And so it begins.....
Somehow my triathlon season has suddenly snuck up on me. Now don't get me wrong, I feel plenty ready for this weeks race. (more on that in a minute) This off season has just flown by. I feel like I have maintained my aerobic fitness this off season. That was my primary goal. I also committed to riding my mountain bike outdoors on a regular basis this winter. Again, mission accomplished. I forced myself to put in over 300 miles on the indoor trainer in February with the hope of jump starting my fitness for this season. Why did I do these things instead of taking an extended break this winter? Every race last year left a bitter taste in my mouth from a fitness standpoint. I had the heart but I felt like my body let me down more often than not. I have committed to not having that be the case this year. I want to finish strong and have legs left for the run this year. I may never run fast but.... I can be fresh enough to run strong off the bike. With that in mind I have focused on bike fitness more than anything this winter. I stayed out of the pool, my first love, until April and hoped I would not lose the main edge I have at these races. After last week, I don't think that will be a problem. Bottom line, I feel GREAT about where I am right now at this point in my training.
Last week I turned 42. It didn't even faze me this year. I feel better than I have in many years physically and I think that helps. Once again I celebrated by completing the bfit birthday challenge. You celebrate your health by swimming the first number of your age in either yards or miles depending on your ambition, you run the second number of your age (and if its a zero you get to do 10 miles) then you ride your entire age in miles. This was a challenge started by Roman Mica over at http://www.bfitbday.com/ . I completed it last year and decided to continue the trend this year. I set the goal of doing everything in miles (yes the swim too) and to complete it within a 24 hour period. I can report, after the fact, that I was successful. I began Thursday evening after work with a little 4 mile swim (2 hours 12 minutes, 26 minutes faster than last year, so much for lack of swim fitness haha). The next morning I ran 2.5 miles (sorry, I'm an over achiever) in 21:43 and that afternoon I hoped on the bike and cranked out a 42 mile ride in 2 hours 43 minutes. All in all it took me 5 hours 16 minutes 43 seconds. I cut 15 minutes off my time from last year and ran and rode one more mile each! Who says you can't get better as you get older, lol. After all that effort in a 24 hour period, the fact that I was not sore and could have trained this weekend (I took it off to celebrate my birthday and have one last hurrah before I get serious with my training) I feel like I am more than ready for this weekends race, fitness wise. One interesting note from my swim. I found it quite interesting that the longer I swam, the stronger I felt (until about the 3.5 mile point, then it was a suffer fest for the last 800 meters). I never once felt that last year. I hadn't felt that since the days when I swam competitively in high school. I'll be interested to see if that carries over into my season as my races get longer.
This coming weekend is my first ever Xterra event. I'm dong what they call a Sport race (pretty much a sprint distance for us roadies) It's a 500 meter swim, 10 mile mountain bike ride, 3 mile trail run. Just a fun little race to kick my season off right. Also, I recently found out it's one of 2 stops for the Xterra pros in Michigan this summer and both Melanie McQuaid and Conrad Stoltz are scheduled to race. (for those who don't know they are the Female and Male reigning Xterra World Champions and both won their last race a couple of weeks ago) I can't wait to observe them and see how they do things for race prep, etc that an average age grouper like me can learn to from. I have no expectations for this race other than to finish strong. I also get to race for the first time as a RACING GREYHOUND in my awesome team kit. I'll see if I can't manage a pic or two for the race report. I'm going unsupported (read solo, alone, sans family) to this race so pictures might be hard to come by but we'll see. I'm training right through this race as I am into my build period in my Half Ironman training, 12 weeks out and officialy trying to follow a plan this year where every workout is mapped out from now through Aug 1. We'll see how that works, haha.
Ok kiddies, that's all for this week unless I get the urge to write more before Sunday. So until my first race report of the year, next week. Train smart and work hard!
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