Impulsive HIM is Almost Here ...

I just finished up an easy 6 miles on the dreaded treadmill at the gym.  This is the first time I have been on the treadmill in a long time and I can honestly say I did not miss it at all.  I chose the treadmill today because with the HIM Sunday morning I figured the soft surface would be better for a quick recovery. Well, that and it was getting ready to thunderstorm and I didn't want to get caught up in a SE Texas summer downpour!

I am doing a mini-taper this week, sort of:   Monday was an easy 1500M swim to just get the feel of the water and recover from the long Sunday run.  Tuesday was a track day which ended up being 5.8 miles and then a 27 mile bike ride at an easy 18 mph average.  Yesterday Annie and I went for a ride in the rural rodes in Huffman.  I wanted to do 25 miles but after we got out there we were hit with 30mph winds and ended up only doing 13 miles.  It was the first time Annie has been out on the "open" roads and she had a good time despite the hard winds.  She really liked the last 5 miles back to the car when the wind was at out backs!

Tomorrow is going to be an easy AM swim and then it will be an early bedtime on Friday night.  On Saturday I am going to get up early and drive up to Dallas to pick up my packet and then head over to the hotel.

The race on Sunday begins at 7am.  The good news is that the water temp at the lake is between 68-72 degrees right now, so it looks like the wetsuit will be legal ... yeah!  The bad news is that a majority of the bike course has recently been chipped and sealed.  Now my first Tri I ever did had a section of the bike course that was literally chipped and sealed a couple of days before the race and it was awful.  Tires were blowing out all over the place and the constant vibration from the road made the ride not to fun.  Hopefully the RD will have a road sweeper in there taking care of the road, but if not it might be a real slow bike split on Sunday (And a bunch of spare tubes being used).

Being that I wasn't even aware of this race 3 weeks ago AND was planning to be taking some time off from training before I signed up.  My expectations for this are not what I would call grandiose.  I figure if I can do the swim in 1 hr, bike in 3-3:15 hrs, and the run in 2 hrs I will be able to come in around 6-6:15 hrs.  My strategy is going to be to go about 80-85% on the bike (chipped road should make that easy to do) and then save something for the run where I have a chance to make up some time if my body is feeling good!

My one concern is that it might be hot on the course.  We have had a very cool winter/spring by Houston standards up until the last 2 weeks.  It has been in the upper 80's and low 90's with high humidity recently and it has been hard to acclimate.   By July I will be used to it again but right now it has been hard (KC and IronBob living in FL probably can relate) and my performance is feeling the heat!

Couple other things:

• My weight was down to 152 lbs this morning!  3 lbs loss in 3 days - should be at 150 by Saturday!
• LOST was frustrating.  The episode was cool seeing how Jacob and the MiB came to be on the island but as usual with LOST every answer created a bunch more questions. This felt more like an episode we should have seen like 2 years ago.  I have no idea how they are going to wrap this sucker up in 3.5 hours!
• Treadmills are the creation of the devil himself.
• If you are a neutral runner when Brooks releases the 2011 Defyance 4 Trainers go out and buy them immediately.  By far the best shoe I have ever used.  And unlike the Defyance 3 they are super cool looking.
• About 9 total people in my gym today at 5pm.  Guess the resolutionists and the "fit in swimsuit" crowd has bowed out.... not bad they made it to the 5th month of the year!
• I am staying at the hotel on Sunday night after the race so check back then for a what is sure to be an  epic (and probably alcohol influenced) race report.

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff