This past Sunday was the SheRox sprint triathlon in San Diego. Linda and 3 other family members participated, all completing their 2nd tri ever. All were successful, even with less training than for their first one back in May. Linda managed to take a fall at the start of the 5K and now has skinned knees and a badly bruised palm/wrist. Of course she went on to finish with a good split on her fast walk anyway! Tracy and Diane, both Team Challenge 2011 team members also did the race and did well. They are now "seasoned pros"! Diane plans on doing an Olympic distance next year and another Team Challenge member, Mary, has her sights set on the Vineman half Iron distance next July. Seeing everyone continue to participate in this healthy lifestyle just makes me grin big!
There are now less than 5 weeks to go until Ironman Arizona. This week and next will be the hardest/longest training weeks as my efforts come to a peak. The gradual taper starts about 3 weeks out. Did a 6:50 ride last Saturday, part of it with (TC Tri) Jason and part of it with my son Marc. That's the longest I've ever spent in the saddle. The week included a mid-week 3 hour ride and a 1 hour speed workout. With SheRox last Sunday I decided to cut out one of my swims. The 2 swims I got in were a 3500 yd workout with speed efforts and a 4500 yd distance workout. My running was limited to 3 workouts on the elliptical machine - 2:05, 1 1/2 hour, and an hour speed workout. Last week was the final week of "power phase" with the weights. This week I moved into the "chisel phase".
This weekend I'll be doing the MS 2 day ride with Marc and his friends. It's 100 miles on Saturday and 50 on Sunday. In order to accommodate that I'll move my long swim workout to Friday after work. Hope I can get everything in; I always have the belief that if you've trained well and pretty consistently during the base and build phases, then the peak phase is what will mean the most when it comes down to improvement. It is what challenges you to go beyond where you've gone before.
I'm also putting some time into the mental aspects of the race, even more than in the past. With my mental yo-yoing at Ironman Texas, this should help me through the marathon. It's also gotten me to set a different type of goal for the race besides a time goal. My goal: I will be emotionally "even" for the entire run, not allowing anything to get me too up or too down, until I'm within 2 miles of the finish. It will all be "up" from there. The intention is to avoid the extremes that can have a big negative affect on the run. With the run being the leg that most people struggle with even if they are "runners", I've been working on my mental arsenal to help me to be more successful. I've gotten help from Kirsten Lewis who has a company called Awesomeness of You.
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