Like They're Going Flat

Ride (Saturday)
time-3:41
distance- 53.24mi

Run (Sunday)
time- 1:11
distance- approx. 7mi

Swim (Monday)
1 x 200- warm-up
2 x 500- stroke check

Ride (Monday)
time- 1:46
distance- 29.77mi


Dirtbag fanatics, how have you been? Me? I'm pretty good. Training hard, yada yada yada. The pervious workouts were all decent to good, with the exception of Monday's swim, which was kind of lame but important. I took last week off because of some strange twinging in the right elbow and of all the disciplines, swimming is the one I can back off of without worry. So Monday was about checking my stroke for strange. Verdict? Feels good, seems to be better. I did get so involved in the self diagnostic that I got lost in the swim, so I'm pretty sure I did two 500s, but the second one might have been a 400 or 450. No biggie.
Saturday I cranked out an early but good ride with Diesel, the Grey is preparing to win his age group at the North Shore marathon so he is training differently for the next few weeks. It was the same ride as last weekend, but harder, I think. Less rest time, and I feel like we pushed more. Windier too, which is good for training but suuuuucks for climbing. Dirtbag get strong. Diesel and I spent a good 40% of the ride chatting too, which is something we rarely do because its hard on the bikes. After the ride the workout continued as I was the muscle in a friend's move. You never really know who your friends are until they get up at 6am to ride 50+ miles and then help you move.
Sunday was exciting because Super Awesome Wife completed her second half marathon, the Run Like a Diva Wahine Half. I'm so proud of her for going out and doing these events. She walks them, but who cares? She does them. Thirteen miles is a long way either way. And it was hot Sunday, with a shadeless course. She kicked ass in her Batman cape and underroos.

Pink boa, tiara, and a medal the size of a manhole cover. Women's races are awesome.

 While she was out on the course I ran around Ala Moana park. Never run down there except for the Honolulu Tri and it is nice. My plan was to run until it hurt or I was done and, to my surprise, there was very little Achilles pain during my hour ten. This is good and it might mean I can get back on the stick now.
Yesterday's ride was ok, I cooked a lot of it. I came up with the idea that I should ride like my tires are going flat. What that means is, sometimes flats happen. And sometimes when flats happen it ruins the ride and you need a pick up. So if you spend the ride pumping and you do have a catastrophic flat, you still feel like you got a workout in. It's a theory in progress.
*Note- See, if I was more interested in building a big audience I would have led with the Going Flat theory and left the post at that. It would be instructive and bite-sized and still interesting. But I need to use the blog as an attitude check for myself. Reflective training is the Big Point. I like being able to look back and see how I felt during ride x when I repeat it to see growth or issues. So I fill the posts with thoughts and feelings about the workout details. Numbers are nice, I like having the data and love my Garmin, but I also do a lot of training by feel. Which means that you, lovely and patient reader, sometimes get to slog through a paragraph about my run in the park to get to the point. Which I do appreciate.
The only other thing I want to say about the ride is that everyone should ride safe out there. I had a close, but safe, call. Not trying to worry anyone. But be safe out there, keep your head on a swivel, and remember the lights on the back of a car don't turn on when the car is turning, even though they should, and you're a vampire in their mirrors. Ride safe and keep the rubber side down.

How To Recover From a 10K

New active.com article up from your favorite Dirtbag. 
How to Recover From a 10k
I'd like to thank again Sister Dirtbag, Official Trainer and Consultant of Dirtbag Fitness, for her help with this article. Read, learn, enjoy, retweet, Facebook, print and post on someone's wall, email to Inside Triathlon.

Run Forever

Run Forever, Micah True.

 

