The KodaFit Blog

As winter began last year, I figured I could bike through it.  So there I was one Friday evening, dressed all nice and warm, with a warm bottle of Perpetuem, wind breaking covers on my top and shoes, and off I went for a 60 mile bike ride…

I only got 20 done.  Never have I felt so cold, and that was nothing compared to the pain of the blood returning to my toes on the drive home.  Now in all fairness, I think temps ended up hitting around 10 degrees towards the end of my ride (-12 Celcius), so I’m not a complete pansy, but even so, I realized that me, biking and winter where not going to be friends. Oh, and did I mention that the Perpetuem froze too?

I purchased a trainer the next day.  It was almost a nice pink one, which was on a great sale, but as I waited for a salesman to check the computer and ensure it was the same model, it ended up getting sold.  So I got the traditional green Kinetic Trainer by Kurt, and headed home.

Setup was a synch, and thus began a whole winter of training whilst going nowhere fast.  The trainer kicked my butt.  Usually I can hold  18mph on the road without too much trouble.  On the trainer I can hold 16mph, but only just, and I’m usually a sweaty mess within minutes.  I do think it made a different though, since my endurance seemed much better when it finally warmed up enough for me to take the bike back outside again.

But why am I sharing this tale now, you might ask…

I set the trainer up again last night, and mounted my trusty steed upon it.  I think it might have some advantages for me right now…

1. Better workouts, due to the increases resistance
2. Ability to workout based on power output (Kind of at least - Kinetic have a power chart somewhere online, based on speed.
3. No need to get dressed all fancy and drive someplace before I can ride.
4. Linked to #3.  I can ride topless, and without a helmet.
5. TIVO
6. Kind of more time with the family.
7. A plethora of kids are available to service my nutrition and hydration needs at all times.

Of course there are disadvantages too:

1. Don’t get that real road feeling.
2. Can get boring pretty quick.
3. Frustration at not being able to go as fast (But that ends up being good when I get back outside!)
4. Usually I’m a big sweaty mess at the end.

I think tonight I’ll try and rig up a fan in front on the bike as well - perhaps that’ll cut down on a little of the sweat problems.

Now if I could just find a way to power part of my house with my workouts, life might be even sweeter!

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Well, it’s official!  I finally got my body properly hydrated, and it looks like the damage done since IMSG is about 10lbs of weight gain.  I’m on a month hiatus from donuts, and I’m trying to eat healthier.  Of course having a birthday doesn’t exactly help, but I’m still telling my self that the bratwurst was totally worth it.

Part of the problem too is that I’ve been a slacker on my workouts.  I was supposed to run 4, 4 and 9 miles this weekend to kick off my training program for the Layton Marathon in October, and it didn’t happen.  I’m a big believer in group workouts, and so thankfully, fellow Shark Jodi P. committed me to biking into work with her this morning.

I was supposed to leave at 4:45, but I proceeded to over-estimate my speed, and under-estimate  the distance to the meet-up point, and all that was further complicated by the pack on my back - something which I haven’t done in over a decade.

Anyway, we finally met up, and had a most enjoyable trip into downtown Salt Lake.  Since I work at a different agency, the final couple of miles were solo.  I got a little lost in Rose Park - which might not have been the brightest plan on my part - a few too many drive bys in that area recently - but I haven’t been giving drug dealers to run around or sleeping with anyone’s wife recently, so I think I was probably OK.

The final section was a super steep climb up 300N to the State Capitol.  HOLY MOLY!!!  Half way up there was a small side street, and somehow my bike turned down it, otherwise, I may have simply fallen over, or started rolling backwards down the hill.

I arrived at work tired and sweaty, yet invigorated and ready to start the day.  Finally mileage for the ride in was a hair over 37.  I suspect it’ll be a little shorter on the way home, but it’ll be hotter too.

Longest single day ride since Ironman!  And hopefully it’ll have an impact on the scale tomorrow too!

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I’m about done with being cold.  Last night I decided to head out on a bike ride.  I layered, covered up what I could and even took the precaution of taking along a head lamp.

