Doing my homework

I have been doing a lot of prep work for my pre-training period. Painting everything at my house so I won't have to paint it in 2009. Working on my garden so it's ready to go in the spring without much work. I have also been doing a series of oxygen tests to see how well my body can hold up under heavy training. I have learned that while biking my base heart rate is 151 and my threshold is 171. According to the charts that's well above average so I'm off to a good start. The goal is to raise my base up to my threshold so I can be the most efficient without 'bonking' - that's a technical term for running out of energy during a race. I have another test today for running to see where that is at. I will be shocked if it's as good since I haven't been running much. I'm in the rest period for TC Marathon - oh wait, that rest period has been much of the summer. I just didn't want to get burnt out on running before I enter into a strenous training period. My coach thought that was pretty funny but somewhat logical as well.

Yes, you do need a coach for this. I'm meeting next week with her to formulate my daily training plan. She is the coach that I have been going to Master Swimming with the past year. I'm kind of afraid of her which I think is a good quality for a coach. I wouldn't want one that is too nice and lets you slack too much in training. When I first came to her master swimming I was wearing foam goggles and a Target swim suit. I'm pretty sure she was wonder how I happened to find her as I looked like her biggest challenge yet. She told me to get a real suit and make sure it's tight - so tight that you have to struggle to get it on and so tight that you now have back fat you never had before popping out of the straps and your butt feels like you are wearing underwear for a toddler. After all that my suit was still too big because it had a small wrinkle in the stomach.

Registration is the first test of an IronMan

September 7 - Olaf and I went to bed early in Madison because we were going to get up very early to wait in line for hours to get a registration spot for the Ironman. I couldn't sleep all night. It took all my power to not go down to the Terrace at 1 am and sleep there just to make sure I get in.

Sept 8 - We woke up about 5 am and we were on our way to the Terrace. (Thankfully we were staying at Lynn and Greg's house and they are only 15 minutes from downtown Madison.) Already the line had about 100 people in it when we arrived. We waited and waited only to learn that the volunteers from this years Ironman get to register first, before everyone else. Olaf left and had a hot breakfast at a local cafe while I waited some more. At that point I heard about 800 IronMan participants already registered for 2009. The athletes have priority and get to register the Saturday prior to IronMan. Keep in mind there are around 2200 spots. So now I'm thinking 1400 spots left. The line was growing and growing. About 9 am we were divided into volunteers and non-volunteers. Then it started raining on us as the volunteers had the line under the building. I calmly counted 1000 plus volunteers. I was hopeful many were just being nice and waiting in line with their friends. All the volunteers were streaming out with their 'golden ticket'. At 10:15 we finally entered the building after waiting 5 hours! The number on my paper was 1351. Yikes! I signed up and on Sept 17th the official email arrived asking for money. I paid my 525 dollars for registration into the 2009 IronMan. Woo hoo! I'm relieved to get registered but now the hard part - training and not getting injured in the process.