The Adventures of Type 1 Ironman: Archive

Last Post on Tumblr

This is my farewell post on Tumblr. I had to sneak this one in early in the morning while their servers were still working. I will be using Blogspot from now on. You can find me at: http://www.brian-phelps.blogspot.com/ Thanks Brian Phelps

Dec 7th

Fishing with Diabetic Friends

My exercising has gone to the back burner with ice fishing season in full swing and with me being sidelined until I get my orthodics tomorrow. Last Friday, I went fishing with a bunch of friends including three diabetic friends who have never been ice fishing before. Zyler and Madi had never been fishing at all and Johnny hadn’t fished in fresh water and hadn’t been ice fishing. The...

Nov 30th

Good Indoor Ride - Foot MUCH Better

This is a quick post. The shot into my heel seems to have worked and it feels better today then it has in months. I rode for 2hrs 45min today and watched most of one college football game during that time. My blood sugar started to go down in the first 30 minutes but I was able to turn it with aggressive carb intake. Overall felt good. Here are the stats from the ride: ...

Nov 21st

Ouch!

Today was action packed and highly entertaining. I had a good start reading and going on my prayer walk with Jenny (the dog). After that I had a call with my manager about a plan of attack for 2011. He was in Slovenia and it looks like it will be an exciting and challenging year. I got some more work done and then ran during lunch for 7 miles. I felt pretty strong and the weather...

Nov 20th

Good Diversions

Today was a day of good diversions. One of our daughters came home from school and asked me to take underwater videos of the high school swim team after school and I agreed. My wife then came in and asked if we were going to a a diabetic planning meeting this evening. I quickly realized that I just overbooked and said, “nope”. The second diversion was when I barely had enough time to...

Nov 19th

Bike Ride (with fan) - Winning against Sickness

Got my antibiotics from the Dr and I am feeling a lot better. I did about 5 miles on a treadmill yesterday with 2.5 miles in a row under 8 min miles. I then did the Roman chair and jumped in the pool and swam for 2250 yds. When I got home I had the highlight of the day waiting for me. I received a letter from a young diabetic friend that I had lost contact with and it really lifted my entire week....

Nov 18th

Anonymous asked: Brian:
I am a wrestling coach in Niwot Colorado and I have a wrestler who is diabetic. I am trying to work with him to help him be able to sustain his BG during workouts and matches. Any advice for he and I would be helpful. I know he is frustrated with not being able to complete his workouts and I want to better understand his Type 1 diabetes and how to manage it and help him achieve his...

Nov 18th

Trainer - Day 2 then Knock Out

I got my second day on the bicycle trainer in on Saturday with a 2.5 hour indoor ride. Apparently these rides are going to edge up 30 minutes each week topping out at 8 hours. I will have to take out flood insurance by then with the amount of sweat that riding a bike indoors generates. I have been fighting a sickness for the last two weeks and it finally took me down hard enough Sunday that I...

Nov 16th

Stationary Bike Trainer Hurts

Today I started a new season in training. With Winter settling in here in Colorado (17 tomorrow morning), I decided to convert my bike to a stationary bike on a Cyclops 2 Fluid trainer. I have never done this before. I was amazed at how effective and painful this workout was. You get the back tire adjusted so that it is fairly hard to turn with the hardest gear and then you adjust your effort by...

Nov 12th

Act Your Way into Right Feelings

I recently found a couple of sayings from the same source: #1 “You have to act right to feel right (not the other way around)” #2 “God, Grant me The Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The Courage to change the things that I can, and The Wisdom to know the difference” I have been through an extremely busy and taxing period of my life and as the huge...

Nov 11th

Day of Reflection & Exercise

Today was very interesting for me. It was interesting because I was able to workout and hang out with my diabetic team captains for Team Triabetes in Panama City, Florida. I observed the lives of others and how they have aggressively carved out of their busy lives the time to train and the time to inspire, educate and explore other diabetics to get out and take control of their disease through...

Nov 3rd

Work, biking, running, work, sleep

I finished yesterday with a great swim at the Desert Breeze aquatic center in Las Vegas with about 2400 yds. It really felt nice. I woke up this morning at 4am for no good reason and stayed up at that point. At 6:30am I called Taylor to pray. I really needed that because I forgot to take my pills including my vitamin Z (Zoloft) yesterday morning and let’s just say that I had no fuse...

Oct 28th

Running My Way

I am a couple of workouts into doing running my way. I have a reprieve on running farther and farther going slower and slower. I am now going to try to run farther and farther under 8 minutes per mile. A woman at church can do this for 62 miles so I figure I should be able to go 13.1 miles at that pace. Okay so she is on the United States team and is going to Gibraltar for the 100k world...

