Weekend Warrior

Run Day

time- 1:07:30
distance- 7.7mi

Bike Day

distance- 40mi


Nearly negative split on my run Saturday! The only word for that is badass. Technically, I think that's two words, but I don't care. That's how pleased I am with that run. I guess taking a few days off to let my body recover wasn't a bad idea after all. My right leg, especially behind the knee, is a little tight now, but nothing painful or awful. Feet feel great. I hit my turn around at 33 minutes, which would mean I was on a 1:06 pace. 1:07 is nearly that and that is the awesome. Its a good run to have going into my two weeks of taper.
The ride, while not as good as the run, was still pretty slamming. Turns out today is the Haleiwa Marathon. My long day bike course too me right by the end of the marathon course. Those are some unhappy looking people at mile 23. Part of me wanted to shout encouragement, but I'm not sure that's what you want to hear after four hours of running. So I let them be and rode my ride. Hope all you marathoners had fun! At least the weather was nice. Pineapple Hill was a struggle today, but it seems like its getting shorter. It still hurts, don't mistake what I say, but it hurts for less time. I think it took me 36 minutes to get all the way up it today, which is a long time to climb. And I know it wasn't as fast a climb as I've laid down in the past. But once at the top I was able to find some more push and keep on keeping on with a positive outlook and tired but not blown out legs.
I need to do some reading as far as how the taper section of my workout should go. I know intensity drops considerably, but that probably happens in a gradual manner. Two week until the big race. Should be fun!
Also, and I'm popping this in to every blog from here on out, please check out the Dirtbag Fitness 50/50 Guess My Time Fundraiser. Much thanks.

First Time Ever Dirtbag Fitness 50/50 Guess My Finishing Time Contest!!!

Dirtbag Friends! I come to you with a special contest offer.
As you know, the Honolulu Triathlon is coming up and your favorite Dirtbag will competing in the Olympic distance event, my first time at this distance! And if I've learned anything from ESPN.com's the Sports Guy its that if something is fun to watch, its way more fun to gamble on. So as a First Time Special Event Fundraiser Extravaganza Dirtbag Fitness proudly presents the 50/50 Guess My Time Challenge!

Here's the scoop:
-For every $5 sent in to Dirtbag Fitness using the PayPal link to the side you can have one guess at my overall finish time of the Honolulu Olympic Distance Triathlon in 15 second increments. The person closest to my actual time will be sent 50% of the total Dirtbag profit, with the other 50% going towards the care, feeding, upkeep, and competing of Dirtbag Fitness. (If this does well I'm using the money towards a bike box so I can travel to far off distant lands and get beaten by those people. If it doesn't I could always use more tire tubes.)

-For $25 you can have six guesses. That's one free guess, allowing you to block off a whole minute and a half for only $25.

-You must put your prediction in the comments below on this blog so everyone else can see and we don't get any doubles. Also, please send your predictions with the paypal payment so I have all your information in one place should you win.

-Rather than spoon feed you what I think my time will be, you've gotta use your noggin. I'll tell you it should be slower than two hours but faster than three. I'll even link you to my last race report and I'll remind you that every race up to this one has been a Sprint distance. This is an Olympic distance. Wasn't that nice of me?

-Remember, you must guess in 15 second increments. Please use a hours:minutes:seconds format for your prediction with along the lines of, "My prediction is a total overall time of 2:03:15. Dirtbag is a rock star of epic proportions!" or "I think Dirtbag will destroy the field with a final time of 1:56:30. I also think his awesomeness will cause any pregnant women he passes to spontaneously give birth."

-To sweeten the pot, if you manage to guess my exact time to the second I'll send you 75% of the profit rather than 50%.

-This Fundraising Contest begins today and ends the night of May 14th, which is the day before the race.

If this goes well and there is lots of participation then next time we'll break down the race into time predictions for each discipline as well as an overall time guess. If it doesn't go well and only two people participate...well then I'll send thank you emails to Dirtbag Parents and Dirtbag Best Friend, give someone their ten bucks, and pretend this never happened.

The relevant information once more is :
$5 = one guess
$25= six guesses
Guess in 15 second intervals
Post guess(es) in the comments below.

Thank you for playing, donating, and reading and good luck to everyone!

I'm Feeling Much Better Now (With Special Bonus Video Link!!!)

