familiar to me, so I have much highers hopes at a sub-20 finish on attempt #2!

Four Things Thursday

2011-12-08T08:43:00.000-05:00

1. You have to be able to laugh at everything. The funniest thing that happened at Aunt Johnnie's funeral last week? Kelley's cousin Margot. I love Margot, always have. They've got 4 kids, the youngest a set of twins. She came up to me at the gravesite and said "I have to ask this, when I was pregnant with the twins people used to just walk up to me and start rubbing my belly the whole time they were talking to me. Now that you've done an Ironman, do people just walk up to you and start rubbing your belly?" And of course she was rubbing my belly the whole time we were talking. No Margot, that doesn't happen very often. But I'm ok if people do randomly start rubbing my belly.

2. Sunday night after running the fastest half marathon of the year and finishing the "run a half every month" challenge we got a "free" dinner at my favorite bar, the Flying Saucer. We were out there drinking one night with friends over thanksgiving weekend when they lost my credit card after charging my tab. Very strange. I called the bank, ordered a new card, not a huge deal. They offered the meal to keep customer loyalty, since they are an awesome bar. I love the food there and they've got something like 93 beers on tap. Hell it's a 4 page beer menu and a 1 page food menu. My kind of place. Kelley got dressed up, she was amazing. I had 3 pints, a double bratwurst sandwich, and we split a dessert. Incredible. So glad they offered that. They picked up the tab, but we still had to drop off the kids at Kelley's dad's house with zaxby's for their dinner ($10) and we left a tip with the only cash we had on hand, a $10 bill. So our free dinner still cost us $20. But can you think of a better way to recover from a fast half?

3. I'm getting really tired of losing people. Monday was the funeral for Raymond Brown, and my mother went. Raymond was my grandfather's best friend and golfing buddy. I got to play golf with them a few times in high school, and that's some of the best time I ever got to spend with my grandfather. After my grandfather died (13 years ago now, lung cancer) Raymond couldn't play a decent round of golf for two years while he was grieving. I don't think I've seen Raymond since my grandfathers funeral, but I know he is going to be greatly missed. It's still very sad.

Another loss hit yesterday. When I first moved to Raleigh I lived with Kelley's dad and his wife Eleanor for the first 8 months or so, and of course I became much closer with them. During that time, Eleanor's dad was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gherig's Disease), and was moved to a special home in Raleigh from the family home a few hours west of here. Yesterday he lost the fight and died in his sleep overnight. My heart totally breaks for Eleanor, they were very close, even more so after he moved to Raleigh. This is not cool.

4. This upcoming Saturday is the first race of my 2012 season - the Jolly Elf trail run is a 5k mixed between paved and hard packed dirt trails at Bond Park in Cary, just a few miles from our house. It will be my first attempt at going sub-20 minutes, but I have kind of low expectations for this one. I'll try to keep them all under sub-7 minute miles, but breaking 20 takes a 6:25 average pace. Don't know that I'm quite there yet. And some parts of the trail in Bond Park can get narrow making it hard to pass people, so I could get caught in traffic.

Sunday is the first 20 mile run in training for the Charleston Marathon. Should be fun, it will be the first time since Ironman that I've gone longer than the 13.1. Hope I'm recovered enough.

December's Half

2011-12-05T08:54:00.000-05:00

I got to have a little fun on friday. Mile repeats kind of fun. Actually mile repeats suck; I prefer short intervals over that mess. But it got the job done, my speedwork was in for the week. I also had a great conference call and got some good work milestones hit. Friday was great. And when "great" is the low point of the weekend you're doing something right.

Saturday was college football's conference championships and the FCS playoff second round games. It was a scheduled rest day, and it still didn't feel right not going out for a long bike ride. But I took my rest as prescribed, and enjoyed as much football as the kids would allow. The biggest disappointment had to be Appalachian State losing to the University of Maine in the playoffs. But watching Clemson beat up Virginia Tech like they did earlier this season was priceless! And the Wisconsin win over Michigan State was absolutely incredible! You just know the guy who ran into the kicker has got to be suicidal today. I mean, here's what he gets to tell his grandkids now:

Grandkids, did you guys know I got to play in the first ever Big Ten Championship game? We were playing against Wisconsin, down by 5 with about a minute 45 left in the game. Our defense plays it stiff, and the Badgers have to punt. It's a nice kick, but my buddy Steve (or whoever that was) fields it clean and makes a beautiful return before getting pushed out of bounds at the three yard line! Plenty close and plenty of time for us to score the winning touchdown.

But you know what I did? I ran into the kicker. The penalty gave the Badgers a first down, and they took a knee enough times to run out the clock so we lost the game. The next day they took away my belt and shoelaces, and that's why I only wear loafers today.

OMG. As much as I enjoy a Wisconsin victory, I feel so bad for that guy. Also as much as I like watching LSU play and didn't think anybody could hang with them at all this year, it was nice to see Georgia put up a fight for the first half. I was pulling for the Dawgs hard in that one, but LSU just turned it up in the second half and made the victory look easy. Just like Clemson did. Number 5 Va Tech is tough, nobody roughs them up like that. But the Tiger offense was working, and the defense was on point. That was a beautiful game for Tiger fans.

Speaking of "DO WORK, SON", I got December's half marathon knocked out on sunday. More than just knocked out, I crushed it. First we actually got up in time to go to church. The kids went to the children's part of the service, but didn't go downstairs with the other kids. What happens when you unleash an Evil Genius in the sanctuary? She turns into a Holy Terror. At least she was a quiet Holy Terror. It certainly could have been worse. But between the constant movement, crying, jumping, and destruction the service turned into more "babysitting in the third pew" than worship. Needless to say, I was a bit tense.

Came home, had some lunch, and the weekend long run is only scheduled for 12 miles on sunday. I thought it seemed like as good a time as any to get December's half out of the way. And with plenty of built up tension I wanted it to be fast. So I had a plan. After lunch settled I got all of my stuff together and went to the gym. They always look at me funny when I come in there with more than one water bottle, I don't know why.

I warmed up on the bike for just a few minutes. Then found the closest available treadmill to the Panthers game on the TV. I got on a few minutes before halftime. Since I was already warm, I put the speed directly up to an 8.0. Then, I just left it there. That's a flat 7:30 pace.

At the beginning of the year when I started getting faster, I set this as a super secret goal. I did lots of tempo runs of 3-6 miles at an 8.0 speed with the hopes of increasing my long run pace up that high. In July's half I almost got there, but backed out after 11.5 miles. This time my plan was solid and I nailed it.

The first few miles went by like clockwork. I didn't even break a sweat in mile 1. I took Gu's at 5k, 10k, and 10 miles, all without slowing down at all. Turns out, two water bottles wasn't really enough (one had Accelerade) because the 10 mile gel was really dry. I could tell I was already dehydrated.

But the first 8 miles or so was completely effortless. When I started running dry about mile 8.7, I knew it was going to be a tough finish. Mile 10 I took the last gel, mile 12 I finished off the accelerade and by mile 13.0 I was dry. So of course then I sped up for the last 0.1 sprint to the finish, and completed my half in 1:37:54. Breaking 1:38 is insane, I did not expect to ever be that fast. That's 10 minutes faster than my race PR in Myrtle Beach this year! Totally bananas.

So I'm finishing my half marathon every month challenge with the fastest one to date. It was a great challenge, and if you think you can stay in shape for the whole year then you should try doing it for 2012.

I can't wait to read some race reports from big marathons this weekend, be it CIM or Las Vegas! Hope you raced well.

November Totals

2011-12-01T08:11:00.000-05:00

Guess what November had? Ironman and the resulting recovery.

Swim: 5460 yards, 2 swims
Bike: 188 miles, 7 rides
Run: 89.3 miles, 13 runs
Strength: 1 workout
Yoga: none

It's worth noting that 3840 yards of the swim, 112 miles of the bike, and 26.2 miles of the running came in the Ironman race. Compare those numbers to the 14,000 yard swim 400 mile bike and 105 mile run averages over the last few months and it seems pitiful. Now that I'm back in Marathon training I really need to get on the regular schedule for strength and yoga work.

Aunt Johnnie's funeral was yesterday, and it was pretty tough. She was like a second mother to most of us, always there when you needed someone or had something to celebrate. It made us realize how much we have to be thankful for, and how to find something to be thankful for in every situation, because that's how she lived. It also made me realize how long it has been since we've been down to SC to visit with Kelley's side of the family down there. All of her male cousins suddenly got old! Gray hair everywhere. The twins are 2 years old now, we hadn't seen them since they were only about 4 months old. It's been too long. Johnnie is the first person to pass on in my parents generation on either mine or Kelley's family. I know it's only going to get harder.

This is Bigun's last week of school before track out, and she is very excited. Tomorrow is a half day, then she's out of school until the new year. I've got the marathon training schedule loaded up into my spreadsheet, so I've got lots of running to take care of. This weekend's long run is only 12 miles, I might stretch that to 13.1 and go ahead and knock down December's "half marathon every month" goal.

Cute Kid Pics

2011-11-30T07:54:00.000-05:00

We've got Aunt Johnnie's funeral today, so I need to post something bright to cheer myself up. Enter cute pics of the kids:

Evil Genius with her BFF Tristan

The girls made bead necklaces at Bigun's Indian Princess tribe meeting last night, so of course EG had to get one of her own.

Bigun insisted on being entirely covered in leaves after they were raked into a big pile.

That face! Who couldn't fall in love with that face!


Mommy enjoyed laying in the leaf pile checking out the clouds too.

Monday night I ran fast for the first time since Ironman. I thought three weeks would be enough recovery, I might have been wrong. I ran 5 miles in 36:06 for a 7:13 pace. That included a warm up half a mile of walking and slow jog, most of it was under 7 minutes. Yesterday and today are both rest days because my lungs feel like they are on fire. I have a band of soreness just below the man-boobs that encircles the body. I'm not sure how running fast made my back muscles sore, but I must have done something different. Breathing feels almost as labored as it did the day after Ironman, which is the strangest, most unexpected soreness yet. I'll try and get to the pool tomorrow then get an easy run in friday before resuming regular marathon training.

I ran some numbers through the McMillan pace calculator, and it turns out I was in pretty good shape for most of my pacing. My long runs and easy runs were right on target with an 8:00 pace, but my tempo runs were too slow and my speedwork intervals were too fast. It feels good to have some algorithmic backing behind making the pace adjustments. There are plenty of 5k's going on here in December, I'm having a tough time picking one. I still think a sub-20 minute 5k is going to come in January, but who knows. Might happen sooner.

Have a great hump day!

Thanksgiving, it's what's for dinner

2011-11-28T09:30:00.001-05:00

First, thank you for the kind words and prayers from my last post and on facebook. Kelley's aunt passed yesterday about 2:30 am in the hospital with her husband and sons by her side. She had an acute Leukemia that spread into her lungs and labored her breathing too much. The funeral will be on Wednesday in Fayetteville.

Here's a picture of Aunt Johnnie with our niece Kaileigh from one of the kids birthday parties last year. She will be greatly missed.

Thanksgiving turned out really nice. Kelley's mom and Gene were staying with us, and her sister and Kaileigh came up to visit as well. We also had our good friend Kayte and another friend of hers come over as well. Andrea turned out to be really sweet, we ended up spending the whole weekend with them. Kaileigh stayed with us through the weekend as well which is also always pleasant. The worst part was that we didn't get any pictures!

The dinner was fantastic. Turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pie, more pie, sangria, and more pie. Way too much food for the 8 of us. That's usually the way thanksgiving goes. We made sure to have that much food just in case any other family wanted to get out of the hospital or if Johnnie wasn't feeling up to having visitors that day. Turns out she was, so the rest of the family stayed with her.

Friday we did not participate in any black friday madness. We did get caught up in some of the traffic however, going to meet Kayte and Andrea and the kids for lunch at an Olive Garden. Then Friday night we had Kaileigh babysitting all four kids while we went out downtown to hit the bars! It was embarrassingly fun. (that means I'm sure I made a total ass out of myself but can't really remember what I did. But I'm sure it was wrong)

Saturday was a whole lot of recovery (read: hangover). I did make it out to scout a trail that goes around a lake that was recommended by another friend. The biggest surprise here was that I was actually able to find the lake, and a parking area in the state park, and the trail itself. I am directionally challenged. There are 2 miles of paved trail and about 6 miles of unpaved trail around this lake, so this looks really cool. I found a better parking lot while I was out there, and this trail was as advertised. Mostly flat with enough hills to really crush my abs if I take them too fast. I only ran one loop, but I certainly took it too fast. Kelley ran 19 miles on saturday so she had the garmin, but I am really looking forward to hitting this lake again. I think the loop is 2.1 miles (need garmin confirmation) and the unpaved can go for quite a while. Longtime readers will remember how much I used to enjoy running around the lake at Furman when we lived in SC, it was a 1.1 mile loop with a 2.3 mile trail option. I think we may have found a winning replacement here.

Sunday we headed down to Asheboro for a Maness family thanksgiving with Kelley's dad's side of the family. Finally, there were some pictures taken but not by us. And I don't have copies yet. It was also a blast. Turkey, ham, more food than 30 people could possibly eat.

Hope your holiday was that much fun!

Thanks for the influence!

2011-11-23T09:37:00.000-05:00

This year for Thanksgiving I'm reminded of the people who were big influences on my life when I was younger. I have a large family, my parents are both alive and still married. I still have both grandmothers and lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins that I'm very close to. Those influences are obvious. I learned how to be a man of integrity by watching my father in his business dealings, and how to treat other people by watching my mother selflessly celebrating others' accomplishments or milestones with joy.

I also became very close with a handful of teachers in high school and college, all music teachers. The point of this post is to thank them now, because one of them passed away suddenly over the weekend. It is very sad, and I'm still kind of in shock.

My high school chorus teacher is incredibly fun. She was the only teacher we regularly addressed by her first name, Jane. Her first year teaching at the high school was my freshman year, so I started there 3 days before she did. Over the years I ended up abandoning my locker and using a cubby in a cabinet in the chorus room instead, just so I'd have a good excuse to go in there between every class. I was president of the Concert Choir my senior year and led rehearsals when she was absent; wielding even more power than the student teacher who became my accompanist. I got to know her kids, now she has grandchildren, went to her house a lot, and we used to lead trips out of town with the chorus. We always had a blast, and I learned how to have fun and enjoy living in the moment with her. She's going to retire at the end of the school year, and it is well deserved.

Lindsay O'Rear was the minister of music at my church growing up. He is an incredible musician, retired several years ago, and still keeps a garden at the church with my mother. His kids are a few years older than me, but we stay in touch too on facebook. He taught me how to determine what's really important and how to hold it with reverence. He knew all of the "don't sweat the small stuff" theories 20 years before the books came out. Again the church choirs used to travel every summer, we used to get into trouble and he would bail us out. Church trips were always so much fun.

Michael Rice was my voice teacher at the Fine Arts Center, a magnet school I went to senior year for voice lessons and an AP Music Theory class. That's when I decided to be a music major in college. Mr. Rice is still the most incredible pianist I've ever seen, and we became quite close as friends during and after that year. He was the accompanist for the Greenville Chorale for 13 years, so he was always getting tickets to events at the Peace Center for things like the Greenville Symphony or traveling Broadway musicals. Sometimes they were box seats, sometimes I'd bring a date, sometimes it was just me and him or a handful of other students. One time we even went to Atlanta to see The Secret Garden, just the two of us. That was a really special memory. Sometimes when I would come home from college on the weekends I would sneak in to watch his last class for the day and visit some after school. When I was pledging my fraternity I found out that he also pledged the same fraternity when he was at Furman. He always smiled and had a graceful joy that was infectious. You just had to like the guy, there was no other option. He traveled by himself most of the summer, and learned the language for wherever he was going to travel to before he got there. His favorite word in any language (also my favorite word) is the swedish word for strawberry. Google it if you need too. I'll pronounce it for you if you ask me in person. He gave me optimism and the habit of being open minded, and my love for languages. I still have "learn to speak" cd's in my car for italian, german, and french thanks to him. Michael Rice died suddenly on Saturday, he was only 58 years old.

