One Week Out

 

One week from tomorrow I’ll be racing in the Oceanside Ironman 70.3. Since my last blog post, I’ve had some quality workouts, a little swimcoaching, and some great nights of sleep. Not only is Oceanside a big race for me, it’s the start of schedule thatfinds me competing three times in four weeks. First, Oceanside on 30 March, then XTerra West in Las Vegas on 13 April,then the San Diego World ITU on 20 April.

 

This week concludes my hard training and tomorrow I’ll start to taper. I had a nice 72 mi hilly ride in NE San Diego County on Saturday, which I finished in the fastest time ever.  I’m riding a Specialized Venge now, which is an incredible bike.  When my wife deployed to Afghanistan in June, I went to B&L Bikes in Solana Beach and bought the bike.  When I deployed for a year back in 2007, she got the beagle.  Sunday was my day off because of family obligations.  Monday saw a 3 hour double brick.  Tuesday included tough 8x hill repeats on a 1.8mi hill. Wednesday 10mi trail run with lots of hills followed by a swim. Thursday 6x 10min tempo on the bike. Friday, a long swim followed by 2x 15min tempo run. 

Saturday Ride in NE San Diego County

 

Hill Repeats

So far, the biggest challenge is keeping my focus on the next race instead of the ones after that.  I suppose that’s why it’s important to choose your “A” races and anchor your training around those.  But it’s hard for me to put a race into the“B” or “C” category because I want to do well in all of them.  That being said, I think I’ll try to focus on XTerra this year, with the intention of competing in the Nationals in Ogden, UT and the Worlds in Maui.  So, back to B&L I’ll go to get a set of race wheels for my Specialized Epic MTB.  I’ve got well over 1,000 miles on my training wheels, so they’re a bit beat up.  It’ll be nice not having to change out racing/training tires between races.  It’ll be REAL nice riding on some carbon wheels.

 

As an age grouper, father of two kids and with my wife deployed for a year it has been a challenge to squeeze this triathlon stuff into an already busy schedule.  How I do that will be the topic of another blog post.  I don’t have time for that now—I have to swim, pick up the kids from school, get them to sports, then go for a run.