B-Fit B-Day B-Don'ts

[Iron Pol]

We've all read various reports on races and other challenges. So I've decided to mix this up a bit. Somewhere near the bottom of this will be the details of my Platinum Challenge. But first, a few "lessons learned" from the experience.

1. Starting the challenge at 5 p.m. after a day of work, and aiming to finish the challenge before 9 a.m. the next day is a bit aggressive. To avoid this, consider taking a day off from work (or using a weekend).

2. December 30th-31st is probably a bad choice of days to accomplish a Platinum Challenge.

3. Losing your keys (including car keys) is not conducive to completing a challenge in a timely manner.

4. Losing your car keys tends to lead to forgetting other things, such as the need to stop for items on the way to swim (in my case, it was ear plugs, forcing me to leave the gym to go get some).

5. Four miles is a long way to swim in one day, no matter how you break it down.

6. If you wait until the last day of the year to complete the challenge, it will snow. A lot. Even if you live in California.

Regardless of the challenges, I did manage to complete the Platinum Challenge. As I was born on Christmas Day, completing the challenge on my birthday was out of the question. My original plan was to complete it on December 26th, and had to move it to the 30th and 31st due to scheduling conflicts. I turned 40, so got to do some serious training.

After work on Tuesday, I headed to the local YMCA and hit the pool. My goal was to complete a minimum of 3300 yards before calling it a day. I managed to do 4000 in about 1 hour 37 minutes. I broke it down as a 2000 yard "warmup," 500 swim, 500 pull bouy, then 2x(250 swim, 250 pull). Rest intervals accounted for about 9 minutes, so I was pretty happy with the time. My swim at Ironman Louisville was just about 90 minutes, so I was pretty close to that pace.

I headed home, spent some time with family, then headed to the basement for some quality time with the trainer. Since I use 15 mph as a basis for biking on the trainer, I needed 2 hours 40 minutes for the 40 miles. The first order of business was to find a movie of about that length. "Gladiator" is 2 hours 35 minutes, so I went with that. I was feeling it after the ride, though I don't know if it was the ride, the earlier swim, or the fact that it was nearly midnight when I finished.

By the time I had everything for the morning put together, it was nearly 12:30 a.m. My daughter let me sleep for about three hours before she woke up and wanted me. She fell asleep, but woke up to my 4:30 alarm. That began the comedy of errors that had me questioning if I would even get to the gym to complete the challenge.

It took a half hour to get her back to sleep. My backup alarm went off at 5 a.m. and I grabbed my gear and headed out the door. I didn't have my keys in my pocket, and headed back to the house. Turns out I didn't have the keys in my house, either. Well, at least not that we've found, yet. Sadly, we believe they were dropped in a parking lot that has been plowed since I was there.

In the end, I dug a spare key out of my wallet and took my car, which has the car seats. Call it an insurance policy to ensure I made it back home in time for my son's doctor appointment.

I spent a lot of time on the drive to the gym thinking about those keys. So much so that it wasn't until I was pulling things out of my bag in the locker room that I remembered I needed ear plugs. Luckily, Wal Mart is always open. Of course, that meant driving there. By the time I got back, I was about an hour past my planned start time.

After completing 4000 yards the night prior, I wasn't really excited to get back in the water. I had another 3000 yards on the schedule, since the "1650 yards to a swimmer's mile" still has me baffled. I opened with a 1500 yard straight swim. After that, I shifted to 500s, with the pull bouy on the second 250 of each set. By the time I hit 2500 yards, using 6600 yards as four miles sounded really good. I called it a day after 2600 yards and hit the showers to get ready for my run.

Given the conditions in this part of Wisconsin, the 10 mile run was completed as 110 laps at the YMCA track. The run was uneventful, even monotonous. Let's face it, doing distance runs on a track is only slightly less mind-numbing than the same run on a treadmill. I even managed to finish just under 8 minute pace.

For those who like the numbers, here they are:

4000 yard swim - 1:37:05
40 mile bike - 2:40:00
2600 yard swim - 1:00:26 (total swim time 2:37:31)
10 mile run - 1:19:03 (like I said, JUST under 8 min pace)

Finally, here are a few pictures. Since cameras are pretty much disallowed at our gym, I've included a few from a different perspective.

This first picture is somewhere around 2 hours into the bike. I took some video, but it is about as boring as riding a bike on a trainer. In honor of Steve in a Speedo, please note the "vein of approval." The headphones allow me to have the volume loud enough to hear over the trainer without waking my kids up (or driving my wife batty).













Here is a picture that might help explain why I had to run at the YMCA. We have had snow at least every other day for the past couple weeks. We are well above the record for snowfall in December.













Finally, here is a picture that may or may not be staged. It's me having breakfast after the final workout. Yes, it's pizza. My daughter took the picture.

[Tri Runner]

I like number 5. Four miles is a long way to swim in one day, no matter how you break it down.

I say that four miles is a long way to swim, Period.

[romanmica]

Wow my friend!

What a great achievement and report!

Thanks for sharing and Happy New Year!