Fueling Long Swims

Among the other things that seem problematic about a 12 mile open water swim, it's easy to forget about fueling. Will my arms fall off? alligators? sharks? can my brother stay on a kayak for 6 hours? all totally legitimate. But keeping myself from dehydrating and sunburning is kind of an afterthought.

Sol RX was recommended to me for sunscreen. Since my race starts at noon and is expected to take me 6 hours, Michael and I will both need waterproof sunscreen that will not sweat off. That's the hottest part of the day, and even in late September, Charleston is still going to be quite warm in both the air and water temp. like, mid-80's for both. This stuff is made for athletes, so I'm really hoping it will hold up. I may or may not get to try it in open water before race day.

But fueling is a much more challenging puzzle to solve. In a marathon or Ironman, you have aide stations every X miles that cater to everything you would need, as long as you can take the stuff that they serve on the course. Ironman Perform tastes like motor oil by the second half of the bike leg. It's easy to walk through an aide station on a marathon, grab a gel and 2 cups of water and go to town. It's not so easy to walk when you're face down in the middle of a river; and there are no aide stations.

I think the key to solving this puzzle is going to be water soluble nutrition. Electrolytes are a key point, as is water (volume) to combat dehydration. Foot and calf cramps are common problems when swimmers get dehydrated, and running out of calories to burn is a serious concern. My plan is to bring 1 bottle per hour plus one extra bottle for the finish line and float on my back to drink every 20 to 30 minutes.

Those bottles will all have to be fully loaded of course. I'm using Skratch right now, and the orange flavor is amazing. Very subtle flavor, all natural ingredients, 100 calories per scoop, this is some of the neatest stuff out there. It is very soluble, so you can double dose one bottle if you want to, but I'm not.

The king of the hill for electrolytes, of course, is still SaltStick. SaltStick provides everything you need to stay fueled up and I seem to get an anti-hunger benefit from it too, that's why I love this stuff. I've been using it almost exclusively to keep me going on longer runs for a while now and I really enjoy it. To use it in the swim bottles, I pop open 2 of the capsules and dump the powder into the bottle. it tastes very bitter, so to counter that I add a spoonful of sugar.

After the 5 mile Lowcountry Splash OWS

So between the Skratch, SaltStick, and sugar I end up with about 220 calories in each bottle, 24 oz of water, and plenty of protection against dehydration and cramping. I've been packing 2 bottles for my long weekend swims, and it seems to be working. My long days have been a saturday where I run long in the morning and swim long soon after that. Today all I got in was a long swim, but 5k in Pullen Park Pool still took 2 bottles packed up like that. It rocked, was easy to drink, and I felt great for the whole swim. Only stopped because the pool closed.

MB PR

This weekend was a blast! I got to hang out with a lot of old friends and totally blew away my own expectations for the race. I absolutely nailed a 3:46:32, and never walked for the first time ever. It was a special valentines day away without the kids, just special time with me and Kelley.

Friday afternoon we started later than expected, but still got the kids dropped off and headed down to Myrtle Beach. We made it to the expo in plenty of time.  After grabbing the gear and swag, I found the beer tent.

IPA for the win!

 The part about this weekend that I was really looking forward to was seeing so many friends. At the expo, we ran into my friend Laurie, who I haven't seen since high school! She actually graduated with my brother Michael, and was a church friend who now lives in Fayetteville with her family, and they were all at the expo too. Really cool to see her again.

After we actually got dinner from the bar upstairs from the expo. It was a really nice environment, great food, and it wasn't crowded. Pretty decently romantic spot for Valentines day! Plus Kelley got to sit in a tremendous oversized chair.

Totally interested.

We always stay at the La Quinta near the starting line, but now they have added a back road that leads to a Target. And you know that means we loaded up on cheap valentines day candy.

Saturday morning came early. 5:15 my alarm went off and I got downstairs to get some breakfast. I discovered it was pouring down very hard rain and it was really cold. Not a good combination. The race started at 6:30 with the crankchairs starting first at 6:25. I knew we were cutting it close when we saw the crankchairs cruising by as we were walking to the start line!  haha, that's a bit too close. Still, I got my good luck kiss, she went to the half marathon side of the street, and I started looking for the 3:45 pace group. They had a 3:35 and 4 hour pace group, so I figured I would get somewhere in between them.

I wasn't going to run with anything that wasn't waterproof, so no music. Figured I could just talk to people. It was 41* and raining at the start. I got to wish a "good luck" to the people I just elbowed my way through, and then we were off! Lots of people were running in trash bags. I didn't want to have to discard anything later, so I just took off. Hit start on the garmin when I got to the starting line and the rest is history.

Mile 1 was in the dark, but the rain did stop.The halfers started on the left side of the divided road, and the full marathoners on the right. Before the first turn we had to cross over the divided median, and I saw a bunch of the halfers looking at me funny. So of course I had to raise both hands in the air attack-zombie style and said "it's the attack of the full marathoners", which I thought was pretty damn funny. crickets. I got nothing out of those people. But I did split an 8:09!

Mile 2 the sun came up. Since the rain was gone and the streets were still crowded, there was plenty of challenge to puddle dodge. Split an 8:07.

At 2.75 miles, something strange happened. I got passed - by a girl. While this would not otherwise be noteworthy, it was the first time I got passed on the day. And she looked at me funny, like she was surprised to pass me. It was odd. Mile 3 split 8:17.

I could see the 3:35 pacer in there, and figured I would hang out near that guy for as long as I could since I still felt great. When Kelley checked the weather forecast the night before, every hour the chance of rain would decrease while the listed wind speed would increase. And the winds were supposed to swirl, so there would always be a headwind. fun times. I did start drafting. Here there was still plenty of people in the race who were bigger than me, so I put them between the wind and my face. While it might not have smelt particularly great, it did make things easier. And I don't think it was too noticeable.  Mile 4 in 8:12, I took my first gel at the mile 4 aide station.