Run Day

time- 30 minutes

Not sure how far I ran today and I really don't care. It felt good. It was hot, my stride felt strong and quick, and I negative split the run. I wanted to make it a shorter one anyway, but the training plan actually called for a 30 minute outing. Guess maybe those people know what they're talking about after all.
Today was also supposed to be a swim morning and I even packed my stuff and set my alarm last night. When it went off I thought, "You know, I missed a bike and a run, might as well go three for three," turned it off, and crashed back out. No Duh Thought of the Day: Teaching is way way way easier when not completely exhausted.
Tomorrow is normally a rest day but I plan on making it an active rest day by going for a light, short bike ride after school.
****Special Bonus Video Section!!!****
Today I received an email from the people who put on the Lanikai Tri I just did with really cool information. They have two videos made from the race up on a website free to see. I shall now copy and paste the text of said email:

And finally, VIDEO from the ANA Lanikai Triathlon is now available for you to watch online! Boca Hawaii, in association with our newest affiliate, Triathlon Illustrated, has just posted the first of two videos from last Sunday's Lanikai race. Everyone who participated in the race appears in the first video, called My Cameo.
-To see it, go to http://www.triathlonillustrated.com
- This will take you to the Triathlon Illustrated home page. Please take the time to read the information on the home page to get full enjoyment from these videos. It only takes a minute or so to read. Then click on the Lanikai Triathlon picture, located in the right-hand column of the Triathlon Illustrated home page, and you'll be taken directly to the video. Enjoy!

I, like everyone else who completed the swim leg of the race, am in the Cameo video. My cameo happens around the eight minute mark. Can you spot the Dirtbag? The other video, while very cool, has no Dirtbag at all. Every time is shows the field I'm already gone. Still watch it, its very cool and gives a good impression of what the race was like. But expect no Dirtbag.*

*I have no idea what the hell is going on with my font now but I can't make it look like it does above. So the font has been changed at great expense at the last minute and those responsible for the sacking of the people who were sacked have been sacked.

Vapor Lock

Swim Day

1 x 150- Warm-up
4 x 200- 3:00
2 x 250- 4:00
5 x 100- 1:30
1 x 100- Cool down

total- 2050yds

Full disclosure: I had a 1 x 500 planned in there too for after the 250s but before the 100s. I couldn't do it. I don't know what my problem has been but its reached the point where now I'm overthinking it and its blowing me out of the water. I was really tired this morning, talked myself in to getting up and getting to the pool. Talked my self up about how hard I was going to push this workout and how hardcore I was going to get on it. Then...fizzle. I can't figure it out. I'm trying to relax and let the speed come the way it does. I'm trying to get jacked and amp it out. Blah all the way. If it wasn't so close to race time I'd take a day off. I need to fight through this shit. I made all five of the 100s and was able to work those pretty good. Its frustrating because this has been the easy part the whole time, the part I'm good at already. I'm sure that mindset is part of it. After I take a week or so off post-race, once I'm getting back in the water, I'll start shopping around for a friend to swim with. I bet that would help. Time off will help too. Tired right now. Meeting after school. Must prevent my soul from being sucked from my body.
*************************************************************************************
I want you to look at the above paragraph. I wrote that this morning after my swim while I was waiting for my students to get to school. Now look back at yesterday's post. I used the word "meh" to describe my workout three times.
Something is wrong.
So I'm deciding to take the advice I offer for myself above. I need a mental health day. I'm worn the fuck out and need to step back. I know the race is three weeks away. But what that really means about today and tomorrow's workouts are that I won't be gaining a ton by doing them or losing a ton by skipping. I might actually gain by skipping and letting my body recover. I think it was a mistake not to take it easy for a few days after my last race, not to dial some of the workouts back last week. That would have helped me recover. It would have been smart. But now I'm here, where I just feel tired, unmotivated, and unexcited about getting my shoes on for a run.
The biggest argument for this, as far as I'm concerned, happened today while I was teaching. We were in the middle of math and I completely vapor locked. As in, "Ok, now we are going to move on to number...uh...what number are we...here, you guys just get back to work and finish the page. I'm going to go sit at my desk for a few minutes." I blanked. The lesson we were doing disappeared off my screen. This almost never happens to me while I'm teaching. But I was feeling it today and it just got the best of me. So I'm taking my own advice, as well as the advice of Sister Dirtbag, Official Trainer of Team Dirtbag, and taking the day off. Possibly tomorrow too, we'll see how I feel. Because there's a difference between fighting through that shit and just throwing a nothing, weak workout on top of an exhausted body and mind.
So I'm going to space out on the couch, probably throw around a few Portals, and go to bed early. And I'm not going to feel guilty about it because sometimes not pushing through is the best thing to do.

