Eight Days To Go

It is 8 days until my race. I am feeling fantastic. I have not worked in 10 days. My life has become sweet self absorption. My days resemble that of a professional athlete. I wake up whenever I want, have a coffee and a spoonful of peanut butter, then take my kids to school. My wife appreciates this. She is normally the chauffeur. Then I plan my days training on a whim. I have been trying to swim, bike, and run every day.


My race strategy boils down to one concept: economy of motion. No sprinting or violent accelerations / attacks all day. Breathe very easily while swimming. Maintain a constant pace in the water. On the bike, never break 230 watts. Cadence to be 90-100 except during the Beeline descent. Use pedaling muscle memory to “scrape the mud off your shoe”. During the run, no pace less than 8 min/mile. No accelerations whatsoever. HR < 130 at all times. Nutrition plan is more important this year. 2 bottles of iced Ensure tucked into the cages. Peanut butter sandwiches in the bento box. I have developed a taste for GU shots. These will be stylishly taped onto the top tube. My new trisuit has discreet gel pockets. These will be filled to the brim. I do not plan on using special needs bags, those take too much time to access.

I used VRBO to rent a nice house in Scottsdale. I plan to arrive on Thursday and leave the day after the race. Meals will be homemade of course. The night before the race will be a gorge fest with steaks and spaghetti, topped off with an array of chocolate bars. I will visit the expo on Thursday for an early package pickup. I think I will forego the athlete briefing, it was not too informative last year. On Saturday I bring my bike and transition bags for drop off. I shudder at the thought of leaving my bike overnight, but there is no other option. Time at the expo will be at an absolute minimum. Hanging around the expo in the hot sun can be exhausting. Friday I might go for a short ride up Beeline and run a few miles of the marathon course. The rest of the time I will have my feet up reading a book.

My running is ready. I have tried to use variety in my runs: some slow trail runs, faster track workouts, easy laps around Splash before my swim. Last week I ran a marathon all by myself on the Santa Ana River Trail. My time was 3:45. My pace was in the eights the whole way, with heart rates in the 120-130s. My knees hurt a bit during the first few miles. Curiously, the pain disappears after that. I researched this, it is a typical phenomenon with patellofemoral syndrome. I am stretching my knees several times a day. I place my knees on the floor and lean my body back. I try and hold it for several minutes. This gives a good stretch of the tendons around the patella. My running plan for the Ironman is to start well below my means. I hope to hold back at around ten minute pace for a few miles. At that point I do an evaluation of the different organ systems. Are my kidneys working enough to piss my pants? Do I feel like crapping myself? Am I getting angina? Does the brain know what planet I am on? If all systems are working, I hope to slowly turn the screws. 8:45 pace could be obtainable. I plan on being mute during the entire run. We must resist all temptation to socialize with other runners and spectators. I find the spectators to be high maintenance. They are very enthusiastic. They run next to you and cheer. They ring cowbells. They expect feedback from you. They attempt highfives. This takes far too much energy. We need to be a twinge asocial. I must have heard “good job” several hundred times last year. If you watch professional cyclists, they just ignore all the spectators. It is an important part of racing. Put on large sunglasses, and sport a rictus visage. Imitate the Mona Lisa. That is it. I apologize in advance to the spectators. The aid stations are a dilemma. Do I stop and guzzle several shot glass size cups of water? Should I just charge through? I have run several marathons without eating or drinking at all.

The cycling and swim training has been backloaded. My cycling has been behind my running. This is by design. I have been riding rollers almost daily for several years. Long rides, however, have been scarce. Even though the race is close. I plan on doing one more ride of 70+ miles on my TT bike. In my experience, no systematic taper is required for cycling and swimming. The main obstacle will be remaining comfortable in the aero position. The winds in Tempe can be ferocious. Maintaining the aerobar posture is helpful. My bike is not completely dialed. I plan on having Mark from Velofix go over it before the race. My chain is floppy and the tires are almost bald. I have not changed my tubes or tires since last years race! One thing I dislike about my TT bike is it only accommodates 23 mm tires. I really prefer 25 mm tires. If I use 25s, they rub on the frame.These tight clearances are ostensibly for aerodynamics, but really just a marketing gimmick. I need to remember to charge the Etap batteries and replace the coin cell in the junction box. Having electronics strand me in one gear would be embarrassing. I plan on using socks but no gloves. I didn’t bother with an aero helmet. Those look a little goofy and hot. My POC helmet has better ventilation.

