Off Season Bliss

Ahhhh…. The offseason. It’s been really nice. I’ve been carbing up for next season, laying around, sleeping in, working out here and there, nothing serious. Yeah, it’s been nice.

No wait.

It’s been awesome.

However, I’m starting to get that itch again. I planned out my season for next year, it’s gonna be great. As mentioned in my earlier post, it’s the year for speed. That being said, I picked up some new tri specific sidi T2 bike shoes (carbon soles), slapped an ultegra 6700 crank (double) and front derailer on my bike, and a complete rebuild from the ground up. Then I had a tri specific fit for a more aero and powerful position. I found during this fit, that my old setup was causing me to engage my hamstrings more than my glutes and press with my toes versus keeping my foot level. I know, really exciting stuff. But it makes a difference.

Mentally, I’m fresh. I’m thinking clearly now, instead of being in an overtraining, hazy rut. I need to remember this normal feeling during next season. As I mentioned in my last post, I averaged 7 or so hours a week during my training and racing period last year. Granted I would have a week where I would do 15 to 20 hrs, but the next week I would need to back off to just 3 hours to recover. This year I want it to be different. I want consistency from week to week-to the number of workouts in each discipline each week to the volume. My shortest week, the recovery week will be just under 6 hrs. The high volume week will be just over 8 hrs. This will include a 1 hr continuous swim, a 2 hour run, and a 3+ hour bike ride each month, not in the same week, each at 80% of my max heart rate or less. Each discipline will have four workouts a week, a short speed workout, two easy workouts, and a long tempo workout (unless there is a longer workout planed). I really believe I will race my best with consistent training, speed work, recovery, proper nutrition, and a realistic balance to my life.

This year’s season:

2010 Race Schedule:
03/20 National Half (B)
04/23 American Odyssey Relay (C)
05/08 Bear Mountain NFEC 50K (C)
06/06 Reston Sprint (B)
08/01 Culpeper Sprint (A)
08/14 Luray International (A)
09/05 South Riding Sprint (A)
09/18 Wisconsin NFEC 50K (C)
Dec NFEC SF 50 miler (C)

Training started on Saturday with a run on the snow and ice covered trails near Difficult Run. Nothing too exciting or hard, except for hill repeats at about an hour in, then a 10 minute recovery run back to the car.

Ironman FL Race report

Pre race:

Post Swim

I arrived in PCB on Wednesday and stayed with my Aunt about 3 miles from the Boardwalk, race start. It was nice because I could get away from all of the rest of the athletes and constant working out going on. Crazy atmosphere. If you have any self doubts about your ability or are super competitive it’s best to keep off your feet and away from the pre-race “races”. Swam in the gulf twice, the water was perfect, like a pond, no breakers.

Total hours of training and racing (just cardio) since February 2009: 250 hours. About 6-7 hours a week average. I had weeks with 12-15 hours and weeks with 3 hours. Almost no speed work (except for the pool).

Nutrition:
Ate lite the day before the race and stayed hydrated. Bike check in/bag check was a bit crazy, but all went well. One salt stick cap the night before. Sonny’s BBQ chicken dinner, yum.

Morning of:
English Muffin with Peanut butter finished at 4:15 AM.
Forgot to take my 5 hour energy right before the race. Probably better that I didn’t take it.

Race Morning:
One word: Nuts. The atmosphere reminds me of the MCM except you have to worry about more details. My tire valve broke while adjusting pressure. Luckily the WTC had mechanics on site for that purpose. Decided not to put on sunscreen before the swim or put it in my T1 bag because volunteers were putting sunscreen on racers. Not a good idea.

Swim:
Since everyone looked crazy fit and it was my first Ironman race, I decided to start in the very back, as in last one to hit the water, back. Hugh mistake. I worked on my swim this year, a lot, and I was thinking I could swim a 1:00-1:05 at FL. Starting in the back is not the way to go about that, not in a mass start of 2500+ people. So yeah, it took about 3 minutes to actually start swimming. I would have started swimming as soon as the water was just above my knees. Pushing off the bottom in dolphin like jumps until about waist deep. But most of the racers were waiting to swim until about waist deep. Then there was the first turn buoy, talk about traffic jam. The best I could muster was a breast stroke. My first lap time though was at about 37 minutes. Not too bad, I’ll negative split so I thought.

