Sleep. Eat. Train. Eat. Work. Eat. Train. Eat. Sleep.

    Sleep. Eat. Train. Eat. Work. Eat. Train. Eat. Sleep. The current story of my life. If friends and family thought I had dropped off the face of the earth before, now they will likely think I have disappeared from the universe. I have reached the point where my life revolves around training. Each meal is either in preparation for training, or recovery from training. I am getting to work early so I can run the paths around Gladstone before work, to beat the heat but also because I have no good areas for running just outside my front door. I am aiming for five runs a week, with one run being a short transition run after cycling. My running is improving nicely, although my knees don't want me running more than five miles a day.
    I am swimming The Cove again, and aiming for two open water and one pool swim a week. I had forgotten how much more fatiguing open water can be. There is the emotional factor, that slight tinge of fear and excitement that adds to the exhaustion. There is also that little bit of resistance from the wetsuit to the forward part of my stroke, not a big deal if I only had to do it a few hundred times, but after 2000 or so strokes it starts to wear down my shoulders.
    Cycling is what is taking the most time. "Cycling is a blue collar sport, you have to put in the miles." No shit. Right now I am aiming for one long ride a week, five or more hours, about 70 plus miles, and then two or three indoor sessions of steady state spinning for two or three hours at a shot. It is time consuming. My ride yesterday was cut short when a 30 minute pre-ride bike fix took closer to 2-1/2 hours, so I got out the door late. Then a flat tire at the 40 mile mark, on my way back towards home on what would have been the first lap of a long ride, made me opt to cut the ride short since I had plans for sushi with a friend (and c'mon, sushi is a perfect recovery and carb-load meal). The real reason was that I don't like to be far from home with no spare tube. So today I will be going long, with two spare tubes, and a system jacked up on sushi.
    Life has a way of interfering with my training plans. Last weekend my long ride was preempted when I got paged out at 4:30 am to go out on a fire. Yes, it was epic to break open a door and crawl through the building hauling a hose, find the fire and get to "put the wet stuff on the red stuff." But five hours later, when I finally got home, I was starving, dehydrated, and tired. A big meal and a three hour nap restored me somewhat, but I was sure how my endurance would be out on the road. I didn't want to be 30 miles from home and totally gas out, so I opted for a solid three hours of strong spinning at home. My endurance ended up being fine, but damn, I lost four pounds that day.
    That is another factor; maintaining my weight. A day or so of not eating a lot of nutrient dense calories and my weight drops. I weighed in at 152 pounds monday morning, which is too light right now. I know [art of it was dehydration, but not all of it. I won't mind stepping up to the starting line at 152, but I don't want to be there now. I almost hate to admit that I had to add daily doses of peanut butter dipped in dark chocolate chips to get my weight back up to 156.
    And now, speaking of cycling being a blue collar sport, I need to get out the door to get miles in during the cool of the morning instead of cycling during the heat of the day. Okay, I will still be cycling in the heat of the day, but at least the first hour or two will be cooler.

I Did It

    I did it. I actually did it. I have officially entered the Epic 250K. The countdown is on, 9 weeks. NINE WEEKS!! Holymotherofallthegods. Just thinking about it makes me just a little queasy. I admit, when I hit the "submit" button for my registration and payment my hand was trembling just a little bit. Okay, more than a little. This is a huge step. Yes, I could still walk away from it all and be out my $321 entry fee. Or I could bail partway through and get a DNF (did not finish). But in all honesty, I don't plan on either of those as being options, especially the idea of not even starting. True, there are a lot of things that can go wrong between now and then, and between the start of the event and the finish line. More than a few athletes have been stopped in their tracks by injury or illness, or equipment malfunction, or crashing on the course, or.. or.. or... The list is actually quite endless. The same could be said for life in general, you really never know when the gig is up, when fate may throw you a whammy. So I will continue to train just as I have been, no more or less committed than before. Now the only difference is that there is money on the line. And after all it's only money. Time to train.

