Little late on this, but had family visiting. A good solid week sliding back into training. These first weeks getting back into it are usually really good, since your well rested coming off a taper and hopefully had a good mental reset. I'm not sure my mental reset was as long as I needed, but I'll have a couple more chances with 4 more races coming up before IMWI in 11 weeks. That means 4 chances to rest for a few day before and after. I have to remember that out of that, 3 weekends are recovery weeks, 4 weekends are race weeks, 2 taper weeks, so that leaves just 3-4 weeks/weekends for some quality efforts long rides and runs when you long at the overall plan. Though keeping in mind there's another 70.3 in there which counts as a quality long run and ride...and test of nutrition and energy management & pacing. Hard to beat a good race. Olympic distance is "easy" enough that I can still do a fairly long zone 2 ride the next day, so those weeks are still available.
I need to remember that my primary focus is "Do no harm"! Meaning I already have to overall speed to KQ and reach my goals. So while more fitness is still better, and some specificity would be good (A few more long rides and runs to build confidence and get used to that duration), ultimately I need to be physically and mentally ready come Sept 7th.
My lunch swim today was at a neighbors house. He was a former all-american collegiate swimmer, so there's a 25y lap pool in his backyard. Water was 80F, but pretty wavy. I thought it might be good to get used to the chop. Not so much. Maybe once a week or something as a OWS simulation. But it hurts focusing on my technique and it's not as much fun. I'll probably take the tiem to put the lines in.
On a related note, I think I'm going to back off to only 3-4 swims a week as "maintenance" and instead focus more on cycling and take a little break form swimming so I don;t get burnt out. Then do a final push in August before taper. I'm getting confident that if I sight well and get some feet a 59:xx swim is very doable where I'm at now. So my time is better spent biking more. I think that's where I'm a little short of my potential.
By the numbers:
Swim: 2h51m, 12,150y
Bike: 10h19m, 226.6mi
Run: 5h47m, 46.4mi
TOTAL: 20h37m
Link to my run Sunday: http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/4W7XBW5ZEXLMOXLN7LOZQBQSKE
My swims have mostly continued to suck in the warm water and humid indoor conditions. I did have a very, very good swim on Saturday, so that was a big confidence boost. maybe my best swim since March. My dad was watching from the observation area (Bri was doing swim lessons) and he commented that my stroke looked better than it did in high school. I wish I was swimming that fast, but on about 1/3 the total yards, I'll take it.
That's my highest weekly biek mileage since Mid-March and my highest run mileage since mid-Feb when I injured my achillies.
My legs felt surprisingly OK on Monday after after the mile run mileage that week and Sundays 14mi run. It did catch up with my this morning as my bike effort fell flat after about 40 minutes. I salvaged a tempo ride out of it and a few more zone 4 efforts up some climbs and at least hit 100 TSS for the ride... sort of my "gold standard" for a weekday ride of 80-100 minutes.
This weekend is the Y-athlon. I suspect registration is pretty small...really small. I bet only 20 show up. Its' not advertised and the Chicago ITU is that weekend too so few Burlington or Quincy guys will show. Oh well. Probably the last year for the event and Lake Geode. Water quality at Geode is sketchy right now with all the rain feeding the algea. I won't be surprised if the swim becomes a 5k run. Which I'd be OK with.... sadly. Actually, to my advantage I suppose. taht would be a hard run. Most of the hills are in the first 1/2 before the dam.
I'll mostly train through the triathlon, but rest enough to have descent legs for a good solid bike & run effort and not risk injury. Should be fun to see how much I've improved from last year.
Equipment:
Could things I've settled on... I think (things can always change):
1) Going to get a compact crank 50/34 for IMWI and use it at Steelhead & Hyvee as well to test it out and see how much I lose on downhills. Those 2 races would be come 100% big ring with a compact.
2) While I may try a rear bottle angle far backwards under my seat... I'm likely to play it safe and just use a downtube bottle for my reserve bottle. 2 watts or so of drag might be worth the ease of access and pieec of mind in a race where refueling is critical. For Steelhead, I'll just use my aerobottle like Kansas and might use a 24oz for my BTA if temperatures are mild, and avoid any hand-offs.
3) I really want that full wetsuit form Daniel. I have to figure out how to get a hold of it before Steelhead so I can try it out at least once.
4) Rear wheel. I'm not bothering with a disc cover. Too much cost to benefit ratio and potential issues. I'll just hope for light winds or head/tail wind on the stick. Having preridden the course, my day will be determined by how well I pace the bike & run and how my nutrition works out for me... just that simple.
As another sidenote. I rode my really slow wheels I used on the I pre-ride. I'm about 1.1 mph slower than my "faster" training wheelset. And my race set-up is about another 1.5mph faster. So where does that leave me? Maybe add 2.5mph for my IMWI pre-ride pace. 18.8mph @ 194W. That's 21.3mph. Figure another 0.3 if I add 15 watts. That's a 5:10. I'm thinking that's a realistic time... though I won't dismiss a 5:05. Just hard to say. That 2nd lap will be critical how smooth I pace it, getting some free drafting here and there off lap traffic, no stop signs... etc.
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