April 15-21: Age Group Podium!

I was skeptical that I'd get to the starting line of my half ironman. Less than three weeks ago, I could barely pull myself out of bed, and to say that my athletic performance was inconsistent would be putting it mildly. I changed my mind a bunch of times, thought about doing the sprint instead, remembered that I HATE sprints, decided to just go and see how it went with a minimalist race plan and no real time goals. After all, when you bag a good part of your workout schedule during a peak training week because you can't force yourself to lift your arms, you really can't be too ambitious. 

Even without being ambitious, you can go out on the race course and have a fun day. 

And maybe even set a 35+ minute PR and come in 4th in your age group while you're at it.

Well...I guess that's something to be happy about.

Monday: Rest day.

Tuesday: DC pools were closed for Emancipation Day, so DCRP Masters wasn’t an option. However, I had to go to Rockville anyway, so I logged 3400 meters up at the Shriver Aquatic Center.

Wednesday: An hour of easy spinning on the trainer in the morning, then a 4.69 mile track workout, including 2.5 miles at “goal race pace” which was 8:01/mile. Because, obviously, a sub-1:45 half ironman run split is realistic for me. Or not.

Thursday: 2000 yards of easy swimming before hopping into the car with Rachel and driving down to Charleston for the race.

Friday: A pre-race brick of 30 minutes of biking and 20 minutes of running, then a lot of sitting around and resting in between obsessively packing and repacking transition bags.

Saturday: 1.2 miles of swimming in 30:30 (29:40 in the water plus some running to a timing mat), 56 miles of biking in 2:55:47, and 13.1 miles of running in 1:54:49. Total race time of 5:27:51.

Sunday: Many hours of driving, then about 6 miles of walking to loosen up the legs. A rest day otherwise.