Stansbury Triathlon

I raced the Stansbury Tri this last Saturday.
Swim: I was happy with my swim. I came out of the water in 10th place which is new for me (I am usually much further back than that). Time 21:35? I think. It was probably a little short.
t1: My wetsuit came off surprisingly easy so I had a fast transition
Bike: flat course with only 288 ft of climbing, the course did however have a lot of turns and had two around the cone u turns. I was able to catch everybody on the bike and came in to t2 a few seconds behind the leader. The course was short at less than 21 miles. Bike was 46:10? I think. I was happy with my bike speed. It makes me feel like I will have a good Utah half bike split.
t2: With the orthotics that I am using I had to put on socks but despite that tremendous obstacle I had another surprisingly fast transition.
Run: right out of t2 as I went to put on my Garmin it exploded in my hands and fell to the ground, luckily Jameson was close by and I astutely spat out "JAMESON MY WATCH!". He understood and picked it up and had it for me at the finish. Thanks Jameson. Two guys passed me on the run so I ended up 4th. I did a 39:10? I think.
Overall was 1:48:something. I'm happy with the race. I look at it as a great high intensity workout while practicing my pre race routine and transitions.

Utah Half Course Ride

Big thanks to Coach Keena for setting up a Utah Half ride today. It went well. I was able to average 304 watts and 25 mph on the flat fast course, with a heart rate of 148. I hope that when I add the MAGICAL powers of race wheels, aero helmet, a bit of a taper and no slowing down for lights/stop signs that I can have a good Utah half bike split.

Feeling Good, Hoping for a Breakthrough

My Heart rate is completely back to normal, and I am not feeling tired at all. My thyroid problems are long gone. I am able to run fast now in training, and have no calf trouble at all. I am swimming much faster than ever. My power on the bike is on the rise; I did 12 minute intervals yesterday and ended it with 12 minutes at 370 watts. It was a hard effort but when the 12 minutes were up my heart rate wasn’t that high and I was able to continue the rest of my workout doing shorter intervals without trouble. I am feeling good about the direction my training is headed in and I am hoping for breakthroughs in all 3 disciplines in the coming months.

Back to running and Thyroid update.

I ran 3 really slow miles each of the last two days and will try to run another 3 today. This is the first running I have done since injuring my calf a little over two weeks ago. Hopefully I can keep doing 2 or 3 easy miles each day this week and then start some longer and faster runs next week. The doctor thinks my thyroid should sort itself out soon. He thinks that a virus zapped it but that I am on my way to recovery now. I'll have my blood retested at the end of the month to see if I am back to normal. I still feel really tired and my heart rate is about 20 beats higher than normal. It is a great excuse though. I just blame everything on my thyroid. If Megan asks me "why arent the dishes washed"? I just point to my thyroid, give a sad look and shake my head.

Thyroid trouble

About a week ago I felt a pain in my neck and it has continued to get worse so I went into the doctor yesterday. He had some blood work done and called me back today and said that I have an overactive thyroid......weird.

I hurt my calf with about a mile to go in the daybreak triathlon. I didn’t put on my compression socks because I thought it would take too much time. Bad idea. With a mile to go my calf started hurting. I thought I would just push through till the end. Bad idea. My body gave me warning and I didn’t head it. So then my lower calf hurt real real bad. I was forced to stop and it even hurt to limp to the end. I’m a loser baby….so why don’t you kill me.

St George Ironman

My swim started off great, I felt like I was at a really good pace until after the second turn buoy at about the halfway point in the swim. I began to feel very very cold. My jaw started to shake and I felt my body shutting down. My pace slowed and I started to get passed by a lot of people. I ended up swimming a lot slower than I had planned and came out at 1:12. When I got out of the water I was extremely cold my body was shaking uncontrollably. I had planned very poorly and didn’t have a jacket or anything else to put on to keep warm. I got on my bike and the wind blowing on my already freezing body took me to a whole new level of cold. For the next hour and a half I shivered and shook and thought about how stupid I was to not have a jacket and/or arm warmers and hoping for a flat tire so I could stop and get warm. The other problem the cold created was my hamstrings started to cramp. I am a big time wuss when it comes to cold water. I think I’ll wear two wetsuits in my next cold water tri and then a giant winter coat on the bike. At around mile 30 of the bike I noticed I wasn’t shaking anymore. I was able to start pushing it on the bike and I was able to pick up my heart rate. By the halfway point I felt great and the rest of the bike ride felt almost effortless. My only issue being that my hamstrings started cramping when I got out of the aero position to punch up a hill. I finished the bike in 5:09, a disappointment as I had planned on being under 5:00. On the run I settled into a pace just a little slower than my planned pace. I was worried about my hamstrings cramping on the run. They felt like they were on the verge of cramping but luckily they never actually seized up during the marathon. The run was definitely tough but I never felt black hole terrible. I ended up with a 3:40 marathon. Overall I wanted to go under 9:45 and ended up at 10:07. I didn’t manage my race as well as I could have. My mistakes dealing with the cold water cost me some energy and time. On a positive note I think that my nutrition worked out great and really saved my race. I was able to take in about 3300 GU calories and probably around another 2000 liquid calories. I think that this was the reason that I always felt like I had enough energy. Post race I felt ok. I thought my legs would be thrashed after the tough course but I actually felt pretty good. Towards the end of the marathon I had the thoughts of “why” “why am I doing this stupid, painful, pointless race” but it only took an hour or two after I finished before I was already getting excited about my areas of improvement and my training for my next race. The triathlon addiction continues, it’s a hungry beast that can’t be satisfied.