Scott Gibson's Ironman Journey

Another day without a workout.  Company party tonight.  Have to bust out a heavy brick tomorrow.

No workout tonight.  Date night with the wife.  A fine excuse to miss a workout I think.

Took it a little easier this week, but going to kick it back in to high gear for next week.

The girls will be visiting my parents for most of the week so it will be an optimal time to get in some great training.  Tomorrow is going to start with some swim practice using the new Xterra Vortex 3 wetsuit I just got.  The plan is to do a 2 mile swim and I hope the wetsuit helps me achieve that goal.  Gotta remember to get some body glide…don’t want any nasty chaffing.

Also going to get in a 10 mile run and as much biking as possible.  Dawn just got a new bike so I will probably get her out there with me a couple times.

Signed up for the Covington Century and going to do the full 100 miles this time!  That’s going down 8/1 and I am really looking forward to it.  Supposedly is a fairly flat course and if I am going to be doing 100 miles, that is certainly a welcome topography.

Great workouts today.

Started off the morning with a nice 5 mile run and felt good the whole way.  Later in the afternoon, went for a quick bike ride with John and was again amazed at how well drafting works.  Kinda feels like cheating when your the trailing bike!

Taking another rest day.  Tomorrow is going to be a double workout with a run in the AM and a bike ride in the evening.

Rest day…

Now that I am pretty comfortable riding on the open road, had a really enjoyable ride on the bike tonight.  My goal is to stay above 20mph on the flats and go as fast as I can manage on the up and down hills.

I am riding smarter than my previous outing by keeping two replacement tubes and CO2 cartridges on board.  Also packing along the cell phone too.

First of all, thanks to Troy Bryant for his donation to my fund raising efforts.  You rock Troy!!!!

While I certainly wanted to blow off tonight’s workout, I end up making my way to the treadmill to at least get some running in.

After about 10 minutes, my knees were not really thrilled with the idea of running.  I ended up stopping and working on my bike for a while.  Once the guilt fully set in, I headed back to the treadmill and forced myself to start running again.

The fact was, I really didn’t feel like I was at risk of hurting myself, I was just still fatigued a little from Sunday’s ride.  I logged 3 miles and decided that I would not push it any further.

After going back and forth a lot about whether to get a full wetsuit or a sleeveless one, I finally purchased a sleeveless Xterra Vortex 3 that was 50% off as part of their current promo: https://www.xterrawetsuits.com/promo/.  Thanks goes out to my Twitter followers that really provided some great feedback and recommendations on which way to go.  Only $150 for a great wetsuit!

Once I receive it, I’ll be sure to post my opinions.

Rest day following the bike ride.  Happy to say that I am really not sore today.  Definitely going to be able to pickup with workouts tomorrow.

It was an early start to the day, waking up at 3:45 to make my way to the Hospitality Highway Century.  I felt pretty good even with only about 3 1/2 hours of sleep.

The ride was amazing and I had a lot of fun.  It was cool having my buddy John join me and we had an awesome time, even though some of the hills were quite challenging.  It was good that we’re both at about the same riding level.

The neatest part of the ride was probably the start since the organizers got permission to shut down an 8 lane highway for the event.  Over 1,000 cyclists headed down the on-ramp and were zipping down the highway… it was unreal!  After thinking about it, it was a pretty smart way to start the event since it really allowed all of the cyclists to spread out.  The summary for the ride is below:

Distance: 62.83 miles
Total Time (includes rest areas): 5:08
Max Speed: 43.4 mph
Avg Speed (this includes stop time): 12.2 mph *
Calories Burned: 5402
Avg Heart Rate: 150bpm
Max Heart Rate: 180bpm

* Wish I would have stopped my bike computer during rest areas to get actual ride avg mph.

At the end of the ride, I was pretty tired and Dawn was really helpful in helping me manage my leg fatigue when I got home.  Tried to do an ice bath, but it just hurt my feet too bad to stay in the water.  I could probably do one if I had neoprene booties or something.

So, I am really happy that I achieved all of my goals for the week.  In effect, I did a 1/2 Ironman.  Going to play this week by ear for now to see how much rest I need after this ride.  Hopefully, I’ll get right back into the swing of things on Tuesday after a day of rest.