The Endurance Pig: Bad Luck Comes in 3's

I hope that the formatting of this post follows suit with all of my past posts, because I am writing this weeks post on my iPhone....yes, my phone. I am currently at our family's cabin on Lake Poygan, just northwest of Oshokosh. I have no internet hookup....trust me, I've tried and apparently no one wants wi-fi at their cabin - bummer.

This past cycle was another rather uneventful week. Sarah and the girls went to the Wisconsin State Fair on Saturday Aug 3rd while I worked 2nd shift overtime from 6p-10p before my regular 3rd shift. I worked a regular work week with the usual amounts of training during the week. I opted to take my Friday off in order to get some free time to get ready for our family vacation at my family's cabin. So, I took off Wednesday night and was up early on Thursday for a whole slew of chores to get done by Thursday evening. On top of swimming, grocery shopping, and paying bills, I had to pack up our car, get some cleaning done around the house. My hope was to leave for the cabin by 8pm Thursday night, sleep there, and go to my SWAT training from the cabin. At SWAT Training I was presented with the Bloodhound Challenge Plaque to be displayed in the lobby of the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office. If you remember back in April I ran in the Jailbreak Marathon 5k. The "race within the race" is the race to be the fastest Law Enforcement Officer. I have now won it the past two years. It's nice to stick it to the other agencies - especially the host agency, Waushara County Sheriff's Office. HAHA! I am totally kidding, seriously. It just cool to have a competition like that in the area and I hope it continues.

Sarah brought the girls camping at Mirror Lake this weekend with her family and I stayed at the cabin for my Ironman Training. Yea, yea, yea....I know...and yes, I did opt to miss a family camping trip for my training....see my prior posts, specifically, The Truth Behind the Training or The Cost of Success... Anyway, after the weekend Sarah will be bringing the girls to the cabin and we will be here for the entire week, through Friday. Other than that excitement, I have nothing else to report, unfortunately. My training as taken away any type of free time I used to have and I am left to simply write about my training. How exciting - right?

Actually, I did have some other things happen that aren't necessarily 100% related to my training/workouts. I mentioned last post that my old wetsuit developed a tear in the crotch which I was planning on repairing - or at least attempting to repair. Turns out the tear was more significant then a little neoprene repair cement could handle. I had to order a new wetsuit. I went directly to TheTriShop.com for help in getting me set up in the right wetsuit for my body type and swim type. They recommended a Blue Seventy Reaction. I ordered it on Sunday and had it by Wednesday, just in time for our vacation! I couldn't be happier with their knowledge and service, they were a lifesaver. On top of that, on Tuesday, I woke up to go for a run and took my Garmin Forerunner off the charger, and nothing....it died....YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! I got on the phone Wednesday morning with Garmin Support and they 2nd day air mailed me a new watch. I was thoroughly surprised that they offered to do that. I explained to them that I was leaving for vacation on Friday and needed it for my training week and for the Ironman and they delivered - BIG TIME! I was only left wondering what was next....cause we all know these things come in 3's.....

A Brief Recap

Like my weekly recap photo? haha, I guess, you can put photos into your blog posts when using the Blogspot App on the iPhone. - who knew? As you can see, my training volume took a HUGE hit this cycle, down from just over 18 hours down to 14:45. This was partially intentional, as I had scheduled a down week the week before I go into my biggest week of training of my life to allow ample recovery. But, I had scheduled this week to have 16:15, not 14:45. I'll explain in a bit. My cycle started out with a race paced swim workout on day 1. This was my second time doing this workout, just a little longer in total distance. The workout went well, based on my average swim pace of the 500's I am able to predict my swim time. Granted this is all done in a pool, which has a complete 180 degree turnaround every 25 meters....that's a lot of turning over the course of 4,000 meters - 152 to be exact. After a little calculating my IM swim time would be 1:08 - not too bad, I'll take that. The rest of the cycle saw a total of 5 additional swims for 6 total for 11.12 miles, by fay my highest weekly swim volume. There really were no major or different workouts during the week. On my weekend, I scheduled my 2nd of two "Big Day Training." This day consists of all 3 disciplines - 1 hour swim, 5 hour bike, 2 hour run, all done with 1.5 hours rest between the sports. I had big intentions for this day, I wanted it to be as much like an Ironman Simulation as I could. I set my alarm for 4:30 and was up at 5am and tired. I stayed up too late Friday night, and my day was not off to the start I had hoped. I wanted to be out swimming at 7am (IM start time) but didn't start until 7:13. I did my swim in Lake Poygan and it was choppy, which is not ideal, but you take what's given to you and deal with it. I wore my Garmin and swam 2.57 miles in 1:06 (1:01 IM pace). I was thrilled with my swim time, especially with the water condition. My mom offered to kayak along side me for safety - so I don't get mowed over by a boat. I was nice to have that peace of mind. I also gave her the task of snapping a few photos of me swimming, which turned out rather nice. There was also a Bald Eagle watching me from the shore line, which was neat to see.

