Scott Gibson's Ironman Journey

Today’s 1.2 mile swim went really well.  Used my bike computer to map out a 0.1 mile stretch in a little cove we typically hang out in.

Ended up completing the 1.2 miles in 45 minutes and I was very pleased with that time.

Tomorrow is the final item in this week’s goals, the 64 mile bike ride.  Really looking forward to the event and it should be fun since John Krause will be able to share the experience with me.  The weather should be nice and I am hopeful the event is managed well.

Gotta get up at 4am tomorrow so going to hit the sack early tonight to get some good rest.

Rest day…swimming 1.2 miler tomorrow!

Tonight’s workout consisted of making up for the 3.5 miles I fell short on my 10 mile attempt last night and some more time on the trainer.

Really feeling torn between which bike shorts I should wear for Sunday’s ride.  I have a thinner pair with less padding that I think would certainly be better for preventing chaffing.  On the other hand, I have a pair of 6 panel shorts that are more padded and would obviously add more comfort over the 64 miles.  Probably going to go with the thinner ones.

Twitter account followers are growing nicely.  Coming up on 300!

Ironman Journey was selected as the “Featured Cause” at http://www.yourcause.com/Causes.aspx

First, yet another word of thanks to my mother-in-law Dianne Hurst for her donation and support of my fund raising efforts.

Tonight’s goal was to run 10 miles, and sadly I fell short of that goal.  I was only able to push out about 6.5 miles.  It was probably because of several reasons, but I won’t make excuses and i will just finish out the rest of the 3.5 miles sometime this week.  Believe me, it’s not easy admitting on this blog that I didn’t achieve a goal I set for myself, but I’m trying to be honest about the ups and downs along the way.

I am confident I will be able to complete my 1.2 mile swim and and 62 mile bike ride this weekend and will make sure I do not fall short on those.

First, want to send out a special thank you to Zanna Hurst for her donation and support of my fund raising efforts….thanks Zanna!!!!

Ok…..change of plans yet again!

Scrapping the week’s original plan and doing a 1/2 Ironman over the course of the week instead.  The driver behind this is the bike ride that I am now doing on Sunday.  I am participating in The Hospitality Highway Century which is a bike ride with a 9-mile, 35-mile, 64-mile, and 100-mile option.  While I would love to do 100 miles, I think I will go for the 64 miles for my first time.  Even that should be a good challenge.  More info here http://400century.com/

Since that is a little more than the 1/2 Ironman cycling phase, I am going to do a 10 mile run, and the 1.2 mile swim this week.  That should give me a good idea of each phase of the 70.3 Ironman.  Obviously the 70.3 will be all 3 phases right after each other, but this will still be valuable training.

Did some time on the bike trainer tonight to work on form, practicing getting my water bottle out while at a fast cadence, and even did a couple tries at getting started with my shoes clipped in.

Rest day…letting myself recover one more day from the 10k.

The Peachtree Road Race results are in and I feel pretty good about my results.  I officially finished in 1:04:58 and came in 17,794 out of 50,000.

My goals for the week and the results are as follows:

6 Mile Run
DONE!

24 Mile Cycle
DONE!

1/2 Mile Swim
DONE! (actually did nearly 3/4 mile swim)

1 Cycle/Run Brick of 18 Miles/5 Miles
Didn’t get to do the brick due to my post-10k chaffing, but with the Peachtree of 6.2 miles and luckily being able to cycle for 21.5 miles, I consider it done.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Started off the day at 5am to head down to the Peachtree Road Race.  Pretty funny that it was the first time I have be on MARTA since moving to Atlanta in 2003.

I can’t believe how many people go to this thing!  It was crazy.  The weather was absolutely perfect too.

The race itself was really fun.  There were bands playing along the way, people cheering and dressed up.  It was almost more of a social experience rather than a sporting event.

I will know my official time tomorrow, but I think I did the 6.2 miles in about 1 hour and 5 mins.  Not great, but I think I am pretty happy with the results.  It was challenging working my way through the crowd since most people didn’t really follow the slower runners/walkers to the right.

The biggest lesson from this race was that I need to learn a better anti-chaffing strategy!  Even the 6.2 miles was enough to do a little damage.  Going to be sore for a day or two.

Official results to be posted tomorrow.

Rest day…tomorrow’s the Peachtree!