NothingMan IV Report and Other Neat Stuff

Here are pics from NothingMan.

While I'm on the subject of pics, here are a massive amount of pics from Ultraman Canada. I suggest you look through them all rather then me telling you where I am in them. It is good to look through them all; unfortunately, there is not a slide show option.

NothingMan was not epic--it was really nothing! I forgot that it takes time to get ready for one, and the week before I had been out of town for work training, got home late Thursday, and then on Friday I had to work and sort of begin preparations. But Saturday was the big get ready to do it day.

I prefer to do NothingMan on a Saturday, because my Y's pool opens at 5AM. The reason I chose Sunday instead was because I needed Saturday to get ready! Then I looked at the Y schedule for Sunday and the pool didn't open until 7, so I decided I'd swim at Good Sam instead so I could start at 6AM. Because of the transitional logistics for NothingMan, I like to start swimming as early as possible. I would start at 5 if I was doing it on Saturday.

I had some other things to do on Saturday like go to the Farmer's Market, laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, finally go to Binny's Beverage Depot (OMG the wall of craft beer had me looking like a deer in the headlights), etc. The "etc." included getting a Brazilian wax. Now, I know some ladies would not do this the day before an Ironman, but hey, I'm tough, no worries, besides it doesn't hurt anything like the actual doing of the NothingMan!

I had to keep watching the weather so I could choose my clothes and decide if I'd need chicken broth or not. I think I finally had my shit together by around 5PM so I could finally relax, eat a big dinner and relax.

Sunday I had the alarm set for 4:30AM but I was up at 4. I am still waking up around 4AM no matter what, although I had a few longer sleeps this week. I chugged down the Ultrafuel (yum--insulin coma!), ate my usual Power Bar Triple Threat with a cup of coffee, and then had to make my final clothing selections and load up my car so that I could drive to Fermilab to ride as soon as I was done swimming.

When I got to Good Sam, they charged me $15 just to swim there! What a ripoff...and the guy asks me why I'm not at the Y and I had to tell him because the Y wasn't open yet and I needed to get going. I didn't tell him what I was doing, but he was nice enough to take some pics of me.

When I got in the pool, I thought I would split the 4200 yards up somehow, but once I got started, I developed this mentality of "it's ONLY 4200" so I just swam it straight. The week before I'd swum 6000 on Friday, so really 4200 is not much anymore.

I took time to get in the hot tub for about 10 minutes afterwards because I was chilled from the water (remember I have no bodyfat left these days and a pool temperature less than about 84 leaves me cold), and hey, I paid $15 so why not? It felt good and then I got to the shower and dried off and changed into my biking clothes.

When I got to Fermilab, it was still pretty cool out, and I methodically got Skull Kingdom out of the car and 2 women rode up next to the car parked next to mine. Of course they ogled Skull Kingdom and guessed I did Ironman (or maybe it was from the stickers on my car?). Anyway, they were quite nice and even tried to set up a few shots that came out nice.

Ride, ride, ride, and I took a few pics and you can see someone took one of me in front of my favorite liquid nitrogen tank, #42 (if you haven't read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then you don't know why that's special, so read the fucking book, ok?). I did my mileage by making "grand" laps at the lab, and I did 5 of them, each but the last including the Big Ring Road. I had total fun riding, all decked out in my Headhunter's Tri Club jersey that goes well with Skull Kingdom, and my aero helmet, why the hell not?

I ended up riding 114.5 miles in 6:31. Not a bad effort. Then I headed home, and thought I might go run at a trail, but I was running late and thought I'd go to the Y, but it wasn't going to be open very long, and I knew I'd be out in the dark, so Plan C consisted of running laps around what I call the "big block" from my house. It's 1.15 miles around, so let's see that is like 23 laps, and I think I did them all, although my count could be off. Let's just say I took it real easy, as my back is still not happy and I didn't want to end up injured.

So there's another NothingMan. Woo hoo! Of course I drank some beers and had some pizza, slept like a rock and felt like a truck hit me the next day. I took Monday off because, what the hell, no way I would be able to work. But I had things I wanted to do, and I didn't need to be 100% lucid to do them. First order of business was some bike maintenance and a trip to the bike shop.

