Triathlon Training: 5K Hard Run + Tri Goals and Thoughts

Hello everyone. Bear with me, I am feeling even more long winded that usual!

One heck of a day! I drove all over the city of Houston for work and my baseball team made two big trades, tons of AM sportstalk radio!! - The Pirates traded Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson for a boat load of prospects. I absolutely love MLB this time of the year and I am happy with the trades. Buccos need to restock their minor leagues and they picked up 6 guys today. Very Moneyball-like moves!

Anyways, I was thinking about doing a video for the first time. My buddy Boomer over at the Project Exercise blog does videos and I enjoy them so I thought about doing one myself! But I am too damn tired and need to go to bed AND, unlike Boomer, I have zero editing skills so the video would be rather raw! If I have time I might try and do one tomorrow going over all the gear needed for the Triathlon.

This evening I hit the treadmill. I was planning on doing a mid-tempo (8-9 min/mile) type of run, but after about a 1/2 mile in I was feeling great and decided to bust some ass. I was running at about a 6.5 mph pace but bumped it up to 7.5-8.0 mph for the next 2 miles. Then with a half mile to go I pretended to be approaching the finish line and ended up cranking the treadmill up to 9.9 mph. I finished my 5k in 22:49 - a personal best. My max HR got all the way up to 185 BPM so I probably pushed a little harder than I should have but I wanted to see what I could do! Quite the difference from when I could barely break 30 minutes in the 5K a few months ago!

So with my Triathlon coming up on Sunday some of you may be wondering what my goals are for the event? Initially when I decided to do this I had two goals: 1) Just finishing; & 2) When standing at the starting line do not question whether I trained hard enough. I can tell you now that I honestly believe that I have trained hard enough - I am ready. If i don't finish it will be because my nose got broke or I crashed my bike. Not because I was too tired. So #1 should take care of itself.

But since I am a goal oriented -type A personality type of guy I want to do more now. The Swim is 500 Meters. I'd be happy finishing around 12 minutes but am hopeful I can do it under 10 minutes. The conditions of the lake (we are in a severe drought) will probably have more to do with this then my freestyle stroke or fitness level. The Bike is 14 Miles. My goal here is to do this in 50 minutes or less. I am hopeful this can be done in around 47 minutes. The Run is 3.1 miles. My goal is to complete this in under 30 minutes. I am hopeful this can be done in around 26 minutes. Overall with the 2 transitions I'd like to finish under 1 hour 40 minutes.

The part of the race I am most concerned about is surprisingly, the run. Most triathletes worry about the swim but I feel pretty confident with my Total Immersion stroke and I feel that I am tough enough (just did the Tim "the toolman" Taylor laugh) to take the beating that inevitably happens during the swim. The reason the run concerns me is that it is freaking hot in Texas. The race begins at 8:00am. My flight starts at 8:09. If all goes as planned my run should be beginning around 9:15-9:20ish. By this time the sun is going to be up and it is going to be 90 degrees already. I plan on hydrating like crazy and am going to wear my water belt for the run.

Here is the forecast for New Braunfels on Sunday:
Sun Aug 2
Partly Cloudy
High -103° Lo - 74°

Notice the 103 degree high!!!

So those are my "goals" and pre-race thoughts. Tomorrow I am going to try the video and that will more than likely be my last post until the race. I will try and update the blog on the 3hr ride home in the car after the race. The wife of my buddy who is doing the Tri with me is a photographer so she'll probably have a bunch of great pics and I will share on the blog.

Final swim is tomorrow!

Thanks or Reading,

Jeff

Triathlon Training Day 55 & 56: Rest + 750 Yd Swim + 5K Run

Yesterday was both good and bad. But mostly Good! Good that the Pens took home Lord Stanley's Cup and Bad that I had to take a rest day.

I got home from work around 4pm and Annie wanted to go see "The Hangover" ... we haven't spent much time with each other lately and we both had LOOONG weeks so I said what the heck. It was playing at 4:25 right down the road. So glad she talked me into it because it was hysterical. It was as good as Old School and Wedding Crashers, maybe even better! My side hurt from laughing.

We had to rush to get home by 7pm so I could watch the hockey game. By the time the game was over I was mentally drained and pretty much exhausted from the week and decided to sit down upstairs and watch last week's episode of "Rescue Me" on the DVR. I feel asleep 20 minutes in on the couch and no workout happened after that!

To make up for it I did a bookend brick at the gym: 30 laps (750 yards) in the pool and 5K on the treadmill. According to the pool lap clock I did the first 550 yards in 12 minutes. I then did a slow 10 laps to work on my form. My breathing has been struggling the last couple of times out so I needed to refocus. I feel like I got a hold of it on the last few laps.

Then I got changed and jumped on the treadmill. No HR monitor, just RPE running today. I started out at 7.5 MPH and did the first two miles in 16 minutes. My legs were feeling some fatigue so I slowed down to a 9 minute mile pace and finshed the run at 25:53. I was really pleased with this time. Especially after a long swim too!

The heat here has been brutal. The last few days have been 97 degree highs with heat indexes in the low 100's. Tomorrow is going to be no different so I plan on getting up bright and early and driving down to my 26 Mile track for a bike ride. I picked my bike up at the LBS today and it is back in good working order. I am itching to get a good ride in!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

Triathlon Training Day 54: 5K run on Treadmill + Ab Ripper X

Another long day but I was able to make it to the gym. I'd really like to run outside but it was 97 degrees today and the Heat Index was 104 degrees -- Good Times!

So, I hit the gym and set the Treadmill for the 5K Loop. Since I am still a Treadmill newbie as well as a RPE newbie I am never sure how fast to start out. I set the treadmill at 6.6mph and gradually bumped it up during the run. The one thing I like about the Treadmill is that it really seems to promote longer stride lengths which is a good thing! I ended up finishing the 3.1 miles at 8.6 mph and my time was 25:49. I keep getting stronger at the runs and even though I still don't love running it isn't as bad as it used to be.

Tomorrow is a swim day and I think I can pick my bike up from the LBS.

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff