I am an Ironman.

With a finish time of 12:42:57 I became an Ironman on November 22nd, 2009.

Packing

593

My bib number for Ironman Arizona is 593, or DXCIII, a prime number. I’m writing this one week before the race itself, looking over the last year and reviewing numbers. Realizing I hadn’t backed up the blog, I copied and pasted the text and it’s over 700 pages long. In the last six months I’ve swam 82 miles, biked 2,304 miles, and run 541 miles. Those are lower than my goals miles of 100, 3,000, and 1,000 respectively. Coach Brian said that we may have been too aggressive in those mileage goals, especially since the big goal was staying injury-free. What that means is that I’ve propelled myself 2,927 miles. I have spent $7,300 this year on triathlon related goods and services. That includes accessories, race registrations, sport-specific nutrition (Infinit, whey protein), USAT certification prep, apparel (clothing and shoes), bike maintenance and upkeep, TNS business startup costs, and rental equipment. It does not include airfare or hotel costs traveling to races or other groceries that are purchased specifically for my consumption (I could not tell you how many jars of almond butter, applesauce, or ground flaxseed I have eaten). I weighed 184lbs at the start of my Ironman training, now I weigh 180lbs. I am somewhere under 10% body fat. I have many new friends whose value I cannot and will not quantify in raw numbers. I co-own and am building a business whose value lies not only in its revenue but also in how it helps people change their lives. In six days, 18 hours, and 10 minutes I will be racing my first Ironman. That’s just 140.6 miles to go.

Fear

I did it to myself. A dumb, newbie move. Three weeks before my big race I purchased two pairs of New Balance 1063’s, the same shoes I’d been wearing for a year. After logging more than 550 miles it was time to replace my current pair. My thinking was that two more pairs would give me a new set of trainers and a new pair of shoes for race day. All I had to do was break them in. The last sizeable run on the calendar going into my taper was a series of 4 two mile sprints at 10K pace, separated by 3 minute recovery jogs. A simple interval run, bookended with 10 minutes of warm up and warm down jogging. I had forgotten that I run faster than I used to, which meant that my 10K sprints were at 7:15 to 7:30 minutes per mile. By the last sprint I had run 11 miles, and as I slowed to a jog I could feel something was terribly wrong with my right leg.

Product review: H20 Audio Interval (for 3rd gen iPod shuffle)

Curiosity and a 20% discount enticed me to buy the H20 Audio Interval housing and headphone combo in the week leading up to my 8,000 meter swim. I had wanted a swimming headphone system since seeing the H20 Audio products in the Apple Store, but I was an early adopter of the 3rd generation iPod shuffle and there’s almost no accessory products on the market for that device. The 3rd gen iPod shuffle has a different headphone plug to allow for the small control buttons on the cord: volume, next track, and voice-over. Leave it to Apple to create yet another plug incompatible with the older headphones or even the iPhone headphones. This means accessory makers are much less inclined to spend the development and manufacturing funds to make a product. H20 Audio announced their Interval product in August, they are one of the only third party makers of a 3rd gen iPod accessory, and one of the only waterproof housing and headphone products. Does it work? That depends on your ears.

The Hay is in the Barn

It’s a phrase Coach Brian has been saying for some time, and it’s confusing in that he’s not a farmer. What he meant is that after the “Helloween” epic volume all of the hard work would be done, the taper would begin, and in three weeks all that effort would pay off. Three months ago when I looked at the Helloween schedule I damn near threw up – begin the week with a half ironman race, then a few mid-week swims and runs, and culminate in a long swim day, then a long ride and run brick, and then a long run. Around mile 60 of the long ride the weekend suddenly made sense. Friday’s 2.5 mile swim would be an Ironman distance swim. Saturday’s 80 mile ride and 4 mile run would be a not-quite Ironman distance brick but still long enough to tax the engine. Sunday’s 20 mile run would come at the end of all of this, prepping my mind and body to keep working while tired. Without realizing it I wound up running another 55 mile week, having a PR at the Soma 70.3, and having the best big brick of my training. All this while in a vague pre-migraine state, ongoing dentistry, putting out IT fires, and the normal, everyday chaos that is life.

Something is wrong with me, aka 5:27 at Soma 70.3

There is something wrong with me and I cannot figure out what it is. I’ve been in a migraine cycle for over a week. It came on last Friday night at dinner with my wife and father-in-law, one day after having three hours of dental work done. That migraine was classic – visual precursors of strobing, tunnel vision, then a brief calm before the crushing right side pain. Did a full 4 hour treatment of medication, yard sale Saturday, bike time trial, then felt like crap again and had to cancel going to a friend’s birthday party. Sunday killed the final milestone run with a 1:35 ½ marathon, then I had another migraine two hours later. Monday was off, Tuesday I swam and then had bodywork that helped a bit, then Wednesday I was supposed to run but had another migraine and a cycle of medicine instead. Thursday a long swim, and Friday drove to Tempe, Arizona for the Soma weekend. I drove to Arizona feeling like boiled crap and had no clue what to expect from a weekend that was kicking off my “Helloween” week of epic volume training.