Mile 5 goes out by the airport, and there is usually a band playing there. This time as I ran by I got to thank them for coming out, then they started playing Folsom Prison Blues. 8:46 thanks to the extra time to take the gel.

There is a timing mat through this little shopping village at the turn around, then back towards the airport. Mile 6 was 8:12, then mile 7 was 8:31.  As I was running back towards Ocean Blvd, I could see all of the runners still going to the shopping village. Right before we split off, I found Kelley at my mile 7.5 and got to say hi to her and blow a kiss. Very motivating to know that she was getting through the miles with a smile. Mile 8 was 8:30, and I took another gel then.

Once you get on Ocean Blvd, you stay there until about mile 21. That one road has the majority of the course, but by then it's over an hour into the race so the sun is up, there's a tailwind pushing you forward (sometimes), and you get to see the boardwalk and the ocean.  It's beautiful, and monotonous, and you just let your mind wander and watch the miles run away. Mile 9 was 8:20, then mile 10 in 8:28. Right after the mile 11 marker you start seeing signs for the halfers to split off, which they do. Once the vast majority of the people peel off and head for the finish line, you get a slight depression and a peaceful calm at the same time.  Mile 11 was 8:17. I found another guy from Raleigh who thought I was crazy, but he had a wild beard and was pretty fun to talk to. He was doing a relay, and ran from mile 6 to 10. Great talking to you Tim, ended up being some fun miles.

At the mile 12 aide station I had to stop and poop. I took another gel first, then had to wait on the port-a-let for a little bit. If you've been counting, all of these miles so far have been in the 8 minute range. Mile 12 took 8:14, then mile 13 was 9:49, thanks to about a 90 second crapper stop. It felt good to lighten the load, but I was ready to get back out there.

I hit the 13.1 halfway point at 1:50:44, not a bad split. Again, I was just feeling good and taking each mile as it came to me without any real feeling of push or elevated heart  rate. Pretty crazy indeed.

The second half of the course goes up into North Myrtle Beach. The starting line is on 21st ave, and we finally turn off of Ocean Blvd somewhere around 68th st, if that gives you a frame of reference for how far into North MB we get. Now, start by understanding that there is nothing interesting about North Myrtle, nothing happens there, it's just a few small hotels and lots of beachfront houses. I don't remember much about these miles, but I'm not sure if that's because they are boring, or mindless, or just all looked exactly the same. They were all uphill, however. Which I thought was odd.

I had no expectations to negative split this course but you can certainly see my interest level wain in these miles.
Mile 14: 8:22,
mile 15: 8:38,
mile 16: 8:36 (took another gel),
mile 17: 8:19 (ok must have had a tailwind),
mile 18: 8:44,
mile 19: 8:29,
mile 20: 8:34 and another gel

And that was the most interesting part of North Myrtle. Consistent, plain, meets expectations.

Mile 21 went in 8:58, that's where the course turned and we started running uphill into a stiff headwind again. Heading back to the start/finish line there's a couple of out-and-back spurs to keep the competition in sight. I knew the aide stations at miles 16 and 22 had gels provided on the course, so I took those. Mile 22 took 8:50.

My personal best distance record was 21 miles without walking. So this time I really wanted to get that gel at the mile 22 aide station without having to take a walk break, and I did! So excited to finally break through that one. And I still felt like I didn't need to walk after that, so I figured I'd shoot for 23. Mile 23 took 9:23, but I didn't walk through it. Finally, the first mile over 9 minutes besides the poopy mile 12. This time it was fatigue that slowed me down. My quads were burning. My ass was on fire. Calves were totally starting to melt down. But I was not dehydrated, so I didn't hit the wall at mile 23 like I usually do.

Mile 24 was 8:47, and this might be the biggest surprise. Again, no walking, extending that PDR. To turn in a mile in the 8's that late in a marathon is insane. Never thought I would do that. Mile 25 took 9:19, that's more like what I was expecting. Actually, these really late miles for me are usually in the 10 to 13 minute range, so this whole thing was uncharted territory. And I still wasn't walking. Just trying to maintain good running form. I didn't have to go fast, just had to keep going. I think it was around mile 20 or 22 when I felt confident about my ability to break 4 hours.  But mile 26 was 9:09, and that's out of this world crazy.  I was finally back at Broadway cruising up towards 21st ave again. When I saw that finishing chute I knew it was real.

Not only was I going to break 4 hours (goal!) and set a PR that I didn't expect to get, I was going to smash that PR and might actually get under 3:50, which would also surpass most of my friend's marathon PR's.  And I never had to walk. That was totally unexpected and incredible. I never actually believed that I could run the entire length of a marathon without walking or falling apart in the end. insane.

I came through the finish line on fire and hit stop on the garmin. I got my medal, then looked at the garmin. When I read it, I screamed it. I read it again out (and very) loud - THREE FORTY SIX THIRTY FIVE YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH shouted as loud as I could, and the announcer guy even said how happy we apparently were to finally be finished running 26.2 miles. He was right.  I'm not a 3:46 marathoner. I'm maybe one of the typical middle/rear middle of the pack guys who's going to struggle and train hard and maybe break 4 hours once. My old PR was 3:56 in Charleston marathon 2012, and I never actually expected to break 4 hours again. I'm 38, way too old to get any faster. But I just did, and by around 10 minutes. that's absurd. No way I would have predicted that.

As soon as I finished screaming for pure joy, Kelley was right there. She ran the half in 2:33, after only getting in 2 training runs since early december thanks to a piriformis problem. She had enough time to go back to the hotel, get some warm clothes, and make it back down in time.

