Don't Blink!!

Cuz it's not gonna last long.

This cold front, that is. Morning temps are below 70 for the first time since like April. There's a cool, crisp feeling to the air and NO wind. We're only going to get up to maybe 83 degs today. Incredible!!

Too bad my legs are not quite ready to run the 15-miler I have on tap for later this week. It's the perfect day for it. No, instead I have a swim to do. The lifeguards will probably be all bundled up in sweats shivering. Hell, I might have to wait until lunch time so I won't freeeeeze my patooey getting out. Do I even have any sweats?

Thanks for all the nice comments on my FL Challenge post. It was the most difficult half iron tri course I've done to date, even w/o the nutrition SNAFU, but I wouldn't want all races to be easy or go well, would I?

No, then it'd be boring and I'd have to move on to something more challenging :-)

Hope everyone has a great day!

2009 Florida Challenge

Well, they don't call it The Intimidator for nothing. The Florida Challenge was already the toughest half iron tri in Florida with its hills, heat and humidity. There was really no need to move it up a month and change the bike course to make things even tougher. Good grief.

Still, it was a good opportunity for me to practice racing my own race as Coach would say, get more training on the Great Floridian (GF) course, work on my ironman pacing, nutrition, etc. Dave, however, put as much work into it as if it were a real race so I'll show off some of his photo handiwork :-)

As expected, the water temp was too warm to be wetsuit legal so, sorry, no funny pictures of me dancing or wriggling to put the rubber suit on.

But, does this swim cap make my head look FAT?

Out of the water in 53:38, not fast but a new non-wetsuit 1.2 mi swim PR for me and many pink caps still behind me. 8/10 F45-49, 38/53 Female.

T1 - a leisurely 3:58 with too much time spent trying to pull on my tri top (not easy when wet) and then running my bike all the way to the end and around the transition area as required to avoid colliding with folks coming in from the swim. So much for being close to the Bike Out. It meant you had further to run with your bike -- ARGH!

My HR was 171(!) by the time I got to riding and took several miles to settle down. Climbing hills out of the saddle didn't help. I know it's hard to tell with my short legs so just work with me here ...

But that was just for show. I sat back down as soon as I passed the camera ;-)

Halfway on the bike course and being a good girl now staying seated spinning up hills, coasting down them and letting everyone and their grandmother pass me.

Not a very aggressive aero riding position at all but I can ride forever and back.

56(?) miles done in 3:25:38 (16.3 mph). My Garmin and others I spoke to said 58+ miles but it is what it is. 6/10 F45-49, 20/53 Female.

T2 - another leisurely 3:50 thanks to a pit stop. Probably the only time I'll ever pee on my bike is when I'm desperate. On to the run!

Whoa, who put a brick in my Camelbak?! Man, it felt like it weighed 20# (really only 6-7).

What's worse, though, I just realized I've somehow lost all the gels I had in a pocket. $#?@%!!! Surely there'll be some gels or food on the course, right?

Nope, just fluids. And extra from Mother Nature too. But the rain made the 98 deg heat index plummet down into the 80's for a while --Ahh!

Finishing lap 1 of the 2-lap course, keeping things slow and easy. A kind volunteer had given me a small bag of chips her friend had (the friend wasn't too happy about that, I might add) and I had one emergency gel in a separate pocket. All was not lost.

Ate the gel at the 6.55 mile turnaround and decided to walk through all aid stations and drink as much Gatorade as possible for extra calories. Now it was solely about survival.

Ended up doing a lot more walking when the sun came back out but, fortunately, it rained again and my final mile ended up being my fastest -- Yippee! 13.1 miles done in 2:18:34 (10:34 pace), 4/10 F45-49, 20/53 Female. Not the run I'd hoped for but far from my worst.

Me and my beautiful racing buddy Erica. We leapfrogged and encouraged each other on the bike and run segments.