2nd lap:
It’s funny how the majority of age groupers took the longest route back in the water, walking out in the surf and waiting until the last-minute to swim. I took the direct, non-crowded route and was able to pass a lot of people. Made it to the first turn buoy pretty fast, not so much of a jam this time, though on the way I noticed a lot of white/clear things in the water: jellyfish. Hundreds of them, not all at the surface of course, but close enough to keep the elbows high for sure. I was stung by one at around the 2nd turn buoy, right in the armpit. No worries, I thought, nothing can be done about that right now, so I continued to swim normally. The water had a bit more chop than the 1st lap and I had trouble seeing the buoys, I figured out that I could sight off the corner of a hotel right into shore, so that’s what I did, and it worked well. A couple minutes later, a swimmer came right into my path, almost perpendicular to my direction and elbowed me right in my left eye. I swam right over him, kept going. About a minute later, I got a headache, followed by nausea, and then a fit of dry heaving. The first dry heave took me by surprise and I sucked in some sea water, which caused more dry heaving. I had to stop swimming, go upright, catch my bearings, then continue, and stop to repeat until the end of swim. I’m getting nauseous just writing this…

Time: 1:23

T1: Still nauseous, I made my way to transition, sat in the change area, which felt good and asked myself if I were good to go. I thought, yup, and made it out of T1 in approx. 11:58 minutes (wow..I could have had breakfast there) Went to get some sunscreen and noticed that the volunteers were applying thick sunscreen sweaters. I decided to pass.

Bike:
I knew I had a flat course ahead of me though with some wind and my position wasn’t that aero, so I knew it could be a tough day. Put that in perspective with being nauseous, I just took it a moment at a time. This had to pass. So it did, about an hour in. For nutrition, I didn’t start taking in salt until I could taste the salt in the Gatorade endurance (thanks to the saltwater). After 1.5 hours I started my saltstick caps. The wind was tough, the course was not though. I settled into an easy 75% MHR and enjoyed the rolling bike expo that passed me.
Side note: USAT judges really need to start riding quieter motorcycles if they are going to catch more people breaking the drafting rules. I was passed by several pacelines. Yeah pacelines. Harleys are great, but you can hear them a quarter mile away.
The last 40 miles I average just under 18 mph.
Ate about 14 gels with caffeine, two whole bananas, and about 5 Gatorade bottles.

Time: 6:30 (hours)

T2: Came in, sat down again in the change area, put everything on, checked to make sure I had everything and headed out.
9:08 minutes (Stopped by the porta jon for a bit)

Run:
Started my run feeling like I was at the end of a marathon. Took a Five Hour Energy, two Advil and pressed on. After four miles I started feeling better. My game plan was this, walk the aid stations (that was all I walked) and press hard the last 10K. I was feeling better as the run progressed. I think it was the Advil.

FIRST RUN SEGMENT	6 mi. (1:04:48)	10:48/mile
SECOND RUN SEGMENT	7.4 mi. (1:17:25)	10:27/mile
THIRD RUN SEGMENT	5.6 mi. (58:32)	10:27/mile
FINAL RUN SEGMENT	7.2 mi. (1:07:48)	9:25/mile

The last two miles I was a man on a mission, I really think I was going at an 8:30 pace or faster. Either way, I was feeling good when I crossed the finish line.

Run: 4:28

Overall: 12:43

At the Finish

Post Race:
Massage, Beer, and Pizza. No soreness at all the following week. Massage on the Tuesday after. I tried running 8 days after, but my heart rate jumped above 80% within two minutes. I’ll try again in a week.

Lessons learned:
Overall:
I need more speed. Next season will be all about speed. I want people to say I’m F&%^ing fast. 😉 More short races and speed work.

Swim:
Go out hard to the first buoy, and settle into a solid pace for each race next season, this does two things:
1. Avoids the crowds at first (then you have to lap some of them)
2. You can find a more dependable pair of feet to draft off of with elite swimmers in the group.

More masters swimming.

Transitions:
Practice. You don’t have to go to the change area/tent. Wear your uniform under your wetsuit (like I usually do).

Bike:
Adjust position for more aerodynamics, upgrade from a triple to a compact, more speed work and big gear work in the offseason.

Run:
More speed work and short fast racing in the offseason.

