Racing the Ford Ironman World Championship

I have had a lot of people ask me about my final update so I am sorry for the delay. Here is my final entry in my blog to summarize my race in the Ford Ironman World Championship.

I initially wrote a very detailed overview of the race, which has ballooned to 25+ pages already (and counting), and I am just starting to wrap it up. I felt that was way too long for anyone to read in a blog. So, I am going to try to condense it quite a bit and add pictures (see flickr photos to the right) on this web site that you can view from the race.

The details on the longer version capture every thought, challenge, feeling, technical aspect of the course, and obstacle that I incurred in the race. I am planning to publish a book on it within 3 months, from what I understand from the people who are going to publish this for me. You will be able to find it at online bookstores such as Amazon.com and I will post this on my blog when it will be available. A large portion of the proceeds will go to my charity Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) to support wounded soldiers. This is the same charity that I was racing for in the Ironman Championships. There are so many details that I want to share which really enriches the whole story, and some are pretty unbelievable. I encourage all of you to grab this when it comes out and support the SOWF and to get a real feel for what it was like for an ordinary triathlete, me, to race in the World Championships.

The race itself was an event beyond my wildest expectations and it can only be told in a much longer version of this blog. It created memories that I will have forever and will always rank right up there as one of the biggest accomplishments in my life. So I will break this down into segments, as condensed as possible, to better explain what happened in each facet of the race.

Pre Race:

I was out of bed at 4am on race morning and I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep. There was no way to sleep when you have been working towards a goal for 6 months (in reality for 25 years) and then it was beginning to come true. Jill and the kids were all still on East Coast time (6 hours behind East Coast time) since they arrived in Kona late in the week so they were already up as well and I grabbed some oatmeal and peanut butter and we all were off to the transition area so I could setup the remaining gear I had such as my water bottle and nutrition.

Transition was heavily secured but with my wrist strap, I was able to break through the mob of people and get in easily. There were TV cameras all over the place from NBC along with the commentators interviewing people; it was a very busy pace for so early in the morning.

I breezed right through quickly had everything set up so all I had to do was wait for another hour. Have I mentioned before that I hate waiting. So there I sat with Jill and the boys just taking it all in.

By 6:30 things were starting to get even more lively. As it became light outside the helicopters that were to cover the race for the live feed and for NBC all started buzzing overhead filming everything that was going on. There was also a Hawaiian band playing various Hawaiian music to help entertain everyone prior to the race.

So the race announcer called or the professionals to get in the water, and for the rest of us to get in the staging area and get ready to enter the water. The pros all swam out to the starting line, which was in about 20 feet of water and 150 feet from shore, and soon the cannon fired and the race for the professionals was on.

The Swim

We all follow right after them to the starting line. I hung back because I knew these were the fastest triathlon swimmers in the world and it’s not fun getting run over in the water. Five minutes to go and the Hawaiian band suddenly started beating an ominous drum beat and helicopters were flying and people were screaming from the shore. It was crazy!!! Then it really got crazy as the cannon went off!

The start line turned into a washing machine as everyone was trying to swim and find water with no swimmers. Eventually everyone eventually found their own space to swim in and for the next 2.4 miles it was elbowing, kicking, punching and swimming over one another. Just another day racing a triathlon.

The swim went very well although it was very slow just because there was always several people in front of me that continued to slow me down, to the point where I had to stop lift my head up and try to find clear water to swim in several times. So my time was 1 hour 30 minutes, where it should have been 1 hour 10-15 minutes easily. No big deal though, the cut off time was 2 hours and 20 minutes.

The 1st transition (T1)

The first transition was quick. Run through the shower station to rinse off the salt water, grab my transition bag with my cycling clothes in it, then hit the changing tent. I went through the transition in about 7 minutes altogether, and then I was on my bike.

The Bike

The bike to me was going to be the easy part since I had concentrated more on the bike than on the other aspects of the race. The first 9 miles was through town before heading out to the Lava fields. While in town I was so excited I was averaging 23 miles an hour and passing a lot of people and my heart rate reflected it. It was well over where I should have been so once outside of Kona I slowed down and got my heart rate back in check and settled in for a long ride.

The bike went well for the first 50 miles. Yes, the day was starting to heat up but it wasn’t bad so far and the wind at mile 30 started kicking up to about 15 miles and hour, still no big deal. At this point it looked like it was going to be an easier ride than I had anticipated. Then I got to the 15 mile climb to Hawi where the turn around was.

The climb was not that steep, probably 6% but it was very long. I am talking about miles long (5 miles at a clip) and on top of that the famous winds of Hawi had kicked up and they were blowing directly in my face at 30 miles and hour with gust of at least 45 mph according to the newspaper the next day.

This was a very, very long ride with both the climb and the winds hammering me. It was really taking a toll on my legs by the time I got to the top at Hawi and made the turn. So now I thought it was time to take advantage of the winds and nail the downhill and make up time. So I got rolling and tucked into an aero position and the next thing I knew I was going 45 mph screaming down the mountain. This was all working out just fine until I was hit with a huge cross wind which blew me across the road to the other side and almost off into the shoulder which was made of nothing more than sharp volcanic rock. I regained control and this happened repeatedly several times until I reached the bottom. Whew, I was glad that was over.

But now it was time to deal with the lava fields. If you recall on the way through the lava fields earlier in the day the heat wasn’t that bad, however, 4 hours later this place was cooking. Entering the lava fields felt like opening an oven door. The heat was stifling and I couldn’t wait to hit the next aid station where I would grab two bottles of water and drink one and pour the other one over my head.

The ride back to the transition area was a battle of dealing with the heat and dealing with the rolling terrain with legs that were working on reduced power. Soon I could see Kona and it was time to start thinking about my next transition.

Transition to Run (T2)

As I came to the dismount line I handed off the bike to one of the bike handlers, and at this point I had enough of the bike ride. I told the lady she could keep the bike because I didn’t want to see it anytime soon after that ride. We both laughed about this but I was partially serious.

At this point it was all about reenergizing my legs before the run so I walked the transition area which is the first time I have ever done this. I thought that in the overall scheme of things, walking for a couple of minutes was nothing, but looking back on this it probably helped me out quite a bit as I got into the run.

I grabbed my transition bag and went into the transition tent and an assistant met me at the entrance and guided me to a chair next to the fan. This was great! He also gave me Gatorade and water and handed me cold wet towel to cool me down. This place was an oasis and I never wanted to leave, but I needed to get on with the run. You could tell I was enjoying this a bit too much because my transition time was 13 minutes.

Hat on, sunglasses on, drop the towel, drop the water, here I go off and running on the course.

The Run

The run actually started out fine. My strategy was to run 10 minutes and run 1 minute. This was to reset my heart rate every 10 minutes and start over again every 10 minutes. This worked out very well for about 8 miles and then my legs were getting tired on a couple of the hills so I changed my strategy to walking every 10 minutes and then walking the aid stations.

This seemed like a running strategy that I could live with for quite a while. About this time I was heading out of Kona and towards the Energy Lab where the heat was rumored to be off the charts. I think no matter which year you race here the heat will always be a factor but it seemed exceptionally hot this year from what heard many people say. Luckily, by the time I would get there it would be dark, so it should be nice and cool, right?

As I headed out of town and it just became a game of keeping my stride going. It wasn’t much of a stride but at least my legs were moving and I was making progress. There was an uphill run for 4 miles heading out of town. Gradual, but very long. After a while on this very long hill, I decided it was time to change up my running strategy once again. This hill was killing me.

So I thought about this for a while and I looked at power poles on the side of the road. They were huge concrete power poles spaced about twice as far as normal power poles. I decided I would run the length between three power poles and then walk one. Then I would be running 75% of the time and walking 25% of the time. After 12 hours of racing it really came down to mind games and things to keep my mind distracted so I would think about the next 14 miles I had to run.

