This is my last week of training before taper begins... whoo hoo! I put in 3 solid months of base training, 6 weeks of intermittent, half-assed training due to work and travel schedules, and now last week and this week are heads-down, "get' er done" 11 - 12-hr training weeks.
I've been a bit concerned about how well I'll be able to do given my less-than-ideal training schedule, but this past weekend I had a solid 50 mile ride followed by a 40- minute run where I felt GREAT. Total surprise. I suspect it was partly due to this:
Yep, 900 calories of Chipotle burrito right before my ride. I hadn't had a "good" long ride -- partly because my butt and shoulders do not like sitting on a bike longer than 3 hours -- but I don't think I've been taking in enough calories. Saturday was 1600 cals including my fuel on the bike, which seemed a bit high but I felt great and was still hungry afterwards. So now to figure out what to eat before my race!
My swim is starting to feel really strong. I finally got kudos from the master's coach that I've "gotten the technique down" (yay!!) and now just need to work on building strength. Tonight I went 2750 yards -- by far my longest swim as I've only been doing 2000 - 2300.
Which leaves the run... definitely the weak link. The longest I've run is 11 miles and that was pretty painful. Tomorrow's another long run and I'm hoping it feels better.
I'm in a bit of a quandary about my bike. I rented a tri bike from a shop in Kona... trouble is, I normally ride a road bike with aerobars. My instinct says that I may be more comfortable on a tri bike; my road bike has compact geometry and I can't get it into the ideal aero position. I can't get my seat up and forward enough, and my hip flexors feel crammed. That said, "never try anything new on race day." So I'm debating packing my bike as a back-up. I'd rather not deal with it, but probably better safe than sorry. Anyone had experience with this situation?
Regardless, due to my funky training schedule I've taken all the pressure off in terms of how well I'll do. I'm approaching this as a much-needed vacation, a chance to warm up (it's been freezing in SF!) and seeing how this 70.3 experiment pans out. Since I did better at Wildflower than I'd expected, I'm hoping that I'll be pleasantly surprised at Honu. I've definitely banked a lot of hours over the past 5 months and have stayed relatively injury-free.
Happy training!
That's a toughie, I'd be pretty fearful of riding anything other than my usual bike for a long distnce race. You will definitely be ready!!!
Posted by: Molly | 05/24/2011 at 09:27 AM