IMAZ eve

It’s Saturday afternoon, the day before the BIG DAY. I have prepared for this race for so long, over a year, that it seems a little surreal now. I can’t describe how beautiful and magical it is here in Tempe Arizona. I have always loved the desert, but this past few days have been nothing short of AMAZING. There are so many things I want to write about, that it is probably best that I wait until after the race so I can go into better detail. Brittany and I have a 6 hour drive back home on Monday, perhaps if I am able, I will write it then. We are off to dinner in about an hour, then I will try and get some sleep before I get up at 3:30 in the morning. I am surprisingly calm. I have never felt better physically or mentally my entire life. So, I figure it is a great time to be doing an Ironman. Life and God is good and I am so thankful to be here doing this race. If you are interested, you can track my progress at Ironman.com and enter my bib #75 in the “track an athlete” section.

Thanks for following me on this amazing journey. I’ll post a race report after the race.

Paul

Sick of being sick

I rarely get sick, so being sick going on 4 days now, has really sucked. Especially with the race 11 days from now. I am contemplating skipping todays training. That would be 2 days of training missed. It is a tough decision. It becomes a question of diminishing returns. If I go ahead and do todays scheduled training, which is still a relatively light day consisting of a 50 minute ride and an hour run, do I risk making myself even sicker? Or, is it possible that I will feel better? Or, if I skip it, am I somehow lowering my fitness level and making myself less prepared for the IronMan? And the even bigger question is, why now? I have stayed VERY healthy for the entire 9 months that I have been training for this event. Well, I guess it could be MUCH worse. I could be having other problems like ITBS or some other training related injury. I mean this is really just a bad cold or flu. It’s just interesting that it hit me so close to the race. Oh well, I am going to wait a few hours and see if I feel any better. If I do, I will do my session and take it real easy.

Work has been slow the last week or two. So, aside from training, I am getting plenty of rest. Hopefully it will pick up soon. Of course I am sure it will get very busy......right around the time I am getting ready to leave for Arizona :). Life keeps you on your toes.

Paul

Taper time

With less than 2 weeks till IMAZ, I am officially in my taper. I will only train for about 10 hours this week, a significant reduction in time. Next week I have 4 hours of scheduled sessions. In this time, my body will be repairing itself and getting stronger in preparation for the LONG day on April 13th. Usually, I am not too fond of the taper because I get a little bored and sometimes cranky. Maybe it is the lack of endorphins during this period. In any event, I am welcoming it this time. The LONG weekend sessions have left me spent and often times sick come Monday and on a couple of occasions into Tuesday. This last weekend I trained 8 hours and yesterday I woke up feeling like crap. I thought it may have been allergies. I was congested and my heart was doing backflips in my chest. Monday was a rest day and I didn’t have much work so I went home and went to bed. This morning I am feeling better, but I am going to do a little rescheduling and take another rest day. I will make up the sessions later in the week.

I can’t believe that we will be leaving for Arizona in 1 week and 2 days. The race has been “so far away” for so long, that it seemed like I would always have time to train. I know that doesn’t make sense, but I have had my training schedule in my calendar since April 12th of last year when I registered. Now here we are. I am nervous. Mostly for the swim, of course. Luckily I will have a chance to do 2 practice swims in the lake before the race.

I am going to try and up my posting in the next 2 weeks leading up to the race, so I won’t say everything that is swirling around in my head right now.


Paul

The cost of fuel

Yes, we all know that gas prices are OUT OF CONTROL! But, I am actually going to talk about how much it costs to fuel your body while training for an Ironman. It is amazing how many calories it takes to keep your body moving when you’re training this many hours a week. This week is the longest training week of all 36 weeks of my training. It consists of 3 hours swimming, 10 hours cycling and 6 hours running for a total of 19 hours. I burn an average of 700 calories an hour while training. Multiply that by 19 and you get 13,300. Divided by 7 = 1,900 + the 2,000 or so calories I would normally eat a day to maintain a healthy weight for my metabolism and you get a whopping 3,900 calories a day. So, how do I go about getting these calories in?

I start my day with a large bowl of granola mixed with light yogurt. I hit the gym with 2-3 bottles of 1/2 gatorade 1/2 water. This is for hydration along with about 75 calories a bottle. I used to buy 24 oz. bottles of Gatorade, but that was getting expensive since I drink 1 for every hour of training, so I dilute it with water. I am also recycling the bottles, so I buy the bigger bottles of Gatorade and water and mix them up in the smaller bottles. It costs half as much and I am saving a ton of plastic. Some times I feel like this mass consuming machine, but more on that later. After I train, I will eat a protein bar to fuel me for the next 3 hours until lunch.