Oct 26th

Marathon Done - Now to Finish Fundraising

I just finished one of two 26.2 mile runs that I will do in my lifetime. The time wasn’t great (5hrs 17min) but I did it. This is a miracle considering my running ability and history. I had to run on three continents and 6 countries for the training. I am glad that I had already trained myself to get up and fish and this helped getting up before the day started to get my workout in. I know...

Oct 19th

Which End is Up?

I am so busy, confused and dingy that I haven’t been able to post a blog in awhile. I literally can not finish an email or concentrate enough to pray. Here are some of the things going on right now: I believe that my last post was after my scouting trip to St George, Utah. Since then, I have run my last 15 mile run in Estes Park past 5 different herds of Elk and some mule deer, made a...

Oct 7th

St George Ironman Scouting Trip Complete

I got to spend time with friends this weekend in St George, Utah as we rode, swam and ran the venue for next year’s Ironman competition. I really enjoyed getting to know Andrea, Christian and Jerry better. My buddy Steve was with me and I think the only thing that I got to know new about him is that he is a climbing machine on steep hills. Steve, on the other hand, will be praying for me...

Sep 27th

Just Call Me Sparky

I am proud to add Sparky to my nicknames of SpinMaster, Rhino, Boring, etc.. That was my Dad’s nickname which came from his skills with electrical things when he was younger. I am taking that nickname because my cardiologist said that my heart is fine and that the extra noise was probably coming from other muscle contractions. Since “noise” is electrical signals that means that I...

Sep 14th

20 Miles & Rehab

I just finished the week off with another run that is the longest of my life. I ran 20 miles ALL afternoon. I started the run having to apologize to a bunch of people. I ended up on a course with people finishing up their run portion of a half Ironman at Aurora Reservoir. Everytime I passed someone (which should never happen running) I told them that I wasn’t in the race and “good job,...

Sep 13th

Life Group Cancelled - Went to Masters Practice

I enjoyed Labor Day and took the opportunity to ride bikes with my wife and finish the day with a BBQ at a friend’s home with a group of people that I really care about. I decided to ride my Mtn Bike on the ride with my wife and she put the hurt on me. I noticed four or five people at the BBQ that were taking their health seriously and had lost significant weight since I last spent time with...

Sep 8th

dragonfly3m asked: Hi Brian,
My name is Mikki. I met you in South Denver when Insulindependance came through with the ADA in June. My step-daughter, Madison is your Triabuddie :)
I am hoping to find out more and help where I can with this whole event.
I do have some questions that I hope you can help answer. When are you and Madison training? or does she train on her own for the Triathalon in...

Sep 7th

18 miles done - Many lessons learned

I started running right as the lake opened the gates this morning at Aurora Reservoir before sunrise. I still managed to show up late for church since it took me just under 3.5 hrs to finish the 18 miles. My wife got up with me and walked around the 8 mile lake loop once. We took two different cars since I was going to have to stay longer. Its nice that the lake is only 10 minutes from our home. ...

Sep 6th

A Season of Conflict on the Horizon?

As we still to see a little cooler weather here in Colorado, my itch to fish is starting. As the ice season approaches, that itch will become an addiction. We shall see how my training discipline goes as the competition for time with fishing starts. I am fairly certain that I will not be putting on my running shoes and doing 10 miles across the ice at 15 below zero while I am on my fishing trips. ...

Sep 5th

Waking up Really Early Helps Exercise

I am in a different time zone for a few days and I woke up yesterday at 2am and today at 4am. The hotel has a 24 hour workout facility and I have been able to get up work out, read and pray, talk with my wife on Skype, get work done and still have to wait for breakfast to start. Yesterday I went 7.5 miles on a treadmill with the last 10k running. Today’s exercise was excellent. I rode a...

Sep 2nd

Group Rate at Alzheimer's Facility?

I am enjoying finishing up the day at home watching the Denver Broncos game. I am enjoying the game and enjoying the conversation. My friend, my wife and I are all about the same age and we are all showing signs of either dementia or Alzheimer’s. My wife asked if I wanted to have a Diet Dr Coke, my friend keeps referring to Kyle Horton (its Kyle Orton) and I will get up and then stop and...

Aug 30th

Good Class, Good Food & Challenging Workout

The class that I am in at Harvard is actually pretty good. I have everyone fooled because I threw on the blue blazer, white shirt and yellow tie. I think that I might have even shaved. I can almost guarantee that no one reading this blog has ever seen me dress like this. My day started with no coffee anywhere in this hotel (Eliot Hotel). Its supposed to be an old hoity toity place but I am not...

Aug 24th

Anonymous asked: Nothing to ask - just a comment - or two....
Great job on the first olympic distance event Brian! As I keep doing these events I am starting to overcome the swimming panic I encountered in the races earlier in the summer (and I'm still swimming slowly, but hopefully can work on that some this winter). No water on the bike Saturday didn't help me and the BGs were all over for me...

