Today's Workouts

First, I went for a nice 4 hour ride. I left about 6:20AM because it's so fucking humid and was supposed to get to 90 today (it hasn't yet, but the humidity is oppressive). I rode to Fermilab, did about 2.5 loops for a total of 70 miles, not a bad ride. On the way there, I rode up on 2 girls riding side by side. I say, "Hi, ladies, how are you?" They say fine, and then I ask if they are also going to Fermilab. They say no, just doing a few miles (WTF is that anyway???). Well, I caught up to them and passed them roundly all nice and aero tucked, and they came up at a stoplight. One of them asks me if I'm training for an Ironman. Ya fucking think??? I caught up to your sorry asses and passed you riding hard aero. I was nice, though, and said yes. She asks which one, Wisconsin? And I flippantly reply, "No, Placid." She asks, "Where do you do hill training?" I must have rolled my eyes at this point because I laugh when someone asks me that--there's riding hard and there's slacking. If you ride hard, no matter terrain, you will do fine on hills. Well, being this close to my A race, I'm getting a little bitchy, so I open up on her and say, "I can't believe how ignorant some people are. I train with power, I ride hard, I understand how to ride hills. But, yeah, I'll go up to Wisconsin a few times just because." This chic is treating me like I know nothing, like I'm doing my first Ironman. I mean come on! LOOK AT MY BITCH!!! Does it look like a newbie bike? And I'm in an aggressive aero position. Geez. Well, after that, I just rode really hard because I was done with that scene.

I get to Fermilab and took this shot of Bitchie at the entrance, where I then peed (camera phone shot):














And then I rode around doing my thing. It was hot, humid, but thankfully cloudy. I saw my massage school owner buddy, Mike. He worked on me last night and didn't charge me for it. He's absofuckinglutely awesome! I figured I'd see him today. I gave him some Infinit to try, as he's had issues with nutrition. I'll find out on Monday if it worked for him.

My first interval (I did my usual 3x crap, where crap=20' ride pretty hard, 10' ride fucking hard, 2' ride REALLY FUCKING HARD, 8' ride easy) wasn't too hot, but the next 2 were good. I felt great, and my new Infinit concoction (which I have named "Money Shot") was working great. I never felt hungry for anything else.

Part way into my first interval, I'm riding fucking hard, and a group of 3 roadies comes by me. They don't even say hello--they just pass me. Assholes. Because when I saw them leave the East Gate, they slowed way down. Assholes. So I made up a new term (added to my Crackology): FRP, which stands for Fucking Roadie Prickberry. You see, they probably have pencil dicks and tiny little balls, hence the prickberry (I made up that word). So feel free to call someone an FRP when you need to. Don't get me wrong--there are plenty of nice roadies, and of course when I'm on LGL no worries, but for fuck's sake I'm on a tri bike, I ride my Bitch hard, and I'm not a fucking poser. The FRP's of course had to speed up just to pass me because I'm a "triathlete." Fuck off, FRP's.

After interval #3, I rode down a different road in Fermilab just for shits and grins, and came upon this nice blue circle, so I took a pic of Bitchie in front of it and then peed there (camera phone shot):














Then I rode home, and the winds were strong southerly with some westerly, so it was an easy trip back. When I was about 5 miles from home, I'm at a stoplight and I look down and see something and pick it up and it's a tiny, tiny monkey! I love monkeys, so I smiled and put him in my Bento Box. Here he is in front of this computer so you can see just how tiny he is. He will now become my lucky tiny monkey!














When I got home, I took off my bike shorts and put on run shorts and a visor, switched sunglasses and headed out to run. OH MY FUCKING GOD! The heat and humidity were crazy! But I smiled most of the time because I felt like such an idiot, but also good. I knocked out my 40' brick run, came home, had to do a quick shower because I was so pigged out, put on a swimsuit (no clothes I just couldn't do it), drove to the Y to swim just 1,000 yards to cool down and give my legs a nice massage, came home, and now I need to go to the bike shop for some minor stuff.

All in all, a good day's work, and I'm psyched about riding 100 miles tomorrow, and NO RUNNING!

Train hard!

