It’s official:  I am wiped out, finished for the day.  It will be a miracle if I am still awake after 9 PM tonight. 

Started out this morning with another open water training session with the awesome ladies training for Danskin!  This was pretty much the same session as on Wed, with sighting practice, mass starts, and a few swims around the buoys. This time, I did get to swim once around the buoys — to be conservative, I’m going to estimate that I did about 400 yards of open water swimming. The rest of the time, I was a “swim angel.”

Then I led the ladies on a bike ride to show them the Danskin bike course.  Great hill training.  I have always thought that course is pretty tough for a tri that is really geared toward first-timers!  What an accomplishment for everyone! These ladies will be ready for Danskin on June 6!

I then ran on part of the Danskin run course. There were no takers on running after our swim/bike, so I was on my own.  It was not the full 5k run, because the actual Danskin course has some extra switch-backs added in, so what I ended up running was about 2.5 miles.  (I should clarify that Walter Long Park at Decker Lake is the venue for quite a few triathlons, actually, so it’s really not just “the Danskin course,” despite my calling it that.  I also have done the Cactus Tri, Couples Tri, and Longhorn 70.3 here at Decker Lake.  I’m not a big fan of the run course used here most often — it is off-road, which would normally be a plus, but here, the ground is really uneven and the grass is clumpy, making it unpleasant and treacherous at times.  I was somewhat fearful about blowing out my niggly knee.  Honestly, I’m not really sure why I even ran it this morning, other than it was there and so was I, and, of course, I need the mileage!)

Anyhow — by this time, I was needing some solid food — not just a gel or sport drink — so luckily I had a banana in the car, and I ate that while I stretched my quads. I got in my car planning to 1) head to Whole Foods to get more food for lunch, and then 2) head to Town Lake to run and swim at the Y.  However, I saw that I had the following two text messages on my phone:

“Come north for a real farm boy workout!”

“Please!”

Decoded, this meant that my friends who were spreading a truck load of compost over a gigantic back yard in north Austin were asking for assistance.  Placid Athlete (aka “Fembot”) to the rescue!

I did stop first to get a black bean burrito for lunch, but then spread compost for awhile — maybe 45 minutes to an hour. I had raking duty, but managed to avoid having to push a wheelbarrow today. 

I still had to swim and run some more, though, and I had to be finished and back home by 4 PM, because that’s when my kids were getting home from being at their grandparents’ house the past couple of days. 

Of course, I had my mobile triathlon transition area with me.  (I still had my bike on the bike rack, and all my swim/bike/run gear in the trunk so I could tri from right there!)

My transition area at a race would not be this messy, I assure you — see below. 

I ran another 1.86 miles, but started to feel pretty bad, so I decided to call it a day on running.  I had hoped to get in at least another 2.5 to make it 5 miles on the day, but it wasn’t happening.  I was probably starting to suffer from a bit of dehydration, as it was a fairly hot afternoon and I had been going and going since this morning.  I went back and lay down in the air conditioning for awhile to recover.  It was coming up on 2:30 PM, though, and I still needed to get in more swimming, so Chris and I went to her neighborhood pool and I got in another 1250 yards. Chris just read Born to Run, and is all fired up about barefoot running, so she tacked on about 10 minutes of barefoot running practice in the field next to the pool while I enjoyed some IronSittingOnTheGround (yippee!).  I was not up for even 10 minutes of running at this point in the day.

I did manage to get home by 4 PM with a few minutes to spare.  I did 7 pull-ups and then threw myself on the couch.  Kids arrived shortly after.  Yay!  

Last task of the day (after my shower but before dinner) was to make a run to Jack & Adams tri shop to get a new tire and tube for my commuter bike. I’ll need to fix that tomorrow so it will be ready for Monday morning. 

Tomorrow is another light day for recovery before the final push to the end of IronMonth. 

Day 22 Totals:

• Swim: 1650 yds
• Bike: 11.38 miles
• Run: 4.36 miles
• Push-ups: 0
• Pull-ups: 7
• Crunches: 0

IronMonth Cumulative Totals:

• Swim: 11,999.8 yds (61.26%)
• Bike: 305.86 miles (68.27%)
• Run: 77.3 miles (73.76%)
• Push-ups: 465 (62%)
• Pull-ups: 221 (73.67%)
• Crunches: 985 (65.67%)