Ironman Cozumel…Day One...

Day was pretty uneventful. Got to the airport on time, through security easy and got on the plane.

A highlight was standing in line and I struck up a conversation with another guy who had an Ironman backpack. Actually the entire place was crawling with triathletes and Ironman M-Dot logos’.

The person I met was John Wragg. We chatted and I ended up asking him how many Ironman’s he’s done. When he said 165 I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. He actually had done 165 and did 20 this year alone. He’s 63 and did his first Ironman in 1988. A year after I started. I’ve done 10 and he’s done 165.

I told him I was honored to meet him and asked if I could shake his hand. It’s not everyday you get to meet someone that is a legend, or should be. I gave him my card, he comes out near my area to ride (it’s the reason I don’t move to San Francisco – the riding is so great) to give me a call and I’ll join him.

I had a great seat on the plane, I paid the extra $45 and got row 2 and no neighbors. The flight flew by, I wrote the entire time. My personal blog post and some work blog posts. I love writing, it’s fun and boy does it make time go fast, the 4-hour flight flew by. No pun intended.

I thought there were a lot of triathletes on the plane but I didn’t realize how many until I saw how many bikes were being unloaded. There was just bike after bike coming off the belt. Maybe 50 or more. Lots of fit looking people and in typical Ironman fashion everyone talks to everyone. Strangers are friends. It’s a brother and sisterhood, probably the most supportive group of each other on the planet.

I was surprised by the weather, it sucked. It was cooler and windy, really windy. Turns out there has been rain and storms. Once just passed and I’m told it should be better by Sunday. If not, this is going to be a tough windy race.

When I was talking to John Wragg in the Toronto airport line he mentioned he’s done this race 4 times and last year the current was so bad that what normally takes him 1 hour and 10 minutes to finish took him near 2 hours and 400 people didn’t make the swim cut off. Yikes!! I thought this was going to be a straightforward no surprise race, maybe not.

On the shuttle bus to the hotel I started talking with a couple of women from Denver, they came to cheer on the brother of one. They were so excited to relax, party and then cheer him on for the race. They were in their mid 50’s and I could tell they were coming to have fun.

The hotel is not bad, but I’m not looking at it like I’m on vacation so my standards aren’t too high. I’m here on a mission, a mission to start and finish this Ironman respectfully.

It dawned on me as I was in the shuttle van and yakking with the ladies that I was getting excited and actually looking forward to this race. I was surprised that mentally I’m already looking forward to it. I feel the sooner it could start the better.

I checked in and as I started walking to my room all I could think about was Ironman China in 2010. The resort is about the same size and looks eerily similar. That was not a good race for me, I came down with food poisoning 36 hours before the race and had to drop out on the run when my kidneys started to fail with only 13 miles left to go. It was devastating.

Now here I am, in another 3^rd world country, at a hotel that is all-inclusive and I’m concerned about the food, actually it’s more like paranoia. You know this is true when the hotel still has hotel room keys, not swipe cards.

Although I don’t care about the hotel, I didn’t come her for the accommodations, I came her to finish Ironman Cozumel. I already had to bail from Ironman New Zealand earlier in the year do to blood clots, then I bailed from Ironman Mont Tremblant because I couldn’t get to the registration on time after a wild week in Vegas at our sales rally and my inability to get up in time to drive 6 hours to Quebec.

This race was my audible race. I want and need to do at least one Ironman a year. This is my last chance. I need to start and finish this one. It’s not about time, it’s about enjoying it and finishing. At least enjoying it as much as you can enjoy pain and suffering, especially at the end of the run.

Shortly after arriving I tested out the buffet. I cautiously examined all the food. I learnt an important lesson in China. Don’t eat any meat that you can’t tell what animal it came from. It was the pasta meat sauce that gave me and 30 other Ironman triathletes food poisoning in China, one was even Chris McCormick.

In a way I feel I’m playing Russian roulette. Vegetables were good, the chicken, fish, potatoes, buns, pasta and fish seemed like safe choices. But who knows. I will say the food is much, much better than the food we had at the Cuba and Dominican all inclusive resorts I’ve been to. It’s eatable. The only thing I didn’t like was the butter.

The room is okay. It’s a room. The TV has over 100 channels, which sounds good until I checked it out and there are only 2 channels I found that are in English. The Internet was super slow in my room, so I hung out in the lobby for a few hours working and messing around on social media. Thank goodness for social media. I’m definitely a social media whore, and I pronounce it gently, “whooerrrr”.

