it's almost here..

Weekend is right around the corner and I'm ready to just get things going and get this party started. I really have no clue how I'll perform this weekend. My training plan has been pretty low key the past 1.5 weeks and I'm feeling pretty healthy. Breathing is good right now, calf is little tight but very manageable so we will shall see. I just looked at the weather for New Orleans area and it is currently calling for 70% chance of rain. That would suck....

I'm a little concerned right now because I am without my bike. It's currently at a bike shop getting ready for the show; however, my bike is not at my normal shop (plano cycle) because they were all booked up so I brought it to performance bike. I've bought a lot of nutritional products at performance over the years but have never used their service department so I'm a little anxious. Probably should have planned for this.

I'm currently working through my race strategy for Sunday. I'm not in good enough shape to just go for it, so I'll probably hold back most of the race until about mile 6 of the run and then I'll just let it fly. I have a history of blowing it out on the bike and then severely suffering on the run so hopefully I'll keep it together during the race and not get caught up trying to beat/keep up with others around me. Keep the ego in check on the bike. That's my motto for the day.

Got a few last minute things to pick up tomorrow and then pack and then we head to God's country on Thursday morning...

weather

Just looked at the weather forecast for tomorrow morning. Temps should be right around 32 with 25 mph winds and a chance of snow. I think I'll be on my trainer tomorrow. Only in Texas can you be in shorts one day and snow clothes the next...

Week has been pretty low key. The workouts have been easier and not as long, and I'm not complaining. For some reason I've been paranoid about my lack of swimming so I've been in the pool for 3 days straight. I guess that will make up for all my missed swim sessions over the last 4 months.

Tomorrow is Ben's birthday (turning 7) and I'm taking him, 2 friends and Reed to the Great Wolfe Lodge for his birthday party. Kids are growing up so fast. Couple of more years and they won't have time for Dad anymore. Gotta enjoy the time while Dad is still an okay dude.

Still very excited about next weekend. Looking forward to going back to God's country (Louisiana)... Might have to eat some Crawfish after the race.

things are getting better...

Week started out rough, but it gradually got better. I ended the week with 4 solid days of workouts. I did a larger brick on Saturday (56 mile bike, 6 mile run) and I felt really good. My training plan, is slowing down and the hours (specifically the running) are reducing. For the week I ended up with:

• Cycling - 6:05
• Running - 2:49
• Swimming - 2:00
• Weights - 00:30

I hit all of my "plan" workouts for the week but I feel as though I should be doing so much more to catch up on all of the "missed" work over the past couple of weeks...

Lot of family stuff going on this past week (Six Flags on Wednesday, Camping on Saturday) Six Flags was nuts and that's a workout in itself fighting the crowd and hauling the kids around the park but it was fun and I'm happy to report that we conquered the shockwave. Camping was also a lot of fun but that wore me out. I got a total of 3 hours of sleep last night which included Reed throwing up on me at 1:00am in the morning. Reed ate an entire bag of cheetos (big bag) by himself and that's what he threw up. :) Super Dad should probably regulate the snacks next time we go camping. I'm always amazed at how much fun the kids have when we do simple things like camping. I forget how much fun it is for little boys to play with worms, try to catch fish and to tell ghost stories.

I'm officially 2 weeks out from New Orleans and I'm getting excited to head home and see family and to actually "compete" in something. It will also be interesting to see how New Orleans is recovering from the hurricane.

It's 7:15pm in McKinney, Tx and I'm going to bed. The kids have officially beat Dad down this weekend :)

My good friends at E-Care

Well, you know you've been to the Dr. to much when you walk into E-Care and they know your name. E-Care has turned into my personal physician over the past month, mainly because its convenient, don't have to have an appointment and I can go at odd hours. I went last night to get an XRAY on my ribs to see if my WEBMD skills are still solid. Fortunately, I do not have have any cracked ribs but the Dr. did say I have a bad contusion (swelling, bruising) and based upon the location it could impact my breathing particularly on deep breaths and because of the location (and the constant movement of this area) that it will take some time to heal. So, I must be patient and quit worrying... Not one of my strong points.

Anyway, I'm off to Six Flags tomorrow with the kids. They are pumped. We spent last night mapping out all of the rides to figure out which ones we are going to ride. I'm trying to talk Ben & Reed into the shockwave...

http://www.sixflags.com/overTexas/rides/ShockWave.aspx

Pretty intimidating for a 4 & 6 year old... Not sure who is more excited me or the kids.

