It's Taper Time!!!

Today my taper begins!  That means that this week's long ride is ONLY 70 miles!  And the long run is ONLY 14 miles!  Yay!

So the gist of tapering is that at this point, I have gained all the fitness I can, and for the 3 weeks (3 WEEKS TILL IRONMAN!) leading up to the race the goal is to rest and maintain the fitness I have gained.

So next week's long ride and run will be 50 miles and 10 miles, and the week after that I am practically doing nothing!

Ironically, the swimming volume doesn't really decrease much at all.

I am going to have so much free time!

Cards of encouragement from Karin's nieces!

Letter to Garmin

Forerunner 110 malfunction

Kari de Jong <wanderwoman11@gmail.com>	7:41 AM (3 hours ago)
to social.support

Dear Garmin,

I am training for an Ironman, and suffice it to say my Forerunner 110 has been my best friend for the last 6 months or so.  Unfortunately, as of late my best friend has turned against me.  On a 14 mile run a few weeks ago it went blank when I hit the start button (in spite of a fully charged battery), and remained blank until I was able to plug it in hours later.  Then  yesterday, on a 20 mile run on an out-of-town trip, 6 minutes into the run I hit the timer stop button at a stoplight.  Immediately the screen froze and the watch started emitting an extremely high-pitched buzzing.  I pushed every available button, but nothing would make the watch start again; but worse yet, nothing would stop the buzzing.  Since I don't run with a teeny tiny screwdriver, I was at a loss for what to do.  I now had no way of knowing how far or fast I was going, but I also had no idea what time it was.  I had to stop my run and pull out my cell phone periodically to get an idea of how long I had been running.  I ran for 3.5 hours.  Have you ever run for 3.5 hours with a high-pitched buzzing in your ear?!?!  Upon my return to my hotel I plugged the watch in, hoping that would reset it. But to no avail!  It continued to buzz!  I had to wrap the buzzing watch in several layers of clothing and stuff it deep inside my luggage to muffle the sound that I had no way of stopping.

Upon returning home, my first instinct was to place the watch on my driveway, then roll over it with my car.  However, I assumed that would void the warranty, and the truth is I would really miss my formerly reliable little Garmin running buddy.  So imagine my chagrin to log on to the Garmin website to discover that--after running 20 miles with that buzzing in my ear, not to mention having no recorded data for my final long run after 10 months of training--my less-than-2-year-old Forerunner 110 apparently only has a 1 year warranty.  Had I known that, I would have tossed it into the ocean 7 minutes into yesterday's run!  But it didn't occur to me that it could only be guaranteed for a year, because when someone buys a quality watch they expect to be able to use it reliably for years to come.  Who would spend $150 on a GPS running watch if they thought it would only work for a couple years, at best??

I hope you can offer some assistance in this area, and that my Forerunner 110 and I can still have a long, happy, mutually fulfilling life together.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kari de Jong

Epiphany in Monterey

The only way to tackle an Ironman is to break the training up into different cycles (base, build, peak) and into smaller goals.  The idea of riding 112 miles followed by a marathon is ridiculous and overwhelming, so you have to break it up.  You work your way up to 10 mile runs, then those start to be not such a big deal, so you build up to 12 miles, then 14.  Same with long rides.  At first 40 miles is a huge accomplishment.  Eventually that becomes an "easy day" and you have built up to 80, 90, 100 mile rides.  This is the only way to approach Ironman training; otherwise it would be overwhelming.

The problem with this is that as you reach each goal, you start to get the mistaken idea that you have a handle on this whole Ironman thing.  Your goal is to run 16 miles, then 18.  And you do it, and it doesn't kill you, and you start to think it's not such a big deal.  Then you go out for a little 20-mile run, and 2.5 hours in you feel like you are about done; after all, you have been running for 2 and a half hours.  Then suddenly it hits you that, yes, you have already been running for 2.5 hours, and yet, you still have an hour to go!  Then it hits you that you have spent nearly a year gradually conditioning your body to do this.  And around 2.5 hours you realize that a 20 mile run is no joke.  It is a long way and it is a big deal; and it hurts.  But then, THEN, it suddenly hits you that...THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING compared to what you have committed to do all in one day on November 17th!  The hardest workouts you have ever done, the ones that you worked so long to accomplish and were so proud to achieve are nothing in the face of what awaits you on the day of Ironman.

This realization hit me yesterday, on my 20-mile run in Monterey, CA.  A while ago I told Karin that I wanted to go somewhere nice for my longest training run, the 20 miler.  Since Karin has been nothing short of the greatest Ironfan a girl could ever hope for, I wanted to make it an overnighter where I could run but we could also hang out and enjoy a little getaway.  She chose Monterey, CA, which is funny because that is the very first place that came to my mind when I thought about the idea of a long-run-getaway!

