Headed out early this morning. I have been debating what to do this morning with my training. Part of me wanted to go ahead and get my run and swim done, but I knew that a late night last night with fireworks and the heat was probably not the best situation for a run outside and my biggest swim workout to date.
I opted to just run the 6 miles. I wanted to run there to get my 8 miles in, but I overslept a bit. I will get these two miles as part of a brick when I ride my bike either later today or tomorrow morning.
I needed a good run today. I wanted my legs to feel good running. At first they did not feel good at all. Pretty typical lately. However as I continued to run I decided that I would keep picking up the pace as my legs felt worse to teach them that they can run through the bad feeling and to remind them that they can run faster and harder and feel better.
The weird thing is that the faster I ran the better my legs felt. I know I could not keep up with the rate I was accelerating, but the last mile I felt great. My breathing was picking up, buy my legs felt the best yet.
I was glad to see I was running sub 7 for the last mile. My stomach was upset during this run so I had to deal with that as well.
Looking at the 100 degree temps today I am opting for the trainer again. I don’t know if I will ride today or tomorrow, but need to get in another ride by tomorrow.
My last big week of training is about halfway through. Crazy to think that I only have one run, two bikes, and one swim of big training left before my taper. I have a pretty extreme taper next week so that should prove interesting.
I know I should get out on my bike in this heat to practice, but I just don’t want to risk wearing my body out. Thanks to Jeff for reminding me that I am going to be fine by sticking to the trainer.
I checked out the weather for Racine next weekend and it looks like it will be 87 degrees on Saturday. They don’t have Sunday up yet, but I can only assume it will be a toasty day of racing.
I have also been checking out the times from the race last year in my age group. There are some stud athletes in this division. I know I should not worry about this sort of thing for my first 70.3 race, but if I race to my potential I think I can finish in the top 30 in my age group. I don’t care about overall as there are too many people, but there were 190 in my age group for males last year.
Looking at the results from last year, here are my thoughts
1. These people can flat out swim! Wow! I need to put in a good swim just to maintain. My swim times that I have been recording are nothing compared to the top of my age group.
2. The bike splits are crazy. The top 30 males in my age group are riding around 2:30 – 2:33. A few were 2:40, but their swim times were super fast. I have yet to ride faster than 2:40 on 56 miles. I hope I get a little pep in my step next Sunday.
3. Despite feeling like crap on my run lately I still feel like I can hold on and get people on the run. Ideally, I would like to run 8:00 minute mile pace for the 13.1 run. This gives me time to run easy around 8:15-8:20 and slowly pick up pace as I run. This is considering I race well on the bike and swim to allow for me to run at my desired pace. This puts me at a 1:44 time for the run. This would help me snag a few people. I don’t want to run slower than 1:50.
Now these are just goals of mine. I am not going to be upset if I don’t hit these as planned. There is so much for me to learn during this race. This is going to be a whole new experience for me. So much can happen during 5-6 hours of a race. You just have to run your own race. I do believe it is important to have goals to strive for or else why race?
Here is quick breakdown of my goals
1. Swim – Less than 40 minutes
2. Bike – Less than 2:40
3. Run – Less than 1:50
Overall Time – I would like to be under 5 hours 15 minutes for my first 70.3 race. This time would actually drop me down to the 40th spot based on results from last year, but I think I can chip away at this time if I have the race I am capable of.
Back to bed for a quick shut eye session before my kids wake up.
You’ll be fine, you have done a great job with training. I hope you keep going after this race, but one at a a time. The biggest advice I can give you, is ride outside……Nothing better that acclimating to the heat. It could be a scorcher along the lake with the sun, you need to be ready. Don’t resign yourself to the fans/AC if you can help it.