Nov. 13 2010 Its called the Ironman for a reason.

You know I am starting to wonder if the things that happen to me ever happen to someone else.  However I have asked my self that question half my life.  Today we had sort of like a tri practice.  We were supposed to swim for about 30 minutes, then bike for 2-3 hours and finally run for 30-40 minutes.  Frankly I was pumped up for this workout.  It would give me a chance to really push it on all three discipines and see exactly where I was.  I wanted to get in a Half Iron distance swim folloed by a 50 mile bike ride and then find out how much I could run.  I kind of recruited some other people for the 50 mile ride so I was not going to be alone.  Out we went for the swim and we took in about 1300 meters because the ocean was a little bit less than friendly today.  However we were fine at the place we were swiming.  I felt realy good on the swim.  I swam in the front with only two other guys in front and I felt realy strong.  We got out of the water and on to the bike.  I was on my new practice bike which is a tri bike so today was the first time I would practice on it and start to get some distance on the bike in the new position.  As we got wormed up I fet realy good on the new bike.  The aro position is very comfortable except for a couple of shoulder muscles which I will have to work on them to get more flexible.  However keeping in front of the pack was easy and the compact cranks reduce my effort by a lot.  It is somewhat harder to keep my cadence up because of the 175 cranks but I will eventualy get it right and they will be a necesity when I start to climb.  My new bike is a bullet and being on tubular tires helps even more.  I kept it low on the heart rate and just peddaled away.  I felt real nice all ride long.  Our ride would place us back at our cars at about 38 miles so the plan was to ride and aditional 6 miles out and then back to complete the 50 miles before the run.

Today I had my nutrition pretty well defined and I was taking about 340 calories per hour and plenty of water so I felt fine.  I hit the wall at about 34 miles and I had to go slower.  My pressure point in my foot was once again bothering me and I felt weak.  I took in a jelly pack and took my foot of the pedal to relieve the pressure point.  Continued to hydrate and rode along.  It took me about 10 minutes to get back to business but I started to feel strong again.  I placed my shoe back on and got ready to get on cranking once again.  At this point I am about 2.5 miles from where our cars were and the group had disapeared up front.  As I rode alone I climed the hill to the top of the bridge.  I climed it very easily at a steady pace so I was pretty happy.  As I go over the top and down the other side PUFF!!!!  I blow out my rear tire.  A flat oh no!!!  Remember I am riding on tubulars so no tube to change I needed a new tire which I did not have.  I have to mention that yesterday I had the tire in my hand at the bike shop.  I found the price a little high and I though to my self that I could wait till next week to get a spare to carry.  I remember thinking "Iwont get a flat tomorrow, come on Tubulars a hard to pinch" right.  Well obvously wrong!!!  So here I am flat with two miles to my car.  I had co2 canisters and valve so I had means of inflating the tire again.  It was worht the try thinking the hole could be small enough to get me to my car.  Wrong again.  I inflated the tire and hopped on the bike.  It lasted only 100 meters and I was flat again.  At this point I had to figure out what to do.  I had really no problem at all.  I had my cell, there are plenty of riders on the road, plenty of cars around and the guys should appear running very soon.  However me being me my thinking was diffrent.  I am in fact training for an Ironman.  What happens if this same things happens during the Ironman 2 miles from transition?  Today a tire but what happens if during the Ironman something else breaks?  So...it took me about 3 seconds to know exactly what I wanted to do.  I always tell Jochi and Gaby that you race how you train.  So I applied the saying to me.  Here was my chance to train for plan B.  I would accep no help from anyone and I would .....well, run to my car or in the Ironman to transition.  I secured my helmet to the bike and took my shoes off and cliped them to the pedals.  So... I started running with only my socks on.  The funny thing is that I felt pretty good running except for some cranps on my thighs wich I have to deal with while I get those muscles strong enough.  I cranked up the ipod and ran along.  I was actually doing pretty good however as I ran I was very councious of how carefull I had to be not to push the pace or I would for sure blister the bottom of my feet.  As I ran I could feel the bottom of my feet getting tender so I started to think more about blistering.  I though about it for a few minutes and actually decided that if I blistered my feet my training would suffer a delay and that it was not worth it at this point.  OOOOOps............too late!!!  I felt so tender that I knew I had blisters on both my feet.  I stoped emediately and started walking.  One step, two steps, three steps and I started to feel the real deal.  I had blistered both my feel and actually they were pretty bad.  I was in pain as I walked but then again I didn't care what was done was done.  I was still in Ironman plan B simulation mode.  As I walked along the guys from the group cmae running in the oposite direction with coach K.  They all asked and I said I was fine.  I did not want to interrupt their training run.  Coach K stoped and I explained what happened and I told him I had y feet blistered.  We talked for a minute and I assured him I was OK so he continued with his run.  2 miles latter I arrived at my car and confimed my guess.  I had blistered both my feet.

In retrospect I should have not tried to run with only my socks.  Especially on that road which is very rough.  But in the end running the bike to the car was the only thing I figured to do.  I concentrated so much on what I was doing today that felt like there was no tomorrow.  Tomorrow my feet will hurt lots and the day after that also.  But when they heal they will be that much stronger maybe it is stupid and maybe it is not but after they heal they will be able to take the abuse I put them thru today in a much better fashion.  You know the event is not about being a hero but it is in fact an event that has been labled as brutal and very hard on the body.  That is what this event is about.  There is an issue to consider and that is that if this would have been the real thing I would have not been able to continue to the marathon in that fashion, but it did help me learn some of the things I need to be ready for should this situation happens for real.  In all it was a good day and folks it is called the Ironman for a reason!!!!!