So we went to Monterey, where:

                         We went whale watching

We rode bikes along the shoreline.

I ran 20 miles

And we ate clam chowder on the wharf.

Full Circle...and yet no faster

It seems my Ironman training has come full circle.  In the beginning, long rides sucked.  I was uncomfortable on the bike, I was unfamiliar with the routes, I wasn't used to long days in the saddle, and I was still working out the kinks in my nutrition plan.  All of that is in the past!  And yet...

Training starts out that way, then long rides get longer, you become at home on the bike, all your trusted routes become familiar, you get your nutrition down.  As this progression happens, you find yourself no longer dreading rides, but looking forward to them, like an old friend.

Then comes the time, right around the peakest peak of training, when you are just surviving till it is time to taper, when rides have become too long, routes have become too familiar, you cannot put another tried-and-true fig newton into your mouth, and you just want off the bike!  And it feels like you have spent 6 months busting your ass to end up right back where you started!

Yes, you have gained endurance.  But if you are like me, you have not gotten any faster!  Are you noticing this theme with me?!  So, let's take inventory.  Of the 3 sports involved, after 6 months of focused training, I have gotten faster in exactly 1 of them.

On my 90 mile ride last week, I realized that 70 miles is the absolute upper limit of how far I can enjoy a ride.  Every mile beyond that is just me on a bike, clinging to my sanity.  Thinking back, this has been the turning point of just about every long ride.  On Monday's long ride, I felt myself starting to unravel--I just wanted to stop my bike and sit on the side of the road for the rest of my life, and I started talking to my legs ("Just keep turning.  We will get to stop eventually.").  I looked down at my odometer and, sure enough, it said 68.75 miles.  So 70 miles does seem to be the magic limit.  Unfortunately I still had 16 miles to go before I could stop.

The good news is, no matter how bad my ride is, and no matter how far I go, my body is always ready to run when I get off the bike!  My swim will be slow, my bike will be slow, but when I start that run, hopefully, I will be ready!  I am totally burnt out on swimming and biking, but I still love running!  I think that is because 1. I have done a lot of my running in other places, so I am not bored, 2. It is the one discipline in which I have actually improved, and 3. Running was my first love--when biking starts to hurt, I hate it, but when running starts to hurt, I still love it!  Maybe even more!

Monday's ride was supposed to be 100 miles, but I cut it to 85.  I have literally been riding the same 3 routes for about 9 months now, and I just can't ride them anymore!  I rode a combination of the greenbelt and the IMAZ route, and then I was out of ideas, and I just couldn't handle repeating anymore of the same ground. That and, when I realized that after 6 months of long rides and intervals on the trainer, I was no faster, I thought, "Is 100 miles vs. 85 miles today really going to make a difference at this point?!"

Next week I start tapering, which means I will not have to toe that thin line of sanity at 70 miles ever again!

We interrupt this 1/2 Ironman for..."Aquafit"?!

There are a lot of details to take into consideration when someone tries to stage a personal 1/2 Ironman simulation workout.  Where to do each portion.  Where to leave your (beautiful $1600) bike while you swim, and how to avoid it being stolen while you are swimming.  How to plan a 56-mile ride that is interesting but still ends at your house so you can transition to running there.  But the most important detail turned out to be one I didn't even consider:

The water aerobics schedule at my gym.  

About 1000 yards into my 2100 yard swim I noticed some women removing the lane dividers from the pool.  I looked up and saw a rapidly growing group of women congregating in the pool and passing around floaty barbells.  I managed 350 more yards (7 laps) before I was officially kicked out of the pool.

I wore my wetsuit for the swim to get used to it.  The bad news is that it still feels like tiny rubber hands are strangling me the whole time I have it on.  The good news is that it made me almost 10 seconds faster per 100 yards!  That is a huge deal!  That is the difference between being in the back of the pack in the swim and actually being the sweeper!

Unfortunately, my swim was not the only part of the workout that was cut short.

My legs felt tired on the bike from the get-go, like they were full of lead.  I figured I just needed to warm up.  It did get better, but never really up to par.  The first 17 miles of the ride were on a challenging course (the one that made me cry back in the early days of training).  Slow uphills were to be expected on that, but once I got past that onto the canal path, I never really set a good pace. The canal path is flat, but the road surface is so bad that I just couldn't get going very fast.  Even when I thought I was riding at a decent clip I would look down and I never saw a number faster than 15 mph on my speedometer.  The whole ride was like that.  I just never got going.  About half way through I decided that I was going to call it a day at 40 miles.  I just felt physically and mentally exhausted.  I could have dragged myself through the full 56 mile ride and the 13 mile run, but I knew that as tired as I felt it would not be a quality workout, but it would still require a lot of recovery time.

