kenj triathletes in training - IM and HIM focused - Closed (Page 60)

Typical taper feelings here! No two people react the same either. But don't cave into the taper pressure and try to do more. Time to take the fatigue out of those legs of yours, while the shorter sessions will maintain the fitness levels!Great work folks!!

Great work!! Are you flying or driving?

One more day of my biggest volume week in a long time! 10 hours on the bike alone! Feeling it too!Sitting in the Newark NJ Airport waiting for my next flight!

Looks like you are well positioned for a great race Ken. You've really paid your dues.

I had a nice little half marathon yesterday. The Winnipeg Fire/Paramedic Services half. This is the second year for the race. Well run, nice medal at the end and good food. The weather was just above freezing, with strong winds from the north and rain.

I decided to ride my bike to the race since it is only 5km from my house. Wouldn't you know it I got a flat on the way there. I ended up getting there about 10 minutes after the race had started. I had the entire start line and course to myself. No warm up, just shed my clothes, locked up the bike and started running. It took about a mile or so to catch up to the walkers. I really enjoyed the race starting from the back. I got to blow by hundreds of people and it felt like I was Superman. I still ended up in the top 100 even starting 10 minutes late. If I had actually started on time I was in the top 30 or so. After IM Wisconsin I basically stopped running. I did one 7 mile run on September 17th and didn't do another until the half marathon yesterday. My time was 1:35 according to my Garmin 610. It is amazing how accurate that watch is. It said the distance was 13.07 miles, pretty close to 13.1 miles in my book. I think I could actually be a pretty good runner if I actually put some effort into it.

I turn 45 this January, so I moved up an age group. I have decided to do 2 Ironman races a year and work diligently with my coach. I am going to start a 5 year journey and see how close I can get to Kona qualifying. At the end I will be close to the 12 IM race legacy entry or actually qualifying. There was recent post on another section of the BT forums about is it realistic for a "regular" guy to be able to Kona Qualify. I am going to try and find out. I am 45, 5'6" tall, 132 lbs. I am not a genetically gifted athlete. I wasn't good at anything growing up, except maybe hockey. I have a one IM under my belt, and my time was 12:30. I figure if I can knock off 30 minutes a year for the next 5 years I can be close to achieving the goal. Obviously it is easier to drop time at 12:30 and it will get exponentially more difficult as you get closer to 10 hours. But, I am single, have no kids, have a good job with lots of holidays so I am going to give this experiment a try.

Good luck to all of those doing IM Florida in a couple weeks.

Dwayne

I arrived safely in Wilmington yesterday. It is freezing here - not exactly what I was hoping for. I went to packet pickup which makes the race seem so much more real! I just packed up my bags for T2 and special needs and have to turn them in today. I must have opened them each several times just to make sure I put everything I need in them! We can turn in our T1 bags in the morning, which will give me some more time to decide how much warm stuff to pack in it! I have to drop off my bike this afternoon and then we are going to the athlete dinner. I still can't believe after a year of talking about the race and planning for it and most importantly training for it, that it is finally here. I am excited to get this thing started! I will let you all know tomorrow if I succeed! Good luck Eddie. I hope your race goes as you planned!

And good luck Jaime too!

Good luck and have great races Karen, Eddie and Jaime! and stay warm (not you, Jaime. Austin should be warm enough I guess..)

That's a fantastic goal Dwayne. Good luck and most importantly, have fun on the journey.

Hey, all sorry I've been MIA since IMWI!! I took a nice long break, got sick, & now I've been dealing w/PF in my heel for the last couple of weeks. I've never been injured to the point that I couldn't run for more than a couple of days, & I'm not handling it well.

We are midway (at Chicago Midway-pun not intended) into a quick trip to OH, to visit some friends for the weekend.

I wanted to make sure to wish Karen, Eddie, & Jamie GOOD LUCK this weekend!! I'll be thinking about you guys, & cheering you from afar. You can do it!!

Everyone else, I hope you have a great weekend!!

I just wanted to thank everyone for the help and good wishes! I finished my race in 13:25 which I was super excited about. I will post more details in the next few days. Off to limp to bed now!!

Karen

Way to go Karen!!!! That's awesome. Great time, can't wait to hear all about it!!

