Where do I begin. As of writing this post, I am a mere 9 days out from race day! Holy shit! Where did the time go? Over the past 9+ months, I have completed countless hours training, not to mention the countless additional hours just preparing for those workouts. Lord only knows how much money I have invested in this race, including gear, extra food at the grocery store, fuel/nutrition that I used during training, supplements, and other races to help prepare me physically and mentally. I have been extremely dedicated to bettering myself, not only turning my body into an efficient endurance machine, but also learning so much about myself and what I can accomplish with the right mindset. The last month or so have been the most stressful. My training has become a second job, on top of my current full time gig as a Deputy for Winnebago County Sheriff's Office. My body has been sore, beat up, and run down, yet I pushed on for hours on end. I sucked it up and kept putting one foot in front of the other, one pedal revolution at a time, and one arm stroke at a time. My training has consumed me to say the least. Not a minute goes by that this race does not cross my mind. Whether it be something I need to be sure to pack, something I want to be sure to do in the days leading up to the race, or how I am going to approach a certain aspect of the race itself. I have official been overtaken by Ironman Brain.
I have heard of Ironman Brain before, just never knew what it was specifically. I listen to several podcasts that answer questions specific to endurance training and racing. The two podcasts that I regularly listen to and highly recommend others to listen to are The Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast and Endurance Planet. Each of these podcasts have mentioned "Ironman Brain" before and I would just write it off and just a feeling and I would never experience it. But, without a doubt, I have Ironman Brain. It's difficult to fully describe. The best I can do is a state of mind where you are fully consumed with the intense amounts of training and the feelings of anxiety that arise in the days or weeks leading up to an Ironman Triathlon. I have not been thinking clearly, my focus is absolutely terrible, and my memory has gone to crap. I have a difficult time remembering simple tasks outside of my training plan. I often forget simple things such as my car keys and where I left them. On multiple occasions I have grabbed all my necessary belongings and sat in the drivers seat of my car patting down my shorts pockets wondering where my keys are, when they are right were I left them, sitting on the kitchen table. As I have said before, my mind is 100% consumed by this race. My focus solely lies on proper execution of my race plan. I am constantly planning and making mental lists and notes for race weekend. It has carried over into other aspects of my life. At work, I find myself at a lost of words when dictating reports, when the word I am looking for is as simple of a word and is typically one I use on a daily basis. I find myself repeating myself or forgetting information and needing to go back and add the information. I can only imagine what our typists are thinking when they are typing up my reports.
I doubt there is just one single reason for acquiring Ironman Brain. It has to be a combination of countless hours of pushing your body to the limits during extreme states of fatigue, the inevitable anxiety that comes as race day/week approaches, and the constant planning and strategizing for each upcoming workout. But, as of today, I have 9 more days to sit and stew about race day. It certainly doesn't help that I am in the heart of my taper, which typically leaves me and nearly every single endurance athlete wondering if we have done enough work, and dealing with all the extra free time with the significant decline in training volume.
This past week has been a complete struggle, not only with the aforementioned Ironman Brain, but struggling with the significant decline in my training volume. I am coming off my largest training cycle ever and entered a cycle with a decline in training volume of slightly over 40% from 22 hours down to 13. All of that extra time is hard to describe, one would think that you would embrace the extra time. Don't get me wrong, I definitely have. I have enjoyed the spare time and spent it with my two girls. But, it gives you extra time to sit and think....think about what you could be doing....what you should have done....wonder if you have done enough....did you train hard enough....could you have done more....did you do EVERYTHING you could have done? Tapers have always been tough for me for these reasons, but now, coming off such high training volumes and entering a race that has so much importance to me has exponentially increased the stress.
