Good cycle and blow out.

I headed out a bit later today with a goal of 60 miles. I did it! I have never cycled that far before. Denver is a bit tricky, I cycled for 25 miles at a mild gradient and then, bam, a nice big hill. So the last 5 miles out were hard. The c470 trail also requires you to stop and cross roads. That makes a rhythm hard. Its in though and I'm knackered. I ran out of Gatorade at mile 50 and the last 10 miles were hard.

I tried something new today. I added food to my training, 2 bottles of Gatorade (not diet) and a energy cliff bar. All I can think is that how would I have faired without those 600 calories! More calories required as I completely blew up at mile 50. I did burn 4500 calories on the bike and I bet I still do not lose weight!

The river was great today due to all the rain down south recently and I gave up my inner tube to a biker who was in trouble (did forget to restart my garmen for a few miles). I did this at mile 1 so the next 59 miles I always had a bit of nervousness in the back of my mind. Still karma held out and no new punctures.

Next week is a Brick week. This should make things interesting.

Up and down day

Well I got in a 7 mile run today. That breaks a habit right there. I have never ran more than 6 miles on a week day. Great.

Well two things happened today the first is fairly awful. My work has decided to close the Dublin office. They spun it as moving to the site we own will save money but they are laying all the developers off and not closing the Dublin facility. As usual sales and marketing get to stay. The other thing they said was their were more developers in Galway. According to the galway news we going from 60 to 90. Which is less than Dublin! I'm so pissed at this. It reeks of the DACS days and some tosser VP. Oh yeah and those who want to move have to reapply for their job! What a bunch of wankers.

The second thing that happened is I got sick. By 7 I was exhausted and by 9 my stomach was extended and solid and very sore. Early to bed and no swim.

Week 10 tired ride

I was reminded today of how Triathlon truly is a merge of all 3 sports. I had a great day yesterday and today - not so much. My mind wasn't in it as stress at work and home is high at the moment.

As a result of the work I never got out till 1pm and the temperature was 85F. I cut short the ride and just got it over with.

A note on nutrition. I lost some more weight! At last! 250.1lbs which means I'm in the 17 stone range I haven't been able to beat 252 so that was marvelous. I need to figure out how to fuel my body and lose weight. My average calorie burn is 2000 and I'm only eating 2500 so its a 2500 deficit. A friend gave me some ideas so Ill look into them.

Wanted to add another run today with David cycling beside but the weather didn't co-operate

Great run and good swim

Something got into me today. I ran 6 10 minute miles and my heart rate only hit 160 in the last half mile. So a good workout.

Movie: Vertical Limit, I didn't really watch it as I was going for it.

The swim went well. I didn't get into the water till late and this led to a late night. 1950yds.

Bike and Week 10

I had an odd bike ride today. I got in 30 miles but I was a bit slower than usual. This may have something to do with banging back a diet coke and a bowl of cereal and running out the door. I had a full day of meetings and couldn't get away except first thing. Any hard climbing made me nauseous and hard cycling wouldn't work.

Brown vs Red

Well at the swimming pool this week I realized I was green. I have now figured out how I can tell if Im suntanned or sun burned. To me Sunburn looks cool as it gives a nice tanning look and a sun tan looks green and just looks plain weird. All this training outdoors has taught me another lesson on being coloured blind.

Its a day off and this observation made me smile.

Vitamin B!

Today I had a weird nights sleep and got on the treadmill. I started running and I was a bit freaked out by how easy it was. I had targeted 10 miles but did 11 before I came up on a deadline. This has never happened before where I could have run farther!

The swim went well too. I wasn't looking forward to it but I got that in too. I'm feeling I need to ask a friend for help to get faster.

So vitamin B. For about 2 months I keep forgetting to take my vitamins. The last time I felt this exhausted I looked into supplements and found a good vitamin B complex goes a long way. Ive been taking the vitamins again for 2 days and I think things are looking up. It contains a lot more than vitamin B so I'm hoping I'm now covering all my bases.

A friends brother just did Ironman Lake Placid. I tracked him today and he did awesome! 11:30. Holy Moly that's fast!

11 mile Run and 2400yd swim.

Cherry Creek and 50 miles.

