Along with a little cycling workout, decided to do some core stuff today. I had to laugh, when trying to balance myself on the workout ball, I about slammed my head into the wall. Guess my core muscles need some work?
Probably going to do a little running and take another stab at some core stuff again tomorrow…clearly there is room for improvement.
Great one hour cycling session made easy by watching an episode of Lost on the iPad. I am just beginning season 1 so I have a TON of material to keep me distracted while cycling away!
It’s funny. I really didn’t feel like working out tonight, but thankfully, knowing that I was going to have to write today’s blog post made me feel guilty enough to get outside and go for a run. As always, once I got going I was fine and it felt good to be working out. Imagine that.
The weather is absolutely perfect right now so I need to enjoy it while I can.
Before heading out, I chugged one of Dawn’s FRS drinks and I don’t feel like it really did anything for me. Please note that these are individual cans that we purchased at a Tri store and we did not sign up for the ‘program’ on the site. There are a lot of complaints that the FRS program is a big scam…although the reviews on the product itself are mixed. I think I will stick with GU, Gatorade and water in the future.
In an effort to get my ass back on track, I am going back to blogging each day. Knowing that I will have to keep a daily record of all that I am doing (or not doing) is a fantastic way to stay focused.
I do want to say thanks for all of the support I received from friends and family after my last post…it’s nice to have such amazing people standing behind me.
Only a 30 minute workout tonight to get the ball rolling. Here’s to getting things turned around!
It’s taken me quite some time to get up the nerve to write this blog post. Over the past year, all of my blog posts around my triathlon adventures have been about gaining more experience or my successes and accomplishments. This post is a bit different in that I am writing about my first major failure as a triathlete. A week ago, I participated in my first triathlon of the 2010 season, and all did not go well.
Before I go into the the Rev3 event, I do want to first say how proud I am of Dawn. She did her first triathlon, the Olympic distance at the Rev3 Knoxville event. I was incredibly nervous for her as she had not done much swimming and only had a few miles on her brand new Tri bike, but she was victorious in the end and I know she now understands the rewards of finishing a triathlon. Way to go Dawn…so proud of you!
On to my day.
The night before the Rev3 event, I was already feeling fairly apprehensive about doing the event. The honest truth is that I let life get in the way of properly training for the event. At most, I trained a couple times a week and only for an hour or so. Without question, no where near the preparation I had before all of my events last year. In some ways, I think I felt that since I was an Ironman Finisher and was still in OK shape, that I would be fine to get through the 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and half marathon of 13.1 miles.
The night before the race, I quickly found out that Dawn had a much different pre-race routine than I did, which yet again added to the my nervousness. As I a rule, I like eat fairly early and get to bed around 9pm. That day, we ate a later meal and we didn’t end up getting to sleep until after 11pm.
The morning of the event was actually OK and everything leading up to jumping into the water was fairly uneventful. It was only after I jumped into the water that I got the first indicator that I was nowhere near as ready as I should have been. With each stroke it was obvious that I was not establishing any sort of rhythm and prior experience was not serving me in any way.
Finally, after getting 1/2 way through the swim I was able to get into a rhythm and swim the way I had done in other triathlons. Unfortunately, it was too late as I had lost a ton of time.
Moving into the transition, I had hopes that the bike ride would be different, but in my gut I just knew it was going to be very tough. Knoxville’s bike course was extremely hilly and not an easy 56 mile ride.
20 miles into the bike ride, I really hit a wall. It was unlike anything I have experienced before. The sensation I had wasn’t of fatigue or pain, but a feeling like my muscles just weren’t firing or responding to my demands to move my bike. Adding to my poor cycling performance, I began to feel very ill and started ‘tossing my cookies’ (very unlike me). At one point, I was throwing up on a steep incline and lost my balance, causing my to go crashing to the asphault. Foolishly, I allowed my right elbow to suffer the brunt of the impact to save my bike and had a nice road rash as a result.
Cycling another tenth of a mile after my wreck, I couldn’t go any further and I decided to turn around. The wreck and the impending monster hill ended up being the final straw.
After turning around, I made it about a 1/2 of a mile when I started feeling pretty disgusted with myself. How could I quit? I wasn’t sure I was going to finish the entire triathlon, but I had to at least finish the bike ride. I am proud to say, I turned around yet again, determined to finish the bike phase at a minimum.
The rest of the bike ride was pretty rough but I eventually made it back to transition. As I rode in, Dawn was there smiling away with her finisher medal and shirt on. I immediately smiled and it was nice to have a positive thought for the first time in a long while. However, once Dawn asked me how I was doing, I instantly said, “I’m done.”
Quitting never came so easy and I hate that was the case. I couldn’t stand the thought of my family hanging around for another 2 or 3 hours waiting for me to hobble through a run. I decided to admit defeat and take the event as a huge lesson. That lesson being that you’re NOT as good as your last event, only the training leading up to your current one. Oh, and being an Ironman Finisher doesn’t mean crap.
So, I failed miserably and I hate that I came out of the event as a quitter. It sucks to hear about Rev3 and know that I didn’t accomplish my goal. As I said though, I learned an incredibly valuable lesson and it will serve me well in my future events. Never again will I take part in event without being fully prepared…never.
Ironman Augusta is about 4 months away and I can assure you…I will crush it. This I promise you.
The run tonight was really good and gave me a little confidence boost for my upcoming tri. While I did wear my Garmin, I didn’t really review the data until after the run was over.
It think I have a really good feel for the pace I need to keep without it, so I will probably go with that strategy for short and medium runs. However, during a long run, I will probably use it periodically to see where I am at and also use it to keep close tabs on my heartrate.
Even though it was rather windy, I decided to go for a run outside tonight. However, I chose to leave the Garmin behind and just run. Wearing my Garmin, I am forever checking my pace, heart-rate, time, etc. Even though I love looking at the data at the end, it can be rather distracting during the run itself.
While I don’t plan on doing a casual run very often, it was nice just to disconnect and let the mind wander.
Only about 5 weeks until the 1/2 Rev in Knoxville and I am not sure how well it will go. With zero outside cycling and swimming time this season thus far, I am going to have get ramped up quickly the second the weather gets warmer.
So I wasn’t anywhere near in the mood to workout yesterday after a pretty tough week already and a long day. I just promised myself that I would not miss today’s workout…and I didn’t.
Just got some cycling time in and I am feeling pretty good about my workouts. I think after I get back from vacation, it will be time to move to consistent 1 hour plus workouts. Rev3 is getting close!
Tonight I kept it simple and just rode the bike, primarily because I have a presentation tomorrow and I was running through that while working out.
It’s amazing how fast the work out went because I was so focused on what I was working on. Got a lot accomplished for work while working out…very cool!
So, I have actually worked out two days in a row!
My goal is to work out everyday until I leave for vacation next Tuesday…which will be a total of 8 days. I do hope to get some swimming workouts while in the Dominican, but not going to do much beyond that.
Did a run-bike-run workout tonight and it made the time go by really quickly. Much like doing any long athletic event, chunking things up with shorter goals along the way really helps to keep me going. If I dwell on how far away it is to the end, I get discouraged and sometimes rationalize having a shorter workout.
As I speak with other athletes and friends/family, I am learning how very unique everyone is when it comes to working out. Finding out what motivates you and keeps you going is extremely different from person to person.