37 Days and Counting

Before the 50K

Yeah. 37 days, or 36 days and a wake up. Either way it’s around the corner: Ironman Florida. As my first iron distance triathlon, you could say that I’m thinking about it more as it creeps closer. Am I nervous? Yup. Am I excited? Yup, that too. I’ve given some thought about what I’ve had to give up over the past 11 months and I can’t say yet if it was worth it or not. Physically I’m in the best shape of my life: 154 lbs, 6-7% body fat, and a lot of endurance and short distance speed. Overall health, that’s another story. I’m constantly walking a fine line between over training and just enough training. Often times, I sound sick from pool chlorine causing a runny nose, which also causes a random cough. Family life, it’s good; however, I’ve had to put in a lot of long weekend workouts away from my new wife. Time I can’t get back. Either way, good or bad, it is 36 days and a wake up until I find out if this all has been worth it.

I love triathlon. I love endurance racing and I’m getting better. In fact, I ran my first Ultra Marathon a couple weeks ago. It was the best racing experience I’ve had: Difficult, fun, and felt good afterwards. This is only my second year in the sport of triathlon and I can see doing this for the rest of my life at the amateur level. As far I running, I’ve been running for 13 years and my first marathon was in 2004. I now have 5 under my belt and 1 ultra. Not too bad. But I think my focus the past 5 years has been too much on the overall distance and not enough on speed. I’ve given some thought to my next season and I’m thinking I want to keep the majority of my races under two or so hours and do them all locally to DC/VA/MD. My new focus will be getting faster from half marathons to 5K runs and Olympic to Sprint triathlons. I’m not going to stop long distance training altogether, just less frequent. Instead of doing three 5-6 hour bike rides a month, I’ll do one, with many fast 2 hour rides. Same with running, I’ll keep one long 3 hour trail run once a month for fun. Swimming? More masters swimming.

I haven’t been blogging much-when you have a part time job of 10-15 hours a week working out on top of regular work, 2 hours of commuting daily, and time with family and friends, blogging takes the backseat. So, let me catch you up on significant workouts and races from the last time I posted in May:

Rhode Island 70.3:

Overall: Great race! Point to point bike and two lap run course.

Swim: Swells, rain, wind, and cold. The race directors made the swim optional. However, my best swim yet. I almost lost my wedding band at the turn around point.

Bike: Went out fast. In the first hour I covered 22 miles including a short bathroom break, then 3100 feet of climbing ensued over the next 34 miles. 18.5 average speed overall. 2.5 mph average faster than last race.

Run: Felt good, until that damn hill around Brown University. Average pace: 9:50. Not great, but faster than last race.

Overall: 5:50:37, 38 minutes faster than my May 70.3.

Race Venue: Providence. Eh. Not going back. There was a music festival going on right next to my hotel. Even on the top floor, 7 floors up, it sounded as they were in my room. My wife and I had to get ear plugs from the front desk. The race was on Sunday, but on Friday the music didn’t stop until 12 AM. For Saturday night, the Celebration of Drums started as promised at 12 AM with a marching drum line outside our window coming alive with snare drums, bass drums, and quads all into the moment. It continued until 2 AM. I had to be up at 3 AM to eat and get on a bus at 4 AM for transport to the swim 56 miles away. Good times.

Notes: Completed the race all on feel. My heart rate monitor battery died race morning. Not going to do this in the full Ironman, at least on the bike, maybe for the run. Need to eat more on the bike. Take off my wedding band before the swim.

Training Highlights between July 12 (RI 70.3) and September 19 (North Face Endurance Challenge 50K):

Recovery. I should have taken at least a full week off of nothing but stretching and walking. But I didn’t. I felt great. So, I decided to move into regular training, including full body weight lifting. Big mistake. I hit a lull the next week that continued until early August. I tried everything to take me out of it. Massage, chiropractor, supplementation, active recovery, but this lull just lingered. Then one day in early August, I woke up, and felt great.

Indian Head 100. I found this ride on its website and decided to do it one Saturday. Went out to Indian Head Naval base, parked at the police station, told them where I was going and took off. Fully charged Garmin 305 (with course wake points), iPhone, 3 water bottles of fuel, and wearing summer gear. The first 40 miles were great. Averaging 18 mph at a low heart rate, low 80s, little traffic, and wonderful scenic views. At mile 45 the weather changed, thunder storms rolled in, and at mile 56 or so, I ran out of fluids, my GPS died, and there was no cell reception. I found my way back to the car after 75 miles, cold, dehydrated, and tired.