Breathing - still an issue

I rode for about 3.5 hours yesterday and the ride was well... okay. I ran quite a bit leading up to Sunday so my legs were tired but the issue was not necessarily my legs but my breathing. I'm still having issues with deep breaths which just kills me once I get on hills and yesterday's ride had a lot of rolling hills.

My right upper back still hurts from the fall I took while playing broom ball a few weeks ago. It mainly hurts when I try and take a deep breath and when I sneeze. I'm going to go and get an Xray this afternoon to see if everything looks okay. WebMD tells me it could be a cracked rib which can also cause pain/issue with deep breaths so we will find out.

So who knows maybe I don't EIA maybe I just have a cracked rib. Or maybe I don't have anything and I'm just going crazy...

On the family side, Coco Boy#3 (aka Gage) had his first birthday yesterday. We had a great time and Gage just loved his birthday cake as you can tell from the picture.

Weather/Spring Break

Weather is not so good in the DFW area right now. We are on our 3rd day of rain and it's cold by my standards. I've been stuck on the treadmill & the trainer for the last couple of days and I'm tired of it. I'm going to get out tomorrow and do my long run in the am and hopefully get in a trainer ride & swim in the afternoon and then I'll probably ride for 3.5-4 hours on Sunday. The weather is supposed to be much nicer on Sunday and I'm really looking forward to that.

Spring Break is upon us and the kids are pumped!!!! So no baseball, no school for one week. I'm going to take off on Wednesday and take the kids to Six Flags and then we are going camping at Lake Ray Roberts next Saturday. I love to go camping and so do the boys. Jennifer and Gage will come out there with us and then head home at night. Gage is not quite ready for tent camping. Speaking of Gage, his 1 year birthday is on Sunday. We have a small birthday party planned with a few friends and Jennifer is going to make her world famous gumbo.

This weather makes me lazy. I had to quilt myself into running today and the run was not so great. Note to self, don't drink V8 juice before attempting a 1:30 run on a treadmill. I was able to get in an hour before my stomach said "No Mas"..

I'm starting to plan for New Orleans. I'll pick up some new running shoes tomorrow, possibly new tri shorts and I'm going to schedule a "bike bath" at one of the area shops. My bike is filthy.

I'm not in the shape I was hoping to be in, but regardless I'm looking forward to going home and racing in front of friends and family and I'll have a new shirt to add to my rotation of triathlon shirts that according to my wife I wear every day :)

Weekly Review

As stated in previous post, I'm feeling much better. I can breathe again and train to my current fitness level. I had some very intense bike rides over the weekend. Not a tremendous of volume but the intensity was very high and it felt great. I feel like my cycling legs are finally coming back. I'm actually pretty tired right now, but it's a good kind of tired.

Running is also going pretty good. Nothing too fast/too far just good solid runs. Now that I can breathe again I'll probably go back to track workouts this week and train with a local group in the Plano area to try and build some speed...

Swimming is going okay. I got in 2.5 workouts this week. The .5 was basically a 1500 meter flop as I liked to call it. Nothing to structured just trying to loosen up. I've been swimming at lunch and this kind of sucks because the maximum time I can spend in the pool is 45-50 minutes. I'm going to try and go back to swimming in the AM again so I can spend more time in the pool. (I'm pulling too much right now)

For the week I ended up with:

• Cycling - 6:05
• Running - 4:17
• Swimming - 2:25
• Weights - 1:25

Looking forward to this upcoming week. Volume will be about the same but I'm planning on cranking up the intensity.

Feeling Better -

The asthma medicine appears to be working. I'm feeling better each day during my workouts. My HR is still a bit high on the runs but it's also been a bit warmer this week. All in all I'm very happy I decided to go and see a specialist. Should have done this a long time ago. Apparently you are not supposed to have more than 1 cortisone shot for asthma related symptoms in a given year. I've had 5 this past year.... Live and learn and time to find a new family doctor that won't let me prescribe my own medicine.

