Oh I forgot to add the suckiest part of this weekend. There is a 90% chance of rain race morning with scattered thunderstorms. I don't so much care about the rain but let the lighting stay away so it doesn't get called off. I do however hope it rains heavy on Saturday, 60% chance daytime and 90% chance overnight, so it cools the lake off and we can wear wetsuits. The temp will be right on the point of legal or not but the rain will put it under 78. I heard its 74 right now but the temps will be in the 90's until race day and it's a shallow lake so it heats up quickly.

Thor - No I haven't done one of these. I have a few friends who have done the 1/2 century rides and enjoyed it. Typically they don't have any road closures but you are in a group which can improve rider safety with regards to traffic.

Have Fun!

Happens to me every single time.  I get in the wetsuit, get in the water, and its like "OMGWTFCAN'TSWIMCAN"TSWIM . . . ." then after about 10 minutes, I'm back to normal.  And race day goes off without a hitch.  I expect that I will never skip a practice swim for this reason.

Don't change anything at this point.  Think about miles 9 through 11 - that's where you want to be strong and happy.

That includes ignoring this advice:  I would not wear a full-sleeve wetsuit at 76 degrees, unless you really think you need it.  And prepare to roast in it.  Even in the low 70s, I wind up letting water in the neck and sleeves every 200yds or so to try to stay cool..  

Edited by mirthfuldragon 2015-04-09 2:32 PM

Have fun, pre-race nervousness is part of the great fun afterwards and make endorphins go up to do your PR!!!

Juan

Thanks very much Alan!

Juan

Afternoon everyone!

Followed up yesterday's longest run with today's longest ride. Got in 20 miles on the levee, no traffic, no stops, plug in and go smooth and fast. Had a tailwind on the way out, and was able to hold my speed around 23-25mph until my turn-around point, then it turned into a headwind on the way back. Worked out fairly nicely, great speed and cadence out, and resistance coming back. Was HOT outside today, temp was around 90, with about 70% humidity, went through my water faster than expected, and popped a gel about 45 mins into the ride. Finished it off with a decent mile run and a protein shake when I got home.

Now to go to work for 8 hours 0.o

Thanks, Alan! Very cool!

I had a nice speed workout today in the pool. It seems short but very productive and I follow it up with a long swim tomorrow.
Wu: 1 x 300, 1 x 100 (switched lanes - thus the strange split)
Main: 20 x 50
cd: 1 x 200 easy

I tried to keep the rests to 15 or 20 seconds but a couple of times my heart rate jacked so I waited for it to come down to about 138 range before starting again due to the number I was doing.
Looking forward to a long swim tomorrow! swimming has been such a beautiful thing this winter.

"Long" swim done - reward.....Shed Brewery Nosedive! Starting the weekend right!

I watched my youngest practice with his indoor swim team tonight. The kid is so fast - he doesn't really breathe to the side yet - still picks his whole head up, looks for his teammates, puts his head back in then keeps going. Even when doing that he is still a good three body lengths ahead of his peers. I'm hoping we can teach him to breathe to the side. I would love to see what he can do with his swimming if he just learns that one thing. LOL. Love watching kids have fun.

Cheers all! I'm flying in the morning, then going to the sugar shack for freshly made maple syrup! yeah, we pretty much live on the stuff here - flows in our veins. There are some good studies coming out about maple sap and the antioxidants and the benefits to the body. Vermont Pub and Brewery has their seasonal maple beer made with sap - so tasty.






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Jenn - love the couple beers I've had from the Shed. What's nosedive?

Charles - that sucks a lot. You know you're tougher for the experience though.

Me - the stomach bug took me out for a few days last week, I managed a Thursday run in between Saturday to saturday. Today I'm back, albeit with a back injury. I may cool it on the run for a couple weeks and get some PT exercises done daily, while keeping up with everything else. The run seems to be the only thing bothering it.

charles- that stinks. Glad you had somewhere to shelter in place


Finally went to doctor today. He told me I have bronchitis, too which I replied "ain't nobody got time for that". He did say I can still run tomorrow and gave me an inhaler for the marathon. On antibiotics and steroid. We will see how this goes.

Scott - that is miserable timing. Nowhere to go but up tomorrow. Go get em!!