In short this worked and carried me to the Energy Lab where the temperature read 87 degrees on a thermometer at the entrance as I entered and this was in total darkness at this point. The energy lab at night was like running in space. There was no light what so ever. I finally made it to the turn around point where I grabbed my special needs bags and looked in it. Socks, band aids, Fritos. I didn’t need the socks so I stuffed them in the pocket in my tri jersey, I didn’t need the band aids so I tossed them and Fritos. I couldn’t really stomach any food right then but I managed to get a few down and started running once again.

As I exited the Energy Lab, I hit another aid station and grabbed some water to wash down a few more Fritos. I just couldn’t stomach the Fritos any longer and I tossed them on the side of the Highway. At this point after 12 ½ hours, I just couldn’t get any more nutrition down with 8 miles to go. I was so tired of gels,
Gatorade, anything with taste and even water. I ran a couple miles and the at the next aid station I grabbed some Chicken broth in a cup and two saltine crackers. I was willing to try anything at this point. This gave me a huge boost and I grabbed some at the next station.

From this point I was just slowly making my way to Kona. There was a guy who had been running past me and then I would run past him and we played this cat and mouse game for 2 miles and then we both saw Kona in the distance and decide that we would both start running. He was ahead of me at this point as we headed into Kona and started to hear the roar of the crowd 2 miles away.

This is where he picked up the pace and I did as well. I thought, how silly this is we have been racing for 14 hours and now it comes down to having to race someone hard just to say you beat the other guy. No matter what kind of race it is, I always seem to end up in this situation. So game on.

As we headed onto a street that paralleled Alii Drive where the finish line was I picked up the pace quite a bit and I passed this guy. I could hear his footsteps and he was staying with me so I just held the pace because I really couldn’t go any faster. I soon heard his foot steps fall away and I was by myself as I headed down to Alii Drive.

The crowds were tremendous and I was the only one on Alii Drive at this point and every one was cheering me on. The crowds were so huge that they filled the streets and only opened up as I came through. It reminded me of the tour de France as the bikers climb the mountains and the crowds are in the way. I went through this for about ¼ mile with everyone patting me on the back and “giving high fives” and then there were barricades and I finally had space.

This space was lit up with very intense lights for the TV cameras and the adrenaline pumping kept me going at a pretty good pace. And then the finish line. I couldn’t believe I was finally here. 14 hours and 15 minutes and 140.6 miles from when I had started. I had made it and I had actually completed the Ford Ironman World Championship!

The catchers grabbed me (catchers are guys who grab the arms of the athletes and hold you up and walk you to the area to get fluids and foods) Although I didn’t really need it, the last two mile had taken a lot out of me, so I didn’t complain much.

To watch a video feed of me finishifnteh race please click on the link below:

http://ironman.com/events/ironman/worldchampionship/?show=tracker&rid=172&year=2008

So the next five weeks is mandatory recovery time for me according to Coach Sonni. Time to sleep in, eat a lot, actually watch a little TV, and just take it easy, and then plan on goals for next year.

There are so many parts and details of the race that I didn’t include in this blog and I promise to have information posited within 3 months of where you will be able to get this book that I will have finished by them. I will guarantee you that the book version covers the race in much, much more detail and will be quite entertaining on top of that. If you’re a triathlete you will love it, if you know nothing about triathlon you will love it, if you want to know a lot of detail about the course and how the whole process at the Ironman World Championships works you will be fully informed. I will be very excited to share thsi book with everyone.

Finally, thank you all for taking the time to read my blog through this journey and I would like to generally thank everyone out there who helped me out through this process such as my family, Coach Sonni, Coach Lance, and friends in general. If anyone needs to contact me for any reason please feel free to e-mail me at Tweedy1@alltel.net

Update Coming Soon

I will post my final update to my blog sometime next weekend most likely. There is so much to talk about regarding pre-race, the entire 14 hours out on the course and post race. Since I am trying to document details for myself I wanted to take my time and get all details included in this last entry. So look for it next weekend.

Update for Thursday…The Family has Finally Arrived

It was a very late night last night for all of us. Jill and the boys had their flight delayed in Los Angeles for 8 hours and finally arrived at 1:45am Kona time. We were al beat this morning and Jill and I will look forward to sleeping tonight.

Today was uneventful. I grabbed a mile swim and a 18 mile bike ride this morning just to keep everything working and flexible.

Getting ready for this event is very logistical in nature as I talked about yesterday. I have a picture (see pic.) of all the “stuff” I will eat, wear, or use during different facets of the race. I just looked at all of this stuff, and at first I wondered if I really needed everything and, yes, everything I had laid out is critical to the race.

I also have my bike dialed in very well (see pic.). It felt great this morning. Baring no problems on my final shake down ride in the morning, I will turn it into the bike transition area where I have to check it in at 12pm tomorrow for the race on Saturday.

Other than that we all just hung out and took it easy today. Stayed around Kona and let the boys get in the ocean in Kona at the start line (see pic).

Other than that we have a kick of banquet at 6pm tonight for all of us and then we also have the mandatory athletes meeting tonight at 8pm to go over all the critical information pertaining to the race. They will obviously cover all of the rules of the race, and as usual, they will have referees that cover the course very well, to include the ocean! Yes, they even have referees in scuba gear located at certain points to on the course to make sure there is no ankle grabbing, corner cuts or intentional contact between swimmers. Yep, that does happen.

Off to grab a shower and get over to the Banquet and athletes meeting (assuming I can stay awake… still have not adjusted to Kona time!)

Update from Kona on Wednesday

Yesterday evening I went to “The Parade of Nations” where they have all the athletes from each country walk in a parade behind their flags (think Olympics), and the parade ended at the Ironman Village which is where all the sponsors have their tents and booths set up and all the brand new tri toys are there to be seen. It was a lot of fun and it amazing how many countries are represented at this race.

Time is drawing near for race day and the quant little town of Kona is absolutely electric with people training.

It’s amazing going outside at 7am when it’s finally light enough to ride a bike on the streets and there are already tons of people running, biking and heading down to the start line to get a practice swim in.

Today was a biking/running day for me. I grabbed a few miles on the bike and got out on the Queen K highway which is the road that will take us 112 miles which is round trip to Hawi, Hi and back. While it is hilly, the road is very smooth and well maintained so that’s plus. I did learn from another athlete who has raced this before that you never pump your tires all the way up because the heat is so extreme that the air in your tires will expand by 20 lbs of pressure on the road and could possibly blow your tire out during the race. Nice to know!

