Race day looms August 30!

BEEN BUSY TRAINING!

I haven’t posted a blog entry in a while.  I’ve been busy training!

As of this past Monday August 10, the bulk of the training is over.  We enter the “taper” phase, where the training volume quickly and dramatically ramps down over the next 20 days until race day, on August 30.

I did spend an afternoon tallying up just how far and how much time I spent training so far:

Totals Distances and Time Spent Training (Oct 2008 to Aug 13, 2009)

• Swimming: 140 miles (80 hours)
• Cycling: 2,800 miles (190 hours)
• Running: 740 miles (110 hours)
• Gym Weights: 30 hours
• Preparation, cleaning, icing, extra rest / recovery: 150 to 300 hours (rough guess)
• ESTIMATED TOTAL – 3,700 miles, 600+ hours

These numbers were derived from the training log, which has a fairly good record of what I actually did.  Distances and times are both estimates, since I had to estimate distance from timed workouts (like spinning on a bike trainer), and also I had to estimate times for distance based workouts.

I AM READY

I have been feeling ready for the race for a couple of months now.  In fact, the last few weeks it has been tough fighting the mental burnout.  Many of my teammates have completed their iron-distance events in June or early August already (here are some photos I took at Vineman Full).

Some of the most memorable training days:

• Feb 22 – a rainy Sunday spent swimming, then spinning under pop-up tents in pouring rain and running in the rain at stanford (Go Bears!)
• Mar 14, 15 – 2 day “boot camp” – back to back 8 hour days of swimming, cycling, spinning, running, strength drills… and a lot of whining
• Mar 28 – doing the Wildflower Long Course race course (a tough/hilly half-iron distance triathlon race) as a training day
• May 2 – racing the actual Wildflower Long Course in 7 hours and 34 seconds.  I was shooting for sub-7 but the misplaced mile markers wrecked my pacing!
• May 23 – it was so cold and wet cycling up in the Santa Cruz mountains we went on strike and pissed off the coaches.  I got hot chocolate for frozen teammates :-)
• May 27 – (I think) the first coached hill repeats on the bike.  We had to ride single legged up a hill!
• May 31 – the first long “brick day” – 2 hours bike, 1 hour run, 2 hours bike, 1 hour run non stop
• Jun 6 – day 1 of epic weekend.  Swam 2 miles in a reservoir, then immediately a 98-mile bike ride with over 8,000 feet of climbing.  Exhausted!  Ran 15 miles the next day.
• May 31 – the second long “brick day” – 2 hours bike, 1 hour run, 2 hours bike, 1 hour run non stop
• Jun 27 – solo bike ride for “mental toughness.”  Started the ride at 05:30 from my house to beat the heat.  Repeated the June 6 epic ride plus more.  Kick ass!  See ride record
• Jun 28 – running 15 miles in San Jose during a Heat Warning (worse than a Heat Advisory).  My Gatorade was sour and I bonked badly!
• Jul 5 – 4,000 yard swim and then a 20 mile run, my longest run ever.  It felt great knowing that I can run for 20 straight miles.  See run record
• Jul 19 – racing Vineman 70.3 (half iron distance triathlon) in 6 hours and 15 minutes on no rest in the week leading up to the race.
• Jul 25 – triple brick – 9 hours straight: 2 hours bike, 1 hour run, 2 hours bike, 1 hour run, 2 hours bike, 1 hour run…
• Jul 26 – longest open water swim – raced in Catfish Crawl 2.4 mile swim in 1 hour 38 minutes (same distance as the Ironman swim)
• Aug 2 – had to use some discarded newspaper at a porta potty at mile 2 of the run.  This is after a full day of cheering for teamates at Vineman the day before, got up at 6am to bike for 22 miles then a 15 mile run non stop in PR time at 10:07 per mile pace
• Aug 8 – I felt so horrible on the bike ride, such that I cut it short for the first time all season – only rode 65 of the 80 miles, the last 15 being downhill of all things!  It was demoralizing to have a bad ride like that so close to the end of training.  Turned out, I had a cold – had sore throat the rest of Saturday and Sunday, and am still sniffling as I write this blog entry.  Phew.  Good to know I was just sick.

THE BIGGEST SURPRISE

This past week I weighed in at just over 170 pounds.  See chart.

When I started triathlon training in January of 2008, I weighed over 200 pounds.  In November 2008, I was at about 190.

Being lighter feels great, but it’s not just about the weight.  I did not really limit my calorie intake, but just ate much better.

To my surprise, I discovered eating well actually came naturally with all this training.  I would have imagined that I’d be stuffing myself full with quickly prepared, easily obtained processed foods, fast foods, and restaurant meals after all those intensive training sessions.

But it did not turn out that way.  For one, if I properly hydrated and relenished calories (to sustain a proper workout), I’m not too hungry after most trainings.

Second, mentally I find it very difficult to eat badly after a tough training session.  It’s like spending hours building a beautiful project but then on a whim dumping crap all over the hard work.  Why do all this work only to throw it away?

FUND RAISING IS COMPLETE

During these past 10 months, I’ve also raised the $8,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Team in Training.

Thanks to the many donors who contributed directly.

A huge thanks to Alexis and Erika for all their help with the wine tasting fundraiser that grossed over $1,700 in donations.

Also a huge thanks to Grace for her poker fundraiser bringing in another $300.

I did pitch in about $1,000 into the fundraising on my own.  If you want to help me close that fundraising gap, I’d happily take checks made out to me!

FOLLOW ME ON RACE DAY

Sally and I will be traveling to Penticton, British Columbia in late August for my race on Sunday, August 30.

On race day, you can follow my progress on http://ironmanlive.com – I’ll post my race (“bib”) number here, or you can simply search for CHENG (I’m not the 24 year old one whose occupation is listed as “liquor/booze consumption specialist”)

It’ll be a long day, roughly like this -

• Note – Penticton is on Pacific Daylight Time
• 07:00 – swim start
• 08:30 +/- 10 minutes – estimated swim finish
• 15:30 +/- 45 minutes – estimated bike finish
• 20:30 + 30 to 60 minutes  – estimated run finish and TC’s first iron-distance triathlon finish!

ONLY ONE MORE BLOG ENTRY

This is the penultimate entry of this blog.

The final one will be my race report, and if all things well, with a finish line photo with a smile :-)