My friend Brad, whom I met in 2009 and we traveled to Ironman Lake Placid together, is now my coachee. He is the person who helped convince me to register for IMCOZ, and he asked me for my training plan (that I drew up myself). There are very few people who I would just hand over a training plan to because 1) I wouldn't want responsibility for them killing themselves and 2) it takes some time for me to put one together and sometimes that effort should be paid for. Brad has done me a number of good deeds, so I sent it to him with a "good luck" and "call if you want to discuss." So we had a long chat I think on Wednesday night, and I know what Brad is capable of, so he basically signed on to do the same training as me through IMCOZ. Actually the first words out of his mouth were something like, "So I'm supposed to do a 1/2 NothingMan on Saturday???" Yes, that's right. We need to gauge where our fitness is and get in a long workout. So Brad (who lives north of Dallas, TX) and I would be doing our NothingMan's at the same time. Somehow I thought this would increase our accountability to ourselves and make it more fun.
I had all my bottles fixed on Friday night, and ate a huge dinner of pasta and chicken that was leftover from when another friend was here and I made us dinner last Saturday. It was good! I set my alarm for what I thought was 5:00AM, but as it turns out I'd set it for 5:00PM, but no worries, I woke at 4AM on my own, and I had just had the best night's sleep I've had in 2 weeks. I don't know if this is because of the thyroid meds or because I just really needed to race!
I took my thyroid pill and waited 1/2 hour to eat my usual breakfast of a toasted English muffin with some jam and a hardboiled egg, together with several cups of coffee. About a 1/2 hour after that I drank down 300 calories of Ultrafuel, loaded Skull Kingdom into the car along with bike and run clothes, loaded cooler and headed to the Y to swim.
NothingMan (where the distances are arbitrary and your time doesn't matter) is not picky about exact distances, so I decided I'd swim 2500 yards because I couldn't remember what the hell a 1/2 Ironman swim is. I took a can of Coke onto the swim deck, popped the top (I LOVE that sound), took a swig, and got in. I hit my watch at 6:50AM and jumped in and got going. It seemed that the swim was over in a flash. It's been over a year since I swam that much continuously, but I knew it would be easy because, come on I've done a bunch of REALLY long swims. I tried not to think about anything but swimming, as I had the day's events pretty well covered. When I finished, I hit my watch and didn't look at the split. I got out of the pool and a man in the next lane asked if I was finished, and I said yes. He asked if I did triathlons, I guess because I decided to wear a swim cap from Florida Half Ironman (inaugural!). I said yes, and proceeded to the showers. My swim time was :47 for 2500 yards.
I had decided earlier that I'd put on sunscreen AFTER I swam, which is allowable in a NothingMan. So I took my time, and recruited another woman to get my upper back really well.
I had a text from Brad that he was done with his swim (he started before I did), and I just decided to call him. We were rambling and the call dropped. I redialed him and asked who dropped the call. He said, "I was in an elevator." I about lost it and said, "There are NO elevators in NothingMan! 5-minute penalty!" We had a great laugh over this.
T1 was nearly an hour, since I had to drive to Fermilab, where I was going to do my ride. I finished a can of Coke on the way there, and had (2) 1.5 hour bottles of my custom Infinit plus 3 bottles of water (it was warm) for my ride. I sort of wanted to do 60 miles, because who made up 56 as a distance? I don't know. So I headed out, and at my first time at the West Gate, I asked the guard if I could go see the Muon g-2 magnet. She said it was "over there," and I took that to mean off A-1 road. I was so excited to see the thing that had taken so long to get here.
When I got to the magnet, it was awesome, but I had to pee, so I peed not 10 feet from it! I figured the NSA had a camera on me but I didn't care, and I snapped a bunch of pics there. I kept riding and was having a great time with my aerohelmet on. On another pass of the West Gate, when I was nearly to Kirk Road I saw a group of 15-20 road cyclists coming in. They were about 1/2 mile ahead of me, but I figured I could catch them. I did, but then I wanted to get through them and yelled ON YOUR LEFT twice, ON YOUR RIGHT once, and then I just finally screamed LET ME THROUGH YOU ARE TAKING UP THE ENTIRE ROAD. They were riding 4 abreast, and not very fast. One chic got pissed and said SO GO ON. And I did and was past them in a hurry.
