No Sweat 24hr AR Suunto T6 Log

*pods not used due to race conditions
**log stopped due to memory limit
***altitude not calibrated: about 150ft above actual

It Aint Trainin If It Aint Rainin

Good times, good times. The week started off pretty nicely with a hard, brick-like training session on Tuesday. I was teamed up with Monty and we had to do a short 2mi trail run, bike the TT course, another short 1.5 mile trail run, then finish off with another bike of the TT course. We started off pretty strong, setting a fast pace on the first run. We took it a bit easy on the bike, thinking the training session would be a long one. So, not too bad of a bike split. But then I heard a hissing sound. Nice. I most likely pinch flatted since I still had the liners in and I had forgotten to air up before practice. Regardless, we decided to go on the run and deal with it when we got back. Still in front, we kept a good pace up. Then my assessment was correct as the tube would no longer hold air. After fumbling with two CO2 cartridges, Monty got his floor pump and we aired back up and headed back in for the final bike. Again, a moderate pace, since we had to do the loop twice. Weird thing was that by the time we finished, everyone was already back and done with the workout. WTF?!?! Apparently we got LONG-coursed. Nice. Oh well, we got that much of a better workout than the rest of the group.

Thursday would be an easier workout since the last race of the sprint series would be that Saturday. We started off with a short run out and back to the mile marker in the trails. Then we rode bikes, green trail and back, then the TT course. About an hour of goodness. Some people went on to do another run, but I decided to stay, trying to mix up the intensities of my workouts. Since Tue was a hard one, Wed had to be an easy one. Wednesday and Friday I swam during lunch, doing 200m intervals.

Saturday, I had planned a treat of an urban ride, going to work and back. Would have been about 40-50 miles. But, as I rode to *$ to get a coffee and say hi to Mo, the clouds started to roll in. According to the radar the cells were heading in a westerly direction, so I was hoping it would stay south of town. I waited it out at *$, but it would not go my way. It started to pour like nuts. There was no way I was gonna be on the roads with that poor visibility and risk some idiot turning into me. So after a bit longer, I decided to just go over to the fruit loop and ride for about 30miles. It was still coming down, but I didn't mind it because it had a cooling effect--temps were only in the upper 70s. Only. For most of the ride I was the only one riding. Then the Red Bull car pulled up--apparently they were looking for stalwart people who braved the nasty weather. I stopped and picked me up a drink and continued on. It was one of my better, fun rides--no people to swerve around and worry about. Averaged about 22-23mph.

Sunday was paddling with one of my teammates for No Sweat, Jackie. Monty and Randy would tag along. We went down to Clear Lake and paddled up Armand Bayou. It was a really nice paddle and we saw quite a bit of people paddling. It was another hot day. Once we got up the bayou, it was a bit shaded, but as we headed back it was heating up again and we didn't have any cover. Regardless, it was a good 11-12mi paddle. I still have to figure out something for my seat as my lower back started getting irritated again towards the end. Plus, I need to get padding for underneath my heels. Much to do this week before the race...not to mention moving! Fun.

That's it. I'm done. Training for me will most likely be disrupted due to the move, but that is fine since I should be tapering for the 24hr race this weekend anyway. Temps are forecasted to push near or at 100...looks like we'll be going snails pace...

Can

A glimpse of the remarkable father-son bond of Dick and Rick Hoyt, and their inspirational journey together in a triathlon and life itself. Music: "I Can Only Imagine" by Mercy Me Video produced by unknown person(s); passed on by Tom C.

That's an IRONMAN. Some people don't suck at all...they shine.

People Really Do Suck

That references a quote from Mo's blog. As if not enough things were going on this weekend with our impending move to the Heights, along with Mo pouring some scalding 180deg temp milk on her feet, a drug dealer or some other bastard decided to steal her car leaving us with one less option for transportation. I have been told that there is a huge backlog of reported stolen cars, so I am skeptical about it actually being found, but of course Mo stays optimistic. At least one of us has too I guess.