Aug 19th

Action-Packed Week

It has been a very action packed week - some good and some not so good. Great news is that there is nothing wrong with my bike seat, I just need to wear biking shorts at all times. My neighbor also showed me how to adjust my derailleur so I now feel like a pro. I met with two friends this morning to touch base and hold each other accountable. I took more than my fair share of time and realized...

Aug 19th

First Triathlon Race Report - Olympic Triathlon

My wife and I arrived at the lake just prior to the gate opening and I found a group of very polite people and the line wasn’t very long. This was a change from the fishing tournaments that I have done at the lake where the line in in excess of 1 mile long with quite a bit of aggression. Set up the transition, warmed up running a bit and swimming a bit. This was an unusual blood sugar day...

Aug 14th

Nervous Stage of Taper - Love the Uniform

I had a great day today. Our unit of IBM acquired a company that will round out our software portfolio, I worked on a few deals with reps and read more “material” from Harvard Business School (this really is going to kill me and not make me stronger). I had a great time reading this morning in my devotional time and had a good prayer walk with the dog. The stress in my life is lowering...

Aug 11th

There are Lungs & then there are Lungs

My day started great with a bunch of work and then got better when I picked up my Triabetes uniform kit. I can now sweat and get my heart racing by just thinking about the race this Saturday. I thought that today’s swim workout (taper) was going to be a breeze and fun - wrong. While I have been training to go far, I have lost a lot of my ability to go fast. I was used to training for...

Aug 10th

Easy Bike & Hard Run

Enjoyed a double-date bike ride with the Veteto’s yesterday with Cris (no “h”) leading the way. Today I went to the site of next week’s triathlon which will be my first. It is an Olympic distance (1.5k swim, 40k ride & 10k run). I am still on a taper so I warmed-up for 1.5 miles, ran hard for 2 miles and warmed down. The 2 miles running hard I did in 15min 51sec which I was very pleased...

Aug 9th

Taper Time - Insulin Changes

I had my first day of taper today for next Saturday’s Olympic Triathlon. I selected cycling and did a warm-up, a 9 mile loop all out and a warm down. During taper I go into the anaerobic zone and my insulin needs drop even more. Before I detail that, a funny story. Since this is my first triathlon, I tried to do the “proper” bike mount with my geeky TT helmet on. My wife and...

Aug 7th

Short Course Swim Season - Torn between fun &...

I know that it is early but as short course swim season approaches, my heart will be drawn to those friends and those events that I am actually good at. The season starts right after my Denver marathon in October and goes through next May. I don’t have any answers now but I know that I will have a struggle between having a lot of fun racing in swim sprints and training for Ironman. I am not...

Aug 6th

Ice Good

I did an experiment on accident and found out how important rapid cooling of legs is after biking and running. After my 14 mile run on Sunday, I swam in cold water and felt great on Monday. Monday I rode an easier 24 mile loop on my bike and didn’t sit in an ice bath and today I am sore. Today I run 4.5 miles (hill repeats) and take an ice bath and I now feel great. Looks like about 10...

Aug 4th

14.29 mile run - Life still stressed

Well I did a 14.29 mile run today which is obviously the longest run that I have ever done. I tried to keep my heart rate under 130 for the first 8 miles which I did. I then tried to push the last 10k. Did fine up until about the half marathon (13.1 mile) mark and then I kind of died although I did not quit running. My good friend, Mark, knew that I was very stressed and asked if he could run with...

Aug 2nd

Rough Day - HR Epiphanies

I won’t lie, today was rough. I almost quit the whole thing today because of personal stress levels going through the roof. The stress was not related at all to the exercise and quest. The stress was high enough, though, to consider quitting everything because I just don’t care. I changed my mind when I realized that I couldn’t do anything about the situation and exercising might...

Aug 1st

Voting Time - Mental vs Medical?

I had my first hill repeat session today on a 5 mile run. I ran for 15 min, then did 8 hill climbs for about 1min 30 sec each and then ran back home. Here is the dumb part. The overall run was about 5 minutes faster than a normal 5 mile run. Here are the questions to vote on: 1) Did the fact that the workout mimicked interval training for sprint swimming help me go faster (aka mental issues)? ...

Jul 29th

New Strategy - Don't Survive, Attack!

I am taking a lesson from this Sunday’s sermon and totally misapplying it to my exercise. I am going to try to switch from survival mode to attack mode during exercise, especially running. In the words of Pastor Joel, “I am going to decide to play on offense and not on defense”. In order to do this, I will probably have to run every other day and set time goals rather than...