I finally packed in the social media and blogging once my computer ran out of power. I was also debating whether I should eat again. It was 9 pm and I wasn’t really hungry but I know I should. So I did. Again, with extreme caution. I was eating really slowly, like I was defusing wires from a bomb, like that is going to help.

One benefit of going for dinner was that I was able to steal a fork, spoon and cup to bring back to my room to use to mix up all my whey protein and stuff. I brought my Race Day Boost formula. I need all the help I can get.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better weather. I’m going to try and find a grocery store and get some food. Do a little of training, register and chill. I have a feeling I’ll be spending a lot of time resting on my bed in compression tights and watching one of my two English TV channels.

I’m so hip, what a life I lead, 48 years old and acting like I’m some sort of Olympic athlete resting before the big race. Which reminds me I need to take my compression socks off, I've had them on for over 15 hours already now. 

You only go around once…

I love writing blog posts from a plane. You have nothing but time. They tend to be my longer posts and I’d like to think more thoughtful.

As I was waiting for the plane to take off, I was reading the paper and came across the obituaries. I used to spend a lot of time on Friday or Saturday nights, sitting at the Island in our old house in Winnipeg, beer in hand, usually a few beers into it, and reading the obituaries. Often tearing up and yelling over to Alice, “Alice, you got to read this obituary, this person was amazing!!!”

The obituary was my favorite part of the newspaper. They are real. They are telling. Essentially one’s whole life comes down to what their family rights about them and how they were perceived. More often than not it was the unsung hero’s, the mothers that loved their kids and family, who made awesome Christmas dinners, and was just in the background and supportive of their family, those that were self-less. Those were the ones that got me choked up the most.

Some would just talk about accomplishments, facts of their life, no more. Others just had the ancestry linage. The husband of, the uncle to, etc, etc. Those were the ones that I thought the family had not a lot of good to say.

Some people did it all. Fought in the war, started families, was involved in their communities. Perhaps climbed Everest. Loved their wife or husband deeply and were married over 50 years or more.

Every obituary tells a story and your life boils down to that final story.

I look at my life and I’ll be straight up, I feel young in my head, I peg it at a mature 17 year old, yet I know I’m not young in body at 48 years old. I know that at any point, I could die. It could have happened last year this time when I was hospitalized for blood clots in my lungs. Yes, even Ironman can get blood clots and die, and the odds are even great of getting hit by a car the more miles I ride. Not to mention endurance athletes tend to die younger do to over oxygenation. Only thing going for me is I’m not tall, you rarely see an old tall person.

I also look at Johan Stemmet, my twitter brother for the past 5 years who one day I want to meet, he’s a Kona qualifier, multi-time Ironman finisher, super fit and this year had a heart attack not long after a half Ironman at the airport. He had stints put in. He too is similar to my age.

So it gets me thinking, and I’ve been doing this fairly often in the last year, what do I want to do with the rest of my life?  Do I want to keep the status quo, or is there more I want to do?

In some respects I feel my life has just begun. I’m older and much wiser now. I look at the world differently. Definitely with more confidence and self-understanding. It’s really too bad it takes time and life experiences to gain that, I can’t imagine how amazing it would have been having it in high school.  I would have handled so many situations differently.

I don’t have regrets. Okay, I lie, yes I do, maybe a few…dozen, some big, most small. But what can you do about them. I do know that I can’t change the past and can only control the direction of my future, and I don’t know how long of my future is left so I feel some pressure. I think of the Steve Jobs Stanford convocation speech and think of his comments along the lines that life is fleeting, follow your passion, live each day like it’s last, death is inevitable…or at least that’s the spirit of the speech as I remember it.  

In some ways would it have been liberating for Steve Jobs to know he was dying and he had a limited time left? What was his perspective? Did it change his priorities?

So what do I want to do with my future?

I’m not sure if I want to set specific goals or pursue a feeling. For example, a specific goal could be…”do one Ironman a year” and an example of pursuing a feeling could be “living a life of adventure”.

I’m definitely specific goal driven, yet I wonder if that is the guiding principal I want to live my life from?

If you were to ask me, “What do you want to do with the rest of your life?” the only answer I have right now is to follow my intuition. Which is really another way of saying “live completely in the present and make decisions and choices as opportunities and challenges present themselves along the way”.

