Where is my edge?

Here I am 12 days away from what will be the most physically ridiculous thing I have done to date. There are so many emotions and thoughts running through my head. From the moment I wake up in the morning until the last second before I fall asleep I think about this race. Each day that passes brings me one day closer to the start line and also makes my nerves a little more tense.

The other day while working at the store I overheard a customer talking about his first ironman experience. It made me think back to the night before my first iron distance race. I remember being so nervous. I didn't know if I'd be able to do it. Would it be possible to cover the distances of all three sports in one day and before the cut-off time? I'd never done that before and was full of uncertainty. Two years and several races later I am still nervous and still full of uncertainty. This time is a little different though. This time I am not worried about covering the distances of all three sports. Peter has turned me into a machine and I am confident in my ability to get out of the water and off the bike. The run will be a different story but I think it will be manageable. What I am worried about this time is how my body is going to react to 30+ ,or so, hours of constant motion and no sleep. I've never been up for 24 hours intentionally before and I certainly haven't been in constant motion for that long either.

I have been told many times in the past few months that the human body is not designed to be doing what I am doing. I am in total agreement with that statement. It has taken me a while to come to terms with that but I do agree that this is just not normal. What I am subjecting my body to is not healthy and not what it is intended to do. Still, I push further and keep going. A few years ago at Death Camp I first heard Steve Watkins say, "You don't know where the edge is until you step over it." Since then that quote has stuck with me. Where is my edge? At what point will I totally break down and not be able to continue moving forward?

Do I really want to know the answers to those last two questions? Well you know what- in 12 days I will be one step closer to finding my edge. However, I am hoping I do not step over it.

Let's do this!

This past week has been a much needed recovery week. It has been a long time since I've had a week and weekend that wasn't totally consumed by training. One week ago today I didn't want to continue. I was ready to throw in the towel. As I sit here typing tonight I feel refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to move forward. What a difference a week can make huh!

I got my schedule from Peter tonight and this coming week's training looks tough but doable. I have to work this coming weekend so we scheduled my workouts around it. This week's schedule continues with reduced volume but has much more intensity then I am used to. I think I may actually be starting to taper. Woohoo! With the exception of one accidental drunken night on Wednesday I took full advantage of my recovery week. I ate well and slept as much as possible. I am looking forward to the coming week and haven't been this optimistic and peppy in weeks.

It has been a good week but even better than that - it has been a fantastic weekend. My mood is elated, my body rested and my mind renewed. Let's do this!!! 20 days to go and feeling good.

Welcome to the Squirrel Cage!

A few months ago when searching for race reports and information about a double iron distance race I stumbled upon an article titled, "Beyond Iron." The article was written by Shane Eversfield who had completed the Virginia Double Iron a few years ago. I read the article and marked it as a favorite knowing that over the course of my training I would keep coming back to it. I would suggest reading it if you have a few minutes since it does a great job explaining the history of races longer than the ironman, describes some of the different types of races, and explains some of the why and how.

http://www.zendurance.net/beyondiron.htm

I want to use part of Shane's article in my post, and yes I did contact him asking if I could do so, because now that the race is getting closer I want you to see how the race is set up. Pretty much all of the following paragraph comes directly from Shane's article since he did such a good job of explaining it.

Most ultra-triathlons are called “squirrel cage races”. They consist of multiple swim, bike and run laps, over a short, gently rolling or flat course. In my race, the Virginia Double Iron, the course consists of 12 out-and-back swim laps, followed by 45 out-and-back bike laps and 26 out-and-back run laps. You might think such a short course for such long races might make a multi-day race monotonous. However, the course is quite beautiful, on quiet roads in a state park. The short out-and-back repetitions allow each athlete to return to the race center every 20-60 minutes This provides the athletes with access to his/her “pit area” for food, clothing, equipment changes and crew support. This frequent “check-in” offers a sense of security, as the athlete endures such a daunting task. Unlike most conventional races on longer courses, ultra-triathlons allow pacers to accompany athletes. The short laps make it easy for spouses and other crew members to take turns accompanying their athletes. Over multiple laps, the athlete gains intimate familiarity with the course, honing a perfect strategy for the greatest efficiency and economy. The age-old expression, “Practice makes perfect” really holds true for such courses. Short lap lengths also mean the athlete has an accurate, continuous measure of progress.

When I explain the course to people they think that is even crazier then the event itself. To prepare myself for the course I have finished up the majority of my long rides around Charlotte's own 2.97 mile Booty Loop. I try to get between 30 and 50 miles in on the Booty Loop at the end of my Saturday rides. It sounds boring but Shane was right about a sense of security. I find it comforting when I am completely fatigued to know exactly where I am and where I am going.

