MightyMojoMentorGroup -- (Full House!) (Page 208)

Hi George,

My bib is #1102. Your friend and I are in the same age group!

We got to Tempe today, check in starts tomorrow, Saturday is a practice swim and Sunday is an all day adventure

JOHANNE,

OMG, you race is this weekend.   Glad I checked in.   Even though you have been training for MANY months, I bet you find it hard to believe the big weekend is here already.   I am really excited for you and hoping you have the best day ever.   With your training and your attitude I know that you will.   

Looking forward to reading your blog and seeing some great pictures.   All the BEST.

Anne

Doug -

Ah-ha --- The Battle of the Dougs!  Duelin' Dougs!!  If you were Gnaw Bone teammates, then this must be one very convivial rivalry.  Is he also the one that you work with? 

I enjoy thinking about the chess match with the remaining races -- see which ones he does comin right up, then factor in if you need a third, and also factor in hills and distance.  And who said this stuff was easy?!?

As I live quite a ways from the two core race series in Ontario, it galls me that their points scheme is really based on who races the most, with points being cumulative and no limit to how many races one can do.  This hugely favors those who live in southern Ontario, where both series are roughly centered.  I would have to make a bunch of tedious trips down that way to be able to be competitive in either race series, and it is both closer for me, and more economical, to do the USAT rankings thing.  There, of course, it's only the top three races that count, and lots of people do just the three --- and hope that's good enough!   It certainly is relatively inexpensive, anyhow. 

I can get to 8-10 USAT-sanctioned races in upstate and western New York in less time than it takes to get to those races in southern Ontario.  Go figure!

GEORGE -

Your swimming pals are motivated, which makes it an even better arrangement for you.  I'm assuming this is your pool-swim group and not the OWS set, yes?

JEFF -

Like the thoroughbred horse you are, have you been successful re-shoed?

I just put 6.5 miles on the shoes I bought at noon

JOHANNE -

So fine to hear from you, as I've wondered if you were hurt and in full panic mode, unable to do anything except curl up in the fetal position and wail like a banshee.  But you're fine it seems, and IN TEMPE, and probably started to dig that iron vibe.  Hopefully, giddyness is overruling nervousness, and will still that way until it's show time!

1102 is a superb number, a manipulated palindrome with the two 1s adding up to 2, and so balancing the two at the end and separated by the auspicious zero, which to a Buddhist might signify their concept of "emptiness", which is really all about UNLIMITED POSSIBILITY --- which I hope is the case for you!!!

(Trust me that all of the last paragraph makes unequivocal great sense!)

(Seriously!  Trust me!)

(Or not!)

ANYHOW, please keep us updated as it works for you -- or should we just shuffle over to your blog?  I never seem to remember that, even though the reminder is at the bottom of all your posts, but I will now head there and see if you've been active there.

I am trying to orchestrate Sunday so I am home for most of the afternoon and beyond, but may well be out of cybercontact.  At the very worst i wouldn't be home until after midnight, at which point I figure that even with the time diff and all, you'll be done --- and I will have missed all the thrill of stalking you as the day progresses.  But, as I said, i am working to limit my time away to mid-afternoon, and maybe even earlier.

Finally, remember to "expect the unexpected", and NOT panic if something gets you out of the blue.  (I have told you my yellow-jacket sting story from IMLP '04, haven't I?)

Hey gang,

I've been awol for a lil bit due to some computer problems. They're fixed now luckily

What is not fixed however is a little nagging injury on my right lower leg just behind the shin bone. I have no idea how I got it nor what I can do to prevent it from happening again. I haven't ran in almost two weeks though, just to be safe. This weekend I will do a little stroll to see how it feels and depending on that I will decide to let a physio have a look. 

