Tales of an Ironman Triathlete - Adventures in Traversing 140.6

Leading up to my 11th Ironman in early September, I got a bit overzealous with my Luna sandals and tore my right calf –gastrocnemus – while doing intervals. I switched to Lunas in early August (because I am sick of blisters & bruised toes) and absolutely loved running in them compared to standard running shoes. Problem is, I didn’t give my calves enough time to adjust to the extra pounding and, yes, I totally should’ve known better than to try doing an interval workout in them when they were already sore & tight at the start of the workout. It is not the sandal’s fault! The fault was all mine, and I am still switching to Lunas for my short runs & hope to work my way up to running intervals and eventually my Ironman marathon in them. It is my belief that your personal best running form is however you run barefoot (as nature intended) and Lunas allow me to really dial in my form without poking or burning the bottom of my feet. For good or bad, the injury forced me to switch u...

We arrived in Tempe Thursday afternoon, only this time our faithful chauffer & home stay profferer was also getting ready to race. Graeme picked us up from the airport & we proceeded to register and get our bikes from Tribike transport. No one wanted to be seen with me and my many strips of kinesiotape (thank you, Dr. Steve, you really are the best). Mike twice asked me to change into pants before going to eat. I didn't listen - he counted funny looks & I didn't care. That tape works, so I don't care what it looks like. As Mike pointed out, if triathletes start qualifying while wearing the tape, everyone's going to be wearing the tape no matter how ridiculous it looks hanging out the back of your shorts. Just look at compression socks - there certainly was no shortage of triathletes wearing those & they're not exactly fashion statements. I was a bit more nervous than usual on Saturday, probably because I've had 2 crappy runs in my last two IMs, a...

If you've read my other race reports, you know that I've always got some sort of issue threatening to keep me from the start and/or finish line. This race was no exception. I started training after 6 weeks off in November. Besides a brief bout with bronchitis in November, training went great up to February. While we were reading stories in bed one night, my much-too-strong-for-his-age 3-yr-old kicked me (trying to get the covers off) in the back & dislocated one of my ribs from my spine. I really only ended up having to take 4 days off of running & took it easy swimming for a week, but thought if this is the worst hang-up that I would have training, I was still in good shape. After doing the half-vineman last yr with a severely bruised or broken rib, a dislocated rib was nothing in comparison. It's a fixed joint, who cares. However, I wasn't done sabotaging my training. In mid-March I ended up running 36 miles in 3 days (trying to make up for missed training day...