Right before the scream

and right after!

As soon as I started making my way out of the finishers chute, I got caught by my good friend from college Meredith. Haven't been able to hug that neck for maybe 18 years (she graduated before me) and this, right now, is the time when I run into her? I still haven't come down from the endorphins, still jacked up high and crying over my time and that's when I have to introduce Kelley and meet her friend too. Not exactly my most photogenic moment. Loved getting to see her, but that was crap timing. We need to catch up when I can put together two coherent thoughts.

Finally, I've calmed down enough to take in some fluids and food, and process what just happened.

wow.  just wow. that was totally unexpected.

So was this!

Kelley captioned this "we found an elephant at the finish line of the marathon", and I started making jokes about how I know I've put on a little weight but that's just cruel. ha! The fence here is just to keep the beer drinkers in, not the elephants out.  Interesting fact, did you know elephants eat Fruit Loops? The trainer guy would throw fruit loops and peppermint candy on the ground and the animal would pick them up with his trunk and eat it.

Afterward we got enough fluids and walked around a bit, it was time to head back to the hotel. The elephant followed us out, and we got a few more pics.

No fence or anything, we're just walking down the street when the beast comes up behind us

incredible

That's a swinging tale

Have you ever wanted to Stranger Rodeo an elephant? I was seriously tempted to grab hold of that tail and see how long I can hang on. Maybe if I hadn't just finished a marathon. At the time, the elephant was walking much faster than I was. Opportunity lost.

What made this marathon different?
I've been trying to figure out why I was able to hang on and suffer longer this time than ever before. Maintaining good form is key, yes. As is the mental capacity to keep pushing out miles when your legs are on fire and you want to stop. But I really  think it's got to be the plants!

My fitness overall is still elevated from the B2B full iron distance in October, yes. that takes a long time to calm down. But we did the Paradigm Diet challenge in December, and those habits stuck around. We still eat a mostly vegan diet, and it's become easy to know when my weight is up a few pounds or I just feel heavy from eating too much sodium or meat. And we now know how to make that stuff all go away within a couple of days. I finished the Challenge at 175 lbs, 18% bodyfat - that was in December - and I hit the starting line - in February - at 175 lbs, 18% bodyfat. This was done on purpose. I know when I'm not properly hydrated and need to make a smoothie for breakfast the next day. I know when we need to make some Colon Blow for dinner to push some of that weekend meat through the system.  Overall I feel better, have more energy, and look younger than I did before thanksgiving.

When this becomes a long term habit, the long term effect leads to increased endurance and greater overall fitness. The extent of this was totally unexpected. I mean just 4 months ago I did the Ironman marathon almost an hour slower! (4:37 run split) Nobody is going to claim they can take an hour off of their marathon time in 4 months. It's got to be the plants.

The Paradigm Diet - the basis of our fueling
Starting the Paradigm Detox Day 1
Finishing the Paradigm Detox with a 5k PR

What Else did we do?
After getting all cleaned up, we hit the Planet Hollywood for lunch, and it was quite overrated. Then we hit the outlet stores for some shopping. I got some Kenenth Cole dress shoes that are beautiful (yes I'm secure enough in my masculinity to admit that). Then we got to meet up with the Boys!

Dean, Pat, and Jon are fraternity brothers from college. Pat ran the half, as did all of their wives. I was looking for these people while I was on the course, and they were looking for me. We all get together in the spring for a guy's weekend of heavy drinking, there's about 10 of us that usually jump in. But today we all got to hang out for a couple of beers before dinner, then had a really nice meal together. We all left the kids at home, so this was really special and fun. Like I said, on this trip, getting to see old friends and spend time alone with Kelley was just as important as running the race.

Sunday morning we cleaned up, grabbed breakfast and hit the road back to Raleigh. The whole weekend was fun, social, and fast. The only thing I could have asked for was more of the same. Kelley got to see some people that I didn't. I love being plant-powered, glad I pulled out such a strong race. And I'm grateful for a quick recovery too.

Now let's turn it up and hit the trails! March 1st (yes 2 weeks away) is the Umstead Trail Marathon. Nothing like 26.2 in the woods, this is going to be fun. It's another 1 star Marathon Maniacs streak!

Paradigm Detox Day 1

The Monday after Thanksgiving weekend traditionally is when most people freak out about being overweight or how much weight they put on over the Thanksgiving weekend. I certainly had that moment of panic this morning, yes indeed. But I also had a plan in place.

I read The Paradigm Diet late last year, and even put a review up here singing the praises of the program We started off the year as vegans, but Ironman training quickly got in the way of the reduced caloric intake so eggs and eventually meat worked its way back into our normal routine. Since then, I found the author, Dr. Adam Dave, MD, on facebook and we became fast friends. Again I can highly recommend this book if you haven't heard of it before, and he's put out some others as well. His advice was taken to heart when my foot started acting up in late summer and I was very appreciative.

Then a few weeks ago marathon season hit in Southern California. When the good doctor reported a marathon PR of 2:49, ran barefoot and shirtless to show off that single digit bodyfat I was intrigued. Then the next weekend he put up a 2:58 marathon, so you know it wasn't a fluke, I had to be a bit more inquisitive. Does this guy actually actually still follow the plan in his book? Can that really fuel  these fast marathons?

Yes and yes. I got the short version of his habits, but he gave it to me with a challenge. I should be the next experiment. Give it two weeks and I should shred right up! So every day for the next 14 days I will blog daily weight and bodyfat %, complete food journal, and workout log. It will be an afternoon post and I don't expect any comments around it, but it will give me a category reference to look back at and see how shredded I get.