I've ramped up my cycling, which has me confined to indoor riding as I don't do well in cold weather (cycling, that is. cold weather running is my favorite)

Just in time as I've volunteered to be another university guinea pig. This time is quite different however, as it is with a larger and longer test group which had previously also tested my rowing physiology. They have a bunch of different groups from the various endurance branches of sport, and you could say that I am "defecting" from the rowing group, via a 1 year hiatus, to the triathlon group. This means another VO2max test next wednesday. Yay Although for some reason I seem to like these kinds of tests, in an odd, sick way! I'm gonna catch up on what everyone has been up to.

Same same.  The OWS group is just the male portion of our pool-swim group.  I do find they make me drink a lot of coffee.

Last Friday we had an easy pool swim learning to do open turns which has really made a big difference in my 100m times.  I think I knocked 10 - 20 seconds off per 100m just by not losing so much time at the ends.  I do still hope I've got some more time I can knock off of my typical pace.

Today, at our cycling/trainer class we did a fairly long build-up then we did a 20 minute time trial.  I think I did as much as I possibly could.  My average HR was 151 and I usually average 134-ish.  I started to fade out in the last two minutes or so but I managed to maintain a consistent pace over the 20 minutes and finished with 27.6kph which was better than I expected (26-ish).  I sure worked up a sweat.

I haven't run in 2 weeks.  Not because of any issues except I'm having trouble scheduling some time for it.  There's a Santa Shuffle 5K run I want to do in two weeks so I need to get running again.  I'm determined I'll get going again tomorrow. 

Johanne - I'll be thinking about you all day Sunday and I hope to follow your progress and that of the lady from Penticton as well.  I hope you have a lot of fun.

That bugs me too.   Is it a scheme to get people to enter only their races?   Even being in the centre of things, I still find it hard to co-ordinate more than 3 races with each of them.  And then at the end of the season you see who took top rankings and sort of laugh.   (Not always).

JEFF AND STEVE,

Do you guys ever sleep?

LOVE THIS.

1102 is a superb number, a manipulated palindrome with the two 1s adding up to 2, and so balancing the two at the end and separated by the auspicious zero, which to a Buddhist might signify their concept of "emptiness", which is really all about UNLIMITED POSSIBILITY --- which I hope is the case for you!!!

Totally makes sense. 

GO JOHANNE!

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to pop in and say I actually swam 25 yards of butterfly this morning. I had forgotten how much I disliked the stroke in the 26 years since the last time I probably attempted it. 

My hat is off to those that voluntarily include it in their workouts regularly.

Funny Steve! I'm neither hurt or in full panic mode. I'm super excited and a lot nervous

Dave and I drove out to Tempe on Wednesday. Thursday, we went to check in at Ironman Village and the fun vibe started to set in. Great people watching! We came back to our condo and got on our bikes and rode back to Tempe. My daughter went to ASU so I'm familiar with the area and knew there was a great bike path that runs from Scottsdale to Tempe Town Lake. We rode around the run course and then headed back. In the afternoon we drove the bike course. It's marketed as a flat course but there is an incline going out the Beeline that I'm sure by the third lap I'll be feeling. We met some old friends from San Jose that moved here several years ago for dinner then we picked up our youngest at the airport.

This morning Dave, Laura and I went for a run. Now we're just hanging out. Later this morning we'll make another airport run to pick up our other daughter and son. Tonight is the program Ironman puts on and the the athletes meeting.

Tomorrow it's the practice swim. It's the only time they let people into the lake other than on race day. Everyone talks about how cold the water is. It should be between 61-63 on race morning. The place where I do my open water swims is a canal that is fed from the Pacific and it's pretty cold so I'm curious to see how the water feels to me. Maybe my canal water is 70 for all I know but someone said it's usually 58-60 this time of year so I'm hoping TempeTown Lake feels comfortable.

I'm loving the race prep and I'm glad we got here a few days early to enjoy it all. I have all my bags laid out and I've been piling things I'll need for each bag. There is so much more thinking involved for this distance!

I've been bad about writing my blog since my last race. I'm hoping to get some new posts up soon

Thanks for thinking about me!

