Tired Legs plus a new goal

Swim: 11,350
Bike: 100
Run: 41

Well this week continued another positive week for running and swimming but another mildly depressing streak of biking. I got in 100ish miles this week in two rides but I just don't feel like I have the same power I did a month ago. I'm thinking that it may be time for a week or two of just active recovery to get my legs back underneath me before I start ramping it up for my big fall/winter race (that I just signed up for on Monday...).

Got in some great swim workouts, which is always a good thing since that's my main weakness. I've been gradually dropping the times I do my intervals on - for example, If I do 15 x 100 yards I leave for each 100 on 1:40 intervals (so I leave at :00, :40, :20, :00 etc going by the pool lap timer) - which just shortens the amount of recovery I get and thereby makes me faster (hopefully). I don't feel like I've gotten faster per se but I can hold faster times for longer and longer efforts. I still can't go under 30 seconds for a 50yarder and I doubt I can go much under 1:15 on a 100 but I can hold under 1:25/100 yd pace for over 1000 yards. Strange.

The running this week (no workouts) culminated in a 22 mile run up in Davidson on Sunday. Much, MUCH hotter this week so that made the run feel much more difficult than the 21 miler felt last week. I definitely feel like I'm improving my endurance and building a solid run/long run base for November...

Speaking of November, on Monday I decided to register for Beach 2 Battleship Ironman Distance Tri (not technically an "Ironman" but for all intents and purposes it's the same thing) on November 7 (2009!) in Wilmington, NC. The expense was justified as I just won't do the two races I was thinking about doing in late September/early October and I just really wanted to do it. At a certain point you have to stop over analyzing and worrying and just get over yourself. A training partner said it best in an email when I was asking him what the course was like (he completed the race last year - and came in 5th overall) by saying "Don't chew on it too much. Clearly you want to do it, so do it. You can handle the distance no problem." That pretty much said it in a nutshell for me. So I bit the bullet and registered. It will be tough to stay movitated to keep training and putting in big volume that late in the year but I know another guy doing that race so we'll be able to get in long rides/runs together in preparation for the distance. It'll be fun and challenging. I'll see how far I can push myself...