Under 80

Damn, under 80 days now until the big race. It's not even an "A" race - but it's still a major event for me. 1.86 mile swim, 80.6 mile bike and 18.6 mile run. That's a long way. I know all you Ironman out there are thinking, "not quite", and you're right. It's a step. A big step, but a step nonetheless.

80 days seems like a long time, but really, it's only 2 training cycles. That's it. I've got a big 5 week block, an easy week with a century ride at the end of it, a race week, then a 3 week block, with a two week taper (oh, and throw in another race - St. Anthony's - during the taper). The 5-week block will turn into 3 or 4 hard weeks, then the last week will pear down to the last week taper for my first race of the year (yea!).

My weight loss has been disappointing at best so far. More like non-existent. After Gasperilla this Sunday, I need to increase my focus on my diet. I'm easily distracted - I love to eat. I think what I need to start doing is tracking my calories and what I eat - keep a food log. Just like anything else - it's hard to fix if it ain't being measured...

I'm not sure if I've set realistic goals for the 101 yet. Initially, I was planning on swimming in 1:10, biking under 4:00 and running under 3:00. So that's about a 2:06 per 100yd swim pace - reasonable - a 20.2 mph bike - reasonable - and a 9:40/mile run - which is the biggest challenge of them all for me. I've been getting used to a volume of 15 - 20 miles of running a week - nearly double last year's average weekly run volume, and over the next few weeks I'll up that ante to the upper 20's (I've got to push my average run volume to over 20 miles per week - ha!, to do that by week 22 - 8 weeks from now, I'd have to run 29 miles each week...).

It's staying lighter later now - and daylight savings time is only 3 weeks away. That will mean more after-work workouts, and on Feb 25th the pool hours change back to early morning hours. The more convienient it is for me to workout, the more I do it - I'd like to get to where I'm running and swimming in the mornings and then biking on days off work and after work for some short sprint-type stuff.

I hope ya'll had a great Valentine's Day - mine was awesome! Mrs. Bigun made my favorite chicken dish and finished it up with an awesome chocolate cake - way too much food and sweets, but what's done is done ;-). While she was cooking, we watched "The 13th Warrior", again, for the umpteenth time, but still an awesome movie - one of my fav's. We'll be going to see the musical "Wicked" soon - my gift to her - which will be the first time I've been to the theater for anything other than a movie in, like, forever. I just hope they have popcorn.