Jul 27th

Back in the Saddle Again

I finally feel like I am getting back in the saddle after vacation last week. I had a great day at work yesterday with some encouragement from my manager. Our family really enjoyed having Blair & Alison with us to see our lives for a few days. I did a 1 mile lake swim for the final workout for Blair. It was a beautiful morning and she got some nice photos of the lake. I was also very pleased...

Jul 23rd

Ran with the Coach - Enjoyed a BBQ

I had a good day today. I got some good time in at work early. Over noon I swam with Steve and Alison while Blair videotaped and took photos. Later in the afternoon Andrew came over and joined Alison and me for a 5 mile run through Cherry Creek State park. I made it without walking but didn’t go very fast. It was surprisingly humid today and I was sweating like a pig at the end. I really...

Jul 22nd

Vacation is Tough - Glad to be Home

Ok so vacation is tough on the workout schedule and eating plans and I’m glad to be home for purposes of working out. Other than that I could absolutely live in the Florida Keys - period. I need to get paid to snorkel. I ran three times while on vacation and none of them felt good. I kicked liked crazy for hours and hours snorkeling and that was my best exercise. I’m home now and...

Jul 21st

Half Day Work - Half Day Workout - Ice Bath Finish

Today I mixed a half day of work with a half day of working out. It has been raining here lately and I really wanted to get a good ride in. I started the day at 6:15am meeting with Danny and really enjoyed our time together discussing life and praying. Next I got my 4 mile run in and then jumped onto a conference call for work. I did a 2000 yard sprint swim workout with Steve over the lunch hour...

Jul 10th

Camp Colorado with Diabetic Kids

I had a great day at Camp Colorado with 200-300 diabetic kids. We met with the older campers first and then did a triathlon with them. I was asked to swim on a relay by Luis and John. I should have checked the altitude (9100 ft) before swimming as hard as I did. It was only about 400 yds but the water temp was somewhere around 60 degrees with no wetsuit. I treated it like a sprint and got out of...

Jul 7th

Run, Church, Swim, Pick Up Fish & Taylor's Studio...

I woke up this morning in time to eat and take my insulin and watch where my blood sugar was going to settle before running 5 miles. It was cool and overcast and it did not feel good but I got it done. Took a shower and went to church a bit early at 8:30am to help set up for our 4th of July outdoor service and bbq. We really enjoyed both and Michael’s girlfriend, Amanda, got to meet a lot...

Jul 5th

Details for Vacation - Bike Date

I spent the day wrapping up some details for fishing and snorkeling in the Florida Keys the week after next. I had a good run this morning for 3 miles but needed to fine tune the shoe situation and went to Boulder Running Company and they put me in very supportive shoes and inserts because of my very high arches. After fighting off a 47 blood sugar (from a big 1 unit of Novalog for lunch!), Pam...

Jul 4th

Reverse Tri

I didn’t really mean to but I did a reverse triathlon today. Work was very light since it is just past the first half of the year so I had time to run 3 miles then bike 21 and then do a pool workout for 2250 yds. I swam with friends and had an enjoyable lunch at Tokyo Joe’s while we talked and schemed and held each other accountable. I am hoping for a longer bike ride tomorrow...

Jul 3rd

Swim, Work & Fish

I was given the day off from running today. I started the day by swimming 2.4 miles at the lake while Pam rode her bike for 16 miles. I then had a good and encouraging day at work. While eating dinner with Pam, she asked if we could go fishing to finish the day off and we did. We caught a bunch of trout plus one walleye. I have included a couple of photos as the sun set on our boating/fishing...

Jun 29th

Ed Finished!

I have been tracking our diabetic coach Ed Liebowitz and he just finished the Ironman in Idaho. Now I REALLY want to see he blood glucose numbers for the race to match up against his splits. Either way, he finished. I started the day biking at 6am for about 24 miles and almost plowed into Bambi and his Mom during the ride. I made the mistake of riding between them. All I saw was the doe until...

Jun 28th

Trout, Walleye, Run & Bike

I started the day with my friend David and enjoyed fishing Aurora Reservoir. The trout (16 - 19 inches) were hitting just about everything that we trolled but were taking the hooks deep so we took the trout rigs out and went for walleye. Fortunately the walleye also cooperated and David (yes he is from MinnySota doncha know) out-did me on the walleye and even caught a keeper around 19 inches. ...

Jun 27th

Being Reminded

I am being reminded today of what is in front of me. One of my coaches is doing the Ironman in Idaho tomorrow. As I think of the 2.4 mile swim, I can’t wait to go all out. As I think of the 112 mile bike, I want to be aggressive and enjoy it. As I think of the 26.2 mile run, I curl up into the fetal position and cry for my mommy. My wife and I rode 18 miles this morning. It would have...

Jun 26th