I know it’s easier said than done.

For example, I’d love to spend the winter in Scottsdale. I’m really hating the winters and the cold as I get older. It seems like I’m sacrificing my happiness. My job allows me the flexibility to work from anywhere. My intuition is to do it, go there for the winter, I’m not getting any younger, I like it there, and I could train year round in nice weather. Yet my family can’t join me.  I’d also love to up and travel with Alice somewhere, anytime, yet can’t, there is kids and school commitments right now.

I know this sounds very selfish to even think this way. True it is.

I do understand that on one hand it would be an adventure and experience. I like change and being in the environment of the unknown, yet on the other hand I know it would probably have a negative effect on personal family relationships and I may regret it in the future. In some ways it feels like I’m trapped.

I’m not complaining about my personal situation. I have accomplished so much personally and I have the most awesome family and was lucky enough to meet the greatest partner in the world, maybe even too good for me. 

Perhaps I’m having a mid-life crisis? I think I am.

I’ll be straight up with you, I never really believed there was such things as a mid-life crisis, or at least not for stable men that have a pretty good personal and family life. I thought it was just for unsatisfied men in bad relationships and or careers.

But her I am. In the last couple years I’ve bought all the things I wanted as a kid, starting with my pinball machines. Now I’m really wanting an old sports car, at first it was a 68 Camaro, now it’s a late 60’s, early 70’s Corvette. Five years ago, seriously wanting an old sports car wasn’t something I thought about. Now it is.

That’s got to signs of a mid-life crisis, no?

So the big question is, what to do. How do I have it all without sacrificing anything existing? I’m thinking there HAS to be a way, I just haven’t figured it out yet. At least I hope there is.

This past month in Arizona helped clarify things for me. I really needed that trip on so many levels. It was a work-think-adventure-train-cation. The 30 days I was there literally flew by, it seems surreal and almost like it didn’t exist. How I know it does exist is I’m back in decent shape, I lost weight, gained muscle and feel close to how I felt in 2011 when I was at the top of my triathlon game.

AND I don’t want to go back to how I physically and mentally felt prior to Arizona. I will say, quitting drinking has helped too. I miss beer and the partying for sure, but it’s getting less and less every day. There is something cool about waking up with mental clarity and consistency every day and not sabotaging your training efforts.

So………. it all comes back to my future obituary. What will it look like?  What do I want it to look like?

I just realized, having a mid-life crisis isn’t all that bad, it forces you to have a reality check.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out…

No Training – Flight to Cozumel – Rest & Introspective Day

192.6 lbs.

Stay Calm & Get a Lot done...

Tomorrow morning is my flight to Cozumel. On one hand that's great, I'll be in the warm weather, on the other hand there is so much to do before I leave. Work is a given, it's the other stuff that adds to it. I'm glad to report, I got it all done.

Highlights...of what I did after 3 pm...
1. Expenses (I hate doing expenses).
2. Run
3. Bought charger for camera
4. Got a haircut
5. Cycled
6. Packed Bike
7. Packed triathlon gear, clothes and nutrition
8. Went for a massage
9. Finished by 9:30 and got some quality family time watching American Horror Story with Alice.

All day I felt pressure and I worked not to let it get to me. Every time I'd feel behind or a little stressed I'd calm down.

I really didn't feel like training, it's a delicate balance of keeping the body active and keeping the mind fresh. Often not talked about is showing up to race mentally excited to race. I've experienced both states.

I've trained right up until an Ironman giving myself no mental break and the race was a grind. It was like another long training day. Other times I've tapered with less training and when race day came I looked forward to racing. That light training break rejuvenated my mind, it was fresh, and positive. I much more enjoyed the day and the race.

The later is what I'm trying to prepare myself for for this race. To be at the start line looking forward to racing and the body not feeling overworked.

I've often said the doing an Ironman race is really the victory lap. The training leading up to the race is the real Ironman. Those hours grinding out the long bikes and long runs and pushing yourself out the door when it would be easy to not train, but you do it anyway, is the real Ironman.

There is no more training I can do to get into better shape, and erring to the side of less training and more rest during the taper is safer than over training and mentally there is no comparison. Showing up mentally wanting to race is the best. Showing up mentally fatigued and just wanting to finish is the worst.