Anyway, it was another good week of adventure race training. Thursday we kept it short and painful. We went over to the jogging loop and proceeded to do half-mile intervals, with the objective of trying to keep the same pace throughout the workout. I was able to do it and even got a PR in the process, beating my last time by about 2 seconds. Then we finished the interval with one tempo mile run. I barely missed six mins, right behind Tom, but it still felt good--I was able to keep my speed steady throughout the workout. Then we moved on to the dreaded lunges (my legs are still sore!) then a little fun set of sprints. I haven't gone on a full-on sprint session in a while, so that felt good, sort of. At the end, we had a grand sprintoff between all the fast people in the group. Thankfully I won...it was all spawned by this newer guy Chris who edged Rick out on one of the sprints. Hilarious! Anyway, it was a good workout.

Saturday morning I went on my ritualistic morning ride through town. I started from home, going Kansas-Cohn-catwalk-Nolda-Inker-TC Jester-Washington-Ashbury-Memorial, to Starbucks to say hi to Mo. She wasn't up front, so that was a bit wierd. Mike rushed back to tell her I was here, but then she didn't come out right away. Then Mike told me that she had burned herself with the hot milk. It didn't look nice at all. But she was being a trooper. I sat with her in the back for a short while, then she decided to head home because it was way too painful for her to walk around and do her job. After escorting her to the car, I continued on my bike ride. Memorial-Shepherd-Kirby-Lazy Lane-Inwood-Willowick-Inverness-West-Willowick-Ella Lee-Bellmeade-Avalon-Kirby-Shepherd-11th-Heights-20th-Calvacade-Fulton-Burnett-Elysian-Providence-Main-Walton-Melwood-Moss-Key-Reagan-Pecore-11th-TC Jester-Petty-Radcliffe-Kansas.

Sunday, I planned to go to Rick's Lakehouse for some paddle practice, that is, after I had to take Mo to work after finding out that morning that her car was stolen. Nice. That same night some ass got locked out of one of the townhouses and was raisin hell trying to wake up the guy who had apparently passed out inside. It went on for hours and it was so loud that it sounded like he was pounding on our doors! Finally, when he started honking his horn, I had to go out and say, "Can you PLEASE chill with the horn?!?" I'm sure he went to some bar or something, came home late, found himself locked out, and viola! Unbelieveable--no sleeping in for Kenny this morning...I had to get to Rick's lakehouse by 9am anyway, but it would have been nice to have at least a couple more hours of sleep. What a weekend.

I was over at Starbucks consoling Mo when I finally had to leave. Thinking I had to be there on time or meet the wrath of Rick, I sped over there at probably 80-90+...leaving sometime after 8am, I made it there by 9--I think that's a record for me! So when I get there, I realize I'm the first one there. WTF?! That gave me time to talk to Rick about recent events and how the world is going to shiznit. People started to trickle in, but a lot less people than I expected. Apparently some people most likely partied it up (without inviting me!!) and were hung-over. Even RANDY was a no-show: Rick told me he was gonna make the trip up to put his new Esperanto in the water! Oh well, it ended up being Eric and Janet, Hyper-Turtles, Michelle, Maurice, Rick and Lori, and one other new guy. As promised, Eric and Janet brought up Bruno, Yoda, and Luke, their dogs. Fancy didn't take too much fancy to this and almost ate Luke! But everything calmed down once everyone was retired to their corners.



We started with a paddle...everyone but me paddled sevys since they were practicing for the upcoming sprint at Muleshoe. I wasn't getting in one of those rubber duckies unless I really had to, so I just paddled the solo Otter. After a few minutes of sevy pointers, I did my own down and back paddle in the lake. Before that though, Yoda, unable to take it anymore, decided to jump in the lake and swim after Eric and Janet who were already down the lake quite a bit! So I had to play rescue boat and scoop up Yoda. It was so funny--that would have made a great pic! After that, we had trouble hitting critical mass on doing anything else, so everyone pretty much went home afterwards. I had to go anyway and pick up Mo. As a substitute I went to Memorial later that day and did a brick. I first ran the picnic loop to calibrate my foot pod, then rode the trails for about an hour and then ran the trails for another 45min or so. It was a good workout. I brought the helmet cam with me, and I even posted the video on YouTube. Is bad filming, but I'm just starting. Stay tuned for better footage.

