The people who will get me there

I cannot believe it has been 6 weeks since my last post. Needless to say, it has been hard enough keeping up with the training. I just don't have enough hours in a day to get everything done that needs to get done.

I was totally prepared for the fact that Ironman was going to require more of ME than anything I had ever done before. What I was not prepared for was what a sacrifice it would be for those closest to me. Ironman has become the focus, not only of my life, but of Anne's life as well. It has to be...there is no way around it. Every meal and every minute of sleep has to be so perfect because my body and mind are teetering on the edge. I am riding a very thin line between being in the greatest shape of my life and being injured. I am consumed by the need to stay on the positive side, but I am always so close to falling toward the negative. Anne has been my savior in this battle. She has walked through every step of this training with me, hardly ever complaining (except for the times that I got in such a bad mood that she just could not take it any more). She encourages me and makes me feel like anything is possible. I told her last night that if I finish the Ironman, she will be 70% responsible for it mentally. Her love, her encouragement, her food (I am the luckiest guy ever in this respect!), and her devotion to getting me to the race healthy and happy is something I will always remember. I love her more every day because of her strength for me when I am lacking the will to go forward.

While Anne has helped me mentally, I also have to give a shout out to Erik who has done so much for me to help with the physical preparation. First of all, it is important to give some perspective about Erk's situation as I have been training for this race. Erik and Danny have recently become the proud parents of Amelia Jane Vincent, their first child. Despite the stresses of a first pregnancy, Erik has traveled to Charleston, SC with me on two occasions for my long bike rides (6 hours and 6.5 hours). He has ridden 70 miles with me on one occasion and 80 on another and has been such a great companion through these torture sessions. The greatest part about it is that Erik has been so calm through these rides and keeps my nervous energy "at bay" with his steadiness. While I believe these two long rides will serve as the backbone for my confidence on race day, Erik's commitment has gone well beyond just the trips to Charleston. Every weekend, I grind away on 4-6 hour rides on my Computrainer, hoping to find a good movie to watch or a sporting event to become immersed in. At least one day every weekend, Erik has been there with me, grinding away on his trainer talking about teaching, new baby stories, or just sharing in the pain that one can only feel after 4 hours on a trainer. I am confident in saying that if I finish the Ironman on Novemer 1st Erik will be 70% responsible for preparing me physically. I am sad that he will not be there to see me cross the line, but he will certainly be the first phone call I make.

So, I am not writing today to talk about all of the hours of training or to pat myself on the back for the miles logged. What I have learned, more than anything, during this training is that I will owe such a huge debt of gratitude to the people who have walked through the fire with me as I prepare for November 1st. The greatest part about it is that I will already feel like so much has been accomplised, even if I don't cross the line. Ironman is so much more than a race. It is an experience. Many times, all we have to remember it by is the pictures from the actual race. My memory of Ironman, however, will be in the months leading up to it. I will never forget the way that my friends and family rallied to my support during this time. It means the world to me and it has helped me to keep things in perspective. I am very lucky.

