Taper Going Well!

Since I began reinfusing myself with some carbs (beyond the daily beers, that is), I've been feeling better. Of course, yesterday's 5K swim was a watershed for me because not only did I do it in a respectable time, but I negative split, AND I wasn't barely tired afterwards.

Now you might want to attribute this to a taper, but in terms of overall training time, I was at 10 hours by the end of yesterday. 10+ during the week is pretty good no matter what, although the running has gone down a bit. Still, I felt like I should have done another workout yesterday after the swim, and that's a good thing.

I've been spending a lot of my swim time using the paddles, as per advice I received sometime this winter while at one of the indoor sprint triathlons (thank you to whoever you are that suggested I do that!). So for at least the last 5 or so weeks, I've swam anything from 900-2000 yards or meters with the paddles in almost every swim workout I've done. It makes you strong, no doubt about that! I think it is also helping me slowly correct my hand entry, which has always been a problem with me (among my swim issues, that is!). If you don't get your hand entry correct when swimming so much with paddles, well, you can really jack up your shoulders, and I have had zero issues with that.

I slept another glorious 10 hours last night. The weather has been quite cool, and what else am I going to do with all this time on my hands except sleep? Plenty...but I'll get to it later. Today called for a 1:15 run, which was supposed to be done like this:
25' Steady
20' Half marathon pace
2x10' (2') @ 10K pace
5' easy

Fuck that, I decided to JFR (Just Fucking Run). Still I tried to hold back on the first mile or 2 since I'd only finished breakfast about an hour before I took off. I wanted to puke, I really did, and this was good, because I think it forced me to hold back just a little bit. But after 2 miles, I had wheels and just went with it, trying to hold a decent steady pace. I didn't have any heavy leg feelings--it actually felt good to run today!

I had also laced up a brand new pair of running shoes this morning. I had started a different pair a few days ago, but the tongue on the left shoe rubbed against my ankle making it bleed, and I can't have that in an IM, so I picked a different pair and they worked out just fine.

I got my pre-race Brazilian wax after my run, and now I'm just chilling. I will do a bit of yard work and then start organizing all my crap for IMLP. Thank GOD I get to ride a couple of hours tomorrow (and do a brick run and a short swim) otherwise I'd go absolutely crazy! While I am enjoying my rest, there is a certain amount of weekly exercise that makes me feel good and sharp, and 14.5 hours doesn't really cut it during the summer! But I am observing the taper as I should, since I know that I do need the rest. No matter how you slice it, an Ironman is going to put the hurt to me, and I want some energy in the bank before I start!

I am looking SO forward to seeing my BFF, Shelley, and we are going to enjoy this time together as we each do our last "sanctioned" Ironman, as it will mean the beginning of new things for both of us! And of course, please everyone pray to the LP weather gods for no rain on race day--anything else will be a pure joy, I think!

It's on the Way

IMLP, that is.

This morning I swam 5,000 meters at the outdoor pool. About an hour after I got home, I checked my records, and I guess that is the first time I've swum that far! It's still only half the Ultraman distance of 10,000 meters, but I didn't feel the least bit tired, and know that I can work my way up to the full distance.

It is always a good feeling to do something I've never done before!

In other news, I figured out why my Wednesday run was crappy, and yesterday's brick run was a bit of a struggle, too. I have been eating significantly less carbs than I was a week earlier. Now, even though I will get in maybe 14 hours of training during this taper week, in my head, I am doing almost NOTHING, and so I am not having the cravings for rice and pasta. But I thought I should do something differently when I weighed myself and I was all of 106 lbs.

Even though I drank a can of Ultra Violence before I ran yesterday, it wasn't enough to load me up to do a 1:15 ride and :30 run. The ride went fine, but on the run my legs were heavy again, and it finally occurred to me that I was a bit early in a carb loading regimen. I guess I've been depleting myself to the point where I can go maybe 1:30 hard. Which is what happened Wednesday.

So last night I had some pasta, and then right before I went to sleep I ate an entire bag of Gummi Bears, and when I woke up this morning (no issues bounding out of bed and I slept well), I felt like I should be good for a 3-mile swim.

