The KodaFit Blog

I’ve been slacking off a lot since IronMan.  Perhaps that was a good thing since I never really took a break last year.  I trained all the way up to Silverman in November, and as soon as that was done, it was right into the middle of training for IMSG.

I’ve haven’t been training as much as I should have, I haven’t been blogging as much as I should have, and I’ve been slacking in other areas as well.  In fact the only area of life I seem to have excelled in, is gaining weight - and the rub is, that I’ve been trying to eat healthier as well.

But I think it’s over!

I’m three weeks into  a marathon training plan, in preparation for the Layton Marathon in October.  It’s supposed to prepare me to break 4 hours, but until this weekend, I still hadn’t gotten around to doing any of the long runs…  Uh oh!

Anyway, so I finally got to the long run this weekend, and thankfully, my 12 miler yesterday went better than expected.   The only downside was that it was stinking hot!!

It felt good to be back out there though.  Me and the Mrs went out on Saturday morning as well.  She biked while I ran, and amidst wise-cracks from the neighbors - about her having the job they wanted, we actually had a great time.

The other aspect of life which rocks right now….  THE TOUR IN ON!!

I love watching and being inspired by the cyclists, but as an added bonus, the architecture and history in France, Spain and the other European countries is great to watch.

This is the Crest tower (I think that’s how it’s spelt…) a magnificent tower, which was erected in the 13th century.

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It’s time for my tri clubs annual Shark Attack Triathlon.  I raced this for the first time last year, and felt pretty good about my results.  You can read the long and very wordy report here.

I had a good swim last year, but I think I can drop a minute from my time this year… I’ve been hitting my 300 yd swims in about 4:30.

T1 was good, but I think I can beat that time too, by really sprinting and skipping the socks. Hopefully I’ll be clear in 45 seconds or so.

The bike is going to be tough. I’ve only biked 3 times since IronMan, and that was 6 weeks ago. I think I can probably hold 20 is I focus, keep my cadence high and race smart. If I can get this done is 33 minutes I’ll be in good shape.

T2 had a few snafu’s last year. I was awkward coming off the bike, and had stuff in my show. I’m planning on a different dismount technique this year, and I’m toying with the idea of skipping the socks… Going to try and keep this under 45 seconds as well.

If that all goes according to plan, I should have about 21 minutes left to finish in an hour. It’s going to be a tough ask, but I can do it. This is where the pain comes in… Last year the biggest problem was that I ran out of energy. I’m hoping to drink more on the bike, and then grab a trail running bottle in T2.

So with a hydration plan, the last thing is going to be keeping the pace up. I’ve been doing speed work at 6:30/mile pace. I don’t think I can do that, but I do think 7:00 per mile pace is entirely possible. It’s going to be a matter of mind over matter. Keeping my mind in the game, knowing that it’s only 3 miles, and then keeping the pain at bay as well.

The final hill is going to be the killer, but I’ve been running hills all winter.

I CAN DO THIS! THERE IS NO SPOON! BRING ON THE PAIN!!!

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We’re coming up on 10 days since the Ironman, likely the crowning event of this year for me!  It’s been an interesting week for sure.  Last Wednesday night, I pulled up a couple of IMSG video’s on Youtube, which may have been a mistake.  You see, after finishing IMSG, I began a 3 or 4 year hiatus from Iron Distance racing, mostly because I have young kids - actually make that too many young kids! And they need attention, as does my amazing wife - although she mostly just needs help with the kids.  And I was fine with it…  Until I watched the videos!!  I felt the pull of M-Dot, and instantly I tried to find some way where I could keep family happy and race…  So far there has been little, if anything productive which has come from those thoughts.

I think the next few years will likely play out like this…  Lots of Sprint and Olympic distance tris, a couple of marathons, and a few half iron races.   I’d really like to try myself again the full distance of the Silverman, and after last years humbling race, I made a goal to try and break 6 hours.  Perhaps if I can break 6, I’ll try the Iron the next year.  I think I could probably do that in 2011, meaning I’ll do the full Silverman in 2012, and then I think I’d like to try out Ironman Arizona in 2013.

My thoughts have been bouncing around a little as well lately…  My finish time in St. George wasn’t what I wanted it to be.  I think in part because I got off the bike, and knew that as long as I kept moving, I would finish.  And my training wasn’t all it was supposed to be, and finally, that run course was a beast!!  So I’ve caught myself beating myself up over that, and then at the same time realizing that I finished, and as I look back over the race, I enjoyed every single second of it!

My favorite part was approaching “The Wall” right before Veyo, and both times looking up and smiling, because…  That was what Ironman was all about for me…  Looking at a seemingly impossible challenge, staring it straight in the face, and kicking it’s ass!!!

