Sweating Like the Tropics, In Weeks Nine, Eight, Seven, and Six

It has been a long time since my last training post, but it’s only because I’ve been as busy as a one-armed guy at a salad bar. Between a trip to Chicago for Grandma’s birthday party, and then another trip back to Chicago on my way to Racine, I’ve been spending more time in my truck than at home. Training has been a bit sporadic. But, I still feel pretty good about what I’ve been able to accomplish on a slightly scaled back program. It was great to spend a bunch of time on my bike in Week Seven. Between the race in Racine, RAGBRAI, and a century ride, I managed about 335 miles on the bike in 8 days.

I talked my cousin Mike into running with me in some amazing humidity the weekend we were all in Chicago for the big birthday celebration. We were soaked when we got back, and we got to see some interesting parts of LaGrange and LaGrange Park while we were out. The following day, Mike and my uncle Jeff volunteered to come out and help me with some bike training. I brought my tri bike, my road bike, and Roehr's road bike with me, and we loaded up Saturday morning and headed north for a ride that Roehr had done before. When we got to the park, there was another, much larger, group getting ready to ride. After some mechanical maneuvers, we were off. And, we only got lost once, er, twice. And, Mike only got one flat tire. We were thirsty, hot, and smelly afterwards, but it was still a great way to spend some time with family!

The following week was a pretty wimpy week of training. I was sub-par in all categories. But, I guess I can call it a mini-taper for the Spirit of Racine Half Ironman. You can read the race report below, but let's just say things went very well and the race was a big boost for my confidence.

Right after the SORT, Roehr and I headed back for our big week of RAGBRAI. That week was basically a quick swim before we met the team for the ride, 180 miles on the bike, and maybe a quick jog to find a port-o-potty, but no real running.

I went back down to Des Moines to train with the girls down there the Sunday after RAGBRAI. We started our bike ride at 6am because we knew we had a long way to go and it was gonna be humid and HOT! I have never drank so much water in one single day. I found I could drink as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted and I never had that slooshy feeling in my stomach. Whatever went in, came directly out of my pores. It felt like we were riding in a blast furnace. Plus, when we got done with the 100 miles, we still had a 40 minute run to do! Terri and I opted for the run 2min-walk 2min method just to get it done. We must have looked bad because we even had someone stop, back-up, and ask us if we needed a ride. Everyone in town knew this was not a good day to be out running!

It was a good way to clear my system of RAGBRAI and get back in training mode for the final 6 week stretch. Week 6 was better in terms of heat and training, but neither was great. Today I met up with Team Vardo. They had a 16 miler on the schedule, so I thought I'd go along for 12 or 14. We started at 5:30am (still dark here) and had a great 9 mile first lap on some new trails that we'd not been on before. It started to rain at the start of lap 2, and basically just poured on us the whole time. But I was feeling VERY good, so I held on and did all 16+ with them! The perfect ending was the breakfast Craig had made for us - eggs, sausage, pancakes, bananas, peaches, rolls, OJ, chocolate milk... YUM! And Kori and I got into the pool to eat our breakfast to cool our legs. Not quite an ice bath, but it worked!

Week 9 Weekly Round-Up (Sunday thru Saturday):
Swim: 4450 yards
Bike: 7 hours, 20 minutes
Run: 20.7 miles
Cross-Training: about 60 minutes of core and strength work.

Week 8 Weekly Round-Up (Sunday thru Saturday):
Swim: 1500 yards
Bike: 1 hours, 10 minutes
Run: 17.6 miles
Cross-Training: about 60 minutes of core and strength work.

Week 7 Weekly Round-Up (Sunday thru Saturday):
Swim: 3900 yards
Bike: 14 hours, 15 minutes (236 miles)
Run: 21.1 miles
Cross-Training: about 60 minutes of core and strength work.

Week 6 Weekly Round-Up (Sunday thru Saturday):
Swim: 5200 yards
Bike: 9 hours, 5 minutes (122 miles)
Run: 30 miles
Cross-Training: about 60 minutes of core, squats, lunges, and strength work.