Almost Final Update: Good news and bad news....

First the bad news.... well, at least for me. I would definitely have to consider this a failed attempt at blogging. Going into this, I knew I was a procrastinator (if not the king of all procrastinators), but I honestly thought that I would make time for blogging since the Iron Man experience was something I really wanted to remember every step of the day and blogging was the perfect way to record this experience. Oh well, I would say maybe better luck next time, but there is only one first Iron Man... which leads me to the good news... I completed my first (and I promised myself only) Iron Man on July 23 in 15:46:51. Not exactly a Kona qualifying time, but then again my only goal was to finish and that I did. I hope to post one last update with a quick summary of the few leading up to the race as well as the race day itself.

No Time for Updates (aka "an excuse for slacking")

Ok, I know, I have seriously been slacking on the updates here, but honestly between work, training, and trying to keep somewhat of a normal life, I have made little time for updates. But, we ship our bikes today (yep, 13 days and counting) and we are in the taper phase now, so I should have time to go back and make some updates and hopefully add a few photos.

A Break From Training

The last part of December was really a break from training for me, as I had four friends from Holland come in town and we took a little road trip from SF, to Vegas, to LA, back to SF, up to Tahoe, and back to SF again. In there, I had planned on getting some excercise snow boarding in Tahoe, but due to the poor weather while we were there (it was raining the whole time), we never got a chance to hit the slopes. I think the most excerise I got was walking down the Vegas strip, looking at all of the casinos, and the closest I got to swimming was sitting in the hot tub in Tahoe. Instead, there was a lot of drinking and unhealthy eating (think Vegas buffets), so I will have to hit the New Year runing now that my vacation is over.

Practice Tri After Xmas Party... Not a Good Idea!

Unlike Katie's post, where it sounds like we were excited to be doing the practice tri out on Treasure Island, I will share the real truth. We woke up at 6:45am, groggy and hungover from the fun Diageo Xmas party the night before at the Fairmont Hotel. Neither one of us really wanted to go, but unfortunately neither of us would admit it until we were on the Bay Bridge where there is no turning around until you reach Treasure Island (which was where the Practice Tri was located), and there was no way we were not going to the practice once we were already there. So we begrudglingly unloaded our gear and setup our transition areas and put our wetsuits on in the sunny, but freezing cold parking lot.
After walking over to the swim start area and tip toeing into the freezing waters, we swim two laps for a total of approximately 950 yards, usually an easily doable distance, but with the pounding headache I had, it might as well have been 950 miles. By the time I struggle out of the water, my hands and feet are pretty much numb, and in between throbs of my pounding headache, I am cursing myself for not taking it a little bit easier at the party. We then transition out of our wetsuits and onto our bikes for a 12 mile ride. Several of the people on the team get flats because of the poor road conditions out on Treasure Island, and as I pass by them, I almost hope for a flat so that I can just quit the race and go sit in my car with the heater on (of course that is wishful thinking because I would really just have to change the tire and get on with the race). I finally finish the ride and change into my running shoes and start my "short" 3 mile run. It is here where the headache finally goes away and I actually start to enjoy the course. The run is a scenic two 1.5 mile loops, so it goes by pretty fast. All in all, a very long "sprint" tri, but at the end of the race I am glad I sucked it up and did it. I am sure there will be many more times throughout the next few months where I don't feel like getting out of bed for training and this experience will help motivate me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I spent this Thanksgiving in San Diego with Katie and her family. It was my first time meeting them (except her brother who I had met a few weeks earlier on his visit to SF), so I was really hoping for an experience different than Meet The Parents. Fortunately it was nothing like the movie and her family was extremely nice and made me feel right at home. It was great weather there, so Katie and I managed to get a couple of runs in, and even swim around a bit in the ocean after a run along the beach. I definitely needed the excercise after the delicious turkey dinner and coffee cake breakfasts.

Our First Bay Swim of the Season

Today I got reacquainted with Aquatic Park, the part of the Bay by Fisherman's Wharf that is blocked off for people crazy/stupid enough to brave the cold waters for a swim. It was just a short swim out to the buoys and back twice, running along the beach for maybe 50 yards in between each swim. After the swim we did some core excercises (situps, pushups, etc) that I'm sure made us look like a boot camp to all of the gawking tourists. We then changed and did a 30 minute run with some running drills mixed in the middle.

The Three Bears Ride

Today we did what is called the "Three Bears" ride out in Orinda (East Bay). The reason they call this route the "Three Bears" is there are three climbs, two (Mama Bear and Papa Bear) of which are a somewhat straight and even 7% grade. The best part was the long fast descent after Papa Bear (I hit 45mph to give you an idea of how fast it is). We rode an out and back course twice, but we didn't hit Baby Bear until the way back in, so even though it was a "Baby" climb, it didn't seem so small at the time.