Fuckin' Bottles and Random Thoughts

I live in a fucking bottle factory. Between the Gatorade bottles used for running, swimming and random training, the bike bottles, the Endurox R4 bottles and the Ultrafuel bottles, my yellow line is going through the roof lately. And then there's the coffee (no bottles involved--just grinding beans once a week) and the beer bottles. Fucking bottles!

Did you ever notice when you're mixing concentrated Infinit and you stir it with, say a knife, that when it's dripping off the knife it looks like, well, jiz? Only difference is my mix contains no protein and boatloads of caffeine. In either case, I'm not sure I really want it, but I have to have it, so down it goes.

It's taken me EIGHT YEARS to figure out that Ultrafuel powder doesn't dissolve well in cold water, so, dumbass that I'd been, I finally started mixing it in warm or hot water the night before and chilling it. It still makes me gag; it still makes me go into an insulin coma when I drink it, which is all good.

I figured out that the gag reflex is something that visits me once I'm in fairly hard training. At that point (which started about 6 weeks ago), when I put something in my mouth that is sweet when I'm not intending to eat (toothpaste, for example), brain thinks I'm threatening to work out again, and it makes me gag. Sometimes I spontaneously start to gag for no good reason when I'm thinking about my next workout. It cracks me up! But at least see, I'm honest about this shit, right? Who else would talk like this? Oh yeah, Kim that potty mouth.

It's Friday, and I'm up to 11.5 hours of training, and I've got about 9.5 hours of biking to do, .75 of running, and I really should try and sneak in a :30 swim. Nothing like it being Friday with 2 days to go in the week and you're only HALF FUCKING DONE WITH YOUR TRAINING!!!

I'm not complainin'...I'm just sayin'.

The outdoor pool was almost hot this morning, but still better than swimming indoors any day. I'll write about today on Pool Stories sometime later.

I'm getting an impromptu massage tonight, after I go visit the booze sample lady, Lila. I'm in need of some major painkiller.

Looking on the bright side, I'm pretty tan. I know, I need to take some new pics, and I will do that soon. The Tiki Hut is in temporary remission, but I'm sure it will make an appearance any day now.

And finally,

GO HARDCORE AGGRO OR GO HOME!

and also

HARDEN THE FUCK UP.

Amen.

I'm Training A LOT

I'm not going on "lockdown" like some bloggers who are doing either IMCDA or IMLP, but I'm starting to really feel it. I should hit something like 22 hours this week, so yeah:



I'm at a loss for words, but read this hilarious post on another blog I came across. And if you don't hear from me again until Monday, well, you know why!

Introducing my MTB Clipless Fuck

I finally named my MTB today, and she shall be called Clipless Fuck (or CF for short). I've had her for 8 years. I bought her so I could ride with "regular" people every now and then, and I use her on days when I am supposed to ride really easy, since that's about all I can do on her! But today was her first inaugural ride as a commuter bike--to the outdoor pool, that is. That's CF parked on deck at my fabulous 50 meter outdoor pool this morning, after I finished swimming 3,000 meters.

I swam most of the workout in the "open water" area that had no lane ropes, but it was cool. Good rotational feedback! So my total bike mileage round trip was 10.62 miles, and it took 42 minutes (stopping, traffic, I suck, etc.). So do I add this to my workout log or not? I think I need to, because if I end up doing it 3 times a week (which is my plan), that's not insignificant miles or time.













Above is me in the locker room dressed to go home with wet hair. My hair is long enough now that I am using a blow dryer after swimming! The disgrace! Don't worry--I'm not growing it out--just keeping it a bit longer on top, and thankfully I'm getting a haircut tonight because I'm such a mophead.










Above is CF with my bitchin' Hello Kitty beach towel that is the official towel of outdoor swimming this year. I think I need to get a new helmet, though. That silver one is old and not too stylin'. I may get a pink one--I'm not sure!










I told you I got pimp shoes. But they are really nice. I'm wearing my sushi socks in them.













Here I am all ready to ride home. My new pink TYR backpack is AWESOME! At first I thought it was too big, but all my swim crap fits in there nicely, and it's comfortable to wear on the bike.













My frame pump doubles as an emergency dildo in a pinch.










