Poker Cancelled Workouts resume

March 4th (week 3 day 2) Ironman Triathlon Training.

So after planning on playing poker all night my friends decided to cancel with 15 minutes notice. Luckily I had already planned for this because I brought my work out stuff with me to work anyway. So after work I headed straight for the gym to try and complete both the workouts I was supposed to do today and was planning on doing on Saturday.

My Ironman triathlon training workout for today was swimming and running, 60 minutes or each. My swimming workout was quite easy 6x500. For some reason the third one was exhausting my left lat was feeling weak and felt like it was going to start cramping but when I started my fourth set it seemed fine and I finished my workout without any more problems. At the end of my swim i was talking to a friend of mine from the gym that has done many 70.3 Ironmans and even competed in worlds last year, I was asking him about using a wet suit during the swim. I had noticed when looking at photos online that almost always the majority of the participants wear a wet suit even if the water temp was in the 70s and was asking him if he had used one in the past, what benefits are there to wearing one, and do you need to use anything to prevent chafing while swimming with them since your body isn't used to it. He encouraged me that anytime the USAT allows you to use one to use it. He said that it increases your buoyancy so much that it turns an average swimmer into a good swimmer, it won't make you a great swimmer but it will make you faster, on a side note he actually doesn't like races where you are allowed to use them because he is such a good swimmer that it levels the playing field more during the swim and he has to work even harder to get ahead. He said if you are going to use a wetsuit and you are a good swimmer make sure you go out in the swim hard to get ahead of most of the other participants, according to him anytime you are in the swim being away from other participants will actually make you faster because you aren't worrying about being kicked or blocked in. And as far as chafing is concerned, they make a roll-on (kind of like a roll-on deodorant) greaser that is more the consistence of Pam cooking spray but for the most part its not needed unless you are swimming a full (2.4 mile) ironman. On a side note never use a petroleum based product, like Vasoline, on a wetsuit it will destroy it.

After the swim I hit the treadmill for 60 minutes. In the end I completed 6 miles but this was a much harder 6 miles then the 9 I had completed on Saturday after my swim. I started out running at 7 mph but was exhausted after only 20 minutes i slowed down to 6.5 mph for another 5 minutes then had to walk at 4 mph for another 10. After that I would do 5 minute intervals for the remaining 25 minutes of the workout, run for 1-2 minutes at 8 mph and walk the other 3-4 minutes at 4 mph. I hit 6 miles right at the hour mark. I was concerned about why this was so much harder the last Saturday so lets explore my nutrition and activities leading up to each workout.

As I was heading to the gym for both workouts I ate a Powerbar Performance (peanut butter is my favorite), I realized after looking at the Powerbar website that I was using their product wrong. The powerbar performance bars are supposed to be eaten 30 minutes BEFORE a workout, I had been trying to use them during my workouts and wasn't getting the full benefit of them. So there was no difference there. But during my swim on Saturday I had a Gatorade during my swim and last night I was drinking only water at the breaks of my swim (my runs on both days I drank both Gatorade and water). Could that little difference of a Gatorade really made all the difference or was it what I had eaten the meal just prior to workout, lunch for yesterdays workout and dinner on Friday for Saturdays workout. Friday night I had a large portion of chicken alfredo full of complex carbs and proteins, Tuesday lunch I had a couple things of fruit (good simple carbs) and a pulled pork sandwich and okay source of protein. I'll have to do some experimenting with different foods in my meals prior to workout to see what benefit I get from each. I don't want to always be eating pasta just to have enough carbs to work out but I don't want to be struggling through my workouts either. For now I'll change the one variable I know I can control, if I'm going to be doing two activities back to back I'll make sure I have a Gatorade during both to see if that makes a difference or not.