Final race time: 6:45:23, 5/10 F45-49, 20/53 Female. Funny, it does not feel like a half iron PW (Personal Worst) at all.

Maybe it's because of the awesome medal I got.

Or perhaps it's because I know now I'll be happy with any finishing time at GF, which, BTW, is only FOUR weeks away - OMG!!!

Keep Your Eye on the Prize

No, not that one!

Poor Coach has been sounding like a broken record player lately getting me to focus on my original iron goals instead of the tantalizing one (sub-13) that came along later and preoccupied me.

It's hard for me to let go of time goals but it must be done. This weekend I did a carefree 50-mile ride with Dave that helped. We hit those nasty hills late in the Great Floridian iron course again and I didn't even look at my Garmin (obviously, as it had turned itself off when I hit a bump and didn't even record anything for miles!). Though those hills were still far from easy, knowing what to expect was HUGE. In hindsight, I really let those buggers get to me last weekend. I just couldn't believe the course would end that way. Plus, I pushed too hard on some flats shortly before them thinking they wouldn't/couldn't be as bad as the ones in the first half of the course. Wrong!

I should know better than to assume, especially with the GF race motto being "Are You Tough Enough?"

After that 50-mile ride, I ran mainly by feel and pounded out 5 mi @ 8:34 pace, a new best run off the bike in 95-96 deg heat index. And the night before I'd run 13 miles @ 9:07 pace in 91-88 degs HI (got cooler after sunset). Un-freaking-believable. Was it not me who was cursing and struggling to run in 90 degs just a few short months ago?

Next weekend I'm doing the Florida Challenge half iron tri. It's held at the same venue as the Great Floridian but with GF only 4 weeks later, it'll not be a hard racing effort for me. Just an opportunity to train on more hills and practice my pacing, nutrition and transitions in a race situation. Maybe I'll also practice some of the hill training "tips" I saw on the GF race forum:

- Remember it's also 1/2 down hill!
- Train by getting a single speed fat tire bike and do a couple centurys
- Lock your front brake for training rides.
- Switch your front and back rings
- Remember that you won't have to worry about drafting.
- Move to Switzerland for the month of September.
- Get Lite! Buy one of those balloon kits & replace one of your water bottles with the helium for you to suck on before each hill.
- Find an overpass and tie bricks to the back of your bike.
- Before it's to late send money to the FL. state officials in exchange for two loops of the flats.
- Start practicing running hills in your bike shoes?
- Go for rides wearing your full wetsuit.
- Keep tires inflated to 40 psi.
- Stuff bottom bracket with 1/4" aggregate rocks.
- Train riding 15-18% grade hills with standard (non-clipless) pedals.
- Put on a set of Power Cranks for those 15-18% grade hills.

OK, perhaps just the first one, but I think it's good to have a sense of humor about doing GF.

Much congrats to Petra on running a hard-fought Boston Marathon qualifying race time last weekend in Berlin!

Oops, I Did It Again

Got WAY ahead of myself and lost sight of my original goal this year, which was "simply" to do 2 irons tris 2 weeks apart. No cares about finishing times, just make the cut-offs and have fun. After all, I am still an iron virgin!

I know this back-to-back iron nonsense may sound CRAZY to most of you, but I am someone who is motivated by the unusual. I'd much rather run marathons in all 50 states than shoot for a marathon PR (current PR 3:27:59). Only after running 21 marathons in 9 months did I dare try running my first-ever 5K. Ouch! To learn how to swim, I had to sign up for an Ironman (could not commit for anything less).

Some people have called me "hardcore" but I don't consider myself that, actually. WACKY would be a better description, I think.

