When you deny the spirit within yourself you deny yourself and your connection to all other living things. - me

Still wrestling with that thought. 

Rest day today, and I had the sprinkler repair guys coming at 8:45 so I slept in till 7.  wonderful.  It sure beats getting up at 4:30!   I really needed a rest day, as a matter of fact I may be needing a few.  good thing taper is here, I'm still beat.  Only a three hour ride followed by 1.5 hr swim tomorrow.  Easy work out.  perspective sure changes during IM training.

I'm not really cool, but I like that smiley with the sun glasses.

If you ignore the spirit within you, you deny yourself,
And if you ignore the spiritual connection between your self and others, you deny them of yourself and yourself of them. - me

Arron's blog has me bothered.

It's mid afternoon and even the coffee isn't helping.  I can hardly keep my eyes open much less actually concentrate.  I've got too many projects and things I need to be taking care of, and I'm not getting any of it actually done.  ARG!  So tired.  Both the run and the swim were a bit shortened today cause I'm tired.  I did however ride longer and much harder last night than the plan calls for.  (see how easy it is to rationalize?)

I need a day to sit in front of a fire and just chill.  I need more sleep.  Stuff to do:

IMFL condo rental
IMFL figure out how to get the bike there
new running shoes
buy a cheep car for my son
More projects at work that I can wrap my arms around
And one I'm supposed to be helping sell.
Grocery shopping

Oh, I ordered 20 BT temp tatoos to share for IMFL.

Be swift, Make noise
No nonsense makes no sense at all.
Forget what you don't know.  -  the Ditty Bops

I have a professional lunchoen to attend today.  Actually the best kind - at the country club, with a wine mixer before, then lunch and a professional talk and awesome deserts.  I'm skipping it so I can get just a bit more work done then my NAP.   While I was fixing my lunch in my office I was thiking about people with real jobs, like Sue who's a Doctor, and Aimee who's a Lawyer.  How in the world did they find time to do the training?  And people with little kids like Chris and Kim and Kimberly and Kathy.  I guess we each make the sacrifices we can and arrange our schedules so we can get it done.  Pretty amazing I think.  Pretty amazing.

13 days till I travel to Panama City Beach Florida for Iron Man.  (I just like saying that) .  Lingphd said "Don't wish it away"  I think I'm enjoying reveling in the moment.  I've finished the major training hurdles and I'm actually planning to go.  This is really cool.

Group bike ride tonight.  Hopefully it will clear up a little.

It turned out beautiful,  clear and quite cool, and sunny.   I started in the back of the group, so that I would not mess anyone up, being on my tri bike and still not riding real straight.  It was cool though to feel like I had the power to reel in the guys in front of me.  As the group spread out I passed the slower ones, and ended up chasing some of the guys I don't normally keep up with.  Kept up pretty easy even not drafting (but riding aero).  Still having some seat/crotch issues.  I've got to get it figured out.

Raining hard this morning. I'm working out of the house today, so perhaps I'll delay the run in favor of getting started with the work.  run at 'noon'   Swim after the son comes home from school - we'll go to the athletic club together, and I'll catch a short one.  Then I've got to drive 5.5 hrs home.  Skipping the OWS this trip.  Just don't feel like it.  Bad Jasha.

nice run but I didn't have much energy.  I wonder if it's the climb fest yesterday.  Nutrition and hydration yesterday not so good either.  Forgot a water bottle.  I thought that might not be too bad for a 1 hr ride.  I wished I had it on top of the hills though.  Drank lots when I got back.    Not real fast today.  Body said, "go slower"  and when I started to run just a little more past the house, the left knee said, "you've really gone far enough for today."  so I stopped.  Blogging does not seem to be taking too much out of me though. :)

Started to replace the blown out tube last night and discovered that the rock I ran over Saturday did cut the tire - that's the reason the second tube blew.  I looked but not hard and didn't find it on the road Sat.  Live and Learn.  So today I've got to check out the LBS and see if they have at tire that will work.  I'll do it at lunch break.  Time now for shower and get to work.   I brought lots to do, Let's see if I can be productive and get some paying hours. :)

Beautiful afternoon here ~ 68 degrees and sunny.   I didn't do the prescribed sprints, but I think the hills got my HR up to Z20 or whatever :)

The 'new' tube leaks.  Bummer, and the stem isn't really long enough.  I wonder if they make puncture resistant tubes with long stems?

rest day today - what am I still doing up?   Estranged spouse has asked me to drive up to Ruidoso today to be with my son on Monday when he has a day off of school. 

