Off Season Training -- Following the Mdot

The off season has officially kicked off and IRONMAN is becoming very real. The countdown is less than 10 months … 289 days to be exact, but who’s counting.

First order of business for the off season was to get a trainer. Lifting and stretching are two things that I don’t do well or don’t do it all and there is no way I’d survive the training schedule that’s waiting for me if I didn’t take this stuff seriously now. I got really lucky getting paired up with Greg Leo of Bryan White Personal Training (www.bw-pt.com …. Shameless promo, your welcome and I’ll take a free session at anytime). Thanks to a guest appearance by Greg at one of Gina’s training sessions, I got the inside scoop that he’s also an IRONMAN and got in contact with him right away. Really good choice. On his street cred, he’s posted a 5:15 half ironman time and finished 3rd in his age group at his last race. I don’t care who you are, those are results.

I just finished week 3 and have been killed 3 times now. 1 hour full body circuit workouts are brutal. Not to mention, I’m pretty sure Greg takes pride in watching me collapse after an exercise. The best part about it is that Greg has, like many others who finish 140.6, the Mdot logo tattooed on the back of his left calf. During workouts, its a constant reminder of just how much i want a Mdot of my own. So I follow the dot around the gym and do as I'm told.

We also did measurements last week which I will post in order to monitor progress, but spoiler alert, I’m not happy with them right now considering the terrible eating and increased beer consumption the last few months. I’ll get the eating squared away soon but traveling every weekend and football season really doesn’t help.

I’m stalling because I don’t want to type these in but here they are …. official measurements at the beginning of off-season workouts:

Weight: 162
Body Fat %: 11.5
Chest: 39”
Waist: 31”
Push-ups in 60 seconds: 46
Squats in 60 seconds: 55

So, BF% definitely needs to come down …. I need to get in the 8% range which, as Greg pointed out, will only “happen in the kitchen.” No amount of ass kicking will drop those few percentage points. Bottom line is I need to eat smarter and drink less beer. But its Oktoberfest season!!! DAMN!

That is all for now … still planning on posting about “embracing the suck” at GORUCK Challenge – Wilmington.

Catching up on Races

Let’s face it. Doing a full race report for my last 3 races is just not going to happen. So I’m going to knock out the highlights instead.

Eagleman 70.3

Yes this race happened before I signed up for Lake Placid, but its still an important. Leading up to this race really sucked and as usual, I decided to do dumb stuff the week of. The next time I decide to go to Dewey Beach for 4 days before a 70 mile race, I hereby grant permission to anyone within striking distance to punch me in the face. Just because it was fun to sit on the back deck sipping on some Woodford Reserve and smoking a Black Label Partagas, doesn’t make it a good idea.

SWIM: 57:02 - MISERABLE, AWFUL, TERRIBLE swim … although when you only get in the pool twice, what should I really have expected
T1: 1:37 – non wetsuit swim and first race with leaving my shoes clipped into the pedals … no complaints here
BIKE: 3:02:50 – Goal time was 3 hours so I’m not really going to complain about this one. Although I really tailed off at the end and since the course was flat I was pretty smoked for the run
T2: 2:30 – again, not going to complain
RUN: 2:12:52 – slightly better than last year’s time but my quads were trashed

Lowlights
• Didn’t really have a structured training plan and got pretty lazy
• Swim could not have gone worse, bottom line, If I want to improve, I have to swim more
• Wore new tri shorts (huge no-no) which led to serious chafing … simply stupid
• Lack of bricks really hurt once I got to the run

Highlights
• Good transitions
• Barely missed my goal time and was 30 minutes faster than last year
• Overall improvement from last years Vineman was 16 minutes. I went back and forth on whether or not I should be happy about this and after getting yelled at repeatedly, I’ve been beaten into submission and accept the fact that this was a good race

Luray International

I continued my streak of stupid decisions prior to a race. This time I decided to go to a Redskins pre-season game instead of staying in and getting ready. I got maybe 3.5 hours of sleep before it was time to get up, pack, and hit the road.

SWIM: 39:32 – Swim felt a little better but still not anywhere close to where I’d like to be
T1: 1:33 – Same as Eagleman, non wetsuit swim and shoes clipped into the pedals … no complaints here
BIKE: 1:29:15 – Course was pretty hilly and there was a stretch of false flat that was absolutely demoralizing
T2: 1:01 – again, not going to complain
RUN: 54:20 – Not my best 10K and more bricks would have helped (I think I’m sensing a pattern)

No real lowlights or highlights. I showed up tired and that had an impact on performance but overall I had a pretty solid race.