*******

On another sad note; one of Kelley's aunts has been fighting leukemia since april and is about to lose the battle. She knows that she only has a few days left, but is still quite lucid and able to sit up and talk to you. We went to visit her in the hospital monday night and she was laughing and telling stories, then watching DWTS. Cancer is such a strange thing. Your body makes it, and it will attack and destroy everything else inside the body but it can leave the mind totally intact like that. She's one of Kelley's mom's sisters, and we are all very close. They are the only other branch of the family that lives in NC, and being closer to them is a big reason we wanted to move here from Greenville in the first place.

I do a lot of races to support cancer charities, and most of my family that we've lost has been to cancer. It's the biggest reason I try to maintain and promote a healthy lifestyle. If you treat your body right, maintain a healthy weight, and exercise regularly the body has no reason to produce cancer. Losing someone else that I care about this much to a disease that I hate this much is difficult to put it mildly.

When I finished the Ironman, Kelley's mom was watching the live feed from the internet. She had Aunt Johnnie on the phone for the feed. So from her hospital bed, Johnnie heard the guy call out "John Flynn you are an ironman" and was proud of something I did. You can't buy that kind of support. And now I feel like there's nothing else I can do for her. It's going to be a tough holiday season this year.

Speaking of weight and a healthy lifestyle, I've put on all of the pre-ironman weight again. 10 lbs in 2 weeks have come right back. Looks like I'm going to have to start watching my intake again pretty soon. A racing weight isn't supposed to be maintained after the race is over, so I'm ok. But I do want to stay around 175 lbs, that is maintainable. Race weight was closer to 165. I blame the halloween candy and chicken wings that I have been enjoying liberally.

I also got back in the pool last night! RAM practice felt good, I took it kind of easy without really trying to push the speed or endurance too far. My ankles really hurt doing a flutter kick. I guess Ironman really knocks all the joints loose. The pools are all closed for Thanksgiving, so I can't swim again until next tuesday, so the ankles should feel better by then. They haven't bothered me while running or biking. You wouldn't expect to find an ankle problem in the pool.

Enjoy the thanksgiving holiday!

Over the Peak

2011-11-21T09:08:00.000-05:00

Training plans, especially long course plans for an event like Ironman, are designed to allow your fitness to peak. Hopefully you will peak at the right time and have a speedy and pleasant race. There is always the chance you can peak too early and run Ironman through an injury or over fatigued or over-trained. I feel like I peaked at the right time and pulled together the best race possible for the day.

What I didn't expect was that the peak is actually the top of something. That means you have to come down the other side.

Two weeks post ironman I think I'm feeling "recovered", whatever that is supposed to be. Tuesday I can finally get back in the pool after waiting 2 weeks for the tattoo to heal. Last week I did not work out Wednesday Thursday or Friday to rest up more. Saturday I got in a slow 3.5 miles and Sunday was a slow 12 miles. In Ironman training "slow" or "easy" meant an 8:00 per mile pace. This weekend it was more like an 8:40 pace. Here's my take on it:

My heart rate did not rise very high and I never got really out of breath, so my aerobic capacity is still pretty high.
I was still able to cover 12 miles at a steady pace without stopping so I still have some muscular endurance
My legs and right knee did feel less than great. Not bad, just not great.
The lower part of my neck and upper back muscles started to fatigue after about 10 miles. This could be a form breakdown, and I likely need to go visit the chiropractor.
Today my muscles are very sore. I need to drink more water.

I need to accept the fact that I am on a downhill slide called the offseason, but I didn't really lose much "fitness". The speed will come back so I can put up a sub-3:30 marathon time in the new year. Next weekend's long run is 19 miles according to the marathon training plan. We'll have to see how close I can actually come to that when the time arrives. We'll also have to wait and see how close I can come to knocking those 19 miles down at 8 minutes each. I think I'm ready to go back to regular training working out 5 or 6 days a week, but I know I still have to be conservative for another week or so. This is not the week to try and regain all of the ironman speed and endurance, I have to focus on just getting the body back to feeling good at regular training intervals (not trying to make gains).

Great Weekend!

The family had a fantastic weekend. On Friday Bigun received a special recognition award for Kindness. It was so sweet!

The cute thing about this picture is that Evil Genius is also holding up two imaginary certificates. Adorable! That's Bigun's BFF in the middle. Too cute!

Later on that day Bigun had her first sleepover with friends. We made up couchbed and got them all snugged in watching movies.

Saturday morning I made pancakes for the lot of them and we all got to play outside. It was 70+ degrees and sunny all day saturday and sunday, very unusual for this time of year in NC. Everyone had a really good time, including Kelley and myself!

One final picture to share. Thursday night we all went up to a local shopping center that was having a Christmas festival thing. I guess they want us to get primed for Black Friday, but it sure did put the girls into the holiday spirit! Just listening to the pure innocence that is your kids singing Christmas carols really warms the heart. We got a family pic with santa:

I don't know why blogger refuses to maintain picture orientation, but EG sang him this version of the carol:

Smack you around? that's why we call her EG. Santa indicated that he would have to have words with Grandad about that one, but he still laughed.

Big congratulations to all the marathoners this weekend, you know who you are!

The Great Recovery

2011-11-17T08:21:00.000-05:00

Well the second week of recovery post-ironman is getting rough. All these aches and pains are starting to show up. I know that's a healing process, but that doesn't make it pleasant. I'm still eating like the world is about to run out of food, and the weight is starting to come back on. That's not really a bad thing, as I'm still well within a safe range. But I did burn through an entire bag of halloween candy from Costco by myself in maybe a week. That's rarely good.

Swim/bike/run/strength/stretch is my stress relief. I can't get back in the pool until next Tuesday thanks to the new ink. Biking and running are still incredibly uncomfortable, but I'm doing them some anyway. Not much, and not fast. Habitually, you get used to the twice a day workouts. I used to work out two or three times a day long before Ironman training because I enjoyed it and that was how I chose to spend my free time. I know I need to take it easy the rest of this week at least. But I have some big deadlines coming up, and the holidays are just around the corner. It's all unrelieved stress at this point. And all I can do is rest more.

Today is the Great American Smokeout! If you or someone you know needs and wants to stop smoking then today is a great day to make that plan. I put them down in December of 2007 thanks to my Grandfather and changed my life forever. Do whatever it takes to make it happen.

The future is yellow

2011-11-14T07:52:00.007-05:00

First, some pictures from Ironman that didn't get included in the original post:

This is me with Colleen, the Iron Diva! We got to meetup Friday, it was epic! I met so many new blog friends there.

I just dropped off my bike and transition bags. It was sunny but cool, so the jeans/black shirt was perfect. Yay Kenneth Cole!

So many transition bags!

That's me with Wes and Andy Murtha. Murtha trains with Wes all the time, I really enjoyed getting to know him.

Yes my eyes are closed dang it, but Wes got a great shot of Kelley and I just hanging out checking out the Gulf. Fun times.

I can't name all of the bloggers on here because there are so many. I'm really going to enjoy following this whole crew from now on though. Lots of really neat people in here! I think I've got everyone here added into my blogroll on the left.

What I didn't mention about Ironman in the race report

I really believe I can do better. This time was my first Ironman, I put together a strategy and executed it, and that's all I could ask for. 13:06 is a great finishing time, and I'm very proud of my accomplishment. Most of my friends were surprised that the tattoo was so small; they expected me to get the M-Dot on my chest and belly, a foot wide, and with a picture of my face inked inside of the dot. You know, just in case anyone who saw me shirtless forgot who the iron man was. These people know me too well.

But I could have gone harder. I wanted to run faster the entire marathon. I wanted to pick a bike course with less wind and more rolling hills. I think I can break 12 hours overall, and I think I can break 4 hours in the Ironman marathon. This means I will have to try again. Not sure when or where yet, but I seriously doubt that this will be my only 140.6 attempt. If I went under 4 hours on the run, and near 6 hours on the bike (under or over), that leaves 2 hours for the swim and transitions to break 12 overall. My transition times were over 26 minutes this time, typically they are no more than about 4 minutes total. There has to be a happy medium somewhere.

The first week of post-Ironman recovery is going really well. I ran 3 miles on Wednesday just to work the kinks out of the legs. Then Friday I did a short brick - 15 mile bike 5k run just because I wanted to. Sunday I really wanted to get in a 12 mile long run but after 9, well, the legs decided they wanted another week of rest before doing anything like that.

All of this free time is strange and unexpected. I didn't think I would miss the twice a day workouts. Now I feel like I should do something else besides just eat all of the remaining Halloween candy. Like something with my career. Technology changes so fast that it can be hard to keep up with, and I've enjoyed being in my little bubble the last several years. Modernizing my skillset would take about as much time as ironman training but is a helluva lot more boring. At least I'll have the time to research what I want to do next.

Oh yea,

Today is the 13th wedding anniversary for Kelley and I. We got married in a small town in SC back in 1998, and it rained the whole day. Now 13 years and two kids later we get to celebrate by having leftovers for dinner before I take Bigun to an Indian Princess meeting. Getting old is really quite thrilling, I know (hey - we just did that week's vacation on the Gulf of Mexico remember?). You don't stay married this long without having ups and downs for sure, but I'm really glad that today is here and it is happy and peaceful. I could never ask for anything more than what she provides as a spouse, mother, supporter and friend. I love you always my dear!

Next Goals

Over the winter we're going to be doing lots of running. I'm going to keep on swimming tuesday and thursday nights for cross training, but the focus is going to be on fast running.

We only have three races on the schedule right now, but they are kind of key to the next goal. Kelley and I are both going to try and qualify for the Marathon Maniacs! This insane asylum has strict qualification criteria, and you have to really enjoy running full marathons to want to qualify. I really hate that Ironman was the only full marathon I got to run this year, so I'm making up for it next year. The criteria we're using to get in is three marathons inside of 90 days:

Charleston Marathon 1/14/12
Myrtle Beach Marathon 2/18/12
Tobacco Road Marathon 3/18/12

Full marathons in January, February, and March will really test my recovery skills. On one of those I will try to break 3:30 and see how I feel. They each have pace groups to get to that time, so I should be able to keep up. 3:30 finish time is an 8:00 pace, and that's what all of my Ironman long runs have been at so it seems totally do-able.

Kelley's marathon PR is 5:56 from 2009, so she's going to be trying to break 5 hours in there. I'm predicting that she'll break 4:30 because she's awesome like that.

We're also trying to recruit friends to join us out there just to make it more fun. If you can make it to one of those races please come on down and let us know where to meetup with you. I'll also be glad to help coach anyone to meet a time goal at any of these if you want to do that. Kelley is well into her training plan already and is feeling confident about a PR in Charleston.

My brother Michael is currently on another european tour, but he lives in Charleston. I always enjoy running when I go down to visit with him, so the Charleston Marathon (and even the TryCharleston 70.3) seemed like a great choice to get back to 26.2. Kelley's first marathon was the Myrtle Beach full in 2009, and we found a great hotel to stay at down there - it's cheap, has a good breakfast, and is walking distance to the start/finish line. And it shares a parking lot with a Mellow Mushroom pizzaria. Not that we would take advantage of that or anything ;)

I ran Tobacco Road full back in 2010. Seems like a really long time ago, but that's where I set my pre-Ironman PR at 4:31. We get to recover at home, so that has a lot of appeal. It will be a nice local mostly trail marathon and a great way to finish out the qualification process. I really enjoyed this race last year.

Along the way I'm sure there will be a few half marathons and 5k's. I'm still going to try and break 20 minutes in the 5k, and break 1:40 in the half. I might even be able to get under 1:30 in the half, if I can find enough to run in. There are no half's around Raleigh in December! So strange and disappointing.

I'm thinking about starting with this 5k because it benefits Girls on the Run and doesn't start until 10 am. And it's only a few miles from the house. Last years winner clocked a 15:48, so there's no chance of a high overall placement, I can just get out there and run my race and set my time.

Hope you guys had a great week! Come join us at one of these marathons. seriously.

IMFL 2011 Long Version

2011-11-09T07:07:00.000-05:00

Ironman is the most demanding single day event on the planet. Here's how I made it my bitch.

Pre-race

We got up at 4:15 am central time, I grabbed a quick shower, ate some breakfast, ate some more, then drove the 45 minutes into Panama City Beach. We parked at the Wal-Mart near the resort and took the shuttle to the race location. Found the body markers on our way in. Since I had checked the bike and gear bags in on Friday all I had to carry with me was the wetsuit and one bag of incidentals.

I got to the transition area about 15 minutes before it closed, which is cutting it way too short. Still, I stuffed an extra shirt into the T2 bag, added the bottles and bags to the bike, taped some gel's to the top bar and still had enough time to get out of there.

I got the wetsuit on, and we had to walk through a timing arch to checkin. This is when it really started getting real.

The starters area was incredibly cold. The sand was freezing. I got the swim cap and goggles on, and was pacing around trying to find Kelley. She was back taking pictures. I was not the only person openly crying out there. It was a very emotional time for everyone. All the training has been logged, all the fuel has been eaten and all of the preparations have been made. It's go time!

The pros started first, 10 minutes before us age groupers. They sang the national anthem, gave us a 10 second count down, and shot off the canon to get things underway. This is it, here we go. A years worth of training and a lifetime's worth of preparation has been leading up to right now.

Swim 2.4 miles

When 3000 people are sitting on a small beach area and decide to start swimming all at the same time it can get a little hectic. Frantic is putting it mildly. I wanted no part of that since I was just trying to finish, so when the cannon went off I stood on the beach humming the Jeopardy theme song to give the field a 30 second head start. Of course, the competitive juices started flowing so I only made it about 20 seconds in, but I was still one of the last people into the water.

Speaking of flowing.... I didn't get the chance to hit the port-a-potty line before getting to the starting area. Not enough time. But as soon as my feet hit the water I was able to pee in the wetsuit freely. Such a relief. And it was the warmest I felt all day.

This shot is really cool if you can click to embiggen it

The water was crystal clear (now with a slight yellow tint?) and you could see all the way to the bottom. It got deep fast, then we hit a sand bar and got to stand up and walk again. So the second time it got deep I could still see all the way to the bottom. That white rippled sand was such a strange sight compared to the murky lake water we're usually swimming in. I saw a stingray swimming along below me! That was really cool. Then I caught up to the people.

Now the whole reason I stayed on the beach was to avoid the washing machine. So to now have a delayed start time and still get caught in what I was trying to avoid was double pissing me off. People were stacked up 10 deep in every direction around me. Everyone was trying to swim, but few were doing it and fewer still were doing it right. When it's that crowded I stop kicking and take my head out of the water. I don't want to kick someone else and I want to sight the open water nearby so I can get there. This time there was no open water nearby. I started pushing my way through people and eventually got to put my face down again. I took an elbow in the eyeball (well, the goggles first), got kicked in the shoulder and chest, may have kicked somebody else, and had a generally tough time getting into a rhythm. I never even saw any of the sighting buoys on the first lap, just the orange turn buoy. Another washing machine immediately commenced at the turn. Don't hard kick in the washing machine! It will only get you punched in the face.