I made it to Cherry Creek State Park. You take the bridge at REI and it takes you up that way. There are a lot of different paths to go and as usual they are only sign posted if you are coming from the south. It was very nice cycling through the middle of Denver along Spear Boulevard. I made a few wrong turns and ended up going along the side of I-225 so I doubled back and made it into the park.

The way back was fast! It was downhill with a wind behind me. However the Platte River trail played some shenanigans with the wind. In my face both ways! Any time I cycle around midday the wind does like to move around a little bit.

Cherry Creek trail was good and very busy, I think I prefer the Platte river trail as its not through a built up area. Ironically (or maybe not) the only place the bike path requires you to stop is at a Country Club in Cherry Creek.

I think next week ill try the circle route down Platte River and up Cherry Creek. I'm hitting a point where I need to start thinking of nutrition on the bike and maybe a small run at the end.

No map data as I forgot my Garmin.

Run and Swim and Birthday!

Happy Birthday Kathleen! I took the day off to spend with Kathleen but still had to get in my run and swim.

Good hour run. I ran half a mile at 9 minute mile and that made it tough. Total: 5.75. I would have pushed it but I had other commitments at the little Gym.

I got the swim in too. I was going to wait till the day care opened but a friend of mine offered to baby sit so Kathleen and I could go out so I got the swim in early.

Good night out for just the two of us. Thanks Moe!

Awesome!

30 miles on the bike at 16.9 mph! Awesome. At my 1 mile to go marker I was at 17.1 mph - did I say awesome!

I'm not sure what came over me. I was very concerned about my left leg after Tuesdays fiasco. I used low gears and high spinning for a bit then around mile 10 I realized that I was running out of time as it was getting dark. The wind died down as well. One minute it was a struggle to cycle east the next minute I was out of there. Awesome!

Flying along at 20+mph is always fun and leaves a great push of adrenaline. So in summary - awesome! D will be very happy with this post.

Back at it.

Well my weight is 257 again and I'm back up at altitude. So it was a good test to see where I am. To say today was stressful would be an understatement. Balancing work, home and exercise was very hard.

The run went well, coming off a rest week I ran 3 10 minute miles and the rest as a 11 minute pace. I got a facebook status from a friend that she is wanting to do a Marathon in January. I said sure but my pace is too slow. Nothing like throwing down a gauntlet! which is probably what I need. So I ran half a mile at a nine minute mile pace. It went surprisingly well. So my goal will be to run at least 1 9 minute mile in this 4 week go round.

My total distance was 5.75 miles in an hour. I will have to start moving away from this phase now and start putting in some more miles. Maybe one long run on a week day as well as the weekend. I'm not sure about that but will have to do some serious planning.

Movie: Fortress - a lot of action.

The swim went well. I knew I was going to run out of time on it as a class was coming in at 5:30 so I swam until I was chucked out. I got in 1650 of 1900 in. I blew off the kick phase. My Tricep was a bit sore after the soccer last night but by the end of the swim the pain had gone away.

Bummer on the bike

Well the bike didn't go as well as I had hoped. I kicked off at the cadence I used on the stationary bike but by mile 3 my knee was sore. Apparently I couldn't have got the bend in my knee right last week so I had problems getting my knee moving. It got so bad I couldn't put much strength on the knee and headed home. 20 miles in and that's it. I had pain from but to my toe. 20 miles in, sigh.

Last game of soccer tonight. I stood on a bar at the back of the goal and my arch is swelling up nicely now. Its a going away present. I hope I can run tomorrow.

Day off

Well its been a great couple of days in Phoenix, hotter than hell but fun. We went up south mountain which was very interesting. Now I can moan about not seeing anything in Phoenix. We also drove the cycle route. The cycle route has a 5 mile hill at the end, its about the same gradient as a hill I have. I will be paying more attention to some hill work now as its not quite the gradual climb advertised.

Flight from hell today. We made it home at 12:30 sigh.

Dumplings and people watching

I have been spending everyday in the gym as its too hot to even look outside without breaking out in a sweat.

