Ironman Wisconsin

Well yesterday was the final leg of my mission.  I had no idea what would happen but suspected the wheels would fall off in the marathon portion of the race and I would walk most of it.

What ended up happening was something that surprised everyone, especially me.

I felt unbelievable on the marathon portion and just keep running and running like forest gump...all the way to the finish line and beat my Personal Record for an Ironman race by over 1 hour!!

I still can't believe it happened and I suppose only endurance athletes may comprehend how big of a deal this is....but trust me, doing something you had no idea if you could complete (2 ironmans in a week) and then just hitting the ball out of the park when you did it....well....just is so truly amazing that I am firmly sitting on Cloud 9 today and will most likely be here all week. (Ha ha ha)

Full race report to follow shortly.

Ironman Recovery Week

Well, this week is all about recovery.

I've received so many questions about how I plan to attempt to recover a bit from Ironman Louisville so that I have the ability to complete Ironman Wisconsin. So here's what I'm doing this week to recover and get ready to race again.

1. I got a massage immediately after I finished Ironman Louisville, got another 1 hr massage on Tuesday, will get another 1 hr massage on thursday, and get a final 30 min massage on Saturday before the Ironman Wisconsin race.
2. I am taking a nightly dose of Hammer Nutrition's Whey protein protocal; which raises the human growth hormone production during sleep. It also contains Glutamine; which promotes the immune system so I don't get sick from wearing down my body so much.
   
3. I'm sleeping in compression tights (www.skins.net) to improve blood circulation in my legs.
4. I'm taking (and have been for about 2 months now) Hammer Nutrition's "Daily Essentials" Premium Insurance Caps, Mito Caps, and Race Caps Supreme.
5. I'm downing Ensure like there is no tomorrow (six 350 calorie cans each day) to jack up my caloric intake this week since I burned 10,000-12,000 calories this past Sunday and will burn another 10,000-12,000 calories again this coming Sunday.
6. Drinking about 34 ounces of water an hour to continue to flush out the toxins and help with recovery.
7. Taking Hammer Nutrition REM caps each night so I get a solid 7-8 hours of sleep per night.
8. Went aqua jogging for 10-15 minutes and did some backstroke for about 10 minutes on Tuesday night to keep the blood flowing through the muscles and promote repair and recovery of the muscle fibers.
9. Took an ice bath immediately following the post-race massage on sunday. BBBRRRRRR!!
10. Playing with my son each day to keep my spirits up and allow my body to produce those great beneficial hormones it produces when we laugh and have fun!
    

So that's it. We'll see what happens on Sunday. (yikes!)

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Ironman Louisville 2008 Race Report

Mission #1 Accomplished.

The goal was to take this first Ironman this week at 50% race effort so the wheels don't fall off at Ironman Wisconsin next weekend.

SWIM: TT start, kinda strange for an Ironman. I prefer the mass start. Anyway, got to swim start and just lollygagged through the swim...even did some backstroke for much of it to mix it up a bit and balance out the muscle effort. Ended up swimming pretty far off course due to the backstroke...oh well. Funny part of the swim was that I had to swim about 30 degrees off center in order to swim straight because the current was pushing into the KY shore. Swim time 1:17

BIKE: I rode this course in it's entirety about a month ago so I knew exactly what to expect; which we all know is a good thing. Some rookie yelled out during the first 12 miles of the bike to cyclists passing him "Hey slow down you guys, this is a 112 mile bike." I was so flabbergasted and pissed off at the audacity of this guy that I retorted as loud as I could, Holy #^@ are you serious? I didn't know this was 112 miles. Why didn't anyone tell me this was 112 miles. Thank you so much for letting us know. (that guy was unbelievable)

Anyway, 1st leg of the bike was fine but the middle of the bike I started to have some nutritional issues (aka gastro issues) so my IM experience tells me "If you feel good...eat, If you don't...slow down" so I slowed my HR down well into zone 1 (approx 120bpm) for about 3 hours or so and finally realized what was going on, fixed the problem and was able to ramp back up to mid zone 2 (approx 145bpm) for the last 30 miles of the bike...but the gastro issues took their toll and my legs were getting pretty heavy and tired towards the end of the bike. Total bike time 6:11 (18.1mph avg)

RUN: Ah yes, the wonderful marathon. I could NOT stop thinking about IMWI next week the entire race so the first 8 miles of the run I instilled a run/walk effort even though I felt great. From miles 8-18 I just focused on my nutrition plan; which was 1 race cap supreme, 1 mito cap, and 1 endurolyte at the top of the hour, 1 hammer gel at the top of the hour, then whatever I felt like in between; which happened to be pretzels and oranges.

Stopped for about 5-7 min around mile 18 to help a lady that looked pretty bad as she gazed up at me and asked me to help her. So I stopped, assessed her the best I could (she was cold and nauseous but not dizzy yet), sat her down and talked her off the ledge. She kept saying she was on track to break 12 hrs with only 7 miles to go and that she was really pissed off about it. I told her it was ok and only a race and not her life. I pointed to a fellow racer passing by to get the cop at the next intersection and have him come back here with his radio. Waited with her until the cop came and then went on my merry way.