After my 1.5 hour break, I was out on my bike leg. I planned on covering 100 miles and hoped to average a 20mph pace. I mapped out a 25 mile loop that I planned on doing 4 times allowing me to stop at the cabin to refill water and restock my calories. The sun came out from beind the morning overcast skies during my 2nd lap. By the end of my 2nd lap, the winds picked up and made the ride all that more difficult. It was at that point I realized there was no chance of averaging 20mph. But, during my 4th lap, that third evil event happened that I had so wished would avoid me. I was at mile 87 and some variety of bee flew into my mouth....yes - my mouth....and stung me on the inside of my right upper lip. I quickly dug the bee out of my mouth and continued on. The one good thing was that the pain from the sting made me completely forget how much my legs burned. I kept pushing on. I could feel my lip swell...and swell......and swell. After getting home, I was finally done with the bike leg after 100.91 miles and a total time of 5:15:10, for an average speed of 19.2. That time is including all my stops. My actually moving average speed was 19.6mph. After putting my bike away and grabbing all my empty water bottles, I went directly to a mirror and here is what I saw....

My first thought was, "grrrreeeeaaat...." My lip continued to swell, and I developed itches all over my body. It was miserable. I was all alone at the cabin (my parents were at a wedding out of town and Sarah was still camping with the girls). I sent Sarah this picture and she freaked out and recommended I go to the hospital. I thought that was a bit excessive, and damn it, I had to RUN! My body continued to not feel right, so I went to my mom's uncle's cabin, which is just 2 down from ours to see if someone would take me to a hospital. Sarah didn't want me driving incase they gave me a high dose of Benadryl. Lucky me, there were 2 nurses at the cabin. They looked at me and didn't think I needed to waste my time going to the ER. They gave me some OTC Benadryl and told me to continue to ice the swelling. I did just that and continued to monitor my swelling and my airways. I am not allergic to bees, at least I haven't been allergic. I think that is starting to change. I have never had a reaction like this to a bee sting. My only hope is it was either a wasp or something with more potent venom or the fact that I was stung in the inside of my mouth. I opted to not run, due to the swelling on my lip, the amount of Benadryl I had taken, and the general irritations on my body as a result of my body attempting to combat the bee venom. Yup - that was definitely the 3rd evil in my string of bad luck. So hopefully it's now smooth sailing to the Ironman on Sept 8th. So frustrating to say the least.

Favorite Workout

Tough to pick a favorite workout this week. It's like picking the prettiest flower at the florist the day after Valentines Day. I guess I have to pick my 7 mile run on Monday, August 5th. I had to pick up the girls from the day care before I ran and since Sarah was stuck at work, I had to bring the girls running with me. I actually really enjoy running with the girls in their stroller, it's quality time I get to spend with them. It also gives me a chance to share my passion with them, even though they can not run with me - yet. :) I feel I am also leading my example and hopefully someday, they will find health as important as I do. They were very well behaved, minus Delaney pinching Maya's check once or twice. To reward them we stopped at Auntie Lou Lou's house (my sister-in-law Lisa) to say hello. My girls absolutely adore Lisa in every sense of the word. By the time were done I ran 7.03 miles in 56:58 which is just over an 8:00 mile. Slow, yes, but pushing a 4 and 2 year old is not as easy as you may think.

Moving Forward

The picture above is my most up-to-date training plan for this week, which I just updated prior to starting this blog post. I think my very 1st edition of my training plan had about 18-19 hours of training. That was before I changed my vacation plans for this week in August. I figured I would take advantage of my ability to actually sleep at night and the fact that I won't be working to up my training volume this cycle. I then added some swims to get the open water training since I will be living right on the water this week and brought my training volume up to 20.17, and additional 2 hours. I wanted to do this since this is my last training cycle before I go into my taper phase. So, I will have ample time to recover from this tough week. But that was all before my little incident today with the bee sting. I had to revamp my training plan, because I did not want to simply just forget about my 2 hour run, especially this close to the race. I need to get the time in on my feet. I was originally scheduled to have Sunday off as a day of recovery and then a 30 mile bike ride on Monday. I combined the miss run distance with the 30 mile bike and bumped it up to Sunday and will no take Monday off. That, friends, is my way of making up for lost valuable training time. Granted it will not mimic the race specificity of the Big Day Training, but it's going to have to do. Key workouts this cycle are my 3 open water swims, 2 of them are relatively short, but just getting into the water is beneficial. My big workouts are a 120 mile bike ride and a 2 mile run on Friday. This will be my longest bike ride ever and probably forever. It will be mentally challenging to say the least. The next day is a 50 mile bike ride and 20 mile run. My total training volume this cycle is 22 which is probably a low-end estimate, I'm guessing I will be closer to 22.5-23 hours. This is it....my final big week, I can't believe I am already this far, its crazy to think that during my next post I will talking about my taper week.