Gravity is real...trust me

This journey to triathlon has been a long one for me, and I never thought I would find myself in this situation...training for an ironman. I remember back to the days when I was "just a runner." I was running half marathons, dealing with IT band injuries, eating what ever I wanted...it was a pretty simple life. I remember talking with a friend of mine who was training for the Lake Placid Ironman. I asked him how he was feeling and he said that for the first time in his life he really believed that he could actually feel the force of gravity pulling him down. As usual, my response in my head was "well, why don't you stop this insanity and realize that no human being should put their body through that kind of training?" Instead of listening to this voice, I became inspired and I hit the local pool to see if I was one of those people who sink when they try to swim (it is amazing to me the number of triathletes who are really bad swimmers...I could not go on trying to swim if I looked that bad). I had some good swimming genes from my mom, so I found that it came relatively easy to me. I bought a road bike and tried my first long ride (I think it was about 30 miles) with toe strap pedals and running shoes. It was a tough experience, but I liked it because it was something new. That summer, I did my first sprint triathlon and I finished upright and smiling. Over the course of the summer, I would do 2 more sprint races and I ended up finishing 2nd in my age group in the last race of the summer. I had been bitten by the tri-bug. It was the beginning of a very slippery slope.
Anyway, I digress. The past few weeks have been tough on me. I am not really sure why, but I have really felt fatigued...not necessarily while working out, but more afterwards. It has made things difficult as my work has gotten really busy over the past few weeks as well. All of this leaves me exhausted when I get home at night. The strange thing is, however, that I am having some trouble sleeping well at night. The human body is strange. I really believe that my body is rebelling against all of this training. Since my last post, I did my longest run ever...2.5 hours. It was a great workout. I have also had 2-150 mile plus weeks on the bike and 2-9500 yard swim weeks. Add to this the weight lifting and you have a very tired triathlete.
In the past, I have been able to bounce back from these times of ultra-fatigue. This time, I had to give in. I sent an email to Karen (coach) and told her that we need to go back to the schedule that has me training hard for 2 weeks and then resting for a week. I had been on the three weeks hard, 1 week rest schedule. I just think that third week is too much. So, I am in a rest week this week and I am really looking forward to having 2 days off from training and reduced volume for the other days as well. Hopefully, this will help me bounce back. Next week, I have a 19 hour training week highlighted by a 3 hour run workout, and a total of 9 hours of biking on the weekend (6.5 hours on Saturday, 2.5 hours on Sunday).
Gravity is pulling on me. It really is a strong force...trust me.

The Sudden Value of REST

It has been almost a month since my last posting, and I can say for certain that I am now officially in training for the Ironman. This past month has been full of ups and downs, some times leaving me to question whether or not this race was even going to happen for me. Towards the end of June, I did a 3.5 hour ride on Saturday followed by 1.5 hours on Sunday. On Tuesday of the next week, I was out to dinner with my mom and I completely lost the feeling in my right foot from the ankle all the way to the toes. The numbness lasted for 2 days and then I started to get a mild burning sensation all the way down my leg. Over the next few days, the burning sensation intensified to the point that I could not sleep at night. I went to my general practitioner and he diagnosed it as a pinched sciatic nerve. This was not a good prognosis because it usually means that there is a herniated disc in the lumbar spine that is pinching the nerve. The only way to get better is to completely rest it, meaning no biking or running. Needless to say, there were some dark days in there where I thought this Ironman dream was over. Luckily, my coach told me about ART-Active Release Therapy, and she suggested that I seek out an ART specialist in Atlanta. I looked online and found 1st choice health center in Decatur. I went and saw Dr. Sadri, a truly amazing man, who looked me over and talked with me about my training and injury history. After some time, he diagnosed that I did have some nerve issues, but that they were not being caused by anything in the spine. Instead, he thought that the muscles in my leg were actually tightening around the nerve, causing the burning. For treatment, he performed a technique called Graston. Graston is essentially a large version of a butter knife that is used to perform a deep tissue massage on injured areas. It was, in a word, painful. After the Graston, he performed the more traditional Active Release Therapy technique. In my case, he referred to it as "flossing the nerve." He would put me into very intense stretching positions and then press very hard on the nerve area and have me move my foot back and forth so that the nerve would slide under his finger. Again, very painful. However, after a 30 minute treatment, I felt 100 times better. No more burning or numbness. I visited him 5 more times over the next few weeks and I am happy to report that the pain is almost completely gone.
So, that is a glimpse at the emotional roller coaster that my life has been over the past few weeks. As for the training, that has really been the easy part. Being injured makes you appreciate training so much more because you have a brief look at what life would be without it. For me, that is not a good place to go. So, I have really appreciated every swim, bike, and run over these weeks of injury. This past weekend, I got a real taste of Ironman training. My friend Erik accompanied me to Charleston, SC for a weekend of tough workouts. On Saturday, I completed a 5.5 hour ride, followed up by an easy 2 mile run just to let me know what it feels like to run on legs that just biked 110 miles. We recovered and then hit it again on Sunday with a 2.5 hour ride and a 45 minute swim. So, over the course of 2 days I trained 9 hours, biking 160 miles. It was a great confidence boost for me to know that I can ride almost the equivalent of the Ironman bike leg and then come back the next day to ride an additional 50 miles.
This week is a rest week and I am really enjoying the time off. I used to worry that I was losing my fitness during these weeks, but I am convinced that resting is the best form of training. The last three weeks have been intense, logging over 450 miles on the bike, 70 miles on the run, and 30,000 yards in the pool. The muscles need time to recover from being brutalized day after day. It is actually in the recovery phase that muscles grow the most. The same holds true for increasing endurance...it improves during times of rest.
So, we are headed up to the mountains this weekend where I can find total relaxation. I will nap and eat good food and breathe clean air all weekend.
Coming up, I have a 2.5 hour run to look forward to next week and we are building up to a 6.5 hour ride in mid-August. Needless to say, it will all be a challenge. But, this is the path one chooses when preparing for an Ironman.
Thank you all for putting up with me through this. A special thanks to Anne who stands by me through injuries, trips to Charleston without her, and constant complaining about how tired and hungry I always am.

