Getting hyped!

Because of my bike problems I thought I was just going to run on Sunday, but guilt steped in the way (because I haven't trained much on Wednesday and Thursday) so I changed my plans. My father has his professional bike fixed to some kind of mechanism, that allows you to treadle at home in all comfort, so I decided to run to my parents place (about 8km), use the bike and run back. Their place offers also an other kind of advantage compared to my place - the "full-fridge" factor.

I biked for about 3 hours. It's a really cool training machine, not only you can change difficulties and so you can simulate an uphill road and work really hard, but you can also fix your phone to the handlebar and can watch movies while biking. I started with some Starcarft 2 commented videos and then watched some go on KGS and Wbaduk. You can see it on the video bellow :). I had one major problem while biking: sitting on the bike does really hurt :-D

After 3 hours of a rather rough training, I did my best to leave my parents place as soon as possible, so that I could try the bike->run transition. The first steps going down the stairs were indeed painful, but once I started running I felt really light and comfortable. I was so surprised and so happy that I could run that I really enjoyed the way home. Starting from about halfway I started imagining myself victorious at the Ironman challenge, thought about how I will mock M. once I finish the race and what kind of music I'll want my brother to play for the last hundred meters.
I really got hyped by this training and that's why I want to try the half Ironman this Thursday :-).

Damned bike....

I planed to ride the 90 km's on Wednesday but unfortunately I got busy that day, so I ended up doing nothing for the Ironman. On Friday I planed to amend for my mistakes and ride to Mikulov. Unfortunately my bike has some issues. When I treadle sometimes the movement isn't transfered to the wheel, so I am threadeling like a hamster in his wheel - without real purpose. It is really annoying when it happens on intersections, especially when I am turning left and want to get to the other side before a car from the opposite side passes. Usually the car drivers take it with a smile, since me treadeling at a speed of light without my bike moving forward does look funny. This used to happen everyonce in a while, but now it happens almost on a minute bases, so it is really annoying. I managed to bike for 50kms with a bike in this state, but it took a tremandeous amount of effort. I was surprised how much I could swear. I just couldn't help myself.

Otherwise my legs didn't feel tired after 50kms, but its really few, so I can't take anything from that. Also I got worried because my average speed was about 18km/h, which is not fast enough. I hope I'll get a speed boost when I change my mountain bike for a "road" bike, but it will be tough anyway.
Tomorrow I'll get my bike repaired, so hopefully soon I can restart the bike training. Today I'll go jogging - at least I can test my knee. 

Buayage

Since it was the first time I was gonna swim such a long distance, I wanted the pool to be as "croudless" as possible. That's why I decided to go there around 10am. The guys swimming before work should be long gone and so I thought the pool would be basically empty. I couldn't have been more wrong. The horrific scenery that displayed before my eyes made me blink. The pool was filled with buoyage - that is with slowly and steadily moving pensioners. Their speed didn't exceed 8min for 100ms and they were everywhere. Argh, after some time I found a line where there were only about 3 of them and started swimming. Getting past them was a bit annoying, but at least it made the swim more entertaining. At about 2kms I needed to take a break in order not to give a reason to the swimming pool crew a reason to add more chlorine. For the same reason I swam the last 500m as fast as I could. I am probably swallowing too much water while swimming.

After the 3.8 kms I didn't feel tired at all, and when I started biking my legs weren't heavy. I had time only for a 20km ride but it really went smoothly. With this positive spirit in mind, I plan to ride 90kms tomorrow.

Finally got a bike

As mentioned in the previous post, the real challenge starts now: this week is the beginning of the non-alcohol period (about 50 days, argh) ... Or is it? I feel that a real Iron Man should not be a "wuss" and have fun while keeping his body in shape. That's why I added a clause to this rule, I am allowed to drink "a bit"  after our weekly football match.

Otherwise I finally got my bike to my flat and so the important part of the training starts. As I don't have many classes this semestr, I am free to bike almost as much as I want. As my super good friend J. (D.) suggested, I could go to Mikulov, which is a city at about 55 km from my place. The advantage is, that the first 45km are super flat, so I it may be ideal for the competition as 45*4 = 180km, or at least I hope it does. Otherwise I've always wanted to visit the city of Telc, which is at about 100kms , so that will be one of the goals and also my grandma lives at about 200kms, that will probably be the max distance I'll attempt. Since I am starting this week and still want to practice swimming, tomorrow I plan to swim the full 3.8kms and then try to come back to my flat by bike, I'll see how it goes. Franky I am a bit afraid of the swim->bike transition, so I want to practice this as much as I can.