Something else I didn’t think about before coming to Kona for this race, Volcanoes and earthquakes!!!! Apparently, they have two volcanoes that have become active at the same time which is exceedingly rare. These Volcanoes have created 3 small earthquakes in the last 2 weeks. Here’s the newspaper release from a week ago:

Activity update

Kilauea Volcano continues to be active. A vent in Halema'uma'u Crater is erupting elevated amounts of sulfur dioxide gas and very small amounts of ash. Resulting high concentrations of sulfur dioxide in downwind air have closed the south part of Kilauea caldera and produced occasional air quality alerts in more distant areas, such as Pahala and communities adjacent to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, during kona wind periods.On Sept. 26, scientists got another look at the lava lake deep within the vent on the floor of Halema'uma'u. The lava lake, barely visible from the air, appeared to be deeper than when last seen on Sept. 5. The lake surface is estimated at 120 to 150 meters (about 400 to 500 feet) below the vent rim, and cannot be seen from the rim of Halema'uma'u Crater or Jaggar Museum Overlook. There have also been several small ash-emission events from the vent, lasting only minutes, in the last week.Pu'u 'O'o continues to produce sulfur dioxide at even higher rates than the vent in Halema'uma'u Crater. Trade winds tend to pool these emissions along the West Hawai'i coast, while Kona winds blow these emissions into communities to the north, such as Mountain View, Volcano, and Hilo.Lava continues to erupt from fissure D of the July 21, 2007, eruption and flows toward the ocean through a well-established lava tube. The ocean entry at Waikupanaha continued unabated in the past week and has hosted frequent, small littoral explosions where the lava meets the water.Be aware that active lava deltas can collapse at any time, potentially generating large explosions. This may be especially true during times of rapidly changing lava supply conditions. Do not venture onto the lava deltas. Even the intervening beaches are susceptible to large waves generated during delta collapse; avoid these beaches. In addition, steam plumes rising from ocean entries are highly acidic and laced with glass particles. Check Civil Defense Web site (http://www.lavainfo.us) or call 961-8093 for viewing hours.Mauna Loa is not erupting. Two earthquakes were located beneath the summit this past week. Continuing extension between locations spanning the summit indicates slow inflation of the volcano.Three earthquakes beneath Hawaii Island were reported felt within the past week. A magnitude-2.8 earthquake occurred at 11:25 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 26, and was located 2 kilometers (1 mile) southeast of Pahala at a depth of 8 kilometers (5 miles).A magnitude-3.1 earthquake occurred at 8:18 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 27, and was located 7 kilometers (4 miles) northwest of Kailua at a depth of 33 kilometers (20 miles).A magnitude-2.6 earthquake occurred at 3:09 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 30, and was located 6 kilometers (4 mile) north of Ka'ena Point at a depth of 8 kilometers (5 miles).

Great eh? They are talking about how this could affect the athletes in the race if the winds shift. Right now, the high winds I have been talking about, have kept the pollution, from these volcanoes, away from the west coast where Kona is. We’ll see what happens between now and Saturday.

On to a different subject. Today, I finally got to check in, and get my race information and all the associated “stuff.” Racing an Ironman race is a race of logistics. I have two transition bags and two special needs bags. All of which will have been very well planned out as far as the items I will be putting in each bag based on my training to this point. Various type of nutrition for different stages of the race, infinit for the bike …my liquid food, and e-gels for the run…a gooey substance for nutrition. I will also have “glide” in T1 and T2 for chaffing and blister bandages, socks, electrolytes and many other items I will need at specific times in the race. So it very well orchestrated.

After checking in and getting my racing number (#708), I ventured over to the Ironman Village where I got the see Chris McCormick taking question on a stage with a great backdrop (see pic of him seated). Chris is the current world champion and I had the opportunity to talk to him last year after a race at St. Petersburg Florida. I am sure he will win again this year.

Another interesting thing that happened was that I saw Peter Reid in the crowd standing by himself. Who is Peter Reid? He is the 3-time world Champions who stopped racing 3 years ago. I recognized him by his very unique tattoo on his left ankle that I had seen on TV. So I stopped and introduced my self and chatted with him for about 10 minutes getting pointers on the race. Specialized bikes had flown him in to be part of their marketing at the race and he was doing several public appearances for them this week apparently. Again, this is very refreshing to see the top athletes in the sport being so accessible.

That’s it for today. I am waiting on Jill and the boys to get into town at 8:15 tonight. I have touched base with them along the way and everything seems to be going well except Jill accidentally lost the camera on the last flight. So I still have my camera to take some pictures and they will have photographers on the course taking pictures which I will get to purchase after the race.

Talk to everyone tomorrow.

Update from Kona on Tuesday

Wow, what a long night last night. Right after I made my last entry while on the plane over the pacific ocean, there was a medical emergency with a passenger on board and we had to turn around and fly back to Los Angeles. It took quite a while to fly back and unload the passenger, refuel, recheck everything before we could take off. This put me well behind of my connecting flight but I was lucky enough to get on the last flight to Kona. To make a long story short I got in bed at 5am (east coast time) and was pretty tired obviously.

Today was a new day though. I woke up very early (3:30am) still on East Coast time, and decided to assemble my bike. This actually went very smoothly and, yes, the pictures I took while disassembling it came in handy and helped me avoid problems reassembling my bike.

After I finished that I decided I would go into Kona and take a quick training swim. I figured I would see what the water is like here at 7am, the time the race actually starts here. I figured there may be a couple people there so I could jump in and get the swim done pretty quickly.

When I got to the swim start line where I was going to do my training swim, there were several hundred of people already swimming!!! I should have figured a bunch of triathletes who are use to getting up at 4-5am every day would already have been out here at first light to jump in the water.

This was great though and the swim was unbelievable. The first 15 minutes of the swim I couldn’t even concentrate on the swim because the water I so clear I was busy looking at all of the tropical fish below and the barnacles and coral. No matter how deep the water got, you can always see the bottom on the first half mile of the course.

Kona is beautiful and has a quaint little main street with shops, restaurants and bars right at the start finish line. I now can understand why there are so many people in the last mile of the race when you see it on TV.

Lastly, today I drove the bike route of the race. It will be tough. Once you leave Kona, the hills are very long and it is hot and once you get about 30 miles into the ride it gets windy, very windy (see vegitation blowing in pic. near Hawi, Hi on the course). That may be why they have a big wind farm at this point where very large propellers are turned by this constant wind. The road goes through lava fields which are black, absolutely no vegetation and very hot!

Something of interest, in these black lava fields there is a very long history of locals placing these white Lava rocks on the black lava fields to spell words. These white rocks are lava rocks but they are very smooth and do not fit in with the lava fields.

It’s very strange to see these rocks there and nobody seems to know where they come from. I talked to one local who said it has gone on so long that nobody can remember when it started and that it was bad luck to keep these white rocks because they bring bad luck. He told me that the City of Kona receives white rocks in the mail every year from tourist who have taken them home with them only to incur bad luck to the point where they mail the rocks back. Quite interesting.

I am getting ready to take off for the opening parade and the start of the Ironman Village, which opens up at 5pm today (Tuesday). This will be fun to see this part for the week long events that are going on.

I will touch base once again tomorrow.

Traveling with a bike!!! Ugh!

Oct 6th,

Today was/is travel day for me. I have been dreading this for a while because I have been faced with the dilemma of getting my bike to Kona.

A little back ground first.

I first thought I would get Inside Out Sports to ship it for me as they have done for years for many other ironman races. They are a major sponsor of these events (and owned a bike shop in Kona at one time), but I found out that was only out of the Raleigh store and not the new store in Charlotte. So much for that idea.

My next contact was with UPS and FEDEX. Wow!!! They wanted anything from $401.0 to $700.00 to slow ship to Kona. No thanks!!!!! That’s the cost of a cheap disc wheel or 1/3 of the cost of a power tap for my bike which I have been eyeing for a while.

So, I’ve been wanting to get a bike case for a while anyway to travel to more exotic triathlon and adventure races so I went ahead and bought a nice TEAM case for traveling with my bikes.

Great! No problem I bought a nice case for carry my bike. It was one of those very light weight type of cases that would be a bit easier to handle in the airport as I drag it along. The kind that the race teams all use. Perfect!

Everything has a price though! Yes, the case was very lightweight and very unique looking, it was even shaped more like a triangle with the top cut off instead of a huge rectangular box. It made my bike even look faster having a racing case like this (I’ll take anything I can get). But I realized something very quickly when I tried to fit my bike into the case after taking the wheels off…..it didn’t fit! The bike shop said it would fit with no problem at all. What I realized was that I was missing something that race teams have and I don’t..team mechanics!

I had to disassemble the head set, forks, tri bars and all the little bearings and grommets and spacers. I am mechanically inclined so I’m not afraid to dig into this new project of exploring the internal workings of my bike. It actually was fairly simple but I will admit I was taking pictures of every step just so I would remember where all of the pieces go.

