Bike Porn and March Recap ...

First here is Annie's new Trek 1000:

We had to hurry up with the pics because it was getting ready to storm.  I tossed some SPD pedals on the bike and it is road ready.  We went for a quick little ride and all those years of spin classes have Annie ready to tear it up on the road.  She's got a pretty good motor!

I went for another OWS yesterday with a few guys from my Tri Cub.  It was a little windy but we still had a good time and a good swim.  I am still a slow swimmer but am getting much more comfortable in the open water, we estimate we swam about 2100 meters yesterday.

Here are some pics from the OWS last Sunday in the San Jacinto river:

Getting ready to jump in -- I am in the black swim cap.

Here is me coming back.  I was trying to wave to Annie.

Here are my training numbers for March and then for the 1st Qtr 2010:

March's totals:
Bike:	15h 37m  - 276.85 Mi
Run:	11h 12m 48s  - 75.4 Mi
Swim:	7h 00m  - 15309 M
Strength:	50m

2010 totals
Bike:	47h 44m  - 844.65 Mi
Run:	31h 54m 07s  - 214.79 Mi
Swim:	18h 15m  - 37709 M
Strength:	1h 30m

Overall I am very pleased with the way my training is going.  Currently I am doing an intro HIM plan but my longest race is only an Olympic Distance.  The reason I am doing the HIM plan was to see how my body would handle the increased volume of a HIM plan.  So far, so good!  

I am enjoying an official day off work today and it is glorious!  We slept in and then went to cafe for breakfast.  Annie is going to work at 1pm and then I am going to go for an easy run to get in a little volume before tomorrow's Duathlon.

I hope everyone has a great Easter weekend!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

Open Water Swim + New Vortex Wetsuit = Success

Above is a picture of my new Vortex 3 wetsuit.  That is not me.  I look much better in my Vortex 3 than this man...hehehe.

Yesterday my Tri Club sponsored an OWS on the San Jacinto River.  It was at a fellow members house.  They live right on the river and have a boat which was able to follow us just in case anyone had any problems.  

So there are 8 of us standing on the dock in the 20mph winds and we are told the water temperature is only 65 degrees.  We are all warm blooded Texans and this water temperature is what we would refer to as FREAKIN COLD!  Well, we all say screw it and jump in and start swimming.  The water was cold but my wetsuit was keeping me really comfortable -- it was just glorious!

Now for the fun part!  We all begin swimming and we are in a part of the river I never even knew existed.  It is deep and wide.  Very cool.  We are supposed to swim a 1/2 mile to a white house and I just figure I will follow the guys who were in front of me.  Well, we are swimming directly into both the current and the wind.  I have no idea how long I had been swimming for but it felt like a lot longer than the 20 or so minutes it should have taken me to get to the white house?  Finally, we turn around and start heading back towards the starting point.  I am still feeling really strong and after a little getting used to the new suit period I was in a nice groove.  The trip back took us like 10 minutes!! With the current and the high winds at our back we were flying!!.

When we got back to shore Annie told me that when we first started it looked like we were all swimming in place.  I told her it just didn't look like that it actually happened.

All in all it was a really good training day.  My wetsuit is awesome.  The extra buoyancy it gave me was amazing.  I actually felt like it was cheating wearing the suit, just gliding along on top of the water!

This is the always needed RECOVERY WEEK of my training program.  Today was a rest day and I took the free time to take my Quintana Roo apart and clean up all the components.  My garage has become a bike shop (Steve predicted this BTW).  I cleaned and degreased everything and the bike looks incredible right now.  I almost do not want to ride it!

Despite the recovery week  I am still going to have some fun.  Thursday evening I am going to go with a group to Lake 288 and do another OWS.  Then on Saturday morning my Tri Club is having another Duathlon (2mi/12mi/2mi) and after that a couple of us are going to go for another OWS.  Good times this week!

Voice your Opinion Time:


I am thinking about doing a Sprint Tri on April 10th.  It is a saltwater swim -500M, 12 mi bike and a 5k run.  My only concern is that it would be 3 races over a 4 week period (April 3rd - Duathlon/April 10th - Sprint Tri/ April 24th - Olympic Tri).  So fellow bloggers and Triathletes what say you - you have followed my training - do ya think I should do them all or should I skip the April 10th Sprint?  Thanks in advance for your thoughts!!

Thanks for reading,

Jeff

Weekend of Training Fun!

Forecast:
Saturday - Hi 71 F, Sunny
Sunday - Hi 75 F, Sunny
Lots of fun planned this weekend folks!

Tomorrow morning Annie and her friend Ruth Ann are going to run in the Bayou City Classic 10K.  This will be her first race since the marathon and I think she plans on taking it easy.  No racing for me, I've done 5 already this year and need a little rest. So I am going to be the chauffeur, cheerleader, and photographer for the ladies, along with my oldest pug Ernie:

Ernie is very excited to watch the runners tomorrow!

After we get back from the race I am going to load the bike up and go to Deussen Park for a couple of hours and get in some hard riding.  Already have everything packed and ready to go.  When I get back from the ride I am going to do a nice RPE 2-3 run in the neighborhood for 5-7 miles.

Then on Sunday the new Xterra Wetsuit is going to get it first field test in the open water.  There is a lake on the other side of Houston that is designed for divers to practice.  They also offer Open Water Swims for Triathletes so Sunday morning I am going to this lake.  My training plan calls for a 3 sport brick day.  So after the swim I am going to come home and run for a half hour and then will probably get in an easy spin in the late afternoon. 

Should be a good weekend and I can't wait to get started!  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

*****OHHH ... update on today's "yard" dilemma!  So, I decided I was going to be the responsible homeowner.  I went to The Home Depot and found the broken gasket for the sprinklers and as I was repairing the valve the guy who cuts my grass came driving by with his crew. I haven't seen this guy in three months( quite serendipitous)! He speaks zero English and I speak extremely broken Spanish so we did some pointing and hand signals and for $30 he took care of all my lawn work!!!!  The Triathlon Gods were on my side today so as to not disappoint them I was on my bike 5 minutes later!  It sucks riding in my neighborhood because of all the stops and traffic but I was able to get in 24 miles and enjoyed the beautiful day.  I love it when everything works out like that.  

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff