Feeling like a Rock Star...

I've been a bit remiss in the past couple of weeks and want to recognize the recent donors to the TPPF.

They include, Scott Carmack, Dave Parker (2nd donation), Bob Lynch (2nd donation), Simon Cross (2nd unintentional donation and I kept it) and Martin Hennelly. Thanks guys. Your money will be converted to beer and drank in Kona in your honour.

If you want me to drink beer in YOUR honour, donate now and you'll even have a 5% chance of getting a postcard from Kona. No promises.

Also, it broke my heart to knock some of my previous donors off the Top 10 at the side of the blog. Don't despair if you were knocked off, you can always donate more and get back on the board. Don't be shy. Remember, it's for a great cause, "it's my party money" and I guarantee none of it will be spend on triathlons or any other wasteful expense.

Now back to the "the scheduled blog programming".

After yesterday's run, my lower buttocks and upper hamstrings were extremely tight. It's tough to even bend over and touch the floor. The problem started when I was remiss about "faithfully" stretching after every workout session for a three week period. Now I'm paying the price with some discomfort.

The other problem was I only ran once since last Sunday's race and "if you don't use it, you lose it". Even though I only did a two hour run yesterday, it felt like I did a 2:40 run. My calf's are also a little tight.

My training schedule is a little intuitive right now and I have some flexibility on which days are going to be rest days. Rather than do speed work sessions today, I decided on making it a rest day and give my legs an extra day to heal. Better to be safe than sorry.

Instead, I stretched throughout the day. Trying to be careful not to throw out my back, which is easy to do by stretching when the muscles are cold. Although, they shouldn't be that cold, I've been wearing pants and two sweaters all day as part of my Hawaii acclimatisation plan.

Tonight I had a HOT bath and did some stretching and race visualization in the tub. I can officially say "I'm getting into this Kona thing". Whats helped is watching Kona You Tube video's and I'm halfway through reading the book "30 years of Ironman".

As part of my visualization I was preparing myself for the worst and hoping for the best. Specifically, after reading the book, I need to anticipate hot and windy conditions. I did Ironman Kona 22 years ago, but I only remember the good things and finishing. If I didn't see the post finish pictures, I wouldn't have remembered how "I couldn't walk after crossing the finishing line".

My memory in terms of weather conditions and difficultly of the course is not to be trusted. Someone said to me the other day that Kona had some good hills and I almost laughed in there face. "I didn't remember any hills". Sure enough, I check and there IS hills. Like I said, it's been 22 years.

I can't lie, I was also visualizing what it would look like to have strong race and set a PB. I know there is less than a 1% chance of that happening, but it's fun to dream. In the end, after all my visualization I came up with my race strategy. I visualized myself waiting in the water as the horn goes off and telling myself, "have a great day, enjoy".

I got an interesting comment from CouplaHounds yesterday that I thought was worth posting, it was an interesting perspective that I thought was worth repeating.

I wrote: In 1000 days, I've done 1557 workouts, swim-biked-ran 22,960.04 miles or 37,032.32 km's and burnt 1,738,859 calories.

He replied:If you take your 1000 training days and distance and do some math, you've got an amazing story:

- 160.3 Ironmans
- An Ironman every 6.1 days
- 23 miles of activity every day for 1000 days
- 10,850 calories burned per "Ironman"

This is actually amazing to me - especially the 23 miles of movement every day. How many people just 'sit around' all day? And you average 1.6 workouts each day. It's good to keep stats and you've enlightened me, once again, with your point of view on "grinding it out, even when you're not into it". So true!