So I am running along at 12 minute miles for 8 miles taking in the surroundings and watching the final day of the British open, the iPhone is working so I'm listening to that too. The machine in front of me a step machine. Its seems to attract people. The first person on it is a guy, he isn't happy with using properly so he turn round and face me for 20 minutes. Try not making eye contact with someone 5 feet from you who is looking straight at you. Person number 2 looks at the 4 step machines and also decides to take the one in front of me. She decides to do the same walk for 30 minutes backwards looking straight at me the whole time. Its very freaky!

Now comes the dumplings. A woman wants to walk beside me so she gets 2 magazines and the disappears but come back with a remote! As the champion is about to get the trophy she looks straight at me and turns the TV to the food network! Then doesn't pay any attention to it but reads her magazines instead. So now I know a lot about Dumplings.

Then someone more sensible than the last step machine person take the machine to my right and opens her magazine at the title "What men think about when they see you naked". It was about 2 pages long. I could have told her for free!

Now the cool thing happens a couple come in and get on the Bike Machines and they are chatting and cycling in unison without knowing. They didn't know they were doing it. I thought it was very cool.

Yes running on a treadmill or cycling on machine can be a bit boring but people watching can be fun!

No swim as I wanted to spend more time with my friends.

Holy Moly its hot!

Well apparently the temperatures in Phoenix in July are quite hot and sometime humid. Who knew! I did a 30 mile ride on the bike trainer today at a lower effort than Thursday. It took 2 hours and felt good. The iPhone broke down and I got to watch the British open. Now that's interesting but not the best for cycling!

Loved the extremely popular zumba class that was going on straight ahead of me.

Rubbish but good swim

The run was bad. D had me up early but I did sneak an extra 45 minutes of sleep. I probably got into a bad state of mind when my iPhone stopped working and I launched it off the back of the treadmill by accident. It was hot too. I had to crank my speed way down. However I did think if I persevered I would feel better. That didn't happen and the whole run was blah. I had to calculate everything in my head as the treadmill was a pain in the arse too. So lets say 5 miles.

The swim went well. Yes a swim! I haven't done one of them in a while. It was tiring but good to get in the pool. I actually felt refreshed afterwards, 1500 yards.

Phoenix

I'm in Phoenix and its 121 and 30% humidity! So I am cycling indoors while I'm here. I got in 25 miles today and was fairly easy. I didn't have to push. The Gym was hot and humid too. Within half a mile I was sweating a lot by the end of the ride I had a pool of sweat everywhere. It was a good ride but boring as it was on the stationary bike.

I did notice my rpms were low when I listened to the soccer on the TV. When I was listening to music it was high. I probably did about 18mph which was good.

Good run!

There is nothing like the charge of the riders of Rohan in the battle for Gondor to get your blood going!

Its a recovery week which is much needed. I wanted to run at an 11 minute mile pace and 1 mile at a 10 minute mile. The weird thing was the Heart Rate of 155 for the first half mile and then it dropped to a more expected 123. The body really liked this it was a bit like "Oh right you want this pace - cool". I ran for an hour and got in 5.75 miles. The HR hit 140 at the end so I probably averaged around 135. A nice relaxed run.

Movie: Lord of the rings: The return of the king(Disk 2). A bit slow in bits.

Down week

The bike ride went well. 25 miles. I took it slowly and I haven't even checked the stats from my bike ride. I just plodded up and down hills and cruised around. Just as well as it turned out when I got home it was 98F outside!

The conditions were perfect for a personal best. A tail wind climbing and I wasn't too tired so it was a bit hard not to go for it. However I'm hoping the recovery week helps with my mood and general fitness.

Everyone keeps complimenting on how I am still continuing to lose weight. However I'm puzzled as yes my clothes are definitely looser but I am not losing. Some people have suggested muscle but I do not know the specs on that. Do you build muscle as you lose this way, offsetting weight loss. Some people say this is a myth some don't. More research required.

Rethink?

Well its my day off and I am knackered. I will have lost a pound if I am lucky and things are just not going to plan! I'm off to Phoenix this week and wanted my rest day to be Thursday but there was no way I could exercise today.

I think my problem is working too hard and not fuelling my body correctly. According to livestrong on a given day I should eat about 4000 to 5000 calories just to maintain. I eat about 2000 calories a day. Well that's the goal anyway. What generally happens is I eat rubbish and binge as I am hungry!