So Much To Do

    I have had a few doubts about my ability to do the challenge I have set before me. It is hard to devote so much time and energy to something that I know will be long, painful, and exhausting in the extreme. But at the same time, I am really digging the difficulty and challenge of it all. I do think I have more than a little trace of masochism running through my veins. Yesterday I set out on my long ride of the week. I set my sights on 70 miles, which is what I had planned on doing last week, but maps lied and my right knee was being bitchy. I know how many miles it is from Mulino through Oregon City to Canby so I decided to add distance to that route. It is a favorite route of mine, I love hill climbing much more than the tedium of cranking a decent cadence in a high gear on endless sections of asphalt. I started from my house and headed across country roads instead of heading straight north on highway 213, thus avoiding log trucks, dump trucks and semis on narrow road with no shoulder. True, I was on narrow roads with no shoulders, but far less traffic. The only close shave I had was grinding uphill on a blind S-curve when a truck hauling a flatbed with a tractor and disc came up behind me. He was careful though, and missed me by several feet. I watched the flashing "Wide Load" sign disappear around the curve with no damage to me except for a slightly elevated heart rate.
The ride was great. My legs felt fabulous. Once in a while my left knee would start whining but I would tell it, "None of that," and it stopped. The main discomfort I had was in my hands and wrists, which has galvanized my desire to install the ergo bars I bought a few months back. I need a different stem to mount them, so this week I will make a trip to a bike shop for a stem, handlebar tape, and maybe some gel gloves. The other problem I am having is with my feet, they really start to hurt after a bit. I did manage to lengthen my confort zone considerably with the addition of some $3 gel insoles that only pad the ball of the foot. I was 65 miles into teh ride before I got seriously uncomfortable. This has made me decide I need the next size up in shoes, so I am on the hunt. Sadly, add the word "triathlon" to any pair of Shimano cycling shoes and the price nearly doubles. Damn it anyway.
    I have a list of necessary gear that must be bought soon: stem, handlebar tape, gel gloves, cycling shoes, running shoes, socks, racing tires. Not a long list, and not particularly expensive, but I am the budget triathlete, every penny counts.
   High on the list of expenditures is a bike tune-up. I need to have this done so I am not wasting valuable energy fighting against my beloved bike. I don't know if I am losing watts to a mucked up crank, or goobered wheel bearings, but I can't afford to waste any energy. The downside, I can't afford to have any time away from my bike, and I imagine that I will have to leave him with a mechanic for a several days at the very least, and that just isn't acceptable. This will be a question for the bike shop when I go in for my stem.
    It is getting down to the wire, just over two months remaining until my day of judgement, and there is so much to think over, get taken care of, and spend money on. I get little twitchy attacks of nerves now and then at the enormity of it all. I wish I had a manager to handle all the details so I could just focus on the training. While I am wishing, I wish I had a coach, a masseuse, a cook, and a housekeeper. And while I'm at it, a sponsor, so I could take 6 months off to train with no other distractions. Oh well, I have no one but me, so I need to just keep forging ahead.

Enjoy The Journey.