It was maybe 57 degrees when I was leaving to ride to the pool, so I wore a long-sleeved technical shirt under my t-shirt. I was chilly on the ride over! But the ride warmed me up, and the pool felt great--obviously it was warmer than the air!

I did the 5,000 as 800 warmup (various stuff), then 4x1000 with 30" (about) rest, 200 kick. My last 2 1000's were faster than the first 2--I was playing around with my hand entry and then my turnover. OMG I found out I actually can do a higher turnover than usual!

Anyway, I didn't feel tired or anything after the swim, dried off really well and dried my hair for the ride home since it was still chilly out.

After IMLP but before ROTPM, I am going to go for a 6,000 meter swim. Just to do it! That will be a good confidence boost for when I formally start building up to the 10,000 meters for Ultraman Canada next year. Only problem is I will need to find a pool that gives me 4 hours of uninterrupted lap time, so I may need to split it across 2 swims. Oh well!

I am organizing for IMLP packing, planning out next year, planning my training between IMLP and ROTPM, and it's all a bit overwhelming. Good thing I don't need to ride 100 miles this weekend! I will get on my packing starting tomorrow afternoon after a short (1:10) run, swim and pre-race wax (!), in case there's anything I need to go and buy (which I doubt but you never know), and then Sunday is just a 2-hour ride, :30 run and it's all over but the driving to IMLP, and I leave on Wednesday.

I am excited about going to IMLP for my last time to race, to spend time with Shelley and her son, Eric, and to hopefully have a great last "official" Ironman. I have already been asked what's next after I complete Ultraman next year, and I have no idea, but I'm sure something will come to me.

Right now, the focus is on the Sunday one week from this coming one. And then recovering and ramping back up for ROTPM.

As exciting as all of this may sound, I am keeping my excitement level in check. I can remember back in 2004 when I did Ironman Canada and I was running and thought I should be excited when I was at mile 18. I told myself "not yet" and when I got to 20, I said "not yet" and then 22 and 24. It was not until mile 26 that I let it all wash over me, and that is how I plan to roll at IMLP. Oh that video? That is my "center myself" song that I will listen to the day before IMLP.

Have a great weekend!

Important Announcement!

Oops--I said this on Facebook, but sometimes I forget some people only read the blog.

The pieces are falling into place. I always said I wanted to do Ultraman Kona. Well, at least since I started doing Ironman. IMLP is my last "official" Ironman for the time being. I'm not saying "last ever" because who knows, I might change my mind!

Once I decided to bag IMC and do Revenge of the PirateMan, and also knowing I'm not signing up for an Ironman in 2010, I guess the brain started thinking about things, and it was Monday evening in the middle of the night when I had a flash that if I am going in this direction, shouldn't I be looking at Ultraman for 2010?

So yesterday I start looking into things...first Ultraman Canada and then Ultraman Kona. Turns out Ultraman Kona is changing things next year and you have to qualify by first doing Ultraman Canada or else have already done Ultraman Kona before they changed the rules. So I decided that if I complete Revenge of the PirateMan, then I am applying for Ultraman Canada 2010!

And then things just sort of fell into place today--I started making a sketch of a schedule of things I want to do next year, and it is looking good on paper, but I need to know the exact dates of Ultraman Canada (UMC)!

So I do IMLP, then I do Revenge of the PirateMan, then a 50-mile trail race, then Goofy Challenge, then I start ramping up for UMC!!! How exciting is that?

Even though it might seem that this has come out of the blue, it really hasn't. I have just been listening to signs and perhaps some higher guidance that has come to me over the past few years. I can remember that at 2006 MiamiMan I met Michael Hanreck, who was 2nd at Ultraman Kona in 2005. He told me I should do it. Well, at the time, I didn't feel ready.

