Peter Vu's Ironman Blog - Vineman 7/31/10

A lot of training these past two days.

1/8/2010:  I was supposed to go out for a 13 mile run, but I didn't have an accurate gauge of how far I was going. I was basically running from my apartment in Brentwood down to Venice Beach and back. It ended up being close to 16 miles. I started around 4:30 and finished a few minutes after 7pm. No issues along the run, but I had to pull through a few mental blocks especially when you're out by yourself for 2.5 hours. Having music on my Ipod Shuffle helps. I also kept the pace slow since it would be stupid if I injured myself during tapering mode. I think this will be my last long run before my marathon next Sunday in Phoenix, and I will try to maybe do a couple milder runs this week to stay fresh. Tomorrow, we have our seasonal costume run for the TNT Westside marathon team - it's the last practice before the marathon. I am going to reuse my Halloween costume and dress up as a chef at the water stop!

1/9/2010: First long, challenging bikeride of the season. Highlights included:

• 30 mile loop that I finished in about 2.5 hours
• Got to see some remote areas of LA that I did not know existed in Westlake Village (i.e., farms and pastures)
• At some points on the downhill, you're just zooming...you have to ask yourself, "Is this safe to be going this fast?"
  
• We had some challenging hills on the course. Given my shape, it really tests you out there when you are trying to pedal as fast you can and you're not moving that fast and your cadence is still slow. Once I was able to master my shifting better and also "push and pull," things became easier, but it was still a grind. There was one hill at the beginning and towards 2/3 of the way where you kept asking yourself when is this incline going to end. One thing that has helped me over this past year of endurance training is this ability to embrace the challenge and know that most hardships on the course are usually mental. You have to keep telling yourself that you might be "in pain" or "dying" out there on a run or the course, but you will get through it if you just focus, emphasize proper technique, and keep moving forward.
• Trying to keep my cadence around the 90-95 revolutions per minute
• Most frustrating about today's bikeride that didn't have to happen: another fall. I had my hands on the top of the handlebars, and I tried to bring them down so I could hold on to the sides. As I looked down to do so, I took my eyes off the road and veered into the curb and flipped onto the sidewalk and almost hit a wall. Luckily, I wasn't going too fast. I got a cut on my hand, a couple small scrapes on my shoulders and knees, and slightly bruised my right forearm. Given how much worse it could have been, no complaints from my end. Scott and Chris were tailing me on the course and stopped to make sure I was okay and check my bike. I may have bent one of my sprockets on the fall, so I am going to take my bike in to get it serviced hopefully tomorrow (also looking to get new aerobars and a bentobox). One great thing about the Ironman team is how everyone is really helpful and nice --always trying to teach you things, give you advice, encourage you, etc. Also, I must be quite clumsy compared to others to be falling so much.
  
• Louis and Carlos taught me how to change my first tire after. I will need to practice on my own later this week to get a handle on it.
• Training tips: you need to drink a bottle of liquid every hour of training. Even if it's freezing in the morning, you need to constantly be sipping on your liquids during the first hour. As you warm up later, it becomes easier to take in liquids. Louis also pointed out that you should not use Gu energy gels during an Ironman race since they provide you with sudden bursts of energy and will not sustain you over 13-14 hours of activity. Instead you should divide your weight by 2.2 and that is the amount of carbohydrates that you need to consume every hour. I plan on buying this drink supplement called CarboPro to add to my athletic drink (which only has 30g), Based on my weight, I need about 72-75g per hour.
  
• Diet the past few days has been helping. However, I was starving after today's bikeride. I went up to Louis and basically offered to pay him for anything in his car. He actually had day old bagels and rice krispie treats that I destroyed. 
• After our bikeride, we went to The Counter Burger, where I continued to satiate my appetite. Given how hungry I was, a burger sounded amazing. I did opt for the smallest meat patty to stay healthy.
  
• First "transition" or "brick" from biking to running after the ride for about 10 minutes. They call it a "brick" run sometimes because you're legs feel like bricks after biking for so long and then starting to run. Coach mentioned the key to the transition was to start off really slow on the run since you will have been biking for a long time. You can pick up the pace later as your body adjusts.
  
• Overall, great training session and happy to get my first long, challenging bikeride out of the way. It will be interesting to see where I am 2 months from now. FUN FUN FUN. 
• On a sidenote, I went to see "Avatar" last night at 11:15PM since it was still hard to get seats. I didn't get home until 2:30AM and fell asleep 15 minutes later. I had to wake up 4 hours later at 6:45AM to get out to training...argh.  I still felt good this morning after the bikeride, but had to take a nap later in the evening. I am going to make a more conscious effort to get some rest before these longer training days in the future. 
• We ended up finishing around noon today, which coach mentioned was early. As the season unwinds, the training will get longer and longer. I can't wait for the 100 mile bikeride from LA to San Diego!
  

Last but not least, I also attended a pubcrawl that Frenchie and Javier put on tonight to fundraise for their TNT efforts. I was able to make it to Bigfoot Lodge and Saints and Sinners in Culver City. Fun time w/ the TNT marathon/Ironman crews.

Go Team! Tomorrow, I am going to hit the pool for some lapwork.