Tweaking

Good morning.

Yawn. Coffee. More coffee. Ahhh yes, 64 ounces of coffee.

Boy, the weather is absolutely perfect this week in Chicago. Not a cloud around and temps in the 80's.

It's funny, but whenever I have an event, for example, Sunday's triathlon, a couple days later the event seems like a long time in the past. It's only been a couple days. I felt the same after the Boston Marathon. After 1 week it seemed like a month. Not sure why this is.

After Bigfoot my body feels fine except for one slight niggle in my upper left inner thigh. I does not hurt to walk. I rode 20 miles on the trainer last night, an easy spin, and it did not bother me. I tend to feel it in certain positions or if I squat. I will monitor this and be careful.

The 1/2 Ironman is fast approaching. It's only 4 weeks and 3 days away. I will continue to recover a bit more this week and resume more intense triathlon training shortly. I am also sneaking in marathon training. Good thing high mileage is not here yet.

Today is a swim day and maybe a recovery run. The swim workout will be more intense. My swim muscles are recovered and need some work.

I finally got the age group results for the Bigfoot Triathlon. I placed 13th out of 29 men age 50-54. The top four times in our age group were:

1.) 2:07:03

2.) 2:18:53

3.) 2:23:13

4: 2:24:48

My time was 2:31:02. I wanted to see how I did in each tri-discipline in my age group. In the swim, my time of 23:23 was 11th. The bike: 1:09:52 was 15th and the run: 49:52 was 4th.

So, I need some work. After analyzing the results my goal will be to come in the top 3 or 4 of an olympic distance triathlon. I don't think it's a stretch to expect a time of 2:23:00 or better. I think I am capable of that.

It is interesting that my average 100 yard pace during the swim was 1:26. I've never come close to that in the pool. Plus, I was not going all out.

With some tweaking and more training I will swim slightly faster, maybe bike a little faster and increase my run pace to under 8 pace. Also, becomming more efficient in the transitions will really help take some time off.

I can impliment this in my next olympic distance event: The Chicago Triathlon.

Now, it's time to focus on the 1/2 Ironman. I will try to do some tweaking for this event as well. I'm not sure about a time goal yet. My initial thought was somewhere between 5-51/2 hours. We will see.

Have a great day.


-----
" Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction."

* It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before... to test your limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” - Anais Nin