More 28!

First, THANK YOU for all of the kind words about my race report from the FoF oly tri. I do feel better about the swim now, and it looks like Coach Katie is going to get me into her open water swim program and get me straightened out there. In that type and distance of race environment, I can now see the difference between the training distances I put in for the bike and run legs (plenty) and the training I put in for the swim leg (almost none). It's ok for the sprints, I can just keep my head down and struggle through the swim, then make up time with a faster bike/run. But this distance (almost a mile) really taught me to respect the distance itself. Since my swim training was basically just strength training and aerobic endurance in other aspects, I expected a struggle. But even with my performance on the bike and run, it makes me want to get more help in all 3 areas. This indicates a mental shift from "can I finish" to "how can I get better" going into the summer/fall sprints and the B2B half iron in november.

In fact, I'm going to set my first goal for the beach 2 battleship. Complete the 1.2 mile swim in a shorter time than I completed this .9 mile swim. Typical middle to back of the back swim times are 38 to 45 minutes in the b2b, so my 42+ minute swim in this oly shouldn't be too hard to beat with some actual swim training. Plus the b2b uses a wetsuit, and you swim with the current. Those 2 facts alone should speed things up.

And speaking of summer/fall sprint tri's: a couple of the guys in the office want to get into triathlon, and they want me to take the bike leg on a relay team for their first race. So any of you guys in atlanta have any sprints on the schedule for august/september/october? I know the SC and NC terrain and race schedules pretty well, but I've never raced around atlanta before. Tell me a good race that you're doing, and I'll see if the other guys want to do it too. If these guys can get into racing tri's, anybody can.

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Marathon, anyone?

So day after tomorrow we leave for Kentucky so I can run the marathon. I'll have a race preview tomorrow. Today I am feeling great. I am anxious about the marathon, but it's not like anxiety attack anxious. More like "ready to knock it out if i can knock it out" kind of anxious.

I got in a recovery run last night, 3.22 miles in 31:55, a 9:54/mile pace average. The cool part was that it was on the sidewalks and hills around my house, and those are some serious hills. When I first started running again back in early 2008, I could only make it about 1/5 of that route before walking. Last night was the first time ever I made the entire route and length of the sidewalk without having to slow to a walk. It has two turn around points at a school and a shopping center, and I even made wide circles in the parking lots so I wouldn't have to make a complete stop to turn around. So that was very cool and unexpected. I also hit a max speed of 12.3 mph, which is a 4:54 pace. must have been on a downhill.

That run really got the last bit of soreness worked out from the tri. This morning my legs feel great. My back was really sore after the tri, and it feels better too. I've been doing the tri power workouts this week, so the core and lower back are feeling nice and stable now. So I'm starting to think that 6 days was enough time to recover from the tri before doing the marathon. and i'm glad. I'm still keeping my yoga schedule too for the rest of this week.

Now back by popular demand (read: my wife is forcing me to share) here are some more pics of #28 from the tri. Remove the question "can I complete a triathlon" for a minute, and as you stare down this boy ask yourself "should I go to a triathlon or convince my husband/boyfriend he needs to get into triathlon?" even if you have no desire to race one. I bet (if you are attracted to men) he will convince you to say yes. And saying yes to triathlon can lead to some good things. Maybe even running into this guy again.