The Constant Battle

Post: 27
Weeks of training complete: 21 weeks, 2 days
Time remaining until Ironman: 10 weeks, 5 days

Miles swam: 88.121
Miles biked: 1,359.92
Miles run: 345.87

Fundraising goal: $5,000
Total raised: $1,500

My latest ongoing battle is with dehydration. Constant, neverending dehydration. With this humidity falling to normal desert levels, the heat unrelenting and me almost refusing to workout indoors anymore, I am dealing with thirst – constantly. This afternoon, after I finished my workout, I had the following: two 16 oz. glasses of water, two 12 oz. seltzer waters, one 12 oz. Coca-Cola, one 12 oz. Diet Dr. Pepper, 12 oz. of lemonade and then, with dinner, another 16 oz. glass of water. I began drinking all those fluids (that's 108 oz., if you're counting) at about 6 p.m. and finally, finally peed a small amount at 8:15 p.m.

I've decided that at this level of training, it has become necessity to eliminate almost all alcoholic beverages. My body simply cannot recover from their impacts, even the slight dehydrating effects of couple beer. So, I went out and bought a bunch of organic natural sodas - basically, they're carbonated pure fruit juice – for my recreational beverage for the next 11 weeks. With all the work and time and sacrifice I have made for this Ironman, I can't let things like the craving for beer, or a good time, get in the way. Look out Thanksgiving weekend – there's gonna' be someone with a hankerin' to tie one on coming your way, and his name is Ed.

There's so many things that have happened in the past couple weeks. Funny things - I'll share one with you. Last week on Labor Day Monday, the YMCA pool was closed, so I had to go to the city pool to swim my laps. They have one lap lane and at the time I went, that lap lane was occupied by two people trying to hook up or something. I'm still not sure what they were doing.

There was limited time, so I had to use the open pool - so I figured I'd stay closed to the lap lane and swim. No problems at all for about the first 30 days.

Around lap 35, I notice a huge dude in a bright blue one piece (it turned out it was a blue T-shirt) standing directly in the middle of my path. I stopped, stood up and turned and looked at him as if to give him the "WTF" sign. He continued to stare at me; so I swam around him. After a lap or two, he moved.

About six laps later, as I doing my turn, I noticed he had grabbed the lifeguard's megaphone and was screaming to everyone in the facility: "Put down your beers! No beers in the pool!" (This is a city pool, and no alcohol is allowed. No one had any alcohol.)

Then from about laps 41-80, he stood against the edge of the pool and leered at me. Awesome.

At lap 80, the lovers got out of the lap lane. I got in. At lap 85, ol' Blue T-Shirt was back; standing at the edge of the lane and barking at me. Like a dog.

When I got out of the pool at lap 120, he was asleep on the concrete on the edge of the pool.

Fun times. Fun times, indeed.

What else has been going on ... hmmm ... not much more beyond the usual. Busy at work, busy at home. The ASU Sun Devils are 2-0. The Diamondbacks are falling apart.

Brody is beginning to talk ... and sing. She sings Rilo Kiley songs, believe it or not, which is kind of cute to hear.

I've got to head out now and get ready for tomorrow. Ironman is approaching. I'm thinking of beginning a countdown soon of just how many more workouts I have.

My body is beginning to ache, too. Nagging little injuries here and there - a strained shoulder, sore knees ... must be careful.

Until tomorrow,
Ed