Swimming of course is a mere formality. I have been swimming several times a week. I plan on swimming daily for the next week, including the day before the race. Swimming form is gained and lost very quickly. I am glad I postponed swimming until 3 weeks before the event. The only question remains: wetsuit or not? I would like to lead the old school charge of swimming without a wetsuit. However, I am leaning toward using a wetsuit, mainly due to my lack of body fat. I have minimal insulation at the moment.

My fundamentalist dieting dedication has been successful. My weight is now a staggering 162 lbs, with BMI of 20. I cannot recall being this lean since adolescence. The veins on my legs have veins. My arms have visible fasciculations of sinew.. My whole head has shrunk, my cheekbones could cut paper. My family tells me I look like I just left Auschwitz. One odd thing with the weight loss is I have developed a right foot drop. I trip on things sometimes and have anesthesia on the dorsum of the right foot. You could hit my foot with a sledgehammer and I would barely feel it. Mr Deeds. I know the cause. It is a compression peroneal neuropathy. The fat insulating the peroneal nerve has disappeared. Over the last few days it has gotten a little more tolerable. My rings keep falling off because my fingers are like chopsticks. I am continuing to fast through the day, even while training. I am mimicking ramadan. I eat one meal a day, dinner. The sensations I get when I eat dinner are incredible. I call it flooding. My good friend Dr. Charles Sohaskey (an accomplished scientist and endurance athlete) has confirmed the biochemical basis for fasting and ketosis. I got a few things wrong in my last blog about the Krebs cycle and pyruvic acid. I am considering buying a scale that measures body fat percentage using electrical impedance. My friend Paul gets DEXA scans periodically to more accurately measure BF percentage. He is even skinnier than I am. I think he is a vegan. Paul is also training for an Ironman in Argentina (?name) in December. His training and diet is even more sophisticated. He has developed into a superior cyclist.

Perhaps I am developing an eating disorder. I am not worried, I know I will fatten up sooner or later. I think I am naturally a thin person. My fatter body has a strange morphology. I did not have any type of visible deposits such as love handles or a protruding belly. The blubber just filled up my body everywhere in a generalized fashion. Liposuction will never be an option.

After the race I will pick up my bike and head straight home. There will no doubt be plenty of leftover food in the fridge. I trust that the Ironman live app will tell me my age group placing. If I am anywhere near the top 10, I will go to the awards ceremony on Monday. This is doubtful. My time would need to be an hour faster than last year (virtually impossible). I always like to obtain my Garmin/Strava data ASAP for a post mortem. One planned indulgence post race: a beer. I have resigned myself to a lifestyle without alcohol. However, I might treat myself to one bottle of beer after this race. My brother in law is a craft beer connoisseur. He will probably donate one. I think I will deserve it after months of intense and exhausting preparation.

To take my mind off of training and dieting, I am doing other things. I am writing more, reading a lot, working on my El Camino, organizing my garage/man cave. I am shopping for cars for my teenage children. I am researching colleges for my son Nathan. Mindless mundane tasks are useful. I also have a new hobby of collecting rings. I wear a ring on each finger except my thumbs. Each ring has its own personal significance. I wear a bling ring with cubic zerconium diamonds, my medical school grad ring, a sapphire birthstone ring, an Illuminati ring (Nathan and I are members), a Norse Valknut ring, a Claddagh ring, and an AA ring. I wanted one of the beautiful Masonic rings. This idea was nixed. I am not a Mason and sporting one of their rings would be offensive to legitimate Masons.

I will be enclosing some photos of my training, specifically my pain/man cave. A picture tells a thousand words.