First of all- Merry Christmas!

Right now, I am finally very, very excited for Oceanside Half Ironman in April. I am so happy that I signed up for this early race, as there would be no way that I would have the same motivation that I have now without this looming on the horizon. I keep thinking of how fun it will be to have a little get away just when the winter will be driving me crazy!

I am in the process of figuring out my races for next season, and getting some goals lined up and methodology on how to attain these things, which makes me excited. The whole process of learning from past seasons, making changes, and seeing where they go. For some reason, I love this part of training- the planning, the methodology, the experimentation.

One gripe session:
So today, I go to finish up my long training day (about 5 hrs of exercise) with a good swim. I am warmed up, plugging away on the main set and feeling really good. All of a sudden I get kicked out of the pool!! WTF. I am informed that the pool shuts down early today! I never thought I would say this, but there is one thing that I miss about Omaha- that 24 hour fitness! That place was like an industrial workout factory, complete stainless steel everything, mirrors everywhere, protein 'mass gainer' powder store, and a pool that was rarely used due to the, er, 'clientele' that frequented the place (more of the sauna/steam room type if you know what I mean). Although it was only two lanes, had some issues with chemical regulation (think on/off cloudy water and itchy skin), and overlooked the McDonalds on 81st and Dodge-- this pool was always open! None of this 'club hours' crap. And yes, there were times that I went to swim very late at night- it was great!

I have wondered this question for my entire educational career...

Do doctors have snow days???? I thought no, but the answer is...YES!

So on friday, Madison got dumped with a foot of snow wind, whatnot. The office was shut down that day due to the weather- I think it was a good idea.


So, what do you do?????

This is why it is so awesome to have a training partner living three blocks away- well within 'trudge through knee deep snow' distance- you get to wake up and instead of go to work, you get to hop on the trainer and pound out some 30/30s while the snow is still pouring and the wind is howling and the sun is coming up!


So, after IMFL I really tried to let myself atrophy a bit. Eat some garbage food I enjoy but don't normally indulge in, drink more booze, reconcile myslef with the mysterious black box in my living room that will play movies and tv shows, get some things done that have been put off WAY too long, and schedule myself around not training. I wanted to loose some fitness, get a new perspective, let the burnout fizzle away, and realize why I love to live the life that I normally live.

So, I worked out when I wanted to and did what I wanted to. Nothing too crazy, nothing regular, and nothing with purpose. I was purposefully off the wagon up until very recently. I have been on the wagon again for the past couple weeks, letting myself get back in the swing of things and realize what intensity is a few sessions before I do a baseline fitness test.

So, what is happening... I am swimming faster than I did pre IMFL. I am hitting my bike intervals about 10-15 w higher than I was last season at this time and still higher than pre- IMFL, and running, well that is keeping things with no pain at this point.

I do not understand this. I wanted to digress. I tried to digress. I make progress. Now, I'm not complaining here, but this goes against a lot of research that people spend a lot of time and effort in to make people like myself believe in it. If I don't know how to digress, then how do I make progress??

Fun in the winter wonderland!

Albeit I am in the land of cheese, surrounded by a tundra and white stuff- I am loving actually having a winter!! I have been skiing more times so far this month than I would have an entire winter in Nebraska- yay for Nordic trails everywhere!!

What have I been up to..

I cut my own Christmas tree!




Here it is in my living room...



I got my fireplace working and have been having fun sitting by the fire, making s'mores in my living room, and roasting chestnuts- yes, that's correct! (completely over rated by the way- I would not be inspired to write a song about this). The most fun part was probably cutting holes in the chestnuts so they don't explode! and drinking some 'Nog. :)

So, where did I leave off ???..

Yeah, so it has been more than a little while; however, I have been enjoying reading others' blogs and decided it is my time to contribute to society. 'Tis the season- right?

So, what have I been up to? First of all IMFL... I scribbled up a RR on the plane ride home, and haven't edited it yet. Yup, that's correct. Part of my 'official' off season is to think about training and racing stuff as minimally as possible. Not completely effective, but that includes scouring my race to every last detail.

Here is the 'clif notes' completely non grammatically correct version of the race


Lead up/ travel:
bad- flight got cancelled out of Mad-town for no reason, NWA didn't let me know until a 4am phone call the morning of departure. good- got out of Mad-town and to Panama City Beach (only took 12 hours and several cities when it should have taken about 3). bad- TSA thought it would be a good idea to give me the full pat down/bag search after I had spend the whole morning in the airport trying to figure out how to get to PCB, I happened to be carrying about 10 baggies of white powder (all of my race nutrition). good- TSA decided that it actually WAS a fine fruit punch flavored cocktail of maltodextrin, whey protein, sodium, caffeine and whatnot rather than the best drug bust of their career (you should have seen the look on their faces when they opened by bag!!). Bad- I was exhausted in the days before the race.

Swim:
Bad- woke up still exhausted and not really wanting to race, I would have rather slept in (in retrospect- I tried a little shorter taper this IM- it was too little taper, too long of a season, about four-six weeks too burnt out). Good- I swam aggressively in the 'usual' IM washing machine. Bad- very very cold morning! Good- decent swim time for the training that I had put in for the swim!

Bike:
Good- felt great getting on the bike, held perfect wattage goals. Bad- had sharp, stabbing abdominal pains at about mile 35- no known etiology- had to sit up, couldn't keep anything down, watts went way down, took in only a few sips of water, slowly pedaled until mile 50. At mile 50/SN I was feeling better- ramped the w slowly back up. Got back on track with nutrition/ hydration, water, whatnot. No mechanicals!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!! PRd the bike, and met my time goals- way short on W goals but happy with the given circumstances. In retrospect- I am thinking that the ocean water may have had something to do with the meltdown. Got off of the bike mentally prepared to have a pretty full tank for the run because my bike was lower W that what I know that I could do in training.

Run:
Goal for this race was to have a solid run. I held myself back the first 10k hoping to keep a nice constant pace. I felt awesome! Forgot my caffeinated GUs at T2- used on course nutrition without a flaw! At the 10K mark, ramped it up to goal pace for the marathon. Held it until the park where there was some heavily slanted roads- bad news. This sent my IT bands down hill very quickly. I had made it through all of the training and mileage without pain by avoiding this one particular thing- slanted roads. The couple miles really got things pretty jacked up. One sided pain got to be two sided pain by the 13.1 mark. The last 13.1 miles were the most painful 'run' of my life- seriously.

Overall: Overall, I still PRd at the IM distance which is great. Happy with my race execution and how I dealt with things that day. Race plan went flawless on my part- dealt with the day's happenings when they came while being calm and pragmatic.
I finished healthy, and with a smile on my face. I am lucky to be able to race in this sport and realize that!


Epilogue:
I have not been able to run pain free for a long time since the race. I was scared, like, really really scared. I didn't know what to do besides what I have been doing (watch mileage, intensity, shoe wear, fall in love with using a foam roller, stretching, no slanted roads, massage, etc). I have never been in this position before where I have not been able to get over these things with common sense and good training habits. Right now, I have been running with minimal pain for the past couple weeks, and recently got up to 40 min with 3 stretch breaks. That is now what I need to redefine as progress. I don't like that, but it is what it is. Progress.