Thursday, July 02, 2009: After my race and recovery week, I was on fire for several days - setting my highest speeds this year for both my 20-mile bike time trial and my 6-mile tempo run. However, the past two days have had me dragging. It's that time of year again where the heat just starts melting the calories off me at an alarming rate. I eat all day and can't seem to keep my weight where it belongs, which leads to days where I lack energy. I'll be recharging my batteries tomorrow and then looking for a good weekend of training.
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Monday, June 29, 2009: My recovery week felt great after my half iron - although my week still ended with a normal run total (but much-decreased swim and bike totals). The really awesome news is that I had my best time trial in a looooong time over the weekend. I finally felt like my power was sustainable. Apparently, last week's bike time was not a fluke. SHAZAM!
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009: It's funny how you can have a so-so year with a few obstacles…but as soon as you have one great showing, you are suddenly looking for events to do. Another half in Kentucky in July? Hmmmm…
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Monday, June 22, 2009: Completed my first half ironman race in a year this past weekend and it played out nearly ideally. Check out my lastest news for the race report. My performance here confused me even more this year - although this time in a good way. I think at this point, I'm not going to jinx it or even bother to speculate. I think instead that I will just be happy…a few days of recovery and I'll be ready to get back at it!
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Monday, June 15, 2009: Although my times haven't been the greatest during training this year, I wll say that I've had some great weeks as far as mileage and effort including this past week. 7500 meters swimming, 204 miles riding and 31 miles running - with plenty of hard stuff. I'm looking forward to resting a lot more this week in anticipation of my half-iron race in Wisconsin. Whereas I used to rely heavily on my bike split in the past, my power has waned the past year or so and now the race for me will come down to having one of the fastest run splits.
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Thursday, June 11, 2009: Ahhh...a 'sleep-in' day. So far, this week has been one of my toughest in a long time and I'm feeling pretty good about my preparation for my half-iroman race next week. Since I ended last week (Sunday) on a rest day, I took the bull by the horns and front loaded the week with lots of back-to-back efforts. So far, the first three days of the week have yielded: 4500 meters of swimming with a fairly brutal 3000-meter session; 72 miles of riding that included a 20-mile time trial at 25.6 mph; and 20 miles of running that included a fast-paced 13-miler and a 6-mile tempo run @6:04 pace. After 3 brutal days, I decided to sleep in this morning (9.5 hours of sleep!) and I have a moderate day planned before a complete rest day tomorrow and then 2 long days on the weekend. After that, I back down for the week to recover for my big race.
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Monday, June 01, 2009: Not a bad 4 days in a row. I still felt weak on the bike and had a bad run on Friday (turns out the mold spore count on Friday was 'high'), but my time trial on Thursday night and my back-to-back triathlon days over the weekend were not too bad. My asthma/allergies definitely seem to affect my power a lot more than my endurance. I'm hoping in 3 weeks that I will still be able to break a 4:30 half-iron which has always been pretty standard for me.
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| Friday, May 29, 2009: Last week was one of my highest 'mileage' weeks in a long time. This week, I logged only 3 hours of exercise from Monday to Wednesday - and none of it hard. A small drop in motivation might have been my body's way of saying 'take a little break', so I'm not too disappointed in a few easy days. But I also got kind of 'wishy-washy' about my last minute decision to race a half-iron event this weekend. I was extremely indecisive but a few words from one of my training partners made me realize that I was really wanting to do this race to 'get revenge' on my last two poor performances. I know darn well that I am MUCH better at the longer distances - especially in the heat. After realizing this, I decided that I would only do the event if my body was truly ready to go fast - so I left it up to the clock. I decided to do my time trial Thursday morning. If I broke 47 minutes for the 20-mile course, I would go - otherwise no. Breaking 47:00 was a regular occurence a couple of years ago - when I recorded a 45:20 as my PR. Nowadays it is a rarity. When I woke to rain Thursday morning, I knew it was divine intervention so I called off the race. I still came home that evening and decided to do my TT anyway and posted a 47:37. Not like it used to be, but better than it has been lately. I'm looking forward to a hard weekend and my 'scheduled' half-iron in 3 weeks.
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009: It's just amazing how quickly a lot of athletes can go from 'super-charged' to 'blah'. I was feeling very motivated and energetic up through Sunday and in 2 days, I seemed to have lost some motivation and energy. I've gone from excited and hopeful to race this weekend - to feeling underprepared and indifferent. It's not like this doesn't happen several times a year to most athletes. This too shall pass...
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| Wednesday, May 20, 2009: I joked with a friend this week that I was not going to race anymore because I am apparently only fast in training...which quite honestly seems to be the case. I've pushed for 4 days now following Saturday's Clemson tri and on paper, every workout points to the fact that I should be flying pretty strong - at the very least, a lot faster than my last two tris show. Much like the days leading up to Clemson, I can't wait to race again because the watch says I'm going fast; the watch has never lied to me before. I'm going on the assumption that it was just a 'little white lie'
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