Season Opener tommorow!

Ok well its spring and the Tri season is officially upon us! My first race is tomorrow and for the most part I feel pretty good. Im doing the Miami University tri again and this year they have made some changes. First off they pushed it back 2 weeks. Last year is was april 8 and this year its the 21st. I think they realized it was too freaking cold to be racing that early in april in Ohio. Next they pushed back the start time from 7:30 to 8am. I think this is once again an attempt to squeeze out as much warmth as possible. Last year it was seriously 28 degrees when I came off the bike which would have been around 9:15. According to weather.com I should be able to expect temps around 49 degrees at 9am. SO thats a dramatic improvement of like 20+ degrees warmer which will make a huge difference and hopefully I will not have the transition issues I had last year. My final time last year was like 1:26:51 and I placed 11th in my age group. last fall I really wanted to focus on this race and try to win my age group. More on that later. Now I'm shooting for top 10. Im looking at the results from last year and I was just 20 seconds off of 10th place. Thats not that big of a gap to fill. Plus I think I will ROCK my transitions tommorow and I think I can grab close to 4 minutes just from transitions. First place was 1:06 min which I dont think I will be able to touch. My run is just not fast enough however I know the course now and I know what to expect. The bike course is really hilly and I have been focusing on Hill work (kinda) this season and I remember thinking last year that the run course just felt fast to me and I kept holding back not wanting to blow up. Well this year im rocking the run course too. I guess my general point is I have TONS of room for improvement over last year and I think this year race will be a good one for me.

Now on to some of the negative stuff. I know some people think oh this stuff is just easy what issues could you be having. Well heres my bulleted list of monkeys on my back for tomorrow.

1 - earlier in the year I spoke of weight loss that I was hoping to achieve. You may have noticed I have not mentioned that again. The reason is that I have found out its virtually impossible for me to lose weight over the winter time (thanks to my thyroid). I have stayed at a constant 145 without budge at all. well it goes up some days but never below. SO I am still 10 lbs from my 135 goal and 15 from my ultimate 130 goal. what does that mean? It means im still dragging around 10+ lbs of dead weight tomorrow that will slow me down.

2 - I have been having real issues swimming in pools lately. google "sinusitis" and thats basically whats happening to me. Its been awful and I have only been swimming 1 day a week because of it. SO my swimming has not improved as much as I would like.

3 - My Heart Rate monitor has decided that even though I <3 my <3 rate monitor it shares no love for me. It basically does 1 of 2 things. Either I cant pick up the signal so I get no reading at all or, and this is my favorite, I get some kind of echo I think and it says my heart rate is much higher than I know it is. For example I went for a run earlier this week with it. I started to jog and had gone half a block. According to my HRM my HR was 290 beats per minute. Lets just think about that for a second. SO long story short I need a new HRM. booo hisssss

4 - I got a new bike! Ok thats a good thing. Whats not a good thing is like last year I have made a major change to my bike and have had virtually no time to test it or ride it on anything but the trainer. SO im a bit nervous that my first real ride on it is going to be a race and im really nervous about having a mechanical that I have to deal with b/c in a sprint race that pretty much kills you.

5 - last night I went to take my bike out for a spin in the neighborhood to get a better feel for it and try to work out the kinks. Well I found one kink right off the bat and that is my bicycle pump has a whole in the tube that it uses to fill the tires with so the max I can get my air pressure to is 50 psi. Now for people not in the know that doesn't sound so bad. However my bike tire pressure is usually 120psi so 50 is unusable. SO I gotta get a new pump today and im not happy about that.

6 - I really have no clue what to wear tomorrow. I just dont know how cold its going to feel and am going to bring lots of choices which means my transition area will be a little clogged up.

SO in a nutshell thats what im facing tommorow. Im fatter than I was hoping to be. Im not as fit as I was hoping to be. But hey its the season opener and most people are probably in the same boat I'm in.

SO tune in next week for results and photos!

T-30 weeks and counting

Well its 30 weeks till the Ironman and right now I feel like balsa wood man. I would be lying if I were to say the whole thing doesnt scare me. I mean c'mon lets think about this - 140.6 miles covered over Land (running), Sea (open water ocean swim), and I know its a stretch but Air (the bike, my body wont be touching the ground now will it!) and my goal is 12-13 hours. 12-13 hours!!!! OMG thats a freaking long time. thats like driving to florida long time and thats the optimistic side. It could very well take me roughly 15 hours to complete. 15 HOURS! Now thats a freakin long time. SO yeah at this point I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about the whole thing. I know that I can do it and I know that even if I cant quite keep up my training that as long as I put a solid effort in I will finish but there is still so much of the unknown out there. SO many things can go wrong in that race. The Ironman is really different than anything else out there in a lot of ways. Many races that are open to the public most avg joes can enter and they wont win but they will at least finish. The ironman is a different beast altogether. This race demands respect or else it will spit you out and forget about you faster than you can say D-N-F. DNF is that horrible phrase that nobody likes to see next to their name on a results sheet. Did Not Finish. I think thats the fear of most first timers and thats what im facing now. Will I be able to actually train for this monster of a race? Will I be able to anticipate things that will go wrong? will I be prepared for them? What about the things I cant predict, will I be able to improvise, adapt, and overcome them? I know im not alone though. Right now there are at least a couple of hundred other people who for them, Ironman florida is their first race and they are just as scared as me. Right now they are obsessing over things like bike wheels and hydration racks. Trying to shave valuable minutes off the bike with the latest in aerodynamic wind cheating carbon fiber. Wondering what shoes to wear for the run and wondering if a wetsuit can really float the boat anchors that are my legs into a proper swim position.

SO todays the day that my training really kicks off. Today is my inaugural day where I can say I am actively training for an Ironman. Wish me luck!

Cheers!