Extra Crispy...

I give up. I now agree with some of the blog comments, I'm burnt out and a little over-trained. The straw that broke the camels back came today at 6:17 pm.

The day didn't start out that way, although I was a little irritable this morning. I had a decent pool workout and did 6000 meters.

Not bad for my 3rd swim of the month and I've now done 11,700 meters in 8 days. I was not pushing the pace until about 90 minutes into it. My speed increased dramatically once another triathlete looking guy got in my lane. He took the left side of the lane, I took the right.

Once he started swimming faster than me, my competitive juices started flowing. I was 30 x 100 meters into a 40 x 100 meter set on 10 second rest. Prior to him entering the pool I was swimming 1:51 per 100. After he got in the pool I was swimming around 1:38 per 100.

After about 600 meters of side by side swimming, and at one of the 10 second breaks, he said something about "pussying......". I wasn't sure what he said, I thought maybe he thought we weren't going hard enough.

Later in the swim at another 10 second break he told me he couldn't keep up with me, it was too hard, that I was a slightly better swimmer and he started swimming slower. I was relieved, it meant I could go slower too.

Before he got in the pool, I caught him looking at my workout sheet and at another 10 second break he asked me if I was doing 6000 meters. I said yes, he was in disbelief and said "it makes my 1200 meter swim seem like nothing".

Yesterday, training volume wise, Mark Allen had told me to cut my swim workout short and do only 5000 meters. Of course I didn't listen, there's just something about doing 6000 meters that seems awesome. It's like doing a 100 mile bike ride versus a 90 mile ride. When I visualize my 6 km run route and realize I just swam that, it puts it in perspective, a lot of people would love to be able to run that far.

Today was a busy work day. I finished at 5 pm and Mark also told me to cut my 3:20 ride down to 2 hours. My problem was I ran out of daylight, or at least I thought that was my problem. Before I got out the door I had to eat and asked Alice "when will dinner be ready?"

She said, in about 45 minutes. I started freaking, my patience level was on a 2 out of 100. With adjusting time for dinner, I had about 90 minutes of daylight left, maybe. Normally, I'd just take off without eating, but Alice was making a roast, salad, mashed potatoes, yorkshire and gravy.

It's a "not very often dinner" and more like a holiday dinner. She spent a lot of time making it and if I took off and let her eat alone it would be "all wrong". While I was waiting, I got dressing into my cycling gear and got everything ready to leave after dinner.

I took my time and ate, and ate, and ate, and ate. It was a great meal and again, out of respect, I didn't want to "dine and dash". Eventually, we finished, I cleared the table and got out the door for my ride. Clearing the table and moving it the 6 feet to the sink is the least I can do after every dinner. Actually, it's also the most I do around the house as well.

Within 1.5 km's on the bike, I knew I couldn't finish, I was "toast". I was major irritable, I was cold, and I wasn't having any fun. At 3 km's, I turned around and went home. I finally resigned myself to the fact I need a rest from training.

One other over-training sign that I noticed was the remnants of a two week old cold sore that just won't heal. I figured if my body can't heal a small scab, there's no way it's healing muscle tears. I've had the same burnt out feeling earlier in the year and on Alan Adcock's advice, I took a day or two off and felt like a new man when I got back on the bike.

An added challenge is I race a 70.3 this Sunday in Syracuse. "Do I train the Ironman mileage for Kona or make sure I'm fully tapered for the 70.3?" I think I'm going to err to the side of being tapered and try to use the race as a quality "speed work" session.

The upside of tonight's 12 minute ride was I felt faster than that last two weeks on the bike and only my right leg felt sore. My left was fine. Weird. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get up early to get today's ride in when I'm most motivated and rested. I sure hope it doesn't rain.

On the "Training Payne Party Fund" side, I got my biggest donation to date. It was for $200 and came from Paul Dietrich from Peterborough, Ontario. Of course I quickly googled Paul and found his race stats and then emailed him to "thank him". The next Keg for the Kegerator I buy will have Paul's name "taped to it" and I'll photograph it for the blog.

It turns out that Paul is a story until himself. He's a P.F.G who just started doing triathlons this year. In February 2009 he weighed 245 lbs and by December 2009 he was down to 170 lbs. That a 75 lb weight loss without losing a limb.

Aside from the incredible weight loss, Paul's first ever triathlon was the Peterborough Half Ironman and he finished in 7:10 and this past weekend he completed the Muskoka 70.3 and finished in 6:48 on a 4 km longer bike course. If that's not enough, he's signed up for Ironman Lake Placid 2011 AND six weeks following is also signed up to do Ironman Canada 2011.

Paul's story is amazing, it just shows how someones life can be transformed in a short period of time once they put there mind to something. Or get divorced. I don't know if he got divorced, but it worked wonders for my brother Bob.

Paul says he's a regular follower of the blog and my hat goes of to "my new best friend". Nice work on the "life turnaround". Oh, and by the way, if anyone donates more than $200, you can bump Paul down to "my second best friend".

I also want to thank Jason Hamermellet who also donated yesterday. For those that don't know Jason, he runs and online business called Cricket Store Online, I bought some Rock tape from him when I was having achilles problems. Fortunately, I didn't need to use it because the problem went away a couple days after I ordered it, but I have it for future and have only heard good things about it. Definitely check out Jason's store if you need some.

Thanks to both Paul and Jason for the donations. For the rest of you "deadbeats" er, I mean "nice, generous, charming, witty, good looking blog following deadbeats", pony up. My cigar humidor is running low and as Jamie says, and I quote, "buy good stuff, life's to short to smoke that shit you got". I don't even think Jamie like's my second hand smoke mixing with his.

That's it for me tonight. Last night Alice, Reid and I went to the movie "Machete", I though it would "aid recovery". It didn't, but it was one hell of a good movie. Lots of "fantasy killing". There's one part where he "de-bowels" a guy and jumps out a window using his bowels as a rope, it's the best. I was almost jumping out of my seat cheering.

I can't tell you how much I wanted a beer yesterday.

Long Swim - 2:09:22 / 6000 meters

Short Bike - 11:23 / 6.42 km / 31.1 kph avg