Buy 7 pm tonight I was mentally toast. I trained, I was packed and all I wanted to do was fall asleep. Earlier in the day I booked a massage for 7:45 pm so there was no rest for me.

I was amped up when I got to the massage place. I was on edge. I was wired. The massage changed all that. The guy doing the massage applied perfect pressure. Not too hard, not too soft and it was relaxing. I almost fell asleep until he stopped to ask me about the tattoo on my arm and give me a compliment how he liked it.

I came out of the place feeling 1000% better. It was night and day from when I arrived. All the pressure was gone. I felt light. I felt it was the right thing to do and I lucked out that I found someone with the perfect touch. I've had lots of massages and they either do it very deep, or too light. This was perfection. Last time I had one like that was just before Ironman Canada in 1989.

Now it's relax time. Nothing more I can do but get a good nights sleep, continue to eat healthy and mentally let my mind go. No more stressing about training.

Although there is one thing I need to take care of and I'm glad I found it out now. On my ride my speed play pedals were clicking and making noises. I've had this before. Happens before they break. They are not turning fluid. I definitely need to buy a new pair. I hope the have them at the race. If not I've brought an old pair that I'll take with me on the bike just in case the existing ones break.

My run I did my lucky run. Before every good race I've ever had I run a loop I normally don't run. It's a good omen.

My biggest concern right now is not physically being able to finish the race. I know I can do that. My concern is that my race ends due to mechanical issues. Something outside of my control. That would be a heart breaker. My only regret was this week I wasn't able to get my bike to the shop for a once over. Fingers crossed.

Ironman race day law...."expect the unexpected".....

Now I need to tune out race worry....I need to relax and let my mind open up and get fresh ready to enjoy the race.

I need to relish in the fact that 5 weeks ago I went from not that great shape to training 83 hours in 4 weeks and getting in decent shape, I've also lost close to 10 lbs and gained a lot of muscle. I can't lose sight of that I need to celebrate the wins along the way.

Easy Run - 38:03 / 6.72 km / 5:40 per km pace
Mod Bike - 45:38 / 22.5 km / 30 kph pace

191.6 lbs (lowest so far)

Candy man can...

Two of my busiest days of the week are Monday's and Fridays. Today's Monday didn't disappoint. Phone meeting after phone meeting. Email after email. Decision after decision.

With only 5 days until Ironman Cozumel and in the taper I still need to get in some training. Today I needed to get in a swim and a bike.

I had a small window in the morning to do a swim. Before I could I had to go to Walmart and pick up a new Ironman watch and a lock for my locker. I had two Ironman watches a week ago and now I can't find them. I had a lock a week ago and now can't find it. I need the watch in order to keep track of how many laps I did. Without a watch I need to try and count and it's near impossible. If my mind drifts I lose count. With a watch you can always have a frame of reference for distance and speed.

Walmart is definitely different than it used to be. In the past if you asked where something was the associate would walk you to the location. Now they just point and say to ask someone in that general direction. Which I did, twice. Then I had to get the watch that was behind the counter. No sales person, I had to go to a cashier and have them page someone. All this waiting cut into the amount of time I could swim.

I was looking forward to my swim. I was going to get to try out my new iPod playlist. I picked about 350 new songs. I did manage to get a 2000 meter swim in, I could have went longer but had a meeting. Even though it was a shorter swim I was happy with it, I felt stronger than I have in a long time. I was swimming around a 1:40 per 100 yard pace. It felt good.

The one good thing about working over the phone is I can multi-task. As I was listening in on one meeting I took my bike out of the garage and put it on the trainer downstairs. Multi-tasking at it's finest. Something I like to call a good work-life balance.

As much as I wanted to ride before dark there was no way and by the end of the day I was tired. It also hit me that I have to have my bike, tri gear and bags packed by tomorrow evening, my flight to Mexico is Wednesday morning. Whoa....time is now flying. It also hit me that I don't have much time left to get last minute training in.

I almost didn't get my ride in tonight. Instead I started watching "American Horror Story" with Alice and was lying down on the couch. I had a craving for the smarties and goodie candy that Alice had in the cupboard. My Iron willpower melted and I had some. It was the first time in over 30 days. I wasn't happy about it but it did taste good.