Three weeks from this very day I will make the drive up to Lake Anna. I've already started packing some items and making many different lists. Since this is an unsupported race and I have a support crew coming with me I don't want to forget anything. I want to take good care of my support crew since they will be taking good care of me. So who are these people who are willing to devote an entire sleepless weekend to helping me achieve my goal? My support crew is my sister, one of my cousins, and two of my favorite people/BFF's (ha ha...I just had to use BFF).

Tracy, Becky, Bob and Melissa will be there for me through each and every lap of the three sports. Melissa says she's just going to the race to drink beer and watch me suffer but I think she'll probably run a few laps with me. I can't thank these four enough for being willing to help me through this. I think we all know its not going to be pretty. The race will be tough and I am sure I will hit some extreme lows during both the bike and run. Knowing I have such an amazing crew with me will certainly make a huge difference and help to set my mind at ease. Thanks crew! Your hard work will be rewarded at the winery during the award ceremony on Sunday night.

23 days until race day. My stomach turns more and more quickly each time I think about it.

Failure and Success

I'm sure you've heard the term "bible belt" when referring to the deeply religious people in the southeast. Well I happen to live in the bible belt and those of you who are familiar with the rural parts of North Carolina surely have seen the sayings and quotations that are written on the signs outside of churches. More often then not they crack me up. They are usually cleverly written with a nice play on words. I always read them and they usually make me smile. This weekend I came across one that really inspired me at a time when I needed it most. To say it was a "sign" would be corny but lets just say it was the perfect saying at the perfect time.

First let me explain why it had such an impact. When the alarm went off on Saturday morning the first thing I said to myself was, "damn I'm tired". I should have known better and gone back to sleep but I stuck with my routine and got up. I was out on the bike by 4:00am and within the first hour knew it was going to be a tough day. I just didn't have anything to give. My legs were tired, they felt so heavy and I was moving slower then I ever have on the bike. To make things worse it was dark and I was cold. I just wanted to quit. At 8:00am I headed over to the store to lead the group ride and was hoping nobody would be there. I had decided I was going to call it a day if nobody showed up. There was someone in the parking lot...one person...I guess the ride was on. I led (from behind I might add) a 60 mile ride and was struggling to hold on. I watched my speed drop with each hour. Nothing was working to get me moving faster or feeling better. I got back from that ride and had only ridden 120 miles. I was done. I went home and laid down for 30 minutes until the guilt got the best of me and I headed out the door to try it again. I made it another 30 miles and felt like I couldn't even turn over the pedals. I tried to push on but I was done...completely over being on the bike and could think of nothing more then stopping, so I did. I made it 150 miles (cutting the ride 70 miles short) before I went for my run. This is where the day got worse. Peter wanted me to run a quick 5 miles off the bike but since I cut the ride short my goal was 4 miles. I headed out the door and ran the fastest 4 miles I've run in months. I was so upset. What did that mean??? It's not fatigue, it's not nutrition, but instead it was something mental. It wasn't my body not able to pedal my bike...it was my mind not allowing me to do so. I know how to fix being tired, I know how to fix bonking but I don't know how to fix a mental barrier that has been developed related to cycling.

So where does the church sign come in...well on the group bike ride there was a sign in front of a church right outside of Gastonia that read,

"Failure is a success if you learn from the experience"

I felt like a complete failure on Saturday. I didn't even make it close to my goal mileage for the day and when I ran off the bike I felt fresh. That was not the type of workout I needed so close to my race. If the church sign was correct then I needed to learn from this failure and turn it into a success. I struggle with figuring out how to learn from this failure since it isn't anything tangible. It is something in my mind that needs to be identified and worked through.

The more I think about where I went wrong and why I was not mentally ready to ride this week I start to realize where I can make some changes this coming week. Last week I was housesitting/dogsitting so I wasn't at home and had three dogs to watch. That took me out of my element and routine. I'm back at home this week and have a recovery week in front of me. What I need to do this week to be sure I am ready for the next few weeks of training is as follows:

1. Sleep more and take naps. I've been staying up later at night- partly due to reading a new book and partly due to not being able to sleep. I need to put the book down and do some Yoga before bed each night to ease my tension.
2. Eat better. Since I don't have a job I can workout anytime of the day and as a result I eat meals at different times each day. I need to get back on a schedule and stick to it. My calorie count has been dropping because of shifting these meal times around.
3. Stop obsessing about being unemployed. For someone who doesn't have a job I am way to stressed out all the time. This has effected both my sleeping and eating as well as my mood. Things will work out and I just need to have faith and focus on the task at hand.

There it is. Three simple things to do over the coming weeks. I have under a month now and my nerves are becoming more unsettled every day...

Just got paid, Friday night, Party huntin', feelin' right

You know the song so sing along!