Half a mile out, turn left. 0.2 miles then another left turn to go back to shore. I finally got outside of the main pack (right into shark territory), made the second left turn and headed back into shore still trying to stay outside to the right. Might have gotten a little bit too outside. This time I can look down and see a pink blob floating very close to me in the water. Jellyfish! I scream like a girl into the water I was so surprised. At least nobody heard me. I ended up seeing a lot of jellyfish in that return lap.

Made it back across the sandbar and onto shore, there was a bottleneck going over the sand. They had an aide station setup so I got a cup of water to drink, then headed back out for lap #2. This time I was much closer to the sighting buoys and the crowd was starting to thin out. That means the people were only 5 deep instead of 10. Still a washing machine for the most part.

This time there were plenty of jellyfish on the way out as well as on the way back in. Eventually I did get far enough to the right to avoid most of the other people, and settled into a basic stroke. I thought the second lap felt much faster than the first lap.

Lap 1: 37:29
Lap 2: 40:31
Total: 1:18:00, 2:03 / 100m pace
1338/2439 overall, 235/356 age group M35-39

My target time was to break 1:20, so that's a huge success! 2:03 is the exact same pace I've kept at my last 3 open water swim races. Eventually I will have to learn how to get faster.

Kelley got this shot of some man-candy for you. I think the funniest thing about it are the girls in the black shirt and pink shirt checking this guy out and clapping after he's gone by. Why not?

Wes took these pics and sent them over. Him and his lovely wife were great to have around, seems like we hung out a lot over the weekend.

Transition 1

Check out the cut line on my abs! Yea baby that's what Ironman training will do for you!

I ran out of the water up the beach and onto a very sandy spot for wetsuit stripping. Found a big guy who yanked that thing off of me and I ran up through the hotel to the parking lot to grab my T1 bag. Then we had to run through the other side of the parking lot to get to the changing room.

Let me tell you about the changing room. I shave a lot. I shave a large part of my body because I just don't want hairy parts, for the most part. I was nowhere near the most shaved man in there. I saw things that cannot be erased from my brain. Things I will not mention again.

it may have affected me emotionally

I found a chair and took my time in there, taking off the bathing suit I had on under the wetsuit, and putting on my bike gear including the bib shorts, jersey, arm warmers, etc. The volunteers in the changing room were fantastic. The guy helped me get my gear all straightened out and put on, bagged up my swim gear, and got me out the door as fast as possible.

I grabbed Roberta, she was the last bike left on the rack. Ran out of transition ready to mount up and ride.

T1: 15:53

Normally my T1 time is less than 2 minutes, but I wanted to take my time here. Turns out, I forgot to pack a towel in the bag, or to apply butt butter before putting the shorts on. These two factors would work together to create a very unpleasant time on the bike.

Bike 112 miles

It sounds so straightforward. Get on a bike, ride 112 miles. It's not really that much longer than a century ride, is it? Really is it??

I apparently ran well past the mount line without knowing it. So somewhere in what looked like a starting corral I clipped in, sat down, and waded my way through a crowd of bikers. Seriously, when 3000 people get out in steady progression in a non-drafting race, it gets crowded very quickly. Too quickly. Took me 3 miles to get the required 20 feet of clearance to avoid drafting.

The coolest thing about the swim was that I started in the back and finished in 1338th place. So I passed almost 1300 people in the water. In the water! I'd estimate on the bike course, about 1000 of them got their revenge. I started out with an effort that was stupid easy; that was the plan. The course was flat, the wind was strong but I rode totally on perceived effort without worrying about my actual speed or heart rate or wattage etc. It was pretty disheartening to get passed that much.

The plan was to take a gel at every aide station, so the first station I needed to get a gel and a bottle of water. Instead, I grabbed a bottle of Perform, chugged it and tossed it before clearing the station. That's what you would call a poorly executed plan. They have aide stations every 10 miles, that first one was at mile 13.

By mile 18 I was ready for the bike leg to be over. I was done. Remember how I didn't really wash off that salt water after the swim like I should have? then forgot the towel and chamois cream in the changing room? That plus the sand where the wetsuit strippers were created a salt/sand rub that had already begun chafing. And before the race even started? Port-a-let lines were long and I had no time to get in them anyway, so I was still waiting on that first morning poo. If you combine those two qualities it can make for a very uncomfortable morning. Then you have to sit on a bike seat for 7 hours.

Mile 23 I hit the second aide station, and actually did get a gel and water bottle this time. I also had two bottles of Accelerade that I premixed and stored on the bike, and plenty of my own gels taped to the top bar. But the point was to execute the water bottle grab properly. So now I was getting regular calories in finally, and it was time to upgrade my efforts from "stupid easy" to just "easy" and roll out the next 89 miles.

The third aide station had port-a-potties with a very short line so I took the opportunity to jump in there. Finally I got to knock off some of that salt/sand rub and empty the bowels. I know you were very concerned about that. It was the most comfortable I would be all day... almost.

The middle miles were pretty uneventful. The course has an out and back spur, where you hit the halfway point and get your Special Needs bag. I threw a PB&J in the special needs bag, and was quite happy to have some real food to ride with. I did stop again to open the bag and get the sandwich. Who was out there cheering at the turnaround? Wes and Dee Dee! I was really looking and feeling bad then, the out part of that road had a stiff headwind and bad pavement, so seeing them out there cheering for me really made me feel a lot better. She snapped these pics:

The first half of this course took me an entire 40 minutes longer to complete than the entire 56 mile course at the OBX half in september. That's almost 1 minute per mile slower, or 15.6 mph instead of 19.4 mph at OBX. And I thought OBX had bad winds. These were brutal! Absolutely killer. Now, of course, that meant the second half had more of a tailwind. Wasn't as effective as I had hoped, but it was still nice.

I was just hitting the aide stations with consistency, taking in calories and watching the miles roll down. 40, 50, sandwich, 60, 70, 80, it was going pretty smooth by then. I stopped at the mile 83 aide station to use the bathroom again when a funny thing happened. I unclipped the left shoe from the pedal, but couldn't get the right shoe out in time. So of course then my balance went to the right and I fell over on my side in the grass next to the road. As far as falls on the bike go, this one was pretty tame. I was at a complete stop already, landed in grass, and kind of rolled into the fall. But still, taking a spill on the bike 83 miles into a 112 mile ride is no picnic. When you're supposed to follow said ride with a marathon run there are farther reaching implications. This was actually just funny to me. I wasn't hurt at all. They say everybody does it, but it's never happened to me before. Usually it happens at a stop sign, not a port-a-shitter. But it happened. I dropped a nice deuce, clipped in again and rolled on down the road. Me and Roberta were both ok. And the half a second that I was lying down in the grass was the most comfortable part of the bike leg.

Around mile 90 is when my stomach started to turn. Nausea set in, and I didn't think I would be able to eat any more. I stuck with water and Perform to keep some calories going in, but the Perform started tasting really nasty. I just couldn't take that anymore. I was well past ready to be done with the bike. Eventually I convinced myself that the nausea was masking hunger, and I stuffed down one more gel.

Around mile 95 I saw Kelley! She made it out onto the course and got a few pics:

Head down, lost of coasting, I am totally spent here. This is about the bottom of the barrel for me.

She said she also saw a guy ride through that section of street standing up in his pedals, whip "it" out and pee while he was riding down the street! I cannot believe she saw cocks-a-flopping in PCB. I mean it is PCB and all, but wow that's unexpected. I thought she was going to get a pic of me puking, but I managed to keep everything in.

The last 10 miles are all straight into a headwind. Something about the tall huge hotel/condo buildings just creates a wind tunnel that puts a nasty headwind out there. When you're over 100 miles into the ride you don't want a headwind. I thought I was going to have to walk the bike in. There was a sign for 100 miles, but I didn't see a sign for 110, and I really wanted to. The farthest I've ever ridden is 105 before, so that would have been nice.

All I really wanted to do at that point was get to the run. I knew everything was going to be ok once I could start running and be off of that damn bike. Ready to run.

Bike split 1: 55 miles 3:31:10 15.63 mph
Bike split 2: 40 miles 2:21:16 16.99 mph = some tailwind?
Bike split 3: 17 miles 1:03:59 15.94 mph
Total bike: 112 miles 6:56:25 16.14 mph
1921/2439 overall, 315/356 age group

Goal time was 6:30, or 6 hours flat would be even better. Total fail.

yea, that's really slow. and I got passed a lot. It really sucked. I'm still just glad it is over. Flat and fast my ass, that course was tough. For the most part, the road conditions were pretty good. The aide stations were great, volunteers were wonderful. I survived, and I don't have to get on the bike again until after the winter is over and done with. I've been on the hate side of the love/hate relationship I have with cycling for about a month now, and this bitch certainly didn't change my mind.

Transition 2

A volunteer took my bike at the dismount line and I didn't want to touch it again. I found and grabbed my T2 bag and headed back into the changing room with my head down this time. Off went the bike gear, and my ass was so incredibly grateful to be in running shorts instead of cycling shorts. I tied a long sleeve shirt around my waist just in case it got cold enough out there to need it and got the hell out of there.

On my way out I turned down more sunscreen because I knew it was about to get dark, but someone did have Vaseline. I would like to thank them now. I may have gotten a bit too excited to take a couple of large finger-fulls of Vaseline and shove my hand down my shorts only to start screaming "oh that's nice yes fucking sweet fantastic holy wow" right in front of that poor woman. Fortunately all of the nearby volunteers started laughing with me. I might not have been the first badly chafed guy to come by there, but I may have been the most vocal.

T2: 10:36

Again, my T2 times are usually under 90 seconds but I don't care. That puts my total transition times over 26 minutes, when the goal was to stay under 20 minutes. Again, I don't care. Well worth it to get to sit down in a chair for that time.

I actually took some advil before getting very far out of the transition zone.

Run 26.2 miles

I started running this two loop course and saw Kelley at the very start of it. I was so glad that I was able to find her and stop to tell her how much I appreciated her, and get a kiss before really taking off on the marathon. That's why I'm smiling so much in that picture above.

I had a plan for the marathon. Run at a 9 minute pace and walk the aide stations. Take 2 cups of liquid, plenty of gels, get some solid food when I could. Look for the chicken broth, everyone says it's a life saver. That's exactly what I did.

The course is a lollipop, with an out and back section that tops out with a loop around a state park. We run it twice, so maybe 5 miles of the course is two way traffic on the same roads. Once you get into the park all bets are off. The crowd support is amazing. The roads outside of the park are filled with spectators Tour de France style. They are all cheering and giving out high fives, plenty of fun costumes. One woman told me she bought that house specifically because it was on the run course so she could sit in her driveway and cheer every year. Of course, she was also drinking beer from a can and smoking a cigarette at the time she was telling me this.

One aide station was setup with a Hawaii theme with everyone in grass skirts. Another was a christmas village, with a really thin guy in a santa claus costume and compression socks giving out high fives. They did have a few slutty elves. But my favorite one, hands down, has to be the Girl Zone. Girls in stripper costumes (is there such a thing? burlesque costumes?) were dispensing pleasure and pain to the runners. The girl with the cat-of-9-tails style whip hit me in the butt 3 of the 4 times I ran past her. It was wonderful.

In the first loop the roads got out of the residential areas before hitting the state park, and there was Wes and Dee Dee again! How incredible is it to have friends like that. I saw them coming and going on the first loop. Wes was screaming at me pretty good.

Inside the state park was a timing mat for the first split. It came around a full circle, and I noticed there were no street lamps. My goal was to get through the first loop before dark so I would know where I was going more on the second loop. The officials said we should run with a head lamp, but I didn't bring one. The park seemed like the worst part to be dark in. I was just holding my 9 minute pace.

Actually it was kind of hard to keep that pace, I wanted to go faster. All of my long training runs have been done at an 8 minute pace or faster, so I knew that sticking to 9 minute miles would keep my heart rate low, prevent me from ever hitting the wall really hard on the run, and keep me feeling alive the whole time. So I had to stick with it. Again running on percieved effort, don't let my heart rate get too high or I'll crash at the end.

Coming out of the state park there were Wes and Dee Dee again. I had to ask about the Snail, and they told me he broke 4 hours for the first time in the RnR Savannah marathon, but missed his 3:30 target time. I was wondering about my friend the whole day, so that was good to know. We were joking about taking a bet on marathon finish times but I couldn't nail down a handicap for the swim/bike warmup that I had to do. Still, as good as I was feeling at that point I thought maybe I could break 4 hours as well. but I knew better than to push it. And Wes was screaming at me again "You've got this CJ - you're going to become an Ironman today!" and that's when I knew I had this one in the bag.

Coming all the way back towards the finish line and hitting the turn around spot I got started on lap #2. I checked the garmin and sure enough there was the 8:00 pace again. I decided to save enough for the finish so I could charge that chute after finishing the second lap with a nice strong kick. So I had to be more careful about my pace for the second lap. Nothing too fast. I did make the target of finishing up the first lap before it got dark, but the sun set about 2 miles into this second lap. It got really dark out there really fast.

The second loop was a little less crowded. At mile 16 I chose to stop and walk for the first time not at an aide station. Still feeling pretty good, it just felt like a good time to give it a rest. I ran through the residential areas again and into the state park, but Frayed Laces had warned me that everyone walks the second loop in the state park. It was really dark in there, and I found a nice lady to talk to from south Florida who was on her first lap and hoping to beat the midnight cutoff. We talked the entire way through the state park, and I gave her some advil at the end of it then took off running again. That was about mile 19, and I knew all I had left to do was get back home to the finish line.

It's important not to abandon the nutrition plan for the last 10k. I still had to stop and take gels and chicken broth, several aide stations had pretzels and chocolate chip cookies which I jumped on. 2 cups of liquid and a solid at every aide station, every mile. Keep it going in so that I'll have enough to keep going forward. Charge the finish line.

In my past 2 full marathons I have hit the wall pretty good at mile 23. This time 23 came and went without starting the death march. Yea I walked when I needed to, but never felt like I really hit the wall. Just knocking down miles after miles. This time when I hit the point where they said "first loop turn around, second loop go finish" I picked up the pace and headed for the finish line.

For the first time all day, I kept the effort hard enough to run myself out of breath. I made it into the finishers chute. Why do they make those things so long? It should be maybe 200 yards, max. This one was like half a mile. I wanted to keep the people spaced out and give everyone their moment to cross the line and hear their name, and I wanted my moment too. But these slow people kept getting in my way, so I passed like 5 other people in the chute. A lone female spectator screamed out "Wow this guy looks strong (insert audible gasp here) AND HE'S HOT!" which of course made me look back at her and smile. What a strange place to receive a compliment like that? Still, I'll take it. That's an Ironman memory.

Then right before I hit the finish line There's two people in front of me that just practically stop moving. Hello old people, get the hell out of my way please! I'm trying to charge for the finish here!

Bitch stole my pose too. Put those arms down! Go with a fist pump or something. And get out of my way!

Run split 1: 5.75 miles, 55:03, 9:34 pace
Split 2: 7.35 miles, 1:08:01, 9:15 pace - that's 13.1 miles total, half split 2:03:04
Split 3: 5.3 miles, 54:01, 10:11 pace
Split 4: 7.8 miles, 1:28:25, 11:20 pace
Total 26.2 miles, 4:25:30, 10:08 pace and a 6 minute PR over my previous open marathon best time (4:31 at the Tobacco Road marathon in 2010).

What started before dawn ended after sunset. That's a nice long day at the office.

Finish

Kelley got a picture of the jumbotron showing the finish line from the other side of where she was able to stand. I think it's an incredible shot, and such a good idea.

