2008: Year of the Ironman

The holidays are over. The Redskins miraculously made the playoffs and have now been knocked out. There are three main things to report on as the new year begins.

1. Diet: I stuck to my December diet routine and am happy to report that outside of (1) fried shrimp I ate at the office holiday party on December 20, (6) French Fries eaten on December 28 at a University of MD basketball game and (1) cup of hot cocoa drank in a cold rain at FedEx Field during the Redskins dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys on December 30, I hit my goal. It felt so good to eliminate those trigger foods, I have decided to do it again this month and started on January 2. I am enlarging my trigger foods to include pork sausage and pork bacon.

2. Training: I am finished with my heavy weightlifting routine and am starting a more tri specific weightlifting schedule. I definitely packed on some muscle and got up to doing 100 lbs. on the flat dumb-bell bench press. The idea is to start cutting the muscle and making them longer and more "slowtwitch" so when we amp up the training schedule with swim, bike and run that they respond and help improve performance. I intend on being self-coached again this year and I will probably follow the training schedule found here. That schedule will probably kick in around the end of February and in the meantime, I'll lift 3 times a week and get in a couple of runs a week. My target is to get outside on the bike at least once a week for 2 hours. The idea is to simply work on technique and not lose fitness levels.

3. Race Report: I ran in the Al Lewis 10 Mile race yesterday. It was a cold morning. My daughter was taking her Middle School Magnet Tests in the morning so I had to take care of that before the race. I got to the race site at 8:30 and had a half hour before race start. A guy from work met me there as he was running, too. I ate a little Hammer Gel and was sipping on Accelerade prior to 9 am. Finished a whole bottle. I carried a Hammer Gel flask and (2) 7 oz. water bottles with me and was bib number 69. At the start, I was in the front of the line and quickly passed by about 50 runners within the first mile. I did an 8:30 first mile and settled on that pace until the only hill on the run at mile 4.5. I walked the hill and near the crest was passed by about 10 people who were in a pack behind me. I started running again near the turnaround (was at 46:50) and on the way back down the hill passed them all again. I was by myself again until about mile 7 and two people caught up to me. I paced with them and the female dropped her pace while the male picked his up. At about mile 9, I couldn't see him in front of me or her behind me and my form started getting sloppy. But, I dialed in my cadence, did about a 9 minute mile and finished with a time of 1:29:25. It was a couple of minutes off my time in 2007 but ahead of my time from 2006 as I was prepping for Ironman Florida 2006.