July's totals are...drum roll please....

For July my training totals were as follows:

Swim - 21.82 miles
Bike - 650.59 miles
Run - 93.81
Weights - 6 times

Total - 766.22 miles, 65.9 hours, 55,370 calories burnt, 143 beers drank
Average daily training - 2.1 hours.

I woke up today and the knotted muscles in my calf was a little better than yesterday, but is still bad enough to prevent me from running. First thing I did when I woke up was ice the calf and knee and then after I showered I put Pennsaid on both areas and also massaged the calf with "the stick". At least I could now walk without a noticeable limp. I did notice as well that my right calf was also a little tight. I guess because I hadn't done a lot of running in the last 9 days, yesterday's speed work was a little too stressful for my calf's. I noticed last months running total was only 93 miles, whereas it normally is around 125. I guess that is the difference, I should have eased back into it. Live and learn.

I did a 4000 meter long swim today and it took me 90 minutes. The calf didn't bother me during the swim and I was hoping that the swim would loosen things up and speed up recovery. I did try something new during the swim, I altered my technique on the underwater "pull". Instead of a nice easy "pull", I tried to pull as fast as I could. It worked! At the 3300 meter point of the swim, where up until then I was averaging around 1:55 per 100 meters, I ended up doing a 1:40 per 100. My triceps had never gotten so "pumped" during a swim and I could feel the lactic acid building, it was actually starting to hurt. I'm starting to find, that for the first time, I'm getting a feel for the water. I hear good swimmers talking about how they feel the water when they swim, but only now am I getting a "taste" of what they mean. I've only noticed my feeling the water a few swims ago, after I did my first ever 6000 meter swim.

A couple of nights ago I had a dream about the Ironman. It was a weird one, as all dreams are. It turned out that I had a great swim and bike and was going onto the run fresh, was going to have a great final time and was told that I did the wrong bike course. I followed someone in front of me, who entered the wrong "door" to the bike course (I told you it was weird) and now they told us to finish we would have to redo the biking portion of the race on the right course. I was panicked, time was running out and I was determined to finish, I couldn't believe I wouldn't be able to finish because I've trained so hard and if I did finish my time was going to suck. Then it turned out that they were not sure if they would let me redo the bike portion because they didn't know if I was in shape enough. I couldn't believe it, the guy I followed was in way worse shape than me and they were going to allow him to redo the bike portion, but not me? I had to convince them that I was well trained and the other guy actually told me that he convinced them to let me continue, like he did me a favor. It was a very depressing dream and before it ended I woke up.

I can say that I'm at the point where I just want to get this Ironman over with. I've been training so hard since January 11th and it is the only race left this year that matters. I want to do it and do it healthy and finish healthy. And I want to have a good racing time and finish strong. Then I want to pair down my training to probably 7 - 10 hours per week for the next 6 months, then start up with Ironman training again in April. I just want to get to the finish line trained and healthy and accomplish my goal of beating my best Ironman time when I was 20 year old.

Is that too much to ask?

Picture of the Day - Reid as the Joker. We weren't home and he got bored.