Nations Triathlon

Not gonna lie, was pretty upset when the swim was cancelled because of all the rain during the week leading up to the race. I almost mailed it in because without the swim it wasn’t a triathlon and frankly I was just bitter. Ended up racing and really glad I did. This was my first race with my Cervelo P2 and it was ridiculous.

SWIM: HAHAHA … checked out the Potomac when I was dropping off my bike, it was disgusting. And learning that the water was moving at 125,000 cubic feet per second or something like that, suddenly didn’t mind not swimming
T1: 2:08 – Really weird time trial start letting 15 people run into the transition area to get their bike every 15 seconds. Total NUTROLL.
BIKE: 1:06:50 – Absolutely CRUSHED the bike on my new P2. That bike is stupid fast. I wanted to average 20 mph for the bike and ended up averaging 22.3.
T2: 1:58 – I think I’m getting the hang of T2
RUN: 45:40 – Gotta love PR-ing a run after a 40K bike. Hooking up with a fellow DC Tri Clubber also helped.

Lowlights
• Time trial start was not my most graceful moment. I ran into a guy who was running out of our row because I wasn’t paying attention and then I slipped in the mud while trying get out of transition.
Highlights
• Best results I’ve had from a competitive stand point. Finished 84 of 362 (23.2%) for my age group and 590 of 2427 (24.3%) for all men. I’ve never come close to breaking the top half of my age group so to finish in the top 25% was incredible.
• Great way to end the season and ready to focus on off season training to get ready for Lake Placid

Next up ... GORUCK Challenge post

The Road to Lake Placid Starts Here

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing."

This is very strange territory for me. I've never been into this blogging thing but for some reason I feel compelled to capture my thoughts over the next year as I prepare to become an IRONMAN. So here we go. I'm registered for and will compete in / finish IRONMAN LAKE PLACID on June 22, 2012.

Since I registered for Lake Placid (IMLP) I've been scouring the interweb for race reports and reviews and everything else I can find to learn more about this specific race. What I have so far is that regardless of how each person's race turned out, they absolutely loved everything about the experience; how it affected them, the race itself, the town and all of its support, simply

everything. Even from the guy who wrecked his bike at mile 45 and ruptured his hip flexor, yet still continued on and finished the race. You wanna know what motivates me to do this? This is it. Knowing that I will face these same challenges (hopefully not a ruptured hip flexor). But seriously, over the course of 140.6 miles, ANYTHING can happen. Knowing that I can and will overcome anything that the course throws at me is actually a rather reassuring feeling. Is this going to be easy ... Shit no .... is it going to be an awesome ride that finishes at the Olympic Speedskating Oval ... you bet your ass. So everyone thats coming along for the ride ... buckle up.

Break Break

At work today I was digging through a drawer and found my first AT&T employee badge from March of 06 and it got me thinking about where I was, where I'm, and where I want to be. So here it is.

There where I was: Cherry Blossom 5K, April 2007. This was my first race and I finished in 29 minutes seriously thinking my heart was going to explode. I also weighed in at a cool 190 (yes yes I've been told I wore it well)

There where I am: 4 years later I've summited Mt Whitney, ran 2 marathons (soon to be 3) and completed 2 Half Ironman's.

There where I want to be: This one is pretty obvious

So what now: full blown training won't kick off till February or March but I'll spend the winter maintaining a base level of fitness. That won't be very interesting so i'll use that time to post more on the why of all of this. For now .....

"You cannot know who you are or what you are capable of until you face adversity. You cannot know the strength of the steel you hold until it strikes something solid. And you cannot know what kind of a man you are until you look hardship and difficulty in the eye, face it, and rise to it’s challenge. Without that test, you just don’t know."

In the meantime I've scheduled a butt load of races for the rest of this year and I'm just going to have fun. Here's the lineup for the next few months

Aug 13th: Luray Triathlon (5150)

Sept 11: Nation's Triathlon (5150)

Sept 17: Philly Rock n Roll Half Marathon

Sept 26-27: Go Ruck Challenge Wilmington, NC

Oct 15: Baltimore Marathon Relay

Oct 23: Tough Mudder Virginia

Oct 30: Marine Corps Marathon

Nov 20: Fountain Head 5 Miler

Dec 3: 15K having to do with chocolate or something

Next up ... I'm actually going to do a race report on Eagleman ... even though it was 2 months ago