But I am having fun, that's for sure. Perhaps too much at times as I have been accused of looking too smiley in my race photos. My apologies to anyone who may think I'm doing a disservice by making things look easy but I truly do feel fortunate to be alive and out there. In my younger days, I was a highly stressed out, malnourished workaholic who never thought (or cared if) she'd see her 40th birthday. Now approaching 50, I'm celebrating good health and making an effort to enjoy life whenever I can. And doing 2 irons this year, well, that just looked to me like a ticket to do more of that. (Plus, the training time and costs of doing both were not much different from doing one Ironman brand event anyway so it was like getting 2 for 1. And I am most definitely a bargain hunter :-)

But I must be reasonable with myself and Coach has put my head back on straight, again. My primary goal will be to start and finish both races healthy. If a certain desired race time (sub-13) comes with doing so, that's a bonus. If not, that's OK too. There'll be many opportunities for me to shoot for faster race times if I stay healthy and keep having fun.

So thank you to everyone who posted comments in my previous post. I'll be hitting the hills on the new GF bike course a few more times before race day (10/24) and by then should have one of only two thoughts:

A) Ready Freddy, all systems go.
or B) Still tougher than I'd like, but I got it.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

I Didn't Sign Up For This!

OK, last week was rough. I missed 3(!) workouts due to time constraints while working on a special project. I only managed to swim 3 out of 4 planned crossings at Lucky's Lake (got a bad headache during the first crossing, had problems sighting and focusing, then by the 4th crossing it began to rain making visibility even more limited, plus I'd be the only one out there swimming, so I wimped out). But those things happen ...

The big surprise happened on Sunday. I discovered that the Great Floridian (GF) 112-mile bike course has been changed!!

And NOT for the better, IMO. In the past, it's been a hilly first third with a fairly FLAT second third and some gentle rollers the last third. Here is what the elevation map looks like for this year's race (created using Bike Route Toaster):



ARGHHH!!!

So now the second half is quite hilly too with the last 12 miles being the worst. WTF???

And, of course, I did NOT know this when I signed up for the race last year or when I signed up for Beach to Battleship (B2B), another full iron tri, two weeks later. Looking at the race forum discussions, it appears that the race director began a thread talking about a bike course change just last July. Crap ...

Well, yesterday Dave and I did an organized bike ride called the Assault on Sugarloaf, which is the GF bike course, and found out the hard way. We didn't have time to study the course map or turn-by-turn instructions they gave us that morning so we just followed the orange arrows, like everyone else. But at ~mile 40, I knew something was up when we rolled past the turn-off for the flat section of the previous GF bike course and started heading back to the start. Then I realized that sign we saw earlier painted on the road (something about a 2nd lap) meant we'd be hitting the hills again. YIKES!

But the course is nice and flat for a bit early on. We resisted temptations to latch onto pace lines.

An aid station at ~mile 50. Thus far, we've ridden on hills, through rain and now the sun is coming out to bake us. What a welcome sight in the middle of nowhere.

Never let someone take a picture of you eating a banana.

At the halfway point, Dave is done. It began raining again as I headed out for the rest.

It was a lonely ride but I did see a few folks later at the aid stations. I'd be surprised if 50 people did the whole 112 miles.

But I was one of them. 112.4 miles in 6:54, a 16.3mph avg. Not a bad ride for me considering my Garmin said the course had ~5200 ft climbing (nearly double what I had anticipated!), we had rainy/wet conditions at times and there was no traffic control (so we had to obey all traffic laws). After I got done, Dave also discovered that my rear tire was not fully inflated (must have rolled over something and had a slow leak). Possibly it wasn't just the hills that turned me into a slug late in the ride?

Still, my legs were beat. Here are my thoughts about the new course:

Mi 1-60 - What I expected from the orig GF course so all is good.
Mi 60-100 - More hills than I'd like but manageable.
Mi 100-112 - Brutal, esp. in 90+ deg heat. I think I'm going to be sick.

So with that, I am rethinking my game plan knowing that this new GF bike course is going to wreak havoc on my race goals and the quick recovery I need to do B2B two weeks later. I need some input from you guys. What would you do or suggest?

A) Bail on GF and make B2B my "A" race.

