Preparing for major endurance events always takes planning. Sometimes, juggling training for different events takes nearly as much planning as developing the actual workouts. That's where I find myself, at the moment. After the marathon on May 18th, I have three key events in the works. The Spirit of Racine half-Ironman is probably the least worrisome of the three. For the most part, training for the other two will more than cover the training required for a half-Ironman, though I'll have to ensure I log enough mileage on the bike. I do want to beat my half-IM PR, so there is some amount of pressure. Oddly enough, the 50 miler I hope to enter only warrants second place in the "concerned" pile. Now, don't take that to mean I'm not concerned. The prospect of training for than running 50 miles is huge. Balancing the training for a half-IM PR with the long, slow runs required for a ultramarathon will make for some interesting training weeks. The biggest challenges is going to be balancing the training for a half-IM PR and a 50-miler while fitting the swim training required to complete the B-Fit B-Day challenge. While the 40 mile bike and 10 mile run will be relatively minor compared to other events, the swim has the potential to make the rest of the day challenging. Four miles. That's 6600 yards if we use a "swimmer's" mile. Okay, time for a brief aside. Who came up with the "swimmer's" mile. Someone told me it was to make sure we end up at an end of the pool instead of the middle. Okay, then why not 1750 yards (or 1800 if we want to be sadistic)? I understand the mile (1760 yards) and the nautical mile (2000 yards). I can comprehend meters. It's the swimmers mile that gets me. Anyone? Bueller? So, 6600 yards, or 7000 if I want to use regular miles. Considering that's nearly a mile further than the longest swim I've ever accomplished, that's huge. (Okay, I'll admit that a 50 miler is nearly twice as far as my longest ever run. For me, running is easier.) It took an Ironman to get me up to 5000 yards, and this is pretty much like adding a normal workout on top of the longest swim I've ever done. No small feat. That's a lot of training to juggle. And a lot of swimming. I feel waterlogged after this week, and I've only logged 7600 yards in the pool, this week. I'll log near that in a single swim the day I tackle the B-Fit B-day challenge. I guess I'll be spending a lot more time wet in the next couple months. By the way, the last few paragraphs go out the window if our tri club decides to swim across Lake Winnebago. That will be a swim of about 6.5 miles. If I make that swim, the four miles for the birthday challenge will somehow seem less an issue. Still challenging, but shorter.
Have you ever noticed how some of the key events in life are the most difficult to remember with true clarity? While many would argue that they remember all of these events down to the smallest detail, I tend to question that. Either their memories are just vastly better than mine, or they only THINK they have a clear picture of the event.
Here are a few examples.
Marriage. This is often one of the earliest life altering moments in a person's life. And yet most of my wedding day is a fog. I remember the big picture and a lot of the details for which we have pictures or stories. But a great deal of the day is a blur of people as we bounced from one event to another. My wedding day is one of the most important days of my life, but I have "drunken stupor parties" of which I have clearer memories.
Childbirth. I have a lot of memories from the birth of both of my children. The long labor my wife had with our son. The lightening quick birth of our daughter. I have lots of funny stories from both delivery days. But when it comes to the exact moment of birth, there were so many emotions and such a flurry of activity that many of the details are a haze. I vaguely remember seeing my son, thinking, "Dear Lord, he's big. I HAVE A SON!" After that, every ounce of my being was centered on my wife because I was so concerned about her health after the emergency C-section.
Ironman. Okay, not everyone has experienced this. But many of you have, and many more can relate as you have been at the finish line of an event. While completing Ironman Louisville falls well short of my wedding or the birth of my children, it was a big day in my life. More because I had focused so much energy into completing the race than anything else. After such a long time of dedicating a major portion of my time and effort, crossing the finish line was huge.
And like the others, it is a bit foggy. Okay, it's a lot foggy. Oddly enough, as with the birth of my children, most of the focus I could muster as I approached the finish chute was directed toward my wife. As in, "Where is my wife. Must find wife. Where is she? I know she's here somewhere." Finally, I decided she must be somewhere and "went into the light." I've mentioned before that little details were completely missed. Small things like sound. I distinctly remember the noise of the crowds as Iron Wil finished IMWI. The celebrations are quite apparent in any Ironman race video.
And somehow, it was "absent" when I finished. Well, something was absent. It might have been my ability to comprehend anything that was actually happening. Who knows?
Marriage is something I did once, and the only possibility of "recreating" the moment is if my wife and I decide to renew our vows. Childbirth. In the air.
But Ironman?
That's something I want to revisit. And for the most insane of reasons. I want to see if I can remember more of the second time down the finisher's chute.
Hey, we all need a reason. So what if mine is a bit whacked.
 There are a lot of endurance related websites I like. MapMyRun is one that I love. After all, it's a free site that adequately replaces GPS or other tracking equipment that can easily run into the hundreds of dollars. Once a runner has entered various routes, it's easy to pull up an account and find a run that meets their needs.
Not interested in mapping routes? MapMyRun makes it very easy to find routes entered by those in the area. From short run workouts to century plus bike rides, finding a new route is as easy as entering a zip code and any limiting criteria.
One vital piece of the puzzle is knowing the route. For the Green Bay Marathon, the group coordinating the training runs printed route directions onto clip-on reels runners could take with them. As my runs are based on routes I've run many times before, I generally identify a route, and look up the exact distance when I finish.
That, of course, requires a good memory when recalling those routes. Until Saturday, that had never failed me. When it did, that lack of recall cost me several miles.