Last year at IMFL, I met Peter Kotland, who had pulled out of IMFL halfway through the marathon, because it was a "training day" for him. He came in 4th at UMK in 2008, and he holds the UMK run record of 5:33 for 52.4 miles! Here's a pic of me with him from last November:
Now don't I just look like someone who should do an Ultraman? Well, maybe that day I didn't, but I'm starting to feel like that person.

And then earlier this year was when I was discussing a "TotalMan" concept with someone, although I had started out with the Revenge of the PirateMan concept. And it was something I thought about doing next year.

Well the time has come to begin dipping my toes into the ultra territory. I might fail--I might not--but if I don't start looking beyond Ironman it will never happen. I still need to finish one thing at a time, and so I am happy that I am starting the move into ultra territory. I will draw upon anyone I know that has been there in some form or other, and I think it is going to be something else!

Horrible Run Today by Number 2518

I ended up lifting after my brick workout yesterday. This morning I had wanted to swim at the outdoor pool, but it was raining and lightning and thundering when I woke up (after 2 snooze alarm hits), so I ended up indoors at the Y. I swam a solid 3500 yards, and felt great doing it.

When I headed out to run a little after noon, first the heat hit me (it hasn't been hot here this summer much at all), then the humidity, and then the fact that my legs were not good. I tried to use the old "I will feel much worse than this in Ironman" trick on myself, but it was no good. Even though I don't use an HRM, I could feel my heart rate working its way up to a place it doesn't belong for the pace I was running. I was good until I got into open sun, and then I struggled for the rest of the run. I ended up walking for about 3' of the last mile because my heart rate was so jacked up.

I am used to running not feeling "good." It is always effort to me, but as long as I'm able to keep my heart rate down or reasonable, and my legs don't hurt too much, I'm fine with it.

Today sucked, but I usually have a couple of totally sucky runs during a taper. It doesn't mean anything. Today it may have just meant I went a little too hard yesterday.

In other news, my bib number for IMLP is 2518. I can't think of anything significant about that number, except that it's my LAST Ironman bib number!!!!

More taper ramblings

Yesterday I let myself sleep in and didn't swim until 11:30AM. Warming up, I felt clunky and a bit tired from Sunday's workout, but when I got on my main set, I felt a little more peppy than normal, and I thought when was the last time I swam, and it was last Thursday, so oh, this is what a little swim taper feels like! I swam well, although I still suck, but it felt good and the time went by quickly.

I had thought about getting my strength workout done yesterday, but after about 1:10 of swimming, I found myself again tired, so decided to put it off. Then I thought about riding a bike to my massage, but decided against that, too, thinking it would be good to give my legs a day of rest.

I intended to ride to the outdoor pool this morning and get in a short (2000m) swim this morning, but probably an hour before the alarm would have gone off, I shut it off, decided I didn't need the extra swim, and went back to sleep. I slept 10 hours for the second day in a row!

Today I had a short (1:10) ride and run (:30) on the schedule. The power company was removing some dead tree limbs from the lines near my house and cut the power at about 9:15, so since I couldn't work, it was time to get it done.

Another beautiful, cool day (for a Chicago July), and I headed out on LGL in the big chain ring (I've been mostly riding in that for the last 4 weeks or so), but thought I should actually do a little warmup so hit the front derailleur at the top of the hill and promptly dropped my chain. I tried to go back into the big chain ring, but failed, so now I had to actually stop and put the chain on with my hands, and I'm tapering, so I am having a brain cramp but remembered that I had better get the grease off my hands before I get back on otherwise I will mess up my pretty new zebra striped bar tape!

So you should have seen me licking bike grease off my hands and fingers and wiping them on my bike shorts so I wouldn't get the bike dirty! I got enough of it off to continue, and I'm riding maybe 2 minutes before I decided fuck it, back in the big chain ring anyway, and I just wanted to ride really hard.

