Journal of Pier Luck

We did rest on Friday, and Saturday morning, we swam in the ocean at 7 AM with the Hammerhead Tri Club. I used Roberta's wetsuit and liked it more than my other one. Dustin used his regular one and realized he needs a tri wetsuit also; more expenses! The water was cold and it wasn't a great swim, but we were swimming about 50 feet from dolphins!!! They were really beautiful and it was so cool to be swimming near them, but at the same time freaky! After we got home, we decided to take the boat out and Amber, Stuart, and Judy came with us. We all skiied in the intracostal and it was a lot of fun. It was Judy's first time getting up and she did awesome! Then, we went to Lisa and Dennis' for a spaghetti dinner and hung out in their pool. Sunday was another early morning, drove up near the airport to do the Tour de Forts bike ride with about 400 other people. Now, we have never biked with more than, say, 10 people in a group and we are never too close to eachother. ...

Wednesday, we didn't end up going to swim practice; Dustin was studying and I had a bad headache. Then, Thursday, Jason Schuler, a submarine buddy of Dustin's came into Port Canaveral (a 2.5 hour drive), so we drove down there and had some good Thai food with him and had a couple drinks out on the beach, spent the night in his hotel room with an ocean view and then drove back the next morning in time for me to see my patients and Dustin to go to class. Friday, we were off, even though we should have made up some training that day! Saturday, it was cool in the morning, so we decided to bike a little later at Baldwin Trail. Probably not a good idea, because we didn't get started until after 11 for a SIXTY mile bike ride, followed by a 6 mile run. We did an out and back, out and back (twice) for the bike and the run. That way, we could refill water bottles, and get more nutrition stuff. This was the first day that we experimented with nutrition and timing of intaking cal...

Today, after work, I rode 30 miles by myself from the San Marco Y down on San Jose Blvd. I felt pretty good, used our new insulated water bottles for water and gatorade. Then, I went to Yoga. It was a nice evening, but smoky from the fires in Waycross, Georgia. It reminded me of the fires in San Diego when we lived there. Then, came home and had dinner with Dustin and I did more research on nutrition products, and just spent over $200 on stuff on the hammernutrition website. Crazy!

Well, I tweaked our schedule a litte bit for this week, and we decided that we would run 13.1 miles today after work! It was sunny and really windy, but actually turned out to be a very nice run from Ed Austin Park, up to Fort Caroline Road to the right, and then back to the left, and then a couple more loops of the park. We layed out some gatorade and water at some of the turns so we had some every 1-3 miles along the run. I did 2 Gus and Dustin did 1. We started getting stiff towards the end, but ran it in 1:54, which we are both hoping to do under 2 hours for the run portion of the half ironman. I had some pain in the insertion of my hamstring muscle in the groin/butt area that wasn't too fun to deal with, but that bothered me when I was training for the Nike Women's marathon in 2005, so I hope that's not coming back. No problem with the knees, and Dustin's right calf was hurting a little, but all in all, a very good day for running. I am planning on biking 20 ...

Well, realistically, we did NOT get much training done while Travis, Robin, and Kiona were here. However, we did have lots of fun! I sure don't know how people that have kids can train for long triathlons; it didn't seem like we had any time and we aren't even her parents! We did do a lot of walking around the neighborhood, at the Zoo, St. Augustine, St. John's Town Center. I did some workouts with weights and the ball, but that's about it. We did have a lot of fun, despite the record low temps. Tuesday, after they left, I finally convinced Dustin to go to Yoga with me and he did really good despite his inflexibility. I told him if I swam with stingrays, he had to go to Yoga. I was just really hoping that he would like it because he needs definite work on his flexibility. However, it "just wasn't his thing" and "would rather do something else." So, I guess I can deal with that, but I would like to still keep going if I can fit it int...

Monday, we ran 8 miles on Wonderwood with some hills. It actually wasn't too hard at all, which was suprising. That's the first time we ran the hills there. Tuesday, we tried to swim, but the pool was closed because the pH was too high. Wednesday, we went to our first Hammerhead Triathlon Club meeting and met a lot of great people with great advice about nutrition and mental toughness. The triathlon community is a unique one for sure and we are glad to be a part of it. We already learned a lot at one meeting and we look forward to more. Thursday morning, we rode 17 miles on Wonderwood before work and then picked up Dustin's brother, Travis, his wife, Robin, and their 11 month old, Kiona from the airport. We realistically won't get much training done this weekend, but we will try a little bit.

Thursday, we were supposed to do spin and swim, but the pool was being refilled. So, Dustin did one spin class and I did two (which is about 35 miles on a bike going nowhere, but it's a good workout). Dustin was still getting over a head cold. Friday, we were off. Saturday morning, we ran 5 miles, and then Sunday morning, we met Megan and did Wonderwood Expy to the ferry and rode that across to Hecksher Drive and met Tim and rode out to Fernadina Beach. It was so beautiful riding by the ocean many times and the weather was perfect (except for it was windy on the way back). We rode a total of 56 miles (our race distance for May) and timed the departure of the ferry perfect both times! Then, Dustin and I ran 5 miles afterwards and felt pretty darn good. We drank a lot of gatorade, water, did gus, electrolyte pills, ate clif bars, so I think we did pretty good nutrition wise. However, the half race coming up in May will be 1.2 mile swim before, plus 8 more miles at the end, so...