Enough, with the Ironman Brain and taper stress. This past cycle is now gone. I entered this cycle coming off of a cycle in which I had an entire work rotation off and spent the week at our families cottage on vacation. I was scheduled to work 5 days as I decided to take my last day off and have a 4 day weekend to spend more time with my family. The first day of my cycle I had scheduled a routine physical after my morning workout - not that I had concerns for my health, but to specifically address my concerns of the potential of a bee sting allergy. The doctor I saw felt that my reaction was significant enough to warrant prescribing an EpiPen in the event I get stung while out on my bike, all by myself, miles away from home without a viable option to get to a hospital quickly. Getting prescribed an EpiPen definitely put my mind at ease. The days following the start to my week where rather uneventful....except for Friday. I had a double workout scheduled for Friday; a swim in the morning and a bike ride in the afternoon. I set out on my bike ride around 5pm and Sarah left with the girls to meet with her sister for dinner. I set out for 25 miles. I got to about mile 9 when I felt a sharp poke to my right knee. I had been stung again. I immediately stopped and looked at my knee. It immediately began to swell. As a precaution, I called 911. The dispatcher I spoke to, recommended I give myself the EpiPen Shot - I refused to give myself the shot as my airways where not becoming restricted. I told her I would give myself the shot if I started to feel my airways close, but until then I did not feel comfortable giving myself the shot. I told her, I am not 100% sure if I am allergic to bee stings and will not give myself the shot because of this. Immediately after getting off the phone with dispatch, I called Sarah and continued to monitor my airways and my knee. The swelling continued to grow, but I did not see any hives and the swelling remained localized to my knee. Sarah said she was going to come out to my location in case I needed to go to the hospital but did not need to be taken by ambulance. A short while later, First Responders arrived and then EMT's. I did not go into anaphylaxis and had a "typical" reaction to the bee sting, at least typical for me. The paramedics provided an ice pack and suggested I get a ride home from Sarah and relax for the rest of the evening. I felt bad that I pulled Sarah away from her errands and didn't want to hold her up any longer. I talked her into letting my bike home. I told her I would bike straight home and would call her once I get back home. As I said before, I was planning on biking for 25 miles and I was already 9 miles in. In my mind, I thought, I could still salvage this ride. I convinced her to let me bike home. I did, but didn't quite bike straight home. I took a longer way home and turned a 18 mile ride (9 out, 9 back) into a 21 mile ride by taking the long way home. My knee was tender from the sting, but I salvaged a bombed workout.
Saturday came and went pretty quick since I picked up a 4 hour block of overtime from 6pm-10pm and then worked my usual 10pm-6am shift. After my work shift, I entered my 4 day weekend. On Sunday, Sarah and I brought the kids to the Timber Rattlers game in the afternoon. It was a HOT day but bought seats in the shade and were comfortable for the entire game. The Timber Rattlers are the Class A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. Going to a T-Rats game is one of my favorite things to do with the girls - they enjoy it and its relatively cheap. Monday was a day dedicated to training in the morning and then spent the afternoon at Tanner's Grill and Bar which installed a large pool for this summer. With school starting nearly all family pools are closed for the season around here. All pools, except the pool at Tanner's Grill and Bar. They allow kids to use the pool from noon until 4pm. It was a perfect afternoon activity considering temperatures were over 90! I had SWAT training on Tuesday from 8-4pm and then we brought the girls to a family picnic put on by my mom's employer, Thrivent Financial. The picnic was fun, there were inflatable slides and bounce houses, games, entertainment, and even an artist drawing caricatures.
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| Perfect day for a ball game! |
Wednesday was a day that didn't go as planned at all. I did get down to Madison to bike 50 miles on the bike course one last time before the race. I got home around 2ish and after showering and cleaning up my gear it was a little after 4pm. At about 4:30pm my phone went off - it was another SWAT call out....I had to go into work. I was a little disappointed, as I really wanted to spend the evening with Sarah and the girls, especially since I was gone all morning in Madison. The situation was resolved safely and was home late. Again, due to the nature of the incident and fact that there are active criminal investigations taking place, I will not delve into details, but you can choose to read about the incident from local media outlets. Here is a link to follow if you are interested in reading about the incident.
