OktoberFast Wrap Up

I realized last night (as I was destroying a plate of Tandoori chicken, ironically) that October is going to be a very light training month. I have to Taper for the OC Tri which is the 10th, then I promised my body and my wife to go light on the training this month to rest and finish a living room remodel. So my goal is to be at or below the weight I am on race day despite the decreased training load.

The above is the comment I left on September 30th in response to Big Clyde's post about the OktoberFast challenge.  Basically, my month was supposed to go down like this:

• Taper for the OC Olympic Triathlon
• Finish remodeling the living room
• Maintain (or lose) weight in light of a decreased training load.

How did the month end up?  Here it is in review:

The Taper - I ended up doing OK with my taper - twice (well, maybe one and a half times).  Regular readers will recall that I was all ready to go for the OC Tri, but managed to put the wrong cleats on my cycling shoes.  I didn't discover this little folly until about 40 minutes before the race start, so I had to drop out after the swim.  Obviously I was pissed, so the second I got home I searched for another race and found the Big Rock Olympic Triathlon the following weekend.  Though the second time around wasn't a full taper, I definitely took it easier than normal.  In hindsight, I think everything worked out for the best - I ended up doing OK at Big Rock.

The Remodel - Yeah....this one's not done.  I've been working on it, but I'm not finished.  I used to love doing this stuff, I'm not sure what happened.  I still have to install some light fixtures, paint and seal the floors.  This WILL be done by Thanksgiving; mid December at the latest.

The Weight - My weight is down by a pound or so, but it wasn't that much of a "challenge" due to the fact that my training volume didn't decrease too much.

Here is my training volume for the month:

Bike:	20h 16m 24s  - 362.79 Mi
Run:	11h 42m 55s  - 86.93 Mi
Swim:	9h 12m 08s  - 15880 Yd
Strength:	40m

It's a little over 41 hours.  My run volume is slightly up from September, but the bike is down by about 90 miles.  The decrease in the bike is mostly due to 2 or 3 days of crappy weather we had.  I'm not sure if this is a bad thing, but I really couldn't be bothered to ride in the rain pretending I'm racing in one of the Spring Classics.  Also it's nice to see I made it to the gym - once.

The cherry on the proverbial sundae was winning my age group at the Huntington Beach Distance Derby.  This certainly wasn't in my plan.  In fact I wasn't even registered for this race on September 30th.  But it was nice to win a piece of hardware for the first time. 

So it seems that though nothing really went as planned, I had a pretty good month.  Well, except for the living room.  I'm catching some heat for that and I probably deserve it.

Anyway, a big thank you is in order to Clyde for masterminding the challenge.  I also look forward to reading about how everyone else did with their challenges.

OctoberFast, September In Review, And Why My Boss Rules

As some of you may have seen over at The Clydesdale Project, Big Clyde and I are co-hosting a challenge for the month of October.  Though pretty much the brain child of Clyde, I offered up my limited art skills and created the banner.  I've also been called upon to create a finisher's badge for everyone who participates.  You can check out the details here, but the premise is simple: pick a goal for October, be it training volume or weight loss (or both), and stick to it.  Clyde and I will do a few posts throughout the month for participants to share their updates.

In the car with Mary driving west on Edinger Ave. in Huntington Beach last night.

I wrapped up September training a few hours ago with a swim workout, and the month looked like this:

Bike:

25h 27m 44s  - 454.7 Mi

Run:

10h 59m 55s  - 80.62 Mi

Swim:

8h 32m 32s  - 14056 Yd

Strength:

1h 30m

September was a pretty good month with about 48 hours in total volume.  I would have liked to see a bit more swimming, but I did manage to get more quality out of what I did, opting for more drill and technique improvement sessions over straight up open water swimming.

I always sketch my swim workouts out on a never ending supply of real estate agent note pads that are constantly dropped on our porch (is this a California thing?).  A positive bunch of folks, these agents.  The worst swarm of locusts in recorded history could descend upon Huntington Beach followed by the detonation of a nuclear warhead and they would still be insisting that "while things are a little tough at the moment, Surf City residents are a resilient bunch.  Things will start to turn around and the real estate market will be as strong as ever...".

Start of Newport Coast Drive.  4 miles, 8% average grade.

Since I start my taper for the OC Triathlon Monday, I've been planning to go big this weekend.  Saturday and Sunday are clear, and my plan for Friday was to ride before work and run afterwards.  But then I remembered that my wife is going out Friday night which means that I'll have to pick up Ian from his after school program.  So this afternoon I sent my boss Bruce an email letting him know I was hoping to cut out early tomorrow so I could run before getting Ian.

Here's where it gets awesome - He e-mailed me back and told me to take the day off!!

So here's the plan - I'll start with a 50 mile ride starting south down PCH with a loop through Newport and Irvine, and then back.  Then I'll take a nap.  Then I'll tabulate the Virtualman race results (which I'll post tomorrow night).  And then I'll run before I grab Ian.  I may have just unexpectedly stumbled into a perfect day.

Thanks Bruce, you rock!!