Training continues. With ten weeks to go, I’m getting into the nitty gritty of Ironman specific training. The bike rides are getting longer on the long easy ride days and harder and more intense on the shorter ride days. The runs are getting longer on the long easy run days and harder and more intense on the shorter run days. Sound like a pattern to you? The swims are still at Diane’s Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The group starts anywhere from 5:45 to 6. That’s AM, not PM and, yes, it is light by then. The hardest thing about the swims is keeping from being lulled into a trance and bumping into someone else, head to head. The near misses are up to 67 and climbing.

The Saturday ride was shorter this week, only 3 hours, but the intensity was at heart rate 3 (as fast as you can go and still maintain the speed). Since Larry’s family was in Florida, and Terry said Larry needed a babysitter, we rode together. I was used to riding the higher intensity rides alone so I could go my own pace. What I found was that since Larry is a faster biker than me, he was there to push me a little when I got tired. Actually, push is just an expression since Larry was ahead of me the last half. But he did provide the incentive to not just get complacent and ride easy. So, Bill, I take it all back.

The run from Diane’s was a soaker. The rain came down the first half and it became so humid, it was like it was raining back up to the sky the second half. I did the 13.5 mile loop but made a slight miscalculation. The water was at mile 4+ on my route. That meant I did the last 9+ miles on one bottle of water and it wasn’t enough. I should have run back to the water jug at mile 10 or 11, filled up, continued on to 13.5 and walked in the rest of the way. Sounds smart now and never entered my head when it really counted. I’m learning all over again. I know all these things, but when I’m out there in the heat of battle, they don’t click in like they used to.

You riders that have done the 24 hour challenge route know that Mud Lake Road is famous for its dogs. We were riding along, Larry in the lead, when a white dog came out of a yard with a gate open. He got to the end of the driveway, stopped on a dime, and yelped. Apparently he has a shock collar and there is an underground electronic fence. I could see Larry chuckling when, all of a sudden, that big dog that looks like Lassie on steroids came out into the road from the other side and almost got him. I was behind so I had to stop, stare the dog down (like my friend Buddy, remember?), and ride by slowly with one foot out of the clips and my hand on the pepper spray.

A friend, I won’t mention his name, years ago told me that when he ran, he was pestered by a dog that would come out and try to bite him. He talked to the owner several times to no avail. The last time the dog came out to get him, he dropped a piece of raw hamburger with a pill inside that causes what appears to be a heart attack. The dog never bothered him or anyone else again. I was wishing I had one of those pills today. You all know I love animals, and I believe the owners are at fault for not restraining the dogs, so I would have wrapped the pill in a bottle of Bud Light. Actually, I wouldn’t do that either, but dogs chasing bikes makes me mad.

Jean, having three weeks until her race at Ironman USA, Lake Placid, is starting her taper. The length of her training is shorter, but the intensity remains high. She continues to be strong and remains injury free other than the two year old toe injury that she should have had fixed last fall/winter but didn’t, but I won’t comment on that. Lest you think she didn’t because she was babysitting me after the bike wreck, remember I spent almost the entire winter alone in Florida.

You bike riders and runners know that some of the strangest conversations come out of a long ride or long run. On one of our recent rides, my training buddy Bill rode up along side of me and said “I just read an article that said men could lessen the risk of prostate problems by ejaculating 21 times a month”. First of all, he didn’t say whether he read the article in the Journal of American Medicine or the most recent issue of Penthouse (he says he reads that one just for the articles, honest!). Second of all, I couldn’t imagine what made him offer that little tidbit and where the conversation was headed.

I asked him if the article described the subjects as having sex each month with 21 different 56 year old post-menopausal women or one 30 year old divorcee with no children. He quipped back with something about “manual self-actualization”. I made a remark about that way not being as much fun as when I was 15 and the conversation was immediately over.

I had always thought that older men dropping their spouses of 30 years and hooking up with younger women was just a mid-life crisis reaction. Instead, it appears it is solely for prostate health reasons, and we all want to continue to do things that promote good health and fitness as long as we are able, right?

And now, what you have all been waiting for, the results of last week’s question:

    Those who thought I should have told the woman at Wal-Mart about the Hot Wheels car that didn’t get rung up – 0

    Those who thought I should have told the cashier at Wal-Mart about the Hot Wheels car that didn’t get rung up – 0

    Those who thought I should mind my own @#%*& business – 0

    Those who thought it was the stupidest question they had ever been asked – ALL

OK. It doesn’t mean I won’t conduct any more polls, but I’ll try to make them interesting, and not sleep inducing.

Adios for another week,

Just (God Bless Our Independence, But Enough of the Fireworks Already) Jack