All dressed up…

For the last two months, I have routinely gone down to my basement every other day and "spun" on my old Bianchi road bike (it's around 20 years old). While I'm sure I've benefited from these workouts, I have been anxious about getting a real bike and getting outside and riding. The anxiety is based on the fact that I've really not done much outdoor biking – of the three Ironman events, it is my weakest.

I thought that I would have purchased my bike by now, but it has taken longer than I thought. It is an expensive purchase and one that I wanted to make sure I didn't make a mistake on. So I asked my coach, a bike expert and employees at the bike shop for their opinion (I'll go more into the process in another post).

Last week, I finally did make a decision on the bike – an Equinox 9 by Trek. Unfortunately, it seems that everyone else wants an Equinox 9. It's on back order. It may still take a few weeks to get my bike.

In the mean time, I've bought all the accessories that I need – helmet, cadence sensor, heart rate monitor, pedals (silly me, I thought they came with the bike – at least the wheels do) and shoes. I'm all dressed up, but I have no where to go but downstairs.

Yard work

I think that the hardest workout of the year is does not come a couple weeks before the race. I think it's the annual first day of yard work each spring.

Yesterday was the big event and I raked and pulled and chopped out some weeds, rocks and pieces of wood from our back yard. To top it off, it was hot and I was wearing sweats to keep off the bugs and thorns from the bushes. I was sopping wet within a few minutes. I came closer to dehydrating by pulling weeds than I did doing the hour and a half bike ride I did that morning.

I find that no matter how good of shape you're in, you still hurt after a hard day of yard work – particularly the first one of the spring season.

Rest not relax

In my training, I'm going three weeks of tough workouts, followed by one rest week so that my body can recuperate. This has been my rest week – and while I did do easier workouts – I'm worried that I did not really "rest" – I relaxed.

And when I relax, I like to eat a fast food burger. When I relax, I like to stay up late and watch movies with my wife. When I relax I like to read in bed until the wee hours of the morning. So last week I relaxed and didn't really rest enough. As a result, I'm not feeling as refreshed as I had hoped to be – even though I've been doing some relatively easy training in the last 5 days.

Now I'm at the end of my rest week and I'm trying to cram some real rest into the last few days – I'm going to get to bed early Sunday and Monday. Hopefully, I'll be ready to ramp it up by Tuesday.

I don't regret "relaxing" – I'll probably do some again in three weeks. You've got to give yourself a break every once in a while. You've got to mentally recover from the rigors of triathlon training. I just hope I didn't over do it and not allow myself enough time to physically recover.

If it weren’t for bad luck…

Most of the time, training for an endurance event is pretty uneventful – in fact it can be quite boring. You run or you bike or you swim for a long time and then you towel off until the next workout. It's really not that difficult just tedious. Starting is usually the hardest part.

But then there are days like today that make you wonder if you can handle any more days like today. I had not been feeling well in the past few days and to make matters worse, I had stubbed my toe pretty good on the way to the mailbox (whish I had a better story). When I woke up this morning and looked at the now swollen purple toe, I could tell I may have broken it. It was at least severely bruised.

The day was a busy day and I couldn't get out of work till late and by then the sun was out and the temperature was over 80. We're probably going to have to do the Ironman in above 80 degree temperatures, but I really didn't want to practice in the heat till later.

Still I put my 45 minutes in, grateful that the pain in my foot was minimal and hoping that I wasn't subconsciously messing up my stride (and putting myself at risk for further injury) by compensating for my injured toe.

I then jumped into the pool where I was told that I had about 45 minutes to complete my drills – just enough time. However, I had forgotten my goggles. So rather than give in to a day of bad karma, I went goggleless. I can tell you that right now I can barely see the monitor and it's been nearly 2 hours since I got out of the pool. Lesson learned.

These are the days when, once the goal is accomplished, you can look back with pride. At least that's what I tried to tell myself as I dragged my sorry exhausted butt home from the pool.

Progress

It's been about a month of training for the Louisville Ironman and its obvious I've got a lot of training to do if I want to have a good shot at finishing. But it's amazing how much progress I feel I've made. Last month it was difficult to do 200 meters of freestyle swimming without stopping and having to catch my breath. Now I'm doing swimming every other day and I'm doing about 1600 meters without much effort. The difference came in the swimming lessons and time in the pool.

1600 meters in a pool is hardly 2.4 miles down the Ohio River, but out of the three events, I feel less intimidated by this phase than the bike or run. Not that I'm going to break any records or anything – I just can visualize completing it without being exhausted. Not close to seeing that in the bike or swim.

I'm still on the hunt for a proper triathlon bike. I'm still spinning downstairs on my old road bike. Because the weather has been cold, there has been no hurry to get the bike. But spring is in the air and it's time to invest monetarily in a proper tri bike – not looking forward to the cost.

I do think the time spent spinning has helped me create a base. I can stay on the bike spinning for at least two hours – we'll soon see how that transfers to riding outdoors.

Down river

The latest word on how the swim portion of Louisville Ironman will be held is that we'll all be taken up the Ohio River on a barge. Then we simply jump off and swim for 2.4 miles. It should at least make for an interesting picture.

Currently, the river is pretty high and I can't help feeling a little intimidated every time I cross the bridge over to Louisville. Yesterday I saw a huge log bobbing up and down as it floated down the choppy river.

I did not take comfort in this. However, it served as an incentive to head to the pool.

It’s never easy

I hate infomercials that show models, without an inch of fat on them, using the newest fitness machine that is guaranteed to help you lose pounds effortlessly. Occasionally they'll show testimonials or pictures of individuals who have supposedly used the new machine (you can add diet pills into this mix as well). Ugly and fat before – they are now beautiful and trim.

Its crap and it's wrong to deceive people that losing weight and becoming fit is easy. It's not.

Most of the time it's uncomfortable at best and sometimes it's even painful. It means getting out and exercising when you don't want to. It means avoiding deserts and fast food. It means being dedicated to a lifestyle that says no to some of life greater pleasures.

I'm not a health nut, but I eat moderately and I exercise (even when I'm not training for a triathlon) at least 5 times a week. I work very hard to keep healthy – probably harder than 95% of the population. But even with all that exercising and eating right, I can assure you that my body doesn't look anything like the models on the infomercials. Those people are getting more help from their neighborhood plastic surgeon than they are the new machine they are hawking.

There is a great payoff for the sacrifices you make in diet and time spent working out. You'll probably live longer. Your clothes fit better. You look better. You can walk up stairs without being winded. It's a totally different way of living than most of the rest of the world. But it's not easy. It's hard. Don't let the infomercials fool you.