B-fit B-day recap

Yeah I did it. I took the half day off work on Friday and started my vacation in the pool. The swim was fairly long, but quite enjoyable as the pool was almost empty during the whole time. I did 300 yd repeats and did total of 5500 yards (little over 5km). Then I went to BN and got myself a good cup of latte with scone. I regained my composure over the tri and running books. After the swim I went back home and spent some time with my son until Dasa came back home. Then I laced-up ad went for a run to the town to pickup the race packets for Dasa and I for the 5k race for the next morning. I took the long route for the total of 6 miles. When I got home Ian was about to go sleep so I helped bathe him and put him to bed. Then after a short break and some power bars I mixed up my drinks and headed down to the basement to my bike trainer. I did 36 miles in easy pace and finished the day just before midnight. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the whole day. I'm pretty sure I'll do this again next year.

As I went through the day I captured my thoughts and feelings on the B-fit B-day page. Here are the excerpts:

Starting in about 15 minutes
Will be heading down to the pool in about 15 minutes. I'll take pictures as I go. Should be done by tomorrow morning after I finish the 5k road race in my town. Updates on Twitter - pity I can not link it here.

Swim complete 2:18:02
I was lucky, the pool was almost empty. During the peak hours there were 3 swimmers. Very cool. I swam at very easy pace to enjoy the afternoon and finished the swim in 2:18:02. I go out fr a run soon - it is still very nice and I need to pickup a race packet for tomorrow so I'll just run down there pick it up and run back. Should be just about 6 miles. And I'll be biking later in the evening. 36 miles on the bike sounds like nothing compared to the 3 mi swim... First time I swam this far. I did 300yd sets with 1-2 min rest intervals. I recorded video that I'll post later if it is any good - still need to look at it :-).

Oh I actually swam 5500 yd just to be on the safe side :-). The total time for the 5500yd was 2:22:04.

6mi run done in 53:16:07
I took some time after the pool swim to eat something and have about an hour with my son before I laced-up and went out to pick-up my race packet for the 5k run tomorrow morning. It was so nice outside that I decided to take the long route and put in the whole 6 miles. I did not rush things and just cruised easy to the town and back. I wonder how I'll do on my run tomorrow. I'll definitely report that here.

The activity is recorded on Garmin Connect

I ran with the Garmin 405 including the foot pod that monitors my cadence. Now my son is in bed and I'll be heading downstairs to my dungeon to finish this challenge and the 36 miles on the bike. I have plenty of podcasts, books and one movie so it should be enjoyable experience. Need to get to bed before midnight to get at least 7 hours of sleep before the race tomorrow morning. Good thing it is in our town about 2 miles away from my house.

Finished bike 36mi just before midnight
Do I get extra points for finishing the gold challenge in less than 12 hours? Just kidding. That was actually a goal that kind of evolved during the day. The big unknown was the swim and once I had it behind me and regained the balance (I was like off balance for an hour or so from being in horizontal position for so long). Anyways the bike is done I'll now go get some food to refuel and tomorrow I guess I'll take the race easier than usual. The bike time was 2:11:13.

Summary of results
Swim (3mi) 2:18:02
Run (6mi) 53:16
Bike (36mi) 2:11:13
Total 5:22:31


Stared at 12:30pm ET finished by 11:55pm ET the same day. OK time for bed.

After all the swimming, running and biking I ran the 5k road race in Coopersburg. I did not expect anything exceptional in terms of time. In fact this was the very first race I started with legs that were more than dead. In spite of that I was able to run good 2 miles before I got double stitch and had to walk for about 100 meters. Then I resumed runing, re-passed most people that passed me during the walk break and finished totally exhausted in 21:42 (Garmin watch time). It was an interesting experience and I learned something new about pacing when tired. The next 2 days are very easy recovery days. And I do not plan any hard activities until at least Tuesday.

Hornet Juice #2

Interesting. Today after waking up at 6:30 and feeling a little tired I had a glass of water with the Hornet Juice as I posted earlier. Since then I'm full of energy. Not only have I completed the one hour morning hill climbing on bike trainer and fel great, I continued with my usual work routine. Which lately consist of about 120 phone calls in the morning and another set in the afternoon. This is spiced-up with mails and occasional work related IM, NetMeeting or WebEx. Surprisingly I felt great the whole day and at 4 p.m. when I had 30 minutes open slot on my calendar I laced-up and went out for easy 3.5 miler. Just got back for my last phone call and e-mails. I wonder what they put in this thing that it keeps you going like this. I wonder how will I feel tomorrow and if I will crash later today. I'll definitely use this on Friday for the Gold Challenge.

Hornet Juice test

As part of the B-Fit B-Day challenge I received few packets of Hornet Juice. I have heard on few podcasts that it works very well so I tested the first batch of it this morning. The plan was to workout for about an hour on the bike with long warm-up and about 30 minutes of hill climbing at 65-75rpm. Mixed the juice with water and drank it few minutes before getting on the bike. The taste was not the best one, but also not the worst from all the supplements I tried so far. Some people may call it acquired taste. What I mean is that I can get used to it. The I hopped on the bike and although I was not sleeping much tonight I got very good workout and feel great. I was expecting to be little tired, but not so. I guess the juice works. I'll give it another try on Friday when I do the gold challenge. I can't wait to get in the pool and get the 3 miles in. It will be a good departure from the structured program I have been following for the past 14+ weeks.

B-Fit B-Day coming-up

This year I decided to celebrate my birthday in style - tri-style that is. I have come across the B-Fit B-Day site that suggests to celebrate the birthday by doing a modified self-supported triathlon. The rules are fairly simple - you take your age and swim number of miles in the first digit, then bike the whole age in miles and run the last digit again in miles. I'll be 36 this May so it translates to 3mi swimming, 36mi on the bike and 6mi run.

I set the big day for next week Friday. I'll start with swim at the local pool. Not sure how long it takes so I allocated 3 hours to complete. Then plan to do 36mi bike session in the evening and next morning I'll run to the 5k race, run the race and run back which should total more than 6 miles. If I feel well in the evening I may finish the 6 miles in the evening and then run only the race the next morning. We shall see how I feel.

If you want to celebrate your birthday in style click on the B-Fit B-Day logo, sign-up a go for it.

New bike rider in the family

Ian started riding his new bike about a week ago. I was so proud of him when we went for a walk last week for the first time and he was biking almost the whole way (about 3/4 of a mile). This weekend we all went much longer walk (2 miles) and Ian took his bike along. We was cruising around us and was not afraid to ride down hill (well I had to hold him otherwise he would have had a bad accident). Dasa took few pictures during the walk that you can review below. He is very cute on the bike. It is not just any bike - it is fairly light and has a disc wheels that are quite aerodynamic. I got a huge kick out of him towards the end of the walk when he was leaning on his handle bars and said that he is riding just like me - he had pretty good aero position for a little kid :-).

Early into the walk

Look behind me at the slope of the hill we were riding.

Zooming by the photographer downhill. I was barely keeping-up with him.