But a funny thing happened at the same time--I just started crying for no good reason. It's pretty typical for me in an Ironman taper, and I don't even try and stop it or rationalize it--it just happens. I feel great, I feel strong, I'm fucking crying my eyes out! I let myself think about it a little--even though I've definitely had some things to cry about the last 8 months, and have done some crying, I suppose I have still been holding back on it a lot, because that's the game of Ironman training or else it's just my personality that I feel like if I start letting it all out when I feel it that I will totally lose control of myself. And that did happen a little bit a month ago, and even though I let myself go with the flow for a few weeeks, at the same time I knew I had to HTFU so I wouldn't fuck up my training, which I love so much, and it just wasn't worth it to me to mess up my last 4 or so big weeks of training. And they have gone really, really well, overall.

So back to crying. I think about it a little bit and part of it is I'm crying for myself for having put myself through all this effort to hopefully get to race day in one piece and do my best. I'm crying for myself because it's when I taper that I feel the opposite sort of lostness that I described in my prior post--I feel lost because I don't know what to think about anything or feel about anything and it's a very disconcerting state of mind. I want to feel everything and I want to feel nothing. I want the race to be here and I want it to be months away so I can just keep training and not thinking about it. I am crying because I don't get to choose anymore--it's going to be here whether or not I like it. I am crying because I am so fucking fortunate to be able to do this to myself--to take my body and my mind to places that most people probably never get to experience, and I think that if they only could, life would be an even more sublime experience for all of us. I am crying because I feel sorry for myself that I feel like I need to do this to myself in order to feel alive--why can't I just be dumb and happy? I am crying because my mind is trying to fuck with me even more than it normally does, and the end result is crying, which I suppose is better than becoming angry or violent.

And all of this happens in maybe 2 minutes of elapsed time, and I go back to riding, and today I don't know how to ride other than hard. I figure it's a short ride, and while I am supposed to warm up, I've rested, right, and so it feels like I'm racing. The numbers on the power meter tell me I'm riding hard, and I am just loving it. And about 25 minutes later I'm at my power loop, and it's time to really focus and work. And it feels easy, and on my first interval, the tears come again, but they aren't stopping me, and I almost laugh at the nuance of simultaneously putting out maximum watts and crying! How great is this???

And then I knock out two more intervals, both great, and then head for home, even though I want to ride longer than I need to, but I'm being good to myself this taper and trying not to overdo things (although I just did overdo the ride!). I put on my running shoes, shorts and visor and head out to run, thinking I wonder if I really did ride hard?

And right away I knew it--I had--because of how my legs felt. It was like I was doing a sprint tri, but I just sucked it up and ran, feeling still better than I might feel at the beginning of the marathon in Lake Placid, and I ran out for :15, turned around and headed for home, wondering if I could pick it up just a little bit on the way back int, and oh yeah, that last mile I didn't really fell that much faster but I was.

And then I check the power data from the ride and I rode at 93% of FTP, which is hard, but it was a short ride, so no worries. I get to do this same workout on Thursday!

And while writing this blog post, I have a few more tears, and they are just there...they are like my little taper friends that will keep coming to visit me, assuring me that I am human, I do have feelings, I have bottled a lot of them up for months now, and while I think I have processed a lot of emotions without tears, the tears are just now the physical expression of all of that.

And OMG I need to start assembling stuff I need to take with me for next week, and the time is going to go so fast now, and my mind is going to do crazier shit as the days move on, but as long as I am resting and feeling peppy (or not--it really doesn't matter right now) while I work out, all is well.

In a way, all of this weirdness (if it seems that way to YOU--to me it is perfectly normal for ME) I think is part of my mental preparation for a long, long day of being inside my own head, so I may as well start working out some of that shit now, so I can go to that place of peace and nothingness that is the real thing that has had me coming back to Ironman over and over. I know it can't possibly be that way for someone doing their first Ironman or even maybe their third or fourth, and maybe some people never get there, but it's waiting for me in less than 2 weeks now, and although the emotional road to get there is going to be rocky, I'm OK with it.

First Long Taper Ramble

I shouldn't physically feel like I'm tapering, considering I put in 20 hours last week (less than I had wanted to, though), but mentally, I know I'm only 2 weeks out from IMLP, and I will bottom out on biking this week as well as running (I get to swim as much as I want, though!).

