Vacation planned to Santa Fe with a stop in ABQ

Tickets are purchased, so Igda and I will flying into Albuquerque on Monday, Oct. 17. Our plan is to catch up with the Johnston cousins and see Grandmother. We're going to drive up to Santa Fe on Tuesday where we are going to spend time with our good friends, JB & Kristi Leamer from San Francisco. Really looking forward to the trip!

IMFL training weekend

I took Friday off of work to head out for a 3 day training Ironman crunch training weekend. After arriving on Friday, the group realized that the Chesapeake was crawling with jelly fish...so the 1 hr. swim was cancelled. We got some great coaching tips from Eric & Gail (our coaches) for racing IMFL. They covered topics such as, what to expect during the swim/bike/run portions of the race, how transitions work in Ironman, & nutrition (which after training is about 70% of the secret to a successful race. Lots of good info. gathered.

In the afternoon, we rode for about 45 miles at a pretty hard pace and polished it off with a 6.5 mile run. Ordered some pizza and went over therapy, stretching excercises & watched the IMFL race video from 2003. Starting to get excited!

Saturday morning we headed out for our 112 mile bike ride. Legs were tired from the workout the day before, but overall the ride went pretty well. The ride consisted of 2 - 56 mile loops on a very flat isolated piece of marsh land in Maryland. The wind wasn't too bad, but man it's boring to ride 6 hours in the aero position all by yourself! It got hot on the second loop and I ran out of water with 12 miles to go. Needless to say, I was really pooped after the ride. I think dehydration set in because I felt pretty nauseaus. Lesson: carry Tums with me.

We decided to cut the trip short and do our long run Sunday in DC which was fine by me. I needed to sleep in my own bed, and as always, Igda massaged my legs so I could regain some strength in my legs. I never realized how important massages are to endurance training and what it can do to help you recover.

Thankfully, Igda dragged me out of bed about 7:00 a.m. and we headed to the C&O canal in Georgetown. The trail I run is part of the old canal used to transport boats up the Potomac river. I run by many old manual lock and keys. It's a nice scenic run with some shade and losse dirt and gravel. My Iron Sherpa rode the next 18 miles either ahead of me or behind offering some encouragement along the way and more importantly carrying some extra H20.

After the run, we walked into Georgetown and had a great brunch at J Paul's. Not a bad way to start a Sunday.

Reston Triathlon 2005

This was my first time racing in the Reston Tri. It's the only race around that I can actually sleep in my own bed and wake up race day morning to be at the race site in about 20 minutes. I lucked into gaining entrance into the race because it usually sells out with an hour of opening. I wasn't sure how I would fair with the huge volume of training I've been doing for IMFL. The weekend before I completed a 90 mile bike ride with a 12 mile run on Sunday. Pretty much zero taper for this race.

Race Goals:
1. Finish in the top 10 of Age Group
2. Finish with a time under 2:20:00
3. Don't kill myself...Ironman Florida the big race

Results:
1. 7th out of 76 in my AG
2. Finishing time of 2:19:29
Swim (1 mile): 00:27:52
Bike (22.5 mile): 01:01:44
Run (6.5 mile): 00:48:07

Well as you can see I managed to hit my goals, somewhat to my surprise. The swim was rather uneventful. We started in smaller waves, so the roughness usually present at the swim start was non-existent. My swim coach was actually in my wave, so I felt pretty good that I managed to catch up to her in T1...she beat me by about 45 seconds out of the water. I did get a nasty little side stitch just under my right ribcage that persisted almost the entire race. I tried to take in long slow breaths, but nothing seemed to work so I just tried not to think about it.

The bike went fairly well. I felt like I was just getting warmed up when it was over. I definitely could have ridden harder, but who knows...I may have paid for it on the run. I still haven't figured out just the right amount of excertion to expend on the bike and still manage to have a solid run. Work in progress.

The run was tough as always. The course steadily goes up to about the 4 mile mark where you turn around and head home at a slight downhill. The course winds through a neighborhood trail and it's almost entirely in the shade...very cool! I really tried to push it as hard as I could without redlining too much. I've got to figure out how to take in water while running. I usually end up spilling it all over myself, generally, I just stop for a few seconds and drink. There's one nasty little hill about 1/4 mile from the finish where I almost vomited...I think I was getting a little dehydrated. The finish ends with one lap on the track. Maybe a blessing in disguise, but 2 guys in the 40-44 AG passed me at the entrance to the track, this made me pick up pace and I just hung behind them about 15 yards to the finish. They definitely helped me finish strong.

As always, Igda was awesome race support. We're working on getting our high fives down when I typically see her after a transition. The only problem is that my hands are usually covered with GU. I'm also working on her vocal support during the race...I need a firm "get your ass going!" speech every now and then.