I think a need to re plan my eating, use livestrong more and look at the points on weight watchers too. I'm hoping a lot of the problems are low metabolism. If I can kick it into gear I can see this mysterious 248 mini goal!

Hard Run

So I was looking for a DVD to watch while I run. The long run is particularly hard on the legs. I decided on the Lord of the Rings - Return of the King. The idea was I would be running for 2.5 hours and so I wanted something long to watch. Yes its not strictly running outside but by now my knees would be blown and my ankles not far behind.

So the run. Well I got 10 miles in, 2 down on my goal. I just didn't have anything in the tank. I woke up tired and my body felt fine but my head was tired. The first 2 miles were stop and go and very tiring before I could dig in and go for it. At mile 9 I convinced myself I could make it to 11 but by 10 I was done. My HR hit 130 on the run so it was just me not being up to the task. The weird thing was the first mile my HR was 155! Then it just dropped off to 115. Is this freaky, a bad monitor or what?

A friend of mine also ran today and she got in 9. Good on ya!

Now its off to the World Cup final...

50 miles! Hooray!

I did it! I cycled to C470 and back!

I went for a high gear this time to build muscle. I found I was at least 1mph slower with bigger gears as I couldn't get the cadence up. You can't use bigger gears if you don't practice using them! When I got home I found out the entire trip was uphill to C470, I also got tricked by the wind. I started with a nice breeze in my face and thought I would be able to go for it on the way back but around mile 20 the cycle suddenly got easier and at the turn at mile 25 the wind was in my face. It got stronger and stronger as I headed back.

I blew up at mile 45 and had to use low gears and just get through the last 5 miles. I was definitely a hard last 5 miles. It was a very enjoyable ride till then there are a ton of cyclist, walkers and runners on the trail so its very cool. There was also a Coffee Shop near the end. I think its called Hampden garden center but I couldn't find it on the web.

I have looked up some trails I can connect to on http://connect.garmin.com. If I start at REI and do Cherry Creek trail, C470 trail and up Platte River its 55 miles. This is good to know, I cant figure out where the Cherry Creek trail starts so if I start on Platte River and loop to the start of the Cherry Creek trail I should be able to figure it out.

6miles in 59:58!

This is the breakout week however it didn't start well but today I fair made up for it. 6 miles in 59:58, the 2 seconds are important! That's the best run I have done in 5 to 15 years. Things are looking up.

It was actually tough to get going today. The first plan went bad due to work commitments then the second plan went bad due to new work commitments. I finally got on the treadmill at 5pm. That wasn't in the plan but was good enough. 5-6 is kid time so that was a disappointment.

No knee problems and I didn't feel tired today. I did fuel my body today though.

Movie: Con Air.

I'm looking forward to tomorrows big cycle.

No blistering heat!

What a great day for a bike ride! 66F and cloudy at lunch time. I can take a long lunch and get the bike in! That's unheard of at this time of year. So 30 miles at 16mph. I was getting stronger and faster but its a bit of a hiatus at the moment from that. The knee isn't doing great and the thigh is compensating so its quite tired. I cant decide if I just get used to this or I did mess myself up. Its in Shakin' Stevens mode, four steps forward and the knee collapses. It kind of looks like I'm drunk.

Also I'm slipping gears again. The chain looks good so I'm off to the bike shop at opening time. Hopefully they can look at it.

One thing I was thinking about was the early days when I was cycling half the distance and all that went through my mind was "Bollox to this". That feeling is long gone which feels good by itself. I'm trying to decide how to add sprints in without dropping time. I know its train smarter not harder but a 1 hour cycle is a lot less calories than a two hour cycle. Its a hard balance between train smart and lose weight.

Not feelin the love

I have been feeling a bit blah today. I didn't do my run this morning and went into the office. I decided to drop the swim and get the run in at 5pm. It went well, 5.666 miles in 60 minutes.

The run started with a 10 minute mile pace but the body let me down. My HR was running at 155 and my knee started feeling like there was an extra bone behind the knee cap. Time to slow down. Within 200 meters heart rate was down to 123. The knee started to warm up after 2 miles so upped the pace and managed a mile and half before the HR peeked at 150. I ran the rest at 11 minute miles and finished.

