Crunch Time

Here we are at the end of May, and I've been falling behind on my workouts. Again.

I still get out to keep myself in shape, but I'm recommitting to the process right now. I'm forcing myself back on track, and making time for my workouts. I think I'm at a point where I need to make a decision on my priorities and commit to saying "No," to things that don't fit inside those priorities.

That's what I'm finding to be the hardest part about being 26. There are so many things that I could do, so many things I want to do, a few things I really should do, a lot of things I told myself I would do when I was younger, and only time to do a couple of these things. I'm seeing older guys than me around me who seem to have their priorities sorted out, like it's no big deal. I'm sure they went through a similar period of paring things down, but it doesn't necessarily make it easier.

Compound that with impending large scale life changes, and you can see where I might miss a workout or two. No more. Because...

With just over a month until my A race (Muncie), it's really getting into crunch time. I'm seeing my workout times increasing through the week, and I'm really pleased with how my fitness is coming along. I've started experimenting with my nutrition to make sure I've got that dialed in for the bike and run, I've started searching for missing pieces of equipment to add to my arsenal (can anyone say feed bag?!) and I've been working on my mental focus as I'm training.

While Muncie is over a month away, Cicero is just under a month away. I had a great brick workout this last Saturday, and after running some quick numbers I'm really excited to see how my time shapes up. N won't be around to see the race, but I will be providing her with a full race report when I pick her up from the airport that evening!

I'm now officially signed up for Winona Lake, and I'm reexamining the course in my mind. My fitness is up to snuff for these two races, so I'm going to work on my focus and nutrition in these two races. They're just long enough that I'll need some additional carbs in order to make it through strong, plus it will give me an opportunity to see what I like and what I don't.

I just bought a grab bag of nutrition items at The Runner's Forum in Avon, Indiana last week, I'll provide a picture and some thoughts as I go through and try each individual item.

Over the weekend I used a Clif energy gu to supplement my brick, as well as some BASE Performance electrolyte salt to help me stay hydrated. If you've never used the BASE salt, I would absolutely 100% recommend it. If you're doing an Ironman branded race, it'll be there for you on the course. If you're coming to Muncie, I'll be in the BASE tent, come by and see me and I'll hook you up with a sample tube.

The salt tasted, well, like salt. For whatever reason it surprised me at first that it was so salty, I thought it was my sweat that was influencing the taste, but I realized I was eating salt, and that it should taste salty. Duh. I noticed the effects within minutes, my legs began to feel more energetic, my sweat level increased slightly and I felt cooler overall. I kept sucking in water and I felt great! I was only out for 2 hours, and I used one finger dip of the salt, and that felt about right to me. I'll review the serving recommendations and see if I need to adjust, but that felt pretty good.

The Clif gu I used was a Lemon Lime flavored gu. I've used their Razz gu before, and liked the taste and consistency, and the story was no different here. It's got enough sugar in it to provide that initial burst of energy, and the carbs to provide a longer lasting kick as you progress through your workout. The taste is exactly what you would expect from Lemon Lime, a great citrus flavor that is neither overpoweringly sour nor underwhelmingly weak. So many times the problem with a Lemon Lime flavor is that it's too weak, not the case here. Consistency is on point. I felt like I didn't need to chew the gu up to get it to go down, but I prefer to chew it a little bit just to make sure I'm not guzzling the whole thing down. It didn't dry my mouth out or make it so sticky that I needed a drink of water to wash it down like other brands have, which is great on the run course where you may or may not have water with you.

I've got plenty more single serve items waiting for me to try, and I'm sure I'll have an update next week as I get back to the road and to prioritizing training. I've got some new gear on the way, including a BASE Performance tri kit, and a Rudy Project transition bag! New gear will be acquired, tested, and reviewed here, so keep looking for updates!

Later on...

Whirlwind!

Another whirlwind couple of weeks here in tattooedtri-land!

First and foremost, I want to give some shoutouts to some friends who were racing this weekend! A BIG congratulations goes out to Levi for finishing his first Ironman in Texas, where he also raced with Dylan, another first time Ironman! Chuck was out doing a 70.3 in Knoxville, and Robert and Jim both set PRs for 70.3 distance in Chattanooga! Craig set a PR in a 13.1 this weekend as well, blazing fast at around 1:32. Congrats to all!

Anyone who does endurance or distance events knows the importance of cross training. Some of us choose to lift weights, some choose yoga, others might even choose boxing or other endurance-based impact sports. For a while before I started doing tris, I played rugby. I was sort of forced to stop after breaking my hand in Louisville, the week after witnessing a pretty horrific broken leg in Cincinnati. N decided enough was enough, and that I needed to find a new way to stay fit. Anyway.

