Ironman North Carolina 70.3

Well this has been an odd season for me.  Several of my favorite races that also coincided with my training as marker races to see how I was progressing were cancelled.  This threw me in all sorts of a tailwind.  In addition to all that, I started to loose my focus and passion for this sport towards the last two months leading up to Ironman (IM) North Carolina (NC).

It could have been the copious amounts of travel I was doing for work, roughly 22 days a month.  After all, it was insanely frustrating to not have the equipment I needed.  When you needed a bike and all the hotel has in a recumbent bike, and there is not a gym for miles, well...it sucks.  I got in plenty of runs on hotel treadmills but I seriously probably missed 70-80% of my swim and bike training sessions the last two months.

I decided I was out way too much money for IMNC 70.3 that I was not going to back out.  I also knew that my drive to not quit anything was strong and that I could make my mind get through my first Ironman 70.3.  Despite the fact that a devastating hurricane just came thru the state a few days before.  I thought to myself, I'm mentally rock solid, now my body may not be but mentally I can do this.  I've always heard that this journey is as much mental as it was physical.  Well I was about to put that to the test.  All I could imagine was that I was going to be that guy crawling across the finish line and everyone was cheering me on, only for me to stand up and they realize it was only a half-ironman and then be booed out of Wilmington!

Anywho, the journey has started and I decided to go down a day earlier than the rest of the family, as they didn't want to miss school and frankly I wanted to time to freak out privately and through a hissy fit about doing this for the first time.

So off I went for the roughly 5 hour drive to Wilmington, NC to get checked in to our hotel and the event itself.  The drive took way longer than expected and my legs were hurting from the constant braking  and pressing the gas.  Maybe an omen to what would occur two days from now.  I finally got to the hotel, a little too late to make the registration on Thursday, by like two minutes....I was bummed.

I woke up Friday morning first thing and headed over to get registered.  Plenty of time I thought as I still needed to prep my bike get stuff to transition areas and all that fun stuff.  Well I walk in and a line is out the door.  All in all, a two hour wait just to register.  Well there went the plans for the day, walking the expo without kids asking a million questions or knocking things over, that's out the window.  What was now in session was a sprint distance triathlon for the day to get everything set up.  Oh, I didn't mention the two different transition areas a mere 10-15 miles apart from each other.  That was a first for me.

Then I headed over to rack the old bike and the volunteers were absolutely fantastic.  One of the reasons I chose IMNC was that I knew the volunteers would be great and showing true southern hospitality.

Then I drove back over to T2 to drop off the bags for the run course.  Did I mention all the IM bags?  Geez, there were a lot!  Makes me really appreciate the ones with just one transition area.  Okay, now back to the room to rest from my mini sprint triathlon of setting everything up.  More to follow later on the actual race and my experience there.  Its been a month and I'm still trying to process all of this.

Good news continues

Things continue to go well.  I've recently switched coaches to Susan Kitchen, who is a certified Triathlon coach and also a Registered Dietitian and a slew of other certifications and licenses.  She has a few other athletes she works with who have diabetes and since I was having a problem with cramps I decided to work with her in hopes to really make some gains and finally figure out the nutrition part of this triathlon thing!

So far, I am making good gains, cramps are going away almost gone but not completely.  I'm really pleased so far.  Susan, like bricks for workouts, which is new for me but I am hoping that helps program my body that doing multiple events is normal.

My sugars continue to be good, I have noticed though that they get pretty low right before bed time.  Low for me, usually around 80 right before bed.  Continuing to experiment with the proper nutrition there.  I'll keep you updated!  Thought you may enjoy the pic of my 2 hour stationary bike ride while I was on the road this past week.

My Favorite, the pool

Far and away my favorite triathlon activity is swimming. From what I have seen and heard its quite the opposite from what others feel. (BTW, my least favorite is running). I have already gotten into the pool twice this short training season after a 3.5 month break. I am excited about the results so far. I am already swimming at a comfortable pace and it turns out it is about 15 seconds faster than my 100 split last year.

I did decide to purchase some fins from TYR and some paddles. They have made all the difference and I can really tell when my form is poor. I love using them for a few laps and then switching to nothing to see how I need to correct things.

 In addition, I also got the Garmin 920FX and I love it (from Clever Training after the through review from DC Rainmaker). I mean I love technology as is, but this thing is awesome. On my swim I used the watch and it was awesome to see and analyze my time in the pool. I'm not sure what "good" is but I look forward to finding out which stroke counts are considered acceptable and getting better every day. It could be the excitement but I am swimming farther than last year too. If you follow the blog you know I had a few mishaps last year that led me to only doing 2 sprint triathlons. Both swims were like 250 yards. In my two swim sessions so far I have gone in excess of 1000 yards. I love being in the pool and it also does wonders for my blood sugar!

 Till next time, Jonathan

Yep, it happen, AGAIN

Well just as I was getting to the tail end of my ankle injury I begin riding my bike and was even able to swim a couple hundred meters with minimal pain.  I was feeling good and ready to get back on the road to a triathlon.  

Just two days after getting back on the trainer at home, my family took me on an AWESOME Father's Day retreat.  It was amazing in so many ways.  We decided to leave an hour to two early since I was flying  out the next morning for work and I needed to pack and do some yard work.  Long story short, almost done with clearing some brush and overhang from some trees, only had one tree left and as I was walking the chainsaw back up the hill it slipped out of my hand and onto my leg.  Luckliy it was off, but it required a few stitches and sliced the leg up pretty good.  

My wife and daughters were awesome in helping me to mitigate the damage and stop the blood.  We went to Urgent Care first, they refused to touch me, then we went to ER, they were dumbfounded that I walked in and even said they could tell military training kicked in.  They actually called my moves RAMBO-esque, but hey whose bragging!  Anyways a few stiches later, I'm all fixed up and docs say I can resume activity within the next 10 days.  Heres to hoping I don't screw that up too!