Month: March 2019

This was the last big training week before my race. Now it is time to taper with my race just 3 weeks ago.

The highlight of the week has got to be the 70-mile ride I did. When I saw that on he schedule, I was a bit worried. Up until then, my longest ride was 50 miles and I think that was before I actually started my Ironman 70.3 training.

For this ride, I tried using Gatorlytes which was recommended to me by my coach. I took 3 bottles of Gatorade Endurance and in two of those bottles I added a packet to each. I drank those first. When I first tasted it before heading out, it tasted really salty. During the ride, I could taste the saltiness too, but it wasn’t too bad. In the end, I think it worked great. I didn’t experience any sort of cramping or near cramping. In the past, at around 2 1/2 hrs, I would start to feel as though my quads would cramp. So I think the Gatorlytes was a success and I’ll be sure to use them on my race. I still need to try it on a run. The other recommendation from my coach was HotShot. I ordered a trial pack. They will arrive in time for me to try on my long workouts this coming weekend.

The ride itself went great. I am happy with the pace and how I felt. I covered the first 56 miles in 3:10:05. That is a time with which I would be happy if I can reproduce in the actual event.

I didn’t manage to do my long run as family events and obligations got in the way over the weekend. What I did do was try a short run on Sunday in the mid-afternoon with the sun and temperature at the highest. That was eye-opening. I was huffing and puffing as though I had just started running, my heart was racing and over the course of the short 2 miles I did, I managed to drink as much liquid as I would when I run 10 miles on a cool day. This was not a good omen as I suspect I may have to deal with similar conditions n race day.

This coming week calls for about 10 hrs of training

This must have been my worse week of training, but I’m hoping it was so because I was sick and that it wasn’t for some other reason.

The week didn’t start off too bad. I was tired on Monday, but I was able to do the scheduled bike and swim that day. Tuesday morning called for a 6-mile tempo run, but from the very beginning, I could tell something was not right. As I started running my body felt as though I was in mile 12 of my 12-mile long run. I had to stop running at about 0.75 miles and take a breather. I started back running and not long after I had to stop again. At that point I had a debate with myself as to how to proceed. I could have tried to run the 6 miles easy, but I knew that if I couldn’t even get 1 mile done, that 6 miles would just be a lot of walking. I ended up abandoning the run. I had a runny nose, slight cough and general flu-like symptoms.

My coach suggested I see a doctor to first determine if I had the flu as that would dictate how I proceed. I was able to get an appointment that evening and got tested for the flu. The good news is that I did NOT have the flu and so it was just a cold or some virus. I skipped the swim for that Tuesday evening.

For the next couple days I was able to get through the planned workouts. While still sick, it didn’t impact my workouts.

The next test was my long 12-mile run on Saturday. It started off normal, but after 9 miles things just fell apart. I had to start walking and I ended up running/walking the last 3 miles.

The worse part was after the run though. About 30 mins after getting home, I went to take a shower, While standing in the shower, I started to feel really dizzy and nauseous. I stooped down and felt better, but all of a sudden I opened my eyes and found myself lying on the shower floor. I don’t know if I laid down myself or fell, but I don’t have any bumps or anything that I would expect if I fell.

I got out the shower and went to bed to rest. I couldn’t get warm and any movement would result in some muscle cramping, even muscles I don’t ever get cramps in.

I drank as much as I could and ate some salty Ritz crackers. A few hours later I started to feel ok again, but still weak.

In retrospect, I suspect I got severely dehydrated. Before my run, I joked to my wife that I got up 5 times during the night to pee. I thought I may have drank a lot the night before but I wonder if it was my body getting dehydrated as I was still sick.

During my run, I only ever take one 17oz handheld bottle of water and so that probably also contributed to the dehydration.

To make matters worse, I found out the day before that my race will not have changing rooms and so I decided to do my long run in tri shorts to see what it was like…..I always run in running shorts. The tri shorts gave me a blister or bruise in the seat which I guess is from the chamois or the edge of the chamois.

By the next morning I felt ok and I was able to do the long ride and brick run on Sunday afternoon.

I managed to end the week with just over 11 hrs of training, but having this bad week was a knock on my confidence to do the Ironman 70.3. Luckily I think the worse of my sickness is behind me and my health is returning. I don’t think I’m at 100% percent, but I’l close. I guess it’s good that I got sick now instead of in the days leading up to the actual event

I have one more big training week with 11-12 hrs planned and then it’s on top the taper.