Keepin' On... and On...

Training went well this week.  No news is good news in this case.  I only missed Friday's workouts, a 45 min swim and a 30 min run.  The roughest point in the training was at mile 4 of an 8 mile brick run that followed the 80 mile bike ride on Saturday.  I felt great up to about mile 3.  I was even doing a little side-to-side bouncing dance while I was running which I'm sure people who could see me were getting a good laugh from.  That energy was short lived as the sun and humidity did as they usually do and zapped my energy.  Sunday was run-bike-run with Sarah.  We were going to run 13 miles outside and 6 inside.  But, we felt good enough to finish another mile outside, saving us from having to do it later.

Completed workouts for 8/27 - 9/3:
Tues Swim
Tues Bike
Wed Bike (speedwork)
Wed Run (brick)
Thurs Run (speedwork)
Fri Swim (this was actually Thursday's planned swim)
Sat Long Ride
Sat Run (brick)
Sun Run #1 (part 1 of "sandwich")
Sun Bike (part 2 of "sandwich")
Sun Run #2 (part 3 of "sandwich")

I changed my training around a little for this week (9/3 - 9/9) so that I could go out today to Sand Key to meet up with the New Tampa Tri Club for a much needed open water swim.  I met up with Tamara and Fred (from my new biking group) before the swim for a 40 mile bike ride.  The bike ride was quick with very little traffic, but bumpy.  The swim was good, roughly .5 miles (quarter mile down and back).  I felt a few jelly fish which kind of freaked me out and I ultimately wimped out on doing a second lap.  The salt water was also starting to burn a little on the parts of my skin that had gotten chafed. 

It was nice to talk to some of the other people and find out that they were having as much trouble finding time to fit in all the training that I was.  It seems to be a common theme. 

On the bright side there are 29 weeks down, 7 to go 'til the main event.  In the meantime, there's Highlander III that's in 3 weeks and then Augusta HIM is the week after that.  Like Sarah, I'm anxious to get the racing on.  As it gets closer to the big race I am thinking a lot more about what nutrition I want to have and what clothes I want to wear for the swim, bike, and run.  There are of course other things that I should think about but don't.  So, whenever I come across an article titled something like "Being prepared for race day" or "How not to screw up your race by doing this or not doing that" (you know something along those lines), I have to take a look at the article.  Last week I came across 7 Race-Day Gear Blunders to Avoid.  All of the points are duely noted.  But, for me the one that stuck out the most was 'keeping your wetsuit dry'.  This calls to me because of what I explained in a recent post.  Not getting enough practice wearing the wetsuit and then jumping into super cold water is no bueno.  I will definitely be making a point to wear my wetsuit in a couple of practice swims coming up because Augusta is a wetsuit race as is Beach 2 Battleship.

Aside from getting in a couple of swims with my wetsuit... sidetracking for a sec.  It's probably going to look funny to people when they see me in a wetsuit right now.  It's Florida and right now I sweat walking from my door to the car.  Anyway, back on track.  Here's my scheduled workouts for this week:

Monday - 40 mile bike, 30 min swim
Tuesday - off
Wednesday - 1:25 bike, 1:15 run
Thursday - 1:00 swim, 1:10 run (tempo)
Friday - :45 swim, :50 bike
Saturday - 100 mile bike, 8 mile run
Sunday - 23 mile run (down hill after this!), :30 bike cool down