B) Change to do the GF olympic distance race offered the same day and make B2B my "A" race.

C) Change to do the GF aquabike event (2.4 swim, 112 bike) offered the same day and make B2B my "A" race.

D) Do GF as planned but with modified race goals and hope to recover fast enough for a better finish at B2B.

(There is no bailing on B2B as my step-daughter and son-in-law are coming to cheer for me at that race, plus it's my birthday weekend)

OK, so please let me hear your thoughts. Hope none of your races have major course changes that would make them much harder either.

PS - Still way behind in my blog reading but trying to catch up before my Google Reader explodes!

Just a Quickie

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I'm short on time this week working on a special project so just some quick bullets with thoughts and happenings from last week.

New swimming motivation - Did another 4K swim at Lucky's Lake on Saturday. With now 10 crossings under my belt, I'd been thinking of joining the haloed 100K Club (those who've done 100 crossings). But after I got done, a guy told me he'd seen a small 3 foot gator on the other side earlier in the morning, and I don't think he was kidding. Dam gator! Now I'm going to have to swim faster and get all my crossings done before that thing gets too big for comfort.

Lightbulb moment - For the first time in months, Dave was actually home all week and he kicked my @ss on the bike on Sunday. We had 100 miles to ride and after mile 60, I had to back way off the 18-19 mph pace we were going to be able to finish the ride in good shape and run afterwards. Dave felt sorry for me and stuck with me. We ended up with a 17.3 mph avg but I ran the best I ever have off the bike, 4 miles at a 8:49 pace in 94 degs heat index. Click! I remembered what I was told at an IMFL training camp back in 2006: Give up 15 min on the bike and gain up to 45 min on the run. I believe it now.

More running in circles - I found another indoor marathon! This one's called The InStep Icebreaker Indoor Marathon and it's held in January in Wisconsin, a state I've not yet run in which is good. And it involves running "only" 95.4 laps vs. the 150 I ran at the Zoom Yah Yah Indoor Marathon last January in Minnesota since the track is bigger (443m vs. 282m). It's a guaranteed flat course with dry 50-55 deg conditions, no wind, 95 aid stations, 190 opportunities to use porta-potties. I don't think I can resist :-)

50 in 50 by 49? - And speaking of marathons, originally, I was planning to complete my 50 states marathon quest in 2011 when I turned 50 but I've been thinking why wait? I only have 8 marathons/states left to do (WY, NM, WI, WV, DE, CT, RI, and VT) and could do them all next year. There are just so many unknowns in this economy. Some races are struggling due to sponsor cutbacks and traveling has become increasingly more difficult, esp. using frequent flyer miles, which I try to do whenever possible. Then there's the lure of moving to Hawaii early. Who wouldn't want that?

Anyway, back to my project. I'll be catching up on what you've all been up to by the weekend!

Back in the Food Chain

Gators, snakes, turtles, oh my!

Has it really been nearly 2 years since I last swam at Lucky's Lake and got my patch?

Well, Coach put an end to that streak last Saturday morning. This time I did 4 round-trip crossings vs. 2 (each one is 1K long), my longest swim this year and my first non-wetsuit open water swim over 2K ever!

The water temp was 85 degs but I did see a couple people wearing sleeveless wetsuits. Some had noodles in tow, others had fins, snorkels, you name it. I wore fins only on my last crossing since my arms were quite tired. That way I knew for sure I could make it. The rule is if you have any doubts, don't do it!

Because there are NO lifeguards or people on kayaks watching over you. And you know there's NO such thing as a guaranteed gator-free lake in FL.

Just to remind you and give you a "fuller" FL lake swimming experience, Lucky, the owner of the house whose backyard we start from, has placed a couple decorative gators right at the water's edge. Nice guy, huh?

Before we got started, I saw something breaking the surface of the water near some reeds by the shore. Just a turtle it turned out. Whew!