Although it was not the workout I had hoped for, I couldn't help but notice that a bad day on the bike is equal to what used to be my longest workout of the week!

At least I know I am not alone.  The triathlon forums are abuzz with athletes in peak training who are burnt out and can't wait to taper already!

Thank goodness my last long run (20 miles!) will be along the shore in Monterey, CA, where Karin and I planned an overnight trip for exactly that reason!

"A" for effort

Sometimes the key to successful, fulfilling Ironman training for someone like me is simply managing expectations.  Tonight I had a fantastic swim workout.  I am not any faster.  Not one bit. But I felt strong.  I was able to maintain my form and focus.  I did a variety of intervals so I didn't get bored.  It turns out I still enjoy swimming--if I just let myself enjoy it, and don't get caught up in the numbers.

When I got to the pool tonight there was a woman already there, who looked to be, maybe 50-ish. There was a walker next to where her towel was hanging.  She continued to swim laps for about 30 minutes after I got there.  When she got out I was resting between intervals.  She asked if I could hear her, which I could, just barely.  I lifted my swim cap to hear her better and she told me, "I just wanted to tell you that you really motivated me today.  I used to be in the Navy, and watching you swimming lap after lap reminded me how I used to swim, and really motivated me to keep doing my laps today."

I have been training for almost a year now in an attempt to become competent at three sports in which I exhibit no natural talent.  As you know from this blog, it has been a bit of a roller coaster. Just last week I was back to crying in my goggles.  Just yesterday, 75 miles into my 90 mile ride, a couple on bikes blew by me like I was standing still, and despite what felt like my greatest possible effort, I could not catch them.  Talk about confidence-crushing.

But tonight at the pool I was reminded that you never know who is watching, or what they need that they may get from your accidental example.  Had she been there last Wednesday, when I was crying in my goggles, she may not have been so inspired.

But more importantly, regardless of who is watching, it's not always about hitting the goal pace or beating the random couple on bikes who (I tell myself) only rode 20 miles to my 90...

SOMETIMES JUST THE EFFORT IS ENOUGH.

5 WEEKS TILL IRONMAN! Back on my feet.

It has been exactly a week since I twisted my ankle, injuring my foot.  The good news is that after a couple days of full rest, plus ice, compression and elevation, I was able to maintain my bike and swim training.  I didn't get in a long ride this week, because I spent my days off, which are usually long ride or run days, resting.  Also, the twisting motion of unclipping from my bike pedal is the exact motion that aggravates my injury; so I have only been riding on the trainer, where I only unclip at the end of the ride, instead of at every stop like on the road.

This morning was my first attempt at running since the injury.  Karin and I had signed up, with my sister Denise, for a  4-mile charity run to support a Pitbull rescue organization called Lost Paws.  I ran the 4 miles at a comfortable pace, not fast, and my foot felt just fine!  There was no indication, either during or after the run, that anything had happened to my foot!  This is fantastic news, because I already really miss running!  I am going to proceed with my planned week of peak training, and just pay attention to any indications that I need to back off.

We did the run, then went out for breakfast, and, as I have surely said a million times, I can think of no better way to spend a beautiful Sunday morning!

Despite this minor setback I am feeling very confident in my training.  The forced rest may even have been a good mental break, because after a week of no running and no rides outside, I am chomping at the bit to get out there and push myself.  (This is still not the case in the pool; at this point I am actually looking forward to getting punched and kicked in the swim just to liven the sport up.)

"Noooooooooo!"

Right now I should be in the middle of a 56 mile ride during my 1/2 Ironman race simulation workout.  Instead I am sitting at my computer because yesterday, as I was getting off the employee bus after work, I stepped down clumsily and turned my ankle.  My very first thought, before I even fell to my knees, before the shooting pain even registered, was, "IRONMAN! NO NO NO NO NO!"  Tears sprung to my eyes and I literally lost my breath; I was gasping for air as I pulled myself up the stairs by the hand rail, but I still do not know if the tears and hyperventilation were due to the pain, shock, or the pure terror of possibly watching my Ironman dreams go up in smoke.  I suspect it was the latter.

As soon as we got home I sat down while Karin got me towels to elevate my foot, Ibuprofen for the swelling, and ice to put on it.  I iced it several times, then wrapped it in an Ace bandage. R.I.C.E.  Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.  I am usually not so proactive or immediate in my treatment of things like this, but there is a lot at stake here!  I had to nip this in the bud!

