Friday June 28th - 57 Days Out

Weight: 186.2

Diet:  Okay, ate a lot of Mexican food though

Scheduled Training:  1:45 run and 1:00 swim

Actual Training:  Played golf today and then ran 1:35 in the heat at Cherokee.  Felt strong!

Life:  Has a good time playing golf today.  Was a bit worn out and then the run really took it out of me.  Busy weekend ahead!  Lovin it!!!

Thursday June 27th - 58 Days Out

Weight:  186.4

Diet:  Good, ate pretty well

Scheduled Training:  1 hour swim and 1:45 strength bike set

Actual Training:  1:15 swim and 1:30 bike set.  Felt very good on bike!

Life:  Just a regular day, nothing exciting

Wednesday June 26th - 59 Days Out

Weight:  185.8 (water weight loss)

Diet:  Very good

Scheduled Training:  made some schedule adjustments to accommodate out wedding anniversary, moved today's stuff to Friday.

Actual Training:  took today off to spend the evening with my wife

Life:  today was our 9 year wedding anniversary.  Normal work day but then spent the evening hanging out, talking, watching wedding video and drinking a little champaign.  Very nice evening, I am a very blessed man!!!

Tuesday June 25th - 60 Days Out

Weight:  189.8

Diet:  Very good today

Scheduled Training:  1 Hour run + 1:45 bike

Actual Training: lunch time heat 54 min run and 1:45 trainer session

Life:  Busy day at work, lots of good things going on there.  Got home and had a nice dinner with the family and then cut the grass and pulled some weeds.  Finished up that just in time to tell the kids good night and head downstairs to ride the bike.  Good day, legs are beat but thats a good thing.  

Monday June 24th - 61 days out

Weight:  187.6 (-1 lbs)

Diet:  Good day, controlled portions and I ate pretty well today

Scheduled Training:  active rest day, suggest easy swimming.

Actual Training: no real training today, pretty sore from the week and needed the rest.

Life:  Normal Monday at work, coached tBall practice and took Macie to the vet.  May cut the grass if the light and weather  hold out but that's not looking promising.

Sunday June 23rd - 62 days out

Weight:  188.6

Diet: Quick oatmeal before church, 2 chocolate chip cookies prior to ride, 3 hour bottle on infinit on ride, family dinner and a couple Sam Adams Summer Ales!

Scheduled Training:  Schedule is kind of out the windy for this week. Had such a bad start to the week I decided to flip flop with next week which was a recovery week and go after next week.  So that said all I needed to do today was a 2 hour plus ride.

Actual Training:  3:00 / 50 mile bike ride.  Felt good and strong at the start which was awesome given yesterday and lack of sleep.  Half way through though thunderstorm city set in and it poured down and blew me around almost the entire way home.  That zapped me legs and killed my mental drive.  Was thinking about going for 85 miles but left it alone at 53ish.

Life:  Didnt get home until 4 AM last night and up early for church with the family.  Hoping to be able to cut the grass tonight before I pass out, we'll see I guess!  This blog isn't meant to be a poor me story, I'm very blessed and excited to be taking on my 2nd ironman. Just sharing the craziness of the path!  You probably can't tell but this pic is the beginning of the storm pouring rain!

Saturday June 22nd - 63 days out

Weight:  188.6 (+.2lbs) down to 183.8 post long run

Diet: Honey nut Cheerios before my run, protein shake after, 

Scheduled Training:  Moved long ride to tomorrow, now today was supposed to be swim, short ride and 1 hour run.

Actual Training:  2:18 - 15 mile long run, 37 easy miles on the bike up in Indy with my father in law for the NITE Ride.

Life:  Happy with my run this morning, just what I needed.  Then I coached Jack's tball game and headed up here for the ride.  Gonna be a late night and I'm already thinking about how much tomorrows ride is going to hurt.

Friday June 21st - 64 days out

Weight: 188.4 lbs 

Diet:  Not good, okay breakfast, breakfast pizza for a party at work for lunch (just a few pieces) and meatballs/tacos for dinner at a work function at the Churchill Downs

Scheduled Training: Rest Day

Actual Training:  40 min bike session on the trainer.  Not mentally into it and legs were a little fatigued. Didn't want to do touch much because I'm riding 5 hours very early tomorrow and possibly doing the ride Indy at nite ride tomorrow. Legs will be toast!

Life:  Pretty normal Friday. Hoping to hit the sack early!  Up and at it early tomorrow!!!!

Thursday June 20th - 65 days out

I'm struggling with motivation and stressing about being under prepared for the race this year.  The training plan I'm using has a TON more volume than last year and its been very hard to keep up with work and life getting in the way! Ha!!!  In addition my diet has went to shit for the last couple weeks and I've gained 8+ pounds putting me farther away from the 175 number I told myself I wanted to race at.  So, I've decided to now us this blog as a daily journal to help keep me motivated over the next 65 days.  Thought it may also be a cool insight for others to see what it is like to go thru this.

Weight: 187.8 lbs

Diet: Okay, splurged a little on dinner at Qdoba

Scheduled Training: 1:15 swim and 1:45 strength bike session.

Actual Training:  1 hour bike strength session

Life:  Tired after business trip to San Antonio, Kristin had a bible study from 7:30 to 9:00.  I rode the bike from 7:30 to 8:30 while watching the kids.  Planned to jump on the treadmill when Kristin got home but it was slipping real bad and I wasn't feeling it.  Fell asleep while watching the 3rd quarter of the NBA Finals. 

I've decided to make this a recovery week and redo this week next week.  Also thinking about switching plans...

Ironman Training is Hard

The training hours are starting to add up and my burn out phase is peaking through.  Even though I've had some really great races this year, I'm thinking that racing 3 weeks in a row wasn't such a great idea.  Given that I really tried to "race" them this year the recovery needed was a bit more than I expected.  This caused me to miss a couple long rides which stresses my anal scheduling self out!

The time away from my family including 3 young kids seems worse this year. Thankfully i have the most supportive wife in the world and I really try hard to schedule my workouts around the family stuff.

In addition to that I don't have the training partners I had last year.  Jeff and Kevin were on a similar schedule and it was nice having a couple of really good guys to help push me along and suffer with.  Neither of them are racing Ironman this year and I miss having them out there.  One of the main reasons I signed up for this years race was to race it with my brother.  I'd hoped we would get to train more together and share that part of the journey together also.  Because of his work schedule and the fact we are on different programs we rarely get together to train.  Still a great experience catching up almost everyday on how things are going and still happy to be doing it again!

Okay, enough of the cry baby stuff.  Training is going pretty well and I'm improving in all 3 sports.  My swim is getting better due to a more focused workout plan with more emphasis on drills.  My bike has never been stronger and I'm chalking that up to all the hard trainer work I put in early on the season.  And my run has come along very nicely which I think is from all the form work and continued endurance base.  I'm really looking forward to Muncie and Louisville this year.  Given that I plan to take at least a couple years off before doing another Ironman I hope to make this a great one!