That sucks, but your signature says it all: DFL > DNF > DNS

Good luck!

Scott- ugh, so sorry to hear that. Hope the race goes well.

I'll post my full report later but for now.....





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Awesome Scott! Congrats!

Scott - You are the man! Way to persevere! How many times did you have to suck on the inhaler to get across the finish line. I would imagine that the number might grow every time you tell the story!

Congrats! What beer are you going to have to celebrate?

When it comes to the weather - it all comes down to Rule #9. You are a bad@55!

Ok my race report WARNING this will be a long one:

Went to bed last night around 9. Told my wife not to come to the race traffic was going to be a beast and besides its just a training run. It will be challenging but its just a marathon not my iron man (BTW there is no such thing as JUST A MARATHON). Race day also happens to be our 8th wedding anniversary so we are going out to dinner when I get home. A little back story is that my wife ran the Disney marathon back in Jan 2002. I had signed up but as fate would have it I was deployed with the national guard and couldn't run. I begged my CO and he let me drive down the day before the race, watch the race then drive back the same day (13 hrs one way) I surprised her and may bring it up from time to time or weekly whatever.

I got up at 0400 and parked at the down town police station which was only a few blocks from the start plus I have a locker room and a real toilet with no line. I met up with one guy from my team and a female officer who works in Spec Ops with us but a different unit. He was looking to run a sub 4 hr not sure what she wanted to run. I told them I wanted to keep it under 5 hrs with me being sick and not having prepared as well as I should have (my longest run was 13) My plan is to run 3hrs then walk run the rest. We talked to some of the command staff for the district and hung out until almost race time then walked over. Our team was working the event and told me one last time not to run (they had been telling me not to do it because of the illness all week). I felt pretty good actually had my inhaler in my pocket and took a gel with me because I had heard there were not many gel stops.

I was in corral 19 so once the first corral started I still had a long wait. First 10 miles were pretty normal, I was having a hard time breathing and the hills in Raleigh are never ending, you are running up one or down one at all times but over all I felt good. I took my gel at :45 in and was taking in water since I had not trained with Gatorade endurance. At mile 8 I had not seen a station with gel and there wasn't any at the aid station, or the next, or the next. By this time i am not happy I am passed where I feel I need calories. I asked a worker and they told me they where not sure where the gels would be, but they thought I had missed the first set. ARGHHH I'm really not happy. I start taking the Gatorade, luckily my stomach accepts it. I finally see gels at an aid station (I think 14 or 15 miles) I jam 5 of them in my pockets and took one. I have passed the 4:45 and 4:30 pacers and asked what corral they started in since it was not mine. found out they were in 14 so I had made up some time. As I am approaching the 3 hr mark I realize that I am only going to get 18 not the 20 I was hoping for. I had not been paying attention to the spectators much every now and then I would hear "go Scott" but it was because names were on the race bib. But at the 2:40 mark I heard it and looked up to see my wife and daughter cheering me on. I was happy to see them and was still feeling pretty good. Pushed though and started my walk run about the time I was entering the lake where I train (we only ran the flat front not the large hills on the back side). Then on a green way for a while. Even with the walk run I hit the wall and hit it hard somewhere around 20. I couldn't breath, my legs wanted to quit and my mind was past ready, my I pod had given me the low battery so I knew that was almost done also. I looked up and saw them both again. They had driven down the road and set up as the green way crossed a road. It almost brought me to tears (which is odd because my wife thinks I'm a robot). That was it I knew I could do this only 6 more (terrible hilly awful) miles left.

The last 6 miles were hard but I stuck to my plan and did the run/walk. I made it around 4:40ish. Official time is not in, and I forgot to stop my Garmin until I had water, medal and Gatorade at 4:45. I learned a valuable lesson I will never run with bronchitis again, and there is no such thing as just a marathon.

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and keeping me in the race even when I questioned myself. I am glad I did it, now off to take my wife and daughter out for our 8 year anniversary. The picture is mile 18.

Edited by b2b14 2015-04-12 3:21 PM






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A shoutout to Alex Nancyboy Kish who competed in IMFL 70.3. I'll let you tell the group how it went but just know we were cheering you on!

