Congrats on putting in the time and effort to train for Ironman Canada even if they ended up canceling the swim. The full bike distance and marathon is definitely something to be proud of!
I’ll see you at Tri-Cities. I can’t believe it’s less than 3 weeks away already!
I had a good month of August.
I ended up with:
Cycling - 233.73 miles (lots of mountain biking) over 24:16:09
Running - 82.65 miles over 12:20:42
Swimming - 21,902 yards (including a couple open water swims) over 7:58:54
The highlight of the month was doing the Portland Xterra race at the beginning of the month. I improved my time from last year even with making a couple wrong turns on the bike course after someone took down some course markings.
I much prefer mountain biking and gravel riding over road riding, but I’m looking forward to Ironman 70.3 Washington Tri-Cities in just 20 days from now.
Does anyone have any tips of preventing wetsuit chafing on the back of my neck? Bodyglide doesn’t prevent it for me. Maybe something thicker would last longer?
I use Vaseline. There used to be a myth about it affecting neoprene, debunked I’m glad to say. Big lump of it at the back of the neck.
Need to be careful about touching your goggles though.
Thanks!
I’m not doing any tri’s but have been repeating the MV Full-Distance swim plan since March to add some variety to my training. I’m looking for something other than just 200 and 150/50 repeats. Are there any free swim plans that you recommend?
Overall good month. Really trying to get the swim time in, been tough with work.
Swim just under 8 hours, 23000 yds
Bike 20 hours, 333 miles
Run 16 hours, 96 miles
Raced the Lake Tahoe 70.3. The swim was terrible, my worst to date. Lots of fog, couldn’t site. Big waves due to wind. Finished in 45 minutes (my last lake 70.3 swim was 37 minutes). I almost pulled myself from the swim, couldn’t get air due to the waves crashing into me. I had to do a lot of breast stroke. Got through it. On the bike my PM wouldn’t wake up (it was 35* F outside when we started, should have had the bike in the truck for the 2 hour drive to the start). I think the batteries were cold, as the PM worked later that day when it warmed up. Raced with RPE. Had a great run. Finished the run in 2:01. Overall I was happy with how I did.
Less than 2 months out to IM California, it’s go time!
Six weeks to North Carolina 70.3. Training in the Louisiana summer heat is challenging but nothing new. Hope to have some milder temps soon. Feel like I’m still on track to have a good race. Not as fast as most on here, but I just keep on moving.
Main focus is still on dialing in my nutrition. Really need to find the breakfast that works best. On course I seem to have that dialed in. Me and the wife rotate years on who has the racing focus while the other supports the kids school work/training, and for some reason the body doesn’t seem to like the same foods as it used too.
I may need to try that next time. I totally forgot about the chaffing issues at my last race since I decided to just not care for once… boy did I regret that in T1 when I sprayed some sunscreen on my neck… In the past I had been mostly fine with body glide like mentioned above on my neck for a full sleeve, but it always failed on my back for a sleeveless.
Done with tris for the season but like last month I am doing more training since the race than I did before. Runs were only family runs with jogger to a downtown concert thing on sundays, with one hey I"m gonna run longer and meet you at home night. Think I only swam 1 time this month and my 12 year membership at a great pool ended on the 31st, haven’t joined the Y yet.
swim 1200 yds
bike looks like about ~20 days on the bike 30+ hours which included my biggest climbing day.
run 6 miles
My dad is thinking cozumel for a full next year which I’m tempted to do also. GF undecided on a half so until she decides I’m not chiming in after she missed her race with the crash the week before.
ETA my dad still has jones beach this year, which he seems to actually be training for and I have a race a train up a mtn gravel event in a week and a half.
August was a month “off” following my A event on 28 July.
The day after Outlaw Full we flew to Italy on a family holiday. Walking around Naples and Pompeii were very interesting in the days after doing a full distance!
The rest of the month I concentrated on riding the bike. I’ve entered a UCI Gravel World Series event in Wales on 22 September (just for fun) and have been loosely following the gran fondo MV speciality plan - after the holiday in August I managed 39 hours 30 on the bike and 4 hours of running. Only one swim session but going to get back into that in September.
I’ve still not decided what I’m going to do in 2025 yet. I don’t think it will involve a full distance but I do quite like the idea of doing 2 or 3 70.3s in the first half to the year and decide what I’m doing from there. I would like to do a full distance again but the commitment to training is so big i don’t want to go through all of that every year given the impact it has on family life!
Great to see these strong performances. Hope my tri journey that started 4 weeks ago Will have some stories like those also in 2025.
Currently try to swim 3 times a week. First CSS was 9:40 and 4:35, now 4 weeks later 8:46 and 4:07!
Will need lots of meters to improve :-). Unbelievable how fast you all can swim. Body position is difficult. With pull buoy I go way Faster…
Patience padawan, patience! 
Last week i met with my Neurorsurgeon, he is the lead neurosurgeon in the US Navy, he told me he has Seals with the same injury that return to full duty 12 weeks post injury.
I have been cleared to remove my neck brace for sleep.
Next week I can remove brace around the house if neck is supported, can also start riding on trainer but of course with brace and very easy.
10 weeks post injury is the projected return to the pool date
12 weeks post injury return to all activities including running.
Cleared to race next year including Ironman, so hopefully heading back to Maryland and pursue that Kona Slot
Ooh, new race:
Did anyone here do it before it went away? I read it was an extremely cold swim when it was in June; I’m curious what it’s going to be like in late July.
I raced Boise in 2010
It had some oddities with weather over the years. It was either super hot, or it snowed.
In 2010 it was hot and windy. Swim was cold, but similar to CDA. Race start time was 2 PM. We sat out in the sun getting cooked in our wetsuits pre-race waiting for the waves to start. The late race start was intending to have evening finishes in downtown Boise for the spectators and race atmosphere.
Course:
Its a point to point race. Swim is in a reservoir, again it was cold, but for the PNW not bad. Bike course was rolling outside of town with a downtown finish. Run was a couple loops of downtown green space/park. Overall a nice course.
The race used to be in late May or June, multiple years they had to cancel portions of the race due to weather. There are pictures where one year they swam and then rode straight downtown, it was snowing/raining/cold racers were wearing their wetsuits on the bike. I would like to think that late July is a better timeframe for better weather.
2012 was the really cold year. I joked to one of my buddies who did it that while the race was miserable he got a huge PR
Late July might be all the way in the other direction, looks like Boise had triple-digit highs and AQI that week this year. I’m still tempted, it’s now the closest Ironman-branded race I can drive to.
I hear you on the training time for a full. I’m really enjoying the training, but it’s literally ALL I have time for. I think my wife would kill me if i signed up for another full next. But every other year or so… that could work. The 70.3 distance is so nice for this and so many other reasons.
Who is thinking of doing IM Leeds (Yorkshire) end of July?
Where is you profile picture from? Looks lovely.
I might head up to watch/support some friends in 2025. Unfortunately it falls too close to my A race so possibly in 2026. Hopefully it’ll be a nice bike course. I’ve ridden in Yorkshire a couple of times and it was fairly pleasant