10 days to go

The last week has been very productive and I am feeling a bit more confident because of it. I did finish last Wednesday (the 9th) with a 40 min run covering 4.58 miles, 22 minutes of it at high exertion rate. Most of that time was in the mid 7 min/mi range, and felt like good work for a short run. Since I had missed a few rides the weekend before on vacation, I went back to the Silver Comet Trail on Thursday and did my peak ride for this training period of 62 miles at 3h 30 min. I was doing my best to keep the pace easy as I had an Olympic distance race in two days, and that converted over to about 17.7 mph for the duration. Another thing I was working on with this ride was testing nutrition (gels specifically), and I think that my every 45 minute rate might be a bit light on the bike portion. I was able to burn 2500 calories on this ride, and with gels at the beginning and every 45 minutes I replaced 500 of those calories with Gels over the ride. I am going to shorten the gap to 35 minutes on the bike, and keep it at 45 minutes on the run. Last Friday I dropped my planned workouts and did a nice and easy 20 minute treadmill run to keep warm for the race on Saturday.

So instead of a 2h50min brick on Saturday and a 2700 swim and 40 minute run Sunday, I subbed those for a Olympic Distance Triathlon Saturday morning, The Tugaloo Triathlon. I did this race last year as my first Olympic, and had a pretty tough time of it. I wanted to get at least one race beyond a sprint distance prior to the 70.3. Saturday Morning got out the door at a respectable 4:30 and hit the road for a ride to the state line.

Got to the race, setup and was ready to go. I over seeded myself a bit in the swim, so I ended up with the 65th starting place (this is a staggered start, no waves). My goals for the race were 28 minute swim (1500 meters), 1h 25min bike (26 miles), and 60 minute run (10-k). This would get me in at 2:57:00 with 3min 30 seconds for transitions. Last year I was not in condition for the race and ended up with a time of 3:31:24 . This was pretty poor and got me 63 out of 70 in my age group, and 421 overall out of 470. My goal was to try and get under 3 hours, confirm racing nutrition, and replicate my Sandestin improvements from last month.

I met all of those goals. My time was even better than hoped for of 2:43:01, and was good for 25 of 56 in my age group and 144th overall. A 48 minute improvement over last year! Swim dropped from 31:16 to 26:41, Bike from 1:33:38 to 1:18:34 (16.7mph to 19.9mph), and the run from 1:21:24 to 53:44. That run was almost a 5 min per mile improvement (granted I was cramping and walked a lot last year). Felt great as well and was passing lots of people in the last mile when I picked up my pace. I thought the day was a total success and underscored the work I have been doing. By no means do I expect Augusta to be easy at all, but I know I can do it nonstop at a steady rate of work.

This week started the semi-taper, and combined with some awful weather all week I have cut back some of the work. Tuesday was a 40minute ride on the trainer (instead of scheduled 1h 20min), Wednesday got in the scheduled 2350m in the pool and a 44 min run (4.8m) with 24 minutes at threshold pace. Yesterdays bike was scrapped since it has been pouring rain (I still have a nice 2h 45min ride on Saturday scheduled). Today I got in a 30 min run (3.3 miles) with some sprints at the end, and also another 700 yards in the pool. I missed some of the volume this week, but you are not going to loose any fitness over the final two weeks, and I have enough work ahead tomorrow with the ride, and Sunday with the run (1h 20min) to keep active. I will update how those go soon.

This next week is the final work leading up. After Sunday I go to full taper mode with two short bikes, two short swims, and one short run leading up to a day off Saturday and the big day Sunday. This weekend will be working out a food plan for the week, stocking up on in-race supplies, and getting my mind ready for the challenge.

On a side note, my 7 year old was able to participate in her first triathlon this past weekend at IronKids Alpharetta. She did a great job, and showed some great perseverance when her tire went flat coming out of transition. The bike crew got her changed within a few minutes and instead of tears, she was able to suck up the disappointment and finish strong!