kalalau's Group - FULL for now (Page 27)

DisneyWorld events are a blast, I highly recommend it.  I am signed up for my 5th Disney Marathon on January.  There are a lot of people dressed up in that one too.  I think I got beat by Tinkerbell once.

So are you signing up?

Lots of rain in the Adirondacks this week. :-\  Bike keeps getting soaked.

Thanks!  Yes I have done Diamondman, I didn't have a problem with that race, except the swim is a little weird with the deep muck that you stand in up to your knees, and the long run from the swim to T1.  I was signed up for the Patriot's Half last year but we got hurricaned out. 

Don't let the swim dictate your ideas of a half.  It's such a small portion of your race between your best swim fitness and worst swim fitness.

I will think of you as I am dying out on the run and trying to keep going, with you HTFU on your 18 miler.

I only ended up with 3 hikes on the week, with them relatively tame compared to my normal hikes.  They were all in the 6-7.5 mile range.  The buffet dinners at the conference did not help at all.  I've done some training at LP but not much.  Hard to make myself believe I've got 140.6 miles in this body.

It poured down rain tonight during the pre-race meeting.  Buckets.  Freaked out a few people.  There is so much hype during the dinner/meeting that is it hard not to get excited.

BTW, you can watch Ironman Lake Placid live on the web on Sunday at ironman.com.  Coverage starts at 530, the pros start at 650, and we start at 700.  I am likely to finish between 730pm and 830pm.  I am #987.  If you can handle it, it is well worth staying up til midnight to watch the last people come across the finish line.  It is incredible.  Beware though, watching this event can really suck you in to signing up for one.

You can also track me throughout the day at the same website.  There is a "Track An Athlete" link where you can get splits of mine through the day.

I did ride the worst of the bike course today and it is not nearly as bad as Skyline Drive, so that is a relief.

If you remember the story in Runner's World on the NYFD guy Matt Long, who was run over by a bus a few years ago, he is here and racing. It will be quite the story as he gets near the finish.

Thanks for the props everyone.  The 36 mile split is deceiving, as it includes a long steep downhill stretch into Keene where you can really fly, and the last 20 mile stretch is where the really bad hills are.  I sure felt good even in the 2nd loop though, until I blew a tire.  Amazing that I didn't crash on that.  After that, things went downhill quickly.  But I stuck with it and finished, which certainly wasn't a given at many points.  Race report tomorrow probably. 

I feel pretty decent today.  I've discovered that you recover a lot more quickly when you walk a major portion of a marathon. :-)

13:10 is a decent time, I am surprised by it considering how bad the run felt.  I am pretty happy with that.

Hey Maryland folks, there is a new 2 mile swim in our area.  Cheap ($35), and benefits pancreatic cancer research.  Near Northeast Baltimore.

Bud Beatty Memorial Swim

It's hard to find open water swim races like this.  Seems like I should jump on this.  The cutoff times are pretty good, an hour for the first mile.

Thanks for the tip.  Looks like that is on Saturday, and the swim in on Sunday.

August 8th is that horrible combination of major bike rides all on the same day.  How do they do that?  We have the CVCC, Eat a Peach (Westminster), and Ride to See (Eastern Shore) all on the same day.  I've done the latter two and they are good rides.  I bet we could even find more centuries in Maryland that day. :-)  That seems like bad planning.

My friends are going to be pushing Eat a Peach because we did it last year and Roger is training for Savageman.  It is hard for me to imagine doing any bike ride at the moment.  As we left Lake Placid, I was watching the runners and cyclists out there, obviously training for next year.  At every one, I thought, why are they running?  Why are they biking?  Why would you ever want to do that? :-)

It's certainly the same area and has to include some of the same streets, but Eat a Peach is a killer hilly bike ride.  We didn't finish because we ran out of time; we ended up only doing 67 miles instead.

Yeah who turned up the heat while I was away?

I am now just starting to get into a routine again.  Amazing how much these races kick your butt for a while.  Time to start looking for some races soon.  I am signed up for the Bud Beatty 2 mile swim this Sunday.  I wonder how low key and no frills that race will be.

Didn't mention this before, but a few weeks back I sent my "wetsuit on the bike" story to the IMTalk podcast I listen to, as a "what was the stupidest thing you've ever done" response, and they issued a challenge that they will give a free wetsuit to the first person that does a half iron distance or greater in a wetsuit on the bike.  I am considering trying to find a race where I can do that.  Could be kind of dangerous if not done right.  Maybe Diamondman. :-)  Of course I could be a legend if I did that on Savageman, but that really seems pretty stupid.  Enough to where I would wonder if they would pull me off the course.

Sure!

Haha, I was just wondering about Eagleman signup.  Maybe if I don't tell my friends, they won't sign up, it'll get sold out, and we can do the Bay Bridge Swim. :-)

Sorry that I haven't done that.  I will.  It's still fresh in my mind.  This race really knocked the life out of me and I haven't been able to do much.  I like writing race reports, so I would like to do it.  I never wrote a report about Savageman, which was a bummer.  Won't do that with an IM.

I checked Eagleman last night and over 1600 were signed up, which is more than raced last year.  They may have a limit of 2000, with 500 not showing up for race day.

I will check half iron distance races right now to see if I can spot one..

Hmm.. Delaware Diamondman is at the cheapo rate for another week.  I don't see Becky and Josh signed up yet.  We could all do that race, and Abbie come down to the the sprint, as well as Steve doing the sprint.  Just thoughts right now, that's a hot one for a wetsuit.