I have already called the bike shop in Kona about assembling and tuning the bike when I get it out there. Honestly though, I want to put the bike back together myself because there are a couple small finicky things on my bike I have had issues with before that I personally want to check. Things such as set screws on the rear wheel that they may overlook as far as adjustments go, so I will give it a try first, take it for a test ride and see how it’s running and most likely will not need to access the bike store. I will let you know!

So back to today. I stuffed the bike case into the expedition and off to the airport at 4:30 this morning. The case was actually very easy to carry from the parking deck to the shuttle bus and then onto the airport check in counter. Whalla!!! Much easier than I thought. Now only if it isn’t damaged in transit.

As I write this I have already travel to Dallas and I have been on the flight to Honolulu for about 90 minutes. Only 6 ½ more hours to go before we land and then I have to catch a puddle jumper from Honolulu to Kona (40 minutes) and I AM THERE!!! I can’t wait.

List, List, List...Did I forget anything?!

Ahhhhh, the race is growing close and I can certainly feel the excitement of the race. The level of contact from Ironman USA and the Race Director is increasing by the day about where to be, when to be there, and which roads to avoid during training due to construction. But wait do I have everything!!!!!!!!!

List, List, List. I have lists for everything that I have been working on for, well, months. I don’t really have a sickness and I'm not the Absent Minded Professor type either. The worse feeling in the world is getting to a race and realizing you have forgotten something. It’s happened before. So having lists gives me a peace of mind when I go to sleep at night.

I have lists for each leg of the race, 1st transition, special needs bag (bag in the middle of the bike and the run for nutrition), 2nd transition. I also have a regular packing list for clothes and also for things like my computer, camera and other odds-n-ends that you may take along on a once in a life time event. The goal here is to experience everything this race has to offer!!

Wow! The excitement is building though. I really don’t need the excitement, let me just keep this event tucked away in the back of my mind for a few more days so I don’t get too excited about it. After all, I do need to sleep over the next week, especially since I will not get any sleep at all the night before!!!

Today, I got the first e-mail about entering into the lottery for Kona for next year. I am seriously sitting here contemplating whether to do it or not. This fits neatly into that category of, “beware of what you wish for, it may come true.”

While I don’t know what the race hold’s in store for me next weekend, I am drawn to entering this lottery again. On the other hand, I know the commitment and time away from my family that is takes to get to the level to make it to the start line is incredible. If I were to actually win again, (which it has been done before), I think my family would disown me.

…Maybe next year!

Several things I want to cover since it has been about 10 days since my last update. It’s been very busy with work, my little league Football team, and of course training and prepping for the trip to Kona.

My taper is going well. I am starting to get a bit of the “ I HAVE TOO MUCH ENERGY” syndrome. It’s not bad yet, but I certainly went down to the gym during lunch today and jumped in the water and did the elliptical. I only had a short pool run scheduled actually, SO I NEED to key it down a bit over the next 10 days and save the energy if possible. Next week will be crazy trying to not train nearly as much as I head into the final taper towards the race. I know I will be bouncing off the walls.
Equipment failures are the latest stressor to hit Team Tweedy. My bike computer went out and my goggles now have a leaks in them.

The bike computer dies at mile 52 on Sunday and I have become so dependant on the feedback from the bike computer regarding cadence, speed, distance and time, when it went out I felt a bit naked for the first 5-10 miles afterwards. But then, I got use to it, and just rode the bike at a good comfort level, if there is a comfort level between miles 70 and 85!

The goggles were another matter. Goggles only last for a month it seems like if you’re an active swimmer. If they are stored wrong, packed wrong, dropped on the floor wrong or just aged, THEY LEAK. And no, I don’t think is my funny shaped head either! J

So, I had to grabbed another pair of goggles at Dick’s today. I have found that no matter how much money I spend on specialty goggles that I order on line, and no matter if Michael Phelps is endorsing them or not, Dick’s Sporting goods always seem to have goggles that fit better and are more comfortable than any goggles I buy on-line.

….and if I read about one more manufacturer stating that their goggles don’t fog up on long swims. I am going to SCREAM!!! They all fog up after the 2nd use.

Next is the injury up date for my foot: It’s still attached to my leg, that the positive piece of news. I am not running at all right now on land. I am running in the pool and I did the elliptical today trying to maintain some conditioning. The foot is holding up ok with no pain using those training methods so hopefully it’s healing a bit. I would love to be able to get to 18-miles in the race before it starts hurting. We will see!

The last thing I wanted to cover was that I received a check today from someone I have never met, as a contribution to the charity I am supporting for this race. Her name was Lauri and she wrote a very nice short letter of encouragement, which was absolutely great! This meant a lot to me since I am the world's worse fund raiser. So I got in touch with her to thank her, as I have all of the people who have contributed to the charity, and I quickly found out that she was, and is, quite the triathlete. She had raced Kona twice! And she got her slot through placing in qualifying races and on top of that she ran a 10:59 in Kona.

10:59, Whew! Let’s put this in perspective… I will not be in this range, in this race, period. This warrants huge respect in the Tri world.

Lauri was very nice to talk to and very helpful. I could have spent another hour picking her brain on the race especially since she has raced it twice. She did tell me that she was getting back into the Triathlon scene in NC this year so you guys had better watch out for 2009!!

Lastly, next week is the week I have been working for, for so long. I hopefully will have internet connection ( or I will find one) so I can update this blog on a daily basis starting on Tuesday. There will be so much going on next week, I really want to keep everything documented that is going on so I can keep everything in perspective for years to come and also let family know what I am doing on a daily basis.

See you all next week!

Peak Week and the start of my taper!!

Well, the time has come that I have finished the most difficult part of my training and my taper starts on Monday morning. Taper? No, not that (Tapir) as you see in the picture, although that probably what I look like after the long runs and rides, my training taper which means I start reducing my training mileage over the next three weeks until the week of the race where I will be swimming only a mile and bike 20-30 miles and that’s it!!!!

The purpose is to keep all the muscles firing while starting to build up and conserve the energy that I will need to perform at the Ironman race in Kona. It definitely works and the reduced training over the next 3 weeks will be a welcomed training period after the heat and distances of this summer.

As always, there has been drama associated with this race again this week. I have never had such a hard time trying to get to the start line of any race in my whole life, as I have had with this race.

This week American Airlines called me and notified me that the flights had been changed coming back from Kona. As I talked to them I thought, OK no big deal so we have to leave 5 hours later, I can live with it. After looking at my itinerary they e-mailed me, I noticed that the change was only for Jill and the boys and I was still on the original flight.

Great, American Airlines has now split our family up. How crappy is that! I called and had intermittent phone calls with then from 4pm to 10:30 pm that day. When I called them back, they told me that I didn’t have a seat either on the original flight and there were no other seats available on my family’s new flight. After exhaustive arguments, we pushed out return date out by one day just so we could have an acceptable departure time and we were all together. As much as I am against government intervention in anything I must say that the Airlines need to be torn apart and rebuilt in the model of Southwest Airlines. Nothing further to say about this dismal industry.

Training wise this week, and health wise, I have been dealing with my foot issue this week along with the reemergence of my plantar’s wart on my foot.

My ankle hurt a lot on my 12 mile run on Wednesday. It didn’t; feel good from the very beginning of the run but I was trying to work it out and it only got worse by the end of the run. I was on Advil for the next 2 days because of it. I spoke to one of my trainers, Mike Dannenberg about it, he worked on it some, and we went through everything once more to find the cause. I have new orthotics that I am wearing to help with this issue and he told me to quit wearing them because they may be irritating the injury. So I did.