And soon we were off. Here's a photo from the Lucky's Lake Swim website to give you an idea of what the lake looked like. There was a much bigger turnout Saturday morning, though, like about hundred swimmers, which was nice. The more links in the food chain, the better!

Most folks did 1 or 2 crossings. I was going for 3-4 so I asked Dave to float along next to me on the last 2 for added safety. It worked out great, I thought, until I found out that the fins he was wearing hurt his foot a lot (he's been having top of the foot pain lately). Next time I'm on my own so I'd better get faster so I can swim while there are still others out there.

One of the last to get out but all limbs still attached. 11,524 yards in 3 swims last week!

My post-swim treat: jalapeno bagels, one of my favorite foods. Dave brought some home for me when he went through the Chicago airport on Thursday. Thanks Dave!!

Saturday afternoon, I put 10 miles in on a gym treadmill at a 7:50 pace. The cool, dry 70-80 deg indoor temps felt soooo nice to run in and, really, I wasn't wussing out. I was actually trying to be smart about not overdoing things in the heat for a change. And, of course, that 4K swim earlier did take some energy out of me already so I didn't want to push things too much.

Because Sunday I was to do a "short" 50 mi bike ride followed by a 13 mi brick run. The ride ended up being 59.3 miles (18.6 mph avg) but the run was right on. Don't want to run any extra in the heat! Ended up with a 9:51 pace in 93-94 degs heat index, which is on the low side of my iron marathon goal pace range so very happy with that. It seems that wearing a Camelbak is really helping me stay much better hydrated. I might even wear it during part of the marathon at the Great Floridian depending on how hot race day will be.

So ends another iron training week for me. Congrats to everyone who completed IM Canada and IM Louisville!

9 Weeks Till GF

And I am NOT freaking out. I am NOT freaking out. I am NOT freaking out.

But maybe I should be?

I mean, a little fear is healthy, right? 140.6 miles is a long ways to go, right? The Great Floridian (GF) is a race that most locals avoid, right? And to do another iron tri two weeks later is just plain nuts, right?

RIGHT???

Well, I don't seem to know what's right any more and I blame my coach. I think he's been slipping some delusional drugs into my recovery drink to keep me calm and lacing my workout routes with subliminal messages telling me that I was born to do ironmans and that two are better than one (born to do ironmans, two are better than one ...)

No, just kidding!!

But what he has done with me since February has been pretty remarkable. At the start of this year, I felt old and broken down with frustrating, lingering hamstring issues (from back in July 08) that were hampering my running, right arm/shoulder pains that were bothering my swimming, and haunting memories from a bike crash in Feb 08 that were still making me ride like a little old lady going down hills and around corners. Where's my little basket and cane?

Now 7 months after working with him, though, I'm feeling good and very positive about my racing again. I'm nearly as fast (or maybe faster?) as I used to be when I was in my best running shape, late 2005-early 2006, and now I'm running only 2-3 days per week (20-30 MPW). I'm swimming better than I ever have and pain-free most of the time. And my cycling, well, 98 miles yesterday never felt so easy. I averaged 17.8 mph for the first 70 miles with Dave and another guy, then rode harder on my own for the rest (per Coach that was OK) and ended up with an 18.1 mph avg and plenty left over in the tank to do more -- YES! That's the best I've ever felt after riding ~100 miles.

This post is basically to answer some questions that Meg Runs had asked me about coaching, which I think has been key for me this year.

Do you have a tri coach?
Yes. I've worked with a running coach and a tri coach in a group training setting before but this is the first time I've worked one-on-one with a coach who's designing a training program just for me, a HUGE difference.