Random fixie locked up near the train tracks on the way home. I'm still waiting for my fixie to arrive and make sure it will fit me properly. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, as I already have a name for him!

Ironman Training Graph

I was thinking about this this morning after like my third trip to the bathroom. Those of you who haven't yet trained for an Ironman, consider this! Note than when you are training 20+ hours per week you are spending even more time eating.

I Should Write for Inside Triathlon

So the issue I just received (I still do not know why I get these magazines--not learning anything, OK pretty pictures especially of BIKES) has an article called "2 Ironmans in 3 Months Can You Handle It?

Yes. 2003 DNF'ed IMWI (after 1/2 the marathon so close enough); GFT 8 weeks later
Yes. 2004 IMCAN and then IMHI 7 weeks later
Yes. 2007 IMLP and then full NothingMan 7 weeks later
Yes. 2008 IMLP and then full NothingMan 7 weeks later again

YES YES YES YES YES.

Why are they asking me??? And why are they giving people THREE MONTHS to do a double? That is just plain wussy.

As you should know by now, I am the totally wrong person to ask, "Can I....?" It should not be a question of can--it should be a question of are you fit enough. Should I have done it in 2003? Maybe not, because I did suffer at GFT, and by suffer I mean my legs were not right and I wasn't really fit enough for the double so close together. In 2004? No problemo. First and second fastest IM's at the time. 2007? Piece of cake. 2008? I'm looking more forward to NothingMan 2 ("Nothing is Impossible if you Really Try") than IMLP, because do you know how fit I will be after IMLP? Really fucking fit! And then I just roll that fitness on to NothingMan 2 with a ton of biking, a little swimming, and maintenance running.

Actually, I think it's better that you don't separate your double by more than 3 months. Why? Because otherwise you really risk burnout. Which is why in 2006 I did Brazil and was registered for Florida, and they were just so far apart, I couldn't mentally handle that I'd need to stay fit for that long, and there is no way I could slack in between. So I just bagged IMFL. I had boatloads of fun biking a lot, and look what has happened since that time...

Now if you qualify for Kona early in the year, you've got some serious mindset adjustments to make so you don't burnout. I hope I have that problem one of these days...

I swear, I could write books...

Weekly Workout Totals 05/26/2008-06/01/2008 and Found a New Event!

A small collection of lobsters in my downstairs bathroom













My festive lobster light, one of my lobster throw pillows (I made it) and the Lucky Lobster!


I am so excited now, being only 7 weeks out from IMLP. Whereas some athletes start experiencing burnout or boredom, not me! I just (as you should know by now) fucking love riding bikes! So as long as I'm riding a lot, I'm a happy camper! I only rode 2 of my bikes this week--a nice recovery ride on my MTB (she has no name, but I'll think of one one of these days) with my new pimpin' white Shimano shoes (yes, I need to take pics), a shortie ride Saturday on Bitchie with the aero helmet, and of course yesterday's ride. When I'm riding on Sundays, I always think of it as my "church" (the church of the bicycle--I bought this jersey for a guy in Germany who did graphics work for my LGL decals that I'm ordering this week), and so I said to a few friends at rest stops along the way that I had a prayer for them, since we weren't physically in church. It goes like this:

HARDEN THE FUCK UP. AMEN.

I ended up riding a few miles yesterday with a nice gentleman who back in the day was a road racer. When I'm doing really long rides, I enjoy trying to draw out the other person, because I know it makes them feel good and besides I already know all about myself! So while this man no longer races (my guess is he's in his 40's), he's a solid rider, and he now does ultracycling events. Do you hear a word in that sentence calling my name? He tells me about this 200-mile ride he's doing for the second time in August, and it's not too far from home for me. And it's pancake flat. So guess what? I'm seriously thinking about it. It's called the Metamora 4 by 50, and it's 3 weeks after IMLP. Now, you'd think I'd learned from 2 tries at the Dairyland Dare 300K ride that 3 weeks after an Ironman is not a good time for ultracycling, but in this case, given the flatness, and also the option to just complete 150 miles (which I'm positive I can do, since I've managed 200K with 9,000 ft. climbing last year same time), I think I will be good to go! Plus, August is my "garbage up on cycling month," and I didn't really have anything massive planned except for a relatively flat 200K ride on 8/24.