Today I can at least walk around on it, although with a bit of a limp, since I can't fully flex the foot as I would when walking normally.  Later today I will clip into my bike on the trainer and see if biking requires my foot to flex in a way that impacts the injured area.  If not, that is great news!  If it requires me to cut back on swimming, even better!  I do not see running in my immediate future, which is very sad; at least running is my strongest sport!

So the good news is, there is every indication that my Ironman dream is still intact.  The bad news is that, right when I should be training at my peak, I will be scaling back, at least in running.

Runs and rest

They have changed the IMAZ run course to a 2-loop course, instead of 3 loops.  This news is burning up the Ironman forums!  I myself am disappointed because I think the 3 loop course provided an awesome opportunity for friends and family to see their athlete multiple times without having to run all over the place.  Also, I am not thrilled about the out-and-back sections on the right (east) side of the course.  Those areas will offer a great chance for spectators to see people twice in the same place, but for a runner, not only will it make it very congested with runners going both directions, but it pretty much sucks to turn around and come right back the way you just came.  But guess what?  It's not up to me!  Ironman is an exercise in taking what the day gives you and making the best of it!

On Friday I did my 18 mile long run.  Boy was that rough!  The route I ran was hillier than I realized, with long uphills every mile, or sometimes half mile, where the path went under the bridges.  My running has been going so well that I may have lost sight of just how painful a marathon is.  Well this run brought it all back!  With the exception of the 15-miler in Seattle (which almost did me in!) I have been doing my long runs on mostly flat routes.  This was a much-needed reminder that hills are a whole different story!  I was hurting by mile 15, and around mile 16 I got a killer side cramp, which forced me to stop and walk it off for about 30 seconds.  It came back a mile later, forcing another 30 second recovery walk.  I can run through screaming muscles, but not a side cramp like these were!  My legs haven't felt like that after a long run in as long as I can remember.  Which led me to...

My first ever ICE BATH!

Unfortunately, though I dumped the contents of our whole ice maker in there, it wasn't enough; within a few minutes it was just a fairly chilly bath.

This was followed by: 1. Hot shower, 2. Pizza, 3. Nap

I have not been scheduling REST DAYS lately, because they tend to happen on their own.  Case in point: Wednesday I laid down for a nap around 4:30 pm, and when I woke up 3 hours later, still tired, I decided it was a rest day!  I got up and had dinner, and less than two hours later I was back in bed for the night.

Tomorrow I am doing a 1/2 Ironman race simulation workout: 1.2 mile swim + 56 mile ride + 13.1 mile run.  It will be my first long run following a ride, so I am anxious to see how I handle it. Then, Tuesday is a TOTAL REST DAY!!!  That means no work and no training!  I am not sure when the last day like that was!  And since my job is practically like strength training half the time, it definitely cuts into my "rest".  So I am very excited for both tomorrow's workout and Tuesday's rest day, obviously for very different reasons.

Swimming goes to the back of the line

Well, it's official: I hate swimming.  I was actually looking forward to my swim workout yesterday, which was supposed to be 10 x 400 yard intervals.  Well, by the 4th interval I was so bored.  It is just so tedious.  But the main thing is: I am not any faster.  My 100 yard intervals at max speed are faster.  My 50 yard intervals are not faster but I can do more of them with less rest in between. But my 400 yard intervals are not any faster.  Which means that my 4200 yards will not be faster.

While this realization (or rather, let's be honest, confirmation) is, of course, frustrating, it is actually more of a relief.  Now I can officially put swimming on the back burner.  I can swim just enough to maintain the fitness to finish 2.4 miles (at the pace I have been swimming for about a year now) and no more.  The only hope I have of any improvement now would be multiple private lessons from an experienced coach.  I cannot imagine that an analysis and one lesson would do me any good, since I believe I am already doing everything according to the many instructional videos I have watched.  Thus, a coach telling me what to do would simply lead to me thinking I am doing what they say, when in fact, I am not.  Clearly I need ongoing, correctional training.  I mean, someone in the water with me, moving my arms and legs for me would be ideal.  Had I known a year ago that I would make absolutely no progress without coaching, I would have picked up a few extra shifts at work back when I had the time, and spent the money for some foundational swim technique training.  But now it's a little late in the game to start from scratch, and even if I wasn't bored senseless with swimming by now, I don't have the money for that.  I just barely paid off my half of my bike!  I have spent most of my "emergency fund" on triathlon!  At this point, it is a blessing that I have no natural athletic ability, because I can't afford to do more triathlons!