The theory behind the Paradigm Diet is to only put in the most optimal foods for the body to perform at it's best. This will minimize body fat naturally, as well as make you look younger and feel better than ever. Injury problems should melt away as the body heals itself. It's vegan (no animal products at all), sure, but it's really plant based whole foods vegan. No potato chips or any other processed stuff that doesn't happen to contain meat.  The main structure of the plan looks like this:

bananas and dates before morning workout
AM workout
frozen fruit smoothie breakfast
big-ass salad (kale, beans, avacado-lemon juice-soy sauce dressing, rasins, etc) lunch
Giant Steamer dinner (vegetables, beans, greens) topped with raw veg dinner
more fruit for dessert if needed

Sometimes my main workout comes in the evening, like swim practice tuesday and thursday, and obviously starting the day with fruits and fructose is designed to fuel that morning workout. Not entirely sure how that is going to play out.  I'm also going to push the core strength and yoga along with normal marathon training, so every day should (might) contain one swim/bike/run workout, and one strength and/or yoga time.  This stuff is high carb, high fiber, with lots of protein and very little fat. Everything is whole foods, nothing processed.  Let's go!

Monday Dec 2 2013
MMNW: 185.2 lbs, 22.2% bodyfat (Thanksgiving weekend was not kind on the scale)
1 banana, 2 dates
AM workout: run 3 miles, 25 minutes, treadmill, felt great.
Breakfast smoothie: banana, apple, spinach, frozen (peaches, canteloupe, blueberries), OJ, water
Lunch: oatmeal (soy milk, chia seeds, flax seeds, rasins, almonds), and some animal crackers
Dinner: Big salad - Romaine, avocado, pumpkin seeds, rasins, edamame. unbelievably good!
PM Workout: Yoga
Snack:

Oatmeal isn't paradigm (processed instant oats), neither is the soy milk. But we were out of town all weekend without enough groceries for a proper lunch. That dinner salad was amazing. Take a whole avocado and mash it up with the juice from 1 lemon and some soy sauce. incredible dressing for your salad.

My hope for this 2 week detox is that I will shred down some body fat, my right foot is hurting a little bit again so that should heal up, and it should become a habit. Dr Dave says that this style is very habit forming, I bet he's right. Challenge accepted!

I'm a winner!

I've been listening to the podcasts from the Brilliant Body Summit in the afternoons lately.  It's a really interesting take on the raw vegan approach to healthy, weight loss, and fitness.  It's a great way to hear from raw food life coaches, nutritionalists, and people who have changed their lives in ways that they are very passionate about.  It is very interesting to me to hear other people talk about their passion the same way I might talk about Upper Cervical Chiropractic care or triathlon. 

Chris Kendall has to be one of my favorite speakers there.  He's really fun to watch and listen to.  Freelee and lots of the people from 30 Bananas a Day are on there.  Today's speaker is DurianRider, a controversial activist who's incredibly passionate about the 80/10/10 lifestyle.  These people all give away books or promote their products at the end of the podcast.

Yesterday's speaker was Drew McCall Burke, the Sexy Raw Vegan herself.  At the end, I won a copy of her book "Be a Sexy Raw Vegan in 30 Days" and it looks really interesting.  She promotes a combination of juicing, smoothies, and whole fruit.  The book has menu's, shopping lists, and lays out the whole plan very clearly.  It's a good read, and the authors (including Mitzi Mager) have been through some really impressive transformations.

I've been really digging the Fruit Detox Mondays' and I'm thinking about stepping that up a little bit.  Instead of doing just a full day of fruit on Monday I'm going to start increasing the fruit consumption throughout the week. It's the kind of thing that you can't eat too much of, if anything you can't get enough calories from raw fruits.  I'm leaning towards doing more green smoothies for breakfast and fruit/melon smoothies for lunch.  Then whatever Kelley cooks for dinner (which is usually sensible anyway).  I did look up more details on yesterdays food.

Breakfast green smoothie:
2 baby bok choy
handful of spinach
4 bananas
2 small apples
handful of blueberries
3 dates
2 cups of Orange Juice

1009 calories, 249 g carbs, 4g fat, 16g protein

Lunch melon smoothie:
half a Canary Melon (found at local farmer's market, any melon will do)
1 banana
handful of blueberries
2 cups OJ

878 calories, 211g carbs, 1g fat, 17g protein

So I'm up to almost 1900 calories by lunch.  The target is to get between 2000 and 3000 calories a day just from the smoothies like that, so that's pretty close.  But if all you eat is raw fruits and veg you don't get enough protein, right?  33 grams is enough for a full day.  and I still had dinner to go.  It's 91% carbs, 7% protein, and 1% fat.

For dinner last night, Kelley made red beans and rice, and some cabbage with carraway seeds that is really tasty when it's all mixed together.  Vegan, yes, but not raw.  Delish?  absolutely.  I also had a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch as a late night snack.  The beans and the milk also had plenty of protein.

But you can't fuel Ironman training workouts like that, right?  Well, actually I think maybe you can.   Yesterday I did my Ashtanga Primary series routine both in the morning and late at night. Over lunch I hit the weights for a quick circuit and did running intervals on the treadmill.  8 x half a mile each at 9.0 speed (6:39 pace) with recovery in between.  6 miles total.  The last time I tried that workout I could only do 4 intervals, so I was really pleased.  And I still had energy at the end, but instead of doing 2 more intervals I had to go back to work. 

So if I can get in yoga, strength training, and 6 miles of interval running on nothing but smoothie power, I think it will work. 

I made the smoothies on Sunday night and kept them in the fridge overnight.  Everything held it's consistency and texture overnight, and was still quite tasty all through the day.  With my new job, the plan is to make these the night before so I can drink the breakfast smoothie on my drive into work and keep the melon smoothie in the office fridge until I want to drink it at my desk.  After yesterday's performance, I feel pretty optimistic about this plan.