Johanne

Lately I sleep allot?

I too, will try to follow IM AZ this weekend, I do have a 20 mile run scheduled but nothing else.

I bought a used Garmin 305 on from a BT member in Canada-I am tracking it through the Canadian Post-it is in someplace called Mississauga right now.

JEFF -

Better the Garmin is in Mississauga than you.  Many, many people have entered Mississauga.....and never been seen again!

Okay, not quite, not really, but still -- it's a very undesirable place.  If you find a map of Toronto and scan slightly west, there it is -- a huge, ugly, concrete mass.  About a million people call Missisauga their home, and it works in the sense that it is close enough to Toronto to be commutable, but it is just.....just.....just.........

Which shoes will the 20 miles be in?   

I did another 3.5 in the new pair today, I feel the pain subsiding so I suspect some of my issues were from shoe wear, therefore I will do the 20 in the new pair. No sign of blisters or anything weird. The pads of my toes get sort of damaged and a couple of toenails have altered their relationship with the other nails and the toes.

Maybe Guildwood is a better place, it was there briefly but now in the US and being tracked by the USPS

JEFF -

Yup, Guildwood is an improvement.  That is east of Toronto, just past Scarborough and getting clsoer to Oshawa.  Some in the western reaches of Toronto would say that Missisauga is vastly superior to Scarborough, but that's just them being covetous, I think.  Scarborough is no outright gem, but it cdoes have something called the Scarborough Bluffs which stand high above Lake Ontario.  So, as Guildwood is near Scarborough.....I can only hope that your Garmin is having a restful day or so before it scrambles somewhere else.

Funny comment on your toes and toenails, and I have certainly been in similar shoes (as it were) over the years.  For whatever picayune biomechanical reasons, the overwhelming "winner" in the lost-toenail department is my right index toe -- maybe at least 3:1 gaianst all other toenails combined.  One ill-fated earaly-morning run about three years ago ending up damaging BOTH big toenails, which eventually sloughed off, and which haven't since grown back normally.  i now think they never will, and that is fine as long as they never become ingrown.  And that has never happened to me, as all my lost toenails have grown back without jagged pain.

Since eschewing longer-distances about two years ago, my toenails have been much happier.  It's been well over a year since I lost one, although the right index one can become slightly bruised with just the small amount of running I am doing these past couple of years.

Funny story comes from Sept '09 when I did Reston Triathlon (VA) and got to meet one of the people in my first mentor group.  She was just finishing her first full tri season, but as of that point had kept it to sprints and olys.  Her plan was to start going long in '10 with a couple of HIM and maybe IM Louisville, and then build from there.  (She did all that, and IMLP in '11, and qualified for Kona '11!). 

Anyhow, post-race we were sitting around waiting for awards, and I didn't have my sandals on, and she looked at my feet and pronounced them disgusting, what all with black nails, and EVERY nail very thickened, and much cracking of the skin around the base of both feet.  I couldn't argue, but only smiled knowingly and told her that the longer she did this stuff, and the bigger distances she attempted, it wouldn't be long before her feet started to resemble mine --- which, I was quick tp add, is not quite as unslightly in a 60+ male as in an early 30s female.

Fast-forward to July '11, just before IMLP, and I got a look at her feet ---- and lo and behold, almost as "disgusting"a as mine.  Do you think I mentioned this to her?  Yup!  I did!  (Sometimes those "told-ya-so" moments are sooooo sweet!)

Best of good footfortunes on the 20-miler!

JOHANNE -

Count your blessings about your canal.  i am sure that, fed by the Pacific that high up the coast, it is no more than 70, ever, so Tempe shouldn't be bad for you at all.  There will be hundreds of athletes tomorrow who swim OWS just a few times a year, and/or who do everything in a pool, and/or live in the south where they never need a wetsuit.........and these ones will have a tough time.  But you -- you should be cool as a cucumber!