Mike Reilly missed his first Ironman race in years. He knows the cadence and the energy level he puts into the "John Flynn YOU ARE AN IRONMAN" line every time he delivers it. People dream about hearing Mike call out to them at the finish line; I know I did. This guy they had doing it instead had no energy. It was pretty disappointing. But I still got the line, hit the finish and got the title of Ironman. And that's all that counts.

Total: 13:06:24
1437/2439 overall
1176/1810 men
244/356 age group

After the finish line I was overwhelmed with the catcher. This nice guy from Atlanta caught me, then I ran into him again at a gas station driving home on sunday. I couldn't believe I was done. I got the medal, hat and shirt, and I actually turned down the picture in front of the finishing thing that everybody gets because I thought Kelley had gotten a good enough finish line pic. I don't really know why I did that, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Made my way back to the food tent, got some pizza and another bottle of water and finally got to sit down. Then Frayed Laces came up and found me! It was so amazing to see here there! She really congratulated me on a good race and a strong run, and she was tracking me after she finished! I tell you what, with friends like that who needs enemies.

Kelley found me in the finish chute and we strategized a plan to get out of there. I was actually feeling ok. She got my bike and bags, and I walked back to the car.

With my biggest supporter after the race, thank you and I love you dear.

We made the drive back to Destin and I got to watch the overtime in the LSU/Alabama game. I ate a lot of soft foods, mac & cheese, pudding, nothing too solid. Slept hard that night and woke up ready to get back to NC.

The drive was long, we were supposed to stay in Atlanta overnight on sunday but the Evil Genius had a meltdown so we had to drive straight through the night getting back to Raleigh about 2 am. I still had Monday off from work so I got this taken care of:

And now there's a 140.6 magnet on my car as well.

I really can't say enough good things about this entire experience. The trip was great, Florida was beautiful, all of the people we met and food we got to eat and things that we got to see were just jaw dropping. I couldn't ask for a better trip. Turning iron? That's pretty amazing too. Yea I wish the bike course was better suited for my strengths. But it is what it is. I got through it.

Would I do another Ironman? Absolutely. I doubt that I will do IMFL again and I certainly did not sign up for 2012. Online registrations sold out in 16 minutes on sunday, which is absurd. There are plenty of other non-WTC 140.6 mile races like Beach 2 Battleship that are a lot cheaper and demand less usage of vacation time out there. I also think I would prefer a course with more hills and less wind on the bike course like Cour d'Alene, Lake Placid, or Wisconsin. If I go WTC again it would be one of those, but they are already sold out for 2012.

So what am I doing next? You'll find out soon enough.

I am an Ironman!

2011-11-06T09:21:00.002-05:00

I did it! The swim was incredible, the bike was absolutely horrible, and the run rocked. Then it was over and I am an ironman! Long report to come tomorrow after I get all the pictures organized.

Swim: 1:18
T1: 15 minutes
Bike: 6:52
T2: 10 minutes
Run: 4:25
Total: 13:06

I even set a 6 minute PR in the marathon! Must have been that swim/bike warmup that did the trick.

Catch up to Race Day

2011-11-04T09:21:00.009-04:00

Well the big day is almost here. 21 hours from now I'll be heading into that water to start the swim. To say this week has been hectic is an understatement. We'll start with Monday night:

Bigun wanted to go out as "the cow that jumped over the moon", so Kelley made the costume. It turned out so good! Evil Genius wanted to be Pocahontas, I think that might have been a subconscious attempt at getting in to Bigun's Indian Princess tribe.

They racked up trick or treating. It was raining pretty good outside, so we met up with some friends that had umbrellas. The kids had no problems with the rain of course. Everyone had a good time.

Tuesday I wrapped up work for the week and we got as much as we could packed up. Getting all of my race gear in individual bags makes it seem really real. I'm also amazed how much gear it takes just for the race:

Nerves are starting to kick in. Laying out the nutrition alone is getting intimidating. Normally I tape gels to the top tube of the bike, but I'm planning on taking 10 gels this time and still getting another 1000 calories of liquid nutrition while I'm on the bike. That's too many to tape. I've never had that problem before. How to take in 2000 calories during a bike ride? interesting problem.

Wednesday we drove all the way from Raleigh NC to Destin FL I developed a secondary time goal for the Ironman. Now I want to finish the race faster than the drive time it took for us to get here, 13:22 including stops for gas, lunch, and dinner. We came down all the way across South Carolina and Georgia, kicked into Alabama for a bit and ended up on central time in Florida. This is waaaaay to much time in the car. It was mostly a fun drive, the last few hours just got a little long. We were in Georgia for a really long time. It was a fun trip, Kelley's a trooper - she drove the entire way. And I'm really glad to be here.

Thursday we got to experience Destin, Panama City Beach, and the Ironman Village. It is incredibly beautiful here! I haven't been to the Gulf Coast since high school, even then it was very brief and I had no idea what I was looking at. It is Kelley's first time here.

White sand, green water, Destin has incredible beaches. I can totally see why this is the beach destination of choice for Atlanta peeps. My mind has been blown. We still don't claim to be "beach people", but this is sufficiently amazing.

Then we got to head down to Panama City Beach for the Ironman village and athlete checkin. Now, we had been warned about how Redneck Riviera PCB was. It was said to be Myrtle Beach on steroids, MB's big brother, the list goes on. After crossing the city limits, what are the first two things we see?

A golf cart towing a moped scooter and a prostitute. PCB did actually out-MB Myrtle Beach! I didn't think it was possible. Seriously? A scooter being towed by a golf cart? Hilarious.

Athlete checkin was smooth. I got the bracelet and found the Ironman store. I could get poor(er) in there. Some seriously cool stuff.

Every freaking race throws in a t-shirt in the swag bag, I was quite surprised that Ironman does not. I'm sure I will get one from the store and there might be a finishers shirt (they did take my size at registration) at the end, but that was unexpected. Then at 3 pm I had a meetup with:

The one and only Frayed Laces! I've been reading her for so long I was really excited about this. She had a group meetup with lots of twitter people and some unexpected facebook friends! And she totally lived up to the expectations. Smart, beautiful, nice, interesting, I was slightly star-struck. Very cool.

Then we got to meet the Rockstar!

Joe is a really cool guy IRL. We have a ton in common even outside of triathlon and I really enjoyed getting to talk some with him.

Then we got to head back to Destin and have an amazing dinner of local gulf caught seafood. Kelley was wondering, if you put a steakhouse next to a cattle farm would it have the same impact as putting a seafood restaurant right beside the ocean? I'm sure it would be fresh.

Today (Friday) is the bike/gear checkin, we're going to buy all the stuff at the ironman store and meetup with Colleen. I can't wait!

Tomorrow starting at 7 am central time you can track my progress at www.ironman.com, use the "Ironman Florida Athlete Tracker" link, and enter bib # 1231 or search by last name Flynn. I'm the only Flynn in the race I think, so it should be easy to find me. Yes the nerves are starting to kick in, but I'm still feeling very confident about my race. I'm going to go out there and execute my plan, run my race, and have my Ironman experience.

I feel like I have thanked a lot of people personally for this time, sorry if I missed you. But this truly is not a place that I could have arrived at on my own. I owe big thank you's to my parents and Kelley's parents for helping us take care of the kids, everyone on the RAM swim team for helping me get ready, all of my friends and co-workers and former co-workers for letting me get in the workouts without thinking that I totally abandoned them socially, everyone who wrote on my facebook wall or sent an email or left a blog comment wishing me good luck, and of course, my amazing, inspiring, beautiful, patient and incredible wife. Kelley has had to deal with more shit in Ironman training than anyone expected - including me. And she's been amazing through the whole thing. She's going to have a long day out there tomorrow too.

And that might be the only time anyone has called her Patient.

October Totals and Ironman Goals

2011-10-31T11:58:00.000-04:00

October Totals

Today is the last day of October, and since it's Monday it's a rest day. Here's how the last month of Ironman training went down:

Swim: 17,200 meters, 6 swim practices
Bike: 366 miles, 12 rides
Run: 117 miles (new PB!) 14 runs
Strength: 1 workout
Yoga: 1 hot session

Good numbers on the swim/bike/run, especially since the last week was all taper for Ironman. So almost all of that came in only 26 days. The 117 running miles is my highest running month ever, and I'm willing to bet that 366 on the bike is close to the top. This is the bulk of the Ironman build phase mileage, and seriously brought me into Iron shape.

Tomorrow I'm going to do a small (maybe 1 hour) bike/run brick, then all day on Wednesday we drive to Florida. Once we get there I will swim, bike, and run once over Thursday and Friday mornings just to be sure everything made the trek OK, and be ready to race on Saturday.

So how did the Ironman training plan play out? I absolutely loved it. The really long base building phase had me really in shape. The build phase had some seriously long workouts towards the end, and as soon as I got used to that kind of volume we go into taper madness. Since February 28, 2011:

Swim: 125,845 meters over 50 swims
Bike: 2,639.9 miles, 105 rides
Run: 785.4 miles, 121 runs

Good thing I'm not OCD for round whole numbers. I would have to go out and bike a tenth of a mile right now just to get that squared off. Wow that's a lot of miles. I've said all along that Ironman training is no joke. That's the kind of commitment it takes and the time you have to put in to cover 140.6 miles with efficiency.

Fall Outing

Yesterday was the Fall Outing with the Indian Princess program, so Bigun and I got to roll around in the woods again for a few cold hours. It was a lot of fun, and I have some neat pictures to prove it:

Bigun really knocked out a trip up the climbing wall!

Daddy fails a trip up the inversion

The group on a hike

In front of a big tree we found on the hike

Conquering the ropes course

Ironman Goals

Yes, even though it's my first Ironman I still have to set some goals.

1. Finish, don't die.
Basic survival is a fun target. As long as I cross the finish line intact and the medical personnel at the event site can treat whatever is currently ailing me I'll call the trip a success.

2. Under 14 hours
Given my typical pre-ironman speeds and the online estimation calculators available this seems like a reasonable time estimate for a worst-case scenario.

3. Swim: 1:20
My half iron swim times are regularly under 40 minutes and without the added speed from the wetsuit. If the water is calm out there I should easily be able to execute an 80 minute swim.

4. Transitions: 20 minutes
I'm going to completely change clothes both times in transitions and might end up taking my time getting through there. Since I'm not pushing for a kona slot there's no need to rush here.

5. Bike: 6:30
I'm going to start off at a pace known as "stupid easy", then after the first 20 or 30 miles upgrade to "easy". 6:30 is a 17.2 mph speed, 6:00 is an 18.6 mph speed. My typical easy pace around here is over 19 mph, and we have lots of hills to climb. There might be some wind to deal with down there, but I have high hopes for a calm day. The main goal is to have a decent run, so I don't want to drain my legs on the bike.

6. Run: 4:30
Yes, I know my current marathon PR is 4:31. I haven't run a full marathon since March 2010, so it's been about a year and a half. My next full marathon I'm going to try and break 3:30, so I figure giving myself an extra hour here can still set a marathon PR in the Ironman. I still think I can break 4 hours in the Ironman marathon, but again I just want to finish this one. Just get to the finish line alive. A one minute marathon PR would be a bonus.

Add those up for #7: 12:40 expected finish time. Well under the 14 hour original time frame.

One Year Ago

2011-10-26T07:34:00.002-04:00

I was looking back at the training log and for the last week of the ironman build phase, and in the 8 days from Sunday to Sunday I biked 180 miles and ran 43 miles. That is incomprehensible to me if I look as an outsider. I know the really fast people that are potential kona qualifiers are putting in 300 mile bike weeks and 50+ mile run weeks regularly, but I'm not the guy who does that. Sometimes I still see myself as the guy who drinks 43 beers in a week, not runs 43 miles. And I'm sure I could knock down 180 cigs instead of 180 bike miles. It still doesn't seem real.

But, really, in 9 days and 23.25 hours I will be starting IMFL. 45 minutes into the swim (7:45 am) I should be back out for the second loop by now. Trying to visualize it is tough. Accepting the fact that I'm prepared is even more difficult.

I never thought Ironman was possible for me. I'm only working with partial lung function from all of the years of smoking. I went into my first half iron (Beach 2 Battleship 2009) with the intention that 70.3 was the farthest I would ever reach. If I finished, didn't die, and felt like I could go back out there and do it again then I would consider maybe trying a full. I did finish B2B and feel like I could go do it again. In 2010 we moved from SC to NC and that took most of the year. No way I could get a full iron done then, even though I wanted to.

So I waited a year. I did another half iron, and realized how my weight was holding me back. I knew 70.3 was a manageable distance, and I knew I could be good at that distance. But the weight thing... Really the last year started in September 2010 when after the Patriot's Half I picked up a copy of Racing Weight and gave it a read. Solid book, solid science.

This journey to Ironman really became more than a plan or a goal on October 18th 2010 with this post. It became more than just a concept then. I started the weight loss phase. I knew that I would try my best to get into IMFL or Beach 2 Battleship full, with a preference for IMFL. Either way, I was going to turn iron in 2011. It still seemed like more of a concept than a reality.

I wasn't going to push 210 lbs over 140.6 miles. I had a weight loss plan from the book, and I followed it. I had a goal to get down to (165 lbs) and a timeline to finish the weight loss (2/28/11 when Ironman training plan started), and I almost made it. I started Ironman training at 175 lbs, thinking that the training plan itself would take those last 10 lbs off of me. Turns out it did, and I should be coming into race day somewhere between 165 and 170 lbs. Several of you followed my lead and started losing weight at the same time, thank you for that. I love the support I received from family and friends, and the competition generated by some really cool people.

The Snail and I had one helluva weight loss battle going, as we both kept getting faster at the same time and besting each others 5k and half marathon PR's. In the end, he beat me by 5 seconds at both distances, but I will exact my revenge in the marathon. Good luck breaking 3:30 at the Rock & Roll Savannah, I know you can do it. But you know that I will beat your time by 5 seconds come January.

The official Ironman Training Plan started on Feb 28 2011, and I started with a solid base from the weight loss phase. Base building before base building, there's nothing like it. I got used to eating for two workouts a day, and got my schedule all setup. This training plan is hard core. The midweek workouts get quite long. Sometimes it would have 2.5 hours on the bike and 1.25 hours running on a Wednesday. Really? Wednesday? Over 3 hours? When am I supposed to work?

But I did as much as I could. I added weight lifting and yoga when I could. I joined the RAM team (best decision ever!) to help out with my swimming. That meant where it called for 4 swims a week usually under an hour, I swam twice a week for an hour and 15 minutes. Same amount of time, but it worked on the schedule. The plan had 401 workouts. 383 of those actually made it onto my spreadsheet with the combined swims. With a taper left, I've done 299 so far and have 15 left to go. I'm not going to total the training plan miles until I've actually made it all the way through.

I will say that I think I picked a training plan that is designed to help you get much faster at your second or more Ironman, not just basically survive the first one. I wanted as much confidence as I could get going into IMFL, and that's what I got. But I also think I could use the same training plan, follow it a little more closely, and get faster at my second Ironman. Usually I like to switch it up the second time around and do something else to get faster, but this seems like what I should have chosen for my second Ironman.

Lots of people have started asking me how long it took me to get ready for Ironman. You could say four years, since I started running tri's in 2008. You could say 2 years, since I decided that I would pursue this at the end of 2009. But really, it all started a year ago this month. Seeing a years worth of hard work and goal setting come down to the final days of taper and race prep is a bit overwhelming. This thing, this concept, is about to become a reality. One week from today we drive in a straight shot 12.5 hours from Raleigh NC to Destin FL and get checked into the condo. Here we go.

