Mike Schubert

I am looking to race in a few events that have open water swims in the ocean. The only time that I have swam in the ocean has been on vacation - and it was more play time than actual swimming. Clearly one of my concerns is in navigating the open waters and staying on course. The other major concern is being stung by jelly fish.

I don't know why this worries me so much. I have never been stung by one before, and have really only seen them in dead form on the beach. It probably has something to do with my mother's worrisome nature and the tales of my brother being stung while on vacation when he was younger. Either way, it does weigh heavily on my mind. 

Enter pantyhose. Evidently, the nylon forms a protective barrier that protects the body from jelly fish stings. I guess I don't really need to cover my arms and legs in pantyhose but rather by a nylon skin suit that I could wear while practicing. This is definitely something worth looking into.

The attached article goes into more detail, and also has handy info on what to do if you get stung:

If you forgo the suit and end up getting stung, bust out the blow dryer—assuming you were stung by the irritating and not life-threatening kind of jellyfish— and use a trick a friendly lifeguard taught me. Fire up a blow dryer and hold it as close to the site of the stings on the hottest setting you can stand (don't burn yourself) and then fan it back and forth over the affected area. The blow dryer dries out the stingers without activating them—like drying to rinse them off with fresh water would. Once you blast the area with heat you can use a safety razor or credit card to scrape the stingers off.

I would've never thought of that. Going through these scenarios in my mind is really helping to coax me back to the beach. I always feel more comfortable when I have a plan in my mind and have thought through what could go wrong. 

Read More -> Use Pantyhose to Protect Yourself From Jellyfish Stings

Pre-ride 3-31-2010
Originally uploaded by Iron Mike Schubert

Baseball players have wound down Spring training and the regular season has begun. Atlanta has completely skipped Spring and gone from high temperatures one week in the 40's to last week in the 80's. I decided it was time to take some time off from work for a little Spring training of my own.

3/31 - 43 mile bike ride through Suwanee, Buford, Flowery Branch and Sugar Hill. High temp on the bike was right at 80 degrees.

4/1 - 5.75 mile run at lunch (I worked today). Again - the weather was perfect. This is evidently the start of heat training for the season so my run struggled a bit. I expect this to change quickly.

4/2 - Rest day. If anyone ever posts a week's worth of workouts and you don't see a rest day, you need to question them. You get stronger via recovery from the activity, not from actually doing the activity. I worked today, too.

4/3 - 6.7 miles run. This was an easy out and back on the greenway. Not a lot of elevation change. Right at the end I had to gun it to get around some annoying Team In Training people. Once again, they were occupying the entire 12 foot stretch of concrete with just a few people. They said "sorry" as I passed them on the right - meaning they knew they were in the wrong. Unfortunately, they continued to be in the wrong even after I passed them.

4/4 - Ride: 15.5 miles. Originally I planned this to be a swim as I thought it was the last day of the Tri2Remember Swim Clinic. Evidentally, it wasn't due to the Easter holiday. I have missed the prior two practices due to the ING Marathon one Sunday and dealing with my mom's estate the other Sunday. 

4/5 - Stott pilates. It's nice to work out with athletes. There is a common respect there - especially when they give you a workout that absolutely kicks your ass. That was the way today went. Imagine 1 hour of core work where the goal is to find all of your different breaking points and make them stronger. That's how it went. At the end, the instructor said she admired my ability to swim / bike / run for hours on end - she could do pilates for hours, but no way could bike or run for that long. And to be honest, an hour of Stott was all I could take. Mutual admiration isn't a bad thing.

4/6 - Long run. >10 miles. I wanted to go longer than that today, but it simply wasn't in the cards. As I mentioned earlier, it's heating up in Atlanta - they high today was around 88. So the heat training has kicked in earlier than planned. That's not a bad thing. I just ran 26.2 a couple of weeks back, so I'm not worried about the distance. I'll get in a 15 miler this weekend and a bunch of maintenance runs as well so I should be all set for 26.2 again in 2.5 weeks.

And thus Spring Training for me has ended. I feel better and stronger today than when I started 1 week ago. The base fitness has been awakened and proven. I am working on the 3rd solid week of logging EVERYTHING that goes in my mouth and my workouts. All that combined and I FEEL like an athlete again. That was the overarching goal of the past week and I met it with flying colors.

Sunrise Over Lake Lanier
Originally uploaded by Iron Mike Schubert

Today marked a new beginning, albeit a short one, in my quest to tame the iron-distance triathlon. In 4 weeks, I will take on the distance again at the Great Floridian Triathlon in Clermont, Florida. The past two weeks were about recovery. This week and next week are about building to a new peak. The following two weeks will be tapering.