I went on a 2 mile run after the bike on Saturday and it felt good. No sign of pain at all. Mike says he thinks it is a soft tissue injury so if that is the case I may just need to warm it up a lot more than I am doing right now in hopes of alleviating the pain. We’ll try it on Wednesday of this week.

Regarding the plantar wart, it came back after it was frozen off the first time and now, even though it irritates me on the run, I think it may be too late to get it frozen off without impacting the race because it does take a while to heal. I am going to look into it this week and see what I can do.

The bike has been great. Got in my 110 miles today which is the longest I have ever ridden and my swims are going great. Last Monday I got in 2.4 miles and tomorrow I have a 2 mile swim scheduled. I have gotten to the point now on the swim where I can really put out a good solid effort for the 1 hr and 15 minutes it takes me to swim 2.4 miles.

Lastly, I have started to make my lists. All types of lists! I have a packing list, a T1 list (T1 as in transition 1 from swim to bike), T2 List (from bike to run), and I have list for my special needs bags on the bike and the run. These special needs bags are for things you may need at the mid point of the race such as additional nutrition on the bike or moleskins for blisters on the run. I always use list for tri races no matter the distance. It a great feeling knowing you have forgotten nothing. The last thing you want to have happen is to forget something that can absolutely wreck your race day and with a race this big, I want nothing to go wrong!

That’s about all for now and I am looking forward to training this week and getting psyched up for the race in 3 weeks!!!!!

PEAK WEEK !!!!! Where it all comes together!

I really have very little to talk about this week because this week I am at the peak of my training and then I start to taper (FINALLY!!! I thought it would never get here) which means the next three weeks leading up to the race will require fewer miles swimming, biking and running.

I will admit, once I got the validation of my slot last week for some reason it hit me that I am actually going to get to race.

It’s an exciting feeling that definitely needs to be tempered and controlled, especially on the starting line where it can wreck havoc on your swim if you’re too excited by zapping your energy, and it can slow you down if you’re not excited enough to kick it into high gear for the race. It’s a fine line that’s really hard to explain to someone who has not faced a triathlon, or anything, that challenges your limits.

Health wise I am continuing to have problems with my foot (stress fractures most likely cause) I am attempting to train through it, but as I sit here tonight it is hurting from my 12 mile run this morning. I am working with Mike Dannenberg (Performance Therapy) to hopefully make it across the finish line in Kona. My thoughts are my foot is fine in the swim and on the bike, all I have to do is drag it across the finish line on the run.

Here’s an article that was in the New York Times this past weekend that describes the race in Kona from a different perspective:

September 14, 2008
The Main Event

Thank You, Sir, May I Have an Ironman?
By ANDREW TILIN

How far will triathletes go to be miserable? Just to land a spot in the Ford Ironman World Championship in Hawaii on Oct. 11, they must qualify by competing in a race that is almost always the same brutal 140.6-mile distance (some ‘‘lucky’’ folks get in via lottery, and fewer still pony up for the handful of slots that are auctioned off on eBay and fetch as much as $50,000).
Then these lucky 1,800 athletes train 25 or more hours per week for months to survive the race’s torturous conditions and along the way burn up untold sums on gear, nutritional products, masseuses and plane tickets to Kona. But such are the aspirations of more and more people — in the last year triathlon participation grew by one-third — and if you’re actually good enough to win at the Big Hula you’re recognized as triathlon’s master of masochism, which earns you $110,000. If you’re 10th? A mere $5,000.
Buy some macadamia nuts and some faster shoes. A cruel divide, perhaps, but also a motivator, because nowadays the pain required to win one year seems insufficient for prevailing the next. ‘‘It is strange,’’ admits Faris al-Sultan, a contender from Germany who won once before, in 2005, ‘‘this urge we all have to suffer.’’
THE MELTDOWNS: BRIEF HISTORY OF IRONMAN MISERY
1978 John Collins, a Navy commander, hatches an idea to combine three established endurance events into one race. The handwritten race packet given out to the 15 competitors reads: “Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life!” Collins finishes five hours behind the winner, a cab driver named Gordon Haller.
1982 The unheralded Julie Moss is in the lead when she stumbles less than a mile from victory (above). Picking herself up more times than Rocky Balboa, Moss approaches the finish line, falls and ultimately crawls, only to have Kathleen McCartney pass her less than 100 feet from the end. ABC films the finish, and millions are awed by Moss’s effort.
1987 The enigmatic six-time winner Dave Scott announces at the last minute that he’ll race and then wins. Mark Allen, who had been leading with only five miles to go, finishes second, ultimately reduced to a common late-race shuffle that one onlooker calls “the dance of the thousand headless monkeys.” (Allen would go on to win the race six times.)
1995 Suffering from dehydration, the eight-time winner Paula Newby-Fraser sits down 300 yards from the finish and babbles to herself for about 20 minutes. She ultimately comes in fourth.
1997 Vomiting up all of the fluids he ingests, Chris Legh is seriously disoriented as he approaches the finish. Various organs have shut down. He collapses and begins crawling — away from the line. Soon afterward, during emergency surgery, doctors remove a third of his large intestine.
2005 Robert McKeague, an 80-year-old grandfather of nine, becomes the oldest athlete ever to complete the Ironman. Soon after crossing the finish line (with a time of 16:21:55), McKeague announces that he won’t be back to defend his title.
THE FUEL
Ironman types call nutrition the event’s fourth sport. Competitors can generate up to 64 ounces of sweat hourly (about four pounds of fluid) , and they can burn 7,500 calories over the entire competition. “As much as anything, it’s an eating and drinking contest,” says Bob Babbitt, a race commentator and six-time finisher. “How many calories can you successfully get down?” Here, a few rules in the contest of consumption:
1. Avoid the salt water: There’s no opportunity to replace fluids during the swim, and swallowing too much of the Pacific can cause nausea and a swollen tongue. Dehydration is rampant.
2. Dine while you ride: The cycling leg offers the best opportunity to eat, and athletes can generally digest anywhere from 300 to 400 calories per hour while pedaling. Chris McCormack drinks 350-calorie helpings of Ensure Plus for the first few hours. But beware: intense exercise can shunt blood from the stomach, and those energy bars have a way of coming right back up.
3. Pack your bags carefully: Back in the primitive 1980s, Ironman “special needs bags” — prepacked by each competitor and set out on the course — were filled with things like cheeseburgers and loaves of Hawaiian sweet bread. Then energy goo was invented. Maltodextrin-based gels provide fuel over time; corn syrup versions deliver quick boosts. Their consistency? Much like mucus.
4. Remember the taurine: Seven hours into an Ironman, muscles cramp and minds wander. Time for a pick-me-up! Aid stations have de-fizzed cola. Race leaders like al-Sultan and McCormack think enough of zingy Red Bull that they rely on it late in the race. “With an hour to go,” McCormack says, “you don’t want to get sleepy.”

I will be back in touch after next weekend and tell everyone how my 110 mile bike rides are going or my 2.5 mile swims are coming along or if my foot blows out during training.

I'M IN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FINALLY! MY SLOT IN KONA IS VALIDATED!!!! After 4 months of waiting and going through some tense moments at the end (begging) there is nothing (administratively) standing in my way to the race on October 11th! Jennette (at Ironman) and others finally decided they had put me through enough after my qualifying race was cancelled due to Tropical Storm Hanna. They made a decision based on my race resume and now I can focus 100% on training.

Where do I start!!!!!????????

A lot has happened in the last week and especially in the last 2 days. If you have been keeping up with my blog you know that my Entry Slot into Kona relies on just completing a half ironman race prior to the end of August. Ironman USA gave me a 6 day waiver since all the other races were filled and the only one I could get into was Patriots Half which was to be raced on Sept 6th.