The Fortress Gets Another Brick

Bike
time- 2:15
distance- 35.91mi

Transition- 4:26

Run
time- 20:51
distance- 2.01mi

Regular, long-time readers are familiar with my Fortress of Fitness. Those of you who aren't should follow the link if you're really really interested (which I'm sure you are!). 
I missed my workout Wednesday due to a sick Super Awesome Wife needing to go to the doctor and I used that as an excuse to crank out a simple brick yesterday. I haven't bike/ran in a long time and it will be a good idea to start throwing those into my workouts every once in a while. Not so much for fitness, but to prepare to run off the bike. The legs do feel a little bit funny going from cycling to running, and keeping the heart rate controlled in transition is important too. Speaking of transition, brick workouts are a great place to practice those, though yesterday's was slow. Not sweating that, I'm training for a half Ironman. Transition speed is waaaaaay down on the list of concerns at this point. It's Mr. Larmstrong who should be practicing. If there is a place he might might get ahead of me that is where it is. If I'm feeling generous.
This was also a great opportunity to test out the multisport setting on my fancy-shmancy Garmin Forerunner 310xt. It's kick ass. You set it to multisport (duh), and define what sports you're talking about and whether or not it should include transition, then you just hit START. The watch tracks your first sport, you hit LAP, it switches to transition and times that, you hit LAP again, it switches to the second sport. Very very cool. It's going to come in handy during races.
My bike today was going to be an easier bike so that the brick was more more run-centric. But then I started thinking about how weaksauce it would be to just go to the bottom of Pineapple and come back up. So I ended up all the way out at Dillingham. Wind out there felt brutal and I struggled to keep a strong pace coming back. Gotta stay low on those aerobars, keep the gearing light, and spin.
The new plan for Pineapple is stay steady on the uphills, then drop into a heavier gear on the flat sections and try to make up the minutes. This is both easier and harder. It's easier because I spend more time thinking about the flats than about the climbs, but harder because I used to use the flats as rest periods between struggles upwards. The most important factor is that it's quicker. So I'll keep on keeping on.
The sun was setting as I pulled into my driveway. I knew I would be behind the light, I was at school later than I wanted to be dealing with crap that drove me to want to workout for two and a half hours when I got home (Note: Not student issues. I love students, even the ones with problems. I can't stand adults. Students have a chance to change.) I don't normally run under lit street lamps so when I pulled in I took a quick nature break, then switched my bike jersey for a bright yellow tech shirt, making me a Sneetch without stars upon thars. I wore my toe socks for the ride, something I plan on doing for the Honu, so transition from cycling shoes to Bikilas was quick and easy.
Like I said, the original plan was a longer run/shorter bike. But it was getting late and dark and I was getting tired and hungry so I scrapped that plan in favor of a easy transition run of twenty minutes. I don't feel lame about this because in his excellent book I'm Here to Win, Chris McCormack writes about easy runs after hard rides. So there.
And it was an easy run. I'm trying to figure out what an ideal heart rate goal would be, and I think it's probably somewhere in the 150s. As you'll see from my data, I was way above that last night. If I can get fit enough and smart enough to run in the 150s that will help control how many buckets of fluid I sweat, which will help hydration and cramping issues. We are talking for the Honu here. The Honolulu Olympic tri will probably result in a much higher average heart rate, but its a much shorter race. (I'm kinda blown away I thinking about an Oly as "much shorter". Please see any post from a year ago for evidence.) Both Achilles protested quietly for the entire two miles. Never enough to make me stop, just enough to remind me to ibprophen, ice, and roll when I got home. Guess I ain't healed yet.
I like brick workouts, and I like running off the bike. For some reason it is easier to think about than just getting up for a run. Maybe I use the ride to make excuses for why I'm not running as fast. Speed is not the point, I know that, but it's still hard to internalize sometimes.
Preparations are moving along. To steal from the fantasy world, Honu is Coming.

More (Stolen) Warrior Dash Pictures!

Warrior Dash had an official photographer who got some great shots. But they want waaaay too much money for prints. So...they have been liberated.

The only time on a run the Grey will be behind me

He's the other guy in the skirt kilt

Badass

Baaaadass

Background Ninja!

Here's mud in your eye...my eye

How can you tell the mud is thick?

There should be a giant tribal tattoo on my chest

Running Into the Sunset

Run
time- 1:01
distance- 6.02mi

My goal right now is to ease back in after dealing with the Achilles issues. I would rather be undertrained and healthy than injured, so even though I really wanted seven+ yesterday I went for six. Cruised, though my first two miles were much faster than I planned. I need to work on consistent pacing. I say that now, but I know that "pacing" during the Honu will probably be more like "Bataan Death March" after mile five or six. That's ok, this is supposed to hurt.
I left the house later than normal, but that was ok because it meant the weather was cooler and I got to see this.

Warrior Dash Race Report

 

"The craziest fricken' day of your life!"

Above is the mission statement for the Warrior Dash, a three mile run though mud, up ropes, over fire, in water,  and under barbed wire where you climb, fall, get back up and keep going.  In short- it's a Dirtbag kind of race.

I jumped when I saw that the Warrior Dash was coming to Oahu. Nothing cool comes to Oahu. Nothing. The coolest musical act we got this year was Neil Diamond. Case: Rested. I was probably in the first dozen people to send them my money, I was pumped. Then I started spreading the word to every active person I know. Then end result of this was a big ass group of people I know and people I know now meeting up Saturday morning at the Haleiwa boat harbor in a variety of mud-ready clothing ready for...well, something. We weren't exactly sure what.

