After the last big training block I took Monday and Tuesday totally off. I sat on the couch in a fog for 48hrs and caught up on some work stuff. Minus a short trip to the mall for Courtney to grab some new pants. As soon as we walked into the store, I found the “man” section (also know as the chairs in the back of the store) and promptly feel asleep.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful just some easy training to get the body back to being right.

I traveled down to the Woodlands on Sunday May 5th to do the final 10 or training days in hot and humid conditions.

What we got for weather was anything but hot and humid. I had to wear a Pearl Izumi thermal long sleeve shirt underneath a long sleeve cycling jersey just to be able to sweat. There were days I even ran with that same thermal shirt on!
Fast forward to race day where it was forecasted to be just plain nasty.

Race morning came and I did the usual pre IM routine. Dropped off my bags and got the bike ready to go.

At the swim start I was sitting on the curb and Mike Riley is on the PA saying “All pros should be in the water” he said it about 5 times before I realized “oh Sh$t, that’s means ME” Once in the water, I got in a nice little warm up and was ready to swim 2.4 miles solo. The gun went off, and I went bananas to stay at the back of the massive group that took off. I don’t know the pace we were swimming, but I know I set a few PR’s. I was beyond pumped not to be dropped after 100 yards.  I was at the back of the second group until about 200 yards before the turn when I caught an ankle to the face. I was promptly dropped and set out alone to finish the swim

Here is where things started going south. I knew within about 5 mins on the bike that my day was over. Power was very low and HR was sky high. I pushed on for maybe 45 mins to see how things would settle down. After that I started to shut down the power to try and get my HR under control. I had no choice. There are only two reasons why race fueling goes bad. Heat and intensity. I already had the heat so I dialed back the intensity to try and get my stomach to come around. Nothing was working. If I drank a lot or a little it was the same. So I went with “drink a lot” as I knew it was the only way I’d finish the day. By mile 60 I was seeing spots and dizzy spells would randomly come and go. The rest of the bike was simply about finishing.

The “run” started as you’d expect. Pick a pace that was easy, didn’t add any additional heat or intensity stress and see how it played out. Well…I got to mile 9 before all the dizzy spells and spots showed back up. After that it was run when I could and walk when I couldn’t see straight.

Not finishing the race never even crossed my mind.

Why would I quit? My legs still worked. I wasn’t doing any damage to myself or my legs by walking. It’s sad to me that when I would go by “age groupers” (hate using that term. Makes me feel like I am talking bad about someone)  and they’d say “thanks for sticking it out” or “glad you stuck it out with us”

Hell ya I’m out here. Because there is a “P” on my left leg people just automatically assume if the day goes bad, I’m dropping out. To “save” my legs for the next day because that’s the excuse pros give a lot of the time. “Save your legs” for what? Lets be realistic for a minute. When you have the training and fitness to run mid 2:50′s off the bike and you’re walking there is little to no stress on the legs. Unless medical staff pulls me off the course, my ass is crossing the finish line. I’m no different then any “age grouper” – my first and only goal on the day is to finish as fast as I possible can whether that means winning the race or walking / running the marathon, I’m going to finish.

So whats the lesson to be learned when you do everything right in training and on race day and it still goes bad?

Forget it and move on.

Ill be in Lake Placid in 9 weeks ready to go again.

Thanks to everyone who helped me START my first pro race without a hitch.

This past weekend (March 9th)  Courtney and I headed down for the TT Bike Fit annual St Paddy’s day indoor TT.

Backing up to about Tuesday afternoon, while I was adding up all the training miles from camp vs what was planned for this block, I realized that I was able to take an easy week post camp,which worked out well as I was roughed up!  (You’re welcome Doug)  I saw a post on FB from Lisbeth about the indoor TT.  I  emailed the BossMan and asked if he thought it was a good idea, he agreed and I signed myself up.  Friday afternoon rolled around and I realized I was still pretty deep into the hole that I had dug myself into while in FL, so I was a little nervous about how Saturday would play out.  Nothing like having everyone see you go out to hard and blow up

Saturday morning arrived and that means one thing before an indoor TT.  Caffeine loading! When used properly and not as an everyday crutch, caffeine is a very powerful drug.  Yes, I said it, drug!

I rolled over to the local Starbucks and got myself a large ice coffee and slowly began the only good thing about indoor TT’s!

We got to Todd and Lisbeth’s shop around 9:30, hung out for a bit, watched a few heats and then I started my warm up.  I knew within a few minutes that the legs were not going to be there, but I had talked myself into a pretty good place mentally about 15 minutes before we started the race.  A few minutes later  I downed a Double Latte Power gel and finished with the pre set computrainer warm up and calibration!