Into the thick of it...

I can tell you this for certain...when all of this is over, I am going to put my bike away for quite some time and be very happy to not have to look at it for a while. Obviously, with the bike portion being 112 miles, this is the area that has to be most focused on during ironman training. First, you just have to condition your body to be on that bike for 5-6 hours. It is not as much about the legs getting tired as it is about conditioning the parts of your body that are actually in contact with the bike (feet, crotch, etc.). That is a long time for the same areas to have repetitive contact and rubbing. Don't worry, I will not go into detail on this...those details are reserved for Anne's ears only!

This past weekend, I rode 60 miles on Saturday followed by 40 miles on Sunday. This brought last week's total training to 9000 yards in the pool, 147.5 miles on the bike, and 24 miles on the run...not to mention 2 weight workouts and 2 abdominal specific workouts. I ended up training a total of 14 hours for the week. On Monday, I started a "rest" week. Scientists have taught us that it is critical for athletes to train at increasing volumes for 2-3 weeks and then follow that up with a reduced volume week. That way, the body has a chance to recover and all of the work that you have done in training has time to set in. We have all heard that training basically breaks muscles down, causing small micro tears in the muscle fibers. If the body is not given proper rest, the muscles never recover and they do not grow stronger. Over time, if volume continues to increase and rest does not occur at regular intervals, you start to see performance wane and injuries set in. So, we are in a rest week this week. This means lots of sitting around and relaxing, something that I appreciate after having trained hard for the past 3 weeks. In the past, I have been on a 2 weeks on, one week off routine. Recently, however, I have switched to a 3 weeks on, 1 week off schedule to see if that will still work. For now, it is fine, but when we get to the big volume weeks, we will see how the body copes with the added week.

That is all for now. Thanks for checking in on me.

Gluten Free and Time Trialing

It's Wednesday...the second hardest day of the week for me (Tuesday is by far the hardest because it is a completely useless day-Monday is the first day of the week and you have an excuse to be unproductive, Wednesday is the middle of the week-the top of the hill, Thursday starts the downward momentum and Friday flies by). Anyway, it's Wednesday and it is unbelievably hot in the South. I don't know if it is global warming, but what ever is causing it needs to go away. If it is this hot in early June, I do not even want to begin to imagine what July-August will feel like.

