An answer

I talked to Bill Wilson over at Camelback Coaching and he said that 30% of the time you can do everything right and still have your body break down nutrician-wise. He said that you can pace yourself correctly, take in the right nutrients, drink the right amount of water, and still your digestive system shuts down and you walk the marathon.

That would definitely suck!

While I don't like the idea of bringing the "X" factor into this I don't mind the odds.

46 days and counting

So here's my question:

If I can swim 2.4 miles in 1:30:00 and I've ridden 112 miles sub 6:00:00 more times than I can count and it seems like I can maintain a 10 minute mile pace forever (this is a 4:20:00 marathon) why in the world won't I do a sub 12:00:00 Ironman?

None of those times individually is particularly impressive. In fact the 1:30 swim is pretty f-ing slow but if you look at the results from last year a 12:00 race puts me 94th out of 354 entrants in my age group and 459 out of the 1944 total entrants.

I guess I'll answer that question myself either way in 46 days.

AWOL

Sorry I haven't posted anything lately.

The past two weeks have been an absolute bear! I had auditors in the office and I was starting my workdays a 6:00 am and finishing at 9:00 pm. I've done a whole bunch of rides where I watched the sun come up and set while I was on the road. That sure beats watching the sun rise and set from my office.

Last 3 weeks of intense training have started. 3 hour runs and 7 hour rides are as long as it gets with 2:30 rides, 1:20 runs and 2 hour swims during the week.

After that a rest week and I'm 3 weeks out from the race. I have no idea what the training will be like for those weeks.

I keep wanting to write a lot of personal stuff but I just keep running out of time. I'll try and get to that tonight.

Batman Sighting Puts Schools on Lockdown

My friend Carl sent this to me. I wonder if this guy is related to the freak I encountered a few months back.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) -- To an Arizona middle school, Batman! Three schools in the north Phoenix suburb of Cave Creek were on lockdown for about 45 minutes Wednesday morning after a student at Desert Arroyo Middle School reported seeing a person dressed as Batman run across campus, jump a fence and disappear into the desert, Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said.

The student described the person as 6 feet 3 inches tall and possibly male.

"We're assuming it was male, although they did have a mask on," Clark said.

Officers combed the desert around the middle school. A nearby elementary school and high school also were on lockdown as officers sought the caped crusader.

The result - no Batman.

"It's just one of those interesting little stories that we looked into but we couldn't find anyone," Clark said.

Nedda Shafir, a spokeswoman for the Cave Creek Unified School District, said putting all the schools on lockdown was a precautionary measure.

"We didn't want to take any chances," Shafir said. "We just don't want to put anyone at risk."

Cool video

Where have I been!!!!???

I just looked and it's been like 9 days since I wrote anything.

Two Saturdays ago I was real concerned about my ride. This past Saturday I did 112 miles in 6 hours almost exactly! That included the usual red lights and stops for water during which the clock just kept running so I feel a little better about it. If the workout gods (small g) look kindly upon me I should be able to come in somewhere around 5:30. I'll be happy at 6:00.

Runs have been great! I did a little over 16 miles on Sunday and then Tuesday morning I ran over 8 with 4 really hard 7 minute efforts. 10 minute miles bring you in at 4:20. I can run 9 minute miles all day but I'm not that fast after riding. I get shin splints for the first mile and then I start to feel better. They say it takes a couple miles before you start to feel normal running. Prediction: 4:10

Swims? What can I say about the swims? My math is bad. I kept thinking I was on target for a 1:20 swim but it turns out there is a difference between meters and yards. It's not a real significant difference unless you are talking about 3,600 of them then you have to add quite a few yards to equal that. Prediction 1:35. Chad says just under 1:30 with the wetsuit.

So with a WHOLE BUNCH of luck and another 59 DAYS of prep I could wrap this thing up sub 12:00. I feel like such a schmuck writing that down because I'm going to feel like crap when I crawl in at 16 hours and I won't enjoy the idea that I just finished.

Confront the brutal facts but never lose sight of your ultimate goal.

