Wow, race day is sneaking up on me! Only a few more weeks of high volume training and then it's taper time- decreasing the volume will be welcome.
August brought a few races for me as well as school schedules for the kids. The kids love their new schools and teachers- Always a plus when you move just for that purpose! My schedule called for a few olympic distance triathlons during late July & early August, but life got in the way of that. Instead I opted for a back to back sprint race which added together equaled close to OLY distance. It was a triathletes weekend dream- Friday was the Sharpshooter "men's only" tri, Saturday was the Annie Oakley "women only" tri, and Sunday was the Showman Shooter tri which was co-ed. If you participated in two you got a special finishers tee-shirt (and a few more calories burned). I did the Annie Oakley on Sat and the Showman shooter on Sunday, to my surprise I won first in my age group BOTH days! woot woot :)
The other race on my schedule in Augsust was the Rocketman Olympic Tri in Huntsville, Alabama. We opted to make a family trip out of this and take the kids to the Space Muesum on Saturday and I would do the race on Sunday. I did the race on tired legs, needless to say, after walking around all day the day before. I had a good race though, 4th in my age group. I was really happy with my bike & run feeling really strong with each of those. My swim was slow, at first I thought wow this feels good- Then I realized it felt good cause I did not push.....It. Was. Slow. I am working on pacing myself in the water.
My B race of the season was Sept 10, Nashvegas 70.3. I needed to use this race to gauge my fitness for my Ironman. It was just the boost that I needed! I cut off 20 minutes of my Cancun 70.3 time to finish 6:21. I had a steady swim, felt really strong on the bike & run to pull out a 1st in my age group! I was really pleased with my bike....especially since it was a hilly course. The song "Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden rang in my ears during the bike. I felt so good after this race, I was never sore. I took only 2 days off to recover and then starting building again. I did a 50 mile ride the next week and then a 100 mile ride Sat & 15 mile run Sun. Then Tuesday went to the doctor with a cold! Luckily I got a sinus cocktail shot and slept tons. I took 4 days off to rest & hydrate. Saturday after that, I did an easy 32 bike & Sunday an easy 6 mile run. Not the numbers I wanted to post but hey, what are ya gonna do? Lesson Learned. Recover after a race. Now, I am upping my vitamins, antioxidents, veggies, water etc.... It will do me no good to get to the start line if I'm sick. Period. Feeling weak from that cold put a little scare into me. I'm now on the building, resting , & staying healty training plan. As I should have been all along.
My numbers for August:
Swim 15miles; 10 hrs, 14 min
Bike 479 miles; 28 hours, 50 min
Run 58 miles; 9 hours, 23 min
Total August Training: 551 miles; 48 hours, 28 minutes