Today they cancelled the race due to Tropical Storm Hanna hitting the race site about time the race starts. I have been tracking the storm all week and suspected that it may have an impact.

Suspecting this may be an issue, I contacted Ironman USA and talked to Jennette who has been my main contact there since the beginning. She was the one nice enough to let me have a 6-day waiver for this qualifying race and I explained to her that if the race was cancelled or changed to something less than a half ironman distance I was out of options.

After much discussion she wanted to have a wait and see attitude on the race. Her main concern was knowing that I had the fitness and endurance for a half ironman race. I explained to her my background and she requested that I put together a race resume on my longer distance races to include adventure races. She said she would use this in the event the race was cancelled to evaluate and see if this would suffice and validate my Kona race slot but that she would no guarantee anything.

So right now, I am still hanging out here for the weekend seeing what Monday will bring.

The training side has been all about tapering this past week. Easy runs, rides and swims. The run was very short on Tuesday only 2 miles. Remember I have a suspected stress fracture/ankle injury so I am nursing it a bit. After a couple of weeks off it feels better and the two-mile run felt ok. I will have an 11 mile run this weekend (after a 55-mile bike) which will tell me where I am on this injury. Cross your fingers!!!!

One point of interest you will get a kick out of (or maybe not). I was riding my bike last weekend and going about 20 miles an hour, I had my head down a bit not looking very far up the road. At the last minute, I saw what I thought at first was a stick in the road but I couldn’t avoid it because I was moving on pretty well.

The stick turned out to be a 3-foot long copper head snake! I saw what it was about 5 feet before I ran over it. Now on a bike, when you run over sticks and things like that they have a tenancy to kick up and hit your legs and this was the first thing I thought about. So I went to jerk my legs up to avoid having the snake land on my legs and, yep, you guessed it, my feet were locked into my pedals and they didn’t come loose. So I ran over the snake and fortunately it didn’t kick up on my legs, but you can imagine I am being very careful now that these snakes are starting to move in the Fall.

A Lot to Cover both Good and Possibly Very Bad

Lets get the potential bad news out of the way first. I strongly suspect I have a Tarsal Navicular stress fracture (stress fracture of the lower ankle) on the inside of the right foot.

I started to feel it at mile 15 last week and didn’t think much of it since the pain was gone the next day, but this past week it started hurting at mile 11 and I turned and headed home and stopped my run at mile 15 and it hurt for a couple of days.

After much discussion with friends, people in the medical field and my Coach, I strongly suspect it is the beginning of a stress fracture. Unfortunately, these are hard to diagnose or see on X-rays until after they have healed, but you have to assume the worse for treatment.

I feel like this is somewhat due to my style of running. In short course I have taught myself to run on the balls or fore foot portion of my feet which has given me much more speed in 5k and 10 races. However, it does put more stress on this portion of the foot where my injury is.

So right now working with Coach Sonni, I have ceased all running for two weeks and I will give it a 2-mile test run prior to the half-ironman race in Williamsburg, which is the race to validate my Kona slot at the World Championships in Hawaii. As you can imagine this is a bit concerning but I feel like as long as I can make it through the qualifying race in Williamsburg, I will have 5 weeks for it to heal.

…and what about running. There may be a chance I do not run anymore until the race and concentrate on the bike and swim since my bike shoes are hard soled and it doesn’t affect this injury. It’s really starting to get interesting now.

Now on a lighter note:

I was laughing as I wrote the following “coach feedback” e-mail to Sonni earlier this week (as I do every couple of weeks) because the distances I am doing in all three disciplines are crazy right now. So here’s what I wrote…It’s a good thing he understands my humor.

Swimming: I need entertainment because 1 hour and 15 minutes in the pool is pure isolationism and torture and the silence other than the splashing of water could possibly lead me to the insane asylum.

Run: I feel like Forrest Gump, just running to be running and running some more with nowhere in particular to go.

Bike: I am getting the “Hamster Syndrome” After about 80 miles I just feel like I’m on the Hamster wheel and I’m too stupid to quit and I am seeing the exact same scenery as I did the last 4 times I passed this part of the loop. I can’t even get the dogs to chase me anymore to add excitement because they’re so use to seeing me now.

I have to have humor through all of this training or I would go completely crazy. Let is be known, I would not be a good professional cyclist because these 100 miles days, like today, are a bit too much to do for an extended period of time.

One of the bright spots I am having though is swimming. I have really gotten to the point where I can really put a hard effort into the swim for distances less than 2500 yards (about 1.5 miles) and maintain a good pace. I have not been able to do this in the past. So the training is really paying off here.

One last funny thing that happened this week on my long run was I almost lost my spare water and fuel. I stash my water and nutrition mix on my course so at the halfway point of the run I can stop refill on water and Infinit nutrition mix.

So as I approached my refill point there was a truck load of Mexican Landscapers who were part of the landscaping crew here in the neighborhood. As I got closer I saw them get out of the truck, grab my bottles and Infinit mix and start holding it up trying to figure it out. As I got close enough I started to yell for them to stop and put it down before they dumped it into their truck. None of them spoke English but I think they all figured out what was going on and the guy who was grabbing it was embarrassed and all of his buddies were laughing at him for getting caught. There was certainly no hard feelings as a matter of fact I saw them later and they all were waving and at me and they started laughing at their buddy again.

Nothing much else to cover this week. It was just another build week and I am sure by now you have all heard me talk enough about the distances and how I do not look forward to these high intensity weeks, so I will stop it right here.

I will touch base next week as usual!

Rest Week is Over and Heading Into Another High Intensity Week!

The past week was a rest week. Not exactly like the picture shows to the right (this is me in Hawaii after the race) but but it was nice to back off training somewhat. It's something that I always look forward to. If you recall typically I have two very intense weeks and one rest week to recover, so I did a lot of recovering last week.

Something really cool that happened last week was the Charlotte Observer ran a story on me in regards to the race in Hawaii. You can see it at the following link:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/464/story/115571.html

Kristine Crane from the Charlotte Observer is the journalist who worked on this for about 2 months and did a great job. I think after the last two months she has heard all she wants to hear about triathlon, but I will admit she was very detailed and thorough in her story and I thought it came off very well.

Speaking of this story, thanks to the mass of e-mails I received from everyone. If I did not personally send you a thank you, I am very sorry. I tried to keep up with them all but I keep finding a few that have fallen through the cracks. They all mean a lot to me though, and have certainly let me know I have people supporting me through this undertaking.

On the subject of this undertaking let’s talk briefly about it and what’s happening. Last weeks swim really was just as long and intense as they usually are mainly because it doesn’t put the strain on your body like a 100 mile bike ride or an 18 mile run. So I was hitting my regular long distance swims last week as well and the higher intensity swim on Tuesday. I did however get an “OFF” day on Friday which was GREAT!! It felt like a vacation actually

As I said the run and the bike last week was much shorter, but Sunday’s ride was fairly hard (3 hour bike & 1 hour run) because I was up all night for the most part on Saturday night with 14 10& 11 year old boys spending the night for my oldest sons birthday. Just to show the important of nutrition and sleep; after eating, Pizza, Ice Cream Cake (b-day cake) and having a couple glasses of wine with the adults earlier in the evening, along with 14 rowdy boys on a sugar high from the S’mores and ice cream cake (who I don’t think ever went to sleep “like me”), you have a recipe for a tough training day.

Yes, I really sat there at 10am thinking to myself, since it was a rest week I should really rest and not even hit the training circuit at all and get ready for another tough week of training. Then, like always when these thoughts creep into my mind, I knew I would be absolutely in a bad mood for the rest of the day if I cheated on myself and my training. It’s hard to change the way you’re wired.

