Half-Time

Yes, I do have a half-Ironman coming up, so that would also be half-time, but this is an article about being mid-season, what we should be doing, etc. It's from VeloNews, so it's about cycling, but same rule applies for us. I went for a nice little run with Arjun and Melissa last night and we discussed the state of the union as it applies to racing. For most of you, we've just gotten through a pretty big set of races. Think of racing like waves, they might come in a set of 4, and you can't ride them all.

We've done a lot of longer races this winter/spring, and now is kind of the time of year when the longer races evaporate as the mercury rises, and we see more 10k-8k-5k things. My suggestion is to pick ONE race, and focus on that one. Summer is full of races, but as evidenced, there is a window of good racing from mid April to early May, and then from mid September to mid October, that everyone seemed to really hit it last year.

There are a number of races coming up, but think about your body and how you feel, and if you're feeling tired or like you aren't making progress, you may want to think about taking some down time. This doesn't have to be time completely off, but maybe take a day or two off in a week, don't run hard, no track workout, whatever. It will help in the long run, and you'll come out of it with renewed body and mind.

The flow at track workouts is going to gradually move away from track work every week to more longer things - get back to some tempo runs, longer intervals (2 mile workouts, timed runs) and hills. It worked last summer and I anticipate it will work this year. Then we'll come back in late August with some more speed and be all good for the fall.

And in case anyone cares, here's a quick recap of my race yesterday:

Sleep: <4 hours. Went to bed close to midnight, woke up at 4, loud neighbors hooting and hollering in the street all night kept me up most of it.

Weather: best I've ever experienced for Columbia. Nearly shed a tear when I realized it wasn't going to rain and it wasn't cold. Won't ever be better I don't think.

Swim: Stayed totally comfortable, made my way through the crowd, swam in straight lines for once, picked off four people right before the end. 22:23, close to the fastest I've ever swam there, almost 3 minutes better than last year. 170th.

T1: Took my time to put on socks and my road cycling shoes, so this was a little slow (2:16)

Bike: New bike was awesome, race is so different when you come out of the water and you're in the mix. Started passing people, including the lady pros who started five minutes ahead. Went back and forth with one guy most of the ride until I put him away at the end. 1:04:44, 13th fastest (including pros), 23.5mph. 5:20 faster than last year.

T2: Thought it was slow, but 1:06 wasn't too bad. Can always be faster though.

Run: This was hard, I think largely cause of the faster bike split. First mile was 6:13, 2nd was 6:07, third was 6:22. The neighborhood, which normally kills me, was my bitch this year, as I ran like a 6:13 and a 6:02, but the Gatorade wall proved the death of me, and I tried to recover but my last mile was a disappointing 6:07. Still, 38:17 was a PR for the course, and 40 seconds faster than last year.

All in all I was 2:08:40, which is over an 8 minute PR and almost 9 minutes faster than last year. I finished 27th overall (2100 registered) and if you take out the pros it was probably somewhere around 15th. I'm feeling good for Eagleman, so obviously the goal is to Qualify there, but if I don't, then I'll take my fitness to some other races and try and get under 2 hours for the Olympic distance, and then onto NYC. Thanks a lot to Kip, Sara and Steve for being there and cheering on at the race yesterday!