It's Race Week And Other Updates

So here we are again, it is officially race week! This Saturday I will be running with my beautiful wife and her wonderful mother in the BIX 7 in Davenport, IA. This annual race is one of the biggest non-marathon road races in the United States each year with over 15,000 runners and walkers competing annually. I believe that this is my 6th BIX, but only my 2nd time running. The race features a 1/3 mile steep hill to start the race along with a couple of other good sized hills (for Iowa at least) throughout. It is always the last weekend in July, so that means heat and high humidity are usually in play as well.

2 years ago this was the first race that I ran as I got back into running. That year it was quite a struggle for me as I finished with a time of around 1:45. Although I have not been training directly for this race, I am currently in the best shape of my life and running faster then any other point in my adult life, so I'm expecting it to be a good race. What I am even more excited about is the chance to run another race with my wife. Last year we did 2 races together (one in the pouring rain) and it is a really good opportunity for us to spend time together as well as encourage each other. With kids at home, usually the question is who trains and who watches the kids, so we rarely get to run together. This will also be Erin's warm up race for her first half marathon, which will also be in the Quad Cities, coming up in late September.

As for other updates, I am happy to report that I am healing well from crashing my bicycle a week ago. The biggest lingering pain is in my right elbow, but I am noticing that less each day as well. Late last week the heat kept me inside on my trainer, but I was able to get back out on the K2 for a long ride on Sunday (see below) and again tonight. I do feel a little hesitant and nervous but nothing I can't handle and I'm sure it will go away with time.

As mentioned above, on Sunday I did a 70+ mile loop on the Raccoon River Valley Trail with one of my co-workers. We kept a very easy pace the entire way, but I was surprised at my endurance and how fresh I felt after the ride. This may end up being my longest ride for the year, but I really want to try this loop on my own at some point to see exactly how fast I can finish it.

Sunday long ride

At the end of last week I decided to stop using the calorie counting app that I had been using on my phone after 7 weeks of use. Over that time, I didn't end up losing weight at any greater clip then I had previously, and it was taking a lot of time to use it each day (honestly, time that I didn't have anyways). I also noticed that it ended up having some adverse affects that I didn't like, such as "banking calories" to use later in the day as well as focusing on food more, it seemed like the next meal or snack was always on my mind and I'm really trying to get away from thinking about food all of the time. 

One last update that I will leave you with, is in my opinion the most interesting one. Recently my wife, Erin, posted on Facebook after one of her training runs and mentioned that I had done a good job coaching her to several months of injury free training (after dealing with an injury leading up to the BIX last year). The spurred requests from a couple of ladies that I know asking for help developing programs for them. Now I am certainly no expert and have no formal training, but I was happy to help and put all of the knowledge that I have gained to good use. I don't know why, but this really felt to me like some major milestone on my fitness journey. I have so many people that I go to with questions and requests for help, I just never realized there would be a day that someone else may come to me. 

It Is Not A Matter Of If, But When

After talking with many cyclists that I know and with how many miles I have been putting on my bicycle, I knew it was just a matter of time. Yesterday I managed to wipe out while out on a bicycle ride. Thankfully I was not seriously injured, although it did scare me quite a bit. It wasn't until I woke up this morning that I realized all of the affects of the fall. A scraped left knee was accompanied by a sprained wrist, a severely bruised right elbow (that managed to push my right shifter/break out of position), bruised upper right arm, and bruised sternum (which is the most painful part). 

Luckily, I was able to get my bike upright and readjusted to finish my ride home. I ended up pushing back my long swim until tomorrow and my interval run until Friday to give myself some much needed recovery and rest time today. At this point, I'm glad it is over with and just thankful it wasn't worse. I wish I could say there was a lesson learned or I was doing something wrong that could be corrected. The truth is, although the trail was wet in spots, I had been riding for over 10 miles with no problems. I was not turning, nor was I riding too fast or recklessly. I just happened to hit an extra slippery portion of trail and my front tire slipped right out from under me. 

The Most Unpredicatble Part Of Racing

I know this is a post that I have to write, but I really don't want to. For anyone who may not have caught my Facebook posts on Sunday, the triathlon that I was going to compete in was cancelled due to dangerous weather conditions (namely lightening and high winds). As if that wasn't enough, the initial race delay did not come until we were lining up at the George Wyth Lake boat ramp ready to head into the water. A little less then 3 hours, and several updates, later they finally called it and sent all of the athletes home.