That's pretty much it...except I wanted to end it with this photo from Lake Whitney--now that's camping Texas style!! Hilarious! I'm guessing its not an ultralight setup...Results are also up for the same race on Rattlesnake's page.

Global Warming and Gorrilas Getting My Goat

So last week started off so nicely. HART training was good, challenging. Tuesday we ran the River Oaks route for about 9mi on a very hot and humid day, which is everyday. I felt good for the first half, but the heat was just making it tough for the rest of the run. I kept with Tom for most of it, but as he accelerated down the final stretch from 610 on Memorial (as I expeceted), he pulled away. Still, it was a good workout. Wednesday I swam for the first time in several months and it was actually a better outing than I can remember...I just decided to go and swim, breathing every-other stroke, and see how far I could go continuously and I was able to go a lot farther than I thought I could! There might be hope for me yet doing a triathlon in the near future! Of course it would have to be a short (<=300m) pool swim. :) Thursday was HART again, and Rick concentrated on training for Jack Brooks. It was easy, compared to Tuesday's training, and we were done within an hour or so.

Friday was more stressful than I thought it would be. Mo told me that I HAD to stay in the office for the whole day, so I knew something bad was going to happen. Late in the morning, I get a call from the front desk telling me that I have a delivery waiting for me. I reluctantly shuffled downstairs and peered around the wall. Thankfully, all it was were flowers and a tree for my office--it was our 6-month monthiversary. So I went back upstairs and admired my new foliage...then Mo calls and informs me that there is still yet another package to be delivered within the hour or so. Now I'm freaking out...should I just lock my door?!?! I walk by a cp-worker's office and see Elwood along with a few others sitting there...why didn't I pick up that signal--obviously they knew something was about to go down! But, no, I stupidly sat there in my office and waited...then I hear a clamoring "is this Kenny's office?!?!, no this is Chad's office...where's Kenny's office?!?!..." OMG. I literally was thinking, "I'm gonna kill Mo!" As I look up, there's a woman in a gorilla suit right in my face, dragging me out into the hall. It was too late.

So me being such a good sport, I try to go along with it all. I was so embarrased that was the first time in modern history that someone has seen me blush. It was a bit warm too, so I was slightly sweating at the brow. Can you say, uncomfortable. Yes, thanks Mo, all that work to establish respect at workplace was dashed all in 10mins of ridiculousness. Finally, she let me go and I was left feeling used and abused--of course almost everyone at the company was there in the hallway taking pictures and recording video...horrible. It was one of those moments where I just had to say, "I can't do anything about it..." just like if you were about to get mauled by a grizzly bear. After a few gorilla jokes from the peanut gallery I slunk my way back into my office and Mo tried to make a peace offering of lunch (yes, I even couldn't leave to eat!). Anyway, so maybe I need to increase the number of things I regret to 2...

Saturday morning I did something possibly stupid. I decided to do one of my hydration protocol tests, instead this time, not drink any fluids at all during the test. So for about an hour I didn't drink anything while at about 85-90%max HR. Oddly enough I felt better than I did before. I weighed myself before and after and I had lost over 1.5lbs in 30mins...which matches with my sweat test in Austin a few months back. Okay, so the stupid part was that I was supposed to have a long training day the next day with my No Sweat team. We headed up to Rick's lakehouse on Sunday and the original plan was to do a 10k run, 26.5mi bike, 4hr paddle, 10k run, and 26.5mi bike. But the heat caused us to cut it down a bit. Damn global warming...its ruining my AR career! I'm heading back north, I swear...

Yesterday was another tough training day at HART. We headed over to Sabine for some hill training on both foot and bike. It was rough again, but good. I actually felt great--on the bike I felt like I could churn forever up the hills. I'm just so much more at home on the bike. Hit the pool again yesterday and again did much better than usual...even better than last week! Ironman here I come! Yah, right!

That's pretty much it. Sorry, not that many photos, but I figured one of the gorilla would make up for anything...revenge will be sweet...