3 down, 2 to go

Just finished the third week (of 5!) in my ironman training plan. I am not sure if it was the month off I took in April, or having two good weeks under me, or what, but I was killing my workouts this week. I got about 200 bike miles in, and did 13 hours in 5 days. I was wishing the Broad Street run was this weekend, because I've come a long ways in the past three weeks.

I also took Sunday totally off, which was really nice. It may sound corny, but ever since my neck tumor scare, I decided I wanted to try to make my trianing invisible to Becca and Elena, and shift my off day from Monday to Sunday. To make the workouts disappear, I started doing them between 5AM and when I need to be to work. I have never been much of a morning person, but I am getting used to it. And by moving the off day, I could have a weekend day of doing nothing but hanging out, even in the biggest weeks of training. It was great.

In other news, I joined Twitter. On the right hand side of the blog at the top, there'll be my Twitter updates. Twitter is my new favorite thing on the internet, since the Giro is going on now and Lnace and Levi basically make posts about the race every 5 minutes. And I figure this way anybody that stops by the blog can see what I'm up to even when I'm not blogging.

5 Week Ironman Training Plan

Ok, thanks everybody for all the encouragement. All the doctors came back with their thumbs up too. So, I am going to give IMCDA a go. After the Broad Street run there were exactly 7 weeks until the race. With a 2 week taper, this means 5 weeks of hard training are available. Thus, the blog title. It reminds me of the "13 weeks to a sub-13 hour ironman" training plan Bec and I found before our first one. Only this time I'm pushing both ends of the equation as its 5 weeks and most likely in the 10:15 to 10:30 range. If I was in top form, I'm pretty sure a sub 10 would be possible, but given everything going on this year, I'll be happy as heck with just finishing.

My plan is to work on ramping volume and getting in long stuff. Broad Street taught me I am still quick, but I think the glaring lack of long workouts needs to be addressed. All through April I managed a pathetic 2-4 hours a week. February and March I was sitting at 8-9hrs/wk. Last week I got 10hrs, which I felt was a nice intro to big training. And this week I am getting good workouts in and should hit 12-14hrs. I ran to work the LONG way yesterday, 16mi on the way to work, and 4 on the way home. Today I biked in, Monday I swam. So long as I can keep doing something each AM I should get good volume. I'll hold in the 12-14hr range for another 3 weeks, then its taper time.

After CDA I think I am going to take some time off. July is my surgery, and I want to fully recover from that before doing any training. So, I might skip the FirmMan and just see how things go for the rest of the summer.

That's the plan!

IMCDA...what to do?

I'm seeking the opinions of my blog followers about what I should do about IM CDA. I've got to be honest, I am leaning hard on the side of racing right now. But, I am always open to hearing other opinions. Here are both sides of the argument:

Why I should race:
1. My thyroid tumor presents no medical danger to me at the moment. It's not like the tumor will explode if my heart rate hits 180bpm or anything, so training and racing are inconsequential to the course of the thyroid disorder.
2. IMCDA is all paid for, with the exception of bike shipping. All race registrations, flights and lodgings have been arranged. So, I am absolutely going, it's just a question of racing.
3. I can't think of a better way to celebrate the good biopsy news than racing in Idaho.
4. I am in decent shape, certainly good enough to finish the race in a respectable time.
5. I have 5 more weeks to train my butt off to get the rest of the way there.

Why I shouldn't race:
1. By waiting, I will be putting off surgery for another 7+ weeks.
2. I will need all my strength at 100% for the upcoming surgery. I am trying to schedule the surgery for 2-3 weeks post race. I am usually totally back to normal 2 weeks out.
3. I have not had the proper training time, due to lots of illness and the neck thing this spring, to prepare myself to toe the start line in PR condition.*

* I should say that some may view this as an obvious con, I do not. I've met some guys who can do a 4:30 half and won't even try an Ironman for fear they'll finish in the 12+ hour range. I am not afraid of doing this race in an atypical time...even if I am dragging myself home at 16:59, I will be immensely happy.

