I have been a bit out of touch lately and that is mainly due to not having any free time what so ever. For the entire month of December I was working more than 80 hours a week. I am super glad to be done with all of the work. Now I am back to my normal schedule.
I am currently fully engrossed in Ironman training. I can’t stop thinking about my two Ironman races. As I have said before, I am currently registered for Ironman Coeur D’Alene and Vineman. They are roughly 5 weeks apart so that will wreak havoc on the body I am sure. What doesn’t kill you only makes you wish you were dead… errr something like that right?
So right before I started really training I decided it would be best to head up to Canuckistan for a splitboard festival and get my snowboarding on. All I have to say is that was a trip of a lifetime which I totally plan on doing again next year. We stayed in Revelstoke, BC for a couple nights and then went to the Asulkan Hut for another couple of nights. Here are a few photos from the trip. If I ever quit being lazy and edit the video, I will put that up as well.
I will say I have partially neglected my training, but I have still be fairly active. I figure climbing up mountains a couple times a week instead of riding the chair lift helps with the cardio. I am not as strong of a climber as I was last year, but I will get there. I am having to rearrange some of my training though. I am using Friday as my universal rest day so I can make it through the long training days that are the weekend.
Since my weekends will consist of touring in the morning, it is why I moved to Utah, and then training in the afternoon. My body will be completely drained come Sunday night. The best part about it though is that I truly do not care. I am so stoked about the weekend since they are a blast. Who doesn’t love training?
On the backcountry snowboarding side of things, I have been able to check off some lines I have really wanted to. It was a good time going out with some friends and having a ball. Here are a few shots from this winter. (Photo credit attached when needed)
Photo: James Roh http://www.jamesroh.com/
Photo: James Roh http://www.jamesroh.com/
Now I am currently sitting at 23 weeks until my first Ironman race. Am I ready? NO! Will I be ready is the better question. The answer to that is absolutely. There is no way as I have come too far to not be ready. I day dream every day about the moment I cross the finish line and can call myself an Ironman.
I know that probably sounds pretty lame, but I have worked pretty hard in the last few years to change who I am inside and out. I will do another post about part of that which will be a little tough to write. So I fully plan to start updating the site much more frequent as it is officially training season. Oh on a side note I registered for the lottery to Kona. How cool would that be? Who wants to come with if I get in?
It has finally started to snow in the Wasatch! This is what I live for getting out in the snow with friends and having a great day. Last weekend it snowed 51” and it was deep. I do not have any photos from those days, but it was good. Today I went out with Ryan and we had a ball.
Starting the day out we were very skeptical as it was raining where we parked out car and it had been extremely hot at the end of the week. I was afraid where we wanted to go would have a nasty crust and be tracked out. Once we got onto the ridge we were pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t that bad and the snow was nice and soft. GAME ON!
We skinned up Mill D to hit Reynolds Peak. We rode this line last year, but it was extremely tracked out and not really that fun. We wanted redemption on it for sure. Here is the view skinning in.
I do love the views you see here. Simple picture but I love snow covered trees.
Here is what we wanted to ride though. Reynolds Peak. It is a nice steep but short pitch. I still would love to hit this without a single track and full of powder.
I will not bore this thread up with words since we all love some stoke. At the end though is a short video of the ride.
I know it has been awhile but wow is really all I can say. I did not think I would be as busy as I have been. It was a nice fall here in Utah full of stress and work. The stressful part should just about be over. Good news though, I bought a house out of all of it! I have been looking to purchase a home since May sometime I believe. It took a long time. I believe I ended up making 8 separate offers on homes. The housing market is crazy in Utah. I am so happy to have a home and here is a photo below. Once I finish painting and such I might throw more photos up.
The best part about it being November though is that snow is on the way. It snowed back in October and I was able to go out with a couple buddies for some turns. We had a good crew that traveled up to Snowbasin Ski Resort as they were hit with over 40” of snow. It was a long taxing day that had me spent at the end. We climbed over 3500’ vertical feet, had some great views, and even had some really nice turns in.
