Penn State's mentor group - CLOSED! (Page 38)

furiousferret - 2010-05-02 6:57 PM Hey guys, I'm alive and well now.  Last night I wasn't doing too hot but it didn't kill me.  My achilles was fine, my asthma was fine.  Although I was grossly untrained I didn't think that beat me either, but more training would have helped.  Thanks for all the messages through the week, they helped me get as far as I got.  Unfortunately that was about 16 miles too short.

I'm still pretty bummed out, my wife is trying to tell me the positives, buts its still pretty painful that I didn't finish.  I think in a way its important that it does hurt.

Here's the race report I posted in the IMSG thread:

I woke up just fine, didn't really have any nerves for it being my first IM event; well I did days before but race morning I was fine.  I even slept on the bus to the swim.

Finished the swim just fine, a little slower than I wanted (1:49), I had to stop behind a buoy and use my inhaler (no biggie), stopped and sighted too much but the water wasn't too cold for me and I exited fresh.

Started the bike, immediately ate a Clif Bar, 2 GU's, and some Gatorade.  At about mile 22 I felt a tad bit off, half the food I ate would come up.  At the second loop I stopped eating and drinking which seemed to fix it.  The hills killed me, but I think they killed everyone else.  At about 4:30 and the winds started.  On the descent into St George I almost went down from a gust while going 45 mph.  That was sketchy.  My goal was to get off the bike fresh and my legs did feel good, not great, but ready to run.

I got off the bike and started the run.  I started cramping really bad and my lower back would just tighten up in pain; like someone put it in a vise grip.  When I tried to run it would get worse.  The plan then was to walk it off until it went away.  I tried everything at the aid stations, chicken broth, gatorade, coke, chips, it wouldn't go away.  Finally after 10 miles I saw an EMT, they told me I was dehydrated and I was sent to the med tent.  Being carted off the course was pretty humiliating, the driver didn't say a word to me, just asked for my bib and chip, and the racers were waving at me on the course.  I really don't wish it upon anyone.

When I got to the med tent tent, the volunteer told me they weren't seeing anyone.  I really didn't know what to do after that because at that point I really wasn't feeling good at all.  People were congratulating me on the race but telling them I did not finish put me in tears; good thing I had my sunglasses on.  I tried to walk back to my hotel, realized I wasn't going to make it, and laid down on a bench in front of a store, still in the same clothes I was running in.  I didn't want to talk to anyone, see anyone, I just wanted to be alone.  

I have no idea how long I was there but finally a nice local family asked if I was okay and I asked them to contact my wife on their cell.  She picked me up, got my bike and wetsuit and we left.  When I got to the room the cramps kept me up all night, they went away around 10 am today.  I still haven't slept.

calimavs - 2010-05-03 2:11 PM Hi all - I'm finally back from Wildflower, I got back late last night and crashed right when I got home. I'm going to get caught up on what went on over the weekend now and then I'll write up a race report!

dharris13 - 2010-05-02 12:51 PM ohh and i have never met anyone who is a bigger fan of the office than myself (dont know whether that is sad or awesome). Every day i send my friend an office Quote of The Day..usually a quote from Dwight.

The bike had 5000+ feet of climbing and then run 2000+

Any word on what happened to chris?

JoshKaptur - 2010-05-03 10:16 AM

I love before/after pics.  It's been a long term goal of mine for some time to be able to post my own... I'm waiting until my abs show up to do it.

Congrats on your progress.  I'm sure you can FEEL the difference in training/racing too.  Just think how much better it will keep feeling if you keep losing... that helps me make better food choices big time.

furiousferret - 2010-05-02 9:57 PM Hey guys, I'm alive and well now.  Last night I wasn't doing too hot but it didn't kill me.  My achilles was fine, my asthma was fine.  Although I was grossly untrained I didn't think that beat me either, but more training would have helped.  Thanks for all the messages through the week, they helped me get as far as I got.  Unfortunately that was about 16 miles too short.

phxphotog - 2010-05-03 2:26 PM

I'm not going to be embarrassed about the picture because they are what they are. You lose weight so slowly that you can't always see it but I think you can see it in the pictures. I still have a ways to go and it might take another 6 months or longer but I'm going to get there. I feel so much better and healthier and it does help with your food choices. When you see the weight loss, you don't want to eat that bowl of ice cream at 10pm. I still have to work on diet and exercise but I'm proud of what I have done so far. I appreciate all the support i have gotten on BT.

zionvier - 2010-05-03 4:07 PM

That's definitely nothing to be embarrassed about, it's something to be proud of.  You are right about how slowly it comes off and you don't even realize it until months later.  Keep at it and you'll look back at BOTH of these and thing "wow, I can't believe I looked like that back then".

Here is a comparison between November '08 when I decided to quit smoking and get back into endurance sports after 7+ years: (170lbs, 23.5% body fat [measured by a personal trainer] ) and the beginning of April (1 year and 5 months later): (155lbs, guestimating at 12% body fat)

 

And no... I was not sticking my gut out on in the first picture and I wasn't sucking it in in the second picture ;-) 

GRB1 - 2010-05-03 3:26 PM  

It looks like you shrunk 4 inches in height!  That or your picture was raised

GRB1 - 2010-05-03 12:36 PM Chris,
    As mentioned before it will be awhile before this race is not a painful memory for you.  However if I remember correctly you had a relatively recent injury which was pretty significant and had a major impact on your training.  To me that it was pretty damn gutsy and motivational to see you take on the Ironman.  Think about what you accomplished all things (injury, reduced training) considered... a 2.4 mile swim, 112 bike on one of the toughest IM bike courses, and a 10 mile run to boot.  Pretty inspirational if you ask me.