List for today:

Work, change oil, change flat tire, pack, laundry, hotel/condo reservations for IMFL.  Oh, and recover from today. .... Um yesterday

This week begins three weeks of taper, except this week has ungodly swim distances in it.  Oh well I can swim.  And since I'm going to Ruidoso again anyway I get another OWS at bottomless - Tuesday!

Ok, I'm finally up - got the laundry going dishes done, stretching done.  Man I am sore and muscle tired, especially my back.  I'm guessing it's the bike position and the wind, but it could have been the swim.  Glutes and upper hamstrings very tired/sore.

Think I'll go look up stuff on how to recover.  Have a great Sunday.

Definitely Taper time, although there's some big swimming this week.  I just cannot believe that I've made it through the toughest training for Iron Man.  One of the inspirational videos says something about exploring limits.  I think I've done some exploring of mine - as have we all on this road.

When I was going into the grocery store yesterday evening after my work out it occured to me that probably no one in the store had done a workout anything like mine.  Probably no one in the city, and actually very few even in the US.  Probably just the 2000 or so preparing for Florida.  Even though there are a bunch of us this Iron Man group is actually rather select. 

I just wanted to log this epic workout before I went to bed, and it's way, way too late for me to be up.  I got up at 4:00 this morning, and out the door at 5:00.  I did not get back to the house for good till 4 in the afternoon.  Unbelievable.   went a couple of blocks then came back to lower my seat just a little.  Headed out again into the dark.  Because this is a long ride and only the second ride on my new bike, I decided to get off the bike for a minute or two each hour.  I also decided to just take it easy and stop to adjust things on the bike as needed.  Still what an awesome bike,  I'm way faster on this than the old one.  It is truely amazing.  And it's so easy to ride.  I did almost rub raw in one spot.    I stopped for ~30 minutes after 63 miles to refill water bottles and chat with the usual crowd of bicyclists at the Town and Country.  Headed out after that back into the 25 mph head wind and toughed it out for another 30 minutes till the road turned to cross wind.  It was tough, but I was riding 10 to 12 mph, where as on the old bike it would have been eight or less.  I hit a rock and had a pinch flat at about 15 miles from home.  I wasn't sure how good my spare tube was as it has been in my pouch probably since last year.  I fixed the flat, and started out again.  I was just passing the 100 mile mark and calculated I had about 10 miles left to get home and was thinking how cool it would be to get a 110 miles in when the spare tube blue out.  Bummer, so I had to call my daughter to come get me.  I walked for 15 minutes while she drove out.  Counted that in the run total.  (it was a brick after all :)  )

I saw both eagles today, and lots and lots of caterpillars.  You know it's windy when the wind rolls a caterpillar over.  There were so many at one point it was tricky going around all of them :)

The run was tough and very slow, and lower legs hurt, but after about 20 minutes I started feeling a little better.  Still tired though.  the wind was really tough on the bike.

Pool was good.  I stopped after the 2nd 1000 to get a gel and that helped, but I really ran out of 'want to', and felt like after 10 hours of exercising there were some other things I needed to attend to.  Fix dinner, shop for a car for my son, and grocery shopping.  Stopped at Academy sports and found some running shorts too.  I do not think I'm going to run the IM in my tri shorts.  After today I'm not sure I even like them for the bike.  It's getting kind of late for these kind of decisions, but better now that riding in shorts that chafe.

I thought my nutrition was pretty good.  Two eggs, 1/2 an orange and a bowl of cereal before.  Perpetuem 1.5 scoops per hour, and one gel on the 1/2 hour.  felt strong.  The aero water bottle obvously makes it much easier to stay hydrated, I had to pee five times on this ride, Usually I only stop once, or maybe twice.  I ate a plum when I headed out to run, and did two gels in the first hour of the run - one during the swim.  I did run out of energy at the end in the pool.  Was I really out of energy, or just board?  Thinking back, I stopped taking in nutrients when I started swimming.  something that will be covered in IM by breakfast. - and a Cliff bar on the beach.

Well it's almost midnight and way past time for bed.  Good night.