Email to my coach Race Week of 9/21 - 9/27

Sunday - Race Day. I had great expectations going into today. I really wanted to push myself but have fun as well. I accomplished both. 1:35:15 finish and 6th place in my AG.
Swim - I started in the back, which I am never going to do again. It takes to long to get around everyone. I keep my strokes long and my breathing rhythmic. It was crowded as you know. When I came around the first buoy to turn all of a sudden I felt something squishy in my hand, I looked up and I had grabbed some guy who was back stroking right on his junk. Yep you read that correctly, I copped a feel off a total stranger. I apologized and swam on. I averaged a 2:40 pace, which sucks I thought I would do better but I felt really good, which was my goal so no complaints just something to work harder at. My swim time 20:02. I felt very confident in the water.

Onto the bike, I pushed hard and I took in everything from spin class I was out of my saddle on the hills, settled in on the down hill, trying to pass people while stealing some of their speed by drafting legally. I had a blast and my mouth was open almost all of the time. Honestly when I finished my 2 laps I actually pondering doing one more lap for fun. I passes a lot of people, I got passed to but only by the bad asses (like you). My bike time was 44:08, an average pace of 18.69.

So onto the run, I was feeling pretty slow and tired when I first started. I ended up passing 3 women in my age group on the run. The first person was in the beginning along my building. I wasn't feeling all that great, and as I passed her I turned, looked at her and said, "please don't chase me down" I was not ready to race the entire 5K but if she picked it up I would have as well. As I pulled away I heard her ask someone what age she had on her calf (it was 44). The next person I passed was on of my mentees from SheRox (we still bike together), she was a college swimmer so I was pretty happy to catch her (her swim time was only 15:13), this was on the north side of the lake and I really started to pick it up here (my first mile split was 9:11, so you can see how I negative split this) I just started running like I do when doing speed work and pretending I was on my lunch hour run around the lake doing repeats, it felt good. The last person I passed in my AG was on the Mill Street bridge. I was hoping again that she wouldn't pick it up but I did anyway, I finished 10 second in front of her, so she must have tried to catch me. My run was 27:38, so under a 9 minute pace.

After thoughts, I went as hard as I could on this day but I have a lot of room to improve. To get 3rd place I would have needed to be 10 minutes faster. I think I can take 3 - 4 minutes off the swim and maybe 2 minutes off the bike and hopefully some day 3 more minutes off the run. But I felt great, raced hard and had fun. I guess that's why we do this

Monday - I could not sleep the night before I was so worried about not waking up to meet Becca. So, we ran 5 miles (ok, I ran 5 miles she ran 14). I did not bring my Garmin because I just figured I would run at what ever pace she needed me too. It was a beautiful morning and it was great to see you out there. I don't even know how long I ran, but I do know that I felt really good.

Swim - On my way home from work I started having some right shoulder pain (probably from that hard 750 swim the day before, hee hee). But I felt better after I had warmed up in masters. I swam about 2,000 but I didn't feel great. I also did not time myself at all, I forgot my tempo training, which was obvious in my stroke. So, I just really focused on keeping my strokes long and bilateral breathing (this helps me stay even).

Tuesday - Hmmmm, active recovery you say? I would like to state that standing up in small chain for extended periods of time is really really hard. Now, I'm not saying it's not fun, but it is hard.

Before spin I took my SunCor group out for a nice 30 minutes run. Good times.

Wednesday - I have a team lunch today, so I had to get up early to run before work. I know you had me down for a 5 mile trail run and if that trail is the path around Tempe Town Lake, well then I did it correctly. If not, sorry I suck. Also, I know the correct answer is that I suck. My legs are tired and I don't really know the trails well enough to get 5 miles in on time before work, so I did what I know. BUT there is some good news in there. I ran 5 miles, HR 149 (zone 2 average), pace 9:38 (WAY better than what I've been doing). Max HR 191 (well, ok I did hit zone 5), best pace 6:50 (yeah baby). This was such a fun, fun run. The Army guys were out there and they started passing me on the north side of the lake. Each time some would go by me I would speed up and hang onto them as long as I could, then I'd just try to maintain a decent pace by focusing on my form (staying relaxed, but really picking up my feet and kicking my heals towards my butt), the the next guys would pass me and I would do the same thing. Damn it was fun and some of the guys never even caught me to begin with. So, I just kept telling myself the only way to get faster is to run faster. So, I really need to focus on my run this time around. My first IM I was focusing on the swim, the last IM was the bike, this time is the run. Ok, still a lot of bike focus, but I need to also be run aware. Not that I wasn't last time, but I think I was so sure my bad run in Austria was due to my bad bike, AZ proved that I just have bad runs after long bikes. I'm changing that in 2009. I want to break 14 hours in the worst way. I'm telling everyone else that I want to break 15, but I am telling you what I really want, I know that I can break 14, I know I can and I have every intention of doing just that. I don't know which race, but if it doesn't happen at CDA then I have one more shot.

Thursday - Driving to the Canyon and sneaking part way down early.

