Race for the Roses

Did "Race for the Roses" a half marthon here in Portland, Oregon yesterday with a buddy of mine from work. Went out with the 7 minute pace group and felt pretty good so kicked it up a little about half way through only to max out during mile 12 and slide back a little. Should have waited to mile 10 before hitting high gear! Ended up finishing in 1:31 with an average pace of 6:58. That put me in 79th out of almost 2200 runners and less than 5 minutes from top 10. Considering I'm not training for a running event I felt pretty good about the results and it was a new PR for me.

Some Cats do have 9 lives!

Was a busy day at the station today. Spent the morning pressure washing the fire engine. And then caught a run on the way back to the station. Ended up eating lunch at 2ish. At about 4 I went down to the basement, where we have our gym, and was planning on doing an interval session. 7 minutes into the run, we were tapped out for a house fire. When we got there the whole back of the fire was on fire. We pulled some hose and went to work. When we got inside the house, I heard some crying. Initially, I thought the home owner had shown up and was outside crying or screaming about the house. But as the sound continued I searched through the rubble and smoke (it was bad - when we first went in we couldn't see anything and the smoke was banked down to the floor). Anyways, I found a cat hidden in some debris. The poor thing had one of those loud cries that sounded like a person crying. I took it outside and give it O2 - we have special oxygen mask for animals. How the heck that cat lived through the smoke is beyond me. But so far it looks okay.

Unfortunately, my workout didn't happen as planned but I still logged it as 2:30 hours of exercise since it was a lot of work!

Just Keep Swimming!

This past week has been tough. Last weekend I woke-up to a flooded house. An upstairs bath flooded and water ran through the night doing considerable damage. Two days of clean-up and four rooms being gutted were the end result. Monday morning (two days after the flood)I traveled, by car, five hours to work on my sisters house. I spent three days helping her on a kitchen remodel. Almost put it off with the damage to my house but couldn't do anything at home with all the fans (14) and dehumidifiers running. Finally, returned home Wednesday night and had a good nights sleep. Thursday was my seven year anniversary and my wife and I celebrated by working on house plans. We figured "what the heck - the house is gutted so we might as well remodel!" We did manage a nice dinner later that evening though. Friday was back to work at the firehouse.

My Ironman training was frankly put on hold. I had previously discussed the trip to my sisters with my coach so that was on the books but the rest wasn't. Saturday, I was scheduled for a three hour bike ride which ended up being two and my long run on Sunday didn't happen due to some bad curry!

Life happens and we can't give up when adversity strikes. We must get back on our routines and make new plans. We must "keep swimming" or drown. During my first Ironman in 2005 I was struggling on the run and I came across a painted sign on the ground that said "Just Keep Swimming." It's from the movie Finding Nemo when the fish were swimming down into the deep darkness.

You get the point - Don't give-up! "Just Keep Swimming!"

Longest Brick of 2010 to date

I just finished my longest brick of the year. It was 2:45 bike, 45 min run and a 1:15 swim. Overall felt pretty good. I should have spent a little more time in the aero position but I recently lowered my handlebars and I'm still getting used to the new lower position. The bike ended up being 52 miles, 18.5 mph avg. and 206 watts avg. It was a hilly course. The run felt good on somewhat tired legs I was still knocking out 7:47's. Not race shape but considering I'm six months out it's a start! Later I plan to add a page of goals and benchmarks to my Blog which should add another level of accountability.

Sweating it out in my "Ironman Training Center." I built a room specifically for Ironman Training during the cold wet days of Oregon's winter. Only thing I'm missing is an Endless Pool!