The Iron Geek

Training In The Desert

This week has been really tough on me.  I can say that this is easily the lowest that I have felt about my training since I started.  Between really tough workouts, injuries and the poor idea of trying to combine a vacation with a heavy set of workouts has led to a pretty tough set of days.

The Bike

I was pretty excited to learn that we would be camping about 3 miles away from the site of a fairly large triathlon that is held each year called the Whisky Dick (I’m not making this up, you can find out about the race here).  I was pumped about biking on a triathlon course, until that is, that I read the stat that scared me.  A 2,000 ft climb over the first 10 miles, with a 1,000 ft decent over the last 25 miles.  Woah.  That’s a BIG hill.

The funny part was that since I haven’t done a lot of bike training, I knew the stat was scary, but I couldn’t really put it into context until I got here.  Wow!  It really makes you appreciate what all those Tour De France riders go through for 3 weeks straight.

On my first day (Monday) I was able to climb about 4 miles before I was completely wiped out.  It took me almost 40 minutes to make the climb.  Since I had support from my farther in-law Carl (who took the pictures), I decided to turn around and ride down the mountain.  I went from being completely wiped from the climb to completely freaked out by the descent.  I hit 38 MPH on the way down and never once moved my pedals.  It was freakin’ fast! 

The next day (Tuesday) I was determined not to wuss out on the ride and really push it.  I wanted to finish the entire 37 mile course from the point I had given up the day before.  I man-handled the bike up the hill for about 30 minutes and I was about a half-mile from the top when things took a turn for the worse.

Well, not exactly a turn.  I took a digger.

I took my eyes off the road for a quick second to see how much more of this hill that I had to conquer and I managed to hit a rock about the size of a ping-pong ball.  I tried to recover, but it wasn’t in the cards.  I could only unclip one pedal before I fell, and unfortunately for me I guessed the wrong side. Down I went into the gravel on the side of the road and slammed my left leg against my rear gears.  It didn’t really hurt at the time, but it bled like hell. I got some scratches and a big hunk of flesh about the size of, well, a tooth on a sprocket, missing from my leg.

The next  day my leg was really hurting.  Not so much from the scratches and hunk of missing  flesh, but the muscle itself really hurt.  Considering I am still battling pain on my right leg from the shin splints, now my left leg is hurting from this new injury .  This sucks…

The Run 

As I mentioned above, I am still battling some really bad shin splints.  After reading Born To Run on the flight out to Seattle, I made the decision to purchase a pair of Vibram Five Fingers Bakila running shoes.  Similar to the author of the book, I am desperately looking for a way to run without being in pain.  Shin splints really suck.

This is a pretty big decision considering just how much I have made fun of my friend Marty for wearing his Vibrams.  When he first shoed me his Vibrams 6 months ago, I couldn’t stop laughing.  I made fun of him for days about it.  Now I bought my own pair. 



What’s worse is that these new versions are such a hot commodity; there was only one pair in my size in the entire state of Washington.  I drove about an hour from where we are camping to go pick them up on Monday.

Marty, I’m sorry. I apologize.

So I have run for two days with these new “shoes” and my early verdict is: different.  They absolutely force you to run with a forefoot strike (on the balls of your feet).  If you try to strike with your heel first, you are in for a surprise as there is very little padding there to protect you.  But if you do run on your forefoot, it is pretty cool.  The shoes allow your toes to spread out and push off the ground similar to the way it would be if you were bear foot (the point of the shoe really)

The shin splints haven’t gone away, I still have to ice them after each run and many nights.  I find myself consuming way more pain medication than I have ever done in my life.  Man I hope this gets better.

The Swim

The swim has been yet another challenge since I have been here.  If you read my earlier posts you know that I am struggling with my swim the most.  I have been really excited about getting a chance to do open water (out of a pool) swims every day while we are here. 

While swimming in the lake has been great, there have been some challenges.  A lot of the area where I am swimming has tall grass that grows similar to seaweed.  It is a pain to swim through, so I try and swim around it.  This has really limited the lengths of my swim to about 50 yards or so, and I am sort of boxed in.  Without support staff to swim out into the lake, I am mainly swimming up and down the shore.  And with all the family at the same location, these could hardly be called workouts.

Without a pool to provide walls, accomplishments are harder to measure.  Simply trying to figure out how far you have swum is a challenge.  So instead of focusing on the length and distance, I have been focusing on form.  I have been trying to get that muscle memory to adapt a good stroke that helps propel me efficiently across the water.  It is getting better, but I am still a long way from “good”.  Did I mention that considering the 90 degree heat here, that the water is flipping cold?

I also have just read the book Swimming To Antarctica.  A very good and inspirational read if you have the time.  I never thought it possible to swim through an iceberg, but this woman has done it.

So I took Wednesday off as a rest day.  My legs are both sore and stiff (I am walking around the campsite like an old man).  I did get some swimming in yesterday, but it was more about relaxing with the family than it was a workout.  I will see how I am doing on Thursday if I am ready to pick it back up again.