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Monthly Summary – June

This is my last full-month update before the Ironman. This year has really flown by. I can clearly remember standing in JackRabbit last year and saying to myself, “Why can’t I do an Ironman?” So now I’m just about there. I’m getting a little ahead of myself and I’m certain I’ll be spending a lot of time over the next three weeks reflecting on the last year, but suffice it for now to say that I’m really excited and ready for July 22 to finally come.

Here’s June:

Swim: 28,111 yards
Cycling (outdoors): 327.40 miles
Cycling (indoors): 6:10 (hours)
Run: 124.4 miles
Strength Training: 0 hours

Approximate monthly total training time: 49:35 (hours)

Weight: 163.0 pounds. That’s down again – 1.5 pounds since last month. But (and these may just be rationalizations), I did spend over six hours training today and just got on the scale. I’ve been weighing myself for these updates in the morning, but I forgot to do that today. I haven’t been lifting at all, and, with my still-healing hands, I haven’t been able to even do my push-up, so my upper body is continuing to shrink. I imagine I’ll put on some weight during my taper and after IMLP, when I get back in weight room.

When I added it all up for this month I was pretty surprised. I figured that with the two weeks in Italy, my hours and overall volume would have been down. I expected my run volume to be up compared to recent months (which it was – I ran nearly 50% more in June than in April or May), but my bike and swim volume were also up from May (remember that May was a relatively low volume month). The highlight of this month was obviously our kick-ass Italian vacation. My most notable training events this month were my Lake Placid training weekend and the Philly Tri. I’m really glad I spent those days up at Lake Placid and wish I could have made a second trip.

I think today was my last really long training session before the Ironman. WHICH IS NOW JUST THREE FRIGGIN’ WEEKS AWAY! It was a good workout, but not what I had hoped for on my last big training day. I didn’t ride as fast as I had hoped to and I ran out of water at one point and the dehydration really took its toll, even after I got some more water. Regardless, I trained for 6 1/4 hours today, and lived to talk about it! Dehydration shouldn’t be an issue at the race. It wasn’t that I forgot to drink or didn’t want to. I just couldn’t find any damn water!

My taper is starting this coming week and as a friend told me the other day: “No training [I] can do after this weekend that will help [me] in Placid.” I didn’t think I would be ready to taper, but I am. My body is feeling tired and achy. Surprisingly, it took until pretty recently for me to start feeling the cumulative effects of this year of training, but now I am. I’m tired, a little cranky and the little aches and pains are becoming a more constant reminder of how crazy it is to train for and race an Ironman.

Once again, I didn’t have any forced time off and hit my training goals.

Swim – June 28
Distance: 3,250 yards
Time: 1:07

Run – June 29
Distance: 6.2 miles
Time: 45:45
Average heart rate: 148
Course: West Side Highway south
Conditions: Warm, but not so sickly humid

Triple – June 30
Swim:
Distance: 4,100 yards
Time: 1:30

Bike:
Distance: 71.1 miles
Time: 4:24
Average heart rate: 131
Course: West Side, across GW Bridge, Route 9
Conditions: Hot, sunny

Run:
Distance: 2.0 miles
Time: 15:08
Average heart rate: 147
Course: Greenwich Village
Conditions: Hot, sunny