The final theory is that if you consume enough food that contains less than 5% fat, you will also end up with less than 5% fat because you are what you eat.  Yesterday's monday morning naked weight (MMNW) was 178.8 with 19.8% body fat.  Today's weigh in was 176.2 lbs with 19.1% body fat.  So the scale shows a 2.6 lb loss overall with 1.8 lbs of that being melted bodyfat.  My "safe" zone (or what Drew would call the Sexy range) is under 180 lbs and under 20% bodyfat.  So I'm totally in the safe zone.  But the last time I was getting this close to 175 lbs was in the middle of an Ironman build phase where I was working out 20 hours a week.

This is not an Ironman build phase.  This is the very beginning of an endurance base phase leading up to the half ironman/marathon/ultra set coming in the winter.  You may remember that last year, to get ready for Ironman training, I went totally vegetarian and restricted to only 1800 calories a day and it got me down to about this weight.  With this plan I get to eat more than 1800 calories just before lunch, and I still get to melt bodyfat?  I don't need to drop any more pounds, but the reduction in bodyfat is something I never could do last year.  This is going to be fun.

First weekend off?

Well, almost.  After racing three weekends in a row and taking Bigun to the beach last weekend, it felt like an easy weekend at home.  With some fun and some nerves.

It started with a job change. I don't talk about job stuff on here as a rule, but this was really cool. Thursday afternoon I got a job offer from IBM. This huge company wanted me to come on board with a senior level position. seriously cool. It's not easy for me to leave Compuware, and I'm going into a really deep lake here.  It's quite a leap, but I have to go into it with confidence.

Saturday we hit the big farmers market here to pick up some fresh goodness.  I've been reading a lot on raw vegan stuff lately, green smoothies and tons of fruit goodness.  We ended up getting an unbelievable end-of-the-season haul:

Yes that's a whole case of blueberries.  Scored it for only $20.

That's a lot of yummy goodness.  And that's only about half of the haul.  We also got some corn, tomatoes, kale and collards.  The farmers market was packed and everyone seemed to be enjoying the bounty of our local farms.  That's a beautiful thing.

I also had a decent workout on saturday, getting in 2000 yards in the pool and a 26 mile bike ride.  Felt good, I hit a 300 free/200 IM set pretty hard in the pool.  After a warmup and 3 of those sets, I was ready to get on the bike.  I'm starting to build up endurance for the half iron coming up September 22nd.  Sundays workout was a 20 mile ride 3 mile run brick, but it was totally boring.  Really the kind of day where it would be great to sit at home drinking coffee, eating blueberry mufffins, and watching movies (can you guess what Kelley did?  totally jealous).

Sunday morning was the kicker.  I had a solo performing with the church choir in the 11:00 service.  Scary, scary stuff.

Solo - Johnny Flynn.  terrifying.

Some people may remember that I was a music major in college and really enjoyed signing.  Back then, I sang some in voice lessons but wasn't good enough to actually score solos in any of the college choirs.  So really I hadn't done a solo since high school (I think).  To say I was nervous was an understatement.  Plus it's a tenor solo, and I always sang baritone or bass.  A pretty high tenor solo at that.  So it was a bit intimidating.  Kelley got some video on the flip, and if you really have nothing better to listen to here it is.

My theory behind the raw smoothie stuff is that it should be easy to get in a lot of calories in a dense format of foods that will fuel up long workouts and the endurance base I need, while not adding bodyfat.  The new job with IBM means I'll have to go into an office every day instead of working from home, and (I predict) I won't be able to take long lunch workouts either.  So Sunday night was a prep night to see if I could make a green smoothie for breakfast, a melon (or other fruit) smoothie for lunch, see how many calories I could get in, and see how the texture of the smoothies held up overnight.

The green smoothie had:
1 baby bok choy
handful of spinach
2 bananas
2 small apples
3 dates
handful of blueberries
2 cups of OJ

Turns out, that is an incredibly delicious combination.  I haven't calculated the calories yet, but it did keep its texture overnight in the fridge and made for a spectacular breakfast.  Next time I'll try 2 bok choy's and 4 bananas, but it really kept me full for most of the morning.  Time to get in a run today and try out the lunch fruit smoothie.  yum!

Big congrats goes out to Kevin and Mandy for rocking IMMT yesterday.  Very cool.

Fruit Detox Report

We all can remember that gluten free sucks, right?  Also right now Fruitarian is all the rage.  I really like seeing the trend towards more whole, natural foods and away from processed stuff.  I've been finding and reading a lot of blogs about whole, raw, & fruit based eating, and it's getting really interesting.  So I've decided to try a little experiment with Mondays.

Supposedly this is from 1917, stole it from facebook

 The fruitarian picks one fruit and eats only that fruit each day.  His theory is that in nature you wouldn't visit a peach orchard and an apple orchard in the same day.  So he buys his groceries in bulk from a restaurant supplier, has 4 refrigerators at home, and stocks them heavily with fresh fruit.  Today's eats might consist solely of a 40 lb watermelon.  Tomorrow might be 10 lbs of apples.  He eats massive quantities of fruit every day, all raw and natural.  And he wins 100 mile ultramarathons.  We cannot question his methods.

Scott Jurek's new book Eat & Run is getting very popular, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.  He promotes a vegan lifestyle with proper training and he's been winning ultra's for years now.  I will read this before my first ultra in December.

I also found this great documentary called Pure Fruit if you've got an hour to watch it.

I'm totally sick of reading Wheat Belly, but determined to finish this incredibly boring read.  It does a really good job of putting me to sleep at night, but the theories are sound and medically based.