Friday - Hiking, fishing, playing

Saturday - Hiking, fishing, playing

Leading into a Race Weekend

This weekend I am doing Nathan's sprint triathalon. Funny how I still get nervous with something so short. But the last time I did this course at the SheRox tri I had my first and only DNF (did not finish). Last year I did a 1:30:24 in this race and I really want to do better. I feel stronger.

I down play what I want to do to everyone, including myself. But inside, I want to do well. I want a good race, why can't I push myself to go harder, train harder? I think that's why I like Ironman so much, people are impressed if you jut finish. In a sprint just finishing means nothing unless you're in your 70's.

The race is a 750M swim, 13.75 mile bike and a 3.1 mile run.

I want to go as hard as I can for as long as I can. Let's see what I can actually do . . . .stay tuned.

Base Training Week Of 9/7/08 - 9/13/08

Sunday - My long run 8 miles, overall time 1:28:57, pace 11:07, HR 147. I ran the first 5 pretty easy, but tried to go harder on the last 3. The first 5 miles my time was 55:55 (really), pace 11:11, HR 142. The last 3 miles 33:03 (freaky, huh?), pace 11:01, HR 157. Overall I felt really good. I know I'm not fast, but I really wasn't all that tired.

We went to the pool later in the afternoon. I didn't track how much I swam, but I'm guessing it was around 1,500. We saw Valerie at the pool.

Monday - My run at lunch, ladders. Instead of writing each section out, I'm going to write them all out in a row for each section. My goal was to hot between 11:00 - 11:30 for the 1/2 pace, 10:00 for the 10K pace and 9:00 for the 5K pace. I know I will get back to the speed I had before, but this is a reasonable speed for where I am now. Overall, I ran 5 miles, time 53:53, pace 10:47, HR 161. Below my HR is in parenthesis.

1/2 Marathon Pace: 11:22 (122); 10:24 (153); 10:42 (158); 10:39 (159); 10:52 (167); 11:06 (158)
10K Pace: 10:29 (154); 9:47 (161); 9:23 (163); 9:45 (165); 9:50 (179); 10:11 (168)
5K Pace: 8:47 (172); 8:28 (172); 8:28 (170); 8:31 (173); 8:34 (185); 8:50 (182)
Recovery: 12:18 (155); 12:07 (155); 14:40 (152); 15:30 (161); 21:09 (151); 8:50 (182)

Swim - I went to masters and swam 2100. I actually felt pretty good while swimming and have decided to give bilateral breathing a second try. I reached a milestone today, I was by far the fastest swimmer in the slow lane. I may be moving up a lane pretty soon. I didn't time my hundreds until the end of the work out, when I was tired, but I was averaging between 2:07 - 2:10. This is pretty good since I was averaging 2:20 during my IM training. I felt pretty fluid in the water.

Tuesday - I went for an easy 20 minutes run with some of the SunCor Chances Team, then off to spin class. I guess I don't have to tell you what a kick ass class that was. The brick class is always hard and fun.

Wednesday - Swim - 2100 total swim. I went to masters, and I am getting faster. Part of the main set was 8 100's. I never went over 2:09, and averaged about a 2:05, hitting a few 2:02's. I would really like to get to the point where I am maintaining 1:59 on a hundred. Once again I was the fastest in the slow lane. Also, what's interesting is I am about 5 - 8 seconds faster without the pull buoy then I am with it. This is a big change as I used to be much fast with it.

Thursday - My day was derailed. I missed my run (because of work) I got home late and jumped on my bike on the trainer. But my mood was foul, I was tired,cranky and hungry. I managed 30 minutes on the trainer before I got off and poured myself some wine. That's all I had in me.

Friday - I took my day off and loved it!

Saturday - This ride kicked ass. I had a huge group (including Kari and Brenda W, but I barley saw them) but I pushed myself very very hard. I lapped my Garmin into segments so I could let you know what zones I was in and where. Overall the ride was 52.67 miles, HR 142, pace 16.9 mph (that's a lot faster then the last time I did this exact same ride 2 weeks ago where I averaged under 15mph). So, 1 & 6. From my house to the top of 9 mile hill. 2 & 5. Down 9 mile hill 3 & 4. from the bottom of 9 mile to the turn around at McDowell Park and then I did the same laps on the way back. So, I'll show you how each of those segments went in each direction. I pushed and I pushed it hard.

1. HR 146, Pace 13.5mph (best 23.40mph)
2. HR 120, Pace 24.7mph (best 24.7mph)
3. HR 138, Pace 17.7mph (best 30.0mph)
4. HR 143, Pace 17.9 (best 24.0mph)
5. HR 157, Pace 13.0mph (best 17.8mph, that's up 9 mile hill, baby)
6. HR 137, Pace 20.9 (best 32.8mph)

My run after, I was hosting breakfast so I only ran 2.16 miles, HR 160, Pace 9:19. I have to tell you this was hard. My legs were burning and I knew there were waffles waiting for me.