I've committed to NOT registering for an actual Ironman race for 2010, and I will need help at IMLP to keep me away from the pre-registration line. I've been saying for several years that "this is my last year of Ironman," but nobody ever believes me. I never thought I'd be sitting here about to do my THIRTEENTH one! OK, so 2 of those were self-supported, but they are still in my count.

Ironman and loss have defined the last 10 years of my life. I started running in 1998, which was 4 years post-divorce. Some opinions say it takes 3-5 years to iron yourself out after a divorce (and I lost my job at the same time), so I suppose it was almost natural for me to seek out something new in my life. 2 years later, I found myself training for my first triathlon, which escalated to signing up for my first Ironman.

Choosing to do Ironman automatically creates loss in your life. If you want to be good at it, it requires you to toss out pieces of your life, and that culling process can be stressful. Oh, so you were used to a perfectly clean house? Fuhgeddabout it. You enjoy spending an hour or so every evening fixing yourself a nice meal? Fuck that, you won't have time. Love gardening? Your yard is going to go to your version of Hell. Like staying up late and drinking and dancing? You won't be able to do much of that, either.

What about friendships? Choosing to do Ironman forces you to cull those who will not support you, who will not understand the journey you've undertaken. In my case, I didn't have but a few close friends when I started, was fortunate enough to keep one until now, made some new ones and tossed a few of them, too. The people I want around me now are those who really get how the only way I've found to both get inside myself and get out of myself is by doing this crazy amount of exercise. And I'm not even on the extreme edge! What's great is that I now have met plenty of people way crazier than me! So now whenever someone tells me they think I'm crazy, I have examples that prove that I'm really quite tame by some standards.

Back to the subject at hand--Ironman and loss. When you are doing an Ironman, even much of the time while you are training, you need to lose yourself. Or at least that is how it feels to me. When I'm out there riding 100 miles by myself or running for several hours, and it's not something I have to do, but yet I do it, and I am not thinking of all the other things I could be doing--in fact, I can't think of much but what I am doing right at that minute.

And that, in a nutshell, is what has kept me coming back for more and more of this. I want to keep losing myself until I figure out how to lose myself some other way! Maybe I won't find another way, but I have this sneaking suspicion that something will find me and show me another way in a few years.

In the meantime, Ironman is not going to be enough. Even as I will start to assemble my things for IMLP (I leave a week from Wednesday), I am already thinking about Revenge of the PirateMan in August, the 50-mile run in October and things I want to do in 2010. I will be doing Goofy Challenge again, but thankfully I don't need to even think about that because I already know I know how to do it!

And there may be an Ultraman in my schedule for next year. Isn't it funny that I am doing all this forward planning when I haven't even done one Ironman this year? That is the charm of all of this. I am looking forward to being even more lost!

Aside from the losses I've experienced willingly in the last 10 years, there have, of course, been the other real losses--my Mom and Dad, and I also need to say my youth. While my body is in pretty good physical shape (maybe better than ever), I am needing to adapt to how I now look which is no fun. Aging sucks! But still, I'll make the best of it, but I do need to be respectful. Although I do hate it when someone my age or older points out all of their issues and says something like, "Just wait until this happens to you!" Hey--I know I'm not immune to everything, but as long as I can keep this up, I will!

And then there have been the loss of romances, which sucks the most--next to death, those are always the hardest things for me to process. I'm still working on one! I suppose part of it comes from my belief that if you work hard enough at anything that it can be yours, but that is not how relationships work, unless of course, both parties want to do the work.

I lost my "old" house, too, in that I remodeled a lot of it. That was a good loss!

What I lost most recently, though, is my idea that Ironman is the big challenge. I want to do more, now, and if this old body holds together, I am going to prove it to myself. This in no way diminishes what anyone else does--I happily support anyone's efforts to do any amount of exercise and self-care, because I want people to feel great. It is just that for me, I need another test, and next year will be the year of other new tests. Hey, if I can lose myself for a day, maybe I can lose myself for a few days running! Better than any drug I know of!

Fucking Awesome Last Long Ride before IMLP!