In other news…

I removed my wristband on Saturday night, almost 1 week exactly since the time I finished.  I liked the reminder, but it was starting to get annoying.

The numbers burned into my shoulders have faded significantly…  Actually they haven’t so much faded, as they’ve gotten tanned, and several layers of the surrounding and previously fried skin, has fallen by the way side.

The sunburn is all but gone - although I have my usual summer tri tan on my back - just a little earlier than normal this year.

I’ve started training again.  Great swims the last 2 mornings, and a good solid run at lunch yesterday.  My legs felt good, but I can still tell there is some residual damage.  Think I’ll lay off the speed work for another week or two.

Finally, it’s time to start looking forward…  In 5 weeks it’s the Shark Attack Triathlon.  Last year, if I remember right, I had the fastest swim, 3rd fastest bike, and then I threw it away on the run.  This year I’m swimming significantly faster and my running pace has increased.  My goal for the next 5 weeks, is to get my biking were it needs to be.  Lots of hill climbing and sprint work.  It’s only 11 miles, so I should be able to really, really hammer it out.  The run is fairly flat and it starts with a steep downhill.  If I can get a 7 min/mile average coming off that hill, I’d like to try hold it till the end, and then when the big uphill rears it’s head, I’m going to meet it head on, and run up it as fast as I can, even if I collapse at the top.

So there you have it folks!  I also have a goal to blog more regularly, but every time I set one of those and make  a big deal about it, life gets in the way…  So we’ll see about that one!

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Well folks…  After slacking on my blogging duties for a whole week, it’s high time I did another post.

By way of follow-up from last week though.  The enemy which had amassed along the borders of my immune system launched it’s offensive with a Shock & Awe campaign late Friday night.  Saturday was a blur of sinus pressure, throat irritation and blood red ‘demon eyes’.  By Sunday things were looking a little better, and by Monday I felt well enough to return to work.  I hate how sickness likes to strike Friday night and clear up in time for the new work week, but if I am to be completely candid, I have a great job, which makes it easier, and work gives me an opportunity to escape five very active and rambunctious kids too!

Work outs this week were pretty minimal.  I did a good solid trail run on Monday at lunch, followed by three additional miles on the treadmill at night - 2 minutes climbing at a solid pace at a 4% incline alternating with 2 minutes below my 5k pace at 0% grade.  It was exhausting, but I really like it.  Light bike ride Tuesday, moderate run Wednesday and then a nice slow run yesterday.  Tonight I’m going to do another 20 minutes or so of very light running/jogging and that will bring us to tomorrow.

 TOMORROW IS THE BUFFALO RUN 50K!!!

I think I’ve put in about 15 miles already this week, but in my experience, I do better when I run the whole week before, probably because I stay loose.

The race will be my first ultra-distance event and the plan is to use it as a good mental prep and pacing session to prepare for the IronMan.  For the past two months my goal has been an 8 hour finish, but I think sub-7 could be very possible if I pace myself right and stay on top of my nutrition.

That all said though, it’s not an A race, and I’m not looking to break any records, personal or otherwise, which means, I’ll have time for a few distractions along the way.  Cell reception isn’t exactly great on the island, but I can get a signal in a few places, and I’m planning on pausing briefly at those places and tweeting my progress, likely with photo’s as well.

If you’d like to follow along on my journey, I’d be honored.  At the very least it’ll provide some good fuel for the race report.

You can follow along on my twitter feed, which is:

 http://twitter.com/kodafit

You can also follow along on Facebook if you would like as well, just make sure you get your friend request in before about 6am MDT tomorrow.

http://www.facebook.com/kodafit

The race starts for me at 8am Mountain Daylight Time (MDT).

I’m hoping to tweet about every hour or so, hopefully with accompanying pictures on TwitPic!

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Yikes!  Has it been 3 weeks since I last sat down and wrote something?!?   Today I bring a quick shout-out to the Mrs, a wrap-up of the past 3 weeks of training and lessons learned, and then some plans for the future.

First, HUGE shout out to the wife!!!  Back when we first got married, she used to be able to out run me, and then she started having kids.  I don’t care what anyone says…  Having kids is not natural!  5 kids later (Supposed to be 4, but another one snuck in at the last minute) and we’re now staunch advocates for “Just have 2!!” and Ann is trying to regain her youthy figure.

Last weekend we did the Sweatin’ with your Sweetheart mini-triathlon in Clearfield.  I’ll post more on this later (meaning I’ll write it up tonight, and the post it tomorrow!)  We entered as a team, with me swimming, handing off to her on the bike, and then me finishing off with the run.  She was nervous as anything prior, and almost bowed out on a few occasions prior, but on the day…  SHE DID AWESOME!!