Here is the sun rising as we were skinning up the hill.
Another shot of skinning up to a different ridge.
A photo looking down a chute that tried to kill me. I wanted fresh turns so I was eyeing a chute to the far lookers right. Well apparently I didn’t study the terrain good enough and I wasn’t far enough over. I thought this was just a blind rollover. I will say it was not and instead cliffed out. I am pretty sure if Doug from, http://snurfer.blogspot.com/ , hadn’t yelled at me to not drop it, I would have been done for. Thanks again Doug!
Training starts next month for http://ironmancda.com/ I am nervous but extremely excited. After watching Kona on NBC a couple weeks ago, I am so excited. I won’t lie I started to tear up a little bit just watching people cross the finish line that have had the goal to become and Ironman. It is so moving.
Oh I am now not going to do Ironman Arizona and instead do Vineman. http://www.vineman.com/triathlon.htm I am super excited about this one as it is in wine country. It should be a good time and I might as well drink a few glasses of wine to be classy afterwards since I know I am a classy guy HA! That will be two full iron distance triathlons around a month of each other. This next season will be nuts. I will do a full post on what I have planned though later.
I know that I have been away, but now that I am done with the home buying stuff hopefully I will have more time. I have a couple of posts in the works so there won’t be as long of a break between posts I promise. Juggling training for an Ironman and trying to get on snow will be tough. I have a couple winter trips planned to snowboard. Life is crazy but it is the way I like it.
~Think Snow
Fall is officially here in Utah. In order to properly welcome it, I decided to go for a nice run in the mountains. This was a perfect opportunity to clear my mind and snap some photos. The aspens were full in color and a nice nip was in the air. It was a short run of just 2.4 miles, but it did have a climb of 2,300 vertical feet. The best thing about fall being in the air is that it will start snowing soon. No worries, I will post a bunch of snow stoke this year hopefully. While on the run I did stop a few times to take a breather and snap some photos and here they are.
On the way up looking back into Big Cottonwood Canyon
Single Track…..
Aspens are popping.
Looking Northwest from the ridge towards the Great Salt Lake.
This is the reason why I love Utah!
Gotta head back down before it gets dark!
All and all it was a super fun run that I desperately needed. I think I am going to try a similar run this weekend, but run much further this time since I am not constrained by time.
The tri team, Team Blonde Runner or TBR for short, decided to put together a team to compete in the inaugural Colorado Ragnar Relay. Let’s just say I came in not knowing what to think and had a complete blast. There were a few issues with over half of our team dropping out so we were left with 4 people on the team racing and we were able to find another group of 6. One of my teammates Julia, was able to get her friend Brandon to race with us. So there were just 5 of us in Van 2. This is a good looking group of people in a van if I say so myself.
Since I have never ran a Ragnar before, I had a few issues with not knowing to bring. While I could have read the “Ragnar Bible” I opted to not do this. I am a guy after all and I know everything so I would be prepared. We will say I was not as prepared as I figured I would be. No sleeping bag, pillow, or an idea how the entire event works. I learned by fire how the entire thing works.
Ragnar Colorado was a 200ish mile relay that stretched from Breckenride, Colorado to Snowmass, Colorado. The views were almost as breathtaking as the hill climbs were. Since we were in Van 2, we were able to start a little later in the day since Van 1 was the first team to run. This allowed us to get to Colorado a little later.
We ended up leaving Utah around 4ish. We stopped for an awful prerace meal at Texas Roadhouse. Turrible decision if I say so myself. This ended up biting a couple people later on in the race. The chicken fingers were not a smart choice. We arrived to Frisco, CO around 2 am and with some confusion on where we were going to stay, we chose to stay at the Snowshoe Motel or the STD Inn as I called it. I swear I have multiple STDs just from sleeping on top of the sheets and using the towel to dry off.
We were able to wake up around 7 and since it was Race Day I was excited. I woke up at 6 and was SUPER restless. I think I made everyone annoyed since I had trouble lying still and be quite. I know that surprises everyone that I was not able to be quiet or still.
