Catchup: 10mile PR, Meeting Ironman Jesse Sturino, Day off

Ran a 10 mile tempo run the other day. Felt a little lousy at the start, and kept pace down for HR > 155 for first 5 miles or so, running between 9:30 and 8:30 miles. Picked it up on the way back pretty good, finished 10 miles on an average 8 mile pace. Hammered last 3 miles. pretty amazing how i felt while sustaining back to back 6:40 miles.

Finally met Ironman rockstar Jesse Sturino in person yesterday. He is a champ. Great inspiration... he runs a 10 mile run in 60 minutes, with a break for a cramp. Awesome.

Got up early did a little reading on stocks/market I'm keeping on top of, and off to swim. Feeling good.... time for intervals 100 yards a pop for a mile or so... time to hammer it...

Great Day for Running

Got in a good run today. 12.5 miles, with a couple of hard miles in the middle. fastest mile was 6:50... should have been faster... grrr... I was pacing 6:34 for the last quarter mile. My goal was 6:30 miles this winter... not there yet, but getting closer. Want to be able to crush it on the 5k and 10k distances.

Anyway, averaged 7:51 on 12.5, which is probably a PR for me at that distance. I usually run pretty slow at that distance.

Felt very good at the end, despite some stomach aches around mile 8.

Stomach was a mess last night (over ate like a slob) but I still sneaked in a 1 hour bike on the Tacx Trainer holding 19+ pace. That really needed to be more like 21, but on a good day I think it would be.

On to the swim and maybe a short run tomorrow.

Killer Hill Run

Great run yesterday in Vieques, PR. 18.5 miles, ran end to end of route 200.

Crazy hills... burned a lot of matches on that run. held up okay though. good pace on the last mile of 9:15, which i would not have expected given how one of those huge hills felt on the way back.

The usual knee and foot soreness after running long, but after my first yoga session, I felt like a million bucks.

I am a huge believer in Active Recovery workouts! It works. Yoga is pretty interesting too. I will explore this more.

Short swim today in gorgeous clear water, could see the bottom 25 feet down clearly. little concerned about tides, currents, and reefs I was swimming through so kept it to a half mile and came back in.

Going to sneak in another good run tommorow AM before heading back to NYC.

AM Swim

Not sleeping much, tired again this AM. Popped two anhydrous caffeine tablets this AM to try and kick start it without a coffee. Not sure that worked, didnt feel it until I was driving to the office.

Knocked out a mile swim in 58 minutes. Sounds slower than it is, I do open turns and a mile in a pool has a lot of them. I should practice flip turns. Stil, in any case, it's too slow. All the time has to be made on the bike though.

I have been focusing on technique only for a while, and that is working. I was cruising nicely with minimal effort and low heart rate.

Traveling this weekend, so I'll hammer the bike this weekend with a Chris Lieto strength workout I saw online. Expecting it to be painful, but it's only an hour.

Rough ways to finsh a run...

Went for a run this afternoon. Great intentions, went out at a 6:10 pace... way to fast, but felt good enough to hold sub 7 for almost 2 miles. That was the good news.

The bad news is the salmon I ate at lunch was probably 2 weeks old in hindsight. My stomach was a mess, and it was HOT out. I havent run in heat in a long, long time. The northeast was brutal this winter, and I guess I am more used to running in cold.

The upshot... I blew up on this run, and walked the first time in a very long time... bagged a run. Just like they say, the negative thoughts pour in, and I am wondering how on earth I got into this, and how I can possibly complete the Ironman. Experience has taught me "I can" but today's experience suggested maybe not.

If that wasnt enough, I forgot my Garmin, and had to use the GPS and a Blackberry app to track it. Pretty ghetto by comparison.

We'll try again tommorow in the pool.

One good thing... I saw this video today.

Reminds me what I love about this Ironman thing... The closing scene in Rocky II has nothing on these guys....

Bike again. Abbreviated by Internet update of Tacx software!

Tacx software had an update to install this AM from the web... killed a solid 20 minutes of my clock. My legs were a little beat down from the day before's brick workout, so I knocked out a 1 hour ride at a decent pace.

Yesterdays ride I maxed 550 watts of power, which felt good (hard) but today was much lower max (not very useful anyway) and higher power output throughout. Of course, I rode the virtual rocky mountains, which are definitely more steep than the flats of the Florida Ironman.

Somehow I was pretty tired. I have to get some sleep, and off to run in NYC tommorow. See you on the east side waterfront downtown. 8 miles. I am thinking of 4 lactate threshold, and 4 back full tilt... see how fast I can make em...

did a great workout this am. brick'ed a 41 mile bike and a 4.5 mile run. first brick workout of the season. felt great. run was too easy. surprisingly so, given saturday was a 20.5 mile slugfest. pretty awesome way to start the day.

tomorrow's swim looks bad. early am breakfast meeting in ct... pool doesn't open early enough! perhaps improvise, and do some weights and a sprint running workout.

What is this blog...

After prepping for a whopping 90 days, and doing an IRONMAN 70.3 (half ironman distance of 70.3 miles total) and feeling good at the end, friend and colleague Jack Daly dropped this one on me...

"Mike, you had a great first race...but you never struck me as the kind of guy that does anything half way..."

Seeing as he was dead on right, I committed on the spot to racing in the Ironman. 140.6 miles comprised of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run. The truth is, it's an awesome challenge, having done a bit of training. It seems hard to see how one runs a marathon at any respectable pace after so many hours and such distance... and walk it, I will not.

There is no sure thing that something doesnt go horribly wrong on a race this long, and I really, really get it. But something like 15 years ago, I learned about the Ironman, and for some reason, with zero qualification or training, I just felt like I could do it. Didnt know how, I just had this feeling. In hindsight, it might have been easier to do it in my earlier athletic youth --but time time is when the time is.

Anyway, I'll update periodically with where I am at in my quest for Iron. I'll be standing in the water waiting for the starting cannon to go off on November 6, 2010, and I intend to Hammer it every day until then. As with the Longhorn Ironman 70.3 last year, the training is so much fun, I am cool with whatever happens on race day. I love all three sports, and while the bike was my achilles, I've started focusing much more on it, and will get it up there. I'm already running at 2MPH faster than last season, and I've got a long way to go.

Lot's of guys write much more reflective, emotive things when they blog about their road to the Ironman. We'll see if my post after the race is of that nature... until then, it's really just about hammering it each day and having fun. I love it.

M