Sticking to the theme of this blog, however, I can tell you that training is progressing nicely. I had a nice 41 mile ride on Saturday, followed up by a hot and humid 10 mile run on Sunday. Total training time for week 1 was 11 hours, 15 minutes (about the time it will take to complete the Ironman in November). This week started off with a time trial swim just to see how my swim fitness is progressing. Basically, we want to be able to establish what my Ironman swim pace will be per 100 meters. So, I had to swim 5x400 yards with very little rest in between and then immediately after the last 400 swim, I had to swim a 500 time trial. I guess the point was to tire me out and then see how fast I could swim. It was a tough workout. I also rode 20 miles on the bike, focusing on some one legged pedaling efficiency drills. On Tuesday, I was in Charleston, SC for work and had to run 6 miles. It was so humid, even at 6AM, I felt like I had just gotten out of the shower. I also had a 30 minute weight lifting session on Tuesday afternoon, something I usually look forward to as an effective, yet easy, workout. Today, I had to ride the dreaded 30 minute time trial on the bike. Ironman training is so dependent on good, solid date (heart rate, wattage on the bike, cadence on the run) that the more you can set baselines the better you can gauge training to prepare for the race. On the bike, it is important to know what an athlete can maintain as far as power goes in an all out 30 minute time trial effort. I dread these workouts because they send you to a level of pain that you rarely go to. I am proud to say, however, that my power numbers are up from last year by about 10%, so something I am doing is right on the bike. Needless to say, I am feeling the effects from this workout this afternoon.

The past 10 days has been some what of a perfect storm (or imperfect storm) for me and Anne. Three things have all converged at once to create a frenzied feeling. One, I started Ironman training. Two, the weather turned extremely hot and humid. Three, we went completely gluten free in our diet. The diet has been especially difficult because we have had to completely re-arrange our kitchen to meet with the new nutritional demands. We have been giving away flour, bread, pasta, etc. and replacing it with gluten free flours, pastas, and breads. It has been mentally exhausting to come up with recipes and ideas and to remember what you can and cannot eat. I have been programmed to eat gluten from the time I was a child, so this is a huge change for me. Some of the new recipes have been good, but others have been pretty bad. We tried to make home made cereal and it is pretty damn terrible. We made gluten free baguettes and they taste pretty weird. Other discoveries have been good-Quinoa pasta, rice bread, soy crisps to name a few. However, coupling this with training has left me feeling a bit calorie depleted in some of my longer workouts. I will have to find some balance if I am going to succeed at both.

So, training carries on and continues to increase in volume and intensity. I will write more later to give an update on the week's remaining workouts. We have some tough ones coming up. This week will end up with 140 mile of biking, 25 miles of running, and about 9,000 yards in the pool. This is nothing in comparison to where we will be in a month, but it is a long climb to get to be an Ironman.

Thanks for checking in!

And so it begins

After all of the talk...all of the preparation...all of the worrying, Ironman training officially began this morning. As usual, the anticipated fanfare over my first day of Ironman training did not even come close to the reality that greeted me this morning. For the past few days, I imagined waking up and going down stairs to get on my bike, and everything would be very dramatic (music, people cheering, etc.). As it turns out, I slept like crap last night and woke up not wanting to get out of bed. My first thought of training was, oh great, another friggin bike ride at ass o'clock in the morning. I lay there thinking of the 100 different ways I could get out of it and just put the workout off until this afternoon. But, that little devil that I have grown so accustomed to (guilt) was sitting on my shoulder shouting much more loudly than that other voice (sanity) could muster at such an early hour. So, I got up and staggered down stairs, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and dreading those first few pedal strokes.

For those of you who have never been on a Computrainer, let me describe the experience for you. The Computrainer is the human equivalent of a gerbil wheel. You set your back tire on a computerized roller and lock the hubs in place. The trainer is connected to your computer and there are bike courses from all over the world programmed into the software. The back wheel is the only thing that moves, and the computer takes such readings as how much wattage you are creating, how fast you are going, and how many calories you are burning. So, you ride along, never really going any where, but powering a little video game version of yourself on the computer monitor. Needless to say, it can be a bit boring. However, being a resident of one of the most bike unfriendly cities in the world, this is my best option.

