Swim

So I've finally discovered that I really like swimming. It only took me 23 years but it's a great way to get fitness in my upper body without having to lift weights, all the while contributing to aerobic fitness to a degree. I also look dead sexy in jammers.

It does get pretty boring swimming lap after lap of 25 meters but you do what you have to with a triathlon in 6 weeks and a 1500m open water swim in the James River looming over your head. I've also developed a fairly painful spot in my hamstring which leads me to believe that it's either a strain or some sort of pull, but I'm not really sure a pull can result in one tender spot. It seems to dissipate after about 30 minutes of running; not sure whether that is a good or bad thing. It's been bothering me for about a week now, so I'm thinking of taking a week off from running and concentrating on biking/swimming, both of which need some work.

My biking fitness is definitely coming around, however. I feel much, much stronger on the bike now than I did a month or two ago and my ability to power over short climbs and spin my way up longer ones has significantly improved. My recovery time is next to nothing on the bike as well, almost certainly a product of my running fitness.

I really have no idea what to expect from the triathlon in terms of results, but I think I can do the bike in under 1:15 (40k), as I know most of the roads very well and hopefully under :40 on the run (10k). More aggressive estimates would be in about 1:05-1:08 on the bike and :38-:39 on the run. Although I'm not so sure about the run because the Colonial Parkway is not built for fast times (running or biking, for that matter) with it's rolling profile and crappy surface.

I'm pretty excited, but also very, very nervous about the swim. I have no idea how a swim of that length will affect my biking/running. Should be fun.

Triathlete

I signed up for the Patriots International Triathlon on September 7 on Sunday night and just started swimming yesterday. Preparation for a 1500m open water swim will be short but hopefully with my only goal being to simply survive the swim I can get to that point in the month and a half that I have.

Patriots International (Williamsburg, VA)
1500m open water swim in James River
40km bike
10k run on Colonial Parkway (yuck, that's going to suck)

Anyone have a TT/Tri bike I could use? Ha, right.

More work

Tomorrow is the last official work day for the AmeriCorps here (if you've completed your required 1700 hours at that point), but I'll be here for another 2-3 weeks finishing my allotment. Bullshit.

Lots of work left

So I have ~120 hours left to complete in my AmeriCorps service term, which is a lot. That's a good 3 weeks of work right there, not taking any time off and that will mean that I'll be here about a week or two longer than any other of the AmeriCorps. I'm not a slacker, I just made the mistake of not keeping very close track of my hours for the first 4-5 months of work, thereby screwing myself out of a good deal of time. So that kind of sucks, as I'll only get 2-3 weeks off as opposed to a whole month.

I probably won't be racing again until late August at the Greekfest 5k just because I can't justify taking Saturdays off anymore. So that will mean that I'll more than likely miss James K Polk and Blue Points - at least one of which I would have done as a death workout (stay with the leaders as long as possible).

Wall-e was so awesome

Watched Wall-e tonight and became scared for the human race. If we end up the way humans are portrayed in the movie it will be a very scary thing. Great movie though, really great.

Going to end up being close to 60 miles again this week, although this time around I'm definitely feeling the effects of the increased mileage. Went for an 8 mile run today and felt the worst I have in recent memory. I'm pushing myself beyond what I'm really capable of right now, and it showed today. Hopefully scaling it back down to a slow and easy 45 or so miles next week will help me out a bit. If I manage to scale it back, of course.

Big week

So I almost got 60 miles this past week, but not quite. Oh well, it'll come eventually. I had two tempo runs and two long runs this week, with 25 miles coming in on Saturday and Sunday combined. Felt pretty excellent considering the volume and intensity from this week.

I actually looked online for swim classes/technique videos and the like, which is a step in the direction of triathlons. Just a small step, but it means I'm thinking about it...if only superficially.

Only a month of work left, then it's vacay for a bit. Where should I visit??

Healthy?

My foot has been feeling progressively better, culminating in a pain-free (other than the fact that I got sore and tired) 14 mile run today, giving me 47 for the week. I tried to start back in easy and I sort of accomplished that by going 3, 5.7, 8.6, 9, 7 (with 5k race), then 14 to steadily rack up time on my feet.

We only have another month in our service commitment, which is pretty crazy considering how quickly it seems to have passed. In some ways I'm quite happy to be staying here another year but I also feel as though I may be missing out on other things.

I really need to make myself study and take the GRE's just to get that out of the way so I can apply to schools in the fall and maybe make some more concrete decisions about what my next step is going to be once AmeriCorps is really over. I'm sure my goals will change repeatedly over the course of the next 13 months but it's nice to at least have semi-plans.

Here's my log entry from the race on Saturday evening:

I decided to do this race about 2 hours before the start time. I went in with pretty low/0 expectations for several reasons. My resting HR was about 4-5 beats above normal (it was at 45/46 this morning), I had 0 running for 10 days and I was coming off a foot injury.

Despite all that, I felt pretty good when the race started. I was surprised by the number of people that initially were in the front group, especially considering it began with a significant hill.

I kind of held back for a while, not really knowing how I would feel at such a high intensity. But I got into a rhythm, my foot felt fine, so I decided to try and go with it this race. Stan and I traded places back and forth for virtually the entire race until at just before mile 3 I surged pretty hard. When I came into view of the clock it ticked over to 17:40 and I just completely lost all motivation to finish hard in the last 100-150 meters. I don't know why, I've never quit on myself like that before in anything. I felt bad about it because at least 2 people passed me while I was jogging to the line (including Stan) like a big wimp. That will never happen again, I should not have slowed up like that.

Oh well...I felt pretty good and my official time of 17:50 is by no means slow on a hilly-ish course. I know I can push myself harder than this though...just need to find a way of doing it.

Splits:
1 - 5:39
2 - 11:32, 5:53!!!
3 - 17:15, 5:43
3.1 - 17:55, :39.5

Wow Mile 2, you killed my time...congratulations

I got a sweet bowl for winning my age group too.