Standoff on HWY 41, Oshkosh
Brief Recap
This was my first Taper Phase and after it's all said and done, I'd say it went well. The cycle started with my longest swim to date. I swam a 5k or 3.1 miles. After the swim, I got on the bike for a 25 mile ride. Swimming a 5k was just something I wanted to do to say I did it. I thought it would be neat to swim a very popular running race distance. I usually run several 5k's throughout a season and have never swam that distance, and frankly, never crossed my mind. I wanted to take advantage of the current condition I am in. I truly do not know if I will be in good enough shape to swim that again, so for all I know that may have been my last opportunity to swim that distance. The swim took me 1:43 and left me sore for the first time ever after swimming. The next workout that sticks out was my last swim fitness test on day 4. I was really hoping to set new personal records in each the 400m and the 200m. I tied my 400m time and set a new PR in the 200m. All things considered, that was the next best thing that could have happened shy of setting two new PR's. My confidence, really, has never been higher in the pool. I have now swam over 134 miles since starting my Ironman training. I have never swam over 100 miles in a calendar year, let alone 9 months!
My workout for Monday (day 7) was interesting and I loved it. I was scheduled for a 35 mile bike followed by a 12-13 mile brick run. However, when I woke up it was raining, and thunderstorm were on the way. I decided that I was willing to run in that weather, but chose not to bike in it. I did not feel like putting myself at an unnecessary risk by riding in the rain this close to the race. Instead of riding for 1:45 on my indoor trainer, I decided to break my original workout into 3 sets. I did a 30 minute ride on the trainer and transitioned to a 4 mile run. I completed that workout 3 times for 1.5 hours total on the bike and 12 miles total running. I have never done multiple bricks back-to-back, so this was a first for me. I loved it! I was nice because I was able to keep the intensities much higher in each individual set due to the relative shorter distance, all while keeping the total duration where I planned it being. The following day I took off due to having SWAT training and on Wednesday, I went down to Madison to bike 50 on the bike course one last time before doing it for real. I wanted to ride it hard and try to average 20mph. I was able to do just that, but really didn't overly exert myself. I rode at a high intensity than I have done in previous rides on the course, but I was not beat up afterward. I averaged 19.9mph when it was all said and done. It was exactly what I needed to put my mind at ease in the final days leading up to Ironman Wisconsin.
Favorite Workout
My favorite workout this past week was my 3x(30mins bike indoors,4 mile run outdoors). It went by super fast as it seemed like I was always changing from outdoors to indoors and visa versa. My first time running outside, the rain hadn't fully started to fall but on my second set the rain was just starting. By the time I got outside for my 3rd set it was at a steady rain. It was actually a lot of fun running in the rain and then getting the opportunity to come indoors and sit on a bike out of the rain before heading back out into the rain. As I talked about above, breaking up each individual sport allowed me to increase the overall intensity of the workout all while not sacrificing the training volume. This is a workout that I will definitely incorporate into future training plans for that exact reason.
Moving Forward
Due to a late night on Wednesday night's SWAT call out and a slew of errands to run on Thursday, I changed my workout on day 1 of this cycle. I was originally scheduled for a 1,800m swim, 20 mile bike, and 6 mile run. I cut out the swim to save time. Granted, an 1,800m swim doesn't take a ton of time, but when you take in travel time to and from the pool it turns a 30-40 minute swim into a 1.5-2 hour time commitment. To make up for lost time in the pool, I pushed the swim to day 2 which was originally scheduled to be an off day, with the option to keep it an off day depending on how I feel, physically and mentally. The rest of the week is nothing special, nothing too stressful, just a lot of easy workouts to keep me focused and loose. I was really stressing out about how much to actually do in the days leading up to race day. I talked to several coaches and triathletes who are apart of TheTriShop.com's Triathlon Team and was convinced to cut some of my training volume this week. I think I cut about 3 hours from 8 down to 5 total hours. I think the decrease in volume will allow ample time for my body to fully recover and really be prepared for race day. My plans leading up to race day are to leave for Madison on Thursday midmorning, get registered and signed in, then go down to my borther-in-law's home in Milton where I will stay until Saturday. I have a hotel reserved for Saturday night to ensure a stress-free and quiet night. I will try to check in on Saturday after checking in my bike and transition bags which has to be done on Saturday. Sunday I will take advantage of the free shuttle service to the start line from the hotel and then it's on! It's race day!
I plan on getting one or two more blog updates about the race itself and a recap of this training cycle as usual, so stay tuned! Thanks for reading!
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