December 1st, 2008 Day 1

Today's Celebrity Coach

Rerun

"Hey bitch, get in the water. Everyone knows yous a chubby bunny anyway. Just start strokin and kickin. When the water starts to turn brown, you'll know that your sweatin butter along with all the Scotch Ales you poured down your pie hole last week."

Scheduled

S: Long day

wu: 200swim, 200kick, 200pull, 200swim

main: 1x1500

cd: 4x50, each slower than last

R: 45min, easy pace

Today's Menu

Bowl of Ezekiel

1 Banana

1 Handful of Almonds

1 fistfull of Beef Jerky

Lunch: Bowl of brown rice with sauteed green beans and garlic

Dinner: Bowl of brown rice with sauteed green beans and garlic

2 cups of Rice Milk

1.5 Gallons of water

In anticipation for the early wake up and the inaugural workout for this endeavor, my sleep was restless last night and I wasn't feel fresh on the way to Steiner. Also, there was a thin wire of anxiety about the swim. Probably a little much to start with, but the swim was immediately forfeited to the trainer when I looked into the pool area. At 5:30 this morning, the place was a zoo. The East High swim team had occupied most of the lanes and what remained was filled with swimmers of various age and aptitude, probably all superior to mine. Well, that's not clear, but it's no place for a self conscious swimmer who doesn't even know if he'll be able to swim in a straight line, or do those somersaults at the end of the pool wall with some intimation of grace. So I'm looking at Wednesday for the first swim, the schedule appears to clear, and depending on how it goes, I'll be able to see if my abilities qualify for at least the Clydesdale lane in the Masters class three days a week.

I traded the flip-flops for some shoes and hopped on the trainer for about an hour and a half, no learning curve here. 90 min at 155 avg heart rate. A decent sweat, but not too strenuous.

This evening I ran be-headlamped for 3 miles at decent pace, out and back, along the City Creek road.

Tomorrow will look similar, but reverted. A run in the morning. Small chain ring work in the evening.

You may see Greer Hitch's name frequently throughout this blog. She'll be training with her husband and a few friends for Ironman AZ, and this will be her third Ironman event. This was what she bestowed for me today:

"A word to the wise about other training:

Start lifting. I’ve attached the weight workout that I used it my first year of training and it worked well. To start, just do it twice a week, and I’d suggest doing it on your swim days. DO NOT do it on your run days. Lifting helped me develop my run and bike significantly.

Make sure you have a plan for training that makes sense for the week. You should have a nice mix of swim, bike, run, lift, functional strength (attached). I use Saturday and Sunday as my large volume or “brick” days and Monday and Friday as my easy/off days. Saturday is usually my bike volume day and Sunday is my run volume day. This is how most triathletes train because you’re trying to show your body what it will be like to bike and then run. Take at least one day off per week (unless you’re really not feeling good and then take more off). Right now, one of the most important things to remember is to enjoy it. If you don’t feel like running, and you’d rather bike instead…then bike. Right now, you’re just building a nice solid base so you can hit it hard in May/June. And along those lines…remember, you have a while until May/June so don’t burn yourself out now because you need to be able to really start to pack it in around May/June, which means being fresh in mind and body.

Nutrition:

Cut out as much processed stuff you can right now. Every time you go to eat something think: how much processing did this have to go through before it’s entering my mouth? Of course you should still eat things that you like but give yourself a new awareness for what you’re putting in your body. This will really help you develop a nutrition plan for the race.

Speaking of which, make sure to start experimenting with nutrition right now. When you’re on the trainer for an hour and a half you should be downing at least 2 bottles of water and about a gel and a half (if you can tolerate gels) or you can supplement your water with Gatorade. Now, I’m not positive but I think Arizona will have Gatorade products out on the course. It should say somewhere on the website—they will tell you exactly what drink product they will have and what gels/bars they will have. START TRAINING WITH THOSE PRODUCTS NOW. I know that’s dramatic but so many people’s races go terribly because they have stomach issues. If you get nauseated out on the course, you might throw up and you’ll likely be unable to recover from that and the med folks will pull you…which would suck. Therefore, figure out what you can and can’t eat right now. For example, I know that I can tolerate a few gels during the course of the race (but not a lot). I know that if I mix those gels with solid food (like peanut butter and jelly on the bike and pretzels and cookies on the run) I’m good. I know that hydration wise, I need to go through about a water bottle an hour on the bike and ½ a bottle of Gatorade. I know that at each run station I will get one cup of water and one cup of Gatorade, and I will sip them but not finish off each cup. I know that I cannot have Coke on the run course until mile 13. I know all of this because I trained and trained and trained testing all of these products. Let me tell you, you will find out quite quickly what you can and cannot tolerate…your body let’s you know asap. As you gather this information over the next year, when you get to race day…you will know just what to have with you on the bike and just what you can and cannot eat on the run. This makes race day A LOT less stressful.

I know you didn’t ask for any advice, but I just get excited about this stuff!!

I'm in good company.