Otherwise I plan on becomming "half Iron Man" in about two weeks :-).

EZ PZ

On Thursday evening I went to my family's place for dinner and consulted my problems with the real iron man. I told him about my knee, which is apparently from overtraining and about our plan for the race. Since I will have (and will need) a support team, I was explaining to my father, that for the bike part I will have two groups of people waiting at the beggining and the end of my planned path, which will be 30km long (meaning I have to go there and back 3 times (=180km)). This way I will recieve support every 30th km. After a few seconds of thought he told me: Or you could have one support team in the middle of the way, it would fullfil the same role... :-D Those of you who thought of this solution while reading, I respect you.

On Friday I went to play football and my knee was fine after a few minutes of running. I remember this effect when I used to play football in a club - lovely adrenalin.

The turnament during the weekend was quite exhausting and I didn't manage to do any sports. Also on Monday I did very few as I was recovering from the afterparty. According to my plan I am supposed to have a long non-alcohol period before the race, so that  I don't exhaust my body unnecessarily. Starting around next week seems like the right timing.

First swimming:

I went swimming on Tuesday and I surprised myself as I was able to swim about 2kms in crawl-stroke with almost no breaks. Also I didn't feel especially tired, so I think the swim-bike transition may be OK. I just felt a bit dizzy because of all the chlor they have to put in the water.

On Wednesday I played badminton with U. Wargh, how she makes me run around..

Second swimming:
This was it! My first "biathlon". I decided to run to the pool (~5km), swim about 2kms and run back. There wasn't anything really worth mentioning apart from the people on the streets that keep staring at me in a weird way. It is true that I do look funny in my karate trousers, adhesive top, funny hat and a bag but they could encourage me instead of judging me. I gave those people a nickname for myself while I run - the walking dead. :-) Anyway... I was able to run right after swimming. My legs felt a bit heavy, thats true, but it was managable. Unfortunately on the way back my knee restarted hurting... what a pain... I think I will have to drop running for a while, anyway I plan to start biking from next week, so it doesn't affect my plan too much. I just hope it will be fine on the bike. On the day of the race I will eat a lot of pain killers and will manage, hopefully... but to do it everyday, I just don't feel it's right.

Otherwise I keep forgetting the distance I already swam when I am in the water, so the distances I post may not be accurate. I gave myself an "Iron" rule to solve this - when I am not sure I continue counting from the lower distance.

The problems begin ...

First of all, thanks everyone for your verbal and financial support. I thought my post on fb may be just a nusiance for everyone, so I was very pleasantly surprized. Now I really don't have any choice left, and just have to go for it. Actually the amount of money I gathered will allow me to buy a multiple entry pass to the swimming pool, so I have to go and buy it as soon as possible, since its about the same price as the new Starcraft expension... :-D

Back to the training...

The next day after the Tuesday 15km run, I felt quite ok. It looked like my body could keep the training tempo. As I don't want to overdo it, on Wednesday I planned only to play badminton with U. and make some basic exercices. I didn't start with the "Tabata Method" that "whatever" suggested yet. I'll try it in about 10 days. Actually the badminton was a good exercice too. U. is really experience and she made me run all over the field for the entire hour, so I felt more exhausted then after our football matches. I was a bit afraid on how my legs would hold, since I was supposed to run 24 kms the day after, but I felt nothing special. Unfortunately I woke up twice during the night and started caughing a little. It's very unusual for me so I took it as my body telling me that I may have choosen a too quick pace for my training.

Fourth run:
This morning I realized I've never ran 24 kms before but the distance didn't impress me much, since its only a little bit longer then the half marathon. Moreover I am lucky to have a friend D. that lives at approximately 12 kms from my place, so we agreed that I will stop by for some water with sirup. That way not only I'll get refreshed, but I'll have something to look forward during the first 12kms.
The first 4 kms were quite painful, as my muscles weren't as relaxed as in the previous runs, but it got better and till the 10th km it was a piece of cake. At the 10th km the problems began. My left knee started to hurt a little. It slowly went from annoying to unsupportable. I thought of my kung-fu training and tried to focus my attention elsewhere, but it turns out I suck at this, so it didn't work. I forced myself to reach the checkpoint without any break, but I wasn't sure if I could continue any longer. After the refreshement, the pain went away for a while, so I managed to reach about the 14th km while still running, but from then I did need to take breaks. My hearth frequency, muscle trieness and breath were satisfactory, just this damn knee... So the last 10 km I spend half walking an half running. To literally add insult to injury, I kicked some plastic bottle of beer by accident and its content spilled on my trousers. Turns out that beer can turn into vinegar if you provide it enough time. The last km of the parcour is through a very crowded part of city, let's just say that I tried to choose the shadowy alleys and that this time, I didn't get many "emphatic smiles"

