Day 47: 5/31/2010

Last day of May. I was up at 5:20 and out the door before 6:00 AM. I met a friend and we rode a pretty quick pace on an out and back on highway 60 towards Magdalena. We rode for 1:45 and 35 miles. Then it was off to Albuquerque to have a day of fun. I drooled over some new Specialized Transition bikes at a shop there in Albuquerque.

Although I'm not really very happy with the way May ended, I was pleased to see that I had to go all the way back to July of 2006 to find a month that I did as many combined hours. I finished with a little more than 46.5 hours for the month. I swam 11 times for a total of 35,900 yards (~20 miles), I biked 10 times for 370 miles and I ran 12 times for 98 miles total.

Like I said, I am proud of this but at the same time I know that I took too many days off and had to many single workout days during the month of May. If I matched some personal bests with this effort, I know I can surpass these marks next month. In 2004, I had 3 months where I had over 40 hours in the month. In 2006, I only had one, and I haven't been able to match these since. It feels good and I'm starting to notice I look a little leaner in the mirror.

Coming up, I have the Deuces Wild triathlon festival this coming weekend in Show Low, AZ. I have an Olympic distance race on Saturday and an Xterra on Sunday. I have done these races for the last 2 years and I plan to PR both races and be a little more competitive in my age group. After the festival I will have a solid 3 weeks of training leading up to BSLT 70.3 in Lubbock. This race will be a qualifier for Ironman and a race that I need to finish to validate my slot for Ironman. I PR'ed the race last year but not with a PR for the distance. I have some goals in mind for this year but more on that as the time comes up. After BSLT, the real Ironman training begins :^)

Thanks for keeping up with my diary.

Day 44, 45, and 46: 5/28 - 5/30/2010

The wheels fell off. I could come up with some reasons but the short story is that it just didn't happen. Friday and Sunday were ZERO training. Saturday I did run 2 hours.

Week finished with 7 total workouts and almost 8 hours of training.

Day 43: 5/27/2010

The wheels haven't fallen off but I didn't do much working out today. 2500 in the pool is all that happened. When I got home from school I quickly fell asleep for an hour and a half. That made me get to the pool late and that's that. Spent the evening at Wal Mart of Socorro shopping. I'll have a good Friday.

Right now, I am at 5 hours and 50 minutes for the week and 2 workouts of each sport. Tomorrow that goal is 2 hours and 10 minutes so that I can go into the weekend with 8 hours.

Another thing I have been spending some time on is thinking about specific Ironman training and coming up with some sort of plan. I read today "Success starts with a dream, a thought; but that's only the first step. Writing it down is the second step. Doing specific things to bring it

about is the third step." I read this and I liked it and also my buddy, Matt Napier and I exchanged some emails back and forth. Not this weekend, but next, hopefully Danny and I can talk some about what a good plan would be for Hawaii. One thing I must say is I have some great athletes and people in my corner. Between my brother Mike, Danny and Matt, they have completed a combined 8 Ironman World Championships.

Day 42: 5/26/2010

Didn't do my first workout till around 7 this evening and just finished my 2nd workout 10 minutes after 11. Not what I prefer but I guess I got the work done.

I ran the ditch bank loop and finally after 3 tries I was able to finish it in under an hour. Time for the 8 mile course was 58 minutes and change. That was great considering I was tired and irritable before I left. (Sorry Linds) I relaxed for a bit then started riding the bike on the trainer and watched an hour and 5 minutes of Ironman... The movie, not the race, on Blu Ray.

So total for the day was 2:05 and that puts my hours for the week at 5. This is the point last week when my wheels sort of fell off for a couple of days. None of that this week.

Day 41: 5/25/2010

5:45 AM run for :45. Nothing fancy or entertaining.

In the PM I met a girl from the high school for a swim workout. She is a senior who just graduated and will be swimming at the collegiate level at Adams State in the Fall. She was faster than me but she told me some things I could work on and she definitely pushed me to some faster times in the pool. We swam 3400 in just over an hour.

As we swam the things I worked on were having a cleaner hand entry into the water, only breathing every third stroke and streamlining longer off the walls. It all worked and reminded me of how I learned to swim 15 years ago when I would try to mimic another friend at the time who was also on her way to becoming a collegiate swimmer. I have always heard that to better at a sport to do as much as you can with people that are better than you. Good thing for me I know lots of people faster than me!

Total for the day was 1:55 and I'm at 2:55 for the week.

Day 40: 5/24/2010

Monday, Monday. Seems like if I start with a bang I tend to fizzle and if I start out easy I end up consistent and finish strong. Yesterday I invited some CC kids mountain biking. One of them got a new bike and was excited to get it dirty. The group ended up being 5 of us and we were gone for 2 hours but I'm only counting 1 hour towards my training because I spent a lot of time waiting for them. I gave up a little of my workout but these kids really enjoyed riding single track and I think they have a new appreciation for just how hard riding a bike can be. When they stopped they were usually breathing pretty hard and sweating but always had a big smile. They all had fun and want to do it again. We didn't make formal plans but they now know where the trail is. I'd love to see them get interested in something like that. A big goal I have for all the kids I coach is that they stop perceiving exercise as a chore and start running, swimming, or biking on their own.

So total for the day was 1 hour mountain biking.

Days 37, 38 and 39: 5/21 - 23, 2010

Friday - nothing :( Grace duty in the morning and I helped with graduation in the evening.

Saturday - great day! Out the door early before the wind for a 2 hour run. I felt good the entire time. I also made it to the pool for 3500 yards of swimming. My feet and calves were cramping the entire time. Next time, I need to bring along some salt tablets after a hard run effort.

Sunday - again I made it out the door early before the wind... sort of. I rode 2 hours and 7 minutes out and then came back in 1:38 for a 3 hour 45 minute bike ride. The afternoon was spent at a graduation party for one of my XC runners and a long nap. I may do something inside this evening as it is still howling at 25 mph outside.

Weekly Summary:

3 swims totaling 9700 yards in 3.2 hours.

2 bikes totaling 122 miles in 6.8 hours.

3 runs totaling 25.75 miles in 3.5 hours.

total hours: 13.5 hours.

I already have my best swim and bike month that I've had in several years. My run can do the same if I put an effort into it this week. One thing I would like to see for this next week is to up the number of workouts I do for the week. I don't think 8 workouts is enough? Only 2 rides is for sure not enough rides.