13:14 at the end of the day and I could not be happier. More details later.

A quick overview and maybe some more details on the race report later. I finished the race in 13:12 and with that, I felt like without the 7 stops to pee on the bike, a minor stomach issue and changing clothes at every transition I could have gone sub 13.


The entire race I made sure if something was not in my box, it did not matter. All that ran through my head was managing my body taking my perpetuem on the bike and pacing myself for the next point.

The swim was better than expected, for some odd reason I ended up standing in the front. It was OK for me so I stayed there. When I hit the water, I my heart rate sky rocketed and I could not breathe.. I took two strokes and had to doggie paddle. I thought I was going to have to bail.. I just paddled for a few minutes and relaxed. Then I got into a groove and started to swim. I had a hard time sighting so I just tried to swim parallell to the croud until I could see the first turn. 1:10 for the swim was a surprise for me.

On the bike, I had a piece of paper with where the rest stops would be and the distance between. So after I left the rest stop, I would look down at my top tube and think, "12 more mile etc" My only real problem on the bike was because I cramp so much I drank way too much water and was peeing all the time. I would get on a groove and have to stop to pee behind a tree. Outside of that, bike went very well. Just pedal along. we had lots of wind but there was nothing I could do about that. just pedal..

The run was interesting since I did not know what to expect. I just started to jog and told my self I would jog to the first turn around at about mile 8. then, assess the situation and go from there. My legs were fatigued because I just did not have the stamina like on the bike. That forced me to walk some overall. Stomach did not help me. During about an 8 mile stretch early on the run I could not eat anything. My stomach was not comfortable and I was afraid to put anything in it. I remembered a pod cast or a post where someone just switched to coke and I did that and it was all I had and it got me through. I would run some and walk some but ended up with a 5:17 total time which was just about what I expected.

Here is a link to a few photos.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.317804075025331.1073741830...

I am a half ironman!! (Which half? I'm not sure).

It was a ROUGH WEEK. My friend/training partner who talked me into signing up for this thing sent me a message Sunday night. Her husband had been involved in bad car accident and was in the hospital. He was OK, but had lots of broken bones. She was out of the race.

After visiting in the hospital and making sure he was really all right (does that make me less of an a$$hole?) I let myself feel disappointed about the race. It wasn't just moral support from my friend I didn't want to go without, it was a 12 hour drive we were making to Austin--each way. I just didn't see doing it safely on my own.

So I didn't look at my bike. I didn't run. I didn't swim. I just let it go.

And then Thursday night, after her husband was settled at the rehab hospital and she realized she had a couple other family members to take care of kids, my friend said she might be able to go after all.

WHOOOO-HOOOO!

So we went! And we had the most ideal conditions possible. Everything just went very well. The swim was great. I swam a little wide of the buoys to avoid the congestion, but I was relaxed almost the whole time. The bike course was a lot more crowded than I am used to, but it was OK. I realized at about 30 miles I was having such a good time, I probably needed to buckle down and work a bit harder. Definite negative split. I was ready to get off the bike at mile 56, and happy to start running. I have never experienced crowd support like we had on that run. The run course is 3 loops, and each time you get back to the beginning the signs and the cheers were just awesome. I had a huge grin on my face the whole time. Even after I took the first loop a little too fast and had quite a bit of IT band pain for the next 2 loops, I didn't care.

What an experience. I'm not sure I'll sign up for another 70.3 next year, or even another year. And I have NO desire to do a full ironman. The time committment for training was really significant for me, and I don't enjoy the training nearly as much as the racing (ah, sprint races, I can do them every weekend). Also, I now realize how horrible it can be to put in all the training and be sidelined at the last second by something out of your control. But I cannot tell you how happy I am to have done it this time, and I probably wouldn't have without the encouragement and help from you all! So thank you very, very much.

Jaime. i am glad to hear your friends husband will be alright, that is scarey! Congrats on your race, it sounds like you enjoyed the experience!

I finally got my race report done. http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp...
I am happy to say that my legs started to feel better yesterday and today I feel great! I am already wondering what to focus on now. Training for this race was what I focused on for most of the year, I feel kind of lost now.
Hope everyone else had a good weekend!