- left knee is hurting on impact when running.
- lower back is twinging in the AM.
- left foot is exhibiting symptoms of plantar fascitis.
Monday
Swim: ~1750 yds
tried something new: 25->250, adding 25 yards at a time. This really allowed me to get into a decent rhythm, but I was mainly breathing on my right side -- fallback behavior.
Tuesday:
Swim: ~1800 yds
this time I was able to breathe bilaterally a lot more. Forcing myself to exhale made it easier to inhale. (duh). Also, I focused on not crossing the 'center line' when pulling. This seemed to result in a much better 'grab' of the water.
Finally, I signed up for the Mercer Island Aquathlon, featuring the two things I'm kind of weak at: Swimming, followed by Running. Wheeee! (should actually be fun, I'm going to concentrate on both and see what happens).
Wednesday:
Run 6.5 mi
warmup 2 miles
1.96 miles at 80%, avg 7:39/mi, 15 min TT.
1 mi recovery < 142, avg 9:38/mi
1.47 mi @ > 156, 7:34/mi effort, hills.
So my body feels much better after this run, which rates as a pretty hard run, short distance. My TT effort was 5 sec/mi faster than last week, could be due to not having ridden hard the day before. But I would ideally like to get these below 7:30. I don't feel like I'm running super hard during these efforts, but the HR tells a slightly different story.
The final 1.5 ish miles were just all out on W Mercer. A steep downhill, a steep uphill, all made for a solid finishing effort. I'm going to officially shut it down now, tomorrow is swimming, Friday maybe a really easy 4 mile run. depending on when I get up, of course : )
Thursday:
Swim:
ladder 25 => 250, then down 250-200-150-100-50. Total 2075 yds.
I'm liking this ladder thing. I settle into a good groove on the longer sets, I'm not worried about going fast as much as I am trying to maintain good form. I noticed today that I raise my head (and sink) when breathing to my weak (left) side. I managed to figure out a way to extend my right hand more straight ahead, with my hand tilted towards the pinky, that enabled me to float during left side breathing. When I get tired, I still breathe every stroke. But now I'm starting to breathe to my left side every stroke as well, and with the form improvements it's becoming more comfortable.
I really wish I would have been swimming like this earlier in the year, but it takes what it takes, hopefully next year I'll see the payoff from the time I'm putting into building form and going longer w/o thrashing.
Friday:
Rest. Lopa, Kids, + Neils, Anita and Kids all came back from Orcas yesterday. We hung out and caught up, and crashed around 10:30. Then Kiran had a 'bug issue' (I've got to teach him how to kill bugs, believe it or not) and I couldn't go back to sleep after taking care of it. So 40 minutes on the Alpha Stim and I was finally ready to go to sleep, but a 5AM start was not in the picture. It's T-2 days to the race, so a rest day was probably in order anyway.
Saturday:
Run, 4 mi, easy. I ran sockless and adjusted my shoes.
Race Thoughts:
It's apparently going to be 63 and rainy on Sunday, which means our starting temp will be (again!) in the low 50s. Thank god for the wetsuit. Hopefully the rain will hold off in the AM and the ride will be dry. I hate navigating around people in the wet, things get very random.
My hopes and dreams for this race:
The Swim: At this point I'm pretty sure I have an aerobic pace, one that I can keep up for a while, and that it's in the 1:40-1:50 range. However, I also know that I can thrash pretty hard at 1:35. So, I could lose a lot of energy without gaining a lot of time if I'm not vigilant. The key for the swim will be to stay comfortable, hold back, concentrate on long, fluid strokes driven from the hips, and most importantly not give a fuck about the masses that churn off ahead of me.
The Bike: After swimming longer than I ever had swum in my life, I'm going to hope that 20+ years of riding 'kick in' and that I can maintain a decent pace. Note I have no idea if the course is hilly or not. It doesn't look too bad on Google Maps, but virtuality and reality tend to be disjoint. I havent ridden since last Sunday, but that Sunday ride was decent considering how hot it was. Assuming my legs feel good, I think going hard at the start, maintaining the pace as much as possible once I feel better, and spinning out the last mile would set me up for
The Run: This is a wild card. My last brick ended badly, in 93 degree heat, with me clocking 3 miles at about a 10 minute pace, at a high HR. Since the temps are going to be 'brisk', that's not an issue. Overall fatigue, on the other hand, will definitely be an issue. And my last run went pretty well. I felt mentally fine during the 80%TT, and can definitely push harder than that. It would be killer to average < 7:30 the whole time. I don't know if that is a realistic goal given that it's coming on the tail end of the longest swim of my life followed by a 25 mile ride.
I'm going to assume that the first mile sucks, and it gets better after that. Hopefully my sensations from the last couple of sprints are true, i.e. I start to feel _really_ good at mile 2.5, and I can keep a decently high pace up for the remaining 3.5 miles.
Overall: Hey, this is my first Oly. I don't have any real expectations other than I want to make a solid effort and cross the line feeling like I left nothing on the table. With the weather setting up to be very un-summery, it should be an epic, whether that is good-epic or bad-epic is mostly in my head. I want to win that battle, regardless of the actual time it takes to cross the finish line.
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