The Dash didn't happen at the boat harbor, but we are a smart group of Dirtbags. The Dash was happening down a two lane road on a ranch. We did the math- 500 people starting every half hour. Waves starting at 8:30 and ending at 5:00. That's a lot of people. And that means that's a lot of cars trying to get into and out of one parking lot all at once, all day long. So, being the smart, clever, and good looking Dirtbag boys and girls that we are, we met about two miles away and rode our bikes in. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads. Before going on I should specify. "We" being Diesel and his wife, the Grey, and three crazy mad ultra runners who don't have official Dirtbag nicknames yet but are kick ass people and I should get on giving them some. And me, naturally. Super Awesome Wife stayed home. She went through basic training so the whole climbing ropes and crawling through mud thing is something she's done plenty of.

The Warrior Dash website is full of descriptions of how badass the course is. There is FIRE! And MUD! And CLIMBING ROPES! And VARIOUS OTHER COOL SOUNDING OBSTACLES! But we as a group figured a lot of that was good marketing. Yeah, sure there will be some kind of rope climb. But it's not like it's going to be hard or high. You can't do that, people might get hurt. Wait, what's this? A waiver to sign? I've signed waivers before races before...but this has a whole lot of things to initial here, initial here, initial here, sign here, drop of blood here, next of kin here. Huh, the lawyers really got a hold of these guys. Riding in we saw a few of the obstacles to come, but most were hidden in the tall grass and trees so we still didn't know what to expect.

We were wrong to underestimate the Warrior Dash people. Wrong wrong wrong. 

Before I get into the race proper though, I must say something else. This was, without a doubt, one of the best organized events I've ever participated in. I say again One Of The Best Organized Events Ever. Crazy organized. Check-in was quick, bag check was easy, there was a bank of thirty or more Port-a-Potties (something most every other race should take note of), and a stage with live music. Sure, they were charging $10 a car for parking, but what did we care? Super smart, remember? Rode right past that foolishness. 

I choose to sport my Warrior Dash kilt, and the Grey wore one of his kilts too. I also rocked an old holey pair of VFFs. Noticed a lot of others also in toe shoes. Vibram should throw some money at this event. It is perfect for them. Everyone else, while not in costume, was comfortable in some kind of running gear. This event, though, brings out the freaks. I saw, without turning my head, women in tiny pink shorts and tops, Darth Vader, a ninja, a super hero, bikinis, and, I think, a teddy bear. This ain't your mom's 5k. 

We crowded in to the starting corral to wait for the gun. Correction- to wait for the twin blasts of flame from atop the starting gate. Twin. Blasts. Of. Flame. Every race should start with fire. We figured being in the front would allow us to get a little ahead of the press of Warrior humanity right from the get go. Well, the press pressed, and one of the badass cool runner chicks I went with, who shall henceforth be known as ChicaBoom, who was right in front of me nearly got tripped up and squashed. She caught herself, I used my Dirtbag Strength to grab her and help her up and off we went. 

FIRE!!!

 To...where the heck is the coolness? Half mile in and I've only run! WTF, mate? Ohhhh, that false sense of security thing people talk about. Gotcha. 

I'm not going to blow-by-blow every obstacle because I didn't stop and take notes (though Kepa did stop and take pictures, so any picture from here on in of the course is courtesy of the Tri-N-Hawaiian's race report) but I will mention most of them.
It started out right away with an obstacle that made me think, "Huh, they are pretty serious about this." It was a balance beam-style up-and-down a few feet off the ground. Like, it would probably hurt a little to fall off. This bodes well for the future. 

Photos courtesy of Tri-N-Hawaiian

As we ran to the next challenge our little group spread out. We'd discussed the possibility earlier and decided to run our own races. No one was in a hurry, but if we got spread out then so be it, we'll meet up at the end. That being said, ChicaBoom, the Grey, and I got out ahead. And up a rope wall. 

I've never gotten to climb a rope wall and it was every bit as fun as I wanted it to be. Mind, I was rocking the skirt kilt so it was probably even more fun for the people behind me. The next few obstacles were also climbing ones, and every one was high enough at it's apex that, as UltraMan put if afterwards, "you probably could die if you fell." Or at least hurt yourself real good. Remember the waiver you signed? Good.

All photos courtesy of Tri-N-Hawaiian

 We got to roll across a horizontal cargo net, though I guess some people walked the beam going down the center. What's the fun in that? That's not how a pirate would do it. And it ain't how the Dirtbag did it. Ninja Warrior, here I come! Then we bear-walked under some netting only to hit crossed beams with barbed wire strung across the top. Coming in we'd seen this obstacle and remarked, "Hey look, fakey barbed wire. Wrong again. Real barbed wire. Diesel says he saw people with scratched who got too high going under. Cool. Cool cool cool.

