Week 11 Wrap-Up (aka Camp Ironman begins)

Work continued to wreak minor havoc with my training—things slowly started turning for the good, but still, it’s a tough balancing act between getting in my training and doing justice to that thing which pays the bills (aka my job). I missed a swim workout and ended up turning one of my runs into a tempo run just to fit it in the time I had available, but I guess it’s all good in the end. It is tough, though, to manage work, training, and personal stuff—after rescheduling about a million times, I finally managed to have dinner with my friend Catherine on Thursday (hence the impromptu tempo run to make sure I didn’t have to reschedule again).

Friday, I took the day off—more as a mental recovery day than anything else. I put my Zipps on Tack (and learned how to change brake pads—doesn’t seem tough, but man I got dirty the first time around), took care of some random stuff around my house, and even managed to have lunch with Theresa before I took off for LaPorte and the weekend that has come to be known as Camp Ironman. I got to Sue and Michele’s cottage by early evening and, after hanging out with them and the dogs for a while, we called it a night as we had an early morning 5K in Walkerton, which, although only about 30 minutes away from LaPorte, is on eastern time—I’ll never understand the logic (or, more appropriately, the lack of logic) in the Indiana time zone situation. We loaded up our bikes (we were also doing a 50-mile ride immediately following the 5K) and headed out very early on Saturday.

The 5K (and the ride) were part of the Walkerton town celebration, so there were a lot of local and area residents out and about. Michele jokingly told me that I needed to run faster than an 8:00 pace or I’d get kicked out of Camp Ironman…at least I think it was jokingly… In the end, it was all good as I ran a PR of 22:32, which translates to about a 7:16 pace—far and away my best race. I still took off a bit fast and ended up paying for it a little at the end, but it was still a solid run. Most randomly, I WON my age group--that's right, kids--I came home with hardware from a RUNNING race--who the hell knew that was possible??? I'm not complaining--I do love the hardware--but good gravy, this is me we're talking about...

The 50-mile ride, however, left a LOT to be desired. I’m pretty sure the person who did the route never ever rode the course, at least not on a bike—it was hands-down the worst route I’ve ever been on. There were about 4 miles of gravel (thanks to road construction) and about 46 other miles of crappy, poorly paved roads—a pretty crappy ride to try out my shiny new race wheels. I was more than bitter when I finally rolled back to my car…and after a quick commiseration with Michele, I took off to the cottage for a quick shower before heading to Benton Harbor, MI to check in for Sunday’s race (the Fifth/Third Firecracker Tri, a sprint race on some of the same course as Steelhead).

After picking up my registration stuff for the race, I met a college friend and her husband (Karlene and Mickey) for dinner, where I found out the awesome news that they are expecting their first baby in January. It was great seeing them—unfortunately, they won’t be around for Steelhead, but at least I got to see them for a little bit. I headed back down to LaPorte for the evening, which meant I, once again, had to get up really fricking early to make it up to the race in time (again, I hate the time zone changes!!).

The tri swim was in Lake Michigan—my first experience with it—and was a little intimidating--~2-3 foot swells and faily chilly temperatures. Nonetheless, after I figured out my breathing during a quick warm-up and officially christened my wetsuit a couple of times (and if you don’t know what that means, you probably don’t want to know), I had a pretty decent swim. The bike course was a two-loop course that was nice and flat—perfect for trying the race wheels under more normal conditions, and they worked great. There was a pretty good headwind for a good chunk of the course, though, which slowed me down a bit—my average speed was only 19.7 mph for that race. I had a pretty solid run—ended up passing Michele at about mile 1 and managed to stay ahead of her for the rest of the race. It was pretty cool, though—when I passed her, she told me she was proud of me…pretty cool to hear from a training partner, friend, and “Iron mentor”. I finished up with another Athena win (would’ve come in 2nd in my age group, too), and Sue and Michele both picked up hardware, too—all in all a good race, although it started raining just in time for the awards.

After heading back to LaPorte, Michele and I took off for the rest of our long run—we needed to pick up another 11 miles, so we headed out toward Orr Lake Road and began that process. All was well until we hit about mile 3.5…we were headed up a hill when we spotted two young guys headed our way. They both appeared to be dressed alike and were walking pretty slowly towards us—I thought at first that maybe they were teammates from a soccer team or something. When they got closer, though, it became very apparent that was not the case…they were dressed in identical drab green t-shirts, matching gym shorts, white socks, and sneakers. One of them had a pretty nasty wound on his leg, and the other had some tears in his shorts—not necessarily what we were expecting. As they passed us, one of them asked if there was a town up ahead…again, not what we were expecting. We didn’t say anything to each other until we were over the top of the hill and out of earshot—then Michele asked if I had my cell phone, which I did. When I started to reach for it, she waved me back and literally jumped out in the middle of the road to flag down a passing car—turns out there is a juvenile corrections farm not far from where we were and Michele wanted to call the authorities and make sure they weren’t escapees. The LaPorte County Sheriff’s Department is pretty speedy, as it turns out—by the time we had run about another half mile, three sheriff’s cars had passed us, with two stopping to ask for more details on what we had seen. Pretty crazy—and the fact that the two guys had apparently managed to go off-road and elude the cars had Michele and I on high alert for the rest of the run. We found out later that they had captured one of the two and that they were in for assault and robbery (Michele’s mom works at the county jail and filled her in). Pretty wild…first horses on the road during a bike ride, and now convicts on the road during a run….crazy!!

Here’s the roll-up for the week…

Swim: 1:14:52 / 3500 meters
Bike: 6:40:34 / 116.44 miles
Run: 4:08:19 / 28.05 miles
Total: 12:03:45 / 146.68 miles