If you choose to eat nothing but fruit as a lifestyle, that's called Fruitarianism.  Fruitarianism also allows some nuts and seeds.  If you stick to only fruits for 1-3 days, it's called a "fruit fast", and if you only go all fruit for one day it's known as a "fruit detox".  I'm going to start taking Mondays as Fruit Detox days, starting this week.

You learn different things trying a fruit detox like this.  I decided to take the Fruitarian's approach and start out with an apple day.  Figuring that you could have multiple varieties of apples in the same orchard, I went out Sunday night and bought a shitload of apples. 

There is no concept of timed breakfast, lunch and dinner when you eat all fruit.  You just eat more fruit whenever you feel like it. I still drank coffee all day.  I still drank a bunch of water.  But whenever I got hungry I grabbed another apple.  Monday night I hit the gym for some weightlifting and an hour on the stationary bike, just like every other monday.  The workout just happened to be fueled on apple power.

I also learned that apples are very acidic.  Towards the end of the day my teeth really started to hurt when biting into the apple.  So I switched to a banana before and after the workout, and had some nuts about 10 pm as well.  Overall I still ate about 2000 calories on the day.  Aside from the painful teeth there were really no negative effects.  But on the positive side, we can start by comparing weights:

MMNW: 184.8 lbs, 22.7% body fat
Tuesday's MNW: 181.4 lbs, 20.8% bf

When you multiply that out, I lost 4.2 lbs of pure body fat, and 3.4 lbs overall so I must have retained some water.  But that was only in one day!  One day people!  The theory is that when you only take in food that contains less than 5% fat, the "you are what you eat" rule dictates that you will then have less than 5% fat.  The effects were residual too, as 181.4 is the highest I've weighed since tuesday morning.  I went right back to eating natural, unprocessed foods for the rest of the week. So that fat melted off of me and has stayed off so far.

So I was full the whole day, ate as much as I wanted to, ate constantly the whole day, had plenty of energy, got in a great workout, and melted away bodyfat.  What would I change?

I still don't want to try and sustain eating only fruit all the time.  For a one day detox it worked great, and I'm really looking forward to next monday.  But one day a week is enough.  Eating only one type of fruit for the whole day is also a really bad choice.  I got so sick of apples by the end, ugh.  I can see having a primary fruit with some secondary stuff to back it up.  But you need more variety in the day than just that.  It's supposed to be seasonal fruit anyway.  Apples were a bad choice for the one fruit I was limited to, they are really too acidic.

I'm already looking forward to doing this again next monday.  You never know, I might just eat 30 bananas.  But mango's are in season right now too, and the berries are starting to come in.  So there will be a variety of fruit, and we'll have to see how that detox turns out.

Gluten Free Sucks

No really, this blows.  I guess I didn't realize how often we went out to eat at restaurants or what type of restaurants we normally visit.  But the places we frequent might have 50 items on the menu, and the only gluten free options are the 4 salads listed.  Whole sections on the menu for burgers, pasta, and sandwiches.  And 4 salads tucked away in the corner is all that's gluten free.

With the kids out of town last week, we did get to go to places that serve food they don't eat.  Our favorite turned out to be Jasmin, a middle eastern bistro.  I love middle eastern food, and this is the first place I've found up here that rivals the Pita House from Greenville.  Hummos, pitas, falafel, gyro meat, chicken shwarma, tsazeki sauce, bring it on.  Love it, I could eat it every day.  And the only flour is in the pita which really isn't that bad or hard to avoid.  Most middle eastern and asian restaurants serve a gluten free base with rice or something instead of flour.  Sushi with rice, chinese or hibachi with rice, or indian food with basmati..... I have to stop now before I ruin my lunch workout and hit the buffet instead.

The problem is that our kids don't eat any of it.  We can't take them to any of the places that serve any of the foods I just mentioned.  Bigun did actually try lo mein recently, and claims that she did like it.  But I guarantee she'll forget that the next time we try to get chinese takeout.  And why do we only seemingly encourage her to only try the most unhealthy versions of multicultural foods?

Saturday in Charleston we did find the coolest place yet down there, Brick House Kitchen.  BHK had a special event going on outside, so we were able to get inside to order off of a special menu.  I ended up getting some grilled buffalo shrimp with mixed greens and grilled potatoes and it was all perfect.  No flour anywhere, the portion size was perfect, price was right, it was perfectly cooked (and it's easy to turn grilled shrimp into rubber), the decor was great and they had the Grateful Dead playing.  You never find a place like that, and I can't wait to go back.  If only it wasn't 5 hours away.

So yes after 2 weeks of going completely gluten free I tried re-introducing the white stuff.  It keeps getting worse.  Without eating any flour, my energy levels plummeted.  I mean I had no gas in the tank, ever.  Workouts got sluggish but not really bad.  But just the daily work routine and keeping up with the kids put me to sleep.  And, ironically, I also had sleep problems.  Sure, the symptoms that I was trying to get away from went away, but I'm not sure if it was worth it.

The positives from that two weeks included dropping 8 lbs, mostly from the belly fat.  Also I didn't have any kind of digestive issues or headaches (well, one headache but that's not flour's fault).  And I felt pretty good at first, but then it started a steady decline that got very deep.

Then Thursday was a pita, Friday was a pizza, Saturday and Sunday were biscuits.  Sunday also had some leftover pizza.  Overall this is still not much flour.  But the symptoms started to come back by Monday.  Heartburn through the weekend, regular headaches, and a new skin problem on my right foot.  The worst thing so far happened this morning.  I wanted to try my old favorite oatmeal breakfast again.  I made it and it was tasty.  But before I finished I felt like I was not going to be able to stand up again.  It was just sitting so heavily in my belly I felt completely disgusting.  Not cool, oatmeal, not cool.  It also didn't keep me feeling full as long as the meat & eggs usually does.  It was seriously disturbing.