Yes, that is barbed wire [All photos courtesy of Tri-N-Hawaiian]

 The next was, as far as I'm concerned, the most difficult. It was a high/low challenge where we had to vault/climb/fall over a wooden barrier, then low duck under some more barbed wire, then up, then under, and so on. The last under was deep too. I was still near the Grey at this point and he might have been heard complaining about his back and how he's too old for this. Maybe I was hearing things. Never know.

 Next was two more climbing walls, the first with a slide down along the wall to get to the ground and the second a slide down a fireman's pole. That's right, I said I got to slide down a fireman's pole! Hell to the yeah. I haven't been down a pole where no one's trying to slip money in my kilt for ages!

Ninja Wall Slide!

 What followed was the longest straight run of the course and I admit I walked some of it. What the hell? I'm not racing, I'm kind of winded, and it's a nice day. I'm walking to the water station. Warriors are allowed to walk. 

I think the next challenge caused most people to balk. Not because it was hard, but because we had to wade/swim through chest high water. In a lake. On a farm. Where ducks swim. And do whatever else it is that ducks do when they are sitting in water. I know what children do when they are in water, I was a lifeguard for years, so I can imagine what ducks do. But I don't want to because I just head's up swam through that. Up and over two floating barrels and out of the water.

Next? YES! FIRE! FIREFIREFIRE! We got to jump over two flaming logs. I vividly remember thinking before the race, "Yeah, it says 'leap over fire.'  But come on, you can't really do that. It probably actually means 'hop over smoldering ashes.'" Nope. Leap. Over. Flames. Not like high WOOSH flames, but flames. Please keep in mind, Dirtbag in a kilt here. Good thing I've been trimming my leg fur for the Rock Tape or there might have been some smelling like burning happening.

Did I mention FIRE!!!

 One more high cargo net climb and there is the finish. Huh, I'm pretty clean. Sure, I'm dusty from all the dirt being kicked up on the trail by everyone, but I'm mostly clean. I thought there was mud. Oh wait...

Like a pirate in the rigging

 Mud pit. Mud pit crawl. Under more barbed wire. In a space of less than three minutes I had jumped over fire and crawled through mud up to my shoulders under barbed wire. "Craziest fricken' day," indeed. And then across the line!

Yeah, that's alllll mud [courtesy of Tri-N-Hawaiian]

 Across the line where I was greeted with one of the best race medals I've ever gotten, and then some volunteer handing out bananas. I'm covered in mud. Literally covered. From my neck to my toes I am brown and goopy. And you're handing me food? Thanks, I'm good. In fact, I even had some in my eye because as I was climbing out of the mud pit I nearly slipped, waved my arms around in a parody of athletic balance, and flung a small drop of mud right into my face. Could have been worse. Could have been into my mouth. 

The group met up at the finish and then headed off to the Warrior Wash to get the mud off. How nice that they provide some kind of shower syst...what's that? The Warrior Wash is simply another part of the lake? How cool/kinda gross/cool. Dozens of muddy Warriors trying to clean themselves in a lake. Looked like the tribe cooling off after a good day's hunt.

Tribe hunt gud. Now tribe clean. [Courtest of Tri-N-Hawaiian]

 We grabbed our free beers, I gave mine to ChicaBoom, got our gear from the still easy bag check, and got back on the bikes. The Dash was right across the street from the beach, like 70% of the things on Oahu (hello, island!), so we rode straight to the ocean and jumped in for some cleaner cleaning.

You're intimidated, right?

I'm a Warrior! (not a bunny, damnit)

The Grey, however, is a bunny.

It's not a Hawaiian photo blog without a shaka

WARRIORS!!!

 Race registration was the best deal I think I've ever had. We got a t-shirt, the free beer, a medal, AND a fuzzy hat with horns on it. A FUZZY HAT WITH HORNS! Cooooool! And what do Dirtbag's on bikes do with fuzzy hats with horns? We cram them into our bike helmets so we ride home looking like the Warriors we are. Heck, the Grey even managed to come in second in his age group. *insert your own cheap crack about his age here* They gave him a little metal helmet. I think I came in at 30 minutes and something seconds but I'm not sure and can't be bothered to check because I don't care. Time wasn't the point. I could have cranked harder, but why? Have I mentioned how cool this is yet?

This was the best three miles I've ever run. I can't be effusive enough. If I designed a sprint triathlon it would end with a Warrior Dash instead of a normal run. There are other, longer events like the Spartan Death Race and the Tough Mudder and I can't speak to how much fun something like this is for longer than 30 minutes, but for my money this kicks ass. I don't care how fit you are, if the Warrior Dash is within driving distance of you, buy a ticket and take the ride. It is so worth it.

Shwag

Race numbers should be covered in mud

One of my favorite medals