Saturday: Travel Day 2

I arrived at my brother Rob's house last night at 11:00 pm, as planned. We went for a 2hour run this morning, as we previously discussed, using a 3/1 run walk method. The farthest my brother had run to date was a 1/2 marathon last year and now he is signed up for a full on July 27th. We had all sorts of stuff to talk about; nutrition, training method, clothes! Actually, 2 of my brothers and 2 of my sisters are signed up for the event and the 5 of us are going to run it together (between 5 & 6 hours?). You know what they say, "The family that runs together, gets blisters at the same time too!"

We ran 12 miles in just over 2 hours and he didn't feel completely dead, so I was optimistic that perhaps someday he may like running. On the run I noticed my heart rate was reading higher than I expected, my brother attributed it to the higher elevation in Utah than Spokane. I was able to try the EFS electrolyte and unexpectedly it had real tart kick to it? I opted not to take Salt Stick capsules on this run and test if the EFS electrolyte was enough? It seemed like it worked. Rob ran with PowerAid and my persistent coaxing to try EFS didn't persuade him.

I told my brother my goal was to eat a chicken a day on this trip as my meal nutrition, the rotisserie kind at Costco-Safeway-Walmart-wherever. It felt like it was working at home and it's easy to find on the road. When I eat one, I alsways feel full and it keeps me from snacking on things I shouldn't. Instead I can easily snack on fruits and veggies. No more french fry cravings!

On our way to get chicken, we went to local sporting stores to find him a Gymboss (the interval timer used on run/walk method) but after 3 stores (including a specialty running store where the owner hadn't even heard of run/walk method) we decided to order one over the Internet. The trip wasn't a total loss because we found some great deals at TJ Max, including matching shirts for the marathon in July.

Eventually I was back on the road heading to Cheyenne, WY on I80 and then South through Denver to New Mexico on I25. As I drove over the Mountain passes and read the signs (7000 feet elevation, 8300 feet elevation) I was tempted to get out and to a high altitude training run, but I also wanted to arrive at the race start on time so I kept driving. Tonight was St. Paddy's eve and anyone who know how I like to dance should know how difficult it was not to stop in Denver and find some wild St Paddy' party in a club! Oh well! Just keep driving....

Friday: Travel Day 1

I got a later start than anticipated but not to worry, I have 3 days and 24 hours of driving.  This first leg, Spokane to Salt Lake City, is one I travel 2-3 times a year with the family so what can be said about the trip? The only difference is that this time I constantly reviewed my racing strategy.  Should I start out easy and build, or start out well, and wind it down as I go? Options, options, options and oodles of time to consider the possibilities.

One options is:
Day 1: 130 heart rate, 4/1 walk/run
Day 2: 140 heart rate, 4/1 walk/run
Day 3: 150 heart rate, 4/1 walk/run
Day 4: 130-140 heart rate, run straight through
Day 5: 140+ heart rate, run straight through

With this strategy, it will be hard to predict the finish times because I will need to set my pace based on my heart rate.  The reason I opted for this was to use these races as practice endurance training for nutrition. I acquired EFS electrolyte powder (this is new to me), and I still haven't perfected the formula for the EFS gel. My goals for this event are as follows:
1st: knock out 5 states on my 50 states list (I already have 9 states now) so I really just have to finish
2nd: practice endurance nutrition
3rd: it's just great endurance training anyway!
4th: I hope there is more sunshine down here in the South.
5th: Practice holding back my ego (this will be hard, so it's a good thing it's ranked low as a goal)

this is a test

Be Prepared

With five kids and a full time job and training for Ironman Couer D'Alene, getting any lead time for prep is sometimes a problem.  In fact David's wife Nicki is writing this post while David (who is usually very organized) finishes packing and preparing for his trip.

What trip? Well since this is a new blog (welcome) I'll introduce David: He is a an ultrarunner and triathlete who lives in the Northwest.  He has five kiddos ages 7-17 and he works as an administrator in a medium sized city police department.  Over the next week and a half he will travel south to do five marathons in five days in five different states.  Its called the dust bowl series (http://mainlymarathons.com/dust_bowl_series). Yes he is a Marathon Maniac (http://www.marathonmaniacs.com/). 

Back to the trip preparations: Food is one of the biggest challenges since David avoids gluten and dairy and spending any more money than he absolutely has to.  We didn't get the rice and quinoa cooked and cooled like we had planned so now he hopes do do that in Utah tomorrow when he stops at his parents house to go for a run with his brother.  And some laundry, appearently our almost 16 year old son wore several of his pairs of jeans and left them in a heap on the his bathroom floor leaving David with no clean pants to take.  This could be partly my fault but since I am training for Ironman and work full time as well, all capable persons in this house need to do their own laundry.

Looks like he has his clothes (including the dirty pants), sleeping bag, pillow, towels, giant container of earplugs (for sleeping), race nutrition, snacks, 4 pairs of running shoes, massage tools, water bottles, books..... and a bunch more stuff ready to load up.

His plan is to do these races at a slow easy pace keeping his heart rate below 130.  I am concerned he will hurt himself and mess up his Ironman training but  he will probably be fine.  I think.