Yesterday, I also got my Mark Allen Online Newsletter, it was the Kona special and guess who's "My Kona Story" was featured? Yup, "yours truly". It read:

My Kona: Training Payne by Bryan Payne June 3, 2007 is when I started my triathlon comeback after a 16-year layoff. With only three weeks of training I completed a sprint distance race (750 meter swim, 30 km bike, 7.5 km run). I was a Clydesdale, finishing 76 out of 79 in the 40-44 age group.During that first race, I swam without goggles that broke shortly after the swim started. I almost drowned when I couldn't breath because my wetsuit was too tight. I had to stop and open up the back of it and breast stroked much of the way. My background is I started triathlons in 1986 at 19 years old. By 24 years old, I had done Ironman Canada twice and Kona once, I got in on the lottery. By all standards, I was completely average, my three Ironman times were 12:22, 13:23 and 14:32, and in that order. I left the sport to start a business and by 2006 I tipped the scales at 229 lbs. By 2007, I was depressed and disgusted about the shape I was in. The best times of my life was when I was doing triathlons and I decided to get back into it. After that first race, I competed almost every weekend. I did running races, Sprints, Olympics and finished off the year with a Half Ironman. In the process, I lost 50 lbs. The highlight of my season was coming in 3rd out of 3 in the Clydesdale division in a Sprint distance race and making it to the podium. At least I could say I finished 3rd in a race, no one needed to know there was only three in my category! In the process, I decided to start a blog and document my journey from "Fat to Fit". I called the blog "Training Payne" and since then I have close to 1000 posts and haven't missed a day. At the end of my first season, I decided I needed a structured training program and decided to go with Mark Allen Online. I did triathlons in Mark and the "Big Four" era and saw his credentials first hand. It was the best training decision I've ever made. I committed to the plan. To date I've rarely missed a workout and "drank the low heart rate kool-aid". Fast forward to year two (2008), I set a goal for myself. I wanted to beat every race time I posted in my 20's for all triathlon distances, which I ended up doing. I did a 2:26 Olympic, a 4:57 Half and a 11:06 Ironman. Year three (2009), I got ambitious; I set a goal to make it to the 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater, which I did with a 4:41 at Steelhead. Frankly, it was a "stretch goal" and I really didn't think I'd do it, but I didn't know what other goal to set. Clearwater was the race of my life and I set a PB of 4:37 and that included the time it took for the support crew to replace my broken chain. When it broke, I went from "not thinking I'd even finish" to "elation" when I knew I would. This year (2010), I got really ambitious with my goals, I decided to try and qualify for the Ironman World Championship in Kona. I figured I did the impossible and got to Clearwater, why not try for Kona. I looked at all the Ironman's on the circuit and figured my best shot was to go to China. It turned out I got food poisoning 36 hours before and DNF'd with 13 miles to go on the run in 40 C / 104 F heat. I also learned that everyone else had the same idea as me and the field turned out to be extremely "tough" with lots of previous Kona qualifiers in my age group. Even healthy, it would have been tough to qualify. By this point, I was depressed. Forget about qualifying for Kona, I just wanted to redeem myself and finish an Ironman. I had lost my mojo and confidence. I was originally signed up to do Ironman Lake Placid but couldn't wait that long to redeem myself. I signed up and raced Ironman St. George on a Community fund spot less than two month after China. I went into IMSG without the Kona qualifying goal and did it in 11:26. It turns out that had I not spent 20-30 minutes in various porta-potties on the run, I probably would have qualified for Kona, although I didn't care, I just wanted to finish and "get the DNF monkey off my back". Three months later I was at the start line of Ironman Lake Placid. Never in a million years did I think I had a shot to qualify for Kona at IMLP. It is one tough course with very tough competition. My age group was one of the biggest with 370 competitors. I went into the race with the goal of only finishing strong. Turns out I had the "race of my life". Rarely did my heart rate exceed 135 bpm. I got out of the water in 82nd place in my age group and finished in 9th with a 3:37 marathon and a 10:20 final time. I was first on the roll down and it was good enough to get me to Kona. I must say, I am not a superior athlete, my first year racing I swam 2:25 per 100 consistently. I didn't do well at high school track and I don't have the most-healthy lifestyle. In all honesty, if "I" could qualify for Kona, anyone can. The only reason I'm going to Kona is because of the MarkAllenOnline coaching program and my doing the workouts religiously. Thanks Mark and Luis. Oh, and if your in Kona and see a guy running wearing a "Captains Hat" that's me, give me a cheer and I'll give you a salute!

Taper Rest Day - No training

30 minute hot bath - stretching