Greg

phxphotog - 2010-05-03 7:46 PM It's funny because some of you guys are East Coast and talk about the day as if it was over but we still have so much time out here on the West coast. I'm not much of an early morning worker outer so I usually get it done after work. Being that I work in TV news, I don't get off until 6:30p, so my workouts start at about 7pm or later. We don't have kids so that doesn't interfere with my workout schedule. I always feel like a slug because everyone has their workouts done for the day and I'm still waiting to start.

I'm going to do my 7 loop 5K run in my neighborhood. Each lap is .44 miles and it has nice lengths to run and walk. I have got the 5K down to about 38 min right now. I hope to get it down to 35 in the next month and keep reducing the time. At some point I'm going to have to increase mileage because of the 1/2 marathon in the 1/2 IM.

Hope everyone had a great workout day.

furiousferret - 2010-05-02 9:57 PM Hey guys, I'm alive and well now.  Last night I wasn't doing too hot but it didn't kill me.  My achilles was fine, my asthma was fine.  Although I was grossly untrained I didn't think that beat me either, but more training would have helped.  Thanks for all the messages through the week, they helped me get as far as I got.  Unfortunately that was about 16 miles too short.

I'm still pretty bummed out, my wife is trying to tell me the positives, buts its still pretty painful that I didn't finish.  I think in a way its important that it does hurt.

Here's the race report I posted in the IMSG thread:

I woke up just fine, didn't really have any nerves for it being my first IM event; well I did days before but race morning I was fine.  I even slept on the bus to the swim.

Finished the swim just fine, a little slower than I wanted (1:49), I had to stop behind a buoy and use my inhaler (no biggie), stopped and sighted too much but the water wasn't too cold for me and I exited fresh.

Started the bike, immediately ate a Clif Bar, 2 GU's, and some Gatorade.  At about mile 22 I felt a tad bit off, half the food I ate would come up.  At the second loop I stopped eating and drinking which seemed to fix it.  The hills killed me, but I think they killed everyone else.  At about 4:30 and the winds started.  On the descent into St George I almost went down from a gust while going 45 mph.  That was sketchy.  My goal was to get off the bike fresh and my legs did feel good, not great, but ready to run.

I got off the bike and started the run.  I started cramping really bad and my lower back would just tighten up in pain; like someone put it in a vise grip.  When I tried to run it would get worse.  The plan then was to walk it off until it went away.  I tried everything at the aid stations, chicken broth, gatorade, coke, chips, it wouldn't go away.  Finally after 10 miles I saw an EMT, they told me I was dehydrated and I was sent to the med tent.  Being carted off the course was pretty humiliating, the driver didn't say a word to me, just asked for my bib and chip, and the racers were waving at me on the course.  I really don't wish it upon anyone.

When I got to the med tent tent, the volunteer told me they weren't seeing anyone.  I really didn't know what to do after that because at that point I really wasn't feeling good at all.  People were congratulating me on the race but telling them I did not finish put me in tears; good thing I had my sunglasses on.  I tried to walk back to my hotel, realized I wasn't going to make it, and laid down on a bench in front of a store, still in the same clothes I was running in.  I didn't want to talk to anyone, see anyone, I just wanted to be alone.  

I have no idea how long I was there but finally a nice local family asked if I was okay and I asked them to contact my wife on their cell.  She picked me up, got my bike and wetsuit and we left.  When I got to the room the cramps kept me up all night, they went away around 10 am today.  I still haven't slept.

. I have learned the most from self-analysis of my poorer race performances.

GRB1 - 2010-05-03 5:26 PM

It looks like you shrunk 4 inches in height!  That or your picture was raised

PennState - 2010-05-03 5:09 PM Great job on the weight loss folks. Anyone train today. I had a Meh swim and am now having a beer and bbqing

dharris13 - 2010-05-02 8:56 AM

I just sent this to Fred...but here is a brief race report as i am too lazy right now to really write one. here are the impotant (to me) details.

It went amazing!! I am still trying to wrap my head around how i did so well..and i cant come up with how. I PR'ed the swim by almost 2 minutes...and PR'ed the run by almost 10 minutes. The course was HARD HARD. I really just cant understand how i did so well for myself. I Beat my 70.3 PR time by 1 min 37 seconds on by far the hardest course i have done.
Swim: 37:56
Bike: 3:07:48
Run: 1:48:54
Transition times were in top 5% of all finishers.

Overall i went 5:38:23
Top 20% of all finishers.

Thank you everyone for your help and support!!

zionvier - 2010-05-03 5:42 PM


haha, never even noticed that.  The picture actually wasn't moved either.  But, the angle of the camera was different, The first time it was set on a box, the second time I had finally bought a tripod, so it was probably a 3 foot height difference there.  I can't remember if I was wearing shoes in the second picture either, which could account for another inch.