What a moron!

In general, I'd say that I think that I'm smarter than I really am.

 

Conversely, people in general seem to think that I'm not as smart as I really am.

 

Lately it seems, people in general know me better than I know myself.

 

This morning I decided to drive to work and then run on the canal by the office.  I got all decked out in my running shoes, shorts, and shirt.  I put my heartrate strap on my chest and even put my phone on the holder on my arm.  All I needed to do was put my headphones in and I could be off.

 

I had a big glass of orange juice and I couldn't hold it, my keys, and my work clothes all at the same time so I put the orange juice on top of Katie's Nissan Armada, her 7 foot tall newly washed and waxed Nissan Armada.  I turned my back and as I went to open my car door I could see in the reflection of my window the orange juice sliding down the roof towards me.

 

So I ended up with a back that was soaked in juice.  Nice.

 

Took me a while to get cleaned up and changed.  Run was fun though.

Can you identify this quote?

This should be agony. I should be a mass of aching muscle, unable to move. And, were I an older man, I surely would... ... but I'm a man of thirty -- of twenty again. The rain on my chest is a baptism -- I'm born again...

Feeling a little better.

Feeling a little better today. I must have had 5 little panic attacks yesterday.

I ran on a treadmill yesterday for the first time. Boring!!! My toe next to my big toe on my right foot is actually a little longer than my big toe. Anyway that nail fell off. Pretty gross.

Anyway, no real pain to speak of so I'm pretty excited about that. I took Paige with me over to the gym and she had a good time in the Kid's Club at LA Fitness.

Checked my body fat % - 10.4%. Down from 13.7% in December or January or whenver I had it last checked.

Swim at lunch today. I'm sure that will go well. I want to try and get a haircut as well. End of the month is coming and I want to keep that New Year's resolution going.

A post I will delete before long...

Fear is not a word that I use to describe how I'm feeling usually but it probably best captures what's going through my head right now. 

 

When this started I said to people, "The only thing I'm not going to be able to say is that I didn't train enough."

 

I didn't train enough.

 

That's what's going through my head right now.  I'm not thinking about the weekends of 5 - 7 hour bike rides and 2 - 3 hour runs; the weeks where I rode or ran for an hour every morning and swam every lunch.  I'm not thinking about the nights when I was so exhausted that I couldn't stay awake late enough to put my daughter to bed.

 

I'm thinking about the 45 minute run and the the 3 1/2 ride I didn't do in December because it was cold and windy.  I'm thinking about the swims I missed at lunch because I was working 80 hours / week in February and March.

 

I'm thinking about my knee.  I'm thinking about the swim.

 

I'm stuck with too many negative thoughts.

 

I need to change the focus.  That's what I'm going to work on.

 

Marc

The water was very cold!!!

I needed a $600.00 state-of-the-art top-of-the-line Zoot Zenith wetsuit. My kid needed a diaper.

Open Water Swim

OK.  Let's rethink this whole thing.

 

It seems like when I bike and run I get faster but every time I do something swimming related I have to push my time out a little more.

 

I put on my wetsuit and went for a swim in Saguaro lake Sunday.  Good time.  It's really freaky if you've never done it.  Anyway it took me a few hundred yards to get comfortable and then it went OK.  I don't think I'm particularly fast though.  No big surprise there.

 

Next week is a 2.4 mile swim in Lake Pleasant.  I guess I'll know what's what then.

 

Ran on Saturday.  Lots of knee pain.  I'm a little concerned here.

Good to go!!!

Yee Ha! I'm good!
I went for a surgical consult this morning. While I do in fact have a hernia the doctor said it would be three years before it will cause me any problems. I asked him if I needed to curtail the training, he said, "Do whatever the hell you want. It's like a pulled muscle."
I'm going to schedule the surgery either right after I get back from vacation in May or maybe mid June.
Anyway. Good to know I'm fine.

What did the doctor say when he saw you?

Same thing he always says, "Wow!" - Sam Malone "Cheers"

Good news! My knees are perfect. No problems, no swelling, nothing rubbing.

I said, "Then why do they hurt so much?"

He replied, "Because the human body wasn't made to run for 3 hours."

Hernia doctor tomorrow. I hope things go as well.

Marc

Some thoughts

"Start slow, arrive early"

From the moment you wake up on race morning, everything you do has an effect on how well you can run the Ironman marathon.

Swim strategy: Seeding is critical. Conserve energy.

Always move!