My plan was to fall asleep and wake up refreshed and get on the bike. Instead I didn't want to fall asleep and fall into my old trap. Instead I had to mentally pick myself up and get my butt downstairs to put in a ride. The plan was to just get started and squeak out an hour. Just enough to keep the legs loose.

Social media was my savour. I had my computer on the bar and started riding and did some facebook and twitter posts. Then started reading others posts that lead to articles that lead to videos and before I knew it 40 minutes had gone by and I started to feel great. I just had to be careful with the sweat drip-age. Riding inside without the wind you sweat, a lot. Very easy to drip into the computer if your not careful.

I wish I knew how fast I was going but I didn't. My speedometer didn't work. I think there is some magnetic fields in the basement. It works outside but not downstairs. Rather than getting upset because I want accurate data, I just rolled with it. All I cared about was having my heart rate up around 120 bpm and I was able to do that. Although I didn't have speed it felt like a strong ride. I felt so good I managed to blow by the 60 minute mark and go for 90 minutes.

Tonight was an example of how it's not over until it's over. It would have been easy to not train, to blow it off, but having that little bit of sugar helped to motivate me. It motivated me to get off my butt and burn those calories. The other motivation was not to lose the gains I made over the last month.

This morning I did body measurements. The last time I did them was back in April of last year. I've definitely seen improvements. Highlights included my waist going from 38.3 " to 36".  My thigh from 24.3" to 23". My bicep un-flexed from 13.3" to 12.5 and flexed it was the same at 14.5". The only thing that grew was my calf by half an inch to 16.5". The numbers don't lie, I'm moving in the right direction for sure.

I can't believe I'm only 5 days away from race morning. It will be interesting to see how my taper turns out. Tapering is truly an art form. I have a general idea of what I'm going to do for training each day, but during taper it's also based on how I feel. For example, I know what I want to do tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes it will depend on how I feel and whether I should do that workout. It's very intuitive and based on feel. At this stage of the game I can't get in any better shape, I can do damage if I do it wrong. The key is to do just enough to keep you strong but still allow the body to recover fully.

That's the mystery of Ironmans. I don't know anyone, myself included that can predict how their race is going to unfold. I can do everything right. I can train right. I can eat right. I can sleep right. Yet on race day it doesn't mean I'll race right. I find that until I hit the bike I don't know what type of day I'm going to have. You basically do everything you think is right, do your best and then "hope for the best" and the best advice I got from Mark Allen is on race day, "expect the unexpected". Don't let anything rattle you.

So her I am. I started the night tired. I did a mini pig out fest on candy and in one dimension I would have just fallen asleep on the couch and felt like crap in the morning with guilt. Instead, I ate candy and mentally forced myself on the bike and ended up having a solid workout and now feel like a million bucks AND I'm going to wake up tomorrow feeling mentally stronger.

Swim - 41:59 / 2011 meters
Bike - 1:30:00 / 45 km / 30 kph (estimated)
193.6 lbs

Mac Therapy...

I woke up sore, again. I haven't done much training and I'm sore? Yet I feel out of shape. Yet I know I'm not.

This is a very cool experience. I've never had a taper take this extreme before. Yet I've never crammed for an Ironman with 83 hours of training in Arizona while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Right now my mind set is "trust". Trust everything will be okay. Trust the body knows what it's doing and will recover and be ready. Trust the unconscious mind is working with the body. Trust they are both just messing with me. Trust less training will equal a better race. Like I said it's all about trust.

When I put it in perspective my goal is just to finish, respectfully. I'm not looking to qualify for Kona. Although I'm not going to lie, I do have those fantasies asking myself "what if I had the race of my life?" Then I went to the site and saw there is only 2 qualifying spots for my age group and normally the guys are in the low 9 hours. That's when my bubble bursts. Even on my best day there is no way I could get down to the low 9's.

So I rest. Like I said I woke up tired and sore yesterday and I've had 2 great nights and long nights of sleep. I ALMOST put on my compression tights. Almost. They are so hard to put on so I didn't. Although this week I should.

I was going to hit the pool. But I didn't. I pulled an audible and decided to fix, er set up my new computer instead.