So off on the bike ride and run I went. Luckily, I had Michael Heredia ride for an hour and twenty minutes with me to help me along. Michael has been a great help and great support on my longer rides. Having him link up with me for 90 minutes in the middle of a long ride is very nice and breaks up the monotonous rides. So after I survived the bike, which wasn’t too bad, I hit the run and felt like I was going to hit the wall. I felt completely OUT of energy due to a lack of sleep and poor nutrition. That’s one thing, when training at these distances there is no fooling your body when it comes to sleep and nutrition!!!!!

Health issues. Everything is ok, not great, but ok. Three things I am watching and working on. First, I had a plantar wart on my foot which finally got to the point where it was bothering me on the run so I froze it on Friday and it’s been very painful for the last few days especially on the run, OUCH!!!. I have an 18 mile run coming up so I am sure it will feel delightful but I had to get it taken care of before I got any closer to my race.

The other problem I am experiencing is my right foot on longer runs. Just below the ankle on the inside, I have had some pain. It really didn’t feel good after my last 18 mile run. It doesn’t appear to be a stress fracture because it came on quickly and after a day of rest it went away for the most part and it seems to be more in the joint rather than the arch or a mid point of a bone. I think it may be caused somewhat by running on the side of the crown of the road where that ankle would be turned inward. So my next long run I am going to stick to the top of the crown in the road or the sidewalk to insure a flat surface.

The last thing I am watching is the flare up of the quad tendonitis that I had last year. It feels ok right now but again after some of the long runs or very hilly bike rides where I am climbing and standing up, it gets a bit sore so I am begin very careful on this.

We’ll see how this week goes!!!!

The Dark Period

This was something that was told to me by my coach as we talked about the very long distance part of the training schedule. Dark as in , “IS IT GOING TO EVER END!!!” I like training, I like swimming, running and especially biking but as I am in the middle of the most intense part of training, the shear boredom really causes me to start looking at this as work instead of fun to a certain extent.

It has been a while since my last entry and that is really because of work, training, coaching football, kicking off my foundation at Appalachian State and trying to balance all of that with family time. It really leaves little time for anything else. I can’t wait until I can recapture my time on the weekends once again which I am now using for training. That’s 9 hours of daylight!!!! I will get back.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not complaining, these are just some of the things I think about while I am on the bike for 6 hours at a time covering 100 miles or out for a 3 hour (18 mile) run.

Health wise I think I am holding up pretty well. The quad tendonitis I had last year which caused me to cancel the last half of my season, gives me a tweak every once in a while especially after a bike ride with steep hills. It seems to quickly subside by the next day, but I am very careful to stretch it well and I see Mike Dannenberg who is a certified ART (Active Release Technique) specialist who I work with every couple of weeks right now just to help prevent injuries. After my run on Wednesday, my outside quads (IT Band possibly) were sore for a couple of days which is unusual since I have been running 15/16 miles for a while and nothing has bothered me. I had pain in my right foot as well not quite down to the arch but below the ankle. My first thought was stress fracture, but I will see how it comes around this week during my “rest week.” I think it came on too fast to be a stress fracture after the run, but I am being very careful.

The last two weeks have not been interesting enough to really talk about. Nothing of an educational nature has happened, no excitement, just long hard miles.

On the swim: I am up to 3600 yards on Mondays (about 2 ¼ miles). Again, there is no physical limitations just a very, very, very long time in the pool. I have stopped swimming the lake for now. The water is just too hot to swim in, probably around 90 degrees at the surface and you can really get dehydrated quickly in that type of heat without water to drink during the 1 hour + sessions.

The run has me amused. 18 miles sounds a lie a long ways and it is, but physically it’s not a challenge at the pace I am running which is about a 10 minute pace. This pace includes walking a minute every 10 minutes and taking time to refill water bottles. While I am running I often think about just how far I can run before I really get tired and just can’t run any further. I guess this is a testament to my coach who has eased me along over the past months. Let’s just hope I have the same feeling about the run in my upcoming races.

That’s all for this time around I will try to get back on schedule with a once a week update next week!

Solid Week of Training and a VERY Tough Bike Ride

AHHHH What a week. The week before a rest week is always very intense. I was able to hang with it though even through a very difficult and challenging bike ride on Saturday. Here’s the update on the week:

Swimming I clicking along very well. I had a 3100 yds swim scheduled for Monday which went very well and with these longer swims it’s great to have access to a lake. I have distances between docks on the lake plotted on my gps so I know where I have to swim to in order to get 3100 yards in (1.76 miles). It would be very hard to do this in a pool; I would have to do 124 laps. I would absolutely lose count, and lose my mind!!!!

So the swim went very well and finished up with a nice easy endurance pace at 1:02:00.

The Run, no problem. My long run this week was 15 miles and that was done very easy. No problems at all. Nutrition was good, hydration was good, temperature was about 70 degrees for the first hour and then warmed up a bit but not much. Obviously, it will be much hotter in Kona but as Coach Sonni said, it’s better to get the run in during cooler weather and get the conditioning instead of just trying to survive a training run in the heat. I agree whole-heartedly.

Now the bike. I always consider the bike as my strong suit and I have proven this in short course tri’s. but this weekend I was scheduled for a 90 mile ride again and deciding to do the Lake Norman Excursion which had about 600+ riders and you could choose between 10, 40, 65 and 100 miles. Well 100 miles sounds like the distance I should go, so I went after it.

There were only about 50 people who did the 50 miler.

Did I have problems on the bike, yes but it was a lesson learned, big time!!!! I learned I may have a bike ego. I have been so accustomed to going fast on the bike for 2 hours and then the race is over I felt the same way on Saturday. So when the excursion started after about 5 miles it school out and we had a group of about 20 riders who were flying in a pace line. I was right in there with them and having a great time no matter what it was costing me. I just figured that some of the cyclist who were in the pace line with me, if they could hang I surely could hang with no problem.

Even though my heart rate was up, my speed was beyond where I really needed it to be (5 mph more than I needed it to be), I was having fun but not riding according to plan. I was having fun until we got to a part of the course where the signs said the people riding 40 miles and those riding 100 miles had to split off. It was a lonely feeling when the whole pace line split off doing the 40 mile loop and I still had the 100 mile loop to go. OUCH!!!!!

So I linked up with other riders from time to time throughout the course and, yes, often riding beyond where I should have been riding for a training ride. We had water stops about every 20 miles and the last one was 28 miles from the finished line. I stocked up on some water, and not feeling overly energetic to say the least, I took off solo towards the finish line. Now at this point we had some very large hills to conquer and it was hot! As Matthew Broderick said in the movie “Beloxi Blues”, it was “Africa Hot.” Of course, since I had blown my legs out, sapped my energy and was trying to deal with extreme heat, it was only natural that I run out of water with 10 miles to go.

There was nowhere to stop and get water, I was out in the boonies and I was heading toward Mooresville where the ride began but I didn’t see anywhere to get water until I got into the town of Mooresville. So with 2 miles to go There was a red cross water stop at the library in Mooresville and I stopped and took 5 minutes just to get water, Gatorade and ice in me. WOW was I over heated.

I rode the rest of the way to the finish line and I spent the rest of the day drinking by my calculations 5 lbs of water over the next few hours. Dehydration is nothing to play with!!!

So here are the lesson I learned in this ride that I hope everyone will learn from:
Don’t ride beyond your plan on long rides
Drink often according to plan. I limited my fluid intake the first 90 minutes due to the intensity of the ride and the speed of the ride.
On a hot day, don’t be afraid to intake more water than you usually do
100 miles on flat ground is NOT the same as 100 miles on a hilly/mountainous course!!
Do not pour water over your head unless you are certain where the next water stop is. I did this to cool down and that’s why I ran out of water.
There are some scary places in North Carolina when riding a bike 100 miles through the back roads around Catawba, NC. There were also some great views as well like the herd of deer at mile 10, the horse farms at mile 85 or riding along the Catawba river at mile 76.

