Excessive Ironman Spectating

When this is most of your laundry from TWO DAYS of training and spectating, I think it means you're doing it right!

I love spectating at an Ironman race and supporting friends and strangers! However, I always end up training/exercising more than I have scheduled for myself and end up in a calorie hole the day after.

On Sunday, the day of Ironman Louisville, I took in:

• a Balance Bar (about 225 calories) and a hard-boiled egg (about 72 calories) for breakfast. 
• I drank 24 oz. of Infinit (about 240 calories) while running and walking before and during the swim (until about 8:30)
• I drank 2.beers mid-day (1 prior to driving around the bike course and one with lunch) for about 280 calories
• I had 2 fish tacos, a good number of chips and salsa, a little bit of refried beans and about 1/3 cup of rice for lunch. I'm guessing 600 calories?
• I did not eat dinner, but at the end of the day had some really good pretzels with sinful cheese dip. Let's say 300 calories.

Well that's a problem--that only adds up to about 1700 calories taken in for the day. I need at least 1800 just to survive without exercising.

The KNOWN exercise (there was more walking, but how much who knows?) that I did:

• 1 hour of running
• 1.5 hours of walking (probably more). This was the deliberate stuff that I actually measured. I'd planned on 30 minutes, but then Shelley and I walked back to our hotel from the race site.
• 19.5 miles of biking. Let's call that an hour

Let's say I burn 500 calories/hour for the running and biking and 320 for the walking. So I burned about 1500 calories that I know of. Huh. BAD CALORIES INTAKE!!! So at the end of the day, I was at least 1500 calories down. I probably depleted most of my glycogen reserves.

On Monday morning, I ate another Balance Bar and an egg, then I had a McGriddle when we stopped on the way from Louisville to Indianapolis. As I was driving from Indianapolis back home, I drank a 24-oz. bike bottle of Gatorade. I got home and felt sated and not hungry. Then I went for a swim. 2800 yards. I drank maybe 4 oz. of Gatorade. As soon as I got out of the pool, I was like hmm...I think I'm bonking. And I was. I drank some more Gatorade, showered, managed to stretch for 5 minutes in the sauna then I rushed home to eat. That was the point I realized I was physically tired, too! So while I thought I might get in a short run, I decided it was best to just bag it for the day and give my legs some rest. It's been 13 days since I didn't run, walk or bike on a given day!

Last week, I put in 39 miles of running, 20 miles of walking, 78 miles of biking, 10,300 yards of swimming and about 1:45 of strength training. Well no wonder the fuck I was bonking yesterday after spectating for a day!  I should really know better by now to try and eat even more when I am doing that. I did OK for breakfast and the big lunch, but dinner FAIL. It's just hard to stop for dinner when you are busy looking for people you know and cheering on the strangers! That's ok--it's well worth the sacrifice! Note to self: next time I do this, at lunch I will get a sandwich to carry and eat later. 

Today, I'm back on my game. I am actually tapering this week for my 50k, although I am racing a 1/2 marathon on Saturday and doing a 5k as a fun run on Sunday. I want to do well at the 1/2 marathon, even though I'm swimming 5k the day before. Such is my life! Also, unfortunately, I will be attending a funeral for a friend's son who just passed away. It is things like that that make me so grateful for the life I have.

Speaking of grateful, last Friday I decided it was time for me to knuckle down once I was back from Louisville. So today I wrote 10 things for me to do on the big mirror in my bedroom. They are probably a little hard to read:

what with the light and mirror and all. What they say are:

1. No more candy. I am giving the rest away. I really don't need it at all. See #2.
2. >Fruit which means eat more fruit. I have not been eating enough.
3. Quit being fat. Yes, I can stand to lean out a bit more. If I do #1 and #2, that will take care of this.
4. Read! I have so many books that are unread or started. I don't really WATCH much TV, but I have it on, so I will focus more on just turning the damn thing off and reading the books! The 2 I am going to finish up are "Life of a Triathlete" by Meredith Kessler and "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard P. Feynman.
5. Go Hard! 
6. Enjoy!
7. Be Grateful
8. Love
9. Don't Give a Fuck
10. Win!

That about covers me through at least January; probably more like March! At that point, I suspect I'll be in some pretty intensive training and I should be able to cross out #1 and #3. #4 might go by the wayside, too, but the rest should remain pretty much constant.

I am happy I'm not traveling out of town for 3 weeks. Even though I'm racing this weekend, and my birthday is the following weekend, not spending hours driving and being away from home will give me some much needed rest. And I can focus more on my own training and racing. I still have planning to do before this weekend's racing, and of course, for the 50k. But that's fun stuff! Today (aside from what I've already accomplished) I get to run and bike, and I'm breaking in new running shoes. That will be fun! Of course, obsessing about races burns calories, so I'll stay on top of that, too!

Have a great day and week!