Name This Triathlete.....

• She sends aggressive charging pit bulls running for cover with a single Appache-like scream
• She warms her hands down her pants.....   in August for crying out loud!
• She occasionally finds my jokes funny (believe me, this is rare!)
• She can drop her chain twice within about a mile and a half

and....  best of all.....   she can inadvertently give herself a "Hitler moustache" made of chain oil and ride with it for miles, thus giving great amusement to her fellow riders!

Of course, a decent guy would have told her, but why spoil all that fun?   :-)

Yes, you've guessed it, I rode 68 plus miles with The Compass this morning and, as usual, it was greatly entertaining.  I won't even bother regaling you with the details of the giant vulture; the pack of dogs; the barnyard animal impressions....  let's just say that riding with Lindsay is always entertaining!

Thanks for coming out Compass - can we do it again soon?

Somehow I just couldn't bring myself to draw the "actual" oil moustache........

So How Am I Doing?

Back in the middle of July I rather rashy announced that I would be racing my first 70.3 mile "Half Ironman" race in October (Rev.3 Anderson, South Carolina).  In order to help achieve this goal, I set myself an "I Will" list of things that I would try to do outside of "workouts".  I think it's time to assess how I'm doing and determine where more work is required.   Here's the original list (in black) and my updates (in red)....

 

I Will……

I will make myself and my coach proud at Rev.3 South Carolina 70.3 in October    Definitely still a goal!   Overall I'm pretty pleased with the way my training is going so far.

In order to do this I will……

….work my ass off for the next three months.   (A)   I feel as if I am working hard.  Workout frequency, duration and intensity have ramped-up.  Summer months have helped as I have had significantly less work travel to get in the way.  Now I just need to keep it going!

….give 100% on every workout  (A-)   Can I really say 100%?  Probably not and there are times when I just "don't have it" or feel tired, but I'm certainly trying and I haven't skipped any scheduled workouts so far apart from one day when I was feeling unwell. 

….lose at least 10 lbs by race day  (B)   Hmmm....   this one is tough.  I have been working hard at it, but the weight is slow to come off.   The tape measure tells me things are going well (had to put an extra hole in my belt last week!) but the scale is slow to move.   I'm pretty sure that I'm doing all of the right things though and that this surely must come!

….eat fewer carbs  (A)   Working hard at this and have even given up my beloved Sour Cream and Onion Pringles (aka "Crack Chips").   She Who Must Be Obeyed is giving me crap for eating less than her!   :-)

….move my calorie input earlier in the day  (B+).  Trying.  Eating more substantial breakfasts and smaller dinners, but we put a lot of emphasis on family meal times so it can be a challenge!

….cut alcohol consumption by at least 50% (I’m not going nuts!)  (B+)  Have cut down but give myself a B+ because I know I can do better.  As of this week I'm back on my "no mid week" schedule.

….eat more fruit and veggies  (A-)   Doing pretty well here.   I'm not quite Jenn Mayfield with her rabbit food shakes yet, but I'm doing OK!

….stay hydrated  (A).  Sure love those Nuun tablets!

….get more sleep (get to bed earlier)  (B+) Was doing pretty well until this week when the kids went back to school so the alarm goes off very early again.   Need to re-adjust bed time!

….get my workouts in earlier to beat the heat  (B)  Too many early morning calls with Europe, but I'm being good when I can.

….not sneak any extra breaths during swim workouts  (A)   What can I say?  I've been good.

….do more open water work  (A)  Spending a lot of time at the coast this summer helped.  Lots of time in the Atlantic and the sounds.

….perfect my sighting and swim straight!   (B)  Have been trying hard, but tough to judge.  I think I'm getting better.

….finish swim workouts with tired lats  (A).  Yep!   I'm pretty darned tired after some of my pool sessions

….not mash on the bike and maintain a high cadence – distribute power more evenly  (A-)  Doing well when I think about it, but could do better.   Needs to become second nature.

….engage my core and glutes on the bike   (?)   Hopefully this is coming, but I need The Puppeteer to confirm.

….not freewheel unless I run out of gears   (A-)  Working hard at this.  Rides on the flats at the coast where the pedaling is relentless helps, as does spending more time "in the big ring"

….take more calories on my rides  (C)  I don't think enough about this.  I have just added a dual water bottle holder to the saddle of  The Slut, so hopefully this will help. 

….stay aero!   (A-)   Considerable improvement over the past couple of months.

….do 10 mins dynamic warm-up before every run   (A)   I'm doing as I'm told!

….toe-off and finish every stride  (B)  Still working on this.  I need to concentrate more while I run.

….learn to use contralateral rotation when I run  (B?)   Ditto. 

….become a lot more flexible  (B+)   Working hard on this and I guess I'm probably improving, burt still a long way to go for this old codger!

….do TRX or other core/flex work at least twice a week   (B)   Some weeks better than others - what can I say?