Hello Taper

2011-10-24T08:34:00.004-04:00

The last weekend of the Ironman build phase was totally epic. Huge, nonstop, no time to rest at all weekend. I loved it. but seriously, I need a vacation from the weekend. So glad the IMFL taper starts today.

It actually started on Thursday. Evil Genius had been fighting a strep infection for a while, and after 8 straight days of getting antibiotics through injections, the pediatrician decided that it wasn't working. So they checked her into the hospital and hooked in an IV port. She called it her Special Straw (so cute!). Kelley stayed with her thursday night, her dad, Bigun, and I all went to visit and of course we didn't get home until after midnight.

Of course, EG loved being in the hospital. She could make the bed move up and down, and control her own tv. This hospital was really nice too, it had wifi, every room had flat screen tv's with internet connections and dvd players, so we hooked the room's tv into Netflix and started watching her movies. Amazing!

The IV antibiotics knocked out the infection cold, but left her with a yeast infection as a side effect. More drugs knocked that out and she came home happy and healthy after lunch friday. So of course that's when Bigun starts puking. She started fighting a sinus thing that still has her out of school today. I don't think it's a huge deal, but I really hate cleaning up puke.

Saturday I got up extra early so I could make it to the morning swim practice to make up for what I missed on thursday night being at the hospital. I then decided that it was only about 40 degrees outside, and the pool was an "indoor" pool, meaning it just has a plastic dome covering a former outdoor pool. So it was going to be way to cold to swim. Turns out I was wrong, the water was warm and I should have gone. I knew the last long bike ride of the build phase was also on tap for the day so I got in there and knocked it out early instead.

It's a good thing I did. I went to the gym and hit the stationary bike for 80 miles in the random hill setting at an 11 resistance. This is easier but longer than my typical ride in there. I was still quite drenched by the end of it, took almost 4 hours, and I could barely stand at the end long enough to walk out of there. It was a great ride, I nailed my nutrition plan down, and I wanted to get an 70+ mile ride in before taper anyway so this fit perfectly.

I got home at 12:30. Ate, showered, ate again, then went to the grocery store. Saturday night I knew was going to be Bigun's first time camping. The Indian Princess tribe was supposed to meet between 3:30 and 4 at the campsite on Jordan Lake which is on my typical outdoor bike route, so I knew it was going to be a fun trip. But, thanks to Ironman training, I had not found anything yet except the tent, and had only left myself 3 hours to shower, eat, prepare everything for the trip, and drive out there. Wow, so much for the lazy afternoon recovering from my ride and watching college football.

I volunteered to provide/prep/cook all the veggies/sides for the dinner saturday night. So I got a bunch of stuff from the store and started chopping when I got home. The whole princess thing is supposed to be daddy/daughter driven, so I really try not to ask Kelley to help me with princess stuff unless I'm really running out of time. So she went looking for sleeping bags while I chopped. After it was painfully obvious that I was in over my head she did end up cutting some potatoes while I packed up the car and gave the kids a shower before we left. We never did find the sleeping bags.

We got to the campsite a little after 4 and started unpacking. Our tent was about 20 feet from the car, so we didn't have to carry the gear 5 miles in to reach campsite Thank SBJ. Bigun helped me setup the tent before getting sucked into the group of girls and playing in the woods with her friends.

We all walked down to the lake and the girls had a lot of fun hanging out on the shore. Somebody found a dead fish in the water, so of course my daughter is the first one to reach in and pick it up, making all of the other girls squeal in horror. She has no fear in the outdoors, just like me. crazy.

We had a campfire going, so a handful of us came on back and I threw the veg on. I love cooking on a campfire. You get such a completely different flavor than cooking on anything else. Usually you can just throw the foil packs right in the coals (the girls kept calling the hot coals "lava" - ha!) and the stuff just melts in there. It's beautiful.

That's a lotta veg, y'all.

We had burgers, dogs, toppings, everybody loved it. I had one of those foil packs with banana peppers and fresh jalapeno peppers as a burger topping, and that was the big hit of the meal. The girls ran around and played for a while longer, then after it got dark we all made s'mores. Perfect. Bigun loved it. Then the strangest thing happened.

About 8:30 she told me she was ready to go to bed. Usually it's "no daddy, I want to stay up with you..." but tonight she was worn out. So we stayed in the tent telling ghost stories for a while until she told me I should leave so she could get to sleep. So strange. What an amazing kid.

Of course, 10 minutes later she came back to the campfire where the dads were starting to indulge in some firewater and watching football on some iPhones. She was walking through the woods in the dark with no flashlight or shoes. Again, no fear. that's my kid. crazy. She's hang out for a while, then go back to the tent by herself (at her insistence), then come back to the campfire, she stayed up with us just watching the dad's talk until almost 11. She was sound asleep when I made it back to the tent. It was into the low 40's already and so cold. But she kept right on snoring until just before sunrise. I didn't sleep well at all. Cold, uncomfortable, I don't think the ground was really level where I put the tent and the air mattress wasn't fully inflated anyway. So I wouldn't say I woke up "refreshed". But hey, that's camping in October.

Sunday morning had a great big breakfast. The kids were all really excited to be up and still in the woods. They all instantly went into scream and play mode.

After the breakfast I packed up our car and we all went out for a hike. The hike was about an hour, we went about 2 and half miles. That's a long hike for 6 year old legs. So of course there was a lot of "daddy can you carry me" talk, but we wouldn't have any of that. The purpose of the long hike is to earn a feather for the Indian Princesses vest, so the kids all had to walk the entire way. We got to teach them a good lesson about perseverance and finishing what you start.

And of course once we got back to the campsite and the hike was over it was "run through the woods and play with your friends" time again. Suddenly the energy that they didn't have to finish the hike came roaring back. We had lunch and came on home.

She would not. stop. playing. with the campfire. But I guess how often do you get the chance to play with fire?

Bigun's first time camping in the woods overnight was a smashing success. She absolutely loved it, felt right at home in the woods and in nature, loved getting to see the stars in the sky at night and the fish in the water by day. Raleigh's city lights are too bright to see stars at night from home.

This is Tom and his kid right before we left the campsite Sunday. In the fall of 1993, Tom and I were hanging out in the school of music after an Industry meeting when he casually mentioned "You should think about joining this fraternity" to me. The next semester I pledged, and we've been as close as brothers can be ever since. In the spring when we were away at a guys weekend with a bunch of other fraternity brothers, Tom and another Raleigh area brother were telling me about this cool Indian Princess thing, and I knew I had to get in on it. If you had told me 18 years ago that our kids were going to grow up together I would have laughed. But here we are! It's absolutely amazing how some people can stay with you for such a long time.

Driving home sunday it really started to sink in. The body aches, the pains of sleeping outside, the strange eating, it all just started wearing me down. Time for a shower and a nap and some football.

I got some advil and a shower, unpacked the car and put everything away from the trip. Got Bigun in the bath as well. We both smelled like campfire smoke and onions. Then I got dressed and ready to head out. I still had to run 20 miles.

Sunday long runs can easily turn into long bricks if saturday's bike ride is shorter than it's supposed to be. They can also feel like a brick run if you ride 80 miles on saturday, camp out saturday night, and hike 2.5 miles sunday morning. I was completely exhausted. I knew this was the last weekend of the Ironman build phase. The last chance I would have to get a 20 mile run in before IMFL.

I figured I was no more exhausted than I would be on race day, so I might as well go for it. If I only made it 5 miles and passed out then at least I gave it a shot.

I really wanted a safe environment here to allow me to bail out at any time. And I really wanted to watch some football too. So I went to the gym and grabbed a treadmill that let me watch both games on tv, and the World Cup Rugby game on NBC at the same time. I broke the run down into 5 mile segments, did all 4 of them, took a gu and refilled the Accellerade bottle between every segment.

The treadmill really likes that 7.5 mph speed. I covered the entire 20 miles at a flat 8:00 pace. Needless to say, that's the longest I've ever run that fast. I took the gels, drank the stuff, threw in some Endurolytes for good measure, and held pace throughout. No walking. Only one poo stop. By the end I thought I was going to cry as I waved goodbye to the build phase and said hello to the taper. I am fit, fast, finished and ready for the race.

I then proceeded to go home and stuff myself on chinese food and recovery drinks. Watched a movie and loaded up on Advil. I even busted out the compression socks. I did not get enough sleep last night. But it was still an amazing weekend. I need a vacation from my weekend. But that's what the taper is for.

Three Things Thursday

2011-10-20T08:00:00.004-04:00

1. Every pair of pants I own is now 2" - 3" too big in the waist. I bought most of those pants in the spring when I was "done" losing weight about 10 lbs ago. It's a nice problem to have, and I'm sure it won't last long after Ironman. For the record, I'm 36 years old, 6'1", and the 32" jeans are pretty loose, most of them are 34's which is still a really small size for a grown-ass man's pants.

2. Winter has arrived in NC very briskly. High temps for the week and weekend are only 61*. I'm taking bigun camping for the first time saturday night with her Indian Princess tribe, we are both incredibly excited. It will be chilly though. At least I'll get some good pictures.

Also remember that with winter settling in, our natural vitamin B12 and vitamin D levels are going to drop. I like to supplement since the sun just doesn't shine for 14 hours a day anymore and we don't have as much skin exposed. But if you've got a food source for those I'd love to hear about it!

3. Ironman Florida is only 15 days and 22 hours away. ZOMG!

Fun Trip!

2011-10-17T07:33:00.003-04:00

I didn't talk about this new job much when I took it a few months ago, but I really do like it. They really like me too, which is nice. I am actually working from home again, and I'm based out of their Balt/Wash office in DC. So sometimes I will get brought up to the office. This time it was really cool.

I worked at home all day thursday then drove up to DC thursday night. I picked a hotel in Alexandria VA that was just a few blocks from the client's office so I could walk there for meetings friday morning. The meetings were great, client loves me. Back to my office in McLean VA and I got a few more tasks buttoned up tight. Very productive morning.

Then the fun started. A bunch of us from the office threw a crab crackin', which I believe is kind of the northern version of a pig pickin' down here. All you can eat Maryland blue crabs from this place in Arlington VA called The Quarterdeck. These crabs were amazing. Everyone else was an old hand at those things and knew exactly how to tear into them, and I had no clue. But once the head of the office showed me how to get in there, I got lots of practice.

I'm not saying Ironman training leaves you hungry. Well, actually, I am. Most people finished up after 24-30 crabs. I got closer to 50. Of course we were also getting pitchers of beer so I couldn't keep an accurate count. Needless to say a good time was had by all, and I got a ride back to the hotel a fat and happy drunk. Then it was time to meet up with my friend Shawn for dinner.

His GF grew up in the area, and I hadn't seen Shawn since march, so she picked the place. I got there late as hell but as quickly as possible. We had some fun times, went to a bar after that, it was good all the way around. The new GF is really a lot of fun. I hope she sticks around for a while.

Saturday I got up and was supposed to get in a nice run before heading back to NC, but the pitchers of beer from the night before didn't agree to those terms. I did find the Mt Vernon Trail a few blocks from the hotel, it's a really long greenway that runs along the Potomac river and George Washington Parkway that was filled with plenty of bikers, runners, and walkers. I walked it for about an hour. Completely amazing. The trail goes all the way into DC but I didn't get that far. Just walked for a while and came back.

I got checked out of the hotel in time and was back in Raleigh in good shape. The last time I went to DC I flew up and the airline lost my luggage, then some items were stolen out of my suitcase including the small point and shoot camera that I like to carry on these trips. I still haven't replaced the camera, so I have no pictures from the trip at all damnit. Not cool. And I found out at the crab crackin that they expected me to stay saturday night as well, which means I could have tried to setup more social activities and gotten tickets to the Clemson vs Maryland football game which turned out to be a great win for the Tigers. I have so many friends in the DC area I really wanted to be more social. I'm also surprised how many people that I went to high school and college with ended up in the area. At least I got to see Shawn this trip. More next time.

All that left me with Sunday to get in a long brick workout to make up for the 30 lbs of crabs I ate on Friday. I hit 40 miles on the bike and followed with a 12 mile run. I guess that will do. Still burned about 3000 calories. Towards the end of the run my quads started feeling fatigued.

Today starts the last week of the build phase. Get through this one and it's only 2 weeks of taper to go. I'm ready to see that starting line, and ready to see that finish line.

Pregnant Woman

2011-10-12T09:39:00.004-04:00

No, not Kelley. No way, no no no no. Stop that.

It's me.

The counter I use on Google told me at 8 am this morning that I was 23 days and 23 hours away from the start line at IMFL. It is almost time. The big day is almost here.

Also this morning the scale said I came in at 168.6 lbs and 16.4% body fat, the lowest numbers I've seen since college. It's the first day I've weighed in under 170 in 13 years. Even yesterday came in at 170.8 lbs.

Right now I am incredibly lean, in the best shape of my life. My endurance and aerobic capacity is through the roof, and I feel strong as an ox. And this is not a peak. This is a sustainable platform that I will be able to hold for the next month at least. There are still two weekends of long workouts in the build phase, so this might not be the highest that platform can be raised.

I am ready to turn Iron.

Today I feel like the woman who's eight and a half months pregnant. She's plush with baby, carried the kid inside for 36 weeks (my training plan is 38 weeks) and can barely move. She's asking the doctors "can I just have the kid now? When can you induce?" because she's very ready to meet the new family member and be done with the anticipation of the change.

When the doctors tell her that she's got to wait another 23 days and 23 hours.... that's not a conversation you want to be involved in. This will not end well. But it might end with a bacon cheeseburger and fries.

Wes has told me several times that your body goes Iron long before the race. Have confidence in your training plan and it will get you through the big day. I've been re-reading his reports and lead up posts from when he turned Iron at IMFL 2008. Makes me feel like Obama reading Lincoln between the time he was elected and when he took the office. Good stuff in there brother.

To continue the metaphor, Ironman is becoming another member of the family. My training takes almost as much time as I get to spend with the kids (but most of my training is done while they are in school or asleep). This is my first attempt at 140.6, and while I'm not making any promises until I see the finish line or even a few weeks after, I anticipate that it will not be my only attempt at 140.6. This concept of Ironman has affected me emotionally; mentally I'm ready for the kind of change you get when your first kid is born. This has affected my family; my wife and kids are proud of the work I'm putting in and the example I'm setting.

When I finished my first triathlon in 2008 I knew I crossed that finish line a changed man. Not just by defeating my addiction but by accepting the multisport lifestyle as a part of the way I wanted to live. This is my fourth year racing tri's. It certainly has gotten more fun since then and I've gotten faster, stronger, and more confident. Now I'm ready to give birth to the next phase and see what it will hold. And I'm pissed at the doctor for making me wait another 23 days and 23 hours. Where's my cheeseburger?

Kona Envy and Hot Yoga

2011-10-07T07:53:00.005-04:00

Facebook has been blowing up this week with pictures of Kona. Some from people that live there and are still racing the Ironman World Championships, others that are just there for the big race. The pictures are all amazing. I can't imagine what it takes to qualify (especially in my age group) or the logistics to get all of your equipment out there and compete in the event. Everyone I was tracking did really well, even better than they expected in most cases.

Of course I've tracked friends in years past but with my first ironman coming up in only 25 days it puts an entirely new perspective on it this year. Bree Wee didn't compete in the championship this year because she's doing IMFL. I'm also doing IMFL and didn't race Kona, so obviously I'm exactly like Bree? I actually feel good about this because in 2009 when I did my first half at the Beach 2 Battleship, Bree was there racing as well. I didn't know who she was then, but that's ok. First half, first full, she must be some kind of good luck charm for me.