Hi BDAS - it's been a while. Thanks to everyone for the kind words about my job. I don't want to dwell on it - but my lack of MOJO this year has had a lot to do with a really tough job. I'm a little worried to not have anything lined up - but finding a new gig where I can enjoy going to work is going to leave me better off. So if you are the praying kind - please pray that I find a gig where I actually want to go to work in the morning.

I'm going to take today as an omen! It was 70 degrees and sunny - the perfect day for a bike ride, so I rode 20 miles. It was a beautiful ride. The roads were terrible - with potholes and sand everywhere - but it was so nice to be out on a bike without being weighed down by 4 layers of cold weather gear. I rode out at a pretty conservative pace but really pushed it on the way back (I was still 5 miles an hour slower than Alex). It felt good to be back on the bike and outside doing the deal.

I came home to a two hearted ale and was enjoying that until I decided to step on the scale. I'm up 4 pounds from last week and only one pair of my shorts fit. Time to get to work.

Do we have a challenge for the week? I'm gonna challenge myself to log each morsel of food/drink that I eat. I have to start somewhere and I figure that's the place.

I'm also going to post my goals for the week of anyone wants to join me. If I fall short, I drink lite beer at the Twins game I''m going to next Saturday.

Goals:
1) Log Food Everyday
2) Do 10 minutes of PT exercises
3) Workout everyday Monday-Friday
4) Post to BDAS everyday.

Check-in I skipped Saturday's swim because I was taxi-dad taking my youngest daughter to a gymnastics meet. We were the early shift and it was an hour drive. Once we got back I choose to take a nap instead of working out because I knew what I had planned for today....Today was a 12 mile run. I'm 2 weeks from my half marathon so this is the last long run prior. I did 12 miles at last year's race pace, but this year it's more of a practice pace. Then my daughter asked me to go out for a bike ride. I can't really say no when my kids want to spend time together, it's a weakness. I put in a relaxing 6 miles on my REAL bike. Nice weather means no stationary bike. I pretty much just kept the legs warm and broke in the "sit bones".

Scott Good job! Did you use the inhaler?

Newbie Cyclist Story I've had my daughter's bike ready for the season for over 2 weeks now. Mine was put away pratically new. I purchased a late in the season deal and only rode it a few times. Getting it ready today should consist of pretty much putting air in the tires. You probably see where this is going....today I learned that there is more than one tire valve stem. I've only dealt with Schrader valves up to this point in my life. Now I have a Presta valve. My 3 minute "add air to your tire" became an event of trying to find a way to get air into a Presta stem. I now have a hand pump that supports both, but that took a trip to Walmart while my middle daughter waited patiently.

Now I need....a presta pressure guage to go with my pump. A presta adapter for my air compressor would be nice too. I also realized that I need to learn more about my new toy. Funny enough, I know more about my daughter's Walmart bike because I needed to get it working properly once I got it home. They aren't really put together with much attention to detail.

Today was an amazing day for riding. For the first time since September I was able to ride outside with just my bib shorts and jersey. I'm so tired of layers that I was tempted to burn all my winter gear in a garbage can fire today when I got home. But knowing this climate it'll drop back down to freezing tomorrow... f%@king Canada....

Anyway. Good weather for now. I also managed to push out 1400 watts in a sprint today. And apparently I can spin at 187rpm now. I don't know if my training is successful or if I was just motivated by the good weather. Riding with bare legs and arms is where it's at. I hate wearing layers. So I was in an especially good mood today on the ride having that freedom from coverage. 

Edited by adempsey10 2015-04-12 10:07 PM

Alan - I do not envy you guys in the great white north. I don't even think of riding unless it is in the upper 60's, but I also don't own cold weather riding gear.

Dave O - I used the inhaler before the race and when I hit the wall, but it made my heart race and chest hurt a little, I didn't like it and it actually worried me a little. It did open my lungs, and the chest tightness/HR spike went away but I decided I was glad I didn't use it much. I won't use it again for training, just didn't like the adverse effects.

i bought this pump and it works great. even came with attachments for my daughters soccer ball. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001MK3GFS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o...


No rest for the weary I will be getting in a swim today, but will most likely skip my hour run. I may just do 15 min to open up the legs some. They are sore but not terrible.