I have been off the RA meds for a week so I could drink on the 4th of July and the knee is playing up and so is the ankle. Hopefully its just a glitch and I am now back on track.

I started using the dailymile.com too this week so I can better track mileage.

Week 7 revisited

Weight was up slightly to 256 but that was expected.

The day went well. Apparently taking some time off makes your body feel better. I took off on the bike and that was great fun. I had a smile on my face the whole way round. I have to say being at the top of a hill looking down on a sunny day is fantastic. Canny beat it.

I'm doing week 7 again as I have some time left between the last week and the ironman. The one downside to not exercising is my knee needed oiling again. It wouldn't let me use a big gear or get out of the seat and it gave up after mile 13. It was great to be out there and I know this is lack of use and RA so no worries.

100 posts!

Its my 100th post and I have been blogging on this since March. Its interesting that back then a mile run was hard, the long run was 2 miles. The long bike was 16 miles and tough. Things are a lot better now. I have dropped 40 pounds and I have increased my mileage by a lot. I like that I now run 11 miles and my heart rate hits 155, maybe. On a week day I might take my HR up to 160 and then slow down. At the start the HR was 166 and all over the place.

My RA is well under control with my doctor saying "Sh** you lost a lot of weight" and then finding know significant swelling, even on the knee that has been the size of a melon since Christmas. Blood Pressure is still through the roof but I'm confident Ill get that under control too.

The Ironman? Well I was freaking out about that. Am I fast enough? Well yes apparently I am. If I can put it all together and remain standing and my body doesn't break down on me then I can do it! I worked out that the swim and cycle should take me 9 hours and leave me 8 hours for the marathon. I'm hoping this will be good enough!

Whats my goals now? Well the Ironman, seeing milestones of 248, 235 and 210 on the scales. Keeping my job! Seeing my family. Wouldn't it be cool to walk into a department store and buy a pair of jeans?

So I think overall sometimes I have overdone it and sometimes not so much but I'm making a lot of progress and I hope I can keep it up.

Reset

Things haven't been going well. The one thing that leaves me not exercising is stress. Stress hit a whole new high and I shutdown. I'm thinking on pulling back on some of the training and following the training program a bit closer. Level 5 doesn't even do as much exercise as I have been doing. So I will use this week to re plan and see where I am. I followed the training plan to the letter a few years ago and it left me with too many questions on my Olympic and not enough distance.

It has been nice not exercising for the last few days!

Tomorrow is weigh in day. It wont go well, its been hard to exercise as much as I am and still be obese! I think the mind games have been the worst of late. Time to reset and pick some new goals.

Blood and Running

Today I was stoked I ran 4 miles today at a 10 minute mile pace. Again, I have never done that. The sickness is still lingering as I found out when I started and broke out in a sweat after a quarter mile of walking. From this I decided an easy run was in order. After a mile I was pissed with messing around at this jogging pace, I upped it to 10 minute miles with the goal of doing 1 mile and slowing down. My HR after 1 mile was low (123) and then stabilized at 130! I kept running and said if I hit 150 I would go back to a slower pace. So 3.75 miles later I had to slow down. That was brilliant if I had made it another 400 meter I would have broken 51 minutes on a 5 mile run. I jogged the rest out to 6 miles.

I felt a bit bad afterwards and decided not to swim tonight, I didn't want to push it. What I should have done is half a run workout and half a swim workout but with the weirdos at the gym I wasn't up to that.

Now after the run I went to brush a black square off of my show. My show is all bloody! My foot was a mess. I am aware that you need good socks and good shoes. The shoes are easy, the socks on the other hand well they do not go big enough and lead to this sort of thing from time to time. This was up there with something from a movie!

I am beginning to think that you cant run without Bleeding! Chaffing is evil and should be banned! I seem to have that solved for some of the more obvious ones. Those cost me several T-Shirts and freaked out Kathleen and several visitors a few times!

Now back to running. I think I will add a shorter run mid week concentrating on fartleks and maybe some hill work. The fartleks have helped a lot. I will also add a slow run on the same day as a bike ride if I am not doing a brick. Ill try this in 2 weeks, after the repeat week 7 and recovery week.

Sick

Nuff said.