Another week bites the dust!

S - 16,100 yds
B - 259.9 mi
R - 50.9 mi


Time - 24.7 hours


The countdown has officially begun.  For what, I'm not sure but for the short-term countdown lets say that NOLA is the destination.  13 days from today I'll be toeing the line on the beach waiting to run into the gloriously green and used-to-be-gross-but-allegedly-isn't-anymore Lake Ponchartrain!  On that note, let's dive into this weekly recap!!


There was some super totally awesome consistency on the water front this week, something I like repeating just as much as you enjoy reading! (well, I probably enjoy repeating it more than you enjoy reading if I'm going to be perfectly honest...) The most "interesting" workout I had was Wednesday where the "main" set included 6x100 all out on 4 minutes.  So basically I'd do a 100 as fast as I could then wait on the wall for 10-15 seconds and then swim a nice, extremely easy, 50 yards before waiting for the 4 minutes to be up so I could do it again.  With a push off the wall for all but the last one (I dove but it wasn't the best dive...) I managed to sprint my way to 1:03, 1:02, 1:02, 1:02, 1:02, 1:00.  Obviously, speed is a limiter for me.  I just can't turn my arms over much faster to get below 1 minute!  Melissa was teaching me some "tricks of the trade" to use and those helped (stuff I had never known before like when pushing off the wall after a turn, wait to take a breath until the second stroke so you ride the "wake" created by your push) but I just can't go that much faster than 1:02!!  Alas


As you can tell from reading, lots of miles on the bike this week.  Unfortunately, I am still on the road bike (although this will be my last full week on the ol' steed!! Yay!) and I didn't put it back together properly after riding Andrew's bike for a week so it was making a lot of noise and was generally unhappy at me most of the week.  I didn't keep training logs in college, but they likely would have shown a lot of inconsistency.  I can't even take a rough guess of how many miles I put in during my 4 years (a good bit freshman year, more sophomore year, next to none junior year, and a good bit senior year) but considering that in the past 12 weeks I've logged 2,600 miles (all but 1 week on the road bike) I'd say my consistency has put those years to shame.  While it's been creaking and rattling and groaning a lot more than usual it's still going strong!  8 yeras of abuse and it can still hang with the best.  That being said, I cannot WAIT to get on my P3!


I finally managed to notch 50+ miles this week, which was due to a couple of factors.  One of those was that I had about 10 more minutes on my schedule this week and I also never had a day where I ran "slow."  I've been inching up towards 50 miles for a while now (very slight increases in time on the schedule but sometimes I run slower/faster) so it's nice to finally break that barrier.  I'm most proud of the fact that I did my long run (110 minutes and 15+ miles!) on the treadmill!  The weather was awful Wednesday morning and I had to put on my man shoes and take a big sip from my glass of Harden the F*** Up but I made my way through the run with relative ease.


Only 2 more weeks until NOLA!! Some key things to think about in terms of expectations that Brian told me:

• I expect you to go out and race a smart race, make smart decisions, pace properly, make sure you are thinking 10-45min down the road when it comes to fueling, think about maintaining pace through the 5-10mile points on the run then letting it hang out on the last 5k on the run when it comes to pacing and realize that the bike ride no matter how fast isn't a good ride unless you run well off of it.  Other then that, I'm a big believer in controlling what you can control and at the end of the day the chips lie where they lie.
• But really it's all about making smart decisions and controlling what you can that gives you the best chance for success, however you and I define it.
• 8 weeks of solid training doesn't make one an uber fast guy.  See how it is in 80 weeks.

I placed the emphasis on the first bullet point.  After last year, I need to take it to heart! I think thoughts like that can help anyone, not just me.  Take heed readers.  But not too much if you're in my AG.