The long ride

Yesterday I went out on the Ironman Louisville bike course (or at least some of it). My workout was supposed to be about 70 miles. The distance would be the longest I have ever ridden and with my head cold and the hot weather, I was a little nervous and wondered how I'd handle it.

The answer: Not well.

But it wasn't necessarily the physical or the lack of preparation that did me in – it was the lack of fluids. I thought I had the course on my gps system. Unfortunately, even with it, I somehow got off course. So my planned water restock got scratched (I was supposed to have at least one bottle an hour). Somehow, I convinced myself that if I rode conservatively, I'd be able to get by on my 3 bottles of liquid and 6 packs of energy gu. I knew better. I knew that I'd end up cramping, dizzy and exhausted at the end of the ride if I didn't stop to find some water. But I didn't stop and I ended up cramped, dizzy and exhausted at the end of the ride.

So why didn't I stop? Probably for the same reason I do these types of endurance events – I believe, despite all common sense, that my mind and will can overcome the challenge. Can I run a marathon fast? Can I do an Ironman? Can I go a couple hours on a bike in the heat without water? My brain always says "yes" – but my body often times ends up winning the battle.

I'm not sure how many more times I need to learn that if I'm going to complete Ironman or a long bike ride, I'm going to need to drink and eat smart during the activity – hopefully it'll sink in before August 26^th.

The cold comes

Inevitably I was going to catch a cold with all this training – and so I have. There is nothing fun about having a head full of snot while trying to swim a mile in the pool or bike a couple hours. Everything feels off balance and I can't go a few minutes without blowing my nose or clearing my throat. I can cope with it at this stage but I always worry that I may overdo it. A head cold is one thing – driving myself into near pneumonia defeats the purpose of training. Obviously if you can't train, you go backward – and I don't really have any time to go backward.

This is similar to training for a marathon – with all the miles that are ran - the immune system is weakened and you're bound to get sick. The tightrope you walk is determining how far you can continue to push yourself without making the cold into a full blown illness. Hopefully, I'm smart enough not to push it.

Open water

After a decent first attempt at trying the tri – my coach thought it a good idea for me to do an "aquabike." Evidently that's when you do the swim and bike portions of the race and then stop. So this weekend, I'm entering a half triathlon minus the 13.1 miles of running. It's an exciting prospect for me because I've never biked that far before (112 miles) and I've never swum in open water.

Of course as all things dealing with the triathlon seem to go – I was going to have to spend more money, this time on a wetsuit. I like the idea of swimming in open water – seems like it will be an adventure. But I am not looking forward to entering the water in a big black formed to body tire. However, that's what I'm going to do. I purchased the wetsuit over the internet – it's a lower priced suit from a company called Neosport – and it arrived yesterday. We'll see how it works. I'm going to test it out at a public pool tomorrow – I'm sure I won't feel self conscious at all (sarcasm).

Not enough time in the day

Well something had to give in the past few weeks – and it was this site. Between a million fires at work, a weekend vacation, busy kids with extracurricular activities nearly every night, a wife with a blossoming photography studio and increasingly long workouts – the posting was put on hold for a few weeks. I find I'm rushing workouts and squeezing them into my schedule when I can – but I am getting it done. The big day is only about 3 months away and I'm growing more and more excited about it.

Last week I completed my first sprint triathlon – a far cry from a full Ironman but a solid step toward it. You can read about it here.

Fitting

When I started out on this "Ironman journey", I knew the biggest learning curve would be the bike. Turns out I was right. It's darn complicated. While swimming and running experience can be attained by relatively easy. In swimming you need some trunks and a pool. In running you need some decent shoes and a road. Cycling, however, requires much more equipment and knowledge on how to use that equipment.

After spending much money on a bike, apparel, helmet, computer, shoes and more stuff than I want to think of – I had one more important cycling to invest in: The fitting.

I have to admit that I really didn't think that fitting would be that necessary when I started. After all, you buy a fancy bike – you'd think it'd be a pretty good in the first place. But once you've ridden on a bike right "off the rack" for over 30 minutes, you begin to become uncomfortable. Your shoulders may start to ache, your butt might hurt or you may just struggle more than you should going up hills. All this can be the result of a bike that has not been "fit" to its owner.

My new tri bike was no different. While I did have someone at the bike store help me adjust the bike to my size – it was obvious during my first ride that I needed my bike to be better fitted to my body.

I used Marcus and Nancy from Train Smart to get my fitting. The cost was $180 and it was money well spent.

The process of fitting is a combination of measurements and feeling. Naturally, they attempt to get the body angled so that the most energy can be expensed at the least effort. But beyond that, it's about how it feels – Do the shoulders hurt? Is comfortable to peddle? How hard is it to peddle? Bike training means a bunch of time in the saddle and your told that comfort is the key.

I'd compare fitting to getting glasses. You get on the bike and peddle for a while and you're asked how it feels. Then you get off and they tweak the bike. You get on again and they ask you if the new adjustments feel better or worse. Then you get off again and the tweak again and so it goes…

It took over two hours to adjust the many components on my bike. They even put plastic on the bottom of one of my shoes to make up for a leg discrepancy I have in my legs (my right leg is longer than the left). When all was said and done, my new ride felt like a new ride. While my body does need to adjust to biking and thus I do get sore muscles, overall I was able to ride pretty comfortably for a couple hours a couple days after the fitting. The first few hours of what I suspect will be hundreds more on the bike.

On pace

I've never been one to try to ease into a race. I like to pick a fast pace and try to keep it as long as possible. I realize this isn't necessarily a good strategy if I pick too fast of a pace. Just two weeks ago did a ten mile race in which I went out hard and died a horrible death.

In fact, the result was so bad that I worried that my triathlon training had ruined my ability to run a good race. I thought I'd be forever slow as long as I trained for the tri.

So, after ignoring the previous advice of my coach, I decided to listen to hear advice this time and do negative splits in last weekends half marathon in Louisville. The plan was for me to run off of my heart rate monitor and let that be my guide and not pace. I was to do about 75% for the first three miles and not go more than about 80% for the next 8. If I still had some left after 11 miles – I could run as fast as my legs would carry me.

As I understand it, completing an Ironman is all about using your energy wisely. Containing effort early on in the race will save a contestant from hours of walking during the marathon. I needed to start running based on effort (heart rate).

Starting out at the back of the pack drove me nuts. I had to keep reeling myself back in. I was constantly running into the back of the other runner's heals and trying to sidestep around them if they were too slow. But tossing out any expectation of going fast relieved some self applied pressure and I tried to enjoy the slow pace. It was a beautiful day – a perfect day for running. Eventually space began to clear and I ran at a very easy pace, with little stress. The start of the Louisville Derby Mini Marathon is flat for the first few miles but then goes into a hilly park. Running through the park, my heart elevated and I kept my pace down accordingly. I still felt really strong and began to grow some confidence that I was going to be able to pick it up as the race went on.

The last 6 miles of the derby are flat or slightly down hill. With every mile I increased my turnover and accelerating. I passed many many people. I have to admit it was fun. The last few miles I was actually able to push it hard – running a minute and a half per mile faster than my starting pace. While that pace would have been impossible to keep up for more than a mile longer, it really gave me some confidence in what I'd be capable of doing if my splits had been more even. More importantly, by steadily increasing speed during the race, I think I was able to determine what type of pace I can keep up for a long run. In the future, if I'm trying to do a fast marathon, I think I'll do a half marathon on negative splits as a tune up – so I'll know what pace to go out at.

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