Down Time

It feels good to have some down time every once in a while, but I am starting to feel guilty about having no workout results. Looks like my goals for volume for the year will only be met in 1 of the 3 sports, but at this point who cares. Not too motivated to ride 100 miles a week for the next 4 weeks just so I can say I went 3,000 miles on the year. If it happens, then great, but I seriously doubt it. My birthday was Wednesday, Thanksgiving was Thursday and then I went fishing for 2 days with my daughter, dad and brother. So needless to say, I had zero miles of running and biking last week. One swim held down the training record for the entire week.

After thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, we went fishing at the camp in Venice. Emi, my dad, my brother and I headed down around 2:30 pm. Got to the landing around 5:15, met dad's buddy Tony in his boat and headed 16 miles down the Mississippi River to the camp just after dark around 6 pm. Got unloaded and ate some more turkey for dinner. Hit the hay around 9 pm.

Up early and down to the end of the Mississippi River at South Pass on a cool crisp morning. Got set up and the first 45 minutes produced 29 trout.

Emi and me with a nice trout to start the morning.

After the first 29, they just shut off. From 8:30 until about 12, we only put about 10 more in the boat. we then took a break and made some sandwiches for lunch. Emi had been eating all morning, but she put away her sandwich in a matter of minutes. We moved down the beach a little bit and proceeded to find the bite again. We put another 25 in the boat in about 30 minutes. Emi even caught 8-10 trout by herself. Paw paw would cast it way out there, she would set the hook, crank them in and paw paw would net them. It was awesome watching her have so much fun. She even got to reel in a redfish in the midst of all that.

Emi and her redfish.

Moved again and finished off our 3 man (2 men and a little girl) limit of 75 trout. Final count for the day was 75 speckled trout, 7 white trout and 2 redfish. My brother and Tony in his boat added 40 specs and 9 redfish. Total for the day was 133 fish. That translates to a ton of fun.

Our box.

Their box.

Got back to the camp and got cleaned up. Built Emi a fire in the yard and started dinner, which was ribeyes. After dinner, we ate some fresh baked chocolate chip cookies from the oven. Hit the sack early at around 8:30. Not a lot to do at the camp after dark. No TV or internet 16 miles down the river. Got up early again Saturday to do it again. Conditions were even better, but it wasn't meant to be. Managed around 30 speckled trout, 5 white trout and 5 redfish. All in all, a great fishing trip. Especially since Emi caught some fish. Can't wait to bring her back again next year. Hopefully, a few times with her and Austin.

Emi driving the boat on the way past the South Pass light tower.

Emi with the biggest trout of the day Saturday that she caught all by herself.

Emi and the birds. Paw Paw let her feed them bread.

Saturday's catch.

Did get in a good 5 mile run today at lunch at an 8:08 pace, which felt suprisingly easy. All may not be lost. Doing the Reindeer Run 5k on Friday. That run today gives me hope that I can at least put down a respectable time. Maybe even a sub 24. We'll see. Won't come anywhere near my PR from last year in this race (21:25).

Pool is Fixed

Finally, the day has come. The Y got their act together and got the pool fixed for good, hopefully. Got up at 5ish and headed to the Y. Only soul there to swim. Air temp was around 45 and water temp was around 82-84. I can't stand it when I get in the pool in the winter and it feels hot. If you don't feel a little chill when you first get in, then it is definitely too warm. Couldn't shed any heat during the swim, so it got hot quick. Put in a medium effort for the 2,000 yards. Workout was the following:

300 warm-up
5x200 on 3:40
4x50 on :55
1x300 on 5:45
300 cool down

Finished somewhere around 38:30, can't remember exactly. Came home and got the kids ready for school after getting the wife a cinnamon dolce latte from FourBucks. If a coffee has three words in the name, then it ain't coffee. Then $3.72 for a "tall" (small in common sense descriptions of size) is freakin' ridiculous.

Had to go to a meeting in St. Francisville, so I got to go play golf at The Bluffs. A couple of weeks ago at a golf tournament up there, I won the grand prize drawing for a six month membership. Today was my first round and the start of the 6 months. It was great. Quiet and relaxing to play by yourself with hardly anyone around. Shot a 99, which isn't bad considering I have only played 3-4 times a year for the last 3 years. I only have time for one hobby and triathlon is it. Was glad to get out and hit the old sticks again though. It is nice to be away from the hustle and bustle for a while. Just me, my thoughts and screaming at myself for all of the bad shots. Hopefully, I can get some of my old stroke back from when I used to play at least once a month before the kids came along. Would like to get back into the high 80's/low 90's on a regular basis. Feels so good when you get in a groove, kind of like when you are swimming or biking and just get that feeling that everything is going right.

No Workout Again

The freakin' YMCA is killing me. The pool that I normally swim in was shut down for like a month because the heaters were broken. So I had to swim at another Y that had an indoor pool, but it was 23.5 yd long. Made it fun calculating splits...Anyway my regular Y finally fixed the heaters last week. I was going to finally go train after my 3 days off from Ironstar. Just called them to make sure the pool was open. "Sorry sir, there was a gas leak and Entergy hasn't made it out to fix it yet. The pool is currently closed." Freakin' Y, that pool is closed more than it is open. I wish Baton Rouge had some public pools like other big cities. No I remember, we screwed that up way back with the whole segregation thing. Bunch of morons.

