7 days to go...

The race is in just over 7 days away...

My dad should be moving to a regular hospital room and out of the ICU. It looks like he has stopped bleeding and is stable. The doctor said he will be there for a few more days so they can monitor him and see if they can pump him with meds via IV to help expedite the healing process. Right now he is determined to go to VA for the race...

My dog is doing much better. He is eating now... :) It looks like we are out of the woods now.

My workouts have been going well. Tuesday I swam 2800 yards, rode 2.5 hours, and ran 5.25 miles. Wednesday I did a 1.5 hour ride and 9 mile run averaging 7:25/mile. Today I did 1.5 hours on the bike taking the watts up to 290 and ran 3.5 miles with a few 2 min efforts averaging 6:00/mile.

Tomorrow morning I plan to swim 4000-5000 meters in the morning and spend some time packing in the afternoon.

Updates...

My dad is scheduled for a CT tomorrow. The doctors believe he might have damaged other organs once they saw the size and depth of his ulcer. That would not be good.

The vet said that my dog has a brain tumor. Right now he is on meds to help calm his stomach. At this point we are watching him closely to see if his quality of life improves or gets worse.

It almost seems pointless to update about my workouts at this point. I am still doing them, but I am mentally lost in thought around all the things going on right now. I am scheduled with Dr. Thompson tomorrow morning for my knee and hip pain. It has been getting progressively worse over the past few days. I have my final appointment with Dr. Van Tassell before leaving on Thursday afternoon.

Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad

It seems like things go from bad to worse sometimes... My dad is in the ICU with an ulcer that will not quit bleeding. As of an hour ago he already had 6 pints of blood. My mom called and said that she was not sure if they would make it to the race. I told her not to worry about it and that I would figure things out. That would leave me short 2 support people. I should know more tomorrow...

One of my dogs is at the vet right now. We did not think he would make it through the night last night. The vet is currently running tests to figure out what is going on with him. He has not eaten in days and have been throwing up all over. He is old and has had health issues lately... 2 years ago I had one of my dogs pass away while traveling to a race. I am hoping that it is not going to happen again.

This is a test text 2 blog posting. If all goes well my support team at the race will be able to text updates directly to my blog. As long as there is cell reception there should be updates...

9/6 - Long swim

Today I swam 6000 meters. I felt good... The first 2.4 miles ended up taking 54 minutes. I wore the speedsuit for the first 1800 meters. It is amazing how much more flexible a speedsuit is compared to both a full and sleeveless wetsuit. The down side is that both the full and sleeveless wetsuits were roughly 10 seconds per 100 faster than swimming without a wetsuit. The speedsuit is roughly 5 seconds per 100 faster than without it. I am not sure what the water temperature will be at my race, but here is what I am thinking right now:

72-74 degrees = full wetsuit
74-76 degrees = sleeveless wetsuit
> 76 degrees = speedsuit

I plan to take all three suits with me so I can make a decision there.

9/5 - Almost home...

In 12 days I will be over 1/2 way done with the race... This week has been a good week. I did not swim as much as I wanted to, but I did get in a 123 mile ride yesterday and managed to still feel good afterwards. In fact, I ended up running 8 miles yesterday evening.

This morning I volunteered at the kids YTS triathlon. All 3 of my kids participated and had a good time. It was soooooo much fun watching all the kids and adults do the tri this morning.

I ran 18.4 miles after I got home from the race and unpacked all the bikes (started the run at noon so it was hot...). 7.5 was at ultra distance pace (8:00/mile pace including a couple walk breaks...). I was feeling good at that point to I picked up the pace to IM pace and ran the next 7.5 miles at 7:04 pace. After that I ran 3.4 miles with my wife. I intended to do 20 miles, but ended up rubbing my left heel a little raw. It is a good thing it happened today as it reminded me to add blister band-aids to my list of things to bring to the race.

16 days and counting...

I swam 4000 meters during the lunch hour. The swim did not feel very good...

After work I rode the training for 1 ht 15 min varying the watts between 200 and 230. Off the bike I ran 9.1 miles at 7:28 average pace (basically IM pace). All and all an easier aerobic day.