Fueling. One week out from the 50K run, I completed a 70 mile time trial on the WOD. Averaged 18mph including stops, and I really liked the GU products (Vanilla bean and Espresso with caffeine). No upset stomach, plenty of energy, easy to digest. Gatorade is OK, but I have to get used to it for IM Florida.

Completed about three 90 mile rides at an easy pace <80% of MHR.

My longest run during this period was 12.5 mile trail run.

North Face Endurance Challenge 50K (31 miles):

I ran with a co-worker during this race, which was great. The run was along the Potomac from Algonkian State Park to Great Falls Park and Difficult Run. The course was moderate difficulty with a few 58% grade (yes grade) climbs and descents. Aid stations were from 3.3 miles to 6.7 miles apart so I had to carry a light camelback to make it between stations. The aid station food was great! Chicken noodle soup, power bars, Pb&j sandwiches, gels, and candy. I tried to eat my entry fee worth of food. Being a trail run, with steep inclines, tree roots, and rocks you tend to average a slower time vs. a road race. For example, the fastest finisher averaged ~7:35 minute mile for the race. I averaged about ~12:30 minute mile, but it was a ~11 minute mile until mile 27. I officially hit the “wall” about mile 30.

Notes: More speed work. Fewer gels with caffeine, maybe they would be better toward the end of the race when I experience a lower average heart rate.

So I felt pretty good coming off this race, and I was fully recovered within a week. And now with three weeks of hard training left before my taper, I will be incorporating Tabata speed workouts mid week, and I have two more 5+ hour rides and 2.5 hour runs (not back to back). The final three weeks, will include recovery and two taper weeks with long workouts the final two weekends of a long swim/medium fast bike/short fast run (1: 1hr swim/4 hour ride/2 mile run, 2: 45 min swim/2 hour ride/2 mile run). During the week will be recovery sessions and short fast Tabata and tempo workouts. So, to be honest, I don’t know what time I’m going to finish in Florida. I know I have the endurance to finish, but how fast?

Kinetic Half Race Report

On the run.

This was my first Half Ironman, third Tri ever, and my first race of the season.  I’ve been training indoors on the bike since November and first took it out on the road back in mid to late March.  My goals for this race was: 1. Finish 2. Keep my Heart Rate under 80% of my Max Heart Rate (MHR).

Pre-Race:

My wife and I stayed at a B&B near the race site.  We ate dinner at Olive Garden the night before, I had Chicken Alfredo.  I got 5 hours of sleep and slept pretty good.  I got up at 4:30, ate two piece of toast with butter and packed up the car.  I was still full from the night before.

At the race site, I unpacked the car, put my race number on the bike, and mixed my fuels with bottled water.  Went for body marking, however, the guy doing the race numbers was dyslexic.  He wrote 259 vs. 295, my actual race number.  I had to go back and be marked again.  Ugh.  This started the day of small frustrations.  The transition area was buzzing with athletes getting ready.  I was setting up and noticed I forget my bike pump and my wetsuit with 10 minutes before the area was closed.  I asked my wife to grab my wetsuit and I borrowed someone’s bike pump.  I had no problems with the front tire, however, for the back tire, the pump valve was not coming off.  I forced it off, hitting my knuckles against the cogs and started bleeding profusely.  So there I was, bleeding, trying to get into a wetsuit.

Right before the swim start, on the beach, the Hokie Tri Team recited the Hokie chant in a group.  So I responded with a single “Go Gators!” which drew one little “Woo” in the crowd.  Being that my start wave was about 65%+ Hokies I got a lot of dirty looks.  Kinda funny.

Swim:

The most comfortable open water swim I have ever had.  The water didn’t taste funny, like the Potomac in September, and it was calm at the start.  I focused on long easy strokes.  I found some feet to draft off from time to time but for the most part I didn’t draft very much.  The first lap was easy. On the second lap the wind picked up and it was choppier than the first lap.  I learned a couple thing about my stroke mechanics.  While breathing on my right side I swim straight as an arrow, at first I was checking my bearings every 4-6 strokes, eventually I worked up to every 12-16 strokes before sighting.  While breathing on the left however, not so straight.  I can only go about 6 strokes before veer off course to the right.  I realized what was causing it-pulling cross body with my right arm after breathing instead of along my side (I’ll work on this in the pool).  The fast female swimmers that started 6 minutes behind me caught me on the 2nd lap after the last buoy before land.  I was really amazed at how fast their stroke turnover was, about 2 times the speed of mine!  So, between now and RI 70.3 in July, I’ll work on endurance and speed via faster arm turnover.