I headed out late (6 p.m.) Saturday after my wife returned from a convention followed by church. I knew my route, and left her with the general outline so she would know where I was running. As always, the plan included a couple of refueling options.
Most of my routes are built upon a couple base loops. Depending on the distance needed, I add sections to those loops. In this case, I needed 20 miles, so planned on using the route with the most "additions."
All went well, and based on certain "checkpoints," I was comfortable with my pace. Well, comfortable until I hit the 2:45 mark. With four or five miles left, I was either WAY slower than I thought, or I had made a severe mistake in my route. And at exactly three hours, I made the decision to finish the run as it started, knowing that distance was exactly one mile.
I finished the "shortened" run in 3:10, including about five minutes for pit stops. Even so, I would have put my pace at something just under nine minutes per mile. That should have put me home in less than three hours.
The next day, I checked my routes and was unable to find ANYTHING including the final loop I had added to reach the final 20 mile distance. Even my guess at the mistake wasn't right. One segment of several miles wasn't on a single map in my profile. Somewhere along the line, I have completely made up a "known" route in my head.
In the end, my run was 21.2 miles. That's after cutting a couple miles off at the end. The bad news? I need to spend some time consolidating my routes, because I seem to be having difficulty remembering all of them (and me not even 40, yet).
The good news? I am more than ready to pace my co-worker for the marathon. I hoped to complete 20 miles in three hours. I completed an extra 1.2 miles in only five additional minutes. We're ready to rock!
I just hope they have the race course well marked. It's apparent I'm not up to the task of remembering the route.
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Okay, what's more amazing? The way endurance athletes continually come up with new ways to challenge themselves. Or the way other endurance athletes look at those new challenges and think, "Hey, I can probably do that." Face it, Ironman is really the result of a group sitting around stewing in testosterone trying to figure out just who was the toughest athlete. Most of us know the story, and from the pursuit of bragging rights was born an international phenomenon of endurance sports. In the early years, only a select few would consider punishing their bodies. Today, thousands pursue the title of Ironman every year. Some plan for years to achieve that goal. Others sign up on a whim and put little thought into accomplishing the task. At some point, marathoners decided 26.2 miles just wasn't enough. That led to the emergence of 50K races, 50 mile ultramarathons, and the insanity of 100 mile and longer events. Of course, i use the term "insane" for 100 mile races, even as I consider the decision of doing a 50 mile race, myself. How far of a leap is it from 50 to 100 miles? Many endurance athletes use their birthday as the opportunity to accomplish major goals, often centered on their age. More than a few ultramarathoners celebrate each birthday by running their age. Not a small task when we are in our 20s. A huge achievement in our 30s. And approaching bizarre as we get into our 40s and 50s. In the continuing evolution, the idea evolves to apply the same theory to triathlon, and B-Fit B-Day is born. Now, hundreds of people are on board to celebrate their birthday by swimming, biking, and running increasingly longer distances. Oddly enough, the swim is the one that makes the biggest jumps, as participants swim mileage equal to the first digit in their name. Again, quite a swim even for a 20 year old. As we age, that swim becomes vastly more challenging. Of course, the question is this. What's next? Last year, we had multiple runners complete 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. We have runners completing 150 mile treks. I even read about a bizarre race in New York City that covers thousands of miles over a several week period. One thing is certain. As people come up with the next seemingly impossible task, others will flock to it thinking it just MIGHT be doable. And many will find it is, in fact, possible. After that, it's only a matter of time before we'll find ourselves thinking, "Why not me?"
When I made the shift from afternoon training to morning training, I also made the decision that little, if anything, would interfere with those workouts. The change was made to allow me to train without sacrificing time with my kids. For the most part, I've achieved that goal.
Last night, we ran into one of those few things that I allow to get in the way of training. It is, of course, the same thing that made me shift my schedules around in the first place. Children.
By the time I got home from work, yesterday, I was feeling pretty rough. I had a bit of a fever, wasn't all that hungry, and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. After taking care of a few "have to" items, I did just that. I was in bed by 6 p.m. and napped until it was time to put the kids to bed. After helping my wife with that, I went back to sleep.
That turned out to be a good thing. About midnight, my daughter started squawking in between coughing fits. She was clearly distressed, and I could hear her breath rattling in her lungs. To top things off, she was so worked up that she didn't "like" anything. We offered her honey to try and sooth her throat, which she refused. We offered her a popsicle to pacify her. Suddenly, she "no like" popsicles. She even rejected orange juice. Perhaps she knew we had put cough syrup in it.
Finally, I just took her into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned the shower on hot. That helped enough to get her playing and laughing, allowing me to get her to drink the juice. She even allowed me to suck some of the "buggies" out of her nose.
Unfortunately, it took another couple hours for her to be comfortable enough to sleep. And if she's not sleeping, daddy's not sleeping. We sat in the recliner. We laid back in the recliner. We made a campsite on the living room floor.
She finally fell asleep around 2:30, and I held out hopes of making my training. When the alarm went off at 4:30, I decided another 90 minutes of sleep might be in order. After waking up, showering, and getting dressed, I went into the living room to find my wife had been rousted to assume my role as "co-camper" with my daughter.
Oddly enough, having to care for my daughter put all thoughts of being sick myself on the back burner. While I may have missed my workout, I feel much better. Tonight, we will take steps to help her make be comfortable through the night BEFORE she goes to bed.
Because Friday is now my "makeup" day for training...
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