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Showing posts from August 27, 2023

It's time to discover my limits at XTRI ICON

I love warm weather. I love working out in humid conditions. I love the feeling of warm air on my skin and I thrive in warm conditions. Some of my best race performances have been in hot and humid conditions. Above is a photo of the predicted weather forecast for the XTRI ICON event that I'll be participating in tomorrow, September 1st in Livigno, Italy. You'll notice a few things. Those temperatures are in Fahrenheit (not Celcius). The race starts at 6,000 altitude. I'll be starting the 3K (swim was shortened due to combined air and water temp) dark, cold water swim at 5am. I'll be starting the 123 mile, 9+ hour bike with 14,000+ feet of climbing in the upper 30's. The warmest it will be is 55 degrees. Then I will run a mostly off-road marathon with almost 4000 feet elevation gain, finishing at 9,000 feet. This event will be my greatest athletic accomplishment IF I reach the finish line. But it will require a tremendous amount of physical strength, mental toughnes...

XTRI ICON Livigno, Italy - Day 2 and 3

  8/29 We woke up around 6:45am to somewhat clear skies. We could see the snow on the mountains. It was cold out (upper 30's) but no rain. We were hungry for breakfast around 8am and ordered some eggs along with our "continental" food options. We then layered up for our bike ride. We had been following the Haute Route online (they just finished up the 7-day stage in the Alps which we did last year and heading to the 5-stage Dolomites next). They shorted stage 1 from Bormio to the iconic Stelvio pass due to wet and snowy conditions. Karel was planning to ride up and over Stelvio but he modified his route (but still went to the top of the Stelvio). I rode with Karel to around Tornante (~1 hour, which was mostly climbing). We were in good company as there were some UAE cyclists just ahead of us and a lot of other cyclists. Even with the cold conditions, there were so many people out riding, hiking and walking. I felt really good climbing and was reminded of all the climbing ...

ICON XTRI Livigno Italy - Travel + day 1

  With a 6:30pm flight out of Atlanta, we were able to get in a workout on Saturday morning (8/26). Karel went for an hour run (7.97 miles) and I did a 90-minute workout on the trainer (MS 6 x 90 sec high cadence w/ 2 min EZ spin. Then 4 x 4 min steady effort w/ 2 min EZ spin). I watched the live broadcast of the 70.3 World Championship while on the trainer. I did a quick 2.4 mile/19 min run off the bike. I felt really good for this brick workout.  We ate, finished up last minute packing, said good-bye to Karel's mom and all our furries and left for the Atlanta International airport around 11:15am.  It's always hard to leave Campy, especially since his dementia is getting worse. He threw up bile twice on Monday and wasn't eating (and was really lethargic) which wasn't like him. He really enjoys his walks throughout the day but something was off. He's also been coughing for over 2 weeks. We had him on a med for it but it wasn't getting any better. I made a vet ap...