Tuesday, June 21, 2011

And so it begins. Again.

I decided to end my blogosphere hiatus of a sort. I'll be reading less blogs, commenting less frequently, and probably not posting as much as I had in the past. Sorry, but this is all about me.

A while ago I signed up for the Fireman Ironman Camp in Lake Placid with the blessing of my family and my coach. My coach felt that any opportunity to dedicate time towards training could be beneficial. My family knew how important it was to me and it was sort of a Father's day present for me as the camp was last weekend. The rub was this camp was full of people that were doing this camp in preparation for IMLP at the end of July or people that had already done IMLP and were reliving that special memory. And then there was me with my next race as a sprint tri at the end of August - most people at the camp joked by giving me encouragement saying that I shouldn't have a problem finishing the sprint if I keep training.

I wasn't following the official camp agenda since, after all, I'm not doing IMLP. I decided to use this camp though as my kickoff of official Ironman training. Friday I swam 2 miles (per the Garmin 310xt with the swim firmware) in Mirror Lake and was happy with getting it done in a very casual 1:14, Saturday did 60 miles on the bike (portions of the course) with a transition walk (I'll call it a very slow run of a few miles) and my camp workouts ended with another ride of 42 miles on Sunday before the ride home for dinner on Father's day with the family. All in, my weekend riding included 5500 ft of climbing.

I hate climbing.

I learned I still have problems with my body composition. I'm still slow. I'm still old compared to most "athletes" doing this stuff. I have a real issue with nutrition that I need to figure out (I wanted to ride longer Saturday but was wrecked due to a nutrition fail). My body isn't that broken any more though.

On the plus side, it was great seeing Mandy and a bunch of others that learned a lot about their upcoming race. My base training is to the point where I can ride for a while without issue (assuming the nutrition gets worked out) and was really pleased with my swim. It should only get better from here and I believe if I do what I have to do, I will succeed.

But doesn't that apply to a lot of things in life?

PS: Thanks for all the notes while I was elsewhere. It meant a lot to me.







Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Quote of the week.

"When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart." - Diane Ackerman