Time: 37:31  1:47/100 yds

T1:

I exited the water, jogged to what I thought was my row, then found my bike the row over.  My wetsuit was not fast to come off, I need to trim the legs a little around the ankles.  Put my shoes on, jogged to the mount point and headed out.  Time: 3:33  Very slow.  I know I can cut this down to sub 2:00, just need to practice.

Bike:

Nice and cool for a bike ride.  Remember how I decided to ride at about 80% of my MHR on the bike, just to see how I would do, being my first long course tri?  So yeah, I wasn’t going fast.  Everyone was passing me and I mean everyone.  Guys that were 100 lbs+ more than me.  I let them go.  My mantra was, “Ride my own race.”  The first lap was good, not too much wind, my position was fine, I was enjoying the hills.  On the second lap, I began to hurt.  Not cramping-my stomach was too full.  I was doing everything I could to keep fluids down.  I was already taking in Perpetuem, which was fine with me, but for some reason, I thought taking hammer gel right before the 2^nd lap would be a good idea.  Not so much.  I haven’t tried it in training, so yeah, I think that caused my bloating and stomach issues.  I wanted to go a little faster on the 2^nd lap, but my stomach was too full, I was burping, on the edge of tossing cookies for the entire lap.  Plus I had to stop for a short bathroom break and my chain came off once.  Time: 3:29:15. Avg speed 16 mph.  Although it was the same speed I had for my first sprint tri of 15 miles and four MPH slower than my September Olympic race.

T2:

I was not feeling good from the bike.  No cramping just the same stomach issues.  It took a while to find my row again and my gear was not set up for a quick transition.  I didn’t have yanks on my running shoes this time. Time: 3:10  Again, I’ve been faster.  I think I can be under a minute if a practice this.

Run:

This is not the way to start a run.  As I exited transition, the winner crossed the finish line. 😦

During the first ¼ mile I threw-up in my mouth.  I kept it down because by this point it was almost 90 degrees out and I didn’t want to dehydrate.

At 1.5 miles a spectator yelled “it’s getting hot and humid out!”  I thought, “Thanks?”

I walked a lot.  Every aid station, at every mile marker, and sometime in between to keep my heart rate from going above 80% of my max.  When I did run, I averaged about a 8:00 min/mile pace.

I found my legs at mile 4.

The heat turned the field into a death march. It looked like Olympic speed walking.

No offense to anyone, but I saw that a little person was ahead of me.  She was moving!  Come to find out later that she was having an asthma attack and she finished faster last year. Impressive.

The 3^rd and final lap I picked up the pace and ran at about 85% of my MHR.  I was feeling better overall, kept pouring water over my head and sipping on heed.  The last mile I ran at 7:45 and hit 86% MHR .  Side note: I passed a few people on the run that passed me on the bike.   Time: 2:14:56. 10:14/mile pace.

Overall:

Time: 6:28:23

Conclusion:

Learned a lot from this race:  I felt fine after wards, hung out with friends, and didn’t go to bed until 1 AM.

Next Steps:

Nutrition:  Drop 5-10 pounds by slightly altering diet to cut down on processed sugars.  Race with what you train with.

Swim (3-4 workouts a week):

Continue weekly continuous endurance swims maxing out at 60-80 minutes.  Incorporate speed and technique drills into other workouts and work on left side breathing techniques and stroke speed (@ masters swim workouts).

Bike(4 workouts):

1 long ride 4-6 hours, 2 rides at 2 hours [mid week], and 1 fast ride for one hour (speed work).

Run (3-4 workouts a week):

Brick workouts, continue a LSD run of 2-2.5 hrs each week, and one fast run for one hour [fartlek, speed work].

T1/T2:

Incorporate back to back workouts, especially swim to run and swim to bike.

A Week in Training (2/1-2/7)

I had a good week overall with a total of 12 hours of cardio training and two gym sessions.  The breakdown:

Swim: 4 hours (4 even workouts)

Bike: 4.5 hours (3 workouts – 2 one hour workouts, 1 outdoor ride for 2.5 hours)

Run:  3.5 hours (4 workouts – a 45 min hill workout, 15 minute recovery run, 1.5 hour endurance run, and a hour fartlek run)

I took Sunday off.