I know what you mean about all the bags, and it's best to be like Santa -- make a list and check it twice.  But I think you are super-organized, and it will all fall into place before long.  One bit of advice is that the bags are "free space", so whatever you think you might need by way of nutrition, clothing, or medicine/injury stuff, toss it in.  The worst that will happen is that it becomes more weight to drag back post-race -- but's that's what all your family is there for!

Did Roch frey and Paul Huddle conduct the meeting last night?  They may have "retired" from that gig, but for years they were the mainstays for those meetings.  Im has grown so much in the past few years that they probably can't attend many of the races, but they in CA so getting to Tempe is an easy one for them.  Hope they were there for you, as they're loosey-goosey, funny, and highly informative.

Keep digging the vibe -- you've worked really hard for this, and deserve to enjoy every moment!

THOMAS -

YO!

Lucky you to get VO2max testing done for free --- other than the suffering involved.  At least i'm assuming they're free, paid for by the researchers; yes?  I should maybe try to track down a similar opportunity here, as I haven't been tested since maybe '01.  And not only do I no longer remember the results (which don't seem to be written down anywhere that i can get my hands on......), but they are probably no longer valid.  Hmmm.

What kind of results would I provide --- turning 64 in January?  I mean, who really cares how older guys respond to kind of extreme "exercise", when so much concern is about getting any senior to do any exercise.  I guess that if money is going to be spent on physiological testing, it will be on subjects who are more indicative of society-at-large.  Oh well.

But I digress!

Tell me about your shim problem.  When you say "behind" it, does that mean underneath, or maybe just more to the inside or outside?  Good plan to rest some, as shins can be scary, and their problems insidious.  my tibila stress fracrure in early '00 was initially diagnosed as "shin splints", and so with that diagnosis I would wait a few days between runs.....and then it would still hurt......and after a bunch of repeats of this.......it morphed into the sfx.  OOPS!

That scare thrown out there ---- probably it doesn't apply to you.  Most shin woes are NOT stress fractures, but IMHO it's a good area to rest when it starts hurting -- just in case!

Anyhow, tell me a bit more about it, as to location with respect to the shin, and if there is any soreness along the shinbone itself -- and if so, how far up between ankle and knee.

In the meantime, enjoy the indoor cycling (which i haven't started yet....)!

DOUG -

Brave boy, with the 'fly!  But at least you can do it, or have some (sordid?) history with it.  Like most other serious swimmers, i have given it a shot or two, and like most swimmers who have done likewise and failed miserably, the result is just humungous splash and not much forward progress -- and all while getting into the red zone heartwise in about 14 seconds.  Lord have mercy!!

GEORGE -

Yes, pool-swimming leads to some odd dietary needs for me, too.  It must be my body's way of needing something to counterbalance all the chlorine that is in my gut!

Really well done on the 20-minute time trial.  Getting your HR so much higher than normal is indicative of agood, strong, concerted effort, and the fact you faded over the final couple of minutes pales in comparison to being able to hold onto the big effort for 18 minutes.  That's a glass that is WAY more than half full!

I like the idea of a 5km for you, and it's not too late to boot the run some and get ready to do it (San Shuf) some justice.  It may not be the best result you could receive, given the time off you've taken, but it'll tell you what happens when you take a couple weeks off sans run.  I really mean that -- it's good info to know about yourself and how you respond to layoffs.

As of Monday, it will be FOUR weeks since I last ran, and from my last race on Oct 7, I have been on my bike just once -- a 41km outside ride.  So, at this point, i am very pleased with the "depth" of my off-season, which is really just self-discipline.  I will probably start running again next week, and will also get set-up in the basement for both the trainer and the rollers.  I'll start with the latter, I think, just for the perverse challenge.

ENJOY THE RUNNING!!!

As for the swim, I went back to the pool just a few days after the last race, and did about 10 pool swims before stopping those eleven days ago.  I don't have a timeline on retruning -- could be next week, could be not until Jan 2 when my favorite pool is reopened after lengthy roof repairs.