There were a lot of really good races back on the mainland this week. Chicago marathon, Portland Marathon, Victoria half marathon. It was great seeing all of my friends putting up PR's and breaking their own expectations. It really was a fantastic weekend for racing. I haven't had a race since the OBX half in early September, and it really made me miss the environment. I know typical race distances don't coordinate with Ironman build phase training distances so it's not a good idea for me to race much right now. With 16 races done this year and only one more to go, I know I've already had a full calendar. So congrats if you raced this weekend!

Saturday I had a lot of family time. Bigun had her first sleepover at her BFF's house. This should bother me because she's 6 and her bff is a boy. But it doesn't. I like the boy. We had to keep the Evil Genius distracted the entire day to keep her from feeling left out. That's when the fun started.

I have never tried hot yoga before. Kelley found a groupon friday night for a $5 hot yoga class at a gym in North Raleigh. Saturday EG got up about the same time I did so we had breakfast together. I made it out the door and to the gym just as the class was starting, found a good spot and tried to make it look like I knew what I was doing. I've never actually been to a yoga class before period, much less a hot yoga studio. The heat only got up to about 85 supposedly, but the sweat was constant and intense! Overall the class was great, I got a really good sweat on, and a really good stretch on. During the relaxation phase at the end, all I could visualize was EG's face smiling at me so I really wanted to spend some time with her. I drove back home with a huge smile on my face and was the happiest and most relaxed I've been in a long time. Hot yoga gets a big thumbs up.

I gave EG a few choices for the afternoon's activity. Kelley would take Bigun to meet the boy so I needed to keep EG otherwise occupied. She chose to go for a hike on the Appalachian Tobacco Trail (ATT). This is great. So we put the top down on the convertible and rode out there about 2 pm. Of course, what's an Evil Genius going to do in this kind of situation? Fall asleep on the drive out there. Now if you wake up a sleeping 4 year old to go for a hike (she likes to run the trail), she's not going to be energetic enough to actually go anywhere. So instead of fighting it, I leaned my seat all the way back too, and we took a nap in the parking lot for about an hour. Then I drove us back home. That's when she woke up. Of course, that's when she woke up. Sleeping outside = yes!

We all made it home in time for me to get out for a 5 mile quick run (~37 minutes) before the evening's activities. Yoga and 5 miles running is not what the training plan called for, but it's what I got. And I really enjoyed all of the family time.

We took EG to her favorite burger joint even though she only eats the french fries, then to see Kung Fu Panda 2 at the dollar theater. She had a blast, and was only minimally evil.

Sunday I was really sore from the new yoga. Sore in places that yoga doesn't normally make me sore. It was really unexpected. Still, I wanted to get outside and get a nice long day of training in. After napping in the White Oak Church Rd parking lot for the ATT on saturday, it seemed like a good destination for a nice long brick. That public trail access is on my bike route anyway, so I figured I could park there, hit the roads for a longish bike ride, then hit the trail for a nice run. You may remember a few years ago I ran a full marathon on the ATT so I knew it would be an ok place to put some miles in.

I got there a bit later in the day than I had hoped, but it was still gorgeous out. 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Roberta had spent the week in the bike shop getting a final tune up before traveling to Florida (including replacing the rear brake cable), and she was ready to be ridden hard.

After 21 miles around Jordan Lake, I think she was finally satisfied. Actually I wanted to go back out for another loop, but Sunday is Runday so I needed to hit the trail. The rolling hills around the lake are creating some great resistance, and I'm really enjoying riding around that part of town. I was pleased with the speed (about an hour and 10 minutes, so over 19 mph still) but could have been faster. Really I was trying to just make sure the bike was ready for the race.

I changed clothes in the parking lot and hit the trail. I was carrying a bike bottle in each hand, one with Accelerade and one with water, and I had two gels. The trail was pretty crowded, and I got plenty of strange looks running with two water bottles. My only plan was to go out for a certain amount, then turn around and come back. I started out pretty fast.

In trail math, I realized that I ran 5 miles on saturday, and biked 21 already on Sunday. So if I ran out for 8 miles and back for 8 miles, it would give me 21 miles of biking and 21 miles of running on the weekend. A bit low on the bike, but I liked the symmetry. I should have thought about that before I took off.

I am also starting to watch the sun get a bit low, and the shadows are getting long. The leaves are also starting to change here, and sunset is around 7 pm. It's an absolutely perfect day to be on the trail. Then I remembered the sign saying the parking lot gates will be locked at 7 pm. I hit 7.5 miles on the trail at around 58 minutes into the run and decided to turn around. More trail math told me I needed to be done around 2 hours to make it out of the parking lot before the gates close. And that sun was really starting to get low.

Then around mile 11.5 I took the last gel and realized I was out of hydration and nutrition, and still 3.5 miles from the car. This is why I like to run inside on the treadmill. Yes it was beautiful on the trail, but my car won't get locked in the gym parking lot while I'm dying of dehydration beside a vacant path in the woods with no lights or water fountains if I was on the treadmill. Then the Running Is Stupid committee convenes a meeting in my head. Why am I out there? What in the world possibly makes people want to run an Ironman. This is only for the criminally insane. I walked a lot. I ran a lot with the motivation that if I didn't hurry up I was going to get locked in.

Eventually I did make it back to the parking lot, chugged water and took off. I left at 6:50 pm. The 15 mile run took a total of 2:07 so I'm going to call it a positive split. That's got to be the opposite of a negative split, right? I was glad to make it out of there alive.

Have a great week! This is the penultimate week of my Ironman Build phase before the 2 week taper kicks in. A 12 week build has been bananas, so I'm going to try and finish it strong. Week 11 should be no easier.

How I Got Fast Part 3

2011-10-05T08:06:00.008-04:00

Part 1 - Weight Loss
Part 2 - Base building and Endurance

For this section, I want to talk specifically about how to swim faster, and how that affects your run speed.

Swimming

There are lots of well documented ways to get fast at swimming, but there are still a few key points I want to drop.

Swim speed is typically measured in the time it takes to cover 100 meters. Really fast pro triathletes can hold a 1:16 pace for the entire 2.4 mile swim in Ironman, finishing between 51 and 58 minutes, typically. Some pro's still come out of the water around 1:10. The slowest age groupers out on the ironman course will average around a 2:45 pace or slower and finish after the 2:30 cutoff time. Typically for olympic (0.9 miles) or half iron (1.2 miles) my swim pace will be just over 2:00. Middle of the pack open water mile times are around 40 minutes per mile. My 30 minute oly time and 40 minute half time were both good enough to get me into the top third of the field.
Some tri's want you to enter a swim pace at registration to seed the start times and put the fastest swimmers at the front of the pack. My first swim pace entered was 2:30 for my first triathlon. Last night at Master's swim practice I was knocking down 1:25 hundreds like they were nothing.
Improving your swim pace is all about improving your technique. It has very little to do with adding cardiovascular or muscular strength. Don't believe me? Most pools are 25 yards or 25 meters long. Count the number of strokes you have to take (both arms total), and use that as your measure of improvement. The slower swimmers will take 28-30 strokes, and the faster swimmers will only need 12-14. I'm typically around 15 or 16 strokes now.

You cannot get fast swimming on your own. There are plenty of books out there to read, including Total Immersion, one of my favorites. There are TONS of youtube videos on stroke technique. But until you get some types of coach to watch you swim and give you the corrections needed you will never really improve. Books and videos can give you lots of advice, but it takes a coach to actually watch your technique and tell you if you are doing it right. You just can't see it yourself short of using an underwater camera and watching it later.

I think the best way to get this instruction is by joining a masters team. I absolutely LOVE the Raleigh Area Masters Team that I joined back in March to get me through Ironman training. The coaches are amazing. One of the coaches there is also the track and field coach and swim team coach at NC State. She is absolutely incredible.

Before Masters I would typically swim over lunch and get in 800 - 1800 yards in around 40 minutes. Enough to get my heart rate up. average pace was around 2:00.

Last night I went to a Masters practice with the NC State coach. We covered 3000 yards in an hour and 15 minutes. Average pace was about 1:30. The warmup was 800 yards, and it was harder than any 800 yard workout I ever got by myself over lunch. Then the real work started.

Form/Technique

Water provides resistance when you're swimming, this can be both good and bad. You want your body to glide through the water with as little friction as possible, but your arms and feet create a grip on the water to push you through.

Body position is usually the first thing that gets addressed. You want to be as flat as possible with about 90% of your body underwater. The first piece of advice I ever got from a swim coach was to swim like I was trying to hold a golf ball under my chin. Imagine your body laying flat on the surface of the water face down. Being as flat as possible means your body will create the least resistance possible from the water. This is actually controlled more by your head position than anything else.

Right. Level body position will shoot you through the water like an arrow.

Wrong. Lifting your head pushes your lower body down into the water, creating more drag.

Images taken from this great article. If you look up, your tail will drop in creating more resistance. This is why you only want to sight in open water every 5 or 6 strokes, and sight as quickly as possible then get face down again.

Bilateral breathing is the next skill you want to master. You want to take quick breaths to both the right and left sides every three or five strokes alternating sides (bilateral). Mastering this means that if you are in open water and you're constantly getting waves crashing over you from the right hand side, you will also be comfortable breathing to your left. And don't pick up your head to breathe, just rotate to one side with your chin on that shoulder as a relaxed separate motion from the body rotation. Here's a good demonstration article.

There are plenty of other form guides out there for arm technique, kick technique, breathing technique, it's kind of insane. I really like Total Immersion techniques, but your coach will know what's best. As a comparison, you can spend as much time on swim form as you would on a golf swing, and even Tiger Woods has a coach that constantly adjusts his swing.

My final word on technique will be on flip turns, there's a great debate going on with triathletes on flip turns. There are no flip turns in open water, so a lot of triathletes think you don't need to do them in the pool. Flip turns are done with your abs, and I'm all for anything that will help you work your core muscles. Also in open water, you don't get to hang onto the wall for that half a second and take the huge breath that you normally get to take at each turn. Flip turns encourage breath control. You should be able to flip, push off of the wall, and take two strokes before taking your first breath. Breath control and core work will help immensely with open water swims as well as cycling and running. Having said that, I still rarely do flip turns in my masters practices. I'm just too lazy. And I like getting the big breath at the turns.

Volume

Want to swim fast? Swim more. People who log 18,000+ yards in the pool every month will swim faster than those with less practice. Again that means more yards, not more time in the pool, more swim sessions, or more strokes. Get efficient to get faster and you'll get more laps in the same amount of time. See how it all works together? I went from swimming 3 or 4 times a week over lunch to attending two masters practices a week at most, and got so much faster. Went from averaging 7000 yards a month to 16,000 yards a month while actually spending less minutes in the pool!

Gear

I'm really a purist when it comes to swimming. I like a small nylon suit or tri shorts for racing, goggles and that's it. You can really get lots of gear for the pool, and I actually just bought a new Zoot mesh swim gear bag yesterday that's really cool. But I didn't even wear goggles for my first triathlon. Evidence:

Greenville Sprint triathlon 2008. I take my entire head out of the water to breathe, look up to sight, have no goggles on.

Since joining the masters team I've also embraced a kickboard and pull bouy, because they establish a separation and allow you to work on a specific part of your form. Pull buoys provide support for your lower body to keep it elevated. It can help you recognize the feel of being flat in the water and allow you to focus on using your arms in the stroke and on centralized body rotation.

Kick sets actually kill me. I work my legs enough in the bike and run workouts that I think I don't need to practice kicking. Hold a kick board and don't use your arms for a while. ugh. torture. Triathletes typically don't use swim kicking for forward propulsion anyway, just to maintain body position. I do still swim faster when kicking than just pulling, but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy a 700 yard kick set like we did last night.

Paddles really mess with my arm entry and catch in the water, so I have a really tough time using them. Same thing with fins. They make you go so fast that I don't get to use my arms as much and that feels like I'm defeating the purpose of being out there. Plus I tend to get lots of calf and foot cramps when I use fins. It freaks me out and I don't like it. I also get calf cramps from pushing off of the wall too hard.

And since I just stuck a bunch of links out there to my favorite online swim gear website, I should mention that the outlet/clearance section of SwimOutlet.com is fantastic. I've gotten some great suits from there.

Running

How does this affect speed when running? Swimming, by nature, works your entire body. Heavy volumes of swimming will raise your overall level of fitness immensely. It works all of those tiny muscles behind your abs, in your lower back, upper back, glutes, shoulders, pecs, triceps, everything. It's the best whole body workout you will find. And there's zero impact unless you run into a wall (hey, it happens if you don't wear goggles).

Since you spend most of your time face down in the water and focus on breath control and breathing patterns, it teaches your aerobic system to process oxygen more efficiently. You will raise your VO2 Max with regular swimming. This is a huge factor in fast running. I think this is the biggest benefit runners can get from adding in regular swim workouts.

Caution

Don't start swimming while you are trying to lose weight! Yes, it's a huge calorie burner, so after a good hard swim workout I will eat twice what my normal recovery snack is. You can't swim very much and stay inside of the 1800 calorie a day intake limit/600 calorie burn limit from Step 1.

Yes we've all seen the kind of hardbodies produced by Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. But they also take in 12,000 calories a day. After you've hit your target weight, adding in swimming with a more protein based diet can really sculpt your abs, yes. You will build some amazing pecs and shoulders.

Final Word

Good form - face down, body rotated, arm taking a nice entry angle into the water. I wish my feet were higher, you should see me kicking more here. But this was at the start of the OBX half iron last month, and I tend to not kick much when there are so many other people swimming around me. Don't want to kick anyone else in the face.

Seriously. Google "masters swim team" and your city name and I'm certain there is a team or two that you can choose from. They will normally let you go a couple of times for free before you decide to join, but the workouts are so good that you will want to join.

After Ironman Florida, I'm going cut back my cycling during the winter. Regular triathlon training wants you to get in three swims, three bike rides, and three runs every week plus strength training and stretching/yoga. I want to spend the off season swimming twice a week with the RAM team, and running three or four times a week. Occasionally I'll hit the stationary bike if I miss a swim practice, and I'll get in more yoga and strength work early in the mornings. But I believe that swimming + running is going to give me the best combination for fast running over the winter.

It's ON!

2011-10-03T08:25:00.003-04:00

October is finally really here! It's here with a bang too. Let's see how September turned out:

Swim: 18,400 m, 7 swims
Bike: 418.5 miles, 15 rides
Run: 107.1 miles, 13 runs
Strength: 2 sessions
Yoga: 1 session

Wow, the S/B/R is looking like I'm in an Ironman build phase. Don't forget I lost 3 days at the start of September to strep throat, then the next week (almost) was a recovery time to get back up to speed. The only race for the month was the OBX half iron, which turned out to be a fantastic weekend and wonderful race, but there was a few recovery days after the race too.

This is also the first month that's been 18k+, 400+ and 100+ on the distance totals. There have been 400+ mile bike months that only had 75 miles running, and 18k+ meter swim months with 300 bike miles. But this is the first time that it all came together cleanly. Those numbers don't play games. Plenty of people in Kona this week are lucky to get that much training done.

Kona is racing the world championships again this upcoming saturday and I have to give huge props and shout-outs to Ryan and Marni who are out there giving it their best. Good luck guys!

October has roared in like a lion! Thanks to a cold air mass that came down from Canada and covered the east coast, we went from 85 degrees on thursday and friday, to 63 degrees saturday and sunday. Today is also supposed to stay in the low 60's before getting back up to the mid-70's for the rest of the week.

