Week 5, Wednesday

So far this week I had a much needed rest day on monday after the race and tough sunday run. Yesterday I did a high intensity bike ride, and today had a run with a lot of hills. The bike ride was about 13 miles, took 45 minutes, and consisted of 8 sets of hard 1 minute. The run was intended to have 6, 30 second pick ups, but I wound up just using the hills as the pick ups and tried my best to recover on the downhills. Both workouts were pretty tough. I made it through. I have a swim later today, but the swims have been pretty easy for the most part.

Starting Week 5, post recovery

So,I really took the whole "recovery" part of recovery week to a whole new level. I missed quite a few workouts, but I suppose that's the life of a husband/father/triathlete/graduate student/part time contractor/etc. But it was also a race week so I did want to rest a bit going into the race, as I knew I had a good chance to win this week. I came into the week on the back of a couple of very good long workouts, which I wrote up in my last entry..I've really got to start doing this more often. My only excuse is pure laziness and forgetfulness, alas I digress. So first off, my workouts weren't anything to write home about so I'll go straight into the race report. First off, I knew going into this based on last years results, and my time when riding the bike course that I had to be a favorite going in(in my mind anyway). This was the MedWest Sprint Triathlon in Clyde, NC. It was a small race with only 63 competitors, but it was a really fun race. It was a short pool swim, a 10 mile bike and a 5k run. Being a pool swim you're required to enter an estimated time. As usual, the time I entered was right on the money based on my pace, sadly, the same could not be said for those in front of me. I passed my first person in the third lap, and the fact that there was another swimmer coming on at the same time, in the same lane made for problems. I got elbowed in the face making the pass, but I was able to accomplish it pretty quickly. I passed the next person around 200 yards. Come on people, submit an accurate time! Although I was the 24th person to start, I finished with the 7th fastest swim time. My submitted time was dead on where I finished, which means that almost everyone in the race ahead of me has no idea how to estimate their time. I really need to start inflating my time in pool swims, because I'm tired of dealing with that. I wound up finishing the swim in 4:39. I was satisifed with that, as that's right where I expected to be. On to the bike, this was the part I knew from having rode the course a few days prior. It started out with a downhill right out of transition, which made mounting difficult since I don't put my shoes on till I'm rolling. But I managed to get them on and got on my way. Immediately after the downhill you have about a mile steady, but not steep climb, followed by a LONG downhill into a flat. I tried to push as hard as I could up the hill knowing I could recover on the downhill. I definitely had a strong bike. Knowing the course I knew which hills I could really push and which to take it a bit easy on. I passed probably about 10 riders out there, and didn't get passed at all. I was really strong on the downhills and flats, and only slowed a bit on the long hills. I didn't want to push them too hard, with the run coming up. I finished the bike in just over 30 minutes and averaged 19.6 mph. I had hoped to be at 20, but I was close enough. I wound up finishing with the 9th best bike time overall, so I was pretty happy about that. Next came the run. Dear god, I wish I had at least driven the course before hand. This run was brutal. I started with a short moderate climb before a long steep downhill. Then came about a mile long steady, somewhat steep climb. It was brutal. I finished the first mile in about 10 minutes. Yikes! But after that it wasn't bad for the next nearly 2 miles. It was mostly steadily downhill with small, short uphill sections that didn't bother much. I picked up my pace considerably in those 2 miles, until the final half mile or so. Then we had to wind our way up a switch backing road. It was long, it was steep, and it was hot and sunny. That final push was brutal. I wound up finishing my run in 29:06. Not a bad finish considering after the first mile i was on pace for a 31 minute run, but still not nearly as good as I was hoping for. I wound up finishing 33rd overall in the run. However, I did live up to my hope and did win both my age group(which I wasn't competing in) and the Clydesdale division. So all in all I was really happy with my race performance. I feel like I could've done the run better had I known what was coming, I may have pushed that first hill a little harder if I had known how long it was. I don't know that I could've done anything differently on the last climb as that was just a push for survival. I didn't do a long bike this week because I had to choose between long bike or long run. Seeing as how my running still sucks and my biking is getting a lot better I went with the run. It was another grueling run. I had done a 1000 meter open water swim earlier in the day, and coupled with the previous race the day before, I was running on fairly worn down legs. And it showed. I actually felt pretty strong for the first 4 miles or so, but around mile 5 I really started to feel the wear. I think my biggest mistake was going too fast for the first half. like the 7 miler I did two weeks ago, I started out sub 10 min/mile only to slow considerably towards the end. Last week I started slow and increased my speed by the end. So, lesson learned. Slow the hell down!

Entering week 4, recovery week

So far so good, training has been going well and I'm enjoying the more laid back version of training than I employed last year. I know I'm getting through this race and I'm trying to enjoy myself more, while at the same time, seeing some solid speed improvements finally! Yesterday I had my longest run in, well, since the Ironman. I did 8 miles, and not only was I faster than I've been in years, it actually felt pretty easy. My HR never spiked and I never felt all that tired. I could've easily gone on longer, had I had the need to. I guess the need would be if a bear decided to give chase. But for comparisons sake, last week I did 7 miles in 1:14. This week I did 8 miles in 1:20. Last week I felt faint and a bit nauseous, where yesterday I felt absolutely normal. So, obviously I'm thrilled with my progress. My long ride was very hard to gauge because of the heat that we rode in, and the fact that we had to stop constantly to check the map. We got lost a LOT. It was a bit frustrating. And I ran out of water towards the end and did i mention it was incredibly hot? We were insanely slow, but a lot of that was cause we were talking a LOT and not pushing very hard. But I expect that speed to increase when I'm focused on racing. And, last but not least, I had an awesome swim on sunday too. I was supposed to do 1200, but that just seemed like too short for a long swim, so I planned to do 1500. I got into it and that just seemed to easy so I went for a cool 2000. I never stopped, never felt the least bit tired and did the 2000 in 35 minutes. That puts me well ahead of where I expect to do on my race. Considering that we swim with a current and I'll have a wetsuit. So all in all, I'm quite excited about my training progress. Recovery week ahead!