Yes, I am so glad I am in the middle of a rest week right now. I only had a 7 mile run this morning which was like walking to the mail box and back…how much fun is that!!!

See you next week!!

Training Builds and Saddle Sores!! Ouch!

I have a bit of catching up to do since I skipped last week. I didn’t have a lot to report on since I had a rest week and nothing new happened and I was very busy at work and with other things I needed to catch up on but this week I am fully, and I mean fully into my next “build” week.

I’ll start with Swimming which is going well. On Monday, I had 3,000 yards, which is about 1.8 miles. The only thing I can say is being in the water that long, it gets awfully quiet!!!!! I did this swim in the lake which I enjoy much more than the pool, but we have had recent thunder storms this past week so swimming in the lake tomorrow morning will probably not happen. The reason being is that the storms dump a lot of run off in the lake and I don’t think the water is as clean as I would like to see it and I usually let the water calm down for at least 2 days before jumping back in. I also have another reason…Saddle Sores!! (I will cover this under biking)

On the biking side, it going fairly well. I say fairly well just because I have developed a good case of saddle sores. For you non-bikers, saddle sores are when you really start putting in the miles and there will be points of contact between your saddle on the bike and your rear-end! If you have seams in your shorts or wrinkles in your shorts or you don’t use body glide or Vaseline to keep everything down there running frictionless, saddle sores can develop quickly. As a side note, when you research saddle sores on line many people swear by using Bag Balm as the cure all for saddle sores. I read what this stuff was and I just can’t bring myself to use it yet. Bag Balm is a thick pasty lotion similar to Vaseline but is it used on Dairy Cows to soften and heal raw areas on the utters (more specifically their Teats!) I do have my limits!!

…and yes, they are painful! They have been coming on for about a week and they peaked today on a 90 miles bike ride. Not to go into the gross details but this is good news because now they will be much easier to treat, heal up and prevent going forward. I will most likely skip my bike ride on Thursday this week just to get the healing time in and I should be good to go for next weekend’s 100 miler.

Getting back to the bike, I had an intense 60 minute session on Thursday this past week focusing on speed which went very well and then I had a 45 mile ride on Saturday and a 90 mile ride today (Sunday).

This is what poor nutrition will get you. On Friday I was very busy and didn’t eat lunch until 3pm at work and that consisted of no carbs at all (Salad), that night I ate Granola and Yogurt (I know I should have known better) but I wasn’t really hungry so I just ate something lite. Needless to say the next morning my 45 mile bike ride was the longest 45 mile ever!! In addition to having no power, having saddle sores, starting my ride at 11:30 when it was 85 degrees (later getting to 92 degrees), and finally have some pain in my knee (I will cover that under running) it was a long ride.

So last night I ate a ton of Pasta to restore my glycogen stores (power source we all have for our first 90 minutes of intense training or racing). That did the trick!!! Today’s ride was my longest ride ever at 90 miles and I finished up in 5 hours 15 minutes and still felt much better than I did yesterday.

On the run this week I am up to 13 miles, (it will be 15 miles this week) and the run itself was not bad but I felt some pain in my knee after the run. I have a history of quad tendonitis and I had to miss half the racing season last year due to this.

So this pain is a bit scary for me at this point. After the bike ride on Thursday…no pain, everything felt great, but after the bike on Saturday, it was hurting a bit once again. It didn’t hurt today on my long ride so thinking through everything, I think yesterdays pain came from me working Saturday morning at football skills day (I coach little league football). I was demonstrating some of the skill drills repeatedly which put a lot of stress right in the area I was experiencing quad tendonitis, so I figure I need to keep my football activities a little lower key.

Nothing else to report right now but this week will be another build week with a 15 mile run, 100 mile bike ride (in addition to a 50 miler on Sunday) and who knows how far on the swim this week…I need to check my schedule.

Vacation-Surfing-Arm Coolers and Nutrition!!!

This past week was vacation week so you would think that with all that time off I would be rested and ready to hit the road on the bike and running. Well it sorta worked out that way.

What I will say is that we are all creatures of habit and we like our routines when it comes to training and I found out this past week that getting outside your routine can sometimes affect your training (and racing)

So this week while I was at the beach the winds were whipping and the rip tides and undertows were in full effect. I walked into the water twice with the intention to swim parallel to the shore but with questionable currents and nobody else to swim with, I made the smart decision not to go swimming. So what to do for a whole week to replace swimming?????

I got it! I was going to be surfing anyway so I took on the surfboard as a paddleboard and started stroking and it actually gave me a good workout. Not anything like a swim but similar and I had the fun of surfing back to short from time to time. Ok so I dealt with the swim challenge

Running…I only had one run planned and that was a long 11 miler in the middle of the week. Obviously, this was easier than usual since everything was flat and I was able to run a few of the mile son the beach, not too bad. Not too bad until the last 3 miles when I had this older guy pass me. Now I know I should keep my pace and not get drawn into the pace other runners are running…but this guy was a lot older and he had been out there running for a long time as well. Uhm, so I matched his pace not wanting to look like a chump. Well after a 3 mile ass kicking he stopped and used a shower to cool down that was on the street for beach goers to rinse off. It was the end of my run anyway so I stopped and talked to him briefly. Yep…lucky me this guy ran qualified and ran the Boston Marathon in 3:06:00. I will never get caught up in that one again!!!

Biking: My first ride of the week I had some problems. I went out about 23 miles to a turn a round so I could get my 45 miles in. It was hot and I had just finished up my water bottle and I reached back for the 2nd bottle and it was gone! Great! Now I have to ride the next hour with no water and no c-stores to stop in and get water. On top of this my bike computer went dead, so here I was no water and no idea how much further I had to go to get out of this heat and get something to drink. I finally made it back to the house and I have made some adjustments to my bottle carrier so that will not happen again.

My second ride of the week went very well and I covered a lot of new roads going through Shallotte, NC and then to Indian River, SC and then back to Ocean Isle, NC where I was staying.

I also had a chance on this ride to try out my new Arm Coolers (see picture) made by DeSoto on this ride. I am trying new gear to keep cool for Kona and I bought these to see if they worked. They actually do work, and pretty well. If you have an overcast sky, I wouldn’t bother wearing them but if you have direct sunlight they do offer relief and if you put water on them, you can really feel them cool your skin. They are made of an almost see through material so your skin can feel the wind while you are biking but very little sun gets through which ordinarily would be cooking your skin. I’m sold on them in hot weather when there is direct sunlight. I am also planning on wearing them on the run and putting ice in them as well to keep cool in Hawaii.

One last item I wanted to talk about was nutrition. I learned the importance of a solid nutrition plan on my last ride of the week. When I was on vacation, I ate (constantly), yes I had a few beers and essentially enjoyed my vacation. On Sunday, I had an 85-mile ride I had to do. I got back from vacation on Saturday and took off on Sunday morning to get the ride in. My poor nutrition habits had caught up with me!!!!!

I was about 60 miles into the ride and for the first time I thought to myself…I am running out of energy and I not sure about doing 85 miles today!! I was sucking on the water bottle full of Infinit nutrition mix…didn’t help. I grabbed a gu pack…didn’t help. I realize I could cheat on nutrition and like cramming for an exam in college, expecting to make it all up at the last minute. All I started thinking about was taking that next turn and heading home..ahhh. But then I thought if I started cheating on my training rides, what would I do in the race, and quitting was out of the questions in a race, so I hung in there.

My last 20 miles was S-L-O-W but I got through it! and vacation was over and I was right back on that nutrition plan!!!