Even with a couple of days to process, I still am not quite sure how to put in words the way I am feeling. Disappointed and devastated just don't seem to cut it. I have been preparing for this race for months. Day after day, grinding out my training runs, putting miles on my bicycle and racking up laps in the pool, all leading up to this day. I had spent countless hours preparing mentally and going through every scenario that I could think of. I showed up on race day at 6:00 am, 2 hours before my swim wave start time, just to make sure I was ready to go. Somehow, in all of that preparation, even as they called for the first delay, it never crossed my mind that there was a chance this race might not happen.

Obviously, nobody can control mother nature and I will give kudos to those who were putting on the Accel Triathlon as they did everything in there power to put on what appeared to be an excellent triathlon. They were very well organized and did great with communication throughout the delays. In fact, my heart goes out to all of the organizers, volunteers, as well as all of the other athletes, especially those like me who were attempting their first triathlon.

I did power through a workout Sunday evening as well as a run on Monday morning in hopes that I would work out some of the emotion that I was feeling. After not finding solace in those, I made the call to take today off entirely to feel sorry for myself with the plan that tomorrow morning I will wake up refreshed and ready to get back after it.

Now I realize, I probably sound silly to many of you reading this and to an extent, I agree with you. I mean, it is just a race after all. Besides, I'm signed up for several more this year. However, training for and competing in races has become a large part of my life. I put all of my energy and a lot of time into planning and preparing for these races. It has become much more then a hobby or a means to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle, it is part of who I am.

Enough of that, I need to end on a positive note. I'm a big fan of the moving "Silver Linings Playbook" for several reasons, but the overall message is a good one. Even when things seem like they couldn't get worse, you need to look for the silver lining in everything. The silver lining was easy to find this weekend, as it was a chance to see many friends and family that I don't often get to see. Sometimes when I get caught up in life I forget how lucky I am to be surrounded by so many great people. The best part is that all of them are genuinely excited to see me, no matter how long it has been and we seem to be able to talk with each other like we never missed a beat.

Lastly, I will mention that my next race is the BIX 7 on July 30. It is a 7 mile road race in Davenport that is known for starting with a large (for Iowa) hill as well as being run in the hottest and most humid part of the summer.

Changed Plans And Unexpected PR

I was quite disappointed when I got pulled into a last minute meeting on Wednesday that kept me from attending the group run over lunch. I'm hoping to try again in a couple of weeks.

That being said, not attending the group run meant that I had to do my tempo run later that evening. It was very hot and humid and I had just finished eating a large pork chop dinner at the Dallas County Fair Grounds, courtesy of my brother-in-law, Mike, so I didn't expect much out of the run. As it turns out, I ended up having a great run. I didn't notice until logging into Garmin Connect the next day that I had broken my previous 5K PR by 34 seconds (30:54 to 30:20).

40 Minute Tempo Run

Stepping Out Of My Comfort Zone

So tomorrow I'm going to try something new. There is a running club at work that meets every Wednesday over lunch to run a few miles together. I have thought about joining them for quite awhile but tomorrow I'm going to actually do it.

In the past 2+ years of running, I can count on 1 hand the number of times that I have run with anyone else (excluding races). This year I have been trying to find a running partner or 2 to help with motivation in my training, but I have had little success finding anyone who is interested.

When I stumbled onto the Pioneer running club I was very excited, but have held back from joining until now. It is partly because it hasn't fit in too well with my planned training schedule, but also because I have been nervous to put myself out there. Running to me has been a very personal journey, and I guess I'm nervous about embarassing myself by being too slow or not being accepted.

Well, whatever it is, I'm giving it at least 1 shot tomorrow. Here we go!

Mid-Year Progress

As I looked at my calendar this morning I couldn't believe my eyes, we are already half way through 2016! For me it has been a fantastic year so far in so many different ways, but my dedication to training has been the biggest. With that, I decided to run some progress summary reports on Garmin Connect to reflect on how far I have come this year.

If you don't want to look through the images below, here is a brief summary:

Running-

Activities: 96

Miles: 374.3

Cycling-

Activities: 78

Miles: 1,051.46

Swimming-

Activities: 54

Miles: 27.66 (or 48,681.6 Yards/about 975 laps in the pool)

Weight Loss-

Starting Weight: 286.4 lbs

Current Weight: 239.4 lbs

Weight Loss: 47 lbs

Mid-year running progress for 2016

Mid-year cycling progress for 2016

Mid-year swimming progress for 2016

Mid-year weight loss progress for 2016