    Slowly building my time and distance, but it isn't easy. My body rebels against me, and I don't blame it. My current workout schedule is a bit neurotic, as it must be at this point: Swim 3 times per week, run 5 times per week, cycle 4 to 6 time per week, strength training and core work twice a week. That is, let's see... 14+ workouts a week, and about 20+ hours a week. Damn. But I am making it work. I am swimming 2 miles on the nights I do technique drills, and 2-1/2 miles on my straight up distance swim. I am running after every swim session, not far, about 3-1/2 miles, as well as running after every cycling session. When I run after my long bike I only run for 10 to 20 minutes, not wanting to abuse my body too much. I want to be boosting my cycling time more, right now my long rides are just under 4 hours and about 55 miles, mostly hills. Today I had mapped out a 78 mile ride, but Mapquest lied, it was only 50 miles. It was probably for the best, as my right knee decided to start giving me grief at about mile 45. If the knee seems okay tomorrow I will try to get in another longer ride, maybe 3 hours or so. I have got to get my miles up! I had told myself I needed to be able to do 100 miles with relative comfort by mid to late July. I am running out of time. I will be disappointed if I can't manage to get my body to cooperate for this race, I have invested a lot of time and energy. Don't get me wrong, I love the investment of both time and energy, but I will feel like I failed. Like I didn't train hard enough, or push myself far enough.
    But you know, as I train I can't help but think how much I am enjoying this journey. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, I am pushing myself further and harder than I thought imaginable. In the process I have discovered just how motivated I am, even if it does border on the compulsive. I am tired all the time, but it is a well earned fatigue. I wake in the night and my muscles feel hot, nearly burning, but it is not an unpleasant sensation. It is as if my muscles are regenerating, and glowing with the effort. I love that I train alone, with little distraction. This is all on me, there is no one else to factor in, either as a support network, or as an unknown element that might derail me. I love the solitude, the time spent inside my own head as my body toils and sweats. I count cadence; swim stroke, run pace, pedal speed. The counting, the metered rhythm, is soothing, peaceful, calming. There is a Zen to all of it, it is my meditation. I don't wear headphones when I run or bike, I don't want the distraction of music, instead I listen to my body. I hear what it has to say, we interchange information on speed, tempo, rhythm, breathing. I feel my heart and lungs working in harmony. I truly am enjoying this journey, no matter what the end result.

Eyes On The Prize

    Today is the Clackamette Cove Triathlon. I feel I should be there, it is my "local" event, and The Cove is my watery home away from home where I do all my open water training. Thinking about the event this morning, as well as the triathlon at Blue Lake two weeks ago, and the events that are coming up in the next month or two I realized that I am not into this sport for the competition with others, I am in it to compete against myself. It isn't so much a sport as it has become a lifestyle. For me, at least this year, it is not about getting to do a number of small events throughout the summer, it is about continually striving to be better tomorrow than I am today, all the while looking ahead to the ultimate challenge. I have made the decision that am indeed doing the Epic 250K, I'm not even considering doing the 70.3 that I did last year. Maybe that is the problem with pushing boundaries, once they have been pushed I look around for new boundaries to push even harder. It is hard for me to want to repeat a major event, kind of a "been there, done that" attitude. I do miss the fun of the adventure runs, and next year they are definitely going back into the roster, but as for the mundane road races, I don't know that I will do many of them. As I see events come and go, especially races I have done in the past, there is a certain wistfulness, but I look ahead, Eyes on the Prize, and know that right here, right now, my training is too focused to be distracted by taking time out of my schedule to race them properly. And, in a statement that makes me feel as if I am sounding frail and paranoid, I don't want to risk an overuse injury from pushing myself too hard at the wrong moment and possibly derailing my training. I did that last year, several times, and suffered the dire consequences during my A Race. This year, with a bigger, tougher challenge awaiting me, I am feeling the need to coddle my body, not take any unnecessary risks, and get to the starting line well trained, well rested, and ready to beat the holy hell out of my body for 12+ hours. So as the small events come and go, I squelch the little voice that wants to go compete, and instead sit back, plan out my uninterrupted training schedule, and keep my eyes on the prize.

