Sunday, June 12, 2011

The Weakest Link

It's been a while since I last updated. I moved and unfortunately, the internet in my new building isn't quite working right. So, any tech savvy friends that want to come help are welcome :-)

Training took a back seat to moving during the first week of June. Although, I am pretty sure that the whole moving process counted as quality workouts because I'm STILL sore from it! I got into my new place and have it all set up now though so I'm back in the swing of things.

I used this weekend as a chance to see exactly where I am at. I did two races. On Saturday, I did the Burr Ridge 5K. Every year, my firm will pay the registration for any employee that wishes to participate. I took advantage of the free entry and signed up. I even placed a friendly bet with a friend. I'm not gonna lie...he's kind of a badass runner so I knew it was going to be hard. There was absolutely no way that I could beat him flat out so we had to do a minutes spread. After much Googling, I found his ridiculously fast times and after much thought and calculation, I came up with 9 minutes. If he beat me by more than 9 minutes, he won and I owed him dinner. If he beat me by less than 9 minutes, I won and he buys dinner. I don't think it could have come any closer. He beat me by 8 minutes and 45 seconds. So I WON! But let's not forget the fact he ran a 19:24 which equals 6:15 per mile!!!! That's freakishly fast. So hats off to him for a good race! My time was 28:09. This is my fastest 5K time EVER. So I was really happy with that too.

Then today I got out and did my first tri of the season. I did the Naperville SheROX Sprint Triathlon. I had never done a sprint distance and I think it went pretty well. My goal was to finish in 1:30. My official finish was 1:33:09. I can't complain about that. My swim time was 11:11, 1st transition was 3:36, bike was 45:28, 2nd transition 2:51, and the run was 30:09. So I finished off the tri with a 5K only 2 minutes slower than Saturday's straight 5K. I am EXTREMELY HAPPY with that!

I learned today, however, that the bike is where I need to focus my improvement. My swim is always going to be one of the top times. That's to be expected when you spend 17 years as a competitive swimmer. My run is always just going to be mediocre. When just running, I can hold 9 minute miles. I'm just not built to run (and hold) sub-9's. When you put the run after a swim and a bike, I am lucky to hold 10 minute miles. And regardless of how crappy I feel, I don't really every go slower than 13 minute miles (however that may be my average when we get to Ironman!) So all that is left to improve upon is my bike. I averaged about 17.5 MPH today. If I could bump up my average to even say just 20 MPH, that would shave off a significant amount of time over the course of a 112 mile ride in the Ironman. So that is where I am now placing my focus. I will keep up the swimming as usual and just maintain my level there. I will get in the running but I'm not going to kill myself with any speed work or trying to improve. My main goal now is to increase my speed while decreasing the effort on the bike. If I can cut time on the bike, it will allow me some extra time in the run when I know I am going to be hating life.

This weekend of racing was exactly what I needed to renew my motivation, though. I am a competitor at heart. I like to race. The daily grind of training isn't what excites me. It's the thrill of getting out there, racing against my competitors, fighting against my mind, and seeing what kind of time I can put in. After two successful races this weekend, my inner competitor is coming out and I'm excited again!