Swim, bike, run

47 days and counting, all too quickly

Here's the official ticker:   http://ironmanworldchampionship.com/

Excited, nervous, intimidated, confident, anxious.  All words that describe where my feelings and are being played out vividly in my dreams  on a nightly bases.

Last night was me getting to the race site late (again), this time everyone had started so no one was around.  I couldn't remember which one came first or know the course so I just took off running randomly.

Again, that's
#1: SWIM
#2 BIKE
#3 RUN
This needs to sink in.

The night before I was of course late to the start, jumped in the water and came out and there was only one bike left.  At the time I didn't recognize it was mine, but I thought to myself didn't want to take the last bike in case someone else needed it.  So I just thought I would do the run first and then the bike after everyone else came back.

SWIM, BIKE, RUN.

This week's focus is obviously a return to basics.



Sorry for the lack of post last week.  My goal was to get a post each week and I have a half-written post about a topic but couldn't complete it yet as I'm in the middle of applying to Sports Medicine Fellowships now.  It's a fascinating process to again be at another cross-roads.  There are a lot of great programs and I'm looking forward to being able to devote more time learning another one of my passions.

Nine

Another week gone by…another gulp in my throat as the race inches closer.  Not so much as nervousness for the race itself but more uneasiness over the things I cannot control.  I need to get over this; I can’t waste energy thinking about things I have little control over.  The things that make me most anxious are the heat I’ll have to contend with after getting comfortable with Chicago fall temperatures and not being able to swim with a wetsuit (which is a great benefit to a swimmer like me).  I can’t do anything about the weather or the rules but I can prepare for heat to some degree by doing some longer indoor workouts as it gets closer to race day and dress in heavier clothes outside than what is appropriate.  As far as the lack of wetsuit goes, this has been a great summer season in Lake Michigan to not swim in a wetsuit as the temps thus far have usually been in the mid to upper 70’s.  My anxiety from the no wetsuit is that quite simply I have not made the gains in my swim time as I had hoped I would by now.

In addition to my fairly regular long workouts, on my race plan is two extra long days. One of those days was yesterday.  It started with a 100 mile bike ride, and then the plan was to run 16 miles with a 2 mile swim at the end.  Because I didn’t get to the beach until noon after my bike and run, the life guards at Ohio Street Beach wouldn’t let me swim with the rip currents.  I got in about 3 minutes of swimming and the life guard yelled at me that I had to get out.  It was no good to argue with her that if I got swept out, I could simply put my feet down as I was literally standing in no more than 3 feet of water, or that I came to the beach to specifically swim in current.  Fortunately rip currents don’t occur before 11am as there has been no one in the past to kick me out of the water when swimming in the turbulent water before then (I hope you can sense the sarcasm).  Sarcasm didn’t help my case with her either.  I did tell her that I understood she was just doing her job.  So at any rate, I wanted to get all three disciplines in on the day because I wanted to take today off completely and didn’t want to prolong the swim so I added on 4 miles to my run and went by my local pool which happened to be open for lap swim & turned into a miserable (but very worthwhile) cool down swim.

Today was a wonderful day to sleep in and recharge with Melissa.  This coming week the emphasis is on a couple days of recovery followed by a few shorter, higher quality workouts.  I haven’t organized my weekend workout yet.  I wanted to see how yesterday went first before looking forward too far. 

10 weeks...

With less than ten weeks until Hawaii, the focus becomes more centered, the training more strict, and the shedding the peripheral things that might keep me from getting better.  Throughout these next weeks, each week is designed with different goals.  With that in mind, I will do my best to put a brief post each week highlighting my focus.  

This past week the goal was rejuvenation.  I've been very complacent the past 2 weeks or so with my workouts.  The tough part of training for an Ironman is the delicate balance of pushing yourself to the brink without overtraining.  I've been overtraining as evident by my lack of enthusiasm in completing my workouts.  That's a very dangerous place to be.  Part of it is sleep, partly work, partly not recovering well enough.  Overtraining does not occur with the same workload for everyone, all the training plans I look at and reading I do to set up my training plan tell me more is better.  And I’ve been pushing myself to do as much as possible in the confines of work schedule and holding back at times to avoid injury. 

Fortunately a part of my work schedule that was busier this week and would inevitably knock out a training weekend with 3 overnight weekend emergency room shifts was this weekend.  Since I would lose out on any high-quality training this weekend anyway, it gave me a good opportunity to let the weekend go from a big training day and just do a few shorter light workouts.

Now this upcoming week will be working on getting a couple good runs in and one of two long day workouts where I go long in all three disciplines.  After the long Saturday workout, I will be giving myself the day off entirely on Sunday, something I set as a goal for myself to do once every three weeks, but really haven’t taken any days fully off.  My off days to this point have been light lifting workouts which to me is pretty much the same as a day off, except perhaps mentally not workout out may have prevented the mental stagnation I’ve had for the past couple weeks. 

PSA

Just a quick reminder to ALWAYS wear your bike helmet, no matter the distance or type of ride. As a doctor I do regularly tell my patients to wear their bike helmets but this was all too often preached more than practiced as I skipped the helmet for the freedom of the wind flowing through my locks when commuting on my mountain bike and saved my helmet for the more serious riding during a workout.  This was until this spring when I regularly got scolded by a friend and colleague (thanks Rob) who would ask if I wore my helmet each day and then a month working in the ER seeing patient after patient come in after getting hit by a car to have gravel picked out of the head or a scalp laceration repaired or sadly, in the case of one, a skull fracture all because they chose not to wear their helmet.  I thought I was impervious to getting hurt while going at the relatively lower speeds and easy maneuverability that my mountain bike has to offer. 

A bike I saw in the ER after a head on collision by two bikers on the Lake Shore Path. Fortunately these guys both had their helmets on..

Just over a week ago I biking to work on one of the really hot days (95ish) and was slowing down to stop at an intersection between a car going straight and the one turning right with ample room between them.  As I approached the stopped cars going no more than 3 mph, I hit a pothole I didn’t see, my sweaty palm slipped off the handlebar and I hit the pavement shoulder first followed by head and knee.  My head was fine (thanks to my helmet) but my shoulder and bike were both slightly injured.  The bike suffered a bent derailleur and my shoulder suffered a 1^st degree AC sprain (not very serious and I hope should get better with time).  Even though I log about 150-200 miles per week on a bike, the fall during such a simple task of approaching a stoplight was a good reminder that an accident can happen at any time.