Dana Point Turkey Trot

What better way to start off Thanksgiving day, then with a race? This was my second year running at the Dana Point Turkey Trot . Brittany ran the race with me and although she has ran 2 half marathons, this was her first 10K distance race. She wanted to come in under an hour and was a little nervous about achieving her goal. She said that it was more fun doing races before she started setting goals for herself, and I understand. But, I guess that it is inevitable that as we progress, we gauge our progress with benchmarks. So, I said “it is the effort and the training that matters” and not to worry too much about the time. With all that said she came in at 59:31 and she was elated! She looked great and said that she felt fantastic.

Last year my time was 56:56, so I was definitely looking to beat that time. At this time last year, I was knee deep n marathon training and my weekly mileage was averaging over 40 miles a week. Right now I am doing between 20 and 25 miles a week since I am training in 3 different sports. So, I wasn’t entirely sure what I would finish at. I was very pleased with my time of 52:51. I felt really good the whole race. In fact, I felt much better than I remember feeling last year. I guess all of the cross training for Triathlon and the increased fitness does spill over to the other sports disciplines.

There were over 3,000 people at the race. It is a beautiful course along the coast and the race is run very well. My buddy Rich O’Neill was there and he finished in 51:21. What a great day! We plan on making this a Thanksgiving holiday tradition.
After the race, we had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house with a TON of food and great times with the family. I wish I had some pictures of everyone that was there (around 20) but I did get a shot of the food or what was left of it. Thanks Mom for another great Thanksgiving. Holidays are always special at my parents house.
My training is going very well. This week breaks down as follows:
2:30 Swim
5:55 Bike
4:05 Run
For a total of 12:30

My biggest challenge has been swimming. I never skate on a scheduled cycling or running workout . But, I have to confess that the same has not been true when it comes to the swim. I would try to figure out why. I would get in the pool and just stand there, trying to get motivated to swim for 45 minutes to an hour. It’s not that I am really bad at it. I have only been swimming for about 6 months and I do okay. I learned fairly quickly and it’s not that dreadful, but still I haven’t found myself looking forward to it like I do the other two sports. After giving it a lot of thought, I figured out that the difference has been the lack of a good way to monitor my progress and stats from my swim sessions. So, I bought an Timex Ironman stopwatch that keeps track of my laps and (due to a recent update to my logging software) I am able to manually enter my swim workouts and keep track of my 100 meter splits and pace. This has made all the difference in the world. I love stats and visually seeing numbers. It’s working and I have kept up with my scheduled swims for the last two weeks and I am actually starting to look forward to my swim sessions. Good thing because the Ironman is less than 20 weeks away and I was starting to get a little worried whether or not I was going to be ready. The plan is to get good enough to survive the swim and finish in about 90 minutes or so, saving plenty of energy for the bike and the run. My 100 meter splits are in line with that goal so I am feeling much better about it.

Next weeks training... 14:30. Man this is getting fun. I have never been happier in my life. Triathlon is the greatest sport.

Paul
http://www.paulboth.net/
http://www.myspace.com/paulboth

Blogging with the iPhone

I love technology. I am on the trainer for a 2 hour ride. Being on the
trainer for that long can get a little boring. So it is really cool
that I can multitask and write this blog entry on my iPhone, email it
to my blog and have it publish almost immediately. Amazing! It Is mind
boggling how far technology has come in such a relatively short period
of time.

This weekend is a pretty hard training weekend as far as miles and time. I
an doing 2 hours on the bike, then an hour swim ( I have to make up a
little time for a couple swim sessions that were cut short this week).
Tomorrow, I will be doing an 18 mile run with Brittany. I am hoping
that it is not too uncomfortable of a run, since I have only done a 14
miler in the last couple of months. I am sure that Brit will do fine
as she has been building her miles and this is 2 miles longer then the
16 miles she did 2 weeks ago. She is right on target.

Man, this multitasking is hard. I am going to sign off for now and
concentrate on one thing, my cycling.

Paul Both
http://web.mac.com/paulboth/
http://www.myspace.com/paulboth

Why do an Ironman?

I have been asked this question along with, “how far is that?” I start out saying “the swim is 2.4 miles” as soon as I say that, I usually get interrupted with “2.4 miles, are you kidding, I can barely get to the other end of the pool......” At which point I say, “wait there’s more, then a 112 mile bike and a marathon at the end”. Most people just shake their heads and say “that’s crazy, I could never do that”. I guess that is the interesting part to me, and what I find fascinating. I now that they can do it if they wanted to. Just about anything (within reason) IS possible, you just have to commit yourself to it, believe and be willing to follow the steps to achieve your goal. You can run, or walk, across the country if you want to. It might take some people a little longer than others, but, IT IS possible. I think where we as humans get hung up is, looking at the whole distance to our goal, whatever it is, and getting overwhelmed and intimidated, then start feeling like we can’t measure up in our current state. I have a couple of areas in my life where I am battling this. I am training for the Ironman to remind myself that the seemingly impossible Is possible.

Jasmine is doing GREAT with her swimming. We went Monday night and she did 10 laps. There was a coach at the pool that coaches at Marina High school. She gave Jasmine a couple of pointers and couldn’t believe that this was only her second time swimming. She seemed a little discouraged at first and said “by the time I do my 1280 laps, no one will even want an IPhone anymore” I thought that was pretty funny and cute. By the end of our session she seemed more encouraged and I told her that I think she will get up to 30-40 laps per session and at that rate, if we go 3 times a week it will only take 10 weeks or so. That sounds much more manageable. And that, I think. is the trick. Break any goal down to manageable tasks and do them. Just do them, anything to get you towards the finish line. But, you gotta start the race.

So to answer the question “Why do an Ironman?” I guess the real answer is that I think I am not training as much for the Ironman distance as I am training to remember that I can truly reach any goal that I set out to accomplish. So after IMAZ, I will apply this to those other two areas of my life. That is why I’m doing the Ironman.