It's Time...

Time to get off my butt and get to training.

This morning started my 18 week Goosepond Half Ironman Training plan. I started with a 1000 yd swim and tonight I have a 20 mile ride (good thing 24 is back on). I had really forgotten how tired swimming makes me. Now granted, it has been about a month or so since I have been in the pool, but about 2 PM, I was feeling it!

I can also tell that my core is so much stronger than ever before. I could really feel it in the water and I am so glad my trainer had me doing all the planks, crunches and other ab work. I just feel stronger and that is a good thing. Here are the 2 current ab workouts I have been doing if interested:

Torture 1: 1 minute plank, 100 crunches 2 minute plank, 200 crunches, 3 minute plank 300 crunches 4 minute plank 400 crunches (I have never made it through the 4 minute plank yet)

Torture 2: 100 crunches, 100 leg raises, 100 in/outs, 100 bicycles, 100 long lever crunches, 100 v-sits w/twist, 100 crunches, 100 reverse crunches, 100 bicycles, 100 straight leg crunches= 1,000 crunches! BOOM!!!!

This is the first time all season, or all year that I have started getting excited about racing. I still have a HIM goal of 5:45, which would be an A+ for me, but if I go sub 6 hours, at this point (Day 1) I would be thrilled! I know it is totally doable, my last HIM was 6:09 and I fell apart on the run. So yeah, it's time to shake off the cobwebs and time to get focused. Time to Warrior up!

Root Canals, Master's Swim, Feb Challenge, Science Fairs and Stanky Creek!

Root canal!  How many people does that phrase scare? Well, I have the mother of all root canal stories to tell because this thing was a 2 part adventure! Last Thursday I went to my dentist to get the root canal done. Now my dentist does not do a lot of root canals, but he thought he could get mine done in the office. It was to be performed on the very back bottom tooth of my left side (#18 for any teeth weirdos). Long story short, he could not get it all cleaned out so on Monday, I got to go back to another dentist  who specializes in root canals and get it finished. Then after that appointment, I got to go back to my dentist while I was still numb and get a temporary crown! My mouth was numb for hours all the way up to my ear! All in all, both dentists did a really great job because it was not painful at all, it was just tough being in a dentist chair all morning. Thankfully they both had some really good nitro oxide for me, very relaxing!

MASTER"S SWIM!

Let me say this, just because I go to a master's swim class, it does not make me a master at swimming. It has been a long time since I attended one of these classes and I was anxious to go. It started out well, then we went into our kick set. I have a horrible kick to my swim. I went form being one of the first ones done to the back of the pack when we focused on our kicking. The coach on deck came over and told me "most triathletes have a horrible kick, so if you work on it some, you will be that much more quicker in the water". My take from that remark was this:

I SWIM LIKE A TRIATHLETE! BOOM!

I think the Master's class will definitely help my swim, since I am only swimming twice a week for the Olympic race in May, I think I will hit the class a few time a month and then work on my endurance. I was able to swim a 1:35 to 1:40 100.

February Challenge:

I am still going full steam ahead with my challenge in February. I am looking forward to it actually and I have challenged my Brad D to post my before and after pictures on the blog, because he says he is doing the same. (I will give people fair warning on that post, don't worry).

Science Fair

These are the two words that scare me the most, not root canal! I was never very good at science in school and I do not remember ever building a science fair project, but middle 6th grader and I are attempting to build a simple electric generator out of cardboard, a nail, some magnets and copper wiring. Please pray it works!

Stanky Creek 8K

Sunday was the 3rd race in a series of trail runs I have been doing. An 8K race through the trails of Stanky Creek, and yes, the creek was a factor in this one. Luckily for us, it was pretty low, and by pretty low, I mean my shoes did not get wet. The race was going great for me until I took a tumble about 1.4 miles into it. I was passing a guy and just tripped over a root and went flying! It scared me a little and really threw me off my vibe. Trail runs are hard to race. You can never see what is coming up due to the person right in front of you, and this was a narrow trail which made it difficult to pass people. i also twisted my ankle on something at about mile 4 which freaked me out also. Only thing I ever worry about on a trail run is twisting an ankle, and I thought my season was over. Luckily it was just sore for a day, and is feeling better. I finished the race in 45:31, which was good enough for 14/45 AG, 98/433 OA and left me in 13th place for the series in my AG. One more race to go in that series in two weeks!

This Time is For Real! I Mean it!

I am serious this time. I have started mentoring a group on BeginnerTriathlete.com with Bradleyd3 from Brad's Ironman Journey. The group has been really cool and we have all levels of triathletes that have joined, so it will be great encouraging, answering questions and watching them hit their goals for the race season. So we decided as a group to have a group challenge for February. Several ideas were kicked around, but we came up with a core/ab challenge for February.

So what does that mean? It means that I (along with the others member of the group) will be selecting either a number of crunches we will commit do doing in the month of February, or we will commit to a certain numbers of minutes spent planking! Simple enough right? Well the hard part is coming up with that number or that time goal! So that is my struggle right now.

This idea came to me when my bride said her trainer challenged her to do 1000 crunches by their next session, which will be Monday. That works out to 250 crunches a day. That's a lot of crunches, but my bride can totally do it, so that has definitely influenced my choice between the two options.

Another blog I read always talks about doing core work. The author is a marathon runner, fast marathon runner that also does a huge focus on core work. I know that a strong core will really help me when I S/B/R. According to their blog, they do a ton of planking and crunches to strengthen their core and help them run better. So I have been really thinking over my goal for February in regards to the group, and based on the challenge my bride accepted, I think know I can get her to join me, so I really have some accountability going on up here! So with all that, I say this:

My goal is going to be 7,000 crunches in the month of February. That breaks out to 250 a day (which will have to be split up, I can't do all that in one session), or 1750 a week. My plan involves doing 250 in the morning and 250 in the evening, alternating every other day. I have no idea if this is doable or not, but in my head I am totally going to rock this. Regular crunches, side crunches, crunches with a stability ball will all count.

I am also going to photograph my before and after shots to see if I can see any difference! (and I better after 7,000 crunches!) So, I know what you are thinking, but to afraid to ask... I do not know if I will post them on the blog or not. Maybe is all I am ready to commit to at this time.

So throw the cokes out the window, start drinking tons of water, getting plenty of sleep, eating smartly and continuing on my training plan, and I "should" be ready by the time May gets here!