ROTPM: Day 3

Set of pics updated on Flickr.

On may way home from the dentist last night, I had a hankering for sushi, so I went to Bistro Nami and ordered some of my favorites: Fire Roll, (2) maguro, (2) ikura and (2) sake. I originally wanted some quail egg, too, but they were out, so I ordered something I think was called Fire Crab. All in all 22 pieces, plus I got some miso soup (in lieu of eating salt pills before bed) and a big Sapporo beer. I ate about 10 pieces of the sushi/rolls at the restaurant, and maybe 5 more about an hour after I was back home.

I checked the weather forecast and it looked like it was going to rain all day today again, so I assumed I'd be biking on the trainer and hopefully running outside again. I took 2 Advil PM plus a Tylenol Sleep to help me get to sleep since I'd had a lot of caffeine, and I actually fell asleep pretty quickly.

When I woke up this morning, I noticed I didn't have a headache! This was great, since I thought maybe I was coming down with a sinus infection, but I guess not. In retrospect, the headaches were probably a combination of not working out for 2 days, dropping my usual caffeine intake down, and then blasting it back up quickly. Possibly the weather, too, since I have allergies. Whatever, I was just SO happy to not have a headache!

Of course, my muscles were feeling a little toasty this AM, and I'd woken up at 4:45, and immediately got on some coffee and looked at the weather. Well, now, they were saying maybe NO rain today, so I had to hustle to get LGL (Bitch still isn't ready to ride until tomorrow!) ready to be outside, choose clothing to ride in so I could take it with me to the pool, and also lay out my run clothing so I'd have a quick transition. I needed to get everything done by about 2:30 today so I could make a 3:15PM massage.

I wanted to ride 66 miles today so tomorrow would be only 90, and since I wasn't up terribly early and was taking a bit longer than I'd hoped to get ready for the day, I didn't think I'd have time to ride to Fermilab, so I decided to just ride from home.

I drove to the pool and got started at 6:26AM. I'd hoped to be swimming at 6:00AM, but oh well, this is all very malleable, so no worries. I was starting to feel it today, but as soon as I started swimming, it felt so nice to be in the cool water. Swimming always seems to help me recover from the prior day's efforts, and ROTPM has been no exception. I just swam easy (as usual), and decided to spend about 5 minutes in the hot tub afterwards to stretch out a little bit. Even though I am swimming at a foreign pool, sometimes I wish I belonged to this club just for the hot tub! But, I am on a mission, so I got out to shower and change into bike clothes. I did take time to dry my hair, as I didn't want my head chilled when I started riding. Even though it wasn't raining, it was in the low to mid-60's, so a little cool.

As advertised, it wasn't raining when I left, and when I got home I got on the bike pretty quickly, although truth be told, I wasn't in a hurry. I had to decide how I was going to accomplish my miles, so I thought I head east for about 15 miles and back and then maybe repeat that plus a little extra. The roads were wet, and it was rush hour, and I had to be extra careful due to half-asleep commuters not paying attention, and almost got taken out twice. But I felt good riding, and my legs felt great. It was nice to be outdoors!

When I was about 4.5 miles from home, I decided to add in a Pepperidge Farm interval, just to get some more hills in and a few more miles, so that by the time I got home, I was at 33 miles. Then I decided to keep going and did a few laps around a few blocks, then decided I wanted to be at at least 40 miles before a pit stop, so I went back east and got home to 42 miles completed. Between stopping to pee and traffic lights and such, I had to hustle, and I stopped to eat a hardboiled egg and some cheese crackers, as I just wanted some actual fucking food! That sat well, and I went out and got 21 more miles done, snapped a photo, and took off my disgusting bike clothes, toweled off, changed into running clothes, got in my car, and drove to Waterfall Glen to run.

It was about 70 now, but uncharateristically, I decided to start off with a tank top on. It helped only in that it absorbed all the copious sweat I was putting out due to the high humidity. I started out and felt pretty good, and was running 9 somethings pretty steadily. I was surprised that I didn't feel bad, actually, considering I was running hills and had been hitting it rather hard for a few days.

I did one out and back of about 10.3 miles, got rid of the tank top, put on my streamers, chucked my hat and put on a visor, grabbed some more Coke, and headed out to finish. I had enough time to get in almost 13.5 miles total before I would need to quit, drive home, shower, and get to my massage.

On my second little leg, it started spritzing and I was laughing thinking that it wouldn't be a NothingMan if there wasn't some sort of inclement weather! I swear if you are having a drought, invite me up for one of these events and it WILL rain!

I finished running, snapped a pic, toweled off, got in the car, guzzled Endurox R4, got home, ate the rest of the sushi from last night, took a really quick shower, and made it to my massage right on time!

I'm a little gnarly right now, but feeling OK, and still making tons of notes of things that will be important for Ultraman. Right now I need one more slice of pizza (I ordered a large BBQ chicken and will finish almost half tonight saving the rest for tomorrow), one more beer while I get Bitchie all ready to go plus packing all my clothes for tomorrow, and then it's off to bed.

So far this is really an adventure, and I feel very fortunate to be able to get through it! I will not have an update tomorrow, as it will be very late, and I will be drinking...er...taking painkillers, but will update on Sunday AM whenever I manage to wake up!

Here's what I got done today:

Swim 2500 yards in 46:00 (pace=1:50/100 yds.)
Bike 63 miles in 3:32 (pace=17.8mph; avg. cadence=96)
Run 13.4 miles in 2:05:13 (pace=9:21/mile)
Total Time: 6:23.13

Total Distances so far:
Swim: 7500 yards
Bike: 131 miles
Run: 31.5 miles
Total Time: 14:05.17 (this is over IM distance, thank you very much!)

Mileage to go (a bit less than an Ironman):
Swim: 2500 yards
Bike: 93 miles
Run: 20.9 miles