Father's Day Festivities!

Like all previous Father's Days, this one started out with doughnuts and coffee provided by my three amazing kiddos! Although colorful, delicious, and nutritious... I would NOT recommend starting your morning like that on a big training day. K and I have a long standing tradition that on Father's or Mother's Day... we... as the father or mother get to choose whatever they want to do! Usually this does not include a mediocre brunch out with a ton of other families screaming children... but it DOES usually mean a quiet day of reading and relaxing alone and a battery re-charge. On this particular F-Day I had a long swim and a long run scheduled... so there ya have it!

I called my college buddy Mark and asked if he wanted to go do an open-water swim! He's quite a good swimmer and has done triathlons in the past... to include Escape from Alcatraz, numerous times. I figured he could help me work on spotting and maintaining my line in open water. The weather was PERFECT... sunny and roughly 65 degrees. Water was a bit chilly in the beginning but we warmed up pretty fast and were able to get some good practice in. According to gmaps... we covered about 1,800 meters total. Mark had a lot of tips for spotting and maintain your line while in the water! We stayed in for as long as we could... then the rednecks showed up with their boats and jetski's... which means we were suckin diesel a little too much for my tastes! The best part was getting to spend time with a good friend doing something that we both love! Thanks for coming WOMBAT! Then it was off to the pool to finish up the swim workout... total of 2,600 m. Good stuff...

After that I relaxed in the sun for about an hour and read. Such a treat! I read pretty much every night before going to bed... for about 3.2 second before I fall asleep. It was really nice to sit in the sun and read without the threat of drool running down my chest and puddling in my belly-button. Then it was run time!

On the schedule was a 1:50 min run. The weather had heated up to about 72 degrees and it was perfectly sunny! AWESOME weather for a long run! Then I realized that I hadn't really eaten much beyond my two doughnuts and coffee earlier that morning. I tend to get a bit paranoid about not fueling properly... and the fat pills really didn't do the trick. I shoved an apricot Cliff bar in my face, slugged down some NUUN, had an ounce of HammerGel and was ready to go. I striped down to the bare essentials... running shorts, visor, glasses, shoes, sunscreen and took off. I had one gel in my waistband and there were multiple water fountains throughout the route I chose so I was pretty confident that I'd be otay. I felt fantastic up to about an hour in... took my gel... and immediately knew that the rest of the run would be a struggle... at least to maintain a consistent pace. Oh well... its all part of the fun right? Ideally I would have been able to take in one gel every 1/2 hour or so... but obviously that didn't happen. I really did feel it in the last half hour... but you can pretty much do anything for a 1/2 hour if you put your mind to it. Finished up and had a Recoverite and banana... good to go! Over all I covered 14.7928 miles in 1:50 which interprets to a 7:26/mile pace. VERY happy with that considering the lack of fuel in my body!

Today, Monday, is a rest day and then I'll start my "taper" for the HIM on Saturday! Basically all of my workouts from here on out are intense yet very short... for instance my brick on Thursday is like a 15 min ride followed by a 5 min run... then Friday I do nothing! I guess the idea is that I'll be totally fresh for the race... which I'm all for! Heading over to Bend on Wed evening and taking care of some work stuff over there on Thursday. Friday is registration etc. I'm really excited and fairly confident that I'll put together a race that I'll be happy with!

Breathe...