So basically in conclusion I really feel the need for change, but still don't know what the right thing is to change.  I can give a thumbs up to gluten free but I know it's not sustainable long term and I don't think I have an "allergy" or an "intolerance" to wheat.  Wheat Belly is an amazingly boring book.  I only read non-fiction and love it, but I have really struggled to get through the first 14% of this book. 

There are other options.  I did really well as a vegetarian last year so I might go back to more of a plant-based approach.  I have started getting hooked on Ultra Runner Podcasts and was really intrigued by The Fruititarian, a guy who eats nothing but whole raw fruit, and tons of it.  Scott Jurek's new book is also getting high on my list.  Lots of fun things to consider. This year I have to fuel for speed instead of endurance.  I'll figure it out.

50 for Fun

Saturday morning was the initial FS 50 triathlon in Washington, NC, which turned out to be an adorable little coastal town.  I covered the whole course in 3:43:12 breaking the 3:45 overall goal, I PR'd the swim and run distances, and completely blew it on the bike.  Overall it was an incredibly fun race and a great trip.

Friday night we got out of town later than expected, but still made it down to Little Washington in about 2 hours.  After getting checked into the hotel, we drove to the race site to make it easier to find parking and the transition area.  Then we were on the hunt for ice cream.  Turns out there was some kind of friday night festival going on in the Main Street district, with live music playing and lots of the stores open late, including an ice cream shop.  We didn't bring the camera, but LW has an incredibly cute small town downtown that was just so quaint and picturesque, it's hard to accurately describe.

I didn't sleep much friday night, maybe nerves about the race.  But I was still up and ready to roll about 5:15 Saturday morning.  They opened the breakfast at the hotel early to accomodate the racers, so I stuffed it down and we got out to TA to get setup.  Air temp was around 47 degrees, and the water temp was more like 73. 

Walking it into TA

The sound we were swimming in

I taped the three gel's to the top bar of my bike, got all of the gear setup, and oops I forgot to bring a towel.  Fortunately, the guy racked up next to me had an extra one.  We ended up hanging out with him and his wife a lot, they are also from Raleigh, and she actually recognized me from the blog!  First time I've been recognized in years.  Very cool.

Swim 1 mile: Goal 30 minutes, actual 29:50 PR!!!

My last several open water swims have been one or two miles going back to last year and the Ironman, and my goal for all of them has been to break 30 minutes for an open water mile.  Finally this race I actually freaking did it. 

Nice shot of Kelley and I before getting in the water

My belly looks huge here, but I'm still ready to swim.

Get ready!

Go!  My first stroke is pretty clean

Lots of swimmers in the water

 It was a triangle course with an in-water start.  The 100 mile racers started at 7:00, and the 50 milers started 10 minutes later.  The close orange/yellow buoy is the turnaround so the 100'ers could start their second lap.  I used it for sighting when I was coming back in.

I started kind of mid-pack, and really I should have moved up a bit more.  I got caught up in some traffic at the start and had a tough time passing a few people.  I was one of the only racers that did not wear a wetsuit.  Oddly enough most people were in full sleeve suits.  I don't like full sleeve suits ever, they just restrict the arm movement too much.  And if the water temps are above about 65* I'll skip the wetsuit entirely, it just isn't worth it.

How NOT to breathe

 This picture was near the start still, and it's a fantastic action shot.   You can see my head right in the middle, and here's what's wrong.  My forehead is pointing to the sky so my shoulders are stacked, my head is too far out of the water which is naturally going to pull my legs down too far under water.  That creates more drag and means I'm working too hard to move through the water at that speed.  Body rotation is one thing, but don't pick your head up to breathe, turn it to the side and put your chin on your shoulder.  You can't even see my feet or kick splash back there.  Not good form.

Made it to the first turn buoy with plenty of other people nearby but without any real physical punishment yet.  I was just settled into my stroke at that point.  I've been working on my kick a lot at the RAM practices, so I was putting a decent kick out there.  Between the turns I swam pretty straight and fast.  I got kicked in the back once, and a few times when I breathed to the right I caught a mouth full of  water, but nothing that really broke my stroke.  This was in a sound or inlet, so it tasted like fresh water even though we were at the coast, and there was no current.  It was like a beach swim in a lake!

I made the second turn buoy and started heading back to shore, and for some reason got way off course to the right.  I really tried to work on my kick this segment, without wearing down my legs for the bike.  But I just had that gut feeling like I could break 30, and I wanted it bad. Bike ride be damned.

This is breathing done right

From our form lesson earlier, you can see this time the top of my head is not completely out of the water, my shoulders are not stacked, this is an appropriate body movement, my arm is relaxed in recovery and the breath is coming easily.  I even have a few people drafting off of me!  Very cool picture.

 I came out of the water feeling good.  They didn't have a clock out there so I had no idea what my time was.  Short run up to TA and let's hit it.

T1: 2:20

Yea, I kind of thought I might puke coming out of the water.  So by the time I got back to the bike it was a good time to sit down, throw the socks and bike shoes on, towel off a bit and get out there.

ready to roll

Bike 44 miles: Goal 2:30, Actual 2:27:55, 17.8 MPH

The bike ride started off feeling pretty good, then went horribly wrong.

Started off feeling ok

I had a plan.  One gel about 5 minutes into the ride would fuel me up to recover from the swim.  44 miles isn't so unbelievably far that I need to take it easy, it's ok to hammer a bit since I knew it was going to be a competitive field.  The flip side is that this was going to be the first time since Ironman that I had been over 20 miles and the cycling endurance might not be there.  Manage the nutrition properly and that won't be a problem.

I did not manage the nutrition properly. I left the Garmin at home so I had no measure of time or distance.  I wanted to ride and run on feel by perceived effort so I wouldn't try to push too hard to maintain some target speed.  That also meant I had no measure of distance.  I took one gel what I thought was about 5 minutes after I started riding. 

