'ike loa

Just 13 days left until the Vineman 70.3 Half-Ironman triathlon.  791 miles of biking and running, more than 57,000 feet of elevation gain, and 64,000 calories of energy spent in preparation.  And add the miles of swimming onto that, and easily more than 810 miles.  No wonder I am tired and very sore…

Rough totals from Garmin Connect (some activities didn’t transfer properly and a few times my Garmin Forerunner had trouble):

• Count: 57 activities
• Distance: 791.14 mi
• Time: 77:26:32 hh:mm:ss
• Elevation Gain: 57,121 ft
• Avg Speed: 10.2 mph
• Avg Heart Rate: 143 bpm
• Avg Run Cadence: –
• Avg Bike Cadence: 75 rpm
• Calories: 64,059 C

It has been a great season overall — even with the pain from back problems and even with the countless hours of running, biking and swimming….

Sunday morning at The Shores

Met up at The Shores at 8:30 am for one last long swim since we are now starting our taper to Vineman.  The day started out as what it has become typical of late — overcast skies and coolish temperatures.   Only a few of us showed up to brave the morning after the long 4th of July celebrations.

The conditions were pretty good.  Not very much chop and gentle swells.  We made our way to the water and initially it felt a bit cool.  Soon we were making our way to the 1/2 mile buoy as our goal as to swim at least a mile.

I was able to get into a decent rhythm and it was nice to be out in the water. Though I am not a fast swimmer, I as able to keep a decent pace all the way to the marker.  Once we reached the 1/2 mile marker, we decided to go to the 1/4 mile marker — which is 1/4 mile out from The Cove — for a distance out of 3/4 of a mile or so.

The sun came out just as we started on the leg back and it made the swim very pleasant.  700 or so strokes later and I was back on The Shores. With that extra 1/2 mile of distance, we ended up swimming longer than race distance and I was happy that I felt pretty good overall.

At the last minute, I signed up for the Scripps Ranch Old Pros 4th of July 10K race.  I have completed this race a few times in past years, but I kind of forgot about it with all the training for Vineman.  It is a fast and fun race around Lake Miramar and they open the path across the dam for this event.  Ever since 9/11/2001, the dam is off limits, so it is a treat to be able to complete the full five mile circuit around the lake.

Being that running isn’t my strongest activity and that I have been suffering quite a bit with the long runs, I didn’t expect to do anything special on this run.  In the past, I tended to average the 10K in about 66 minutes or about a 10:40/mi pace.  But on this race I was feeling pretty good and I paced myself with some slightly faster runners.  The end result was that I maintained a 9:33/mi pace and completed the 10K in 59:53 — my first time completing a 10K under an hour!  It was great to set a new PR!

Today was a taper “brick” were we start to reduce the intensity of the workouts to allow our bodies (and minds!) time to recover for the Vineman race.  Distance was scheduled to be 33 miles followed by a 5 mile or so run.

The ride was an inner-coastal ride.  Starting near the coast, but heading east and then north to Rancho Santa Fe.  3 notable hills to climb, but nothing we haven’t already ridden previously.

The ride was at a decent clip — under 2 hours when you take away sag stops and traffic lights.  And the 2000′ of climbing tends to slow things down a bit as well.

During the ride a teammate convinced me to run in the SROP 10K tomorrow so I decided to cut the brick short and only did 2 miles.