Bike strategy: Respect the marathon! This is not a bike race!

Ironman begins at mile 90 on the bike.

"An Ironman marathon is 20 miles of hope and 6 miles of reality." - Cam Brown

The marathon begins at the 13 mile mark.

(c) Camelback Coaching - used without permission :)

To Clarify

There is no way that I'm letting a little thing like a tear in the muscles of my abdomen keep me out of this race.

I finally got a wetsuit for God's sake.

I have a surgical consult with a doctor on Friday. I'll know more then.

Injury

On Friday I noticed a little sore spot on my lower abdomen. I didn't pay much attention to it but I did notice it enough on Saturday to draw a little circle around the area that hurt.

I knew what it was immediately. At least I thought I knew. I was afraid that I was wrong and that it was my appendix. It wasn't.

Anyway yesterday I decided that since my knees and my stomach hurt that I would go to the doctor. Diagnosis: Hernia.

Now I have to go get a surgical consult to see if this is something I can wait to fix until after the race and my vacation right after.

Wish me luck.

So let me tell you about my weekend!!

Let's start with the funny part. The part about me not being able to read a calender. For the second time this year I have looked at a calender, and just completely missed something by a day.

So I show up at Saguaro lake, new wetsuit in hand, to do an open water swim (my first) with my swimming coach. After I walk around for a while I looked at my phone/pda and realize that Saturday, March 17 was actually yesterday, Saturday March 17. Nice. I'm such a bonehead.

Don't know if this should be filed under funny, tragic, or lucky: About two hours after I left the area that I was supposed to swim at someone was shot over a pickup football game. I did see a couple guys throwing a football around.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/mesa/articles/0319abrk-FootballShooting0319-ON.html

Now to the cool stuff.

Saturday. 130 mile ride to Coolidge, AZ and back. A little tour of the economically depressed areas of Arizona.

After last weeks successful ride, Doug and I got a little cocky and didn't show this ride the respect it probably deserved. It was very windy going Southeast. Mostly in the face but a bit of a crosswind as well. So we figure, this will be great going home. WRONG! The wind changed direction and we had in in the face for 45 of the 65 miles coming back. Very nice.

It took us about 7 1/2 to complete. Getting hot in Phoenix. Lots of sweat. Drank lots of water and didn't have to make any pit stops on the way home.





Sunday: 3 hour run.

Stopped for 2 minutes to take these pictures.













Hmmmm. I don't think I felt real confident here. My knee had not recovered completely so I wrapped it up so tight that I'm not sure my foot was getting any blood.



The fist 30 minutes went OK. I could feel that the knee wasn't 100% but I decided to keep going. Next hour or so I definitely knew that this run was a mistake. The hour after that was pretty much excruciating pain with every step but then the pain pretty much went away for the last half hour.

Aerobically I felt fantastic! No fatigue, no breathing problems. I actually felt great! Leg hurt a lot! I had to help with Paige's Sunday School class an hour after I got home. That wasn't a whole lot of fun. All standing and sitting and walking and playing. Jeez. I sound like a real wussy.

Result: Better than 10 minute miles but not much better. I wanted to get 20 miles in but I ended up just shy of 19.

So that's pretty much it. This is a rest week. Then a taper. I'm really not sure what's involved there other than I have to get my ass in the water.

As long as my knee heals I'll do OK.

Who's that fat guy?

I was looking at my blog from this summer and I was thinking, "Am I going to look like that a couple months after Ironman or maybe Alcatraz?"

I'm not saying that I'm big in that picture, but you can see some fat under my chin and a bit of a belly that is no longer there. Any fat that used to be on my forearms is gone as well. All you see are a lot of veins.

I'm not sure I'm the healthiest person in the world.

10 - SPEED!!!!!

I may have mentioned in the past that my bike is in rotten shape.

No longer true. Last night I purchased a Dura-ace 10 speed group. Very nice. I wonder how long it will take me to wreck it! :)

33 Days of the Condor

So let me tell you about my AWESOME WEEKEND OF TRAINING!

On Saturday Doug and I set out to go to Wickenburg. It's a little town about 60 miles from my house. Turned out to be 60 to the click! Very cool. 120.5 out and back.

Anyway we took a road that we'd never been on before that far west. It was increadible. 4 lanes, paved, and no stoplights for like 70 miles.