On another pass of A-1 road, I saw 2 cyclists going toward the magnet, so I rode up on them and asked if they were going to see it. They said yes, so I asked if they'd mind taking some pics of me with it (I am such a geek!). They said sure, and I rode ahead and we chatted and got some good pics there.
I think my first "loop" was 33 miles and then I returned to my car, which was parked just outside the East Gate, because there was a blockade up when I first got there around 8:30. Going back out, though, the blockade was gone, which was great.
When I got back to my car, I decided to call my friend Maz, since I had a bright idea about driving to his house for his sprint tri today, and asked if we could drive together from there. See, he wasn't even going to do the race, then he didn't want me to go, but I decided what else would I be doing Sunday, so I offered my idea. He said he was riding his bike to the race, so I said I'd load my MTB into my car and be at his house at 5:30, but if I didn't make it by then he should just go on. I was glad we settled that!
I ate a piece of string cheese and drank more water, put a fun size Payday into my Bento box, loaded new bottles, and headed back into Fermilab for my second lap. I ditched the camera, because I had the pics I needed, and I didn't want to spend any more time taking pics.
I ended up at 61.8 miles on the bike (in 3:20 riding time) which was perfect. I loaded Skull Kingdom into the car, and changed into my run clothes and shoes right in front of someone's house! Oh well, what are you going to do...
I drove home and on the way there I drank another bottle of water, ate a handful of Pringles, and some jelly candies. I got home, dumped the bike and clothes bag and cooler, made a new cooler for my run, grabbed my iPod, took the cooler outside and began my run.
My run consisted of 12 laps around the "big block" from my house, and each lap is 1.15 miles, so a total of 13.8 miles. After each lap, I would grab some fluids (and sometimes salt tablets) from my cooler and get back out. I didn't time my fluid stops--just the pure running time, and it was 2:11.37, or 9:32/mile, which wasn't bad. I "tried" to run 10mpm, but guess it didn't work out that way! I really, REALLY wanted to quit after 8 laps, and that's a typical sensation in a NothingMan because there are no spectators, no other athletes, it's just you in your own head. But I persevered, and on the last lap I was a tiny bit sad it was going to be over! But I was glad to finish, and I really didn't feel bad at all. On the run, I went through 2 cans of Coke, 2 bottles of water, 12 oz. of Gatorade and 4 salt tablets. It was pretty warm (low 80's), but I didn't feel too scuzzy when I was done.
Of course once I'd showered and drank Endurox R4 and a beer, I uploaded all my pics, and got ready for dinner. I went to Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket, as I'd been craving that for months!
First I ordered a big Weiss beer. Next they brought me biscuits and butter, and I headed to the salad bar and got a cup of the best chicken dumpling soup, and a plate of coleslaw, kidney bean salad, garbanzo bean salad, and covered it all with chopped hardboiled eggs and bacon bits! I practically inhaled the soup, then laid into 2 biscuits with butter and honey, then polished off the salads, of course sprinkled liberally with salt. Then the waitress (who remembered me from my past trips there) brought my chicken dinner, and I was like oh, those mashed potatoes! So I drowned them in the gravy and inhaled them all, then I ate about 1/2 the green beans, and then started in on the chicken. I ate maybe 2 oz. of chicken was all, and got a to go box. I just now finished off the rest of the chicken and 2 biscuits. Yum! The spoils of racing!
I spoke with Brad today, and he had a great first NothingMan! I didn't get his swim time, but he rode 53 or so miles in 2:40 and ran 13.1 in 2:14 (on a treadmill, since it's over 100 degrees where he is). We shared notes about pacing, mental state and nutrition, and pumped each other up over our imminent training for IMCOZ. It will be great for me to have someone else doing what I'm doing (Brad is 26, don't worry he can take it) so we can compare notes, plus I will monitor Brad's performance from training metrics. So tons of fun!
Well now I am hungry again. I went to the Naperville Sprint Triathlon to watch/harass my friend Maz, and only had my usual breakfast until he was done. He brought me 4 mini Snickers bars which I polished off and then held off on lunch until about 11:30 when I got home, at which point I started in on the leftover chicken and biscuits, but that's gone now, so time to eat!
Hope everyone's weekend was great!
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