I've also assembled a panel of 4 experts to give their opinions. All 4 are MDs, and three of the four are athletes. So far I have heard from 3 of the four, and they all say go for it. One bit of advice was to wait a good while after the race for surgery, just to alleviate con #2 above.

So, I am soliciting opinions from the blog-o-sphere. And to my mom, please don't leave like 10 anonymous comments saying not to do it!!

In other news, its been raining like crazy in southeast PA since last weekend. This put a damper on my plans to bike to work this week, but I did run a couple times. This morning I went the "long way" along the rivers to work (7.5mi), only to find that my trails were basically flooded out. Check out these pictures.

The Perkiomen Creek raging at about 20mph this morning

Broad Street 10 Miler 2009 - Race Report

Official Results:
1:01:52 (6:11/mile)
226th out of 23,093
37th out of 1927 in M30-34

It's been a spotty training month to say the least, so I had no idea what was in the tank for Sunday at Broad St. I had made some noise back in January about going under an hour in this race, but that was before I got my neck lump and blew the month of April training-wise worrying about it (or rather, having psychosomatic symptoms of thyroid cancer). So, taking into account the lack of training, I backed my goal off to something in the 60-62 minute range.

This race is a bit of a logistics issue, being point to point, but more so due to the fact that nearly 27,000 people entered the race. Packet pickup was a mad house. I highly recommend coughing up the extra dough to get your packet mailed to you...unless you enjoy long lines to buy overpriced goo, endless demonstrations of how to use "the stick," and other fun race expo types of things. I was even so impatient that while waiting for my T shirt, I saw that it was cotton and bailed. Adding to the logistical issues was also was riding the train race morning from the sports complex to the start line, and standing in the rain for two hours with a 15 month old. Not so cool either. But the minute the gun fired the race got 100% better for me.

Most of team Trevena before the race

I started in the first corral behind the elite runners, but I stayed towards the middle with Becca and another friend of mine, the now infamous Alastair (whose dual with Becca rivals Salazar and Beardsly, well not really, but if Becca had a good hip it might have been a close race). This was a tactical error as I ended up playing frogger for 3 miles to get some open running room. No big deal though, it probably helped to slow me down so I could save some for the end.

No real tale to tell about this race. I tried to run 6 flat, and did so pretty well. I hit the 5 mile mark at 30:13. I knew going 59 and change was out of the question since the first half of this race is downhill and the second half is flat...no way I could go 29:45 on flat terrain over the second 5. The weather was great, 55 and raining. Everything was rolling along great until about 7.5 when I got hit with bad abdominal cramps. These slowed me to a couple 6:45s, then by 9 the cramps were gone and I was back at it again and finished with a 6:11.


There were a couple moments during this race when I was celebrating the fact that I could be out there enjoying myself...well, as much enjoyment as you can have in oxygen debt - especially as we passed by Center City, and I saw some of the roads we drove on our way to Jefferson for my biopsy two weeks ago. I kept thinking about how lucky I was the past week. It was only Monday I found out the biopsy was negative for cancer, and Sunday I raced.

Elena looking for Mom and Dad to finish.

In the team division, we got 4th out of 40-something in the corporate co-ed division behind 6-Abc, Vanguard, and our rival biotech and defending champions Centacor. Not bad for a 20 person company. We decided to make sure our next couple hires are Kenyan.

After the race it pretty much sucked as the sky opened up and dumped harder rain on us. We got really cold and headed for home. Elena had a blast and the highlight of her day was eating two "TastyCakes", a Philadelphia delicacy. She was a rock star, no nap from 4:30am until we were walking towards the car around 11:30.

In the end, I am really pleased with my performance. I ran a PR over 10 miles, even on spotty training. And my top 300 finish might earn me a spot in the elite corral for next year, if I chose to do this race again, which is probably unlikely unless Trevena throws another team in. Now...what to do about IM CDA??? A blog is forthcoming...