There is something therapeutic about setting up and organizing technology. It's also a bit of a mind teaser. I had to transfer all 400 GB of files and operating system from my old mac book pro to my new one. Called Apple, they walked me through and 9 hours later the files were transferred. Did that last night, today it was all about organization, clean up and sync with my two iPhones and iPad. AND I created new playlists for training, AND I figured out how Genius works with iTunes. It's very cool, I now have a bunch of cool playlists.  AND I downloaded my Garmin Data from Arizona. (Turns out I did do a lot of climbing, one 100 mile ride alone was 4500 ft of climbing, I knew it was lots of climbing).

AND I CLEANED PART OF THE HOUSE. Yes, it's true. I got so frustrated with a mess on the counter, I couldn't find my Garmin transfer stick, I got a green garbage bag and went to town. An hour later I couldn't find the stick, I was convinced we have a ghost and the counter was clean like it has never been. Oh, I did eventually find the stick, we don't have ghosts, it was in my pocket. Doh!!! Anyways it motivated me to clean.

I started on the computer and organizing and all that jazz at around 10 am and finished 11 pm. It feels great having everything organized. Work files dealt with. Emails returned. I'm now ready for Monday.

No Training. Recovery / Taper

Trying to keep it together...

I've been home since Tuesday night from 33 days away and it feels like I hadn't left. The 30 days in Scottsdale training and working seems like it wasn't real, that it didn't happen, that it was a dream. I really need to stop thinking of the warm weather of Scottsdale. Talking about it ain't going to change things here, according to my family. I can take a hint.

It didn't take long to start getting up without an alarm, the sun coming through the window does that. I got up at 7 am, weighed myself because I was bored, I was an awesome 192.6 lbs. A good race weight for me is between 183 - 187 lbs. I was then still tired and knew I should really get some recovery sleep, so back to bed I went, started watching about Hitler on YouTube via mac TV and next time I opened my eyes it was 10:43 am. Nice. Felt much more rested.

Weather was lousy today. Cold and occasional flurries. I played around on social media and returning emails as long as I could before training. As I played on facebook and twitter I was thinking "what did I do before social media?", the answer is simple, "I watched TV". Then I thought that whether I wasted my time on social media or watching TV is there really any difference?

As the day went on my goal was to just get out and run before sundown. My other objective of the day was to transfer all my data from my old Mac Book Pro to my new one, which required a call to Apple. I love calling Apple support. They are so good and patient. Forget reading how to do something, I call them and ask them to walk me through it step by step as I can't read. I often wonder if they believe me that I can't read. Do they think I'm Dyslexic?

There was some technical issues, but we finally got it transferring and sometime in the wee hours of the morning it should be done transferring the data. Once it got going the timing was perfect for my run.

I didn't want to run. I'm in taper and it's not uncommon to feel flat, out of shape and unmotivated in that first week of the taper. That's me right now. To get me out the door I told myself I was going to go easy and make it enjoyable. I was romanticizing it in my mind. It was a mind game.

I got all bundled up and then realized my Garmin battery was dead and needed charging. That killed another 20 minutes as it charged. It would be blasphemy to go out for a run without my Garmin or just a regular watch. So I waited all dressed up.

I'd like to say the run was enjoyable. It wasn't. It was cold and windy and it was cold and windy. It wasn't Sc*ttsdale. I was thinking just 6 days ago I was running in the heat with no shirt on and now I'm running bundled up with a jacket, gloves, toque and sweat pants. Life is cruel.

The upside of the run was I had a decent run for keeping my heart rate in the low 120 bpm. The downside was the weather and I still feel very flat. The best part of the run was rounding the corner to my street and knowing that it would all be over soon.

I also noticed that I had a lot more mucus than normal on my run. I get the sense my body is purging itself of toxins and crap. I just don't want to get a cold. I need to stay away from sugar. I find eating sugar is the number one reason to start colds or cold sores. I'm just trying to get through the taper without getting sick.

I'm trying to keep up my healthy eating, it's not easy. I'm back to my home surroundings which has many more temptations that I don't control. Like potato chips and snacks in the pantry. I started the morning making a scrambled egg and vegetable concoction for Alice and I. Then came dinner and I was craving wings. It was off to the House of Wings for some deep fried pickles and wings. Then to a movie and a little popcorn and I really went off the rails having my birthday cupcake.

It wasn't so much a craving as much as boredom. It could have been worse, I could have started eating chips, or I could have bought those M & M's at the movie theatre that was calling my name (Alice and I went to the evening showing of the movie "Gravity") I didn't. I had self control. I also don't want to sabotage all my hard work and efforts.

