Monday 2011 September 19

It's been something like 6 weeks since I've posted on my training blog. My focus has been on my athletes and training them for TriRock San Diego sprint triathlon. All 40 had a successful day, with more than 30 were doing a triathlon for the first time. After 16 weeks of training, the day was a tremendous culmination of their efforts. With Linda's irreplaceable help with the beginner swimmers and the more apprehensive newbies, all of them had a wonderful experience they'll never forget. As a team, Linda and I seemed to be the perfect balance for what people needed. As partners in this effort I think we had a synergy that many would envy. Not only that, having her be a part of this undertaking made the whole experience even more rewarding and just a lot of fun.

Though my focus has been on my athletes, my training has not suffered as much as I feared. I've missed some sleep. And I've missed a workout here and there and had to cut back a little on how many session I did but I only had to eliminate 3 low priority sessions a week: 1 was a recovery effort 60 min bike ride once a week and the other was a 30 min recovery run, which I managed to do at least half the time. I'm also not doing a 4th swim workout but I never intended to do that anyway, although I get it in ocassionally when I lead an open water workout on Thursday nights for Tri Club San Diego. I also dropped down to 2 strength training sessions a week, but it's actually how it's written up in my training plan so technically I'm doing the strength program prescribed by Mark Allen's online plan, plus a few additional exercises.

Plantar F-ing-itis has been a problem in my right foot for the past 4-6 weeks. I've done the usual kind of stuff to get it to heal, including nearly eliminating all real running and instead using the elliptical machine and water running as substitutes. I've done a seemingly high number of long rides and the swim workouts have been structured differently so my yardage hasn't been quite as big as in the past, but I'm confident it will get me there in the end.

This past Saturday I raced in an Olympic distance triathlon. It's the first triathlon I've done that wasn't a 70.3 or full Ironman in maybe 2 years. I didn't train for it specifically nor did I do any taper but I was excited to be racing again. Of course, with the foot issue, that changed things just a little. Going in I resolved not to run but to drop out and take a DNF. My race plan was to race as if I would be running but then not actually run. It took everything I had not to run because the foot felt fine thanks to all the adrenaline and endorphins and I felt good running out of transition. The excitement of competition and the knowledge that I was in a pretty good position made it tough to drop out.

As it turned out I had finished the swim and bike and left transition in 1h39m. I had a lead of 4:58 in my age group at that point. I had the fast swim split and surprisingly the fastest bike split for my age group.To be honest I think I would have been run down by the eventual winner but I had a shot at 2nd and at worst probably 3rd. Knowing this has lit the competitive fire to try to do some more shorter races again next year.

San Diego Triathlon Classic
Swim 22:59 (1st of 20; 32 of 668 overall)
T1 2:51
Bike 1:12:10 (1st of 20; 78 of 668 overall)
T2 1:15 (total time so far 1:39:15; eventual 1st place in age group was 1:44:13 leaving T2)
Run DNF (did not start either!)

After the race on Saturday I got a 2000 yd swim workout in and did strength training. On Sunday I did a 5 hour bike ride. I'm still recovering from it all - a fun and tough weekend.