So while many of us get to choose our ideal cross training activity, some of us are "lucky" enough for their job to qualify as cross training. Being the Audio Visual Director at a relatively small downtown hotel, I am in the unique situation of cross training nearly every day before I get home to do my regular workouts. This past week (which went by without a blog post... apologies) was a fine example of how it's possible for me to not do my tri workouts for an entire week, and still manage to not only maintain my fitness but even make forward strides.

We had our largest show in a couple of years last week, which meant I was tasked with setting up (with a lot of help from a few other people) lots of very heavy AV equipment, and running my tail end off making sure everything went as well as possible. It's very easy to estimate that I walked in excess of 5 miles every day of this show, and some days more, over the course of 12+ hour days. Not only that, but in the evenings N, myself and our family were preparing for a garage sale this past weekend. I was in "go" mode from 7 am - 11 pm every day, and sometimes later.

Yes, I'm kind of complaining. Yes, this was kind of a good thing. And yes, I am still kind of complaining. This is my blog, dammit, I'll do what I want!


Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago a couple of my buddies started up Club 5280, a fun and semi-competitive get-together on the first and third Sundays of each month to run a mile to track our improvements. The first week we did group starts by estimated times, what an interesting experiment that was. Being a group of distance runners, everyone seeded themselves based on their average mile times on distance runs. This lead to some serious underestimations of speed, and made it interesting.

The first week I ran a 5:41. I was thrilled. I haven't run a mile just to see how fast I could run a mile in years. So, coming into this week, even though I felt a bit under-prepared, I was expecting an improvement. I had rested up on Saturday, and even got to sleep in a bit that morning, so I was well rested, though not thoroughly.

We took an interesting approach this week, doing a reverse start. This meant that the slowest timed runner started first, and we all started at the interval we were in front of the next finisher the week before. If I finished 10 seconds ahead of the next runner last time, I now started 10 seconds behind them. This was supposed to lead to an exciting group finish, but we got a little more spread out that planned. All in all it was certainly a fun way to do it, and I even improved my time to an estimated 5:31. I forgot to reset my watch, but after looking at my time the previous week and estimating based on the people around me and my warm-up pace, that's what I came up with.

I paid for that quick mile yesterday. My quads were pretty sore most of the day yesterday, but after some water and stretching they loosened up. I missed that soreness, and I got a much-needed mood boost from the endorphins.

More importantly, we are about 30 days out from my first tri of the year: Cicero. N won't be able to attend this year, but I will have some friends running as well, and possibly in attendance. I'm kicking into a training binge, as work is slowing down a bit for the summer and other commitments are as well. I'm still too far out to look too closely at goal times, but I think it's safe to say I'm looking at sub-1:00 this year.

Summer means heat and humidity in Indiana, so I'm getting prepared by stocking up on BASE salt. This stuff saved people in Texas this weekend, and I'm sure Robert and Jim both can sing it's praises after Chatt this weekend. If you're curious what it is, what it does, and why I use it, contact me! I've posted a good deal of my race schedule, so come and find me at a race, comment here, send a telegram... do something to get a hold of me! I may even send you a tube to try out!

As always, I'll try to keep up on posting these. As race season kicks up and training ramps up as well, it will become more sparse, but I'll try to at least post pre- and post-race reports to keep you all in the loop. This is usually where I promise to post more, and maybe even do a product review, but let's be honest: I ain't got no time for that. I'm lucky to get one of these out per week, so you're going to have to just be happy with that. I love you for reading this, and you should love yourself by getting outside and being active! With weather this nice, don't stay inside!

Later on...

Indy Mini Recap & Update

May is already shaping up to be a great month! Training is ramping up, the weather is getting nice, and races are just around the corner.

This last weekend I ran the Indy 500 Festival Mini Marathon with my wife! It was her first half marathon, and she had been training to run it for a few months. She put in a lot of hard work, and she finally got to show it all off by completing the run.

We picked up our packets complete with bibs, shirts, papers and all kinds of other goodies the night before. The Mini also does an expo with the race, where different local retailers and other companies can come out and show off their products, sell their products, and generally be a support. It's a really neat experience, and it's open to the public, not just the runners. If you're in the area around this time, I highly recommend checking it out if you can.

This is my one gripe with the Mini, and I'll make it brief: I didn't get the correct size shirt that was marked on my paperwork. I had a Medium marked down, but we discovered that I was given a Large after we got back to the hotel, which is way too big. If I would have known they didn't have Mediums left, I would have gone for a Small. Very minor gripe, but still frustrating, because I don't really have a use for a Large shirt.

