Catching Up & Starting the Ironman Build

O.K., well...so much for maintaining an active diary of events. I don't know how some people find the time to work, train, race AND write about it. I've found that BeginnerTriathlete.com has some pretty good tools for keeping track of training, but even still, it's hard to keep up with everything. I mostly just venture over to my own blog when reminded by reading someone else's. Looks like that's been about 4 months.

Since the last post, I ran Carlsbad (3:07), raced the Desert Tri (5th AG - no pts for the club), picked up my first podium spot of the year (3rd) at the Devil Dog Du, met a sub-5 goal in my first A-race of the year at Oceanside (4:55) and raced Superseal on a whim (4th AG) before heading off to Boston for the marathon (3:04). Then just recently, on a day where I didn't feel my best, knowing I was a bit overweight, undertrained and underrecovered, I just came in 5th o/all (2nd AG) at the Spring Sprint Du to pick up another medal. Fortunately, it seems most of the top competition was racing the Tri - or off to race up North, either at one of the Wildflower Triathlons or Escape from Alcatraz.

All of the early season racing has certainly taken it's toll (at least temporarily). I started to get sick the night after the marathon and have struggled to get back on track ever since. I'm fine now, but the last couple weeks of recovery (and poor diet) have left me feeling sluggish. I've been riding (1st 100-miler...done!) and have been getting back in the open water (a few 2-milers from Cove to Shores and back, and vice-versa), but other than the Spring Sprint, the run has been mostly non-existent. I did get in one good 8-miler before the Du, but I raced in Newtons w/o socks and that left me blistered up pretty good to the point where I couldn't run for a few days. Couple that with the fact that something happened to the Asics Nimbus I wore for Boston (they're squeaking and I suspect they've broken down). I picked up some knee issues when running in them. I'll be taking them back to RoadRunner. Sweet that they'll take them back. Just so long as I get them in this week before the 60-day return policy expires.

Another problem with the busy early season race schedule is that I missed out on Wildflower again this year. It sounds like it's a brutally tough course, but people seems to love the event and most everyone I've talked to plans to go back and "experience" it again next year. One top AGer in the Tri Club seems to manage doing the Boston / Wildflower double every year (and places ridiculously well at WF), so I guess it's doable. I just don't know if I'm up for that much suffering. Maybe one of these years, it will work out so there's a bit more time in between Boston and Wildflower.

So...the next big race of the year is coming up. The first IRONMAN event. And no, I don't mean Coeur d'Alene - it's the "Peterman" full-Iron simulation. A loooong training day here in San Diego. We're going to hit the water at La Jolla Shores shortly before 6:00 A.M. for a ~2½ mi. swim before heading out on the bike for 6-7 hours. I'll see how much I have left in the tank when it's time to run, but I'm hoping to manage at least half of the run course. I don't want to leave myself completely wasted, it will be a good chance to try out some nutrition strategies 6 weeks out from the "real" race. I have no idea how my body is going to react to 8, 9, 10+ hours of race-pace effort.

I should have a better idea of what to expect after this weekend.