But first I must back up.

After Friday's debacle, I still managed to fix bottles of Endurox for the remaining time before I leave for IMLP, plus carb loading bottles and Infinit bottles for riding Saturday and Sunday (assuming I did both). I always get a bit teary-eyed as I do these things for the last time before an Ironman, because it means that it is definitely coming! Here are my bottles ready to go into the fridge:
I was optimistic about working out on Saturday, so I went to sleep early and set the alarm for 5:00AM. I awoke after 8.5 hours of sleep, got out of bed, and my legs were sore. Not fatigued--actually sore. Whenever I experience this, it's a strong signal that I need R-E-S-T. So even though I shit canned my workout on Friday, I decided that first I would go back to bed and see how I felt in a few more hours.

1.5 hours later, no dice, legs are still sore, and I feel like I could sleep all day! So I shit canned Saturday's workouts--I was going to swim 3500 and bike maybe 2.5 hours. OK, so what will I do? When was the last time I wasn't sick and had a rest day? Like NEVER! I did have a rest day at the end of May, but that was after Triple T, and I was still sick as a dog, and even though I still felt rather tired, I thought of various things I could get done that wouldn't tax me too much physically. Oh and I think I spent a lot of the day eating--I knew I was undernourished from all the hard training I'd been doing, so every 2 hours or so I would eat maybe 300-400 calories.

I got the lawn mowed, I finally hooked up the converter box to the TV (not that I will be watching it much, but it's nice to know I can if I want to), restocked some home office supplies that I'd been meaning to do for several months now (including a rainbow set of dry erase markers for my giant mirror in my bedroom!), gased up my car, and grilled out. This was before I left to go see No Doubt in concert.

No Doubt rocked! I was SO glad I went, even though I almost bailed on it. The set was amazing, and the band was amazing! I really like their mix of ska, rock, reggae or whatever you call it. I left a little early, though, because a) I was still tired and b) I wanted to see if I could do a 100-mile ride today.

Did I mention that I was STUNG under each eye this past week? Not just bit by mosquitoes--but actually fucking STUNG. I had to dig stingers out from under each eye. Luckily they didn't happen on the same day, but I'm like what the fuck, why are stinging insects so attracted to me???

Anyway, when I got home from No Doubt, I ate 2 crab cakes and drank a beer and got to sleep a little before midnight, which is WAY past my usual bedtime of 8:30 or 9:00PM lately. I set my alarm for 5:15 but figured I'd know when it went off or maybe sooner if I could make that.

Sometime during the night, I decided I needed to let myself sleep, and since the plan was to drive to Fermilab to ride 100 miles and run off the bike, what the fuck else was I doing today, so it didn't matter when I started.

I slept until 6:30AM, and felt like I could get up and get going, and so I did. I wanted to leave home by 8:00AM, but was like 10 minutes off that, but no worries. It was a beautiful day, and I'd decided on a tri swimsuit bottom to ride in and also no sunscreen, as I'm already pretty tan, and all sunscreen products clog up my pores and make me crazy because I can't sweat properly. I also took the aerohelmet with me, as I figured I'd wear it for some of the ride at least.

I got to Fermilab and got my primo parking spot in the shade at the East Gate, and got ready to ride. I donned the aerohelmet, and when I'm in there, I wear the iPod, since there is very little traffic to be concerned with. I have a regular 16-mile loop around the place, but at some point during the first lap I decided I didn't want to do 6+ laps, so when I was about 8 miles in, I decided to make some interior loops around Pine Road (which is awesome asphalt and straight as hell which makes it great for time trialing), and when I got back to my car (after seeing the coyote couple crossing a road--I was so happy to see them!), I'd done 23 miles. I forgot to mention that I got the speed display working on the Ergomo today--I guess the damn sensor is pretty picky, and I moved it just a bit today and all of a sudden I had miles! I was happy, because I really wanted to get the 100 solid, you know?