Next thing I know I am going full gas. My game plan was to build to my goal avg power by the five minute mark.  Hold till seven minutes and then start emptying the tank till 14 minutes and then go for broke until I puked or finished. Hoping the latter came first.

I could really feel the “dullness” in my legs from the 18 days and over 1,000 miles we rode down in FL.  The best I could come up with for the day was 327 watts with an avg HR of 181.  That puts me about 4 beats low on the avg HR based on all the other indoor TT’s I’ve done.  4 beats is about 12 watts, which would make more sense based off some of the TT’s we did in FL.

Either way I was really happy about just getting in a very solid effort, seeing some friends on the Fuel Belt race team who I don’t get to see often and help a great cause, all the money collected went to the Blazeman Foundation.

What better way to spend a Saturday?

I’ve included video taken by the other boss to help liven up this site!

I’ve been down in Clermont, FL for the past few weeks putting in some serious training with what has become named “The Crew”  20 QT2 pro’s, just getting the work done both in training and in restoration. 

When I finally get back home, i’ll have a few hours to sit down and write about what took place down here. 

Until then train safe!

As you might have seen in the last few hours (on twitter), I have decided to take the opportunity to race 2013 and beyond in the pro field.  What does this change? (besides tons of free stuff and massive contracts….<—that was a joke).  It changes two things.  My breakfast time and my start time.  Thats it.  It doesn’t change the way I’ll “race” an IM.  I am an 8:55 IM guy, on a perfect weather day on a fast course.  I am simply not fast enough (yet) to try and “race” with the real pro’s.

I have seen this many times since I started tri’s in 2003.  Athletes get their pro card in the mail and they think they are all of a sudden 30 mins faster, or can ride 20watts higher,  usually their last good race was the race they qualified to get their pro card in the first place.

I will spend the next few years getting dropped as soon as the gun goes off and then it will be a solo day to the finish, and I am 100% okay with that.  Like I said above, on a perfect day, I was 30 mins off being even sort of competitive.  To pick up 30 minutes will take massive daily dedication to training, recovery, and diet.  When you don’t have an talented bone in your body, things take longer.  You need to live better then everyone else. You need to train smarter, recover better, and eat better just to have a shot at doing well.

So it will be a fun change, but more then anything things will be the same.

Ninth Ironman in the books.  Sitting up in Lake Placid in July, a complete mess, sick for the first time in years, I knew pulling it together for this race would be a tough task.  June and July did not go as planned, which made me nervous.  Four to five weeks out, things really started coming together in all sports.  I was swimming better than ever (not that it showed during the race!), biking better than pre-Ironman Texas, and running better than ever.

Pulled in on Tuesday afternoon to work for Ken Glah at Endurance Sports Travel and get myself mentally ready to race.  I wasn’t nervous about making the distance, I was nervous because I had my own expectations about the outcome of the day.  I knew that for the past 9 weeks I have taken care of everything that was 100% in my control, and if I did the same on race day my outcomes were within reach.

I did my normal breakfast and headed down to the race to get my stuff squared away.   Around 6:50, I walked down to the water and jumped in (its not as bad as everyone says it is).  My goggles immediately fogged up and I couldn’t remedy the situation.  It was basically like someone had taped over my goggles.  The cannon fired and the first 600 meters of the swim was a snafu—I was stuck behind people.  Once I got around them, I did the remaining 3200 meters solo.  For how well I had been swimming lately, I am very disappointed in my swim time.  As soon as I saw the clock, I saw my time and immediately moved on.

Jumped onto my Shiv and got to work.  Towards the turn around, I could see that I was in the Top 10 of the Age Group race, which led me to think my swim wasn’t all that bad.  The plan was to ride 235 total watts average for the day, so I got right to the 235 and just sat there.  Rode up to the turn around, into the headwind, and thought I was in for a very long day.  Immediately after turning around the cone and heading back, I knew the way back to town was going to be significantly faster.  I continued to follow my fueling plan, continued to push the fluids, and made sure to pee at least twice.  (which is extremely hard to do on a loop course by the way, I had to pick my spots carefully!)  I knew I was riding well when I was almost immediately in the middle of the Women’s Pro Race.  Previously, it takes me 30-40 miles to catch the back of the women’s race.  As the miles went by and the caffeine intake went up, I started to feel better and better.  Taking into account how many miles I had ridden in training, I knew that I could ride 112 pretty hard without burying myself nutritionally or physically.  At mile 70, I decided it was time to go.  I rode Best Sustainable Effort until the finish.  My last 28 mile split was the fastest of the day.