My Garmin 305 croaked after almost three years, so I picked up the Suunto t6c, GPS Pod, and memory belt.  I’m impressed with all three.  I really like the memory belt, I can wear it swimming and analyze my workout afterward.  It’s good to know what level I’m working out at in the pool, and this helps a lot.

My outdoor ride on the Mount Vernon Trail was nice at about 56 degrees on Saturday.  I completed about 38 miles, the trail was crazy packed with runners and walkers and I had to come to a complete stop countless times.  I was able to ride a road parallel to it 4 times for a couple miles and I treated each event as a time trial. The last time I hit my cycling max HR – 181 bpm.

Next week, I’m keeping everything below 80% of my MHR to make sure I continue to advance my aerobic system during this base period and fully recover from yesterday’s ride.  I should have about 11.5 hours at the end of next week.

Until next week…

A Week In Training (1/25-1/31)

Ok. I traveled this week and I didn’t sleep well in the land of Bulldogs (UGA). I enabled two runs for an hour and a half, 4 stationary trainer rides for 2 hours, and ZERO swims. Ugh…I will regret that next week. So I had an easy week of only 3.5 hours.  Next week I’m looking at 11:45 hours of cardio.. 4 hours from swimming, 3:45 hours from running, and 4 hours from biking.

No Caffeine Update

It’s been a week with no caffeine and I feel good.  The first three days were tough with mild headaches and general sluggishness, but those have passed too.  I also lost 3 pounds this week!  I still crave soda from time to time, Wednesday was very tough, every five minutes I wanted one.  If I knew it would have been this easy to quit soda this time around, I would have done it a lot sooner.

Nutritional Facts

Marketing food for nutritional value is a cornerstone to selling food that is really not good for us. After all, most of us want to eat healthy, and even though the box of Captain Crunch says that it has nutritional value, some of us will buy it because: 1. It’s delicious!! 2. Why would a box lie to us.  What you are not told is the sugar content in relation to the overall caloric content.   But most of us already know why this is, it’s called marketing. In fact, you might remember when nutritional values were not on manufactured products.  The FDA or USDA (can remember which) made this a requirement years back.

My wife and I try to eat organic when practical and possible.  However, I’m noticing that marketing gurus are starting to catch on to the organic craze that Whole Foods helped make mainstream.  If you haven’t seen it, some products are being listed partially organic as the product pictured here.  I’m a glass have full kind if guy, but this is kind of ridiculous. 70% organic = 30% not organic. To me, it means this product is not organic.  Either it is or it isn’t.  It’s like being pregnant or not.  Surprisingly, I ate it anyway because my wife bought it and I didn’t want it to go to waste.  By the way, it was delicious.

A Week in Training (1/18-1/24)

I had a good week.  I ran 2.5 hours, indoor bike trainer for 2.5 hours, and swam for 3 hours for a total of 8 hours of cardio.  Saturday was a long day with a 1.5 hour run and a 1 hour swim.  Not back to back though, waited about a hour and a half in between.  The run was cold at 38 degrees F and very windy.  I have two routes near my place: Either little rolling hills or massive long hills.  I chose the massive long hills.  I’m a little sore today but I was happy with my overall pace-my last mile was a very comfortable 8:32.  This week I’m on the road in the peach state in a town where the University has a Bulldog for a mascot.  The pool for my hotel is outside (so no swimming) and I haven’t seen the gym yet.  Looks like I’ll focus on running…

Addiction

Quitting Soda

Hi. My name is Josh and I am an caffineaholict. I’m addicted to caffeine, particularly I enjoy the soda delivery method. Occasionally, I dabble with coffee, but it doesn’t have the amount sugar that I have grown to love. Growing up in the 80’s no one told me soda was bad for me. In fact, my parents got me started on this habit at a very young age.   I’ve tried to quit several times and have for months at a time, but only to relapse because of a road trip or a late night at work.  Each time I quit I go through the dreaded headache phase of about three or four days and the mid day sleepiness that begs for a fix.

I wonder if this is how addicts with serious addictions feel. I realize my addiction is easy to beat, after some time I won’t miss it anymore. But hey, at least it’s not illegal!  I’ve quit again, starting Saturday, and I’m prepared.  I bought a bottle of asprin to keep the headaches at bay and I’m carring a water bottle for consuming something during the day and at lunch.  It will a tough couple days but I’ll get through it.