Training Trumps Real Life

    As the season progresses, and I have to spend more time training, time management is always on my mind. I find I am having to prioritize in ways I never have before. Oh sure, in the past I have had to adjust my life to make room for hobbies and projects, but this is different on many levels. Not only do I have to try and eke out more minutes in my day for training, my training is reaching the point where I need to have recovery time as well. Yes, I can do lightweight work when I am fatigued from a major training session, but the time will come when I will likely have to sleep to recover, not mow the lawn. I am training 14 to 18 hours a week, as well as working overtime at work on a nearly daily basis, this does not leave a lot of spare time for things like writing, reading, or a social life. So far, I have managed to find some balance, at least between training and keeping my home somewhat in order. "Somewhat" being the key word here. But as the season progresses I will be spending more time training, especially on the weekends, therefore spending less time on pretty much everything else except for work. This is where Training Trumps Real Life. I have to allow myself to train enough hours to succeed, and not feel too much pressure to keep a tidy home and garden. Yes, I am planting plenty of fruit and vegetable plants which will take a certain amount of tending, but I feel that is essential for my health, so actually falls under the auspices of the Fourth Discipline: Nutrition. What this boils down to is a furious need to get my affairs in order before training hits its full head of steam. This is why I have been having manic bursts of activity, trying to get my house and garden in order before summer is upon me, and with it time sucking training sessions like 8 hour bike rides, and 3 hour brick workouts. This won't be easy, but then nothing worth while ever is. I'm gearing up, mentally preparing myself, getting my home squared away, because soon training will trump real life, and all I will be able to do is grit my teeth and go with it. Now, for the Fifth Discipline, the one I am poorest at: Sleep.

Gear For Thought

    As my training season progresses I am starting to think of the new gear I will likely need between now and September. I have already ordered new training tires for my bike, since my current Vittorias are pretty thin. I am getting Vittoria Rubino III Wired tires, since they get excellent mileage, and are puncture resistant. In late July I will order my Continental Grand Prix 4000 S tires so I can have a month or so of ride time before my race.
    Tires are just the beginning, though a vital beginning. I will need new running shoes by then, my Sauconeys are holding up okay, but they will be pounded down soon enough. I can't afford to not have good foot protection. I have decided to race in Sauconeys, they are zero rise but offer some padding to absorb the pounding of running on pavement. That is why I bought my current pair, and they have done right by my feet. Yes, I do prefer a minimal shoe for trail running, but this year I am having to be more event specific in my training, so trail running is on the back burner for now.
    My cycling shoes are in sad shape. I bought them used at Next Adventure, and I do love them, but a certain dog, who's name will go unmentioned (*cough* Sadie *cough*) loves them too, and they are showing that love in a missing strap and some teeth marks. I am hoping to find another pair of Shimanos at Next Adventure so I don't have to pay full price. Cycling shoes are a little easier to buy used, I think, since they don't take quite the abuse of running shoes. I plan on looking into custom insoles since my feet will start to hurt after a few hours on the bike.
    Cycling shorts are on the list as well. My favorite pair are getting a lot of use and I don't want to be riding 138 mile on mashed down padding. They will be a little harder to replace, I've realized I'm pretty specific when it comes to fit and padding in my shorts. And fit and padding are vital if I don't want my delicate girly bits getting beat to hell.
    I still need the proper stem so I can change out my handlebars. I have an awesome pair of ergonomic bars just waiting to be installed, but they won't fit my current stem. I am still debating getting a shorter stem to bring my arms in a bit, but in all honesty I can spend a lot of time on my bike very comfortably. In long course triathlon comfort trumps aero to a degree. My bike handles well, I am comfortable, and get good power in the way I have it set up now, so I kind of hate to mess with success. Yes, I want the new bars because the one thing that starts to hurt are my hands, so I want/need to get the new bars installed with new padded tape.
    The wish list can get vast if I let it: new aero bars, better gloves, bigger bento box (this is actually important, I need to be able to pack enough fuel), new seat, padded tape, Under Armor underwear (actually, kind of important to avoid chafing), Body Glide (also to avoid chafing), socks, shirts, water bottles, a water bottle rack for between my aero bars with a tube so I can drink without taking my hands off the bars. The list could go on an on.
    Even being a budget triathlete can be a very expensive endeavor. I haven't even paid my race fee yet, since I am waiting to know if I can complete the longer distance. I am becoming more certain with each passing week, although my running keeps getting derailed with injuries and aches. My cycling and swimming right on course, and those are essential, especially the cycling. But 138 miles, g'damn, that is a long ride.