Tomorrow I will go play football, I think my knee should be fine till then, but I will give it as much rest as possible. Also I decided not to go to the tournament by bike, since it would be a bit crazy, to leave at 5 in the morning, especially when I feel tired. I will just try to run ~ 5-10 km on Satturday. Next week will be dedicated to swimming. I am looking forward to this part of training, because (if I feel good enough) I will try running to the swimming pool, swim and then run back. I hope to get the ironman feeling from that.

The Ironman in 3 month training begins!

Why am I writing this blog?

1. It should work like a whip. Make me feel bad if I don't practice.
2. If I start improving, I'd like to scare my friend M., with whom I did this bet.
3. If someone will read it, I'd be very happy for advices. I am googling, but I am not too good at that.
4. I usally get very bored when I run. Now during my runs I try to notice funny things about which I could write here and am thinking about what I will write. It makes my exercices more pleasant.
5. To try to collect a little bit of money. I gave up my job few months ago, so that I can finish my 5th year of studies with dignity and therefore have not much cash. Normally I wouldn't need any, but since it's so cold outside I need to go to the swimming pool which costs 3euro. If anyone feels like supporting me, please make a donation of no more then 3euro at the paypall address: ondra@free.fr or to my bank account: 670100-2203574521/6210 (guess this works for czech peoply only). Thank you very much if you do, I promis to spend it on Ironman training related stuff, most probably on the swimming pool ticket.

So now about training:

On Wednesday I had my last school exam, so my training from Friday to Wednesday was quite feeble. I only did muscular training, particulary focused on the abdomen. Later on I will try to figure out how to train my dorsal muscles. I fear I may have serious problems with those, while riding for ten hours. I also do pull-ups on the children playground in front of my appartement. When I began I was suffering to make 3, now after a longer run 5 went quite easily. The human body is awesome.
Since Wednesday I managed to make three runs. My idea to complete the Ironman now is to build a solid basis, discover and train a heart frequency that I can keep up for several hours, therefore I do not try to run especially fast.

First run:
Thursday: it was so freaking cold outside I almost didn't go. One of the reason being I did not have any gloves nor a hat. But with the picture of the other Ironmans (or how I picture them atm) I thought I have no choice. The first run was supposed to be easy 8 kms, so no big deal... Well, the running part was ok, even the absence of the mentioned clothing was manageable, the problem was elsewhere. As we learned in our anatomy classes, some parts of the male body are situated externally to the main corpus, in order to achieve higher efficiency during a part of our lifecycle. Reason for this positioning being the decrease in tempreture. It also means, which was fatal in my case, that this area isn't provided by that match of body heating. Well let's just say, there are occasions when you are happy your girlfriend isn't waiting for you at home :-). Today (third run) I put 2 sets of underwear, and its all good.

Second run:
Friday: I felt quite good, so I decided to run to our football pitch. Its at the other side of the city, approximately 6km's but lot of "dénivellation". Unfortunately I had our jersies and football with me, so I struggled to put everything in my bag. Finally I gave up and decided to carry the ball while running. It was not very practical, but since I had to run through the city, the smiles of the people I was encountering were cheering me up :). I managed the run without problems, but after 45minutes of football I started having cramps and had to stop. I wonder if it could be out of exhaustion? I will try to eat more minerals, any hints?

During the weekend I played badmintion and pingpong, which probably doesn't count too much. Also I did drink quite a bit. I feel that in order to succeed I need to limit the drinking and also get psychologically stronger. Giving up on beer is quite tough, so so far I am going step by step - I am forcing myself to make the bed every morning.

Third run:
Tuesday: I don't have much time, so I need to start with the long runs ASAP. Today I ran 15kms. I could run faster, but didn't force myself, and managed it in 1h35, with the feeling I could run easily 10 more. So Thursday I will try something around 23km.
Also on Satturday I am considering going biking for the first time, since I am attending a go tournament 95kms from my place. It will depend mostly on the weather though, because I'd need to leave around 5am.  Why couldn't I have made this bet during spring...