As much as I would like to say that this is the theme song of my life it couldn't be any further from the truth. In fact, if it were my life's theme song it would sound more like this:

Got no job, Friday night, 8:00pm bedtime, Legs feel tight
Bottles made up, Gel flasks too
Alarm is set for, a lil after 2

That sounds more like the Friday nights of late. I was hoping that last weekend was going to be the last of the really long workouts and the taper would begin. I was hoping that I'd be able to stay up a little later on a Friday night and sleep in a little more on Saturday (or should I say Friday night). Unfortunately that is not the case. Tomorrow is another long training day. I will start by 3:45am and hope to finish by 8:00pm. Just enough time to eat, go back to sleep and do it again on Sunday.

The race is four weeks from tomorrow. 29 days from this very moment I will be 14 hours into the race and it will not even be halfway complete. 29 days sounds far away right? Well to me it is close enough that I get sick to my stomach thinking about it but far enough away for me to say, "I've got plenty of time!" Part of me wants the race to be here now but the other part of me never wants the race to get here. One minute I say, "I am so excited about this race" and the next I'm saying, "What the heck was I thinking?"

The reality is my race is right around the corner. Over the past few months I have put in some serious training time. My weekends are completely devoted to training. If I were employed full time there would be no way I would have made it this far. Along the way I've made plenty of sacrifices and have justified things many times over. I've had good times and bad times. I've smiled and cried. I've ridden my bike through both sunrises and sunsets, and lately they have been on the same day. Through all of this I have learned a lot about myself. That is partly why I did this. To test myself and put me into unfamiliar territory where I would need to dig deep inside myself. Deep down I am optimistic about this race and hope to come out of this experience a better person. I have so much more to give in life. Lately I've been feeling as if my life is just now ready to begin. That everything I've done in the past has molded me into what I am today. Each and every experience, both positive and negative, has impacted me and helped me to find myself. I feel like I am so close to finding the answers I am looking for. I feel as if I am ready to live and ready to give. I've made it to this point in my life with only one regret and that, more then anything, has helped fuel this fire inside of me to figure out who I am and why I'm here.

The clock is about to strike 8:00pm. The dog is fast asleep and I am not to far behind her. A few hours from now I will be back out on the bike, in the dark, alone with my thoughts. Good night!

Food Glorious Food - A Case Study

I get asked all the time how much food do I eat. I can't really answer that question because I don't really pay attention to what I eat all day. I literally eat all day. The best I can tell you is that when I am awake I am eating and when I wake up at night to use the bathroom I eat then too. I'd also like to say, "if I'm not working out then I am eating" but the truth is when I am working out I am actually eating even more. I thought it might be interesting, and fun, to walk you through a typical Saturday's bike workout menu.

It has taken me a few months to refine my nutrition plan for the bike portion of my race. With a little over a month until race day I still have some more refining to do. I have my eating schedule in place but I need to make some more food substitutions and still want to try some new things. Before I tell you what I eat I think it is important to first explain when I eat because that took just as much work to figure out. Every workout for the past few months has been an experiment. Whether I am swimming, biking or running I am always trying new foods, new gels, new liquids and new drugs (Imodium, Pepto and so forth). I feel like my life is an experiment. I am the scientist and the subject! That is why this is a case study.

The subject (me!) is a 34 year old male training for a double iron distance triathlon. His current weight is 152 pounds and he trains, on average, approximately 30-40 hours per week. His rough estimate for a daily calorie consumption (from meals and snacks) is at least 5000 calories and water consumption is at least 150 ounces a day.

The current bike nutritional plan is timed on the hourly clock and not on the workout clock. That may sound confusing so let me explain. Instead of eating and drinking at intervals from the start of the workout (the time I press Start on my watch at the beginning of the workout) I now eat and drink at intervals based on the time of day. I decided to do this because there are times when I need to take breaks during the workouts and when I am not moving forward I still need to be eating and drinking so that I don't get behind. The time in between calorie consumption is the same but is easier to follow and will make it much easier for my crew during the race since they will just need to look at the time of day to figure out what I need to be eating and drinking.

Here is the breakdown:

• On the top of each hour (60 min mark) I take some E-gel
• Every 15 minutes (15, 30, 45 and 60) I drink plain water
• Every 20 minutes (20, 40, 60) I drink a Sustained Energy mix (my secret)
• At the bottom of each hour (30 min mark) I eat some solid food
• Depending on the conditions salt tabs are consumed on the 30 and 60 min marks

As you can see I pretty much am eating or drinking something every 10 minutes while on the bike. I will plan to do this for the entire 224 mile bike portion of my race. I am aiming to consume at least 400-450 calories an hour. That may not sound like a lot but I am figuring to be on the bike for 14 or so hours so that adds up quickly.

