The days we'll remember

Today was a typical day off for me. Tim met me for early morning oatmeal and coffee followed by a bike commute to USCD for 7:30 am Masters. It's a pleasant ride out of La Jolla in the early morning. Basically 2 miles down, 2 miles up and 2 miles flat, then you are at the pool. Most of the the ride has million dollar views of the Pacific. Once at swim we are subject to the mercy of coach Sicki's workout. Today was probably a great prep for Iron man. It had a lot of distance but almost all free style. When coaches insist on me doing butterfly I worry a lifeguard is going to jump in and rescue me thinking I'm having some sort of a seizure. I felt like I was swimming really well until about meter 3000. With about 500 meters to go I began to get hungry and felt as though I could be arrested for weaving in my lane. This sort of concerned me because at Iron man I will swim a bit further than this. Granted I'll be rested and I'll be fueled so I am not too worried. However, the issue of fueling is a little nerve racking. I managed to squeeze out the other 500 meters by leaving the wall less than 10 seconds after the swimmer in front of me. Drafting at it's finest. The other day I heard a co -worker complaining about their 1200 calorie diet. I couldn't stifle the reply "that's breakfast." On the day of Iron man I will get up really early a try to consume about 1,000 calories breakfast. Sure that would be easy if I was downing Krispy Cremes and sausage, but this must be low fat, low protein and low fiber food. Anyway I made it through the swim and headed toward the locker room. Good thing my whopping 6 mile ride home is mostly downhill. Tim rode with me to the edge of campus then headed to the library to work on his paper and get some work done. I returned home to second breakfast. My favorite meal of the day. I had intentions of working on a wedding registry but got distracted and ended up registering for more races. A sprint triathlon in Mackinac City, MI I will do with Tim and the America's Finest City half marathon in San Diego. I hope Tim can do the AFC but his work schedule may not allow it. It's much more fun when we both can participate. Anyway I gave my credit card a workout. I must say races in Northern Michigan are a relative bargain. A little while later I walked to the grocery store and got some food for this evening's dinner. I like to think of myself as very European....walking to the market and getting the days food. Realistically it would take me longer to drive and I have a fridge only slightly larger than dorm sized. However, I trade a full sized fridge 100 times to live in this location.


After work Tim came over. We went for a 45 mile bike ride followed by a 4 mile run. We spent much of the ride discussing our strategy for Iron man. Iron man is a eating race as much as anything else. Who has the stomach made of cast Iron?I need to take in about 1300 calories during the bike and although Gatorade and power bar gels are served on the course I'll have to have a better plan than that. If you are wondering why, I double dog dare you to take in 1300 calories of Gatorade over 6 hours. Is that much high fructose corn syrup even legal??? We found that we like pretzels. Unfortunately it would take 7 cups of pretzels and that won't fit in my Bento box. This is starting to seem like giving birth and passing something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a pear. Like a couple of mad scientists we scammed and schemed the best possible solutions.


It was a really nice day and we enjoyed the ride/run combo. Tim and I are a little sad as his research year comes to an end. The day after Iron man he will be back to 80 hours a week and multiple nights a week of call. For us to share this much time together in one day will be few and far between. 22 days left but who's counting.



Thanks for reading ;)