Tuesday

Good morning! How was the long weekend for you? I had a good one, measured in different ways. Since this blog is about my endurance athletic life, then that's what we'll talk about. I will say training for Ironman is difficult.

The workouts are tough, but tougher is maintaining a balance between the workouts and the other things that are far more important. I vowed from the beginning to not let it affect my ministry, and, I think, I have kept that vow. I have had to cut other things, which I'm not crazy about, but we are in the home stretch now. I think we have 6-7 more weeks of hard training and then begins taper.

The long weekend was a pretty good one for training. Friday Rand, Jim, and I swam long. Rand and I did the Iron distance of 2.4, while Jimmy went ahead and did the 3 mile workout. My 3 miler is coming up. I will have to find a good time to do it. I did this 2.4 miler about 3 minutes faster than the first time, so I was happy about that.

Saturday I had (soft) visions of doing a 20 miler. I was still feeling Thursday's 100 mile ride and Friday's long swim, so I didn't know how the run would go. I took off around 6:30, knowing rain was on the radar. I did 7 and went back to grab a quick drink and a gel. The plan was to do another 7 and then decide if I would go on. It was very humid but pleasantly cool.

On my way out to the Amish Super 2, I was feeling pretty good but the sky was growing more ominous by the minutes. Then I saw it, the deal breaker for me: lightning. I continued on for about a minute before turning back to town. Before I could get back the rain came and came pretty hard. I kept going. My shoes were soaked, so I made the decision at about the 12 mile mark I would go 15 miles.

I did not really need 20 at this point, though I wanted it and would have done it if dry. I was fairly pleased with the run, though all of my running is about a minute per mile slower than I wish. Part of that is coming off my double hamstring problems, but now it is more trying to manage one training event in such a way it does not hurt the next one too much. This, to me, is one of the arts of training for Ironman. It is about managing fatigue. I like the challenge.

Sunday afternoon several of us gathered at Kenray for another swim. I went 1.6. Why 1.6? Because it gave me 5 miles of swimming for the week, of course! The swim went OK, not great. I still have lots of work to do.

Yesterday Rand, Roy, Jim and I gathered at church at 7:30 to ride. Several of us have conflicts tomorrow evening, so we decided to do our usual workout today, on Labor Day. We had a decent ride, rolling out on 337 at 20 mph and coming back around 23 mph. The southwest wind was significant. After the workout I did some things around the yard (see above about cutting things out) before a family cookout.

If you look carefully (click on picture to enlarge) at the photo above, a screen shot of my Beginning Triathlete log, you can see my August totals, as well as yearly totals. I am pleased with the swim miles and bike miles. My running miles are low, due to injury earlier, but I am increasing them now.  OK, this turned out to be a longer post than I planned. Oh well... Have a good day!