Lunch is my biggest meal of the day. I am a creature of habit and I tend to find a place that I like to eat and will eat there for a few months, very regularly, until I get burned out on it and then I will move on to the next place. Right now that place is The Corner Bakery. I have actually been going there longer than normal because at first I was going for breakfast, now, I usually eat at home so it has switched to lunch. Anyway, I get either the Uptown Turkey sandwich or the Chicken Pomodori with carrots and an oatmeal cookie. I really love the Corner Bakery because they have great service, food and free WiFi. So, I might extend my usual stay for a few months.

I try to eat every 3 hours, so around 3:30 I’ll have another protein bar or something in the 250- 300 calorie range. For dinner, I usually eat at home and lately it has been peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I am not sure if all of this equals 3,900 calories, but I am staying at my current weight of 152- 154 so it must be about right. Now on the weekends it gets a little more interesting. I have been doing LONG rides of 4 to over 5 hours. On these rides I have to consume around 400 calories an hour. Part of training is experimenting with different sources of calories to find out what your stomach can tolerate and keep down. I have a pretty strong stomach so pretty much anything works for me. I drink 1 Gatorade/water bottle an hour, along with a Sweet and Salty Peanut bar on the hour and an Accelorade gel on the half. You should see the guy at the registers face when I walk up to the counter with 5 bars, 2 large bottles of Gatorade and a huge bottle of water.

Which, I guess brings me to my real point. It gets expensive to train for an Ironman. But even more interesting is the concept of fuel. When I buy all of this food, what I am doing is buying fuel to power my body for forward motion. It is exactly like a car. So I started thinking what is cheaper? Fueling my body or fueling my car?? I live in Long Beach and my studio is about 24 miles away, in Irvine. My gym is in Huntington Beach, about halfway between the two. During the week, I drive to the gym, sit on a stationary bike, sometimes up to 2 hours or run on the treadmill for over an hour, then get back in my car and drive to my studio. I have a real problem with this for a couple of reasons. Why don’t I just get on my bike and ride to work and save the gas? Instead, I pay for gas to get to the gym, then waste electricity (that the bike uses) plus all of the fuel that I am putting in my body to go nowhere. It really is silly. Not to mention all of the electricity for all of those TV’s on the wall. What’s stopping me from cycling to work? I’m not sure. I think part of it is safety. The other is convenience. I sweat like crazy and there isn’t any showers at work, so that presents a problem. Also I have to take my laptop, so I would have to use some sort of backpack. Also, since I am a triathlete, I cross train. So, the gym is very convenient. I feel like a real hypocrite. I know what I need to do, I just haven’t committed to doing it yet. I will say that if we could ever make our roads more bike friendly and more people cycled to work, we could kill two birds with one stone. Healthier people and less dependence on oil. I get pissed every time I fill up. But, until I do something about it, I can only blame myself.

One good thing though, I have sworn off the gym on the weekends and am doing my long training OUTDOORS! I have discovered Trail running! More on that next time. But I will say that I have found my next goal after the IronMan. I plan on doing a 50 mile ultra marathon in August, then hopefully a 100 miler next year. I guess then I’ll just run to work.

Till next time.

Paul

IronMan and the Special Olympics

Dear Friends and Family

As many of you know, I have been training for the last 5 months for the IronMan in Arizona. The race is April 13th and consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a 26.2 mile run that must be completed in 17 hours or less. It has been a huge commitment of time and energy that has demanded a large portion of my life. It has been the most satisfying and challenging endeavor of my life. At the same time, it borders on being a somewhat selfish sport in that it takes away from other commitments and obligations such as family, friends and work. I am thankful that the people in my life have been understanding of this and have been VERY supportive. So it is with some trepidation that I ask for any more from you. One of the great things about endurance sports is their affiliations with various charities. Many of you recently donated to my Daughter, Brittany's charity of choice "Run For Mobility" during her recent first full marathon. She completed her marathon and raised over $600, supplying 12 people in 3rd world countries with wheelchairs. These are people that were unable to get from one place to another on their own power. Now they are able to be mobile, literally changing their lives. Thank you for your generosity!

IronMan athletes are given the opportunity to use the visibility of their event to raise money for their charity of choice. All of the money goes directly to the charity. I have chosen the Special Olympics of Southern California. I have learned so much from my participation in this sport of Triathlon. It has shown me that anything is possible through hard work and dedication and that we are all running our own race, no matter where we are in the pack or what our abilities are. One day Brittany and I were doing a long (14 mile) run in Mile Square Park and we saw the athletes from the Special Olympics competing in a bike race. It was then that I decided that that would be my charity. It was inspiring to see challenged athletes competing at their peak ability. No matter what their individual abilities were, they can train and challenge themselves to be the best they can be, and that is a huge win.

A common misconception is that the Special Olympics is held once a year, or every four years like the regular Olympics. That is not the case. It is a year around program with several events throughout the year and training throughout the year as well. There are several sports such as Bowling, Golf, Swimming and of course, my favorite, Track and Field. The money donated goes towards training these athletes and sponsorship of the events.