Worry worry worry

If I told you that the thing I'm most worried about right now is the ride would you believe me?

Seriously.

I did a century Saturday. Kept it in level two for almost the whole ride except for 45 minutes during the last hour when I needed to be in level three. It took almost 6 hours!!!! I haven't analyzed the whole ride yet but I can't help but be disappointed in that time. WITH AERO BARS NO LESS!!!

After that I did the usual 2 + mile run just to make sure the nutrician is in check. Check! Felt a slight shin splint in only one leg and it went away pretty fast.

68 days to go. Very concerned right now.

Goofy Day

I have kept one of my New Year's resolutions. I got a haircut the other day.

So today I think we bought a new house. Add to my list of things to do: Get my house ready to sell. Welcome to the land of high mortgage payments for a while.

Second. Today has been all over the place. I was supposed to ride today but it turns out I forgot that I had to sign Paige up for preschool so I ran 8 miles this morning instead. Good time although I couldn't seem to push my heart rate up to where it needed to be. I think all the chicken wings I ate and beer I drank at Keith's last night got in the way.

Third, I was going to do a long swim this afternoon at lunch but I got over to LA Fitness and discovered I had forgotten my suit. I walked back and got the suit but when I got back to the gym they had started a swim aerobics class so I couldn't do any laps.

Ironman lecture tonight on equipment selection.

June 3.....

Not to get ahead of myself, but... It doesn't look like that far a swim does it?

A couple good articles

Pictures of 2006 World Championship

http://www.ironman.com/columns/gruenfeld/lee-and-cherie-gruenfeld-look-back-at-the-2006-ford-ironman-world-championship-in-kona

Some funny stuff here:

http://www.ironman.com/columns/gruenfeld/lee-gruenfeld-explores-the-wealth-of-vocabulary-in-triathlon.

Article about how to raise your kids:

http://www.ironman.com/columns/gruenfeld/lee-gruenfeld-offers-up-yet-another-hilarious-column-parents-take-note

Hilarious if you haven't seen this

72 days and counting...

I can't believe that it's February already.

Swimming is progressing, nicely I think. I swam 2,500 meters in 56:30. I think that gets me out of the lake somewhere around 1:22. I'm thinking I'll probably get in another 40 swim workouts between now and April. I don't think I'm going to do much in terms of increasing strength by then so pretty much all time savings will come from form and interval training.

Still need to get a wetsuit.

The run Tuesday was an absolute blast! 4 x 7 minute efforts into level 5 after a long warm up. My total time out there was about 1:20. It was excellent. I really like running.

Lots of rain yesterday and today. It really better stop before Saturday. Doug, Ken, and I have a long ride ahead of us.

Anyway, lots happening in my life right now. Maybe I'll do a little personal stuff here tomorrow.

Call me Mr. Big Ring

I'm a love people, use things, kind of person.

Everyone who knows me can stop laughing now.

I really need to show my equipment more respect!

So anyway, my gears are so screwed up that I can't even get into the big ring on the bike without yanking on the cable so I just leave it there all the time now.

Sick twice in a year

So I'm finally getting over this f-ing cold.... Again!

I was pretty sick two weeks ago with the sneezing and the coughing. That's pretty much passed. Last week I kept waking up at 1:00 am with a really bad cough. I have a lot of that cough syrup with codeine so that worked nicely but I decided to stop taking it last night and I slept fine.

The illness really affected my times I think. Three Sundays ago I ran 13.2 miles in 1:50:00. That's a half marathon in under 2 hours. That was the day of the PF Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon. If I'd have known I was going to be that fast I'd have run it.

Then two Sundays ago my long run was 2 hours. I thought that I was going to look down at my pedometer and see around 15 miles. I only ran 13.1 miles. That's .1 miles less in 10 additional minutes. That kind of bugged me.

Then yesterday, it being a rest week, I only had to run 45 minutes. I only got 4.83 miles. That's hardly a 10 minute/mile pace. I was really disappointed. Not to mention that I have not felt my best on the rides either.

This morning was different I think. I haven't downloaded the data into my computer yet but today I had to ride for 1:20 and I had to do 4 x 10 minute intervals at HR approaching and even brushing up against LT. The ride went fantastic.