How has that helped you with your training overall?
As I mentioned above, Coach has fixed me up and gotten me strong again. He did this by getting me back to strength training & stretching regularly and also by having me cut back on volume (Gasp!) and do more speed work (Yikes!), all things I was reluctant to do on my own. What I also love about having a coach is having more time and less worry. I spend ZERO time figuring out my training (that's his job) and just do what he tells me. And he doesn't usually give me my workouts more than a week in advance so I can't fret about what I don't know and can only focus on the current week at hand (which is good because am the Master of Putting Extra Unnecessary Stress on Myself!). I completely trust* that he will get me to race day in shape to meet my goals so I actually don't worry much about the race any more either. But, to make this work, I have to do and track my workouts diligently (miles, paces, conditions, how I felt, etc.), and my nutrition too as they go hand in hand for me. All the logging is sort of a pain but I have to say that this coaching has worked out much better than I could have ever imagined and it's nice to be able to see progress outside of race results (particularly when training more than racing for a change).

*This trust is something that has evolved over time. I'm actually a control freak by nature and had a hard time initially letting go of control over my workouts. But I made substantially more progress in 2-3 months working with Coach than I had in 6 months to a year on my own so I learned to let go.

Do you recommend specific running coaches or is this someone that lives near you?
Coach Bill does live in my area but our communication is largely via an online interactive training log and email. IMHO, choosing the right coach is much like choosing the right haircut. It's highly individual and very much dependent on your personality and needs. I talked to 5 different coaches last year. Three of them were referred to me from others and they coached everyday athletes as well as pro and elite level triathletes. One coach I worked with for a while via the local tri club and Coach Bill actually found me, I think, through a local bike e-newsletter in which I was mentioned. Whatever the case, it turned out Coach Bill and I got along the best, by far. He's a strong runner and has also done some crazy ultra events himself so my desire to do two irons in two weeks didn't faze him. He's very responsive by email (my preferred communication) and didn't put any limits on how many times I could contact him like some did. He also wasn't going to charge me an arm and a leg or make me buy a bunch of training gadgets to get started. I'm old-school at heart and often forget to bring/wear gadgets or look at them if I do!

For anyone interested in or on the fence about looking for a coach, I'd suggest also reading DC Rainmaker's Thoughts on Triathlon Coaching. Many of the points he makes I agree with and I think they'd apply to any coach, really, not just a triathlon coach.

Hope everyone's training is going well!

I Just Had To Post This Too!

This is one of the most inspiring videos I've seen in a while and it's not an ad for Nike, Ironman or some company, which makes it even better in my book. Check it out.



For anyone who doesn't already know, I DNF'd my first Ironman race in 2006. Thanks to SpokaneAl and Michelle Sidles for posting it.

OMG, I'm One of Them!

Three years ago when training for Ironman Florida 2006, I used to see amazing people swimming laps back and forth effortlessly in the pool. Occasionally Dave and I would see a brave woman riding solo out on the roads in the middle of nowhere. I saw a few crazies running in the worst heat of the day.

How the hell do these people do it?

I was quite new to tris back then.

Good swim technique? Eh, I just want to survive the 2.4 mi swim and go on to my better sports.

Riding confidence? Who are we kidding? I could ride long but barely in a straight line let alone fix a flat tire.

Heat tolerance? I think I wore out the belt on my treadmill that year.

What I was missing was love for the sport. Truthfully, I was really just a runner who was dabbling in tris then. I had the time and desire to train for an ironman but not really the heart or passion. (As some of you may recall, my main reason for signing up was to learn how to swim, as in freestyle, that cool stroke that real swimmers did. Seriously, I hated swimming so much that nothing less than an ironman would have gotten me to do it!)

But without a doubt, heart and passion are driving me now. And what a difference. When things don't go right, like two weekends ago, there are some tough times, oh yes, but there are no "Why the f*ck am I doing this?" moments. Trust me, there were a LOT of those in 2006. This time, the answer is clear: Because You Know You Love Tris.

Yep, I'm a sick puppy. Good or bad, I am happy and thankful to complete every workout. Each one, even a bad one, is much better than what I could do back in 2006. Even when plodding along painfully and slowly, I know I am getting stronger mentally and learning some new lessons that will help me later. At a minimum, I'm getting more heat training and respect for the iron distance, for Mother Nature and for myself. Each one is a deposit in my training bank, as many like to say, and a step closer to who I want to be and where I want to be in a few years.

