Really? May 20?

Is it really May 20th already? Really? Holy crap, May is gone. And guess what happens in the first part of June? June 7 is the Festival of Flowers, my first oly tri. THAT'S ONLY 18 DAYS AWAY!!!1! Then 6 days later is my first marathon? IN 24 DAYS??!?!?! I knew it was less than a month away. The training plan has a 20 mile run this weekend, my only 20 in this cycle. Then it starts the taper.

WHAT KIND OF IDIOT RUNS AN OLYMPIC DISTANCE TRIATHLON AS A PART OF A MARATHON TAPER?

this kind of idiot that's who. {imagine me pointing 2 thumbs back at myself with a stupid grin on my face}

and it's all coming to a head in less than a month. wow. Looks like a little paranoia is starting to set in. I know my training is going fine (but not fantastic) and I feel good about all of the distances (0.9 mile swim, 24 mile bike, 6.2 mile run, 26.2 mile run) but I don't think you are ever really confident about a marathon until you have completed one.

Every week for me is exactly the same. I write the same code on the same projects for the same time periods every day while I watch the same shows on tv. So I tend to measure time by weekends. This weekend is memorial day. Then a free weekend. Then it's the tri, then the marathon. That is almost right now. I mean it's getting close.

I need to get into the pool more, but we've had a recent cold streak. Just last night it got down into the mid 40's here. I looked at the training log and I was surprised how little I have been on the bike this month. So the plan is to hit the hills tonight on the bike, and get my normal thursday night brick in tomorrow. I missed last week's brick thanks to work, so this one is even more important.

Yesterday was an interesting day. it started out innocent enough with some yoga before work. Then I hit the weights over lunch for my normal tri power workout. After getting the kids to bed, I made it to the gym for some speedwork. I ended up doing a warmup on the bike for 5 miles in 13 minutes. I think the resistance was flawed, that's way above my 20 mph target speed and it didn't feel like the resistance was changing even though I had the bike set to "random" and level 10. Then I moved to the treadmill for some speedwork. The training plan called for timed intervals, and it turned out to be awesome. A 10 minute warmup, then 2 minutes fast followed by 2 minutes easy, and repeat that 5 times. So I did the 2 minutes fast at 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, and 7.7 speeds, which is much faster than I normally run for speedwork. But since it was only 2 minutes at a time it ended up being ok. I did the warm up, cool down, and easy 2 minutes at 6.2 or 6.3 speeds. Total run ended up being 4 miles in 34:04. I'm not calling that a brick because 13 minutes on the bike and 34 minutes on the run is not challenging enough. bricks should take more than an hour in my book. It's a warmup.

I have to admit that while I know some people don't like speedwork, I have really come to enjoy it as a part of this FIRST marathon training plan. The tempo runs and long runs are really fun too, but speedwork really has a nice fat burning effect and it makes the other runs more fun. Only running 3 days a week on this plan is great, and (earlier paranoia aside) I feel well trained for the distance. I really want to find some standalone 5k and 10k races here to try out some of my newfound speed. maybe after july.

Happy hump day! long weekend coming. I will leave you today with a few pictures that describe how multicultural Greenville is. I didn't take these, but I like them.

HA!