Day 4 of no training down in the books. 17 more days and this becomes a habit...

Ironstar Half Iron Race Report

Nobody reads this anymore since I haven't posted since the beginning of time, but I am going to try to bring it back. No promises, but we will see.

Once again, I decided to do this late season 1/2 to keep my training going late into the year. It was a good plan if only it had worked. My bike and swim training stayed fairly consistent, but my run training has been down all year including in the run up to the race.
My wife decided to go this year, so that I would have someone to cheer for me this year. Last year I drove up by my lonesome, stayed with a friend, did the race and drove home. Made for a long two days. We stayed at the Ramada Inn in Conroe, which was 30 minutes from the race site. We drove to the race site and picked up my packet and then headed to the hotel to watch the LSU game. So after that disappointment, we headed to dinner at Pandera Bread. Wish we had one in Baton Rouge. Ate a good dinner, got everything ready and hit the pillow early.

Got up just before 5 am, loaded up and headed to the race site. Got there around 6 am, got set-up in transition, hit the port-o-let and it was time to walk to the beach for the start. Got in a little 200 m warm-up after getting the suit on. They had women 30-34 and athena as the first wave, which was kind of different. Men 30-39 and clydes were in the second wave. It was a running beach start. Didn't go too crazy on the run, dove in and started the swim. Got punched and swam into a couple of times at the start as the first part of the swim was in a little marina cove for the resort which was fairly tight for 75 to 80 swimmers. After getting out of the cove, it opened up into the main part of Lake Conroe. There was a light chop that was in our face for the first few hundred meters as we were headed out. Not that big of a deal, but altered my stroke just a little. The swim was point to point and the middle portion was with the chop so stroke got a little better. About midway through, I came upon a big pack (12-15) of ladies from the prior wave. Picked a poor line and it took me a while to get through them. After that, it was clear sailing to the swim exit. Swim took 37:41 which was a little slower than I anticipated, but decent enough and better than last year. Some have said it was long, but who ever knows when it is open water. The wetsuit strippers were very close to the exit, so it was a rush to get the top down and then jump on the ground to have them pull it off.

Transition was in a grass field, so it made the run over easy. However, they had just cut the grass so I got grass all over my feet. Had to wipe some of it off before getting my shoes on so that wasted 15 seconds. I may not swim, bike or run that fast, but I pride myself on transitions. Fairly quick T1 considering the grass.

The bike is fairly hilly. Just about like St. Francisville, but there aren't really any flat portions. It is all up and down, but nothing too big. Plan was to keep the HR in the low to mid 150's for the first 35-40 and then pick it up at the end. Had a tough time on the uphills keeping it that low, but for the most part it stayed low enough. Knew it wouldn't be fast, but wanted to pace myself for the run. Looking back, I should have just freakin' hammered it since I had no run fitness anyway. After mile 40 it was mostly downhill so I was able to let it fly and pick up some time. Dropped my chain about mile 35 at the bottom of a hill and had to grind up. The bike course for the most part is out in the country. The leaves were changing colors and it was a very nice ride. Rode into T2 just a few minutes past were I wanted to be. After a 0:48 T2, at least I'm fast at something, I was out on the run at 3:44. All I had to do was average 10 min miles and I had my sub-6.

Wasn't meant to be. The first 4 miles were fairly flat, with just a few rollers thrown in. It was uphill on the way out, but not that steep. Felt good for the first 5. There was a loop that had to be run twice starting at about mile 4.5. The loop had two fairly steep hills, at least for my flat course running self. The end of the second loop and the first portion of the way back to the finish was between mile 8 and 9. I had held about 10 min miles up until about mile 8 even with walking the aid stations. However, the hills between 8 and 9 killed me. After that, it turned into a death march. Run as much as possible (2-3 min) and then walk for a minute. Wasn't helping. Got to mile 10 and had 29 minutes left to the 6:00 mark. My mind was like, "Dude, you have run 22 minute 5k's, you've got this..." My body had different plans. Couldn't get it in gear. Ran the last 0.5 mile for pride and crossed in just under 6:09. Of course, Guillory and Primeaux had been finished for over an hour, so they were there to wave me in as was my lovely wife. Ended up second clyde, so I got my first and probably last hardware for a while. I don't plan to be over 200 for much longer and those AG guys are just too fast.

Brandon, Mark and the LSU guys all had great races. They all looked like they were flying the whole time and they were. Haven't been running more than 12-15 miles per week all year, and that killed my run. Going to make that a priority in the off season. This race is a great venue and is very low key. The race is at a resort which makes it nice for the spectators. Plenty of restaurants and nice grounds to hang out. My wife says it was the best spectating experience she has had. I don't like huge races, and with only around 300 racers this is perfect. May be back next year, we'll see.