When we finally left we grabbed an awesome breakfast from a local diner. How can you not want to run on a HUGE breakfast burrito? We still had several hours before we were to begin so we made the trek over to Brek to check out the start area. Since our team already started the race, we just hung out for a few minutes before a last minute trip to the grocery store and headed to Copper Mountain to meet Van 1 at the exchange point. Below is the start area at Breckenridge.
Arriving at Copper it was COLD. We checked in and watched it rain. It continued to get colder I swear, but I was ready to run. I knew going into the run I would run more than the rest of the people in my van. Since a team member dropped out a couple days before, I said I would turn mine into an Ultra. This would have me running 6 legs compared to everyone else’s 3.
Leg 1 was fairly intense. It involved running up and over Eagle Pass. Eagle Pass is around 10,700 Vertical Feet. Let’s just say it was TOUGH! Since I did King’s Peak the weekend before, I figured it would help me running at such a high elevation. I don’t think I have ever took breaths as deep or hard as I did while running up hill to get over the pass. Here is the Garmin Data from my first leg. I also got a sweet pint glass at the end of my leg. I was stoked on a new pint glass. The photo is the view from where my leg started.
5 kills on this run.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/221098510
There was a break of 3 runners before I was able to run my next leg. Below is a photo of me hanging out waiting to run again.
This one wouldn’t be as bad in terms of vert or mileage so I was happy about that. I at least thought that. The run actually was terrible. I was under nourished and that affected me. I could not get my breathing under control either. If I was not taking a light breath, my chest was pounding. This caused me to continuously cough. It was rather annoying if I say so myself. 3 miles in 26 minutes. Really? What a joke. I blame the walking I had to do. You can see my heart rate was super high from the Garmin data. I got chicked. Yes, I got chicked on this route and my team made sure to harass me over that. I HATE BEING CHICKED! I should have tripped her….
0 Kills on this run
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/221098515
In between my second and third legs, we were able to go to a Rec center to catch some sleep. Here is where it would have been nice to have had a sleeping bag. D’Oh! I messed up if I say so myself. I ended up throwing my puffy jacket on and using an old stinky running shirt as a pillow. Not ideal….
The running was still at night at least. My third leg was a nice night stroll along the Colorado River. SICK! It ran parallel with I-70 as well. One thing I love about Colorado is the amount of trails. There are so many paved trails to either bike or run on. This leg really had me feeling lethargic so I took a few walk breaks. I was thinking though I should have either taken a weekend off sometime in the last month to recover or actually trained for this run?
4 kills on this run
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/221098522
The forth leg was sick. I got to run while the sun was rising. Who would not want to do that. I know that is so good for the soul, but when you are completely exhausted it is tough to improve your moral. I got into a dark place on this run. I got passed several times by some really strong runners. I was stoked for them, but mentally reminded myself that they were probably only doing 3 legs. I had to keep energy in the tanks since they talked about the last leg was BRUTAL! When the sun started to rise, I took my headlamp off and was able to focus on making the best of the end of the run. That helped out tremendously.
2 Kills on this run
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/221098527
The fifth leg started our third round of legs. This means the beginning of the end. YES!!! Almost time to be done! This was a short 2.4 mile run. There were people on my team offering to take this one from me. Is they crazy? Why would I give up my shortest run? This run sucked too since it was mostly uphill and in the hot sun. The sun started to beat me down as well as my moral. I started thinking more and more about the last leg. I knew I needed to keep energy in the tanks. This run sucked because of that. I didn’t see anyone on the course at all unfortunately. 9:15 min/mile yes I suck at life…….
0 kills on this run.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/221098533
Last leg! That is what I tried to the book said it was an 8.3 mile run. That isn’t bad I have done tons of 8 mile runs. Thinking that though brings a smile to my face. I remember a year and a half ago an 8 mile run sounds like death. The finish line was in Snowmass Village so all I had to do was make it there.