I feel so good physically right now and I know I worked hard for it and I know I can lose it quickly if I'm not careful. More than ever I'm valuing the effort and hard work I did and want to maintain the results as long as possible. I was even strategizing about what sort of training I'm going to do after Ironman Cozumel in the off season. In the past I did nothing or went crazy on the food and beer. Not this time. I know how hard it is to reverse the results of those destructive habits.

So to keep positive I need to think positive about my day.

1. I ate a healthy breakfast
2. I got a decent amount of sleep
3. I hit a respectable low on the scale this morning.
4. I got my computer data successfully transferring over.
5. I did a training run and got some fresh air.
6. Had a night out of dinner and a movie with Alice.
7. Snacked a little but not too much. Just enough to taste, not enough to damage.
8. I'm feeling rundown and flat this week...better this week than next.

Mod Run - 1:03:35 / 11.18 km / 5:41 per km pace
192.6 lbs

Man, I STINK...

My family is sick of hearing the word "Scottsdale". After spending 30 days there in 85 - 90 F weather and then coming back to Burrrrrrlington and  0 C, I keep referring back to "how nice" it was to work and train in Scottsdale. I'm a broken record.

Even though I've started my taper for Ironman Cozumel, which is only 8 days away, it doesn't mean I don't have to train. I do. It's a delicate balance, you want to take it easy and let your muscles recover and build but you can't stop altogether. If I had my choice one extra week in Scottsdale would have been perfect. It's much easier to stay motivated to train in warm weather.

BUT, I'm not in Kansas, er, I mean Scottsdale anymore. I have to train the old fashioned way and struggle with the weather and push through it mentally.

Specifically I'm really only talking about biking. I can run in any weather outside, 40 above or 40 below, I'm a outdoor runner and love it. Swimming is swimming, a pool in Burlington or a pool in Scottsdale is a pool. It's the bike that hurts. Doing rides over 1 hour indoors suck. Period.

I have a 3.5 hr ride and a 2.5 hr ride I need to get in before leaving next Wednesday and I anticipated each of them being done indoors on the trainer until I saw on my computer that it was 9 C out today, albeit with drizzle rain. With that said, I'd rather ride outdoors in that weather than indoors anytime.

Here was the rub, I have work to do. I have meetings scheduled and Fridays are typically one of my busiest days. Today I had meeting booked on the hour for the entire day starting at 8:30 am. At first it didn't bother me until I opened the patio door and it felt relatively nice outside. I then checked the computer and when I saw it was 9 C I had to re-arrange my schedule or do a mental sufferfest riding my bike on my indoor trainer.

The challenge was two fold. First, to adjust meetings to find the time and second, to get my bike built, it was still in the bike bag. I hadn't yet assembled it.

So I adjusted my meetings, kind of. One I could move to Monday and the other one I wasn't participating in but was listening in on, so I knew I could do that one on my bike, on mute of course. Then I sprang into action making my bike. To pull it all off I had to get it built and I needed to be out the door in 20 minutes.

There is nothing like a tight deadline to get the swearing juices flowing. I started putting the bike together and by rushing it I was missing things, like removing straps or misplacing parts or tools. It didn't take long until it was an F-bomb fiesta. There was a lot of "where the F#ck did my pedal go? Alice did you see my F#cken pedal?"

Then it gets even more fun. I get the bike assembled and I rush to get dressed. I've got to pull this off with military precision if I'm going to get out and back in time for a 4 pm Skype finance meeting that I need to be on my computer for.

So I need my cycling tights. I look in my dresser drawers, which are fairly organized. The top drawer is underwear and socks. The second drawer is cycling wear. The third drawer is Running stuff and the fourth drawer is triathlon racing stuff. It's all pretty organized.

Problem is that I'm in a rush. I look through my cycling drawer and although it's all cycling stuff, there is a lot of it. I'm fumbling around looking for my tights. No go. So then I start looking in the other drawers, just in case Alice put them in the wrong drawer. No go. Now I'm getting in the red zone wondering if they are in the right drawer, or put in the wrong drawer or missing?

Easy thing to figure out....I opened the cycling drawer and grabbed all the stuff and threw it on the floor. Then sifted through it. Found them!