First of all, you know how a couple months ago I complained that 48 degrees was cold? It was 48 today and it was perfect out. I really enjoyed riding on the aero-bars too. It was very very very comfortable and my whole body besides my legs was very still. That means that I wasn't wasting any energy on anything except moving the pedals. It was easy to settle into a high cadence and keep my HR right where it needed to be. I even took Hummingbird on the way in and did some climbing.

A really good weekend

I kind of feel like I'm back into the swing of things. I'm almost caught up with all my work. The house is a disaster with the projects I'm supposed to get done but keep blowing off. That might matter soon because we looked at a house this weekend that I really like. My Brother says we should buy it but I think that's because he lives near it and wants his property values to stay high.

AERO BARS!!!!

I have officially become that which I used to make fun of.

I put aero bars on my bike, flipped the stem, and raised the seat to achieve the optimal time-trial position. It was pretty comfortable coming to work this morning. I think it was about 40 when I left the house. The sun is starting to come up a little earlier and it seems pretty nice outside right now. Looking forward to the ride home and tomorrow is an easy 2 hour ride. Ken and Doug might join in.

Swam 2,500 meters with no rest at lunch. Pretty easy. I still have lot of energy.

Been gone a while

It's been a while obviously since I updated here.

The weather here has been absolute crap. It's been in the 30s most mornings and it seemed like it rained here for 2 weeks straight. I'm in the middle of a rest week right now.

When my Dad died I sort of promised myself that I wouldn't miss any training and I held myself to that promise. I finished the rides and runs while it was still dark our and then made it to my brother's house where most of my family was congregating all week. Impossible to keep track of all the beer, Jack, and tequila that I drank though. I might just estimate 10 drinks / day for the week and go from there.

The week after was really difficult. I had no warning obviously before taking the week off work and everything really piled on. I still haven't caught up with year end for my clients yet. I should have that all taken care of tonight though. I missed all but 1 of the rides but completed every run. I think I did most of the swims but honestly I can't remember.

Thank you.

I want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and condolences. I started this blog really so that my Mom could see what I'm doing. I am shocked at the number of people that visit and the number of people that have taken the time to wish me and my family well. Thank you again.

Rest in peace, Dad

Kenneth Joseph Petrine 12/30/1941 - 01/08/2007

My Dad holding Kenneth Anthony Petrine.

No training today. Sorry. I was going to swim this afternoon but I received a call at work that changed everything.



On December 30, 2006 we celebrated my Dad, Ken Petrine's 65th birthday. My brother Keith remarked that he was the same age, 35, as my Dad had been when his own Father had died.

Those words turned out to be quite prophetic this morning when my Dad died of an apparent heart attack.

He was an amazing Grandpa to all his Grand kids. He used to take Paige out with him every Wednesday. They would stop at his stock broker, sometimes the library or the park, and then at Costco where Paige and him would have hot dogs for lunch. He knew Paige's names for all the parks. I could never keep track of them all and sometimes I would call him and say, "Paige wants to go to the 'brown' park, or the 'mud' park or the 'yellow' park. Where is that?"

This fall Kirk, Keith, my Dad, and I spent a week together eating, drinking, laughing, drinking, playing cards, drinking, golfing, and drinking. He told me the other day to make sure I didn't use all my vacation time this summer doing triathlons so that we could all take another trip. He always joked that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread on the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach.


I spent the afternoon going through his address book calling people to let them know. If you knew him and I've missed your name I apologize that this is how you heard about it. You can contact me via e-mail and I'll give you the details of the arrangements. My e-mail address is the first letter of my first name followed by my last name @cox.net.



My Dad once said that if your kids don't do better than you did, you were a failure as a father. Well, in some respects he set the bar pretty high. I hope I haven't disappointed him.



Marc

A true renaissance man

I've added making gourmet ice cream to specialty olive oil, roasted coffee, and home brewed beer as the things that I've made in my spare time.

When I build a distillery in my backyard you'll know I have a problem.