Friday, March 28, 2008

Cary Duathlon

It's only a week later, but the Cary Duathlon already feels like it was ages ago. I think it's all due to having too much to do in too short a time. Everything just seems to go by so fast. Before I knew it, it was the night before the race and I was still recovering from a hard workout that I'd had on Wednesday. I thought about just not going, but that's not my style so I set the alarm for 6:30 and went to bed. No special preparation or anything. I went into like it was just another training day.

When I got to the race site I noticed that there were really only a handful of athletes. This was going to be a small race making it even harder to get motivated for it. The race went off at nine, starting with a 5 mile run through the Thomas Brooks Park in Cary. It was a 2-loop out and back with a couple of steap hills. Since we all went off together my efforts to stay at the front of the pack were ineffective and after about a mile I fell back to about the top 1/3. I wanted to save something in my legs so I pushed it, but not too hard. I haven't done many bricks yet this season so I didn't know what my legs could handle.

The first leg of the race went well. When I looked at my watch as I entered the transition zone I realized that I'd run a sub-8 mile for 5 miles. Oh crap, was my first thought. Had I gone out too fast? Getting on the bike felt good though and I quickly got into a rhythm and pushed out the 30 miles with little sweat, while averaging 17 mph. It was great. I passed a couple of women who had passed me on the run although I can't say that I was too optimistic about the final 5 mile run that was coming up.

My legs felt sore getting off the bike and it took me a little while to find my running legs again. I had a lot of teammates from the Elite Triangle Triathlon team cheering me on so I kept pushing myself despite the difficulty breathing and complete lack of energy. I started picking off girls one by one as quickly as I could, making it through the final loop on pure adrenaline. I had estimated about a 3:20 finish considering my shape at the time and preparation so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw 3:08 on the clock as I crossed the finish.

Great race, great day, and I met some great people! Thanks guys!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Azalea Triathlon

I know my race report for Azalea Triathlon comes a little late, but better late than never, right? Well, with a race that short there isn't too much to report unless you end up having a race like Paul with a flat and a re-start. I can't say my race was quite that eventful. I finally fet warmed up about 45 minutes into it, and finished about 15 minutes later. Overall the race went well. Good points: (1) it was over in an hour (the whole thing was shorter than the swim of my last race) and (2) it was great for gauging my speed development so far this season. I'm already looking forward to the next one!

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Sick and tired...


I had to drag myself out of bed and to work yesterday. Initially I blamed it on the fact that it was Monday. The Monday blues always hit harder after a beautiful weekend that involves little more than fitting in workouts between sleeping in late and meeting friends for a cup of coffee. It was no wonder I didn't really want to go to work.

But as the day wore on it was evident that something more was at play. My coworker had been out of the office for 3 days after having come down with the flu. No amount of caffeine or water seemed to make my headache subside and if my phone would just stop ringing I could easily curl up under my desk and fall asleep. This was definitely more than Monday blues.

It's that time of year when the viruses make their attack on already compromised immune systems. But you've got a workout in the evening - the same one that you skipped last week - so what are you going to do? It's often tough to balance work, health, life, and training. There has to be a happy medium between all of the forces at play in order to maintain overall happiness and health, which will result in a better athlete anyway.

After 5 years of balancing training and life I've come to find that you just have to get your health back before the training can continue. For those highly competitive athletes out there, I realize that it's not always easy to leave the running shoes in the closet and pick up the remote instead. But you've taken off just one workout and can hopefully fight off whatever you've got before it gets worse. Imagine if you did go out on the run and compromised your health even more. Then you end up bed-ridden with the flu. There's goes a week of training and another one will be used just to get back to where you used to be. Sometimes taking off one day is just what the doctor (or coach) ordered.