The training plan said I  needed to do 80-100 miles.  I figured that 40-50 would be realistic.

And so off I went…

Within 5 miles my toes were losing feeling and there was a definite chill in the air.  I should add that the weather man had temps predicted to be about 32 degrees - and this was the warmest it was supposed to be all weekend.

At mile 9, I reached for my Perpetuem.  I made it with hot water and figured that some warmish liquid would go down well.  It was already like it had spent the day in the fridge.

At 12.5 I reached the end of the trail.  My toes were completely numb and I was shivering a little.  The sun was setting to.  I donned the headlight, removed my glasses and started to head back.

IT WAS FREAKIN’ COLD!!!!

My toes were the worst part of the experience.  I could realistically see myself pulling of my socks and finding a couple of them black.  My face was freezing and my fingers were really cold.

With each mile it was a relief that I was that much closer.  At 25 miles I got back to my car and I was done.  It was during those last 5 miles that I resolved to purchase a trainer this weekend… WATCH THIS SPACE!!

You know how when your hands get really cold, and it hurts to put them under warm water.  I had that in my toes!

I took some solace in the fact that as long as I could feel them, it meant they weren’t dead, but it didn’t take away much from the pain.  When I got home, the weather service had the temperature as 24 degrees- Brrrrrrrrrr!

This morning, I had a trail run scheduled.  The local running store put it on, and I was supposed to meet a fellow Shark for it as well.

I got a text at 6:30 from my fellow runner saying that he could make it.  With that came the reprieve that no-one was counting on me.  I was still going to go, but I took my sweet time.  I hit the main gate to Antelope Island about 15 minutes late and realized the group had already left.

As I headed across the causeway, I tried to decide what to do.  I could run the same route as the group, and accumulate 13-15 miles, or I could head up Frary Peak.   I went up Frary Peak last weekend and only made it half way up.  In light of the snow storm supposed to be coming through tomorrow, I figured I’d try and summit it today, since it could be the last time this year.

All things considered it actually went really well.  I think it was colder than last night, but my toes were warm, and that made all the difference.  As I started the trail, I noticed that the peak had some cloudiness around it.  I like running in clouds, and so I was a little excited.  Little did I know that it was the business end of a wee snow storm.  It took me about an hour to get to the top.  I don’t think I quite hit the peak, but I blame that on taking a wrong turn.  1 minute I was on a good trail, the next I was scrambling along the top of a ridge with steep drop-offs on both sides.  Given that it was now snowing quite heavily and the wind was blowing really hard, I figure I would have to be an idiot to continue….  Well, I am an idiot, but I turned around anyway!

The run back down was great.  The path had quite a bit more snow on it, although it was only slick in a couple of spots.  My IT Band, which has been caused problems and cramped up on the descent last week was doing really well to.  With about a mile to go I stop in the shelter of some rocks and took a breather.  My stomach growled and so I pulled a bottle of Perpetuem from my hydration belt.  It was frozen!!!  Not completely, but after shaking it around a bit, it turned into a really nice smoothie.  After getting some of it down, I looked over myself to see how things were looking…

My head was covered in ice crystals as were my gloves.  My feet were surprisingly warm, although I’d caught a branch on the outside of my ankle on the way down and that was throbbing a little but other than that, I was in good shape.   My nose had started running a little from the cold too, and aside from the odd smattering of snot here and there on my face it was holding up well.  And then I saw the front of my running jacket - with 3 or 4 really nice snotsicles!!

It ended up being a 6.25 mile run and was actually quite enjoyable.  All credit to my La Sportiva trail shoes - Really starting to love them.  My hands could have been a little warmer, and a balaclava might not have been a bad idea for my face.

The only tricky part then was driving down from the parking lot.  The trail head is at the top of a 23% grade road.  The steepest paved road in Utah is what I’ve been told.  And there I was in my little Geo, at the top of a road which had no traffic since the snow and hadn’t been plowed.  It was a very slow, very nervous and very careful descent, but I made it down in one piece!