The run started out at a park and then transferred to a trail called the Rim Trail. A single track….. I love trail running in my trail shoes. In street shoes not so much. Clearly, I should have read the book even more. I didn’t pack my trail shoes since I figured I wouldn’t see any. Huge mistake I will say. The trail was very tough. It involved running up a mountain then along a ridge. When you see the finish line, it dropped down and you had to run up another mountain. This ridge was so beautiful. This was my favorite but more challenging run for sure on the course. Here are some photos I took with the phone.
The downhill is where I shined on this trail. On the uphill I only passed 2 people. That isn’t too bad for wanting to die I guess. I really just flew down the mountain. The scree was pretty bad in some turns and I almost biffed it a few times. That would have been bloody I know. The trail emptied out onto a road where I was able to see more competitors. Don’t let me see you in front of me. My pride makes me pass you.
Running through the Snowmass village was so sick! All of the people cheering as you are running through the shopping areas and such really helped push me. Here is me with a nice runner’s face about to cross the finish line. Look at the determination haha.
12 Kills on this run BOOM!
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/221098546
I was so relieved to be finished. I just sat down next to the finish line and laid there. I didn’t want to move. My team though was smart enough to remind me it was beer time. So I had to go have a nice beer while I basked in my ultra accomplishment. My first Ragnar was an Ultra Ragnar. Sick especially for not training at all. Nothing beats winging it haha. So I had to have a nice beverage to celebrate.
Highlights of the Race:
I really got to know the people on my tri team better. That was really nice. Singing “Call Me, Maybe” with the hot girls from Boulder/Denver always a good time. I should have gotten their number haha. Seeing a Fox eat some trash was pretty cool. Sneaky little guy. Knowing that I could carry my team felt good.
What I learned:
I learned a lot about needing to eat more. I didn’t eat much between my legs that were closer together. I know I didn’t take in nearly enough calories for the entire race. I ran 31.67 miles with over 5,000 vertical feet climbed. I was hammered when I was done.
Would I race this again:
You bet I am! I am trying to form an Ultra Team for Ragnar Tennessee in November 2013. Several friends from back home have shown interest so it should be super fun if I can form a team. I would love to do another Ragnar this year, but I don’t think I can. Next year I will run another one though.
Total Stats:
31.67 Miles Ran
5,080 Vertical Feet Climbed
23 Kills by me alone.
Today was the day! My A Race of the year. While I have had a busy racing season, this is the race that I was excited about. I still have races to compete in, but nothing will compare to my first half-ironman. I learned so much about myself, my training, and racing. This race was full of highs and lows from a mental stand point for me for sure. I will get into all of that further down. One main thing I realized, I am not as good at longer courses, but I like them more than a sprint or Olympic distance tri.
I had been very excited about this race since it is the furthest triathlon I had done before. I was also nervous to an extent since I had slacked off on training severely due to a nice case of burnout. I really do not want to ever run 2 marathons in 3 weeks again. I also have been attempting to find and buy a house so training had slacked off due to the time involved with this process.
Once it was go time, I knew I would be ready though. To make sure I would be ready, I even painted my toe nails for good luck. I figured if I got black toe nails I would rather have something covering them up. Well the race was in Provo, UT which is around 45 minutes from my house so I had to wake up extra early to pick up Ryan for us to get to the race. Waking up at 4 am is rough, but I had trouble sleeping since I was more like a kid on Christmas. Every hour I seemed to wake up and look at my phone to see if I could go ahead of wake up.
Finally it was time to get up and get everything ready. I was smart and organized everything while I was awake the previous night. I know I would have forgotten something had I waited until the morning. Once I woke up, I grabbed my usual race day breakfast of: Coffee, Bagel with peanut butter, and an Ensure shake. So far I have not found a breakfast that beats that on race day.
We arrived at the Utah Lake State Park around 5:30 or so which allowed us plenty of time to get everything ready. Utah mornings are always beautiful
I am a firm believer in arriving way too early so I don’t have to rush in getting everything ready in transition. Here are the bikes racked and ready to play.
