The End.... of Ironman

I did a lot of soul searching this past weekend and after a painful run on Sunday, I made the decision to pull of of IM Florida. It's still quite painful when I run and the Achilles needs some dedicated time off to heal up and unfortunately I'm out of "slack" time in my training schedule. So, it is what it is and I have to be smart and listen to my body and back off. Initially, I thought I could just tough it out and truth be told if this would have happened last year prior to AZ I probably would have toughed it out but I'm in a different place right now and with 3 kids the last thing my wife needs right now is a 4th kid that's hobbling around on crutches because he let his ego make all of his critical decisions. It's funny, because 3 weeks ago when I saw the podiatrist and he told me I would be out 2-3 weeks I was crushed but now I almost feel relieved. It's going to be strange not waking up at 4am on Saturday and Sunday to ride all morning.

So what's next? This was my last opportunity (at least for a few years) to do another Ironman. For whatever reason, perhaps the injury, I'm feeling a tremendous amount of burnout on the whole triathlon thing so I'll probably take a few weeks off/possibly a month and switch back over to lifting weights and possibly just focus on non competitive marathon training to stay in shape. I'm also planning on enrolling at a local Takewondo school with the goal of getting a black belt. I'll need something to fill the hole of IM :)...

Anyway, the purpose of this blog was to track my training for IM Florida so since I'm not doing that anymore this will be my last blog entry. I appreciate everyone's support during my IM Journey.

Thanks,

Put me in coach, I can do it....

I went back to the podiatrist late last week and he gave me the green light to continue training. Since then I've had a pretty large training load (making up for lost time) and the Achilles is holding up okay. It still gets sore after running and long bike rides, so I don't think I'm quite out of the woods yet. I think this is going to be a nagging injury all the way through Florida and its going to require a lot of preventative maintenance type of stuff, like constant icing, etc which I SUCK at... My wife's chiropractor is an IM guy and he told her that he could help me so I'm going to go and see him later this week to see what voodoo magic he can do.

Other than that, things are going well. I've been like a caged tiger for the past few weeks so my motivation is high and I'm ready and willing to train, I just need my body to hold up for 11 more weeks. Wish me luck...

Achilles tendonosis

Went to the podiatrist today and apparently I have "Achilles tendonosis". My Achilles has just not healed up the way I had expected/hoped. I've laid off from running but have continued cycling and swimming. Well, today I received some bad news of no running/cycling for at least one week and possibly more. The doctor thinks it will take 2-3 weeks of no activity to heal but I'm being optimistic and hoping it's better one week from now. So, I'm waddling around in an aircast for at least the next week.

This is new territory for me. I've been pretty fortunate the last 3 years in the sense that I haven't had any significant injuries/sicknesses that have resulted in significant time off from "tri" training. I've always at least been able to Run or Bike.

Not sure what this does for Florida. When he initially told me 2-3 weeks I was pretty upset because there is no way I can go for 4 weeks of not running and expect to meet my goals at IM Florida and that's the thing, I'm not willing to go to Florida knowing my fitness level will just get me across the finish line. I've done that with Arizona and I want more this go around. I want to push and see what I'm capable of and just crossing the finish line is not going to cut it this time around.

Doctor's appointment is 1 week from now. In the meantime, I'm going to follow his direction stay off the bike, no running but I'm going to swim my butt off for the next 7 days/lift weights and keep my fingers crossed that this works out.

little banged up right now

My Achilles tendon is still causing me issues. I laid off of running most of the week then tried again on Friday and it was very painful. I went to Run On today to see what types of wraps/suggestion they may have and of course I walked out of there with a very expensive new pair of shoes that are going to solve all my running problems :)...

Somehow during my bike ride on Saturday I managed to get some of the worst chaffing in some of the most uncomfortable areas you could imagine. Not sure what happened here, same shorts, same shirt, same everything but for whatever reason my skin did not like the clothing I had on that day. The chaffing was so bad that I could not even put on my cycling kit this am, thus no cycling today.

I've decided to write this past week off and pretty much treat it as a recovery week and try again next week. I missed a key run session and a secondary bike and that frustrates me to no end. I'm 12 weeks out from IM Florida and mentally I'm there. My motivation is high, I want to workout, I'm ready to do what I've got to do to meet my goals at Florida but unfortunately my body is not cooperating right now. I'm hoping I heal up quick so I can get back to it next week.

On the family side, the boys setup a lemonade stand at the end of our culdesac yesterday and within 1 hour they made $27. Not too bad for one hour of work. I'm going to talk to them about making this a daily "job" and donating their money to Dad's triathlon fund so I can pick up some race wheels prior to Florida :).

Training Update

Got a little injury. My Achilles is acting up and I haven't been able to run for the past 2 days and I'm actually missing it. I've been pretty fortunate for the past 2 months in terms of injury so it was my time for an injury. I hope this injury heals up quick so I can get back to it.

Training is going pretty good. No real complaints. I'm a little concerned about the swim volume on my training plan. It's pretty low compared to what I did for IM AZ and compared to other training plan. I'm probably going to make some adjustments to crank that up within the next week or two. I feel pretty confident about the direction of the running and the cycling.

Not much else to report. Kids start back to school on August 24th and then baseball and soccer start up again so the after school activity vacation is almost over. I enjoy their practices and the games. I just have to remind myself that they are only 7 and 4 and that I'm not playing :)...

back to the grind

Vacation is over and it's back to the grind tomorrow. I had a great time and so did the kids. Gulf Shores is one of my absolute favorite places to vacation. It was also a pretty good training location. Lot's of scenic rides and good places to run. The weather was pretty good. Not too hot but it was very humid and windy at times.

Last week was a recovery week on the training schedule so I had minimal running and swimming but lots of cycling. Training plan cranks back up this week and I feel good both mentally and physically. I made some pretty drastic changes to my training plan about a month ago and switched back over to the Endurance Nation training plan/methodology. Their programs and philosophy makes sense to me and they have a lot of "resources" for the self coached athlete. Anyway, the cycling workouts in EN plans are hard, much harder then anything I have done in the past. If I'm going to make any breakthroughs with my IM Time it will be on the bike so hopefully this hard cycling training will pay off.

I'm attaching a couple of pics from the Skyscraper swing at the "Track" in Gulf Shores. We initially went here to ride go-karts, etc but when we pulled up we saw the swing and I jokingly asked my oldest son (Age 7) if he wanted to do it and to my astonishment he said yes. Well, let me just say that thing was scary and I'm real proud of him for doing it. I may have a future X-Game participant on my hands.

vacation

I'm on a 10 day vacation and loving life. Jennifer and I started off the vacation with a night in New Orleans at the Royal Sonesta with a balcony overlooking Bourbon Street. We enjoyed the evening and pretended like we were in college again. That night had some impact on the IM training schedule but hey you have to cut loose every now and then.

I'm currently in Gulf Shores, Alabama being a beach bum. I have stayed on track with the training and there are some great places to ride and run in this area. Very flat, humid and windy. I'm assuming very similar to the conditions at IM Florida. Kids are having a great time. We boogie boarded all day today and had some great waves in the 4'-6' range. I hope the ocean is calm on race day because I'm not convinced I could swim 2.4 miles in those type of conditions.

Not much else to report. Just enjoying the time off.