Countdown to Ironman Florida!

In less than a week,I will be standing knee deep in the Gulf of Mexico preparing to begin the Ironman. Everytime I think of it, my heart skips a beat. I am both excited and scared. Since I have time on my hands, now that my training schedule has eased up, I am naturally reflecting on what it took to get to this point: the starting line of the most challenging endeavors of my life. Here are the stats:

Started training November 2008, one year ago
6 100+ bike rides, longest ride being 120 miles where we were 'out there' for 9:15, 8:15 seat time and including STP (2 100 rides back to back)
2.5 mile swim across Lake Washington, one of many open water swims and one IM pool swim.. about 300 lengths of the pool!
Starting in March after my foot injury with a walk 1 min/run 1 min and being out of breath for the 1 min run part, building to a long run of 17 miles (walk/run)
One long 'brick' workout of 75 miles bike followed by 9 mile run.

Cost: $ 3,000 for Cervelo (tri bike) worth every penny :-)
1,500 for power meter (gotta have all the tech stuff, right?)
350 new bike shoes and clipless pedals
50 to ship the bike
75 for tri outfit
200 for new wetsuit (lost weight, old one too big)
125/mo for coaching for the last 3 years
550 Entry fee, non refundable
200 for the Ironman clothes and souveniers I will no doubt buy

Let's see, did I forget anything? I didn't include air fare, food or lodging. So, as you can see, triathlon is not for the weak of heart or pocketbook!



We've been here in Panama City for a couple of days now. It's beautiful here. We are so lucky to be able to rent our friend's 3 bed/3 bath condo right on the beach with a view to die for (as you can see by the picture) Would you beleive they live in Seattle and we just happened to mention the IM. You can imagine our surprise when we found out they own a vacation home less than 1/2 mile away from race headquarters.
Several triathletes will be joining us this week. David and Amy live in Woodinville. How we met them is a story in itself. Last year, Mike and I went to a BBQ where we only knew the host and hostess. David and Amy arrived after we did, and noticed the USAT sticker on my car. Amy walked in and immediately announced,
"OK, who's the triathlete?" I raised my hand in astonishment because it's uncommon to meet triathletes. It turned out she and David were training to do the IM in Florida, the very IM I was contemplating signing up for! As it turned out, they were gracious enough to let me stay with them last year when I registered for this year. We became instant friends. Amy is a strong cyclist, and helped whip me into shape.
Another story: Lenore. When I lived in Florida 20 years ago, Lenore was my running buddy. We would train for marathons together, running every Sunday for a minimum of 13-15 miles. Again, as luck would have it, I was swimming in the St Pete pool several years ago and a woman walked in and got in the lane right next to mine. I glanced over to say hi, and low and behold, it was Lenore!! I asked why she was swimming, and she said it was because she was training for the Coeur d'Alene Ironman!! Amazing, the world is so small, as they say.
To round out the group this year: Mike and Lisa are coming from Orlando. I met them about two years ago at a week long tri camp. When I ran into them in St Pete at the St Anthony's Triathlon, I told them I was signed up for IM Florida. They immediately said they would come to support our group. Celeste (with her friend Kim) will also be staying with us. She is a friend of Lenore's, driving down from Atlanta. Then there's Jose and his wife, David's training buddy, will also be participating. Confused yet? What it boils down to is 5 triathletes supported by 6 volunteers! What do they do exactly? Cheer us on, encourage us, help carry our gear, get our bikes when we finish, lead us back to our condo when we are too tired to think!

Kitchen Reveal

Well, we are finally done with our kitchen. How do you like it? We are very happy with the final results. The big projects were completed within a two week period, but the small finishing touches seemed to take forever. Mike worked everyday to get it done.
We are now looking for a small table for two for our family room alcove. It's so much more intimate this way. We found we want to eat at the table rather in front of the tv as we used to. An excellent change indeed!
We also changed the furniture around and brought up the flat screen tv from the downstairs bedroom...soooo much better this way. I have to give Mike all the credit. He had it all in his mind's eye and I decided since he was getting such good results I had better just step aside and watch it happen.


I will take credit, however, for my superior shopping skills..I found the great pictures to go on the walls in the kitchen. We had a bit of a discussion about the accent color, but I think we picked well going with the yellow.

I suppose I should update the progress of my training. I wonder if it isn't just a bit boring for all of you, but here it goes: I completed the previously mentioned longest bike ride. It turned out to be 120 miles because Amy and I got a bit lost. 3 miles doesn't sound like much more, but when you've been out there on your bike for over 9 hours..well, you get the picture! My longest run to date is a 17 mile run/walk that took 3:30. I was so so sore for several days afterwards. It's very slow, but that's all I need to do IM day...keep moving forward for 17 hours! My last long training day will be this weekend. It will be what they call in tri-terms, "a brick" in which you do two disciplines back to back. I'll be doing a bike of about 80 miles followed by a 10-12 mile run. After this weekend, I'll be tapering, meaning I won't do much more than an hour of training a day. It will give my poor aching body a chance to rest up for the big day!