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First and foremost, since the last 2 posts have been devoid of graphical material, let me start with a picture!

Any who follow me on Facebook may have seen that yesterday and if you click on it, you can see the full size version of TwitPic. I owe some thanks to xt4 of Becoming IronMan fame, who introduced me to the joys of TwitPic a week or two back.  Just way to much fun to be had there!

Training for this week has started off well.  Last week didn’t end as well as I would have liked, but in all area’s with the exception of swimming I increased my distances, and I have a new swim pass that will take care of the swimming problem.

So here’s some numbers from yesterday:

 23 - The grade of the hill I climbed half way through my ride.  It was a half mile long hill, but fortunately it’s not that steep the whole way up.  Coming down may well have been worse that ascending

13 - Number of miles I put in on the bike last night.  12 on rolling hills, and 1 on the big ass hill!

11 - The number of bison I saw - always a good adrenaline rush when you see a bull at the top of hill on the side of the road, and realize that if he wanted to, he could probably take you out!

5 - The number of Pronghorn Antelope I saw

1 - Number of layers I wore on top.  It is so nice to have the temps climbing again.

5:40 - Time it took me to climb aforementioned big ass hill.

300 -Height of big ass hill in feet (According to my Garmin, which I wouldn’t trust that much)

17.7 - Average speed of the remainder of the ride in mph - I was hoping it would be higher… Better work on that.

41.2 - Maximum speed reached- While gripping the drop bars like my life depended on it!

8:38 - Average min/mile of the run I did when I was done.  Granted it was only half a mile, but the first quarter mile was uphill, I was fresh off the bike, and it felt good!  (I’m usually somewhere between 9 and 10)

Overall it was a great night of training.  I stayed aero for most of the ride. Finished up the evening with a good strength work out at the gym, and I can still walk this morning - I score that a win all around.

Swimming and running today, and then I’m planning on a speed workout on the bike for tomorrow.

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It was an interesting weekend. If you read my last post, the plan was a 10 mile run on Friday night, followed by a 68 mile ride on Saturday morning, followed immediately by a 3 mile run, and then a decision on if I really want to try the Utah Half IronMan next month…

I donated blood on Thursday morning, but Friday night I felt great. I decided to do a sweat test as well, since I am having trouble staying hydrated during my longer training sessions.

I started off with a half mile walk and then started running. I was averaging 9 min miles, not fast, but decent for me. The first mile was OK, although the first couple are never good for me. Mile 2, and my legs started cramping, my shins hurt, my ankles hurt - Life was not good. I stopped and stretched for a while, and then walked another half mile, although it probably ended up being closer to a whole mile.

When I started running again, things were OK, but I’ve been struggling with GI problems this week too - I’ll spare you the details, but running was not comfortable. I turned around just past the 4.5 mile mark and headed out for home. The second half went much better, still not great, but I was able to get my speed up and run for most of it. I ended up doing about 10 miles by the time I was done, but averaging 10 minute miles. It probably wasn’t a great workout to measure my water loss, but I think I have a better idea now. All in all, I lost about 33 oz per hour. It would probably be higher if I had been better hydrated, and run faster, but thats a better number that the 20 oz I was assuming I was losing.

Friday night, the youngest spent the entire night puking… I slept a little, but not much. Saturday was long and tiring, and I even ended up taking a nap. No training on Saturday that was for sure. Things were better today, but when I woke up and it was well after 8, I figure any chance of a morning session was out of the question.

Tonight though I bit the bullet and took the bike out. I was pretty loaded up with 48 oz of Gatorade, 24 oz of Accelerade and Fig Newtons - I’m guessing the key with those last guys is the amount of sodium and potassium - based on my sweat rate and the quantity of white stuff on my skin after I train, I’m assuming I need more of electrolytes, so these should work well.

The ride went well, although I started a little later than planned, and so I decided just to do a 56 mile course. Longer than any I have done before, but I wanted to see how it felt.