Arriving so early allowed us to get a quick run in as well as listen to the pre-race instructions. After getting into the water to warm up as well is was 7:15 and time to roll. The swim started in beautiful Utah Lake where the water was a warm 75 degrees. I swear that the water was warmer than the outside air. The swim started out pretty uneventful with very few kicks to the head or on my body. I think I did hit someone, sorry about that, at the beginning on the swim. Here is how the lake looked right before the swim started.
When the swim started, my arms were tired. I knew this was not what I wanted, but I figured if I would push on things would get better. I knew that eventually the muscles would warm up and the soreness would go away. Finally it did occur and I was able to hold a steady pace. I tried to start slow and feel I did since I did not want to get the heart rate going too fast since it would be a long day.
While the swim wasn’t bad it wasn’t good. I had a problem with spotting the various buoys. For some reason I would continue to swim straight for it, but I swear I wasted some energy on the swim due to swimming way to the left of each buoy. No one was around me since I was so far to the left but I continued to just swim. The swim was a two loop course and it wasn’t congested until the second lap. There were still a lot of people starting the swim when I made it around for my second loop, and traffic became more of an issue. The bigger problem I had on the second lap though was the sun. The sun had now risen over the mountain and was right in my eyes when I was swimming east.
I started to swim along the shore while people were still out in the channel. Again I had trouble swimming to the left of everything. This was rather annoying, but I was totally glad to finally get on land since generally my swim is the weakest. I ended the swim leg with an official time of 46:25 for the 1.2 mile distance.
The transition was right off of the water so that was super convenient. I always hate when you have a quarter mile run or so to the transition area. There was also an indoor/outdoor carpet leading from the edge of the water to the transition gate. Once I was in transition it was time to grab more nutrition and throw the bike shoes on. This is where I figured I could make up some time on people.
Out on the bike it seemed I was getting passed an awful lot. I generally do not get passed by many people, but I learned on longer courses I get passed a whole lot more than I do on shorter distances. The bike was a 56 mile out and bike course that was relatively flat so that allowed me to cruise. I was moving pretty well until the last 15 miles or so and then the bladder became painful being in the aero position. I had to use the restroom since I got on the bike but I managed to hold it.
The road was pretty rough for the two miles before the turn around. I lost some stuff out of my rear pack. Sorry about littering but I didn’t feel I could stop and turn around safely to pick up the trash. While rocking out the bike I counted at least 10 groups of people cheating. That really pissed me off since triathlons are really a race against yourself. How they were cheating you might ask? Drafting….. Come on people don’t draft that is against the rules and super lame.
The funny part about the entire ride is that is is the furthest I have ever ridden at once on my bike. I felt I handled it pretty well. The 56 miles took me an official time of 2:43:57. I was shooting for 3 hours on the bike so I was pretty happy with being over 16 minutes under my goal. When I look at the time though I get fairly frustrated since the last 18 miles or so went so slow since I could not handle being in aero, dumb bladder!
Finally it was time to dismount and throw some running shoes on. Since I am a confident runner, I felt I had this in the bag. In my thinking is all I have to do is run the worst half-marathon of my life and I would get a 5:35 time. That’s it if I run a 2 hour 13.1 mile distance I would smash my overall time goal of 6 hours. On my way out of transition you best know I stopped by the porta potty since I opted to not relieve myself while riding my bike. It was tempting I won’t lie, but I decided I should hold it.
Getting out on the run my legs felt really good. I was amazed how well they felt. I turned the cadence up the last quarter mile on the bike the help freshen them up. That was smart thinking on my part. The only thing I didn’t have going for me I felt was the sun beating down on me. Oh pshh I have ran in the heat many of times. Then boom first mile I throw down a 8:48 even with a bathroom break. Now these are the times I need to SMASH my goal. Second mile was an 8:40. I thought I had this in the bag.