Today I started off my new beginning by visiting a different gym. One of the beautiful parts of having memberships with Lifetime Fitness and the YMCA of Metro Atlanta is having 6 different gyms to choose from in which to workout. The Y keeps their pools untolerably hot, so I chose to go to Lifetime Fitness in Johns Creek. I was rewarded with a clean gym, crystal clear pool, and plenty of lockers. This is in stark contrast to the condition at the Alpharetta Lifetime. The Johns Creek location is practically a 180 in terms of floor plan when compared to Alpharetta. When I went looking for something, it was virtually in a mirror image of the Alpharetta location. Definitely weird and mentally challenging at 5 a.m.!!

All told, I was able to swim an hour and lift weights for a little over 30 minutes. For lunch, i went to the Alpharetta Lifetime Fitness and got in a roughly 3.5 mile run. At one point this morning, I thought I was being hard on that gym and was just biased toward the Johns Creek location because I had not been there before. After running and showering I realized that my assessment of the facility was spot on. I will now be doing my early morning workouts at Johns Creek whenever practical.

P.S. I drove by the Suwanee Greenway in hopes of getting a good picture of the flooding I reported on yesterday. The waters had receded tremendously and the trail, at least near Martin Farm Rd looked fairly passable, thus I did not get any photographs. Hopefully we will not see any more flooding like that!

Bikes coming into Transition on Saturday
Originally uploaded by Mike's Adventures

Rather than one long rant, I have decided to split my race report into 3 sections - swim, bike and run. The pre-race and post-race will be included with the swim and run reports. This just makes more sense to me and will let me write in chunks and get 'er done.

September 13th started like any normal day. Up at 4 a.m., eat a peanut butter bagel, and get dressed for my day. I made my way down to the race site and dropped my special needs bags off. I made my first mental mistake here where I packed too many bottles of Infinit sports drink in my special needs bike bag and was 1 short for the first half of my bike. By the time I found this mistake, it was too late to retrieve so I pressed on with 2 waters and 2 bottles of Infinit. The rest of my pre-race routine went like clockwork. I aired up my tires, put my cycling computer on, and at 6:30 am headed down to the swim start with my wetsuit in hand.

The day started a little warmer than I expected. By 6:40 I had my wetsuit on to my hips and was in line to get in the water. The Wisconsin start is wide and in deep water, but the entry to the water is a tiny funnel. It took awhile to get through the bottleneck and into the water. By 6:55, I was in and floating out to my spot. I swam a little to get warmed up and then waited the cannon.

Promptly at 7 the cannon fired and the washing machine that is the Ironman swim start began. I did not get kicked and was only jossled a few times. I found I have a hard time sighting off the yellow buoys - maybe because they look like the sun. I really don't konw what the problem is. But I end up off course to the right when sighting off the yellow buoys, but then sight like a champ on the orange buoys. Additionally, I started to get calf and toe cramps occassionally on the 2nd lap. I am not sure why since I have been well hydrated for weeks. The pros passed me at the end of the first loop and that was quite a sight. There was a pack of 10 guys in tight drafting each other - it was like a freight train was coming through! Through it all, I kept my breathing in check and came out of the water feeling good and fresh, aside from the usual wierd feelings of walking on land after swimming for 1 hr 40 mins.

The transition at Ironman Wisconsin is fairly unique. You run up "the helix" which is a spiral ramp that cars drive to navigate different levels of the parking deck. You then go into Monona Terrace, which is a convention center, and sit fairly comfortably while you dry off and put on your socks, shoes, etc. The bike transition area is long and narrow, so you have to run from one end to the other while picking up your bike along the way. The picture I've included with this post is taken from the bridge that is roughly in the middle of the bike transition area. I knew my bike was near the bike exit at the far end, so I ran in my socks and did not put my shoes on until I got to my bike. The volunteers are great and had my bike ready and waiting when I hit my rack. I put my shoes on at this point and headed to the Bike Mount line.

Check back soon for the bike portion of my race report.

Race Ready
Originally uploaded by Mike

I took a trip to the greenway yesterday in my new tri top, new tri shorts, and new Yankz! It wasn't all that important to try out the Yankz, but I needed to know how the new shirt and shorts would do when running in the humidity. I worked up a good sweat they all checked out great.

With that said, I am ready to race. The training has been completed. My body has adapted. I will swim several times this week, mostly in Lake Monona, and get in a 2 hour spin class on Tuesday.

Aside from that, getting plenty of sleep and proper nutrition are the orders for the rest of this week. Later this afternoon I'm headed over to see Dave, Stephanie and Ian. Always a good time w/ that bunch.

Today's Workout: A 5:30 a.m. swim to stay in the routine.