So, I think with a few minor adjustments to my training (really just skip one of my weekend long rides and maybe add some time to them the week before), I should be good to go. Now lest you think this is leading up to a desire to do RAAM, think again. I just want to do something I've never done before, and my longest ride to date is 135 miles. The big question is whether to do it on Bitchie or LGL. I'm thinking Bitchie, so I can lay down in the aerobars. Who's in with me? I think I can con a few of my friends into doing this, after all, I'm one of the biggest pushers in the world!

And here are my totals for last week. Not bad for a recovery week, eh? Thank GOD I get to go to massage school tonight! And I'm swimming outdoors this morning! What a way to start a week!

Weekly Workout Totals	05/26/2008-06/01/2008 This week's totals are sponsored by…Lobsters! Read all about them here.
Swim:	7300 yards (4.14 miles) in 2.7 hours; 17% of weekly workout time; approx. 945 calories burned Canadian: 6675.12 meters
Bike:	Approx. 172.38 miles in 9.87 hours; 64% of weekly workout time; approx. 4287 calories burned; Total TSS=494 Canadian: 277.42 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 14.87 miles in 2.31 hours; 15% of weekly workout time; approx. 1047 calories burned Canadian: 23.93 kilometers
Strength:	0.63 hours; 4% of weekly workout time; approx. 158 calories burned Canadian: I lifted many grams
All Sports:	Approx. 191.39 miles in 15.51 hours; approx. 6437 calories burned Canadian: 308.01 kilometers
Sleep:	6.71 hours avg./night Canadian: Does the Canadian Moose sleep standing up?
Stretching:	1.83 hours. Massage: 0 hours

Today's Ride

Yeah, so I did this ride today. 102 miles by myself in 5:33. Not bad for a day's work 1 week after Triple T. It was flat to rolling, with most of the rolling in the last 15 miles. GORGEOUS day! There were several times when I wanted to slack, but I wore my HTFU bracelet so that's what I did. The time includes several bottle fumbling events, since I was testing out my Hydro Tail on a big ride.

What's significant about this?

1. I know I can go faster.
2. I rode this tired.
3. My IF was .733 and TSS 299 (NP=136) which is PERFECT for an Ironman ride
4. I don't feel too trashed, other than the fact that I still trained GO HARD OR GO HOME style this week just following Triple T
5. It was my SECOND RIDE on Bitch this year!!!
   

I think my CdA is down. My new rear bottle position helps as does the fact that I'm a bit smaller and leaner. My next move is to get S-bend aerobars. Despite this being only my 2nd ride on Bitch, I was very comfortable in my aero position (except for my poor crotch, but it's coming around). I've noticed in just the last month that I can almost put my palms on the floor when I do a forward bend (i.e., touch your toes). I find it amazing that I've become more flexible in the past year. I'm not stretching any more than I used to--I'm just being consistent about it, now for 3 years, I think.

I LOVE my Bitch. The Nokon cables are just fucking cool. All's I need now is about 5 more 100+ mile rides (which I'll easily get in) before IMLP and I'm fucking all set to go.

I tell ya, riding a road bike makes you strong. And stretching is good for holding a fairly aggressive aero position, which I do. And new bike parts can never hurt.

I made up some new rules today:

1. Beers that you drink after riding but before you shower don't count.
2. Doing a supported ride in a skinsuit is more gay than wearing an aero helmet (I didn't wear mine today because I feared being ridiculed, but I wore it yesterday for a puny 2:40 ride to test it out and it FUCKING ROCKS)
3. Riding a $4,000+ tri bike at 15MPH is very wrong.
4. Tube socks aren't too stylish on a bike. Almost as bad as compression socks on the run! (except for Jamie, who can get away with tube socks any time)
5. If you can't control your appetite while on a supported ride, how the hell do you think you are going to lose weight training for an Ironman? My God, I saw people putting on the feed bag today, and many of them weren't riding 100 miles.

Edit: I just mowed my lawn and ended up hypoglycemic, so I ran...er...stumbled into the house and stuffed my face with some orange slices and am waiting for them to take effect. I LOVE when this happens!