I'm Registered!!! Steelhead Ironman 70.3, Here I Come!!!

With 171 days till race day, I'm finally registered for the Steelhead Ironman 70.3!  I'm so super stoked about it too.  That race is the climax of my events this year since the longest triathlon I've done is a sprint.  Now I'm signed up for 70.3 miles of extreme fun.  I can't wait!  The best part about it is that I have a little under 6 months to train for it, and evert bit of training will be worth it on race day.

I got the clearance from the wife, which wasn't too hard since she's super supportive of this and wants me to succeed.  

 Then, with a couple clicks of the mouse, and a couple hundred dollars later, I was registered!

A few minutes later, I got the confirmation email!  HOORAH!!!!

I'm so stoked about this.  In fact, it's a little hard to focus on the Holy Half-Marathon, but I guess training is training, so it's really going for both. 

Last night, my good buddy, Josh (the same guy that helped create my weight loss chart- "All Aboard! Get on the Training Train!"), came over so we could analyze our aero positions on our bikes.  After taking pictures of both our forms, I feel like an actual Tri-bike would be so much better.  We both love just riding all the time, so it's hard to make the switch.  Anyway, take a look at my aero position and tell me what I can adjust to make it better.  I think that I'll slide my seat a bit forward and drop the spacers out of my stem to lower the handlebars.  

I've read a bunch on angles in the aero position, and it seems that the hip angle should be 90* just like the shoulder angle.  I think that my shoulders might be taking a little more pressure than if I could tighten up that angle.  Give me your expertise!

Here's a picture of his sweet bike and position:

I've been pretty busy lazy this week, but that stops today.  I'm gonna do a pretty fast 4 mile run this afternoon, and I'll probably spend some time on the bike too.  This Sunday will be 8 miles of pavement with Nick.  It's so nice to have a good friend to run with!

Roadrunner!

On our half-marathon training plan, we were supposed to run 8 miles today.  Well, Nick was gone, so Jenn and I decided to do next week's 10k today.  The weather was supposed to be rainy/sleety/nasty, so we got up a little earlier to avoid it.  We started our run when it was dry, but pretty soon it was starting to drizzle.  We both cut our runs a little bit short (I did 6 miles instead of 6.2).  But today was different than any other runs.  It was FAST...for me!  I think the speed workouts are helping.  The tempo runs and the track workouts seem to make everything faster.  Friday was 7x400 at the track, and I cooked my legs pretty good.  But it was all worth it, because today was probably my fastest long run ever. I ran 6 miles at 8:39/mile.  That made me feel pretty great!  I didn't even feel over-spent after I was done.  We've got 7 more weeks to the half-marathon, so I'm thinking that my sub 2-hour goal is going to be doable.  Thanks for the encouragement!

Road Rage and the First Ride of the Year!

It seems that every time I go running out on the rural roads of Berrien County, Michigan, I run into someone or more than one person that has a major problem that I'm taking up space on the pavement.  I've seen "the bird"...  I've been given "peace from the middle east"...  I know how to "read between the lines" (index and ring finger)...  And I just don't understand what the deal is with people being so ticked off about me running?

This morning, Jennifer and I got up to do our short run of 4 miles.  We plotted a new route on www.mapmyride.com and left.  We do our best to stay out of traffic and try not to create havoc on the streets.  In fact, for much of our run, we ran behind each other because there was too much traffic to run side-by-side.  But it was on Garr Rd., which is a super rural road with apple orchards and only a couple houses, that we ran into our road rager of the day.  We were coming up to an intersection as I noticed him on the other side of the road.  He was chillin' in his Subaru WRX, and I wondered what he was going to do.  Sure enough, he revved his engine and dropped the "F-bomb" on us as he drove passed.  I can read lips just fine, and that was perfect to make our run enjoyable.  Jenn said, "Well, he might just be having a bad day," but he still didn't have to take it out on us.

Thanks for letting me rant...

The run went well, and we're looking to do 8 miles this Sunday.  It's been a while since I've run that far.  Hopefully the rain will hold off so we can enjoy that run a little more.

This afternoon, I had a massive test on the Issues of Daniel & Revelation.  I spent most of last night and this morning studying for it.  The syllabus said that we'd have two hours for the test, and then we'd have an hour lecture.  BUT, when the proctor came in to give us the test, she said that we could leave when we're done.  That was music to my ears!  Ever since I stepped outside this morning, I wanted to go for a ride on my bike.  So, I hammered through the test (I think I actually did pretty well), and then Josh, one of my best friends, met me for a quick 20 mile ride.  It was the first outdoor ride of the season, and even thouh  46* is a little cool on a bike, it was AWESOME!

I can't wait for the weather to warm up even more so I can really enjoy training outside!  

Steelhead, HERE I COME!!!

Running in the warmth is way better!