I've decided I am going to do New Orleans. Fitness wise, I'm not where I want to be but it is what it is. New Orleans probably won't be some all time PR like I was hoping when I signed up 6 months ago but I have no one to blame but myself. I've had some nagging health issues but the work ethic has not been there. No eye of the tiger, etc. I've talked myself out of workouts more times than I care to mention. Thinking back a year ago, I was 1 month out from IM AZ, my wife was fixing to have our 3rd son and work was absolutely nuts trying to build a new product for a new market in the Pacific Northwest. I can honestly say that it was one of the busiest times of my life but somehow I managed to workout, go to work and be dad/husband. I was so scared of failure at AZ that I wouldn't miss a workout. (maybe that's why my wife hates Ironman). Looking back I bet I hit 98% of every workout that was prescribed. Hasn't been that way so far in 2009 but I'm hoping it comes back when I start training for IM Florida in early June.

One thing I know I won't do again is sign up for an early season "A" priority race. I'm too much of a wimp to cycle outdoors in the winter and I refuse to do the trainer for more than an hour. For the folks up north that sit on a trainer for 4-5 hours at a time, my hat is off to you. I was I had that kind of mental toughness.

Just looked at the weather for the weekend and the temp looks great for the weekend rides but it's going to be windy again. I had a dream the other day that I walked outside to ride and it was 70 degrees and no wind. That would be cycling heaven for me...

I'm still trying to incorporate P90x into my weekly workouts. Each workout video is approximately 1 hour long and there is basically a video for each day. I can't spend 7 hours a week on P90 right now so I'll probably focus on:

• Core
• Chest/Shoulders/ABS
• Back/Biceps/ABS

Looking forward to the weekend and being able to "breathe" when I'm cycling....

EIA

I guess my Internet MD skills are pretty good. My self diagnosis was right. I went and saw a specialist today and he confirmed I have EIA - Exercise Induced Asthma. As of right now, the treatment plan involves a few daily medications for approximately 1 month. At the end of the month we will re-evaluate and see how I'm responding and then decide where to go from there.

At this stage, I'm free to exercise as much as I can stand. I went and ran 5.5 miles tonight after taking my "inhaler" and I can't say that it helped but at the same time I was able to finish the run at a decent pace with a decent heart rate which was not the case last week. So I'll give it a week or so before I decide if this is working or not. I'll also make a decision on New Orleans by the end of the week.

I am glad that I went ahead and saw a specialist. I at least feel like I'm on the right path now and the proper action can now be taken to get me back in the game.

something is wrong...

Things were going pretty good last weekend and the beginning of the week started off pretty good. Got in some solid workouts on Monday & Tuesday (Bike Intervals, Track Workout and Hard Swim) and then Wednesday things went south again. Over the last few weeks I have had a consistent shortness of breath and "tight chest" during my workouts. I had attributed my breathing issues to the fact that I was sick and it was just a symptom of the sinus infection, cold, SARS whatever I had. But this week, my body felt fine and during my workouts, I consistently had this breathing issue. I fought through it on Wednesday, and then on Thursday (my long run) I almost slowed down to a walk to make it back it the office. Friday was pretty low key, just a swim and weights but I noticed that I was really winded in the pool. Then on Saturday, 10 minutes into my ride I noticed again that I was winded. I was supposed to ride for 3.5 hours on Saturday but barely made it 2 hours.

Not quite sure what is going on. My body feels pretty good. At this stage, I think it is important that I take a step back and see a doctor. to figure out what's going on. My self diagnosis (with WebMD's help) suggest that I have EIA - Exercise Induced Asthma. So we shall see how accurate my Internet degree in medicine is... I'm going to try and get an appointment as soon as possible with a specialist.

In the meantime, I'll probably just do short bike & runs (< 1 hour, low intensity) and shorter swims ( < 40 minutes). If I can get this breathing issue resolved soon, within the week, then I'll probably still do New Orleans. Except for the fact that I can't breathe, I'm feeling pretty good right now.

On the flip side, I picked up the P90X workout videos this past week on Craigs List. I've been wanting a home based workout that I can do because my schedule is getting tighter and weights at the gym are typically the first thing I cut and I really didn't want to do that. (I'm already too skinny according to everyone I work with) . Anyway, I have to give P90 some props. These video workouts are for real. It's kicked my butt the last 3 days.

Hopefully, I'll get this breathing issue resolved soon. I'm trying to keep my head up and be positive and tell myself it's just part of it, but it really sucks and this roller coaster of health issues is taking its toll. I feel like if I could get 3 solid weeks of training before IM NO that I would be fine and could put in a solid early season race. Just have to see how it goes.

My goal for the rest of the month.... get through one week of training without any health issues.