Confessions Of A Flabby Ironman

Thursday, June 20 Day 3 Swimming and Running on todayâ??s docket... After getting up late and rushing to run some errands on my way to work, I picked up a pair of aerobars, some water bottle holders and the wiring for my extra cycle computer so that I can actually tell how fast I'm going on my new bike. While I was at work, I checked out the Total Immersion website to see if there were a couple articles that could help me out with my afternoon workout. I read a little bit, but I stumbled upon a short video clip and suddenly what i read in the book made SO MUCH MORE SENSE! After seeing the video clip, I was anxious to get to the pool. When I finally got there, I realized that I had my heart rate monitor and speedo, but not my goggles or swim cap. Swim cap? No problem. Goggles? Goggles help me stay straight at the moment. I NEED my goggles. I decided I needed to workout either way so I put what stuff I did have on and got in. The new problem? KIDS ALL OVER the swim lane. I started to try what I saw in the video, and I was swimming SO much better. Almost right away, I cut 6 or 7 strokes off my 25-yard length to around 16-17, and I was able to keep my heart rate from skyrocketing. Part of that was that I had to keep stopping to make sure there weren't kids in the lane, but my heart rate still wasn't as high as it usually goes in the pool. Using energy efficiently is going to be so important during IronMoo, so keeping my heart rates lower and being able to relax are going to be pretty essential. I didn't get a full hour in, mostly because I didn't want to deal with the kids anymore, and the first of today's 3 goofy freaks showed up. As I was heading out of the pool, I said to the guy entering, "Welcome to the minefield of children swim lane," and he said something to the point of "I usually just swim hard and right through them." He stretches for a second and takes off. Sure enough, not even a length down the pool, he SLAMS into 2 kids and keeps going. I just kind of turned my head away and hustled to the hot tub for a couple minutes. When I get to the hot tub, the second goofy freak appears. Standing in the hot tub with the bubbles off, she's straining to see the water aerobics class beneath her so that she can do her aerobics in the scalding hot water. I sat there for a couple minutes watching my heart rate (108) and get out so that I can go run. After showering to get the chlorine off, I ran to the treadmill, where appropriately enough, the third goofy-freak of the day is. "Richard Bokovoy, Eternally Running Candidate" is on one of the treadmills. Richard runs for everything locally with his son Ricky as campaign manager and loses every time. School Board, City Council, Mayor, State Legislature, he's lost them all, and here he was on a treadmill. What is he wearing? 1970s polyester, brown pants and these shoes that Would be anything but athletic. No laces, canvas fabric, kind of a waffle iron bottom with no heal. They looked like they'd be more appropriate for playing in the senior shuffleboard league on a cruise ship. Definitely not something to run in, but he didn't need to worry about that because he had the treadmill set to 1.4 miles per hour. Wouldn't it be more productive to just walk around outside? At the very least it would be more edifying. Today was a running form day, so I didn't push the envelope very much. I pulled up a hill program on the treadmill and worked on keeping my heart rate at 150. Every few minutes I'd do a 1-minute interval where I'd go from 4 to 5 mph then back to 4, then 4-6-4, 4-7-4, 4-8-4, and back to 4-7-4. I peaked with a heart rate of 186. I was noticeably less sore today. Picked up a bottle of Chamois Butt'r and "Ultimate Shaving Cream" at the bike shop to get ready for Paul Bunyan on Saturday along with a new pair of cycling bibs. (Just like bib overall cycling shorts) and I also picked up some Accelerade to start testing to see if I could drink it during competition. That's all for tonight, need to go tweak my bike and spend time with Angela. Not necessarily in that order.