What a day to be alive!  Right now, Weather.com says that it's 47* outside!  Isn't that incredible?  I can't tell you how happy I am to see the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring.  (Am I speaking too soon?)

Today, Nick, Jennifer, Taryn and I went for our long runs.  I mapped out a 7 mile course around Berrien Springs that looped from my house to downtown and back again.

It was a route that we'd never run before, but I really enjoyed it.  Nick and I wanted to average 9:40/mile, and  I even set up my Garmin to have a training runner on there to run that pace.  Both of us got pretty tired, but we ended up dominating our pace and did it with a 9:20/mile average!  That's getting close to where we need to be...under 9 min/miles for the Holy Half.  We made sure to stretch really well after we were done so the soreness isn't as bad.  Great day--Great run--Great weather!

The goal this week is to put in some short runs as well as some cross-training on my bike.  It's supposed to rain some this week, so I'll probably still be on the trainer, but that's just fine.

Check out my scale now!

Well, yesterday was the day!  I got on the scale after that intense workout the day before and I just knew what was going to happen!  I finally made the first leg of my journey to 175 lbs.  I'm 188!  I was super excited, and I wanted to share it with you, so there's the picture.  Now technically, I can register for the Steelhead Ironman 70.3, but I just needs to bounce the numbers around in our budget and clear it with the wife.  I'll let you know when that happens.

Yesterday, Maglee, my dog let out a ferocious bark because someone was at the door.  Now, you've got to know that even though my dog is a Boxer, she is super timid and shy.  So, for her to bark like that is remarkable.  Here's a picture of her:

Here's why she was barking...  Since Jennifer and I both are training for the Holy Half Marathon, but we're running different speeds but training at the same time, it's hard to share our Garmin Forerunner 305.  So, we searched on Ebay for awhile and got a pretty good deal on a Garmin Forerunner 205.  It came in this massive box, and I wasn't really sure what was in it at first.

 But sure enough...that's what it was!

Anyway, this morning I was still at 188, so that's nice to hold my weight.  Jenn and I are planning on going for a run this afternoon before Date Night.  Sunday will be 7 miles with Nick, and it's supposed to be 37* and sunny!

Hitting the Plateau

Well, if you were wondering if I was too busy or just forgot how to blog, you were wrong.  I really wanted the next blog to be a picture of my scale with my poundage under 190lbs.  Well, it seems that I have hit a plateau, and I can't get off it...until today.  For the last week or so, I've been hovering between 190.2 and 193.  It's been a crazy and discouraging battle!  I think one of the reasons is because my workouts have been cut short.  We got a ton of snow last Wednesday, and running outside just wasn't an option.  Thursday, Jenn and I did a 3.5 miler, but it wasn't all that intense.  Sunday was our long run, which was actually supposed to be a 5k race.  Well, I'm not the biggest fan of 5k's because I know that there's no way that I'm going to win it, so it just ends up being a waste of money.  I can go run 3.1 miles out on the road somewhere for FREE!  So, Jenn, Nick and I decided to run 6 miles instead.  It was super tough this time.  We had done 6 miles the week before, but it was different this week.  For awhile, we couldn't understand why it felt so much harder, and then we realized what the difference was.  There was a couple inches of snow on the roads, and we were spending more energy to run our normal pace than we did last week.  It was kind of weird because we hit a stretch of clear sidewalk and our pace shot way up.  We ended at a slow run of 6 miles at 9:53/mile.  This next week is 7 miles, and we'll be shooting for somewhere between 9:30's and 9:45's.

With renewed determination, I am GOING to drop below 190lbs this week!  I want so badly to register for the Steelhead Ironman 70.3, but I told myself I had to meet this goal first.  I've been doing a lot of biking on the trainer recently.  I put my aerobars on the other day and am really enjoying getting back into that position.  It makes the workouts a little more interesting.  Here's a picture from last night's ride:

Today was incredible as far as working out.  I had read on IRONDIVA's blog about her speed workouts where she runs with a partner and then sprints around the track to catch them.  You can read about it HERE.  That sounded like a great way to do speed work, but both my running partners, Jenn and Nick weren't available when I got out of class.  So, I decided to do a short but fast (for me) run.  I ran 2 miles and wanted to average 8 min/miles.  Well, I pushed it, and this is what my Garmin read when I was done:

7:31/mile!!!  That may be slow for some of you, but that's one of my faster runs.  I was pretty proud! (The lower left hand box says 5:00/mile, but that was the current speed I guess when I snapped this picture.)  Right after my run, I went downstairs and got on the trainer for a solid 30 minutes.  It felt great to workout today!  With minimal caloric intake for today, I know that I'll be under 190 tomorrow morning.  Expect to see a picture of the scale soon!

Jenn's running a 5k race this Sunday, so I we'll see how it goes, and I'll put some pictures up too.  Good luck to all of you that are training for something too!