So with that feather in her cap she was excited about getting fit again, and then she also happened to way herself, and got a little bit of a shock on the size of the number.  I know I gain a little weight after a race, and I suspect this maybe it, but it was a nasty reality check.

So she set her mind to it, and in the last 10 days or so has dropped over 10 pounds.  Most of that is likely water weight, since she isn’t doing anything too extreme other than working out daily and watching her calorie intake.

For Valentine’s Day I got her the small cousin of the Body-Bugg.  It’s the GoWear Fit, and we’ve been having a lot of fun with it.  It tracks calorie usage based on a number of physiological factors and from why I understand is pretty accurate.  It’s become another great motivational tool in her quest to become fit again.

For me, I’ve been doing some pretty intense training the past few weeks.  I’m not sure if it’s the smartest approach, but it seems to be improving my endurance, as well as seriously dropping my times in all 3 disciplines and I’ve started to drop some additional pounds as well.  The downside is that after a really intense workout, I usually need a day or two to recover, but I’m willing to give those workouts up in exchange for better times.

This weekend I have a half-iron simulation, which looks like it may be on the trainer, due to snow - UGH!!  But then hopefully Sunday I can get out and do a long and slow trail run, and then launch into my final base training segment before IronMan St. George.

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I had a great deal planned for the New Year, particularly related to updates to my online presence related to this blog, but I’m afraid to report, that not as much has happened as I had hoped would.  Never-the-less, stay tuned because change is coming sometime in the future.

2009 was a great year for me.  I raced more than I have in the past, in a season which lasted from February through November.  I did my first half-ironman, as well as a second half down at Silverman and a second marathon.    The season was almost too long, but hopefully I can change that in the year to come.

I’m STOKED for 2010 though.  Here’s what I have planned!

First ultra-distance race in March - 50k trail run

First IronMan event in May

A couple of other races through the summer, including the Bad-Ass at BAM in August.

I’m going to finish off the season as being of an Ultra Team at this years Red Rock Relay, and then I’m hoping to break 7 hours at the Silverman Half in Las Vegas.

And I’ve saved the best for last…

The season kicks off for me in February again with an indoor triathlon in Clearfield.  It’s the “Sweat with your Sweetheart” event and I managed to talk my sweet wife into entering as part of a team with me.  I’m going to swim, where after she’ll bike and then I’ll finish it up with a run.  Should be an absolute blast!!

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I’m working on a post for the Red Rock Relay last year, and due to the length of the race, and all that happened, and ultimately a desire to not bore anyone to tears, it’s taking longer than I suspected it might.

In the mean time though, I have a report on my swimming…  I’ve been putting in some serious mileage this month, and sometime in the next day or two, I’ll hit my goal of 21 miles, which is also the distance across the English Channel.

The first week went great, and then I struggled a little on week two.  I think my shoulders had taken a bit of a beating and I was just a little fatigued.  Week 3 went really well, though, and were it not for the fact that I wanted to spend some family time yesterday I probably could have hit my goal.

There are two big highlights for me…

Last friday I swam a 5k, and managed to keep my lap times all under a minute.  It got a little scary at the end, as I as dodging the high school swim team, who keep jumping in my lane and I got nailed by the ball they were using on a couple of occasions.  I know some of the kids, so it may or may not have been an accident!

And then this morning I had perhaps my fastest swim ever…

Let me explain…  a year ago, I was averaging about 1:01 per lap in a 25 yard pool.  Then in April I switched to a 25 meter pool, and pushed a little harder to keep my average.

After the swim clinic a month or two back, my times dropped to about 53 to 54 seconds a lap for longer swims.

Yesterday my goal was 1 mile.  3 laps into it, another gentleman hopped in my lane and started churning out the laps.  He was fast, and if you know me at all, you know that I like a rabbit!  Someone I can focus on to catch, rather than worrying about my speed.

He was only in the pool for 7 or 8 laps, but I pushed the pace hard the whole time.  Once he got out, I was actually feeling pretty strong, and so I tried to keep the pace going.  You know that taste of blood you get when you’re running all out?  I got that in my mouth towards the end.  Never happened in the pool before, and since I was still feeling strong I took it as a good sign.  I finished my mile (Swimmers mile!) in 25 minutes and 37 seconds.  Good for an average just over 51 seconds per lap and about a half second faster than my 1000m time trial last week.

This morning I hit the pool with only 10 minutes to swim.  It was a tight fit since it seems Monday is the day for everyone to recommit to swimming or something.  I focused on form for the first lap or 2, and then tried to focus on power, speed and keeping my turnover high.  I hit the end of lap 12 right at 10 minutes.