I rode for 45 minutes and listened to the local DJs drone on about who knows what. It was not a stellar workout, but I got through it and I fel good that it is behind me.

This week is all about getting back into the training lifestyle. Karen, my coach, will slowly build me up over the next few weeks to prepare me for the long workouts that will be so essential to success on race day. Until then, it is all about building the aerobic base.

Anne and I made a major diet change this weekend as well. We are trying a completely gluten free diet. Gluten is basically a protein that is found in most breads, pastas, and cereals that we eat regularly. It can cause some serious gastrointestinal issues and it is found in most foods that are made by humans (not natural). In order to be gluten free, we are learning about such things as Xantham Gum, Millet, Quinoa, Potato Starch, Tapioca Flour, Rice Flour. I swear I have learned more about food in the past few days and it is really pretty fascinating. According to a book that we are reading about gluten free living, 50-70% of people are "gluten intolerant." That is a pretty stagerring figure when you think about how much gluten is in the foods that we eat on an every day basis. Anyway, I will keep you posted on our progress.

I have a weight lifting session that I still have to do today, but that is relatively easy compared with the morning bike ride. It's not that 45 minutes is a long time for me...it's just that I had no motivation. An unmotivated workout is always a tough workout.

More to come. Thanks for checking in.

Why Ironman?

When I first started competing in triathlons, it was at the sprint triathlon level in Charleston, SC. I was ok at the beginning, but I never thought it would become as much of a part of my life as it has become now. I remember that first triathlon...staring out over the water, wondering how in the hell I had gotten myself into this mess. The gun went off, and everything was a blur. I swam hard, got kicked hard, pushed hard, and cussed out a few times for cutting people off. Once I exited the swim, I knew I was going to be ok. After all, anyone who grew up in America knows how to ride a bike and run. It does not take much skill. As I crossed the finish line, I felt a sense of triumph for accomplishing something that not many people in the world had done. It was like my first taste of a new drug (confidence) and I wanted more.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever told you on the day of my first triathlon in June of 2003 that I would consider competing in an Ironman. That day, I swam 500 yards (.3 miles), biked 13 miles, and ran 3.1 miles. An ironman is a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run. Craziness...absolute insanity. That is what I said when I found out that my buddy would compete in the Ironman in Lake Placid, NY in 2004. What in the hell is this guy thinking?

However, as one sprint race turned into 2, and then the medals started coming, I pushed myself to try an even stronger drug, this time opting to compete in the olympic distance triathlon in Clermont, FL (1500 meter swim, 24 mile bike, 6.2 mile run). It was a whole new experience for me and gave me even more confidence that I could set goals and accomplish them.

The next year, it was on to bigger and better things as I signed up for my first half ironman. Making the jump from sprint distance to olympic distance was nothing compared to the jump to half iron distance. I was so under-prepared for the first half ironman that I ended up walking, really limping, my way to the finish line. It was a humbling experience, but I could still say that I had finished a race of that distance, so the confidence kept building.

Now, two years later, I have completed over 20 sprint triathlons, 8 olympic distance triathlons, and 6 half ironmans. I have qualified for the national championships in the olympic distance and in the half ironman. I am a USA Triathlon certified coach...yet, something is still missing from my racing resume. IRONMAN.

Ironman is the end all for a triathlete. It is a validation. It is the culmination of every early morning workout and every refusal of dessert at dinner. It is the ultimate test of physical and mental capacity. It is, in essence, a dream that is attainable. How many times does a person actually dream of something and have the capacity and the guts to go out and make it come true? Well, now I do. I want this...I need this. My drug of choice is triathlon.

So, November 1st 2008 will be a day that will go down in history. I will tell my kids that their father is an Ironman. It is something that no one can ever take away from me, and it will carry me through all of the hard times in life. Swim 2.4 miles. bike 112 miles, run 26.2 miles, brag for the rest of my life.

Get out there and chase a dream...it is achievable.