This is insane. I like the 70's. Warm enough to wear shorts but you won't be uncomfortable in a sweater either. Pleasant to run in and you won't freeze your toes on the bike. Too cold for open water swims but the indoor pools we practice in are still regulation temps. Why does it really want to skim the 70's like that? The Carolina's only get about 2 weeks of fall every year anyway, and I'm afraid you just clipped what should have been a pleasant weekend.

This weekend still was pretty pleasant. Saturday I threw the bike on the trainer for 2.5 hours and got in a real solid ride while watching football. I was supposed to ride longer but Kelley's dad scored some tickets to the NC State / Ga Tech football game that started at 3:30, so we all got dressed and went out there for the game. The seats were fantastic, but we were on the home sideline and in the shade the whole time. So it got really cold - too cold for the kids. Plus State was really playing a stinker out there so we chucked the game a bit early.

Sunday was fun. I hit the gym so I could watch football while running. The Panthers really blew a decent game. The Bears were pretty dominating, but Cam Newton still ended up with some decent numbers. He only seemed to make really bad throws when he needed to make good passes. Poor mistake timing I guess.

And while I was there watching football, I ran 18 miles straight at an 8:00 pace, no walking. It was awesome. I felt great, but could have used some more nutrition if I was going farther. I got home and noticed my nipples were actually bleeding. There's a first time for everything huh? It was a solid run. My heart rate never got very high, breathing never got hard. Just solid all the way around.

Once I got some recovery nutrition in me and stopped the gunshot wounds from bleeding, it ended up being a really pleasant evening. Bigun and I did some craft projects together. She's incredibly excited about the Indian Princesses first tribe meeting tonight. Today is her first day back at school, she was tracked out for most of September. Evil Genius had a great weekend too, she's very excited about the cold weather. We sparked up the gas logs in the fireplace, and she was loving that.

The pressing question seems to be "why don't I just walk to the gym if it's across the street from my house"? Well, that has a lot of answers but it's really the same problem: where our house is. We live in the ghetto. Most nights I work out after the kids go to bed, and you don't want to walk these streets after dark. Then, we live *on* one of the busiest roads in Raleigh. It's a four lane divided boulevard that runs on one side of the NC State campus. So there's thousands of cars on there every day and it's very easy to find our house. Imagine walking across Peachtree Industrial blvd in Atlanta/Norcross. That's the closest comparison I can think of. Actually Peachtree Industrial is 6 lanes and this is only 4. But it's the same amount of traffic. I have walked it a couple of times when we've had a car in the shop or something. It's not fun. After crossing the street I have to walk through this seedy apartment complex. ugh. Driving it takes a right turn onto the big road, then left turns at the next two stop lights to get around the divided median. It's just not as easy as it sounds.

This week is a bit of a recovery week, but I'll still push it pretty hard. Last week, at 19 hours, was the biggest week in the entire training plan. Only three more weeks in the build phase before a 2 week taper.

It's ON is a reference to a calendar. We keep a dry erase calendar with that month's events, and it typically holds 5 weeks worth of data. We started the calendar this month with Sunday Oct 2nd, so the last week is actually the first week of November, including Saturday the 5th when I'll be crushing IMFL. I usually get freaked out when dates start to show up, like when I buy a gallon of milk that expires after my birthday or something. This is that freak-out moment. I have to stare down the handwriting on the calendar now for the rest of this month. We start traveling on November 1st. Time to make sure all of the final plans are in place, people are lined up to keep the kids, everything else is solid and ready for the trip. Taking Roberta into the shop today for a final tune-up. Seeing the race date on the calendar puts the timeline really into perspective. It's go time!

Real Nasty

2011-09-29T08:11:00.003-04:00

It's a three things thursday!

Real

Bib numbers are up for Ironman Florida. I got number 1231. I'm also the only Flynn registered, and you can search IronmanLive.com athlete tracker by last name or bib number. So that does make it seem very real. It's coming up in just a few more weeks. Wow.

Nasty

Everything I own is completely disgusting right now. The house is trashed, my bike is filthy, and my car stinks. Every minute of every day is completely consumed by work, working out, kids, eating and sleeping. I've got two big work deadlines coming up tomorrow so it's very stressful.

Yesterday I ran 9 miles over lunch in 1:10:43, a nice 7:5x pace. Then I hit the stationary bike for 21 miles after dinner, and still billed 10 hours at work. How did I get all of this done without collapsing? Kelley took the kids to the NC zoo for the day. They had a blast.

Now that I'm working from home all the time, the only place I ever drive is to the gym. It's right across the street from my house. We don't have a garage now, so the car sits outside all the time, this means I can't leave the windows down. Yesterday, for example, my easy 9 mile run still burned over 1200 calories. I was sweating buckets, and I greatly prefer to shower at home since it's right across the street. So I sit down in the car and the cloth seats soak in gallons of sweat over the 400 meter drive back home. I can't leave the windows down at home because we don't have a garage and it rains a lot here. So there is a ton of nasty sweat soaked into my seats and it's just trapped in there to fester and stink. On the plus side, I only have to put gas in my car an average of once a month.

I'm not a smelly guy. I am a pretty heavy sweater just in terms of volume, but I don't have constant BO problems like the southern redneck stereotype would imply. But I can only febreze bomb the car so many times before it can't be helped anymore. My shoes are in just as bad a shape. I can feel sweat pooling in the bottom of my shoes towards the end of these runs. It gets slippery in there. The shoes dry out and stink like you wouldn't believe. Febreze bomb can only help for so long.

I used to just toss the workout clothes onto the pile of dirty laundry. The sweat got so heavy that it actually molded some of the kids clothes, so I started hanging them up to dry before throwing them into the pile. Now the sweat drips down onto the tile floor and puddles up while I'm taking a shower after the workout. The kids complain about the puddles, but secretly I still think they want to splash in them. I have literally wrung half a cup of sweat out of my shirts before. Now it makes the entire bathroom stink.

Completely disgusting and there's nothing I can do about it. argh.

What do you mean TMI? I've never been accused of that before.

Indian Princesses

The YMCA has a program called Y-Guides and Princesses with a native american theme - it kind of rivals the girl scouts and boy scouts. I'm an eagle scout so I really wanted my kids to be able to get into some kind of scout-like activity, but I wanted to be involved. The Indian Princess program in Raleigh is the biggest program in the country. There are 14,000 kids involved here compared to only a few hundred in girl scouts. This is all about dads and daughters, and I absolutely love it. The program only runs from first through third grade, so Bigun is starting this year. We've already had two dad's only meetings, and I really like the other dad's in my tribe. Really cool guys. Monday is the first meeting with the kids. Bigun is so excited about going camping and making new friends, and getting the whole bonding thing going. It's going to be awesome!

At the same time, this is how it starts. At least I'm heavily involved in the program, not just dropping them off at dance practice or something. Before you know it, we are going to turn into full time drivers dropping one off at piano lessons and the other off somewhere else just in time to run them more places. oh, they grow up to fast.

39 Days

2011-09-26T09:06:00.004-04:00

I really enjoyed the rest day on friday. It was so nice. Kelley's mom wanted to keep the kids for the weekend, so they went to the mountains. They had a blast seeing the Cherokee Indian dancers, playing in the stream next to their house, and just enjoying fall in the mountains. Kelley and I enjoyed the peace and quiet, just laying around watching movies all weekend.

Well, when I wasn't out Ironman training.

Friday's rest day = I didn't leave the house at all. Didn't drive anywhere, didn't check the mail, didn't even take out the trash. No exterior doors were opened. I did some yoga from netflix on demand but that was it. Another benefit of working from home is that you don't have to go outside when you don't want to.

Saturday was rainy and pretty cold for down here.. I didn't really feel like doing much. But I knew I needed to go outside sometime. Still, rainy + cold + college football on saturday = 15 mile treadmill run at the gym while I'm watching football. I switched it up and did the long run on saturday to save the bike ride for sunday when it was supposed to be warmer and not raining.

The Clemson Tigers pulled out a great win over Florida State! They moved from #21 to #13 in the national rankings thanks to the win, and while it was a quality win I kind of feel like a few of the scoring drives were given to the tigers by penalties. The quarterbacks and receivers did put on an amazing show, no doubt. But the Tigers do this every year. Start out 4-0 or 5-0, then lose to someone unranked like Wake Forest. NC State is stinking it up this year, so it's still good to see Clemson put up some wins. Now if they can just get past VA Tech next weekend....

Sunday I did actually get Roberta out on the roads around Jordan Lake. It kind of felt.... weird. I think Roberta is due for some shop time before IMFL. The cable that runs to the rear brake needs to be replaced I think, and the rear brake kept shifting over while I was riding so it was rubbing against the back tire. I don't need any extra resistance. I think the same thing was happening during my recent half iron race. Both times the bike just felt kind of sluggish, like something was keeping me from rolling at normal speed and easy cadence. Plus there was lots of extra squeaks and noises.

So I clocked 54 miles around the lake sunday afternoon, there were plenty of clouds out but it never really got over 75 degrees and never really rained. Perfect conditions for a nice ride. I saw a green snake on the road, and a hawk flying around with a fish in its claws. That was really cool. I also saw my friends Scottie and Jenny out on the roads too, they are also both training for IMFL. Very cool. The hills around the lake and the extra resistance really took a lot out of my legs. I didn't bring any gels and just went with plenty of liquid nutrition, and I think I was a bit under fueled.

Today starts week 9 of 12 in the Ironman Build phase of the training plan. 4 weeks of build and two weeks of taper. Only 39 days until Ironman. It's coming up quickly, but I feel like I'm ready. What I'm not ready for is the next 4 weekends of these crazy insane long workouts. Nobody said it was going to be easy, and they were all right! 39 days left.

Have a great week! Hope your weekend was as much fun as that one was. Big congrats to Karen who rocked Ironman 70.3 Augusta this weekend.

Update: ZOMG I read it wrong. There's only 39 days, and I initially wrote the post out thinking it was 49 days. Wow this is really coming up quicker than I can read.

Update #2: Kelley was featured on Girl With the Red Hair as the Featured Career today for being a Stay at Home Mom (SAHM). Very cool, thanks Amber!

How I Got Fast Part 2

2011-09-20T08:20:00.004-04:00

Part 1 - Weight Loss

Base Building

I didn't realize that I was really working on base building, but I was. If you remember from the Weight Loss post I knew that running burned the most calories per hour, so that needed to be the staple of my winter workouts. I still think it's important to get some cross training in, so I did that on the stationary bike as well.

The four days a week I was running was actually a base building phase - I had no idea that was going to happen. I knew I needed to keep my runs under 45 minutes. I wanted to use the treadmill to see the calorie counter on there, and I eventually figured out that the most effective workouts were burning less than 600 calories. When I ran long I didn't lose any weight. Long runs have no place in base building either.

The first thing I noticed when building my base was the basic endurance factor of not taking any walk breaks. It builds up over time like any other endurance base. First I would go a mile without walking, then two, then three. That's when I started to notice - hey I didn't have to walk for that 3 mile run. Then I could go four, five, or six miles without walking. All still at the same 10 min/mile pace.

Before the Biggest Loser 5k in Myrtle Beach SC last year, I ran a 26:35

If you want to run fast, run fast. Once I got comfortable going 10k at a 10m/m pace it got boring. So I started trying to speed it up some. Some runs turned into 5k at a 9m/m pace. Then 10k at 9m/m. This all just happened naturally.

I did start throwing some intervals in there once I got closer to my goal weight. Interval training isn't base building, but I know they were in there.

The biggest point of base building for speed is to walk less and keep the milage low. Actually don't walk at all and don't make a single run over 10k. If you run like I did 4 times a week at 3, 4, 5, or 6 miles then you've established a base of around 18 miles a week.

Endurance comes before speed

Yes I know that this is the exact opposite of the above framework for base building. But hear me out. It doesn't take much endurance, and we can use it to our advantage. It's really dealing with endurance for the event.

Now it's time to start thinking ahead to a goal. Want to run a fast 5k? After Ironman I'm going to try and break 20 minutes in a 5k. Our base training has taught us that we can run a 5k at a faster pace than 5 miles. So you want to run a 5k at a 6:23 pace (that's 19:50, or 9.4 mph)?

Get ready to run 5 miles very often. Once or twice a week hit a 5 mile tempo run, and keep trying to get that faster until you're about a 34:50 total run time. That's a 6:58 pace, or an 8.6 speed on the treadmill. 5 miles is less than 10k so it fits our base model, and the run is still under 45 minutes so it fits our calorie burn model. Actually that might end up burning too many calories.

Before the Natty Greene's 5k Foxhunt this year, thinner but before Ironman training. Ran that one in 23:43

Lots of 5 mile runs will give you the endurance you need to run a fast 5k. Going 10, 12, or 15 miles will not give you as much benefit as a solid 5 mile speed base will for a 5k. You want to set a half marathon PR? Break 2 hours for the first time? Great. Run 15 at least twice in the month before your race and you've given yourself a much better shot. Once you feel comfortable holding a given pace for 15 miles then holding a slightly faster pace for 13.1 on race day is in the bag. This also gives you a huge mental advantage.

Base and Endurance Conclusion

I didn't make a conscious decision to run lots of base miles in order to get fast, I did it to get thin. I got fast because I started with a solid base of slow miles. As I got thinner, it got easier to run faster, so I kept the same milage and just kept increasing the speed. Now it feels really awkward to run any slower than an 8:00 pace, and when running outside with no Garmin telling me to slow down my natural gate keeps about a 7:30 pace. I know how to push that up for shorter distance races and can force myself to slow down for longer races.

So build your base, then add some endurance and your speed will follow. Give it 6-15 weeks to really get a solid base established. I took 5 months leading up to my ironman training plan to really get that base established and only ran more than 6 miles three or four times. Consistency is the key. Unlock your potential!

Next up is going to be how to get fast at swimming and cycling!

This Weekend's Stumblings

2011-09-19T17:01:00.003-04:00

Ironman training is just bananas. Anyone who claims it's easy has obviously never tried it. This weekend proves my point. In fact, this weekend more than most proves that everything else around you goes bananas too!

Friday I rested while Kelley did her long run for the week. I got piles of work dumped on me from every direction. Totally buried, and still buried today. Kelley ran 6 miles.

About 2 miles in she got hit by a car. The car pulled into an intersection downtown and got caught in gridlock. We're not dealing with the brightest part of the population here obviously. The light changed, Kelley ran behind the car, the driver backed up to get out of the intersection and backed right into Kelley! Kelley jumped - landed on the trunk very Dukes of Hazzard style, then flipped the driver a bird and kept on running.

She finished the run. It scratched up the Garmin some, but the fact remains that my wife is a badass. To keep running for 4 more miles after you get hit by a car is pretty hard core.

She's also hotter than your wife. Yea I said it.

Saturday was barely over 55 degrees here and raining hard the entire day. Not conducive to any outdoor activity. So I took my long ride to the stationary bike for the first 2+ hours, and then threw Roberta on the trainer for the last hour and half. I'm logging it as a 3.5 hour ride, even though it should have been longer. The day caught up to me. I got too hungry after the second hour on the stationary at the gym, came home and ate a PB&J, then got back on the trainer. My ass did not feel like letting me go past the end of the Clemson football game which was incredible.

Needless to say that left me pretty sore for sunday. What's the ironman thing to do then? Why of course. I ran 13 miles in 1:45 first, then hopped on the bike for half an hour (10 miles), then finished it with a 3 mile runoff. An insane brick if ever I've attempted one. Made even more insane after saturday's ride.