Deep down I feel like not giving my all to improving my swim is giving up, but at this point I have to weigh my priorities.  I don't want to spend any more time and certainly no more money on the smallest part of Ironman.  As I believe I have scientifically proven beyond doubt in the last year, more hours of laps with what is obviously improper form will lead to zero improvement! So unless I am willing to drastically overhaul my swimming program (which, I think I have made clear, I am not) anything beyond the bare minimum in the pool now is just wasted time.

A biking milestone and swimming burnout

I am so burnt out on swimming!  I think this may be for several reasons:

1. I started swim "training" before the other sports (In August, as opposed to November).
2. There is so little return on investment (So much work to go the tiniest bit faster).  Seeing no
    significant results makes it hard to stay motivated!
3. It is so boring!

About a month ago I was reading a website Karin had up called Trinewbies and it was full of all sorts of fascinating and useful swimming information.  According to an article on Trinewbies there are various kinds of intervals that serve various purposes.  For example, super fast intervals followed by a long recovery period, to bring your heart rate all the way down, allow you to reach maximum speed during each interval, eventually increasing your speed.  On the other hand, "threshold intervals" are done at a more moderate pace but with very short recovery breaks, thus allowing you to swim faster than your "all day" pace, but maintain it longer.  I have been combining these two--swimming too hard and not recovering adequately--therefore reaping the benefits of neither!  So I started doing threshold intervals where I didn't focus on speed but solely on form and power, and found I maintained the same speed but recovered much faster.  And I started doing max speed intervals with a very long recovery, and found that I can go faster during each interval than I ever could before.

Another winner was the "thumb-to-thigh" drill, where you focus on bringing your thumb to your thigh with each stroke.  This is an effort to make sure you follow through on each stroke, getting maximum power and distance as you push through the water, instead of inadvertently cutting your stroke short and losing power.  I felt the benefit of this immediately, as I had clearly not been following through with my strokes!

These new exercises reignited my enthusiasm for swimming, and I looked forward to my workouts for a while.  But last week 2 of my workouts were sub par.  One I cut short, deciding I was just exhausted and needed a rest day, and I was right, because I bounced back refreshed and productive in the next workout.  But during Sunday's swim workout I was just bored.  And I just didn't feel like I was holding good form, even when I focused.  It seemed like I was no longer progressing, and was struggling just to keep the same pace that I usually keep.  I did some drills to reacquaint myself with what proper form feels like, but I was just over it.  I still enjoy the 50 yard interval workouts, because it keeps it interesting, but anything more just bores me.  Today I have a 4000 yard workout; 10 x 400 yard intervals.  Then I will know if my new strategies have led to improvement over a distance longer than 100 yards!

It is very tempting to just swim enough to maintain, because it is my least favorite right now, and the time gain in the Ironman is almost irrelevant, and my training time would be much better served with more biking.  But the truth is, cutting back on my swimming, even if it technically makes sense, feels like giving up.

So, while I am burnt out on swimming, I am loving biking!  Yesterday I finally completed my first 100 mile ride!  It took me 7 hours and 22 minutes, including all stops (1 potty stop, 3 fuel stops, 2 sunblock re-application stops, uncounted stoplights).  That doesn't really leave me much margin for error to make the bike cut off, but it makes it very do-able, barring catastrophe.

The highlights of my 100 mile ride were: 1. NO FLAT TIRES!!! 2. Butt a little sore, but the "soft tissues" nether regions were just fine!  I LOVE my saddle! 3. I loved the ride!  Tailwind on the uphill, headwind on the downhill, which is pretty perfect in my book.  I actually enjoyed it, and though I was definitely ready to get off the bike after 100 miles, I was not crying and swearing and cursing biking for any part of it!!!! 4. I spent about 70% of the ride in the aero bars; by the end I was so comfortable I was even riding in the aero bars on a street where I am normally scared to ride at all! 5. I did a pretty good job with my nutrition, as I had plenty of energy throughout the ride and on my 3 mile transition run afterwards.  However, I did have some serious cramping in the last 7 miles, which I think may have been gas related, due to the highly effervescent Coca Cola I drank at mile 73.  Also I am going to try to incorporate more "real" foods and salty foods into my bike nutrition for long rides, as after 7 hours even candy and cookies do not sound appealing!

Remember in the movie Bambi, when newborn Bambi tries to walk for the first time?  That's how I felt for the first few minutes of my transition run!  As I started running, the idea of continuing to run for 26.2 miles after a 112 mile ride boggled my mind.  But after a few minutes I started to hit my stride, and 2 miles in i felt like I could have kept running indefinitely!  I am loving running more than ever right now.

So, to recap: Running=LOVE, Biking=LOVE, Swimming=NO LOVE