Last minute race

                     In 3 days I'll be heading out to Burley to do the Spudman Olympic distance triathlon. I titled this post as last minute because it didn't look like I would be doing the race. Although I put in for time off for this race back in December, I was told when I got back from California that my PL was cancelled because of the budget. The department has essentially run out of OT money, and my PL was going to cause OT since I was the second medic off for the day. I feverishly emailed out everyone to see about coverage, but no one responded. Finally I resorted to texted people. Still, no one could do it. Finally, I texted Ann, and asked if she could just do the second half of my shift on Friday so I could race Sat morning. Lucky for me, she is able to, so I'll be heading out Friday night to race early Sat morning. This means little sleep since I'll get into Burley ~1030 and will have to be up by ~0500 since I have the morning of registration and then the transitions set up. Spudman should be a blast. The swim is in the river and we get to have the current push us. The bike course is supposed to be fairly flat, so I'm excited to see what kind of speed I can push out. The run, I'm not to thrilled about. My leg still isn't totally healed, but it's getting way better. More on that to come later.

                 Training has been going good. I can smell the end of this first triathlon season with only 2 more races to go and about 3 weeks left. I have taken the S+C (strength and conditioning) up a notch or 2 since I've been back from California where I couldn't get much in. I've been continuing to work on my swimming which is a love/hate relationship right now. I went to the rec center for a swim today, and had absolutely no motivation to try and swim fast. I was going to do a 10x100 on the 2:00; but instead I decided to mix it up a bit and did 3 rounds of 50-100-150 with the rest being whatever my time was. That was at least a little different from recent 100's or the 500's I've been doing. I did get out to the pond last week and decided to jump into the wet suit even though it was hot as hell. This was not a good idea as I was over heating in the suit. At one point I pulled my neck open and let the water rush in to cool me off, but then I had water in my suit and it was sloshing around while I swam until I got it all worked out. But it was a good idea for the suit because I discovered a fairly large, dime - nickel size tear in my right arm. After the swim I went to Tritown and got some cement to fix that tear, and a few small ones I found on inspection.

                  The bike has been going really well for me this last 2 weeks. I've decided that I would suck it up and ride harder on the bike. Before this, I was cruising with a cadence in the mid 90's with an average speed of 18-18.5 and the pedaling was easy for the most part. But I want to go faster, and know that I am capable of going faster. So I've made the conscience decision to not worry about my cadence so much as my speed. This means that I'm in a lower gear and going harder and faster with a slower cadence. Now the trick is to work my way back up to the higher cadence on the lower gear. I've been doing good so far, and feeling really good about my rides. Yes, it's harder, but now I feel like I'm actually earning it, and I am making progress. I have also been working on getting up out of the saddle while going up hill. This is something that is totally new to me. Even before, going up hills I would get off my aero bars, but never really stand up. I know that I should be faster up hill if I can keep my speed up by getting off my saddle, if even just for 20-30 seconds while going up hill. After talking with my capt (who is a hill climbing machine) it seems like it's just mostly on feel on when to get up. I've been trying to get up on every hill now, and have noticed a difference with my speed up hill. Most notably is when I was climbing the hill that gets me over the freeway and south of town. This is my main route when I ride so I can stay away from cars and enjoy the farm scenery. I've climbed this hill dozens of times. The other day I decided to get out of my saddle. I was able to keep it in a lower gear and got out of the saddle twice. I've never seen my speed so fast going up the hill. When I first started on the bike, my speed was in the 9mph mark going up. I was over 13 the other day, and I could just feel how much quicker I was getting to the top. So with my new out of the saddle climbing, and my lower gear/higher speed, I've gone to over 19mph as my ave speed, and I feel that I'm only at the tip of the iceberg for the speed. I can't wait to see what the next couple of months bring in terms of speed if I keep this up.

               Onto the run. My right leg is still tender at times. I can go most of the day and not feel anything, but then do one thing and get the pain to remind me that it's still there. I haven't actually ran since I was at the beach in California, and that was 2 1/2 weeks ago, and even that run was a short 2.3miler. My last long run was probably 3+ weeks ago. I went to see my physical therapist, Gavin, to pick his brain about the pain. he says that it's not a soft tissue injury. There is no swelling, no decrease in the range of motion. His best thought was a possible stress fracture, but even then he wasn't sure. He put some ultra sound on my leg, and it should have made me jump through the roof, but I just layed there, so he was confused. He said to just take it easy and if it's not better in a few weeks, then get an xray. Well, it's getting better, so no xray for me. At least not yet.

               With the Spudman, I'm looking to have a good swim since I have the current to push me. I'm going to really push myself on the bike and see how far and fast I can go. For the run, I'm just going to play it by feel. I really have no expectations for the run, so whatever comes of that portion of the race is what it will be. I'm looking to just have a good time and get out there.

To finish, let me send you a music video of a band called Dead Sara, and a song that I can't get out of my head called the Weatherman. I saw them open for Bush a while back and they ROCKED. Enjoy