….do yoga or other stretch/flex work at least twice a week  (B+)  Have been stretching, but haven't done much yoga.  I need to work more on this!

 

So there you have it.  I have tried to be honest in my assessments and overall I am reasonaly happy with my progress.  Mostly As and Bs.  Still lots of work to do though!

 

Highlight for me has undoubtedly been my swim progress.  On a macro level The Puppeteer went as far as to say that my run is now more a "limiter" than my swim last week and that's really saying something!   Outside of actual performance in any of the three disciplines core strength and flexibility remain limiters and are big areas to work on over the coming months.   More effort also required on getting those 10 lbs off - I'm about half way there.

 

More of this.....

 

...and this.....



....and this......



....and less of this!  :-(



Getting there!

A Swimming Milestone....

Well, a 1.2 milestone to be precise.....

My swim has undoubtedly improved dramatically this year:  the routine pool sessions I have been doing would have been inconceivable this time last year and I remain very comfortable in open water.  I still have to make sure, however, that I can "put it all together" for both the White Lake International (Olympic) distance race (1500 M swim) and Rev.3 South 70.3 (1.2 mile swim).

This evening (along with The Compass) I joined the Beaver Dam (Falls Lake) workout group for one of their regularly scheduled open water swims and decided that it was time to go the full 1.2 miles. 

Whaddaya know?   It was actually pretty straightforward.   I concentrated on keeping my stroke long and smooth and "went steady" (rather than try to race it) and finished in almost exactly 40 minutes.  I wore my Garmin 310xt GPS under my swim cap and it showed exactly 1.20 miles at the finish   Not even a thought of resting or switching to breaststroke!   Maybe I'm finally a swimmer?   Certainly this was a nice confidence builder for me.   I can't wait to go back and repeat it next week.

I'm a happy camper.  Now I just need to learn to do it in this type of chaos!.....   :-)

Updated Race Calendar.....and stuff!

Well, we are basically a little more than half way through the triathlon season, the Olympics are over and my super speedy "short course" friends are up in Burlington, VT preparing to race in USAT age group nationals this weekend.   So what's an old fat guy to do while all of this is going on?   Yep.....   keep training and update my race calendar!

So far my triathlon race experiences have been limited to shorter events.   I'm not really built to be a super long endurance guy but,then again, I'm not really built to be a sprinter either!    What's a guy to do?   Several things have factored-in to my decision making:

Firstly, my training has (I think) been going pretty well.  The summer months typically bring a bit of a lull at work and a lot less travel, so I have been able to work this to my advantage and increase my training hours reasonably significantly.

Next, my swim has really started to come together.   The Puppeteer has offered nice words about my form (still lots of work to do though) and I rattle off workouts in the pool that would have been inconceivable last year. 

My base fitness is (again, I think) much better than it was this time last year.   I have also been working on core strength and flexibility.   I'm not exactly Gumby, but I'm getting there.   Hopefully also losing a few pounds, but this continues to be a challenge.

I originally thought that running my first 26.2 mile full marathon might be a good challenge this year, but somehow the thought of the run intensive training (especially during the summer months) just lost it's appeal.   I was interested to see The Puppeteer say just this week that running is currently my limiter - which I'm taking as a very positive endorsement of my swim!  :-)

Finally, like many relative "newbies" to the sport of triathlon, I have a desire to test myself against longer courses.   I'm not up for a full 140.6 mile "Ironman" distance event yet, but I can sure as heck go longer than sprint distance!

So....    here's my updated race calendar for the rest of the year:

Sept. 8th.   White Lake International.   White Lake, NC
Sept. 23rd.   Outer Banks Sprint.   Manteo, NC
Oct.  14th.  Rev.3 SC 70.3 (Half Ironman Distance).  Anderson, SC
Nov. 11th.   Outer Banks Half Marathon.  Kill Devil Hills, NC

Links for all races on the right hand side of this page.

The highlight, of course, will be my first half Ironman (70.3 miles) race.   1.2 mile swim; 56 mile bike; 13.1 mile run.   I'll be very interested to see how I do and already have my eye on the new Ironman 70.3 Raleigh race and Beach-to-Battleship (Wilmington, NC) next year - I'll keep you posted!

Riders on the Storm

So why was this Doors tune going through my head over and over again this morning?   Because for the first time ever I got caught in a really heavy thunderstorm here in Nags Head, NC while out on a bike ride. 

The story really starts yesterday.  I was scheduled for a 2.5 hour ride and got up early with the intention of driving my bike over the Oregon Inlet Bridge and then riding to Hatteras and back.   After chugging my first coffee I went to get ready to ride, only to discover that I had left my bike shorts in Raleigh - damn!   No worries though, I need a new pair anyway, so I decided to go to OBX Cycles; buy some new shorts and ride later in the day.   Unfortuately those plans were scuppered.  I bought a nice new pair of Cannondale shorts after the store opened at noon, but thunderstorms messed up my ride plans.   OK, on to "plan C"....    move the ride to today and do the movement prep. and strength work originally scheduled for today yesterday afternoon (I also went for a nice long walk along the beach).