Then about 2.5 miles into the run it hit me. I am exhausted. Maybe I should walk I thought. So I walk. I figured I would run to mile 3 and take a GU. Once I got to mile 3 I decided I didn’t need a GU. Maybe I was delirious at this point? Notice how I haven’t talked much about nutrition. On the bike I took in a total over 520 calories. Dumb right? I’m invincible though HAHA!
I am about to manage a nice slow jog/walk method. The whole time I am screaming at my legs to keep moving. My legs weren’t tired like they are in marathons, but my entire body was drained. I needed energy but I still wasn’t taking in calories. I had well over 1000 calories on me too at the time.
The first lap was pretty fun except for the double digit minute miles I was throwing down. That was so frustrating. I do not think I have ever been that fatigued in my life. I did try some Coke on the first lap and boy that was amazing. I was very full off of fluids mainly water at this point and my stomach started to feel like a washing machine. The Coke settled the stomach like I never would have imagined.
When I got to the split for the finish chute of the second lap I was heart broken. I wanted the race to be over since I was so tired. I made the turn and felt I was picking up the pace. I had to keep remembering all of the mental tricks I learned in reading mental training for triathlon books. They helped out so much. I had to keep smiling. I knew it would get better eventually. Ryan passed me about two miles into the second lap and I was in a really dark place at that point.
I had to reach deep to pull myself out of it since I was contemplating just walking the whole thing. I still hadn’t had a GU or solid food yet on the run. Only calories I had been in the cup of coke and Gatorade I drank. Finally I grabbed a Bonk Breaker out of my pocket and ate part of it. Boy those things are DRY when you do not have water nearby. When I finally reached the next aid station I grabbed a couple cups of water to get my mouth moist. It worked a little bit and I was able to run some. I got passed a lot on the second loop.
I had to keep telling myself to stay strong and it will all be worth it. When I finally got off of the road I started to feel better since I was running more in the shade. The shade helped boost my ego and I ran with a smile. It is so amazing how much a simple smile will boost your moral on the run. I was still walking a lot, but when I watch read 13.1 miles I wasn’t at the finish line! UGH!!!
I got out of the woods and made a turn onto the road. Could it be it I am almost to the finish chute. At this point I am on cloud 9 and just so stoked. I knew I was in a dark area 4 miles before this, but I pulled myself out of it. I might not have ran the most respectable half marathon, ok I know it was AWFUL, but I finished it. I am not proud at all of my running time. I didn’t follow my nutrition schedule on the bike or the run. My official half marathon time was a 2:21:44. Slow….
Crossing the finish line was so amazing though. I did it. I finished a half-iron so now I know I can totally do a full Ironman next year. I learned more than I ever thought I would learn in this race. I learned how to be mental tough when you are done. I pulled myself out of a dark hole. I have always struggled with pulling myself out of a dark place in a race or training.
You better believe though that when I crossed the finish line, I drank chocolate milk. Nothing beats chocolate milk after a long distance work out. Best. Recovery. Drink. EVARR!!!! I just sat there afterwards while my body stiffened up. I tried to stretch but it was a pathetic attempt. When we finally got to the car I had beers in a cooler. Well the cooler leaked all of the ice/water out and we had hot beers. Since I was afraid I would end up crashing after drinking a hot beer I opted to not have one. Overall, the race was an amazing experience. I finished with an official time of 5:55:20.
Boom Proof. Garmin!
After the race, pink calf sleeves and all. Balla.
What I learned:
I learned so much like I said earlier. I really wanted to try Coke out on the run to see how it was affect me. It was a positive thing for sure. I also learned to follow my nutrition schedule. I designed a nutrition schedule to follow it. This dumb dumb didn’t follow it at all and I paid the price. I now know to eat on the bike, take in GU at least every 15 minutes like I had planned on the bike. Also take GU on the run. Don’t put it in your pocket and not use it. That is just dumb.