3 migraines in 5 days.

There is a time bomb in my head. It has exploded thrice in a short amount of time. Friday night out to dinner with my wife and her father I started seeing strobes and lost vision, a clear precursor. We finished our dinner and my vision returned so I could drive us home – all the while I knew the massive head pain was coming. I got home and spent the next four hours in pain taking drugs to club the thing out of my head. Saturday wasn’t too bad with a yard sale in the morning and then a 90 minute bike time trial going well. Sunday was that epic run and about two hours afterwards I was seeing lightning strobes. This migraine was different from the rest. Normally I get visual strobing on my right side and I lose vision in my left eye. The pain is huge but dominant on the right side of my head. Sunday’s migraine was all left side and the feeling of my heartbeat pulsing in my neck and temples made me nauseated. I did the full cycle of meds, lost most of Sunday to being in bed, and hoped things were better. Monday was off, Tuesday was a swim, and it was about then I noticed that I have had an intense knot of tension on the right side of the base of my skull. I’m perpetually tight in my SCM, but this was much different. It made it so turning my head to the right was a painful experience. Wednesday I couldn’t shake a feeling of despair, fatigue, and overtraining. When I tried to run my left hamstring stated howling and I had to scrub the 75 minute workout because my leg wouldn’t allow it. I went home and did strength work instead. Later in the day when I spoke to Brian he said it was to be expected – we ran hard Sunday and he even had a rough day afterwards recovering from that run. I went on with my day, working for clients, picking up my bike from the shop after getting Julian’s race wheels put on and the drivetrain cleaned up for a weekend of training in Tempe on the Ironman course. I was sitting at a client’s desk at 6 when the visual strobing started again. I was supposed to drive to Malibu to work on the client’s home computer but immediately had to pack my things, make profuse apologies, and head home to tend to brain bomb number three.

Milestones

In preparation for Ironman Arizona Coach Brian and I came up with mileage goals for the six month training period leading up to the race. We also devised 5 Milestone achievements that would operate as individual victories along the way. The race would be icing on the cake with the milestones tangible achievements that could stand alone in their own right. Those milestones are:

1) Ironman distance ride (112 miles), non-stop
2) 8,000 meter swim
3) 300 mile bike week
4) Ironman distance ride  + 1 hour run
5) 95 minute 13.1 run

I finished #1 July 6th. #2 was done October 10th. #3 was done and then some (315 miles) in July. On October 3rd I attempted #4 and wound up running 45 minutes off the bike before I bonked. Good lesson, still a milestone. Number 5, the 95 minute half marathon, became history today as I ran harder and faster than I’ve ever done before. Today’s run: 1:34:57.

IronMax Playlist

I thought I would publish a list of the songs in my IronMax playlist. This is the playlist on my iPod shuffle and iPhone I use for long rides (in one ear only), long runs, and now for long swims with my H20 Audio Interval. It’s a long list, more than 500 tracks and 1.4 days of music. It was hard to get it down that small, given that my entire iTunes library is 110 GB in size, with almost 24,000 songs from decades of collecting music. The criteria for these songs is they had to motivate me to dig in at the hardest moment. I envisioned mile 83 somewhere, being pushed back by a headwind, and being down calorie. What song would I need to come on the headphones that could shake the cobwebs from the brain and get the legs turning. I’m curious what other people use for their music. I’ve got a lot of guilty pleasures in here. For example: the 70’s rock of Rush, Supertramp, and AC/DC, or the surprising amount of Metallica and their Eurotrash disco cousins, Daft Punk. The stuff I was surprised I came back to frequently were the classical pieces – Aram Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance is a favorite, but Basil Poledouris’ score from Conan the Barbarian never fails to lift my mood. A few things came from friends and either made me laugh out loud with their silliness, or were just weird enough to throw into the mix as a wake-up. I blame Coach Brian for those. There’s the requisite cock-rock crowd pleasers played to death at Ironman events (AC/DC again) and a few recognizable pop hits. There’s a lot of Washington D.C. hardcore or bands from and inspired by that scene (Dismemberment Plan, The Evens, Fugazi, Retisonic), bands like The Oxes and Austerity Program are pure instrumental guitar noise, while Ratatat fills out the melodic instrumental set. Rap appears here and again in upbeat party songs by 50 Cent, Gold Chains, Rhymefest, and even The Bloodhound Gang. It’s a tour through my musical history, emphasis on the uptempo. I’m going to print out a small list of the best of these to carry in my top tube box on the bike. When I need a lift I’ll eyeball the tracks and pick a song to play in my head; the groove has been worn in pretty deep.