Before I headed out this morning I checked the radar on Weather.com.   Some rain down on Hatteras Island persuaded me that I should ride north, where the radar was completely clear.  I was about ten miles up the road in Kill Devil Hills, however, when it became apparent that a few "pop-up" storms were forming and within minutes I was riding in heavy rain with a steady off-shore breeze.  Now I don't mind riding in "heavy rain" (in a masochistic kind of way) so I just kept pushing on, but a few minutes later the rain became absolutely torrential - one might almost say "Biblical"!   I could barely see and it was clearly not safe to stay on the road, so (along with a guy from Pennsylvania on a nice Cervelo P3) I sought shelter under the car port of a local motel.

I guess the lens on the phone was a bit wet!

After a while the deluge abated and I continued north to the Wright Memorial Bridge before turning for home.  The sun was out at the turn, but it was pretty clear from the view as I headed south that my adventure wan't over yet.....

Around milepost four

Milespost eight - getting closer!

I basically follwed a spectacular lightning show south for about fourteen miles.   Luckily the rain stayed ahead of me, but I had to deal with extremely gusty winds and flooded roads.   It's hard to maintain your speed when you're riding through 2" of water on the road!   :-)   I will say that, for once, drivers were extremely courteous this morning - not always the case here in the summer when there are so many vacationers!

Another one in the books and at least I wasn't this guy......  :-)

Learning to Run....

Running....    you just do it, right?   Any two year old knows how to simply get up and go, right?

The answer to the second question is "yes", those little suckers simply get up and go.  They don't think about it; they don't need shoes; they just run with pure joyous abandon and beautiful, natural form.

51 year old guys?   Not so much!.......    :-)

One of the things I really need to work on is my run form.   This and losing a few pounds could be the difference between a good half marathon leg at the upcoming Rev.3 SC 70.3 race and struggling home.  Thankfully, as best I can tell (based particularly on feedback from the guys at Bull City Running and coach Marisa) I'm pretty much a "mid foot striker" and I don't have huge issues with either over or under pronation.  I see this as a good start (especially when it comes to avoiding injury), but there's soooo much more to work on.  Basically I'm still pretty much a "plodder"...   I don't float majestically across the asphalt...  I fight my way there!  

Most recently I have been working on "toeing off" and trying to finish every stride.   I can certainly feel the benefits when I'm fresh, but find it hard to stay focused on this when I get tired.

Then there's run cadence.  Again, I can comfortably maintain a good cadence (maybe 80-90 per min) when I'm fresh, but do I maintain it at the end of a long run?

I also, apparently, run like a plank!   The new challenge is to introduce "contralateral rotation" - basically having your right leg and left shoulder work in harmony and vice versa.   I'm looking forward to a session with The Puppeteer on Friday to start to get this "grooved".   I'm absolutely positive that improved flexibility and core strength will be a recurring theme!

No doubt there will be a dozen other things in the future to add to the list.   Isn't it amazing that there is so much to learn and that even something as fundamental and "natural" as running can involve so much learning.?   It's so easy, even a baby can do it!

I Will.....

As my facebook friends know, I recently had a rush of blood to the head and signed-up for the Rev.3 Anderson, SC 70.3 "Half Ironman" distance triathlon on October 14th of this year.  http://rev3tri.com/anderson/anderson-news/

I don't want to do this to "just finish" - I want to make both myself and The Puppeteer proud and, in order to do that, I'm going to have to work very hard for the next three months.  I'm absolutely committed to doing this.   Here's my first pass at an "I Will List" - no doubt I will be adding more as time goes on!

I Will……

I will make myself and my coach proud at Rev.3 South Carolina 70.3 in October

In order to do this I will……

….work my ass off for the next three months

….give 100% on every workout

….lose at least 10 lbs by race day

….eat fewer carbs

….move my calorie input earlier in the day

….cut alcohol consumption by at least 50% (I’m not going nuts!)

….eat more fruit and veggies

….stay hydrated

….get more sleep (get to bed earlier)

….get my workouts in earlier to beat the heat

….not sneak any extra breaths during swim workouts

….do more open water work

….perfect my sighting and swim straight!

….finish swim workouts with tired lats

….not mash on the bike and maintain a high cadence – distribute power more evenly

….engage my core and glutes on the bike

….not freewheel unless I run out of gears

….take more calories on my rides

….stay aero!

….do 10 mins dynamic warm-up before every run

….toe-off and finish every stride

….learn to use contralateral rotation when I run

….become a lot more flexible

….do TRX or other core/flex work at least twice a week

….do yoga or other stretch/flex work at least twice a week