The only part that is not really fun for me, however, is the nutrition side. Before this year, I've never really had to make major changes to my diet and routine. For 50+ marathons, I just drank water (or sports drink in a race) when I felt like I needed to and consumed gels every few miles, maybe an salt cap or two if it was a warm race and I remembered to bring them. So simple! But now things are serious, perhaps even a matter of life or death when training for much longer in severe heat and often alone (Dave can't ride with me for more than 50 miles in such heat and no one I know wants to run long in it. Can't blame them!). I've got to put aside fun and do what's necessary.

So every day I'm studying food labels closely, logging food, weighing myself before and after each workout, estimating sweat rates, salt losses and calorie expenditures. I need to make sure I don't overdo things earlier in the week (Coach said every workout does not need to be in the heat!) and that I get enough fuel & fluids into me before the long weekend workouts.

That said and done, I'm happy to say last weekend went great!

Fri - Swim 3100 yds w/ 15x100 yds. Not effortless per se, but swam four 1:45s (Fast for me!)
        and broke 100 miles in swimming this year (I'm Tropical :-) - w00t.
Sat - Run 17 mi, 90-97 deg HI, 9:56 avg pace, neg split, AHR 158 (Z2).
Sun - Bike 85.22 mi, 76-96 deg HI, flat, winds 4-14 mph, 17.5 mph, neg split, AHR 133 (Z1).
        Brick run 5.22 mi, 97 deg HI, 8:55 pace, neg split, AHR 157 (Z2)

So I feel ready to share what I'm doing nutrition-wise in case it may help anyone else. Note I'm usually 122-123# but can fluctuate +/- 2 to 3# day to day depending on my hydration level.

Daily calorie intake M-W 2000-2500 cals.
Daily calorie intake Th-Su 2500-3000 cals, plus extra fuel & fluids during long Sat-Sun workouts as follows:

Long runs (per hr) - 30-40 oz fluids*,
     100-200 cals (1-2 gels),
     550-750 mg sodium** (gels, Nuun, salt caps)
Long rides (per hr) - 30-40 oz fluids,
     300-400 cals (CarboPro, Gatorade, Clif Bars, Perpeteum***),
     650-750 mg sodium** (Gatorade, Clif Bars, Perpeteum, salt caps)

* Even drinking 140 oz fluids during and after Saturday's 17-miler, I was down 2# when I got home, meaning I lost like 11# during the run!! My sweat rate when running in 90+ degs and high humidity is actually 50-60 oz/hr(!) but my body can't absorb more than 30-40 oz/hr. So I've been working on gaining a couple extra pounds of water weight (i.e., carbo loading) before every long workout. Thus, even if I lose a few pounds, I'll be back to or close to where I usually am.
** Haven't had any low salt issues but plan to up my sodium intake to the recommended 1 gm/ hour. For the run, I'll add a sports drink, which will also add more calories (can probably handle up to 300). On the bike, either more salty foods or more salt caps. I already do eat extra salt in my diet before my long workouts.
*** Though I ran well after the long bike, I had some noticeable gas issues after consuming Perpeteum late in the ride when CarboPro and solid food were no longer appealing. Googling tells me I'm not the only one (I don't handle soy or whey protein well). I'll be trying some things next time to try to minimize that. Sorry Dave and anyone near me!

Final note, I've decided against using a one-product-does-it-all nutrition like Infinit. Mainly, I don't have the time to dial down a formula (or two) that will work in 80-90+ degs (Great Floridian Iron Tri) as well as 50-70 degs (Beach To Battleship Iron Tri) two weeks later so I'm starting with what I know works for me in the heat and will adjust accordingly for the cooler race. To do that, I need maximum flexibility that a pre-mixed formula won't allow.