The three mile runoff was supposed to be 7 miles. I only had three miles left to give. 16 is good enough for now, and longer than I've run in quite a while. There are a lot of this type of brick workout left on the schedule.

7 weeks to ironman. I'm working on another how I got fast post for this week too.

I forgot to come up with a title

2011-09-15T08:16:00.004-04:00

A few other notes from the OBX half from saturday:

I got punched in the face during the swim. First time that's happened (at least during a swim!). It was very strange to go from not being able to see other swimmers to getting hit in the face that easily.
I kind of freaked out a bit in my head when I felt alone in the water. I know the intercoastal waterway is not the ocean, but stupid shark week didn't know that. When you are swimming in a pack, you look up and don't see any other swimmers, boats, lifeguards and feel totally alone in the ocean - that's the stuff panic attacks are made of. And I don't get panic attacks in the water.
Fish who swim in a pack, and one gets separated - that's who gets eaten by a shark.
We used silver swim caps, which may be the most useless color ever for an ocean swim. I want neon pink or green - something that will show up underwater if the lifeguards have to pull a body out. You'll never see silver down there.
The rear brake on Roberta was twisted against one side of the rim - I didn't notice it until we got home. It could have been blown that way during the drive home or it could have been rubbing the whole race. I didn't check that thoroughly before the race because we got there so late. And I know better than that.
I think I worked harder on the bike leg than I should have. Ironman plan is to go out stupid easy and not put out an effort any harder than "easy".
There were a lot of extra squeaks and groans coming out of Roberta. Maybe a tune-up is in order before Ironman.
I know I shouldn't have left the garmin at home. After working too hard on the bike I started out running too hard. Bad combination. I can blame the heat and hydration all I want to, but I know I shouldn't have tried to run faster than a 9:00 mile and I did.

Sunday had a nice 8 mile recovery run at an 8:00 pace. Easy slow miles. Felt pretty good. Monday I took a rest day, and tuesday I skipped the lunchtime bike ride in favor of going out for wings with friends; but I still made the swim practice that evening. Yesterday I got in a decent 7 mile tempo run over lunch at a 7:30 pace, and an hour on the stationary bike after the kids went to bed. That ride felt really good, but that's the only workout that felt really good this week.

I have to allow for recovery time after the race pace effort. This weekend is supposed to hold a 5:15 bike ride on saturday, and a 1:45 run/:45 ride/1:00 run brick. That should translate into an 80 mile ride saturday, and a 18-20 mile run sunday with a 15 mile ride in the mix.

Today I am supposed to run intervals over lunch and swim tonight. Tomorrow is a 30 minute run - easy- to get ready for the long weekend. The training plan has this as one of the longest weeks of training at 17 hours. I'm thinking I should take the intervals pretty slow and maybe do some strength training/core work instead of really pushing the legs again. Keep the recovery going and still be able to get my miles in this weekend.

Congrats to all the finishers at IMMoo and Rev3 Cedar Point! Who got registered for Ironman Wisconsin for next year?

OBX Half Iron Race Report

2011-09-12T09:48:00.012-04:00

I had never been to North Carolina's Outer Banks before, but there are plenty of cars around here with bumper stickers like "OBX", "12", "Salt Life", etc so I knew it must be popular. It's not the closest beach to us (Wilmington), or the most charming (Kure, Carolina), so there must be something special there.

Boy howdy there sure is. It's well documented that Kelley and I both hate the beach. We're just not beach people. But Nag's Head is amazing. Seriously. It's not overcommercialized like Myrtle Beach is, the water is cool and crystal clear, there were huge 8' high waves and plenty of surfers out there enjoying it. It's really a special place. If you ever get the chance to run the OBX marathon or get some vacation time down there, it will be worth the travel. OBX Marathon is a good bucket list item.

We got into town friday afternoon and made it to packet pickup about 5:15. It's right at a 3 hour drive from Raleigh. Got to see the transition area, picked up the booty bag (their term - it's a pirate theme) and headed to the hotel.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early, but not really early enough. I know the earlier we start racing it helps us avoid the mid-day heat. But geez waking up earlier on a Saturday than I do during the work week is still tough. And we did not avoid the mid-day heat. The TA closed at 6:45, we got there about 6:25, I got bodymarked and got my chip. Got my area setup, taped the gels to the top bar of Roberta, and was ready to race.

That was my first mistake. I only taped 3 gels to the top bar instead of the 5 I thought I was going to need, leaving the other two so I could throw them into the back pocket of my race suit in T1.

Hanging out before the start, the water looked really rough. I talked to a guy who did the oly last year and said it was brutal then too. The night before? The Old Swimming Hole was like glass. No current, not a chop in site. This morning? The ocean was angry at something.

All of the men doing the half started together. Half Women and all of the Olympic distance racers started in later waves. We had the countdown, and the race was on!

Swim 1.2 miles - Goal under 40 - actual 39:22 Success!!
2:02/100m pace is right inline with IMFL goals

It actually didn't start out with too much contact. The course ran counter clockwise, so the first buoy was on the left, and the tide/current was going to make us drift left. So I lined up on the right hand side of the pack.

The waves were coming in a rhythm. Once I was able to time that rhythm with my breathing it wasn't really that hard to get in good breaths. The waves were around 2' high, so I was getting tossed around pretty good. And when you look up to sight, and all you can see is a 2' high wave ready to smack you in the face it makes the buoys hard to locate. To make it worse I was completely alone. 65 men started at the same time and I couldn't find anyone.

I was either way off course or way out in front. Yea... way off course. I went right! Who goes against the current on an already treacherous course? This dumbass. I thought the tide was supposed to drift us left? So I went straight, and everyone else got dragged left. Eventually I did get my sights on a boat that was behind a buoy and make it to the first turn buoy. It was only a one lap course, so that was a long way out there. Made the right turn and we're swimming against the tide directly to make it to the second turn buoy. That actually went quicker than I expected, the course wasn't an exact triangle. That was a short side. Turned right again, and now I had the waves pushing me back toward the shore. Not the swim finish, just the general shoreline.

And I was staring directly into the sun. They had one of the big blowing men things going at the swim finish, but I couldn't see it. The sun was just starting to rise, it was just over the roofline of the houses in the background. So I had to go close to the shore, float along until the current pushed me past the finish line, then swim to it and get out. Thank goodness I used dark tinted goggles. That was really tough. Much harder than swimming in a lake.

Gasping for breath, I am so freaking glad to be done with that choppy swim.
LET'S DO THIS!!

T1: 2:44

There was a long run from the finish mat around a parking lot and back to the transition area. Some bikes were already gone, but for the most part the racks were still full. I started talking with one guy who started his watch late after the swim start, and he marked that we had been swimming for 44 minutes. So I knew then that the 5 hour goal was gone. Kind of got me down mentally for the first lap of the bike leg. Of course, it was wrong. So I have no idea how that worked. 2:44 is a pretty good T1 time. I'll take it.

Bike 56 miles: Primary Goal under 3 hours - Actual 2:53:52 Success!!!
19.3 mph is faster than any other half iron time and faster than IMFL goal pace

Secondary goal: 2:45 fail
Ideal conditions target time: 2:30 fail

The bike course was two laps with multiple out and backs. Very few roads, it was completely flat except for one rise on a bridge, and very very boring. It was pretty easy to fall asleep on this course. We came out of the airport and had to cross a 3 mile long bridge with a hump in the middle, that was really cool. The other side had one long road to go down, mostly marshland that smelled really bad to a turnaround. Then back down the stinky road. Turn right this time at the end and get a little 2 mile out and back spur before you go back across the bridge and into the airport. Turn around and do it all again. Oly riders did one lap and didn't have the extra 2 mile spur. At the end of the long road (Mashoes Rd) and the small spur there was water bottle handoffs.

For most of the first lap I was still mentally out of it thanks to the swim and transition. I also realized I forgot to grab the extra 2 gels I was going to need on the bike, so I had to recalculate my nutrition. 3 e-Gels taped to the bike (150 calories each), and 2 bottles of super strength Accelerade. Plus 1 bottle of water to take with the gels and there were 4 water bottle handoffs, so I should be able to hydrate ok.

I knew I needed to take the first e-Gel when I got off of the bridge, that's about 6 miles into the ride and should be about an hour after the start of the race. Take 1 bottle of Accelerade on each lap, that was easy math. I have to cross the bridge 4 times - out (first gel) and back for lap 1, out and back for lap 2. So right before I go back on lap 2 I should take the other gel, that should give me enough calories to get to the first aide station on the run.

I still don't remember when I took the second gel.

It seemed like the first trip across the bridge took for.ev.er. Turns out I was riding into a pretty strong headwind. It was so flat you could see things like the hump in the middle of the bridge, and they never seemed to get any closer to you no matter how hard you pedaled. I was riding naked having left the Garmin in Raleigh, so I had no idea how fast I was going or what kind of times I was looking at. I just knew I was ready to get off of that bridge.

The first time down Masheos Road I saw lots of halfs. Half of a snake, half of a frog, plenty of half birds. Put them together and you some freaky redneck roadkill stew. It was disgusting. And it smelled bad. There was mostly marshland on either side, a few houses but nothing spectacular. A couple of nice views of the inland waterway, but nothing compared to what we saw on the bridge or the run course. Just lots of long straight flat and boring.

It was the first time that I could see who was in front of me. Everyone had to make the turnaround on Mashoes, so I could count the people who made the turn before I did and know where I was in the race. I counted 14, but that was also a guess at how many riders were in a pack. Pretty good place to be.

Coming back down Mashoes road and back across the bridge all of a sudden the wind was behind me. That was really nice for a change. I pushed a higher gear, passed a lot of people, all was right in the world. I finished off the first bottle of accelerade and swapped it out for the full one right before the end of the first lap, and I dropped the bottle. Woah, I'm already short some nutrition. Had to stop, pick up the bottle I dropped, then get on with it.

Hit the turn around....

and back out for lap #2. This time I had a lot more confidence. I knew where the headwinds and tailwinds were, how to gear for the different roads, and where the dead animals were. Time to fly through the second lap! I was smiling again finally.

Judging by the time the pictures were taken, I finished the first lap around 1:27, and the second lap in about 1:27. Wait, that's the same. I swear the second lap felt faster. And that adds up to 2:54, which is about right. Ok, so we're going with the fact that I was smiling the entire second lap, and that's why it seemed faster. I swear I was pushing a higher gear and spinning harder through the second lap.

T2: 1:06.
Transition Goal: under 5 minutes, total T-time: 3:52 Golden!!

I did actually get my feet out of my shoes before hitting the end of the bike leg, so I ran into TA in socks this time. Threw on the running shoes, grabbed the other gear and took off. That might be my fastest transition time ever!

Run 13.1 miles: Goal 1:45, actual 2:13:08 Fail!

I swear the run in the end of a half ironman has got to be one of the hardest things to keep consistent. By this point in the day, it was really heating up. Well over 90 degrees at this point, and my legs were already pretty gassed. I'm still running naked, left the garmin at home. So I have no idea what kind of pace I'm keeping, but I'm pretty sure I went out there too fast.

The run course started out by going through this field around the airstrip. There's not even a suggestion of shade there. Not even a little 2' high seedling of a tree in sight. Just a path cut through the middle of an airstrip.

When we leave the airstrip and head out onto the roads it gets interesting. This is a straight out and back course, run out 6.55 miles then turn around and head home. Aide stations every mile at the mile markers, so that's really nice. It felt like the first aide station came at me really quick.

The second aide station also came up really quick. Don't know if that was a short mile or I was running too fast. The course was filled with Oly runners too, and half runners. The bike course also had tons of oly people on there. So after the first half turnaround on the bike, I had no idea how I was placed. Right after the third mile marker/aide station, the oly turnaround point kicked in and the course got a lot less crowded. The third mile went by pretty quick too.

Funny thing happened when I got to the mile 4 aide station. It was manned by a bunch of lazy teenage girls sunbathing and one person handing out water. But they were playing a Slow Runner CD in the background! Since very few other people would recognize my brother's voice I thought it was both ironic and inspiring. I tried to ask the girls if that's what it was, but I couldn't form complete words at the time.

That fourth mile of the run was, I think, the longest slowest mile I have ever run in my life. At least until the 5th mile came up. Seriously, I was only having to walk the aide stations until that point but then the wheels started coming off and I could barely stand. I think heat exhaustion was kicking in, it felt like I had stopped sweating. That's never a good sign. I ran when I could, walked a lot, and tried to maintain proper form the whole time.

The mile 5 aide station had towels on ice, and so did mile 6. I took one each time and it was the sweetest relief ever. I hung onto that towel and it was fantastic. Having finally cooled my body down some, I could run for longer stretches of time now. And since it was only half iron people on the course at that point, there was a lot of people walking and I knew where I was placing. When I hit the turnaround at 6.55 the volunteers said I was still in line for a top 20 finish!

I got passed a few times on the way back in, and passed a few others that were walking more than me. It was still also a struggle. The course turned on to some greenway somewhere in mile 5, and that brought a lot of shade. So part of 5, all of 6, and part of 7 were mostly shaded. That also helped bring my core temp back down. I started sweating again in mile 8. That's when I knew I would be ok.

Then it was just the mental game of forcing my legs to push through the muscle soreness and lactic acid. I can't really describe the kind of pain you get running in a half iron. It kind of makes you want to run your legs through a tree chipper/grinder just to get rid of them. But you know everyone is out there suffering through the same pain and you're still passing people so you must be feeling better than them. I start moaning uncontrollably sometimes. Plenty of times I felt like I was just going to fall over, or walk off of the side of the road.

I turned one corner on the roads and there was a house with a huge muscadine trellis growing with really old vines. That smell took me right back to my grandparents farm, they grew muscadines and I grow them now in the front yard (mine aren't old enough to create a smell yet). Suddenly I felt better.

Went back through all of the same aide stations as before, the teenagers weren't all quite as lazy this time. I just like making fun of lazy teenagers. They weren't actually slacking off on the volunteer duties, all of the volunteers were really on the ball. Before you know it, or before I was fully conscious of what was happening, I was back onto the air strip heading for the finish line.

Overall: Goal - break 6 hours - actual - 5:50:11 Success!

Secondary finish goal was 5:45 - almost there!
Everything went perfect finish time: 5:0x Fail.

Overall top 20 finish: Not quite.

22/65 overall men, 7/18 age group M35-39. The next two fastest people in my age group only beat me by 40 seconds. So I didn't get the overall or age group placement that I wanted, but it was really close. They had four men break five hours this year. Take out my extra 30 minutes of walking during the run course (5:20:11) would have put me in seventh place overall and 3rd in my age group. But we all had to walk the same course and deal with the same heat.

To put this in perspective, my PR came from the Beach 2 Battleship in 2009, a 6:31 overall time with a 2:42 half marathon split. So it's a 41 minute PR and a 27 minute run PR. Last year I did the Patriot's half in 6:55 thanks to a horrid swim time, and hit the same 2:42 run split. So it's over an hour faster than last year's time. So while I still see room for improvement, I also have to recognize how far I've come.

Overall this was a fantastic race and I would not hesitate to run it again or recommend it to anyone. They run an Olympic, half iron, and sprint distances in the same weekend and if you've never been to the OBX before it is a must see destination. It was well organized, the volunteers were great, and everything happened the way it was supposed to happen on that day. Where else are going going to bike over a 3 mile long bridge?

They say you can double your half iron time and add an hour to get a fairly accurate predictor of a full ironman finish. Doubling 5:50 is 11:40, plus an hour means I can expect to come in somewhere under 13 hours for IMFL. I'm still going to keep 14 hours as my goal time. Well, after the initial goal time of just finishing.