I appreciate you reading this and your support of me (and my ramblings of all things triathlon:). If you are so inclined, you can donate to the Special Olympics of Southern California through my page at the Janus Charity Challenge website.

IronMan athletes don't get anything from this other than bringing awareness and donations to our charities. We've all been so blessed, and to share those blessings is the ultimate gift. And of course it is tax deductible.

Paul

http://januscharitychallenge.kintera.org/az08/paulboth
http://www.sosc.org/orangecounty.html

Bonking sucks!

Last Sunday I did a 1/2 IronMan simulation at the gym. I had planned on finishing it in 6 1/2 hours. I came close. I did it in 6 3/4 hours. I wasn’t “racing” by any means. You never want to race when you train. Rather, I had a goal pace in mind that I felt would be reasonable in relation to my goal finishing time in April. So what went right and what did I learn? I felt very good through the swim. I did the 1.2 miles in about 42 minutes. I wanted to finish in 45, so right on track. I wanted to maintain a 16 mph pace on the bike which for 56 miles would have me finishing in 3 1/2 hours. I was able to finish at exactly 3 1/2 hours, cool! On to the run. I usually have very good running legs after cycling. My legs felt great for the first hour or so. I maintained around a 10:00 min/ mile pace, which was my goal. So what happened about 6 miles in??? Simple, NUTRITION, or lack thereof. Bonk!!!! My legs felt ok, I just didn’t have any energy left. I brought 2- 64 oz bottles of Gatorade, 1 Power Bar and 2 of those Sweet and Salty peanut butter bars. It was not enough. The interesting thing is that the following day, I was not sore AT ALL. One of the purposes of training is to learn from your mistakes. I learned that nutrition will make or break my day in Arizona. Yes, I already know this, but sometimes I still need to be reminded just HOW important it is. You can have all the fitness down, but if there is no gas in the talk, you ain’t going nowhere.

I will do another 1/2 simulation in 2 weeks and apply what I learned. Friday, I swam, for the first time, the full iron distance swim. Well, actually 200 meters farther. I swam 4000, meters which is 80 laps in the pool or roughly 2.5 miles. What a relief! The swim has always been the intimidating part for me, so I am very relieved to at least know that I can complete it. Now, I will try to do some long distance workouts that are 4 or 500 meters farther to gain a mental advantage. It is crazy to remember 9 months ago, standing at the end of the pool after finishing 1/2 a lap, gasping for air wondering “how in the world am I EVER going to be able to do that 160 times” and “what did I get myself into”. That is why I am training and doing an Ironman. To remind myself everyday that NOTHING is impossible if you are specific about your goals, make a plan, work hard and most of all believe, you can achieve almost anything. I hate to get so corny, but it is true.

Sunday, Brittany and I will be running in the Surf City Marathon. It will be Brittany’s first full marathon. I am running the half. It should be a lot of fun!

Paul

Half Ironman simulation

Which culture is it that takes a nap midday at work? I think it is the Japanese. I need to adopt that schedule. Training an average of 2 1/2 hours in the morning then going to work has really started to take its toll. By about 3:00 I am fried. I get an average of 8 hours of sleep at night, but I thing an hour nap midday might be beneficial for me. We’ll see if I can sneak it in somehow.

Brittany and I did the “OC Half Marathon” on January 6th. It was an AMAZING day for a race. It was overcast, cool, with a light drizzle. You couldn’t have asked for a better day. I was very pleased with my time of 1:57:22. It was a fairly hilly course so I figure that 1:22 over my PR was a good time. This was Brittany’s half marathon run, one month before her first marathon on February 3rd. In addition to running her first marathon, she is raising money for “Run for Mobility”. It is a charity that makes wheelchairs for people who cannot walk. Pretty amazing to give the gift of mobility to those who can’t get around on their own.

This weekend I am doing a half Ironman simulation in preparation for IMAZ. I will swim 1.2 miles, ride 56 miles and run 13.1 miles. I am going to do this at the gym for convenience sake. It may get a little boring on the bike but I will load up my iPhone with some movies and try to pass the time that way. I figure that if I can complete the distance in around 6-6 1/2 hours I should be in pretty good shape. It will be my longest run off the bike, but I seem to run better off the bike for some reason. Maybe because I am very warmed up :).

I have decided on my charity for the Janus Charity Challenge. I will be raising money for the Special Olympics Southern California Orange County chapter. You can donate here. Triathlon can feel like a selfish thing to do, since you spend SO much time training in the pursuit of bettering yourself. So it is a great feeling to use it to help other people. The Janus Charity Challenge enables athletes to do that. Pretty cool!

Well, I’m off to bed and who knows, maybe tomorrow I can get in a nap.


Paul