Then after I started to feel my legs fatigue I asked another racer how far we had gone and he answered 23 miles.  That seemed appropriate to me.  I knew I wanted to take my second gel about the halfway point so I went ahead and took it.  Feeling good again, let's keep on rolling.  The course, like most coastal bike courses, heads inland.  It was a loop with no spurs, all on public roads.  Some of the roads had recently been repaved and were incredibly smooth, and some were about to be repaved and were in horrible shape.  Lots of farmland, the corn was about a foot high most of the time, and a few cattle farms providing smell relief.  The winds picked up strong, but not as brutal strong as the IMFL bike course or some of the other tougher winds I've seen before.  Tough, but not brutal.  What you would expect from a coastal bike course. 

About 10 minutes after taking my second gel I ask someone else how far we've gone.  This is when I noticed the problems starting to begin.  This guy said we had only gone 18 miles.  What?  excuse me?  Didn't you say 30?  Oh shit, I took my second gel about 20 minutes before I was supposed to.  I'll just have to hold out and take the last gel at the right time, and use the bottle of powerade and water to get me through until then.  Just keep pedaling.

Of course, before long my legs were already completely fatigued, and my ass was starting to get pretty sore.  Like I said, this was the first time I've gone over 20 miles since Ironman 7 months ago.  The cycling endurance just was not there.  I was really starting to suffer out there.  The speed kept dropping, my motivation kept leaving, and I was getting slower and wanted to cry.  There weren't any mile markers anywhere on the road that I noticed before, so when I finally saw a big 40 painted on the road I let out a loud verbal relief howl.  Man was I ever glad to see that 40 mile marker.  That was oh so incredibly nice.  Yes, thank you finally it was there.

I waited about 5 or 10 more minutes, then I took my last gel.  Ready to be fueled up for the run, I was starting to see the sound again and knew the end of the bike leg was close.  Then about 10 minutes after I took the gel I saw Lauren whom I had been talking to in TA before the race.  Her odometer was only showing 34 miles.

You have got to be kidding me.  I told her I was going to puke and cry if we really still had 10 miles left to go.  I did not puke or cry, but we really did have 10 miles left.  Eventually I had to remind myself that this bike leg has to end sometime, and just to keep pedaling until it does.  Please, come on, end now.  Nutrition strategy was well thought out, but I completely blew it.  And I was severely undertrained for the bike leg.  I was good until about 25 or 30 miles.  Ready to turn in a fast oly split.  But 44 miles?  Way undertrained.

Most awkward dismount ever

Totally dead on my feet, but so glad to be done with that

Overall I should say that I knew I had that one coming.  I should have brought the Garmin to track my distance, and I should have gotten in some longer rides in training. The strangest thing of all?  I never passed anyone else on the bike.  at all.  I only got passed by about 14 people, but I never passed anyone.  In most tri's I'm fast enough on the bike to pass a few cyclists who are slower swimmers than me.  This time, I'm just glad it was over. Yes it was horrible but it's over now and into T2 we go!

T2: 1:20, total transition: goal 5:00, actual 3:40!

Two fisting it to get more water in

Seriously?  That's the picture you want to take?

Bike helmet & shoes off, running shoes on.  Grab the hat, chug some more water and go.  I wasn't conditioned for a bike leg that long, and I totally blew the nutrition since I didn't know the distances.  Running would feel good at this point.

Run 5 miles: Goal 40 minutes, Actual 41:49

I"m not going to really call that a success, but it is still a PR and I can live with it.  It's only a PR because I don't race the 5 mile distance very often, so I beat my 2008 Ache Around the Lake time.  It's not a common distance!

Oh crap I have to run now.

Let's do this!

The run course was a straight out and back, through the park first then over the bridge and down the main road in this little town to a turnaround point, then back through the park to an incredibly long finishing road.  Since I knew I wasn't properly fueled I didn't want to bonk with a few miles left.  But since running is my strong suit I started passing the people that were passing me on the bike.  I just found my pace, held form as long as I could, and walked when I needed to.  The strategy was to only walk for 8 breaths at a time, that was enough to bring my heart rate back down and start to feel better.

About to catch my next victim in mile 2

Doing the dead man shuffle

I actually felt really good getting to the turnaround point.  They gave us the yellow livestrong style bracelets to keep people honest at the turnaround.  I was passing people and chatting with some on the way back, but it had to be a much more focused run.  I had to focus on my form as it was starting to fall apart.

That's how I felt in the second half

Sweet!

Finished: 3:43:12 Goal under 3:45, 48/85 overall, 8/11 Men 35-39

Overall this race was kind of screwy. Really competitive crowd.  I claim to be a pretty fast guy anyway, so if I PR the swim and the run distances and didn't crash on the bike I should be in the top half.  I was actually pleasantly surprised to see 17.8 mph average on the bike, it felt much slower than that.  But nobody else in my age group was slower than 18.3 mph.  With the way the distances split out, it was a cyclists race to win.  And I'm not a cyclist by nature, I'm a runner by nature, swimmer by choice, and triathlete by practice.  The venue was amazing, Little Washington is an incredible town and the course was fun.  I wouldn't hesitate to do this race again or recommend the venue to others.  But I've got to work on my bike endurance next time.

Or not.  Wednesday (the day after tomorrow) is the first Aquathon of the season.  It's a half mile swim followed by a 2.6 mile run.Let's just skip the bike entirely for this little multisport adventure.  I did this race last year and absolutely loved the format, but I remember the trails killed me on the run.  I will adjust my expectations for Wednesday.  And hopefully break the 36:11 I put up last year.

IMFL 2011 Long Version

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.