What I Enjoyed:
The entire setup was really nice. Race Tri does a really good job organizing. I could tell that the majority of the turns on the bike were swept so that meant a lot to me. It is generally the little things that matter the most to me. I wish they would have had more than two porta potties at the transition area since there was a long line before the race started. It was a great venue though all around. It was truly a flat and fast race.
Would I race this event again:
Yes! Absolutely Yes! As my first half I was blown away. I had such a ball. I was worried about the amount of aid station on the bike, but it really wasn’t a big deal. I was so happy to have this race behind me. It has given me so much confidence to not just do an Ironman but do well at an Ironman. I am ready now and I can’t wait to start training for Ironman Coeur D’Alene.
It has been a month since I have posted anything which means there is less than two weeks from my first half-ironman distance race. 70.3 miles of pure joy I will face on August 25, 2012. I have not put the training in that I originally thought I would have been able to. I mostly blame burnout on this. It seems I continue to look for excuses to not train. My favorite is that it is too hot outside. What kind of sissy am I using this excuse?
In order to become an Ironman, don’t I have to relish in all weather conditions? It has been extremely hot summer here and work seems to beat me down to the point I don’t want to do anything after work. I will be ready though. I mainly am going to rely on my mental strength to get me through the race. I know it is going to hurt, especially the run. My running fitness isn’t where it needs to be. I have had a couple really good runs in the last couple months, but I have had countless awful runs. I love to run but it is frustrating seeing 8:00+ on my lap times.
I was originally shooting for a certain time, but I think I might end up scaling the goal time back to more realistic times. I have swum but not enough, biked but not enough, and ran but not enough. Now I am about to run a half-ironman. This will surely be a mental test for me. Over the last year or so I have gotten much tougher mentally where I enjoy pain and hills.
Getting that certain time was what I thought I wanted, but now I am ready for it to be over. My motivation is low, sure, but, I have done tougher things. It is only 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile ride, and then a 13.1 mile run. A year ago I would have fainted thinking of doing this distance. I am not nervous at all about the race like I am for marathons. I know I can do this and I expect to have fun but also do well. Sometimes it sucks putting pressure on myself, but in order to get better the pressure is required. Look at this photo, Provo=FLAT
I will get lucky though since the Utah Half-ironman, http://www.racetri.com/the-utah-half/, is a VERY flat course. I will not taper like I have for every other A race this year. I am just going to go out and give it my best though. I will finish and hopefully do OK. I know I will be frustrated with my time, but my body is CRAVING relaxation. After the race though I can focus on things I have neglected all summer, friends and hiking. I haven’t even picked up my golf clubs this year it is just train, train, and more training.
I have had a couple relay races I did the past couple weeks. My favorite out of the two was the R-Scape Relay, http://www.r-scape.com/ ,it was so much fun! I got to do it with my tri team and it consisted of 10K loops on trails from 6PM to noon the next day. There was hardly any sleep involved and some good times with friends. I was not happy with my running times on the splits, but there was a lot of vertical. However, putting in 3 laps really helped my running confidence out. I haven’t ran over 8 miles since my last marathon. Yea I can’t believe it either. I didn’t get chicked either so that makes races much more enjoyable.
After the big half-ironman, I am going to take time to just relax and run some for fun races with friends, i.e. mud runs. I also have a couple things I want to do before it starts snowing in terms of hiking/trail running. I am planning on hitting all four major peaks from the Salt Lake skyline in 24 hours. I do not know the mileage this will take or the vertical, but it seems like it will be an adventure. I also plan on hitting kings peak in a day with a buddy flying out from Tennessee. That poor sap doesn’t know what he is in for to trail run the highest peak in Utah.
Once these adventures are over, I am hoping the snow starts to fly. There are several big lines that are on the list this year to hit. I will make a post later about the lines that are on the list, but there are several. I am hoping this will be an amazing winter. I will start getting serious about Ironman training around the first of the year. Balancing snowboarding and training is going to be difficult since the volume for a full Ironman is so much more than just a marathon. I know it will all be worth it though.
Just remember no matter what you do, Think Snow and how awesome this would look with snow.