Rest of the marathon was a little strange as my RPE and my mental exertion was not in sync. My mental exertion was about 30%-40% (i.e. I didn't have to dig down deep at all) but my legs/muscles just weren't responding. Usually it's the opposite for me during an IM. Kinda curious.

Well, finished right about where I predicted I would (13ish) with a final time of 13:17. Probably could have gone sub 13 but just couldn't stop thinking about IMWI...that idea just kept freaking me out during this race and really made me take it easy the entire time.

I took my resting HR this morning and it is already back down to normal; which is very strange. I will check it again tomorrow.

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Interview

Kevin at Enduranceplanet.com was nice enough to interview me and talk about what it is I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what the disease of Aplastic Anemia is all about.

Take a moment to listen if you haven't already.

CLICK HERE

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Please help make a difference - www.2foraa.org

Too much it too little

Well, today is 8 days out from Ironman Louisville and 15 days out from Ironman Wisconsin and I can't believe I'm still "burned out" from all the training. I know I'm doing less and less workouts each day and each week until races week, but I still am not feeling the restlessness I typically feel during taper.

Normally I can't wait to get my workout it and the workouts don't seem like they're enough to keep me "happy" because they're too short, but I'm not feeling that this year....strange. Not sure what to make of it, if anything, but I started to notice it a couple days ago. I'm just not into it. Normally at this time I'm all jacked up and cleaning my bike with a toothpick, making lists for transition and packing, thinking about what to bring and what to wear and how to fuel, etc etc.

Not for these Ironman races...I am thinking a little bit about what to wear but don't care about cleaning my bike and haven't even put on my race cassette on my rear wheel yet. I still have my time trial 11-21 cassette on and will race with both Ironman races with a 12-25 but haven't event bothered to put it on the bike yet.

Very strange feeling this time during taper...

Normally too much training is too little for me, but it appears that this time around to little training is too much.

Looking at this as the glass half full, I am ready and trained for these races and so physically I'm ready to rock and roll. Mentally I'm just not on edge or super excited as I was in previous Ironman races; which could very well be a good thing. I'm just viewing these races today as just something I've been doing.

2.4 mile swim? no worries, I've done more than that in the pool...a few times too.

112 mile bike? no problemo. I've done 8 bike rides each weekend of 100 miles or more (give or take 2-3 miles)

26.2 mile run? no problemo. I can walk the whole thing if I need to. :)

But I still find it curious that I'm in the "burned out" stage still this close to races week. Hopefully when I get down to Louisville the excitement of the race venue and all the other athletes will get me back into the "little kid excitement" stage that I've always felt at Ironman.

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Taper Time & Michael Phelps

Ok, so taper time is here. Some people asked me what "taper" means...so I guess it makes sense to explain.

When you are training for an Ironman race (or any race for that matter) you build fitness by continually increasing the workload your body can endure. However, contrary to popular/laymen opinion, you actually don't get stronger by working out; you only get stronger by RECOVERING from the workouts you've done. So as you continue to add stress to your body in calculated/healthy increments, your body adapts and increased fitness is had through the recovering of those increasingly difficult workouts over time.

So what does this have to do with "taper"?

Tapering is the act of getting you body FULLY recovered for a race. To accurately effectuate an Ironman taper, an athlete must pust themselves to an extremely stressful place (if you're unsure of where that place is, feel free to read my previous 3 posts and you'll see what I mean) then gradually reduce your workouts so that you don't fully recover BEFORE or AFTER race day.

To correctly taper is really more art than science because people's bodies recovery at different rates and the same person actually recovers at a different rate than they did when they were younger.

Anyway, you get the idea. The reason I'm excited about Taper Time is that I am now finally feeling a bit more rested, my body is feeling more powerful in my workouts, and I feel like everything is coming together.

I did a 30 kilometer individual time trial a couple days ago on Saturday and I felt unbelievable. My legs responded to everything I dished out and I gave it 100% effort...then AFTER the race I rode 1.5 hours at a medium pace (coach's orders) and I continued to feel unbelievable.

This was very mentally good for me because undertaking 2 Ironmans in a week is no task for the faint of heart and definitely some new territory for me. I have no idea if I can accomplish this goal, but the way I felt this Saturday during the time trial...made me begin to believe that I will amaze myself with this accomplishment.

I just hope others take notice and are moved to donate to the charity I'm doing all of this for! :)

Oh, and I'm sure you're reading this entire post to see where Michael Phelps fits into all this...

Well, he doesn't, I just wanted to get more hits on my blog via google searches on "michael phelps"

sorry to disappoint. :)

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Almost Home

Ok, so here we are...in the home stretch for the unbelievably crazy training schedule. I'm sick and tired of having to miss social events, professional after work events, not being with my wife and son on the weekends because I'm gone doing some unbelievable training escapades, and being run down, tired, and on the verge begin sick (coughing and sore throat on and off).

So, what's the glass half full side of the story? It's that I am in the most unbelievable shape of my life and quite frankly, being 38 years old, don't know if I'll ever be in this good of shape again (ha ha ha). Also, next week's training schedule will be almost half of what this week's is and the following week is RACE WEEK!!!

This is the home stretch and I'm so excited that I was able to withstand all this training, a new job, a new son, and my unbelievably incredible wife who puts up with all my time away training...she should be canonized!

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Please help make a difference - www.2foraa.org