Here is the case study- Last Saturday my bike ride was 210 miles (I actually cut it shorter then what I was suppose to do believe it or not). I started riding a little before 4:00am and finished a little after 7:00pm. I did eat breakfast at 3:00am before I started working out and I ate dinner at 9:00pm after my run. The list of food below is only what I consumed on the bike and not in meals for the day. This is what I consumed while on the bike.

1. 10 E-gels, 1500 calories
2. 14 scoops of Sustained Energy, 1554 calories
3. 3 Sandwiches (Canadian Bacon and cheddar on a potato roll), 495 calories
4. 2 Powerbars, 480 calories
5. 4 Nature Valley Granola Bars, 560 calories
6. 2 Uncrustable sandwiches, 420 calories
7. 6 Fig Newton bars, 600 calories
8. 2 Pay Day and 1 Snickers bars, 750 calories
9. 1 banana, approx 80 calories
10. 2 cups (16 oz) of sweetened apple sauce (I gots the Motts!), 400 calories
11. Gatorade, 290 calories

I think that pretty much sums up my day on the bike last Saturday. Now for our total calorie count...drum roll please....7129 calories consumed while sitting on my bike seat. Yummy! There you have it. I'll admit that I'm even a little surprised to see the total number. Add is the calories from the meals I ate and I consumed almost 10,000 calories last Saturday. Michael Phelps has nothing on my diet! 31 days until race day...but who's counting right!

A bee sting, a bloody toe, Beth Orton and The Be Good Tanyas

That pretty much sums up the last week and a half since I've blogged last. It has been too long since I have written but I am back and ready to write. For the past week I have been up in Connecticut visiting the family. I made an impromptu decision last week to make the drive up there and spend some time away from Charlotte. I haven't been out of town since December nor have I had anything resembling a vacation in 2009. My parents had a beach cottage for the weekend so Luna and I made the long drive up there. It was Luna's first trip ever to the beach so it was fun to see her run around in the sand, and of course, be fearful of the water. Ahh...dogs...they crack me up. I really enjoyed spending time with my parents, sister, brother-in-law and my twin nephews. It was the perfect trip except for the bee sting and the bloody toe.

First, the bee sting- I am pretty allergic to bees but haven't been stung in a few years. On Monday I was 2 (count them...2) miles into my bike ride when I rode right into a bee at about 30 miles an hour. I am coasting down the back side of a hill and I saw him come right at me. He hit my left cheek right below where my sunglasses were. If I had not been wearing my sunglasses he probably would have stung me in the eye and it would have been much worse. Thank you Tifosi sunglasses! The picture doesn't do the sting justice. My eye was completely swollen shut for a few hours making riding and running a tad more challenging without proper depth perception. Two days later my face is swollen and I am wondering if I will be able to put on swim goggles today or if my face is to puffy.

On to the bloody toe. I should mention that for the first time since 2007 I have all ten toenails. Marathon running, ironman training then ultra running have pretty much destroyed my feet. This year though all my toenails have all grown back and my feet look almost normal...until now. So after the bike ride Monday I was suppose to get off the bike and run for 4 hours. It was already challenging enough to run with only one eye but those of you that know Portland CT know that there is no such thing as flat! I choose some loops that I would consider to be less hilly but apparently the downhill running and the feet slamming into the front of the shoe resulted into the ripping off of a toenail and a bloody mess. Now I am down to 9 toenails. Oh well...

Now you are probably asking why (or even who) Beth Orton and The Be Good Tanyas are and how they fit into this blog post. When I began the run portion of my workout on Monday my legs were completely fatigued from the workout I did on Sunday. Thanks to Andy and Tracy for running with me. If it wasn't for them I might not have had the motivation to finish the run portion on Sunday. Andy ran the whole run with me, his longest ever, and Tracy ran the last 4.9 miles with us which was her longest non-stop run to date as well. It was fun running with the family. Back to the B's- as I was saying I was completely fatigued and overall just upset about my swollen face. I was on vacation and haven't relaxed at all. I just wanted to stop running and not move anymore. I had my ipod on (sorry Melissa and Melinda) for the run and a Beth Orton song came on followed by one from The Be Good Tanyas. I should probably mention that it is NOT safe to run with an ipod, or similar mp3 player, but since there isn't any traffic in the rural part of CT I was running I opted for some company. Over the past few months I have been working out with an ipod. I know it isn't safe but when some of your workouts are 15+ hours long it gets a little boring. I have added and removed artists so many times from my ipod since my mood is so unstable when I get tired. Who would have thought that I would only find the motivation to continue moving forward while listening to Beth Orton and The Be Good Tanyas- passing up mood lifting music like rock n roll or dance music. I guess when the going gets tough the music gets folk! I am not ashamed to admit that these two bands are amongst my favorites and it is all that I am listening to now. Thanks ladies!

There is a little more than five weeks to go until race day and my nerves are starting to get the best of me. More to come...time to unpack from my trip.