Day 1 in florida

I registered and got that out of the way. No line and piece of cake. Walked around expo a bit. A little chilly today and it gets much cooler when the sun goes down. Bought some schwag. I did some pitching for rev3 and the buzz is getting around. I got a 30 min massage on my legs. Dinner and grocery shopping. Slept pretty well. Ill get my bike situated today and hopefully take a nap.

Crazy Day Friday

Marty is going to love this one :))) Its not less than one week to showtime. I'm ready and not nervous yet. Trying to get lots of sleep and rest and so far its working out. I have a busy couple of days on Monday and Tuesday before we fly out on Wednesday so I guess I should start to think about packing soon :)

I had an uneventful week of training. Lots of rest and recovery. I had a couple of easy swims that felt solid. I did have a bike power test that sort of failed. I went out at what I thought I might be able to hold and I was dead wrong. I went out way too hard and died. That is okay. I have a goal next year to maintain 300 watts for 20 minutes and get my power to weight ratio to 4. I've got some work to do to get there but its realistic.

Back to Friday....the goal of the day was to drive to Elite in Philly to drop off my bike. Load the car and my bike on my roof rack. I had to make a quick pit stop at the itp office and drove my car into a low covered parking garage. Oops, I forgot I had a bike on top. If it was about 2 inches higher, I would have cleared it. So I hear this thump and look out my rear view mirror to see my NEW bike go flying off the back. Sue panicked but I was calm. I was on my way to Elite so if anything was broken, those are the guys to take care of things. A broken brake lever and that's about it. A few bruises and now its battle tested to take on Ironman. Anyway, the guys will check it out closely to make sure everything is fine. I'm not worried. The guys at Elite are meticulous.

So, Sue and I leave ITP and head onto 95 and only get a few miles until traffic comes to a complete stop in both directions in Stamford. There were about 20 police cars that stopped traffic north and southbound. We were 5 minutes too late. We were a few hundred yards away from what turned out to be the end of a high speed chase, shooting, threatening of suicide, and armed suspect. Police surrounded this guy's truck and had their guns and rifles drawn negotiating with him to get out of his truck via cell phone. They brought out the swat team and even drove an armoured tank onto 95. The dude finally surrendered and we were delayed a good hour and traffic was backed up for many, many miles in both directions.

Team mossman had their annual saugatuck swim yesterday. You can choose from 3.5mi, 2.5mi, or 1.75mi or something close to that. Water temp was in the high 50's. marty....don't worry, I didn't swim. I'm not that crazy. Sue and I just went down to see some friends swim. Definitely some hypothermia going on. What seems crazy to me is that there were 3 people swimming that are racing IM Florida on Saturday. One girl is doing her first IM and had a cold. HUH???

Sue gave me a great massage yesterday and my body is feeling ready to go. We fly out Wednesday.

#720 and less than 2 weeks to go

Bib numbers have been assigned and I got #720. I like this number. Its been an up and down week for me. I was knocked on my ass for 2 days with a terrible sore throat. In fact, I lost my voice and I could barely talk. I canceled all my clients and rested and slept on the couch for 2 days. It was great and I think my body really needed it. I had a light week of training with a few key workouts. I had a great run on Saturday. I ran 13 miles with a fair bit of speed. Running sub 7min miles for 6 of those miles. It felt like a piece of cake.....good sign.

I have a busy work week ahead, catching up from last week and need to get my bike down to Philly Friday or Saturday so Elite can take my bike down for and tune it up. Its almost time to start packing and getting all my things together. Not much training this week....just fine tuning. I have one key workout...a power test on the bike which will hurt. I haven't done one in a while so I'm curious what the numbers will look like. I have worked hard on the bike but feel like my power has been suffering so we'll see.

The Countdown continues

Another week down. I had a good week of training. I felt great coming off my long run last Sunday and posted some good runs this week. I had a couple of good swims too. I had a tough bike session mid week. The weather was really nice last week so it was a joy to workout in perfect training conditions.....if only that would happen on race day :)

I was hoping to get in an open swim this week because the water temp. is still tolerable (I think) but it didn't happen.

I ran a good 10 miles on Saturday and it felt pretty darn good but I was a bit sore from a somewhat hard 4 miles in the middle. I ventured an hour to do my long ride out of Quassy in Middlebury, CT. I was meeting a friend to ride the 56 mile course of the new rev3 tri course. I knew that would only net me 3.5 hours so I got there early and biked 25 miles on my own. I was feeling fine which has always been the case after riding a few hours. We headed out on the 56 mile loop on the most beautiful fall foliage day. I was scouting out this course to give it an accurate depiction and absolutely loved it. It is challenging but fair. It has a fair amount of climbing but it also has some really fast sections of the course. I would call it equivalent to the difficulty of a loop of the lake placid course. Anyway.....the legs turned to mush after an hour or two into this ride and just struggled into the finish. I was glad this was my last long ride.

I haven't been cycling for all that long and I think it just takes years to build up this volume until your legs/body can learn to flush out lactic acid as you go. My body is also fatigued from the training so its taper time now. I have a few hard workouts over the next few weeks to dial in my power levels on the bike and to bring some intensity into my workouts.

I spent Saturday watching the Ironman World Championships online and got inspired for my race....perfect timing. I love this stuff but I wish I was there racing.

I came up with an idea for a new race. Its the anti-Kona. The race takes place the Saturday morning of Kona here in CT at Quassy. The park is closed so no worries of having to share it with the public. The water temperature is still tolerable to swim in. The jist of the race is that there are almost no rules. You can wear fins, paddles, or whatever you want for the swim. Just no motor. You can draft on the bike but there are no aid stations on the bike course or officials stopping traffic. You ride at your own risk. For the run, you can utilize wheels (rollerblades, rollerskates, skateboards, etc. ) Blank white tshirts are given upon arrival with magic marker. You design your own tshirt. There are no timing chips. You time yourself and as you finish, you record your own time and write it on the board as you finish. After the race, we drink beer and watch Ironman Kona on a big screen.

Less than 4 weeks to Ironman

I had another big week of training....14,000 yds. in the pool, 40+ miles of running, and 100 miles of biking this week. A little light on the biking side and heavier in the other two. I topped it off with a half marathon today preceded by a 3 mile warm up. I was feeling real good in my warmup as the cold rain pelted down. As the race started I ran the first 3 miles or so with a friend catching up, talking and it felt very easy. My HR was far below my target but the whole day was intended to be aerobic. I slowly left him and finally settled into my zone of HR145 as a started to pass a lot of people. I continued to pass a lot of people throughout the rest of the race and did not get passed by anyone the rest of the race. As the race went on, I got stronger....a very nice sign. I decided to go above my target HR for the last half mile to mile because I was feeling so good.

I'm feeling ready for Ironman. I have a fairly big week of training ahead of me peaking next weekend with 5 hour ride and 10 mile run the following day.....then its officially taper time. Everyone has been warning me that I will feel miserable during my taper from not training. I intend to use the extra time in the gym working on strengthening my core and improving my flexibility. Its also time to cut out the caffeine until race day. I'm sure I'll have a nice headache for the next few days. I need to watch my diet very closely too.

I had a good meeting yesterday with a new triathlon race management group who will be putting on a new triathlon in CT next year. They want me to be a part of it. I drove the bike and run courses yesterday and its a beautiful course. I'm going to ride it next weekend. Its going to be a challenging but fair course. I'm very excited about this race. I think its going to be a blast.