We were able to get a great rate at a hotel downtown, so we stayed very close to the action. We had a good dinner and went to bed early to get some rest. Morning came early, but we had laid everything out and packed up the night before, so we had plenty of time for some granola, bananas and coffee in the morning before heading down to the start line.

Over 35,000 people participated last weekend, making it the largest half marathon in the country (at least that's what they told us over the loudspeakers). I believe it, as it was pretty tough to get around once you got down near the start area. We found our corral, and N stayed there while I headed over to the UPS trucks to check my car keys and our phones so we knew where they were when we finished.

I used that time to warm up a bit, and ran into a few friends! There was limited open space in which to actually jog to warm up, and I ended up bouncing between quite a few people, but got warm and found my way back to the corral where N was waiting.

We were in Wave 3, and had decided that we were going to run it together. We heard the Elite runners go, then Wave 1 and Wave 2, and suddenly we were moving toward the start line! As we got closer, the crowd started to move a little faster, and eventually we were jogging over the start line. We started our watches and waved to the cameras!

Miles 1-3 we did at a good pace, but I found that all the water and coffee we drank that morning had run right through me and I needed to use a port-a-potty. I told N to go on ahead and I would catch up to her. That was not my best idea.

I finished my business and took off to find N. We had been running around a 10-11 minute mile pace, so I figured that if I took off at a 7 minute mile pace, I would catch up to her pretty quickly. Well, I didn't realize how long it had taken me at the john, and before long I thought I had gone too far. Keep in mind, the people around me are all running around probably 11-13 minute miles right now, and I'm whizzing by at a 7 minute pace.

So I get up the road a ways, and think I've gone too far. I decide to turn around and jog back toward the johns to see if I can maybe spot N that way. I am now running backwards on the course, past all of the people I just passed. The looks I was catching were not the nicest, but semi-understanding at this point. It was pretty clear that I was looking for someone, but I could still feel some heat.

I got all the way back to the toilets, and realized I hadn't gone far enough forward to catch N. So, realizing that I needed to go a lot farther forward, I took off again at a 7 minute pace, going with traffic. Passing all those people that I had already passed twice now, including once in the wrong direction. Make that the 3rd time I've passed them.

I came up on someone I knew in a suburb and figured that I had maybe gone far enough this time to catch N, so I decided to stand and chat and see if maybe N would run past me. We stand and talk, and cheer on the runners, congratulate friends that we see run by. I'm standing there for about 10 minutes or so, and I start to realize that I'm catching some really nasty looks, and then I realize that the people that are running past are now watching me for the 4th time, except I'm standing and cheering them on this time.

After about 10 minutes, I decide that I didn't go far enough forward again, and that I need to just push forward and see if I can find N that way. So, now that these people have watched me run past them going forward, backward, forward again, then run past me standing and cheering them on, I am now going to be running past them one more time. This time, they did not hold back their displeasure.

"Here comes THAT guy again," "Hey, your shoe is untied!" "Ugh, what an asshole." I got all of the above and probably a few more as I once again ran by these folks at about a 7 minute mile pace. Keep in mind, this is at the 6 or 7 mile marker of the race, so we are well into the dread zone here.

After a couple of miles, I finally caught up with N on the Speedway. For those who are unfamiliar, the Mini goes around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, even crossing the famous bricks. I was really glad that we were able to cross the bricks together, and we continued on from there.

N definitely got grumpy with me as I was running with her, and understandably so. I danced and sang at times, which I'm sure felt like taunting to the other runners around me, so I cooled it around mile 11 to keep the hatred to a minimum. I think I had already pissed off enough people earlier that day, I didn't want to make any more enemies.

We crossed the line together, happy to have taken the journey together! N was amazingly strong, and I could not be more proud of her and her journey. She has provided a lot more inspiration than she probably realizes, and her support of me has helped lift my performance to heights I didn't think I could achieve. I'm sure she's going to be running more soon, but for now she's taking a very well-deserved break from pounding the pavement.

As far as the rest of my training goes, I'm happy to report that it's going well! I participated in a very fun event with Club 5280 on Sunday night, and posted a mile time of 5:41. I'm back in the pool and feeling strong, with the best feeling form I've had in years, and I'm back on the bike and getting things straightened out to hopefully buy some time there too. My run is coming along quite nicely, and I'm really starting to feel good about this season and the races I've selected. I'm already thinking about new challenges in 2016, but that will be another post.

In other news, I've signed up for Ironman Muncie 70.3 and Cicero, so I've got 2 races on the books officially. I'm signing up for Winona Lake later this month, and maybe a couple of surprise bookings coming up as well. I've got to verify dates and cost, and I'll be making moves on those soon.

I did get to try a few new and special things at the Mini expo, and there will likely be a post later this week about one of my new favorite BASE Performance products. Later on...