I pulled pretty much the whole way. We crossed the century mark at around 5 1/2 hours which is not too bad for that course. The rest of the ride is pretty much steady uphill and straight. I yelled back to Doug that I wanted to make it home in an hour. A hard 20 mph 1 hour pull is tough enough but doing it after 100 miles seems even tougher. So I hammerred away and even though I never let my pulse stray above level 3 and we stopped to look at my new house, and I slowed the last 4 miles for a 10 minute cool down, we were home in 55 minutes.

We did a 20 minute run after to check nutrician. No problems. I no longer get shin splints there but my achiles tendon bothered me a bit. Need to keep stretching.

Next day was another story.

I was scheduled for a 2:50 run. I got 1:25 away from my house and I started experiencing what can be best described as a little weakness in my right knee. I ran through it and then it started to hurt. By the time I reached my house at 2:50 (I ran slower but it was downhill home) every step seemed like torture. Then I stopped running and immediately my leg felt like it locked up. An awful lot of pain there.

I skipped my Tuesday run. I was hoping to do it today but I'm not 100% yet and my bike isn't quite ride ready. Really need to be healthy for the weekend. 7 hour ride to Florence and back and a 3 hour run on Sunday. Sunday afternoon I'm doing an open water 2.4 mile swim in Saguaro Lake. Water is 50 degrees. I guess I only have a couple days to get a wetsuit.

100th Post

Lent

Back in the early 90's I used to own a bar and pool hall. One of my customers and good friends, Larry Lavorgna, announced in 1990 that he quits drinking and smoking during lent. Now I hadn't given up anything for Lent since 8th grade when my Mom made me give up comic books so I pretty much laughed at him.

By late winter of 1991 I decided that maybe I too needed a break from all the alcohol I was consuming and so I decided to give it up as well. That was what, 16 years ago?

So each year around this time I give up booze for 40 + days and nights. I never allow myself the Sunday or St. Patrick's Day exemptions although I have rescheduled my sobriety for my Brother's bachelor party and my friend Carl's 40th birthday party.

Anyway, Lent started a week and a half ago. I would say that for the first time in years I really miss drinking. Fortunately Easter Sunday is the week before Ironman. I hope I sober for the race. : )

The home stretch...

Today started the final two hard weeks of training. Ken was screaming at 3:00 am this morning so I got up and went out riding early.

I did a big loop and found out that our new house is exactly 4.25 miles further from my office than our current house if I take Cave Creek Road north instead of Tatum. Cave Creek is a busier street most of the time but it has a pretty big bike lane. I was thinking that taking Tatum would be faster but I think the distance is just about the same and you feel like you take your life in your hands every time your ride it and that's when the sun is out. It's kind of creepy to try and ride it at night or in the early morning before sun up.

Swam 2,900 yards at lunch. I really should have eaten first. I think I would feel better if I did. As it was it took me about 1,800 yards to start to feel good in the water. I'm very slow in the water. Don't know if I've mentioned that.

A Great Weekend!!!

Saturday we got out at around 6:00 am. The sun was just starting to come up.

The plan was to ride 125 miles and do Usery Pass, a popular ride in Phoenix if you live on the far east side.

The plan got completely changed after we rode for 20 miles into a nasty headwind and we decided just to change the route. I ended up getting 105 miles in just over the required 6 1/2 hours. That seems like a long time in the saddle but there were red lights and a couple water stops and did I mention the wind?

We were going down 9-mile hill, a stretch of road which usually we can average 30 - 32 mph down. I was barely able to turn 20 mph and as usual nobody really wanted to take the front from me. At one point a truck went past us going the other direction and the wind blast from it felt like a glaucoma test. BOOM!!!

Got home and threw my shoes on for a 20 minute nutrition check/run. No worries. Slight shin splint pain that went away on the way back.

On Sunday I got up and did a 2:30 run. I held an average 9 minute mile pace. For a change no real leg pain either during the run or after. I was tired and sore, don't get me wrong. But usually there's some real healing that is necessary. Sunday I just felt good.

That is until Paige announced that she wanted to go for a hike after church. So I got another 2 miles with her on my shoulders.

Funny story: Last weekend I had just finished a 2:20 minute run. I was in the bathroom weighing myself. I came in at 144. Paige walked in and wanted me to weigh her as well so I picked her up and got back on the scale. She weighs 27 pounds for a total weight of 171 lbs. Paige is pretty skinny. Anyway I started thinking that maybe a year ago I weighted about as much as the two of us. To say nothing of 2000 when I reached my high of 189 lbs. Anyway I was thinking that there was no way I could have run 16 miles with Paige in my arms.