Onto the first of three loops of the run (mostly flat, concrete path.)  Legs didn’t feel good when I started…and I cant blame them.  My heart rate was low as expected so I stuck to the pace I knew (based on the last 6 weeks of training) I would be able to sustain throughout the whole race.  The miles ticked off pretty quickly.  I followed the nutrition plan that has worked for all 9 ironman to the letter with only a few adjustments based on how my stomach was feeling going into aid stations.  I was getting splits so I knew I started the run as 6^th age grouper overall and 11 minutes to first place, Tony Delogne.  But, at the same time, as I was running, I knew I was going to have to the pay the piper for the nine minute bike PR at some point during the run.  At mile 16 I started to feel the effort for the day, but I also got a split that I had just made up 6 minutes on first place age grouper over the last 8 miles.  So, I made the decision that I was going to run as hard as I could possibly go to the finish, because I couldn’t finish without knowing I didn’t at least try.  The last 5 miles were rough, but I knew I had a shot to go under 9 hours – a dream of mine since 2008, and I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

Its funny, we spend all this money, time and effort to have all the best gear and at some point in the race it simply becomes one foot in front of the other.  Your mind goes quiet and your simply going as hard as you can no matter what the pace that your running.

Mile 25 has two hard downhill turns that I had been dreading since mile 23 but I knew I was almost done.  I was disappointed to still be running when my watch clicked over to 3 hours but the 8 in front of my finish time made up for it.

Thank you to all my training partners throughout the year (Catherine Sterling-without her I might still be out there swimming, Cort Cramer and Justin Butler for going on some epic rides with me in Central Mass). Brian Hughes at Fast Splits for getting me set up on a new “whip” and getting a Garmin out to me overnight. Thanks to everyone who followed along and sent messages, your support was appreciated!

A huge thank you to my coach Jesse Kropelnicki of QT2 Systems, for taking a guy from a 1:58 open half-marathon to an 8:55 ironman.

Thanks to Vinu at Fuel Belt, Dean McElwain at Peak Health Consultants, Gilad at Normatec, Dr. Barry Sears at Zone (best Omega 3’s in the market), Andy Salmon at Salmon Heath and Retirement, Blue70 for the wetsuit (sorry my swim wasn’t faster), and PowerBar for the training and race nutrition.

It was one hell of a day.  But now its time to rest!

Its been a while! 

I won’t bore everyone with all the minor details, so I’ll just stick to the important ones.

Post IM Texas, I did EVERYTHING WRONG, and I knew it, but I did it anyways. I spent 6 weeks eating okay but not great. Drinking coffee.  Drinking way to much, and not sleeping great.  AND on top of that I was doing the typical “I need to train fast to get fast” so I was out there crushing myself everyday.  Running and riding 10-15 beats too hard everyday. 

And of course, I was doing everything except getting faster because that’s not the way it works!  I ended up sick for the since time since 2003. I was put on a 10-day Z pack due to a sinus infection that had been lingering for about 2 weeks at that point.  I have not been on  “meds” since I was 3 years old.

Hint # 1) If you end up on medicine because you were ignoring the symptoms, you are doing something MASSIVELY wrong!

So with the declining training paces and sickness, I was mentally shot.  I was just a total mess.  Once you mentally go, its game over. Before I would even get out the door I had already talked myself out of having a good training day.  “Another day, another workout slower.” 

I headed out for a dreaded run on a Tuesday afternoon with an iPod (first time for everything) and I don’t think I actually listened to any song, it was just “there”.  I ran my typical 60 minute loop running way slower then I “thought” I should be, but where my HR was telling me I should be, hitting  my “how fit am I” light pole that is 25 minutes away when I am in shape in 27:23, way behind even my winter times.  And it hit me…

 “ I know exactly what it takes both on and off the racetrack to be successful in our sport.  I know what the training numbers need to look like to win an IM.  I know the type of training it takes.  So why was I doing the complete opposite? Why am I going against everything that put me on the start line of all 8 IM’s I’ve raced fitter then the previous one?  “ Stop being an idiot.  Get your shit together and lets get this done”

That’s exactly what I did.  I cleaned up the training, day to day nutrition, and sleep. Four weeks later I sit here today 9 days post Pumpkinman half, posting a run PR on a legit course and setting a 1 mile PR while doing a 4 x 1 mile test set yesterday morning. 

I have 5 training weeks left before the taper down into IM AZ (big thanks to Ken Glah and his guys, Ty and Travis).  I am 100% healthy mentally and physically.

I am ready to get after it on the morning of November 18^th.