To get ready for my bike shop trip, I finally began changing the tire on my MTB rear wheel that had gone flat some months ago. I thought I had a spare tire, but I just could not find it. I'm sure it's somewhere in my house, although it's odd it's not on the shelves with all the spare tires and tubes (I have many). So I decided, what the hell, I'll just take it to the bike shop, especially since the rim tape also needed replacing. Then I figured I might as well look at the front tire, and decided it needed replacing, too. I grabbed my HED disk wheel to get a new tubie put on it and also to have the shop look at it to see whether it can take a 10-speed cassette (I bought it for Bitch and she's only 9- speed). While at the shop, I picked up someone's spare Ergomo to see if the meter will work with LGL--I'm still not sure whether LGL's bottom bracket gizmo is toast or not, and if I can get another meter to work with it, I'd be very happy. Also while at the shop, I asked them about sponsoring me, which they might do. Finally, I mentioned I wanted different bars for Skull Kingdom (I dislike the arm rests that she came with and the base bar is not carbon), so we looked at the new Profile bars coming out, and I have mine on order. They are WAY TOO SEXY for any other bike but Skull Kingdom! Just kidding. I will also be putting red Nokon cables on her.

That was about all I could handle the day after an Ironman, but I must say, it sure is nice to sleep in my own bed the night of an Ironman and not have to drive very far or fly home the next day.

In other news, I have finished my ATP and am printing the calendar model so I can make one more check that the workouts make sense in aggregate (like maybe I shouldn't think about running the day after I ride over 100 miles and also work). I can tell you that the total hours look reasonable--for the 52 weeks from 8/9/2010 through 8/7/2011, it comes to 831 hours, which is about what I did for the 52 weeks through 8/29/2010. So I know I can do that much training. Of course I've made various changes to how I will train, and that 831 doesn't even go through Ultraman Hawaii (it goes through Ironman Sado), so I am going to be putting in one massive training haul. BUT, I have built in some serious recovery as I found out I need it. But also more fun stuff, too! I always get this sense of peace when I have my ATP finished.

In other news, I am going to become a faster swimmer! Rather than formal coaching, I've made a handshake deal with one of the guards at my Y who seems to know how to communicate with me when it comes to swim technique. So he's going to watch me and pick up on what I can change. He's already told me to try some new stuff that has already had the magic effect of making me swim a bit faster! But it will take some time to get it ingrained. I figure in about another 3-4 weeks we can move on to catch and pull, and once I get that right, I should be in a good place. I am just so excited, because I can finally sense where my hips are in relation to my arms and now I just have to connect the dots. Seriously, if I can pick up 5-10 secs./100 yds. I will have accomplished much!

My theory on the whole swimming thing is that you just have to put in a lot of yards in order for your technique to "click" and also to develop the appropriate musculature in order to swim well (I'm talking only about freestyle here). Before this past season, I didn't have the upper body required for me to swim well, but now I do. My whole shoulder/upper back area is much different than before, and I have a lot more strength up there. Why? Because I swam A LOT. Also, I am almost never tired while swimming. There used to be times when I could barely swim when bike/run had worn me down. Now that is not an issue. I am still not up to "swimmer" par in that department, but I am close. I feel like I can always swim well, maybe not fast, but I can almost always knock out 3,000 or so yards.

In other news, I started my new position at work, and I'm excited about it. It's good that I am resting this week so I don't feel all distracted right at the get go, so my timing for all these things has worked out really well. By the way, I passed my test from the training thing with flying colors! I did way better than I thought I would, so that's cool.

In other news, I am dealing with a mess next door to me. The house is foreclosed, and it's a wreck and really needs to be torn down (AFAIK, a new home cannot be built on the property because of the flood plain, so this means I should have a nice empty lot next to me). On Labor Day, a tree crashed down over there, taking the power line down. The former occupants assured me before they moved out that they had turned off the utilities, but when ComEd came, the answer was NOPE. ComEd cut the line, so no more power over there! But the gas was on, and I did get the gas company to shut that off. Now my battle begins with the city to get the water turned off and the house torn down. I am going to do my level best to get it dealt with before end of the year.

This weekend 2 friends of mine are doing the Texas Time Trials, so I will be watching for updates from them. It is a RAAM qualifier. I will also go treadmill shopping and Halloween (skull) shopping and get some yard work done. I'm glad to have a really light weekend, training-wise, so I can get caught up on "regular" life. Which I still enjoy! I can't wait to begin cooking more on the weekends, and soon the leaves will fall, so that whole cycle until winter needs to get done.

Hope everyone is keeping healthy and happy!