October 1-7: Fine Then, I'll Race

Last week, I continued to drag out the decision on whether or not I wanted to race an Olympic-distance triathlon on Saturday. I went back and forth, and finally signed up 90 minutes before online registration closed on Wednesday. My main goal was to finally get the sub-3 hour monkey off my back after two 3:05s this season, and I managed to do that, plus win the Athena division at the race.

Fine then. Maybe racing was a good idea. Thank you, every single friend of mine who harassed me about this and, of course, thank you to my coach, who listened to me whine about my new diet and change my mind on this race over and over until I finally just showed up on Saturday with my bike.

Though I didn’t fully taper for this race, and even had some strength training work early in the week, it was a little lighter load towards the end of the week to prep for the race.

Monday: Rest day, with a 3 mile walk commute in the morning, including a beautiful sunrise view from the Taft Bridge.

It’s almost as good as running, but not quite.

Tuesday: 40 minute of strength training in the morning, 4200 yards of swimming with DCRP in the evening. This workout made me happy for a few reasons. First, it was at Wilson instead of Hains Point, which is much, much, much more convenient for me during the week. Second, it was in short course, and I love my flip turns.

Wednesday: A 5.7 mile track workout with a mile building to race pace (8:57) a mile building to 30 seconds faster than race pace (8:37, proper pacing is overrated) and an 800 (4:07).

Thursday: A morning brick workout, starting with 45 minutes on the bike trainer, finishing with a 3.1 mile run commute.

Friday: An easy 2200 meter swim, then packing and preparing for the Giant Acorn International distance triathlon.

Saturday: 1500 meters of swimming in 27:37, 23 miles of biking in 1:17:37, and 6.2 miles of running, a good 1/3 of which was on uneven grass or large, painful stones, in 1:02:09.

These guys would have done much better on the run terrain, but even with the non-traditional run surface, I got a PR and met my overall time goal of sub-3 hours by finishing in 2:50:57, which was good enough for a division win.

Sunday: 3000 meters of easy swimming, plus a lot of foam rolling and stretching to bring myself back to normal and ready to train another 5 weeks for the Richmond Half Marathon.