Actually it didn’t feel bad at all, and by mile 42, things were looking good. That was when I came across the herd of buffalo… I’d seen them when I first got onto the island but they were way off by the beach. When I got back to them, I could see they were moving, and were pretty close to the road, as I got closer though, they started to cross. I opted to stop, finish the rest of my liquid and take a break. I’m guessing there were upwards of 150 animals, so of them absolutely huge and plenty of calves as well. I had no idea that buffalo growl/roar when the move…. It was a little intimidating. I stopped about a quarter mile off from where the main herd was crossing. There were a couple of cars in the midst of the whole thing, and from the sounds of things the occupants were in awe. I was soon joined by a motor bike, who shared my apprehension and getting mixed up with them.

After fifteen minutes or so, most of them had crossed over, and we also realized we had another group of them coming up on us from behind. We decided it was time to leave. We had a few dodgy moments down the road a ways with other groups from the herd, but both me and the motor bike made it through OK.

The break had been nice, but my legs got pretty stiff after I started peddling again. My average speed dropped down in the low 17’s, upper 16’s and that’s about where it sat till I got home.

My time wasn’t too bad though… 3 hours 20 minutes for the 56 miles, average speed of 16.8 and average heart rate of 137 (Probably a little low, but it was averaging 130 on my long rides a month ago, so I’m glad it appears I’m pushing the pace some more.

I didn’t run when I was done, but I felt like I probably could, especially with a good taper and solid race prep. I think I’m going to give the half a go, obviously depending on what happens with the impending arrival!

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It’s been one of those weeks where it’s just been a matter of hanging on till the weekend, but with the weekend arriving comes some welcome relief and exciting things for the future:

1. Arriving Kid and Utah Half Ironman

At the beginning of the year, I was planning on doing the half ironman race in Provo this August.  Then we found out that we would be expecting a new addition to the family on August 3rd, and so those plans went out the window.  Recently though, the doctor has started moving the date up, culminating in a statement yesterday that he would really like to see the kid born before July 24th.  That would give me three weeks to finish training, get a good taper in, and prepare well for the race.  Registration closes on August 5th I think, so I still have time to change my plans, but for now, I think I this is definitely something I can focus my attention on.

2. This weekends training

I’m in week 2 or 3 of my training plan for the St. George Marathon in October.  I’ve been wanting to a long training ride and run as part of the things I will basing my decision to do the half on.  The schedule included a 10 mile run on Saturday and a 3 mile run on Sunday.  Since I missed Thursdays run, due to giving blood, I think I can switch it up a bit.  Tonight (Friday) I’m going to go for the 10 mile run.  There is a trail headed north out of Syracuse that I have been wanting to try for a while, so as soon as it starts to cool down for the day, I’ll be hitting it.  Tomorrow morning, I am planning on getting up early, and taking my bike out for a long ride.  My longest ride so far has been 50 miles.  Right now my proposed route is 11 miles out to Antelope Island, 20 miles to and from the ranch, 6 mile loop around to the beach, another 20 to and from the ranch and then 11 back home for a grand total of….   68 miles.  I’m hoping to complete that in less than 4 hours as well for an average speed of around 17 miles per hour or greater.  When I get done with that I’m going to see how a 3 mile run goes.  I’m not expecting anything grand, but if I can at least complete that in less than 30 minutes, I think that I should be able to consider myself within reach of being ready for the half.

3. New Tools and Products Reviews

One of the reasons I wanted to start a blog, in addition to tracking my progress and giving family a place to see what I was up to, was to build it into a resource for other triathletes.  There is plenty of information out on the web, my plan was just to create a place where if someone asked me what it would take to get into racing that I could point them too.  I also wanted to created a place where I could post product reviews, and I have also considered getting into coaching, although this is definitely a very long term goal for me.  Today I received my first ever product to review.  Along with the stick of BodyGlide, I also got a stick of BodyGlide with Sunscreen.  In in my BFit BDay report last week I mentioned that towards the end, I got fairly badly chaffed on my shoulders as well as a pretty bad case of sunburn as well.  I’m excited to try this new product out and post a solid review on it.  My plans are to try it on my run tonight, my long ride tomorrow, and at various other times in the next week.   My plan is to try and push the limits of the product a little in terms of effectiveness and durability and to put together a very solid and hopefully useful review.  I have some ideas of how to do this, but you are welcome to send any suggestions if you would like me to try some different things.