Kinda Tired But Working

Swim Day

1 x 150- Warm-up
5 x 100- 1, 2, 3, Swim
1 x 500- Pull
3 x 50- Sideline kick
4 x 200- 100- stroke count 15-16/100- Strong, Sustainable, Smooth
4 x 25- Count decrease by 2
1 x 100- Cool down

total- 2300 yds

Cycle Day

time- 1:21
distance- 24.3mi

I'm still displeased with how I'm swimming but I have to fight through that. I have this week left for hard, full-on workouts and next week starts my taper. Today I spent my swim and bike fighting the thought that soon I'll be able to start taking it down a notch. I guess yesterday's ride was harder than I thought it was because I was pretty tired today.
You know what, this isn't making much sense. Swim was meh speed but my stroke feels longer. Bike started and finished good but there was some meh in the middle.

No Doubt

Run Day (Saturday)

time- 1:10
distance- 7.61mi

Ride Day (Sunday)

time- 2:27
distance- 40mi


I was a lifeguard for the City of Palmdale for about 150 summers from high school all the way through college. One of the guys I worked with was Brother Savage, a big, strong, intense, and excellent lifeguard who punctuated many sentences and actions with a barked, "No doubt!" I love this phrase and, along with the Courson Way, which I follow to this day, have held on to it.
No doubt in the context of life, lifeguarding, and exercise means full committment to whatever is being done at the time. If you're going to take a class, do it without a doubt about why you're there. Going for a run? Never question your ability. Making a save? There is no doubt that save is going down smooth.
I've been dragging this week in terms of my workouts. Monday's ride was great, but other than that I haven't felt as fired up as I'd like. And I hit the bottom of Pineapple Hill this morning needing a push. And Savage (real name, fit perfectly, no joke) popped in to my head.
I use my time as a COP guard all the time. When I'm feeling stressed and need to relax I can close my eyes and go back to lying on the desk, feeling Courson's chipped seal, smelling the chlorine and sun screen, warming in the desert sun. When I need to motivate I think about what Bolt or BCY or Timmy would say if they saw me dragging ass like this. I think about the flag, which meant so much to me it was also my first tattoo.
So I growled, "No doubt," and hit that climb. It wasn't any faster than any other time, the wind kicked me around pretty good (when the crosswind make my spokes hum I know it's blowing good), but I got up the damn thing and got it done. And that only put me at 26 miles, ten short of my goal. On to base! I didn't do Kolekole, but I did get some decent small incline work done. When I finished my 40 I felt like I could have gotten another ten knocked out. But it was wife time. More important.
Yesterday's run followed the same. I felt slowish and tightish. So I had to reach down, find that place where there is no doubt, where there is only the decision to run and get it done, and dig that out. Again, not the fastest outing, but the run got run. My mind goes to the race, I think about how I know there will be times when my stomach cramps a little, times when I'm going to think, just for a moment, I really want to walk for just a minute. And I'm going to come back to these runs and these rides, when the sun is hot, when I might not have as much food energy to burn as I should in my body, when I've been teaching all week and would really rather just sit on the couch and play video games, and all the way back to those workouts with my guards, and I'll get it done.
No doubt.

Skinny Tires

My new tires are skinnier than the cuts on Emo Kid's arms. (Originally, this joke was "...skinnier than Emo Kid's jeans," but this is funnier.)
I bought skinny racing tires for Kratos two or three months ago but decided not to put them on until after the Lanikai Tri. That way the majority of my training would be done on thicker, heavier tires, making me stronger. So when I switch, the new tires would be one more thing pushing me towards faster. So on Tuesday, between my ocean swim and my slow fartlek, I spent some time putting them on.
They are much skinnier than the ones which used to be on the bike, as you can see. That means less ground contact, which means less friction and less weight. During yesterday's ride I'm not sure I could tell if there was a huge difference, but the bike looks faster and it does feel lighter. And the red trim looks Dirtbag Badass. With Kratos 4.0 up and rolling, we are prepared to make the jump to light speed.