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Jason, Sean and myself taking a break at mile 52
on the banks of the Snoqualmie river.
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Just 50 days, 13 Hours and 6 min, crap 5min now to go until the gun sounds for Ironman Texas. How is my training going has been a very popular question as of late? I'm not sure how to answer it. I usually say okay. After all this time I had expected to be in a little better frame of mind. I'm kind of in a "blah" mood. I can blame it on a lot of things but basically I think I'm just ready to have my Ironman Experience and just try and soak it all in. I mean it's not everyday when one tries to reach a 17+ year goal. So whether I finish in sub 12, sub 13, sub 14 or just under 17 hours (yes at midnight Jason!), I want to finish with a smile and hopefully if all goes well I'll have a great finishing time as well.
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Rented some wheels for my long ride. Not sure if they made
me faster but they certainly made the bike look better :-)
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| Bathroom break around mile 72. |
The last few weeks here in Seattle have been raining with a bitter cold wind making training bike rides a challenge and the idea of getting in a pool a little challenging. I've been a fairweather biker to say the least but I did manage to squeak several long bike rides followed by some short runs when the clouds parted. The longest of my rides (actually my longest ride ever) was last Friday. I did a 106 miles and then followed it up with a short 3.5 mile run. All in all it went pretty well and I was happy to have two friends along for the ride with me (thanks Jason and Sean for keeping me motivated).
In addition to my bike rides, I've had a few really good and fun runs as well. The most challenging run was a 13.5 miler that took me up the steps from Golden Gardens Park on the Puget Sound all the way up to the top of 85th St NW.
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| Starting up the stairs at Golden Gardens Beach Park. |
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| Golden Gardens Beach Park showing off my Ragnar Shirt. |
The other run I did was the annual St. Patricks Day Dash. This years race was both rainy and snowy. As you can see I made the most of it. My time was pretty good but I think I could have done better. I went out way to fast though and bonked in the last half mile. The most important thing here though was that I finally got to go to the beer garden afterwards and drink with my friends at 9am.....BEER, It does the body good....sometimes :-)
Anyways, it's now down to 50 days and I find myself wondering how hard should I push myself over the next few weeks? What's the balance between not enough and too much training? Well, I guess I won't know until race day? So I'm going to just keep training as best that I can and give myself a few days a week to rest. This week I've been taking it easy. So next week I'm going to try and have a high intensity week focusing on the bike trainer. After that, who knows? If the weather gets nice again I am going to go for a few more mid-range bike rides (oh it's rainy and cold here again. To get an indication of how rainy it has been, the local ski resorts have had over 13 feet of snow since March 1st). I think the most important thing for me at this point is to just try and stay healthy and positive. After all, I got my long bike ride in....so that right there to me was a huge hurdle.
Must go train some more :-)
