My First Marathon (x2)

On Monday Coach pretty much ended by marathon denial by asking if we could talk race strategy on Tuesday after the group run. It's ok, I needed to be thinking about it anyway. So this has been the first week of taper. Monday - marathon taper doesn't change swimming. 4,100 yards in the downtown pool after work. My Garmin 920XT is being replaced since the altimeter isn't working so I don't have a good swim watch option right now. I am just noting stop and start time and counting/using the wall clock for rest intervals. Tuesday - PBT group run, this time a ladder - 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 hard with 2 min recovery between and warm up and cool down. I ran 6 miles total. This felt good. As usual for Tuesday, even after changing clothes post-run I was freezing an hour later. Coach and I talked through the race. I am still pretty much approach it as "we'll see what happens" - we know there's a goal time out there, but talking about it hasn't been helpful a...

Maybe it's because I only had one 20-mile run this cycle, maybe it's because I've never run a spring marathon, maybe it's because I have always run the half at Carmel, maybe it is all the other things going on...I really haven't processed that I am running a marathon in a few weeks. I guess I am in taper, but I am not feeling the taper crazies (yet). I am sometimes yanked to reality when someone else running the full at Carmel does the count down. Monday - 4,000 yard swim. Drills, multiple times through a long set, drills is the new pattern. I had my bike fit in the late afternoon to get ready for spring, and then I swam late at Fishers Y before coming home. Tuesday - Steady State Run (SSR) on hills. There had been weird snow squalls and wind gusts all afternoon. Most of the run was fine, though there were some windy moments. I had done a 2.6 mile warmup and then did my 3 miles of SSR on Penn before cooling down for a mile. While I was cooling down it started sn...

I've had a rough few months with real life, and at times it has reflected in my training. This week when I met with the sports psych we spent the entire hour talking about real life, because getting that in perspective is important to me being able to get to "flow state" with racing. By the end of the week coach was reminding me not to let the s%&t of real life steal the joy of triathlon. That needs to stay mine. Monday - I met with the sports psych in the afternoon and then needed to go back to the office to facilitate a meeting. It was later than usual when I got out to Fort Harrison Y for my swim. When I finished it was 4,100 yards and I knew the workout was supposed to be 4,500. It was like two hours later when I figured out that I had missed a 200 in the set that repeated twice when I wrote out the workout. Oops. Tuesday - Solid speed workout. 2x400, 4x800, 2x400. I declined the opportunity to go to the track, I didn't even check if it was open and that...

It has been a month (more or less) since I finished the initial phases of the immunocalm diet and started adding untested foods. I also went to the doctor and had blood work done yesterday and got the test results today. Food: I am doing well at navigating food, but restaurants and events are still hard. There's been a few times where I don't control things like cheese or pepper being in my food, despite my best efforts. Fortunately it hasn't been much of a problem. I feel like there are plenty of foods I can eat, it just takes more effort and creativity at the grocery store and mostly eating at home. The salad bar at Cafe Olivia in the City Market has been my go-to for at work when I don't bring my own lunch. Using Cronometer to track everything has been important to making sure I am eating to my training and hitting correct macro ratios. We did adjust my macro ratios more toward carbs in the past few weeks as my training volume has increased. Training Nutrition: ...

So many of my friends have side hustles, selling things through multi-level marketing or something else in addition to their professional job. I can't have a side hustle for a variety of reasons, but really I do...it's just one I pay to do (rather than getting paid). Tri training is basically my side hustle. That was my semi-deep training thought for the week. Here's this week's training log: Monday - 5,000 yard swim. It turns out that Garmin hates measuring "polo swim" as much as I hate doing it, but I did every stinking yard of it. I was sporting bandages for swims all week to keep my open wounds covered from Sunday's fall. The black eye I can't really hide though. Tuesday - Run with PBT. 6 miles with three as a steady state run at 85% of heart rate reserve. It ended up being a bit of a progression run and I was happy with my paces for it. I was in a pretty foul mood though so I didn't really get to enjoy it...and I didn't actually talk...