Nice and Clean...

It was an early morning for us, not that I wanted it to be, I could have slept till noon. We had about a 5 hours drive back from Ottawa and I needed to be back for a 1 pm conference call. The hardest part was getting out of the hotel. It was down to one elevator and we had two bikes and a valet cart full of bags.

After the meeting I got home and unloaded the bags and then dropped off Jamie's bike. When I got home it was shower time, unpack all the dirty clothes and put all my triathlon equipment away. I find that's best to do right away, that way you don't lose anything.

Right from first thing this morning I could feel a cold sore coming on. Damn, nothing worst that a gross cold sore. I knew it was going to happen, I get them when my body gets run down and doing an Ironman and then staying up until 5 am the next morning and eating crap food and beer is the recipe for cold sores. Now it's hear and I have a party at the Pig & Whistle and I'm be walking around with a big honky cold sore. Hope no one drinks out of my glass.

I'm also very excited about my next journey. I'm going to change my body type and look. With no other full Ironman's planned and only the Steelhead 70.3 and maybe some other local races I'm in the perfect position to radically change my diet and body shape.

I'm a big believer in fate and you tend to hear things when you need to hear them. On Monday Bob told me about the Paleo diet, it's a primal diet, named after Paleo Man, kind of a caveman thing. It sounds very healthy, higher clean proteins, good fats and lots of fruits and vegetables. Then the next day, Wednesday, Rueban tells me the exact same thing. Apparently Lance Armstrong followed this program to lose weight for his last Tour. After doing IMLP with an extra 10 lbs and hearing those guys rave about this program, I decided that my next goal is to get very lean. I called the bookstore and they have it on hold for me to pick up tomorrow.

I did somewhat do it about 4 years ago when I had my tonsils out. I couldn't eat and I lost a lot of weight and then started my Mark Allen Training for my first real season. I did Florida 70.3 and Ironman Louisville. I want to get back there again, but leaner and stronger. My plan is to lose weight and as little muscle as possible. If I happen to lose muscle I'm not too concerned, it's not race season and I'm sure it will just be a matter of time until I gain it back.

Even though I say my competitive Ironman racing is behind me, I'm not so sure. I'm now getting to a head space where I'd like to see what I could do if I was lighter. For IMLP I had a very respectable time and was probably hauling around close to 20 more pounds than I could have. I've always raced around 185 lbs, what if I was 170 lbs, what difference in time would that make? If racing this year added 50 minutes to my time, how much could racing lighter take off my time. Is it possible to break a 10 hour Ironman?

Sub 10 hour Ironman!!!!!  Could that be my new BHAG??? (Big Hairy Ass Goal). Even when I did my 10:20 at IMLP I weighed in at 189 lbs last year. This year I weighed in at 198 lbs. I saw the ASI photo's, I don't look too fat with my choice of tri-top, however the swim shot without any wetsuit shows the truth. I'm not fat, I'm just not triathlete thin.

So that's my goal, to change my body type. I'm not sure how much I'll lose, that's not the focus. I'm not sure what it will plateau out to, I'm going to let that happen naturally. I do know that when I first started doing triathlons I went from 212 lbs to my lowest of 158 lbs. I did my best marathon time at 164 lbs and I thought I was heavy that day, was was at 161 lbs for a long time before that.

At 19 years old, at 161 lbw, when I did my first Ironman on very little training, maybe 6 - 7 hours a week and one long century ride and 2 hour run three weeks leading up to the event I was still able to do a 12:13. Now I'm training like a semi-pro athlete at 185 lbs and since my comeback have done 6 Ironman's and none have been over 12 hours. What could I do if I was 165 lbs? I don't even know if 165 lbs is achievable, it's just a number I through out. I'm more interested in letting my body get to it's ideal weight on it's own and whatever that is, it is.

As much as I probably shouldn't have had a beer and let my body rest I had to tap the new keg and have one. I also wanted to make sure it was pouring good. It was pouring good and tasted good. The entire family is sick of traveling and eating crap. The night before we left from Lake Placid Reid was throwing up from all the crap. Alyssa and Alice feel bloated. Me too. Tonight was a little pasta and salad and for me beer and then as I had more beer I heard the ice cream van come around and had a small cone and then before bed ate some of the free Wheaties's Fuel cereal they gave in our race back and then had a couple more bowls of other types of cereal, which are really breakfast candy. Whew, that was a mouthful.

My state of mind is that one more party, tomorrow and then it's on to the Paleo Diet and my next Journey. I'm even going to take regular shots of me in shorts to document the body transformation. I hope, I've tried it before and it can be a lot of work, although I tried that daily. Maybe I'll do it weekly, or semi-weekly. I'm actually very pumped about trying to reshape my body and what effect it will have on triathlons. At minimum if it makes doing Ironmans' less painful it will be worth it. If if my times are the same or slightly worse, it it takes away from the pain and suffering on race day it's worth it.

Tonight we were sitting on the deck, I got caught up with all my email's and computer stuff and decided I should make myself useful and clean my bike. Since I've got that bike I can count on one hand how many times I washed that thing. I had some beer motivation in me and went for it. I had degreaser, WD-40, Windex and Bike Lust Polish. Not to mention towels and a tooth brush style brush to get those hard to clean areas.

It took me close to 2 hours. I took off the wheels and I made sure I got into every nook and cranny. There was tar on the inside of the front forks and that was near impossible to take off. I thoroughly cleaned and re-lubed the chain. There was a lot of sugary substances and dirt on that bike. After I was done the front wheel swung a lot easier from side to side. The last thing I cleaned was my shoes. They too were full of grease. I take no care of my bike or shoes. This was a complete make over for them. The said part is it probably won't be too long and I'll end up riding in the rain and it will get all dirty again.

The one thing about my bike is it has a lot of nicks and scratches and wear. From winder riding with bootees on the right side of my rear fork it is worn the paint off to the black of the carbon fiber. I don't really care, I think a bike that's a little beat up is cool. Those guys with super pristine bikes after years have way to much time on their hands and they obviously don't put beer drinking ahead of bike maintenance.

Lastly, on the family front, Reid has already wrecked his humidor. He did it in Lake Placid. He put a metal engraved label on it and took it off and it took the fake wood off the box. Then he did the same for the water puck. It's so nice to see him wrecking his own stuff for once. Now to try and fix it he's painting it. I don't know what he plans on doing with it. He did tell me that he liked another one better that was the same price $30 and he no longer carried about having the humidor, he said, "Just forget it I don't need a humidor". Rather than yell at him and tell him he should be happy that he got a humidor and not to hurt my feelings by not liking it or treating it well, like my parents would have done, I figured, I get it, no problem I'll get you another one. Heck it's only $30 and he'll be happy. Which makes me happy.

No Training - Recovery


Below is a FUNNY fricken Video. It's worth watching.