The Last 28 Days

A few days after the Stevens Point Tri, I raced the second Janesville Aquathon.  The heat returned and the high was 100 for the day.  This time I actually swam the correct course (I caught a lot of crap during the pre-race meeting).  I went out hard and led the way for most of the first lap.  A friend of mine, Allison, came around and started pushing the pace.  As she came around me I took a peek back and saw that she wasn't dragging anyone with her and that we had a gap so I figured I'd let her do the work....not that I had much choice.  She's a good swimmer and was doing a relay so she had no reason to hold back.

I came out of the water just behind Allison.  I got in my shoes and decided to start the run slow and settle in and see it goes from there.  It was smoking hot and going out slow and watching HR worked in Steven's Point.  My ultimate goal was to run a sub-20 5K.  I've never gone sub-20 at an aquathon.  I don't know why, but running after swimming is really hard.

I started out at an 8 minute pace and started building.  At the first mile turn around, I got a split and saw that I had about a 30-second lead.  At the second turn around, just past mile 2, I only had 8 seconds.  That chaser was Zach, the winner of the first aquathon.  I pushed hard and dug deep.  I held him off for the win and ran a 19:59.  Even though I went out slow, I ran faster than I typically do, suffered less on the run than usual, and won my first aquathon.  There's something to this pacing thing.

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I've been busy getting ready for IMWI.  The past 28 days have been big.  I spent 6 days in MN swimming, biking and running (and watching the Olympics) every day.  I logged 34 hours of training in 6 days and ended my camp with a 5.5 hour brick - 90' swim, 120' bike @ race pace, 120' run.  The run was supposed to be at race pace, but I was too tired so it was a little slower.  Still a great workout.
 
This was my first time doing a solo training camp like this.  I learned a lot and plan to share some of that in another post later this week.

I gave myself some easy days after the camp and then got back at it.  In my final build, my focus turns toward my key workouts.  Everything else is about supporting those.  This year I tried some new things, and to be honest it was a little too much.  It looked good on paper, but in practice it was flat out exhausting.

I'm officially in my taper now so the goal is to shed this fatigue and absorb the training. This is the point where I ask myself, "did I do enough?"  When I decide the answer is yes, then I ask, "did I do too much?"  We'll find out on September 9th.

The last 28 days - 1042 miles cycling, 142 miles running, 60,570 yards (34 miles) swimming