Average lap time 50.0 seconds.  That’s just a hair away from dipping into the 40’s!!!!

If I can get my laptimes over a mile into the 40-42 second per lap range, I think I can become really competitive at the Olympic distance races, and possibly the half iron distance races - at least for the swim portion!

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With a new month comes new challenges.  Yesterday I started officially on my first full base training segment for IronMan, and today I’m kicking off two new challenges.

First is the USAT Winter National Club Challenge.  Clubs compete for 3 months to see which club can rack up the most miles.  Each month has a specific focus and Decembers focus is swimming.  Since I’m training for IronMan anyway, it seems like a no brainer to try and take this on as well.

Second is actually linked to the First.  A local running store, and sponsor of my club (The Desert Sharks) is offering a special prize for anyone who can complete 21 miles of swimming in the month of December.  They won’t say what it is, but they are saying it will be a prize worthy of the achievement.

21 miles is the same as 33.8 kilometers, and kilometers are easier for me to track, since I swim in a 25 meter pool.

I’m continuing with my getting up super early to hit the pool before commuting into work, and the challenge actually made it a little easier to get up this morning.

In the 15 minutes I had, I got in 16 laps or 800m.  It felt good.  Just 33kms to go!!

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I’m working on some changes to the blog, which I’ll hopefully have in place at the beginning of 2010.

In other news, I think I may have my racing schedule figured out for next year.  Not as many events as this year, but a couple of pretty decent running events and so nice longs tri’s and other events.

I’ve also got a couple of product reviews coming too.  I purchased a couple of new pairs of shoes at my running stores Black Friday sale.  A pair of Brooks Defyance 2’s which I suspect will be awesome, some trail running shoes which I tried out yesterday - So far they’re awesome!  And today I tried out a pair of K-Swiss Keahou 1’s.  I’m actually still wearing them, having just gotten back from the lunch time run.  I’ll give a full review in a couple of weeks, but so far I’m liking them!

So…  Stay tuned for more stuff to come!

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With about 12 hours to go until I have to wake up and head out the door to catch my bus to the start, I figure that now is as good a time as any to come up with some goals and plans for tomorrow.

First, while I’m not sure about coverage and whether or not I’ll be in a state to do this, but…

I’m going to take my cell phone with me on the race, and if the opportunity arises, I’ll send updates from time to time to my twitter/twitpic feed, which will feed facebook as well.

If you’re not a facebook friend and would like to follow along, you can track me on:

http://twitter.com/kodafit

Hopefully it will include links to photo’s on twitpic as well.  At the very least you’ll get an update before I start and another when I get done.  If I have any more updates, I’ll include where I’m at and how I’m feeling.  So B37 6 would mean I’m at mile 37 on the bike and feeling like a 6.  Where 0 is “I’m going to die” and 10 is “I leading the race and feeling like I could keep this pace up all day.”

Alright, moving onto my plans…

We start with a 1.2 mile/2km swim at 8:30 in the morning.  I think I can pull this off in about 40 minutes, assuming of course the weather stays as perfect as it is right now!

I’m hoping for a fairly quick transition from swim to the bike - THEY HAVE STRIPPERS!!! and so if all goes well, by 9:15 I should be on my bike grinding up a fairly descent hill for the first mile or so.

The bike course at Silverman is rough.  They have the elevation gain listed at 6000 ft on the official website and I have a friend who downloaded the computrainer course and he said it was more like 9600 ft.  Either way, it’s a lot of UP, UP and then some more UP.  I’m not hoping to get anything close to the average I’ve gotten on other courses, but I would like to get a good time, and finish with enough power in my legs for a solid run.

I haven’t ridden the course, so I’m going real conservative on my time.  4 hours.  Which would give me an average speed of 14 mph.  We’ll see how it goes!  I have my Garmin set to autolap on the 3.5 mile marker, so hopefully I can use that to ensure I get my nutrition in at least every 15 minutes.

At my last half I had some mental struggles at T2.  Now granted the bike course had real hard weather on the way back in.  The 20-30 mph headwinds were one thing, but when the hail started, I thought it was a bit much.  I’m hoping T2 goes much better this time though.  I’m hoping to be done in less than 5 minutes as well.

For the run, I’ve had a couple of really good half marathons this year, but I think the biking prior will limit those times.  At the Utah Half I managed a 2:10.  This course has more hills on it, and so I’m hoping to push for a 2:15 or so.

Hopefully I can save 5 minutes either on the bike, or possibly on the run, or maybe even if I can really get my transition times down.  If I can it would mean a finish of 7 hours at about 3:30pm in the afternoon.

And then A LOT of relaxation.

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