Out for my second loop, I decided I'd fucked up on the first loop, since it should have been 25 miles, so now I'd need to do 27 to get to 50 after 2 laps. I added on which took me into an area of very large power items (there are some extremely large items in Fermilab--one of these days I will photograph all them, but will need to put something in front for perspective), and after 2 laps, I was at about 51.5 miles. Awesome!

The wind picked up or else I suck since I slowed down a bit. But I was still feeling good, no worries. On lap 3, I had done all my "adding on" when I saw a peloton of about 15 riders, mostly or all guys, heading for the Small Ring. So I thought they must have a special access pass, since it's not generally open to the public, so I hammered to catch up to them (I was at about 73 miles by now), only to see they had been kicked off by Security. I thought some of them would follow me, since God forbid a chic is riding faster than they are, but they didn't. I don't know where they went.

I kept on, and when I got to my car, I was at 79 miles after 3 laps. Awesome! After refilling my water bottle, a security guard pulled his car up next to me and we began chatting. He commented how he'd seen me riding in there for like hours (yep!), and asked if I was training for anything, so I told him, and I also told him that I bet most of the Security has seen me in there since I'm there a lot, and that I'd be back in about 3 weeks to start up training for Revenge of the PirateMan (although I didn't tell him the name), and that I'd be doing a full 112 mile ride in there. We exchanged names, and I politely asked him if he'd give me a free pass to ride on the Big Ring, and he said sure! I was so pumped, because this meant I could do maybe 4 or 5 laps (it's about 4 miles around) in there to finish up my ride! He also told me he had kicked the group of guys off of the Small Ring.

Dude sends me on my way, and I am 1.5 laps of the Big Ring in when I see him in there. He tells me the same bunch of dudes tried to ride on the Big Ring and he kicked them out! He said they would be really jealous of me, but I had told him I fully understand they don't want big packs of people in there, and only go in by myself and once in awhile. But he told me I could use his name anytime when I want to ride the Big Ring and I should be fine!

Now see, this is an example of when you act polite and respectful and also look like you know what you are doing AND having fun at it, that people just treat you well. I was so tickled over this that I must have been smiling hugely the entire time I was on the Big Ring! Plus, as I got closer to my 100 miles, I felt great that I had done this all by myself, and that I should be able to HTFU for ROTPM when it's Ironman day!

When I finished, I wanted a couple of pics of me with the bike, so here they are:
I really like this picture, even though I'm not moving. Man, I was happy that I'd just polished off 101 miles at a good pace all by myself!

I had hoped this would be a little closer in, but still, you get the idea. I rode like this all fucking day, hardly ever stood up since it's so fucking flat in Fermilab, and besides, whenever I wear the aerohelmet, it's really stupid not to be in the position, right?

And then I suited up to run. I wondered how this would feel, because like, didn't I do this shit just a week ago? I sometimes forget how much training I pile on myself, and I kept thinking when was I in Wisconsin? LAST FUCKING WEEKEND, THAT'S WHEN!

As soon as I got going, I noticed how humid it was, either that or I was just piggy from being on the bike so long. I ran OK, maybe 9:20 pace is what I'm guessing, and while it sucked, as do most runs after 100-mile rides, I thought I might just do OK running 26.2 in 2 weeks.

And here I am after all that, looking suitably sweaty:



And here I am all smiley and goofing because I'm glad to be done! I wore my HTFU bracelet all day, as you can see it on my right wrist:

After all that, I didn't even want McDonald's for the drive home. I did drink my Endurox, and I still haven't eaten a full meal--I'm just not that hungry--but know that I should probably dig into some pasta tonight so I am somewhat recovered for tomorrow.

It's now OFFICIALLY taper time, and while I had to take a rest day yesterday, I still nailed my last key workout before the big day (although I've got one more 3-mile swim this week), all my training "money" is in the bank, and there's nothing more I can do that will help me on race day.

I had a lot of emotions running through my head today--much like happens in an Ironman, and I felt good that I was out there by myself where I could have just quit at any time but kept going and worked hard. And while I won't say I am feeling particularly happy (more like neutral), I was absolutely thrilled that someone was so nice to me today and gave me such an awesome gift!