On they went, then cycling shorts over. Then find a shirt, then the winter riding jacket. Now this is were the red zone flares up again, primarily due to the time sensitivity of having to get out the door in time. The red zone flares up for two reasons, first is I'm getting hot. I'm bundled and still indoors. I'm overheating. The second part is I can't find my cycling bootees. I'm going through the hall tree and it's a carbon copy of my quest to find my cycling tights. Only exception is as I was cursing I found them before I picked up the hall tree and threw it across the floor like the incredible hulk.

So now I think I have it all ready. Wrong. I forgot to put on my heart rate monitor. Off comes the jacket. I gingerly walk across the hardwood floors with my cycling shoes as to not scratch the floor. Then I find it put it on and the same exercise is repeated when I realize I don't have my GPS and I have to walk again gingerly over the hardwoods.

At this point I'm burning up physically, I'm overheating. I have to get outside into the coolness or I'm going to go postal.

Now for some you may think this is just a rare case. It's not, this happens often when you ride in the cold. It's a major exercise to FIND all your gear and it's a major exercise to put all your gear on before overheating.

I did manage to get out the door just in the nick of time. The downside was I had no power. It felt like I hadn't trained in a month or more. I was flat and weak. It was a bit depressing. Thank goodness I've been her before, it's not uncommon for the first week of a taper to start feeling weaker rather than stronger. It's your body repairing itself. If all goes right, it goes from week one of the taper feeling weak to week two feeling stronger.

If anything, feeling weak made me humble. It takes you from mentally hoping you are going to have a good race to "I hope I finish this thing". Based on how I felt on today's ride I was thinking I'd be lucky to get off the bike in 7 or 8 hours and finish the race in under 17 hours. Based on today's strength I will definitely not be showing up to IMCZ feeling over confident.

There is an upside. I did notice my clothing is loose fitting again and I don't have a belly hanging out when I cycle. My body image feels fit. At least I got that going for me.

My feet got wet and cold as the ride went on. Still beat riding in a warm basement for 3 hours. For about 30 minutes of the ride I listened in on a conference call. My first statement was "I'm here, I'm just going to put myself on mute and listen in" and no more. This is the epitome of multi-tasking. Attend a work meeting while riding your bike. I love it when a plan comes together.

I was under a time pressure, I had to get home for a Skype conference call and review some google docs on my computer. Riding and listening wasn't an option. Nothing like a little motivation to pick up the pace and change the route slightly to get back in time, but I did, with exactly 2 minutes to spare. In fact I was the first on the line. Winning.

The call took an hour and the worst part of it was not that I was cold, it was that I was stinky, and I mean STINKY. It's weird because when you do a lot of regular training you sweat a lot but usually it doesn't stink. The only time it really stinks is when you get back into training after a layoff and all the toxins ooze from your pores. This was one of those oozing from your pores types of smells. It was so bad that I turned down eating dinner to shower first. That's a first. And it wasn't easy to turn down, Alice made a huge heaping of pasta and olive oil.

I wish I could say it was a pleasant hot shower after a cold bike ride. The equivalent of sitting in front of a warm fire with hot chocolate after a day outside in the snow. It wasn't. Or at least not for more than 5 minutes.

Turns out that Reid was also having a shower and there ain't enough hot water for the both of us and he already had about a 20 minute head start on me. So I get in the shower, it's nice and hot, near too hot. It feels great. I'm in heaven. Then wham...it's luke warm, then it's getting cold. "WTF? This ain't fun. What happened to my nice warm shower?"

What happened was Reid's shower went colder when I fired up mine, so he then fired up his a little hotter and mine got cold. So I had to fire mine up higher. It worked, until his went colder and he fired his up. It became duelling showers. My nice zen shower became a competition and soon enough it seemed like we were both going to lose, I could tell there wasn't much hot water left to be used.

So instead of relaxing in a hot shower. I was now being forced out of the shower before I really wanted to. I figured it's better to get out when it's semi warm and the soap is off me than wait and it turns freezing cold and I haven't yet done a final rinse.

In the end all was good. I was warmer. I was cleaner. I was back to a relaxed zen like state, and I was happy I was able to get in my ride outside.

I'm also so filled with fear that I lost my fitness and somethings wrong because I'm sweating foul out my pores that I'm very motivated to make sure this is a very strong training weekend. I have from now until Tuesday to finish off strong.

Humbling "don't count your chickens before they are hatched" ride.

Long Bike - 2:43:09 / 77.77 km / 28.6 kph