Other than those three things, I for one am just extremely grateful it Friday!!

Have a great weekend everyone and to those racing…  Best of Luck!!

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I ended up getting off work a little early on Friday and arrived home to find myself all alone.  With time to kill, I figured I could either catch up on sleep, catch up on work from my home business or get some miles in on the bike.

For the record, and I know I’ve said this before…  I have never claimed to be sane.  I checked my tires, loaded up a couple of water bottles and headed out for a pretty lengthy ride.  I rode out to the Island again, realizing as I passed the sign warning about biting gnats that I had forgotten to apply bug repellant.  I got across the causeway fairly quickly, staying over 20mph for the entire crossing and tucked nicely in the aero position.  It’s still not the most comfortable position for me, but I’m getting used to it, and my speed and balance improve everytime.

On getting to the island, I headed south towards the ranch and almost immediately came across 2 male bison off to the side of the road - Just amazing creatures.  A short downhill and then a long climb, and I was feeling really comfortable.  About this time I looked down at my shadow and noticed flies buzzing around my head.  I was surprized I hadn’t noticed them before.  One landed on my arm, and I brushed it off and then set about brushing the back of my head and shoulders to make sure that there weren’t any other hitch hikers.  All was clear, except for the back of my left shoulder.  Apparently it’s the tasty one, because as I brushed, I came across at least three or 4 big flies just sitting there.  I discovered a number of big red bites the next day, and still have them - It grossed out my lunch time running group - they really look pretty nasty.  Anyway, if anything good were to come out of that experience, it was motivation to keep the pressure on and not let my speed drop too much.

I had a slight tail wind heading south to the ranch, although I didn’t realize it till I turned around…  For a while there I was really impressed with my progress!  I then headed back, taking a detour around the Buffalo Bistro and down to the beach.  It was hot, but nothing too bad, and while I could have done with a little more food on the ride, the 72oz of gatorade seemed to do the trick.

I got back 3 hours later and pulled into the driveway, right as my Garmin clicked over to 50 miles - My first half century ever!!!

Saturday morning, I woke up early, and although a little sore, gabbed the fam and headed up to the local 5k heritage days race.  Ella - my 6 year old had decided to do this race with me, and I decided to push the youngest 2 kinds in the stroller - partly so they could have fun, but I also wanted an excuse for a lower time!

We started out nice an slow, but within a quarter mile, Ella was asking to walk.  We started walking between 1 set of lamp posts and then running the next  set.  Soon though we were down to walking 2 and running 1 and then just walking.  By the time we hit a mile, the police officer trailing the end of the race had given up on us, and Ella was all but done.  With a little coaxing and creative packing, I got all three kids into the stroller and took off to regain some dignity.  I quickly got up to my usual 8:15 min/mile pace and started passing people, including the cop!!

The next 2 miles went fairly quickly, and right before the end, we stopped so Ella could hop out and finish up the race.  She started really moving - the kind of strides she made at the last kids race she did, and was in full stride as my wife too her picture.  Shortly after that, as we rounded the last corner, some obese moron stepped out in front of her, and as she went off the sidewalk to go around him, she tripped and got a nasty concrete burn on her knee.  The jackass, who had gotten in her way looked at her with a dumb look and wandered off.  I quickly pulled the youngest out of the stroller, sent him off the Mom, and piled Ella in the stroller.  We crossed the line minutes later in 37:12, with Ella howling the whole way in.

Perhaps not the finish we’d hoped for, but she’s really proud of her t-shirt, and I have some good idea’s for some training.  Most of which I think will be mental type work, so she doesn’t want to quit so easily.

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