Taking Stock of March

I've had a lot of stress and problems at work this month, continuing through today big-time. However, all this considered, there were ways that March was pretty good to me.

Well, March turned out to be suspiciously similar to last September in how things went in my training, which not so coincidentally was also the month leading up to my last 70.3 tri, just like March is leading up to my late April 70.3.

I racked up 238.4 total training miles, most of them obviously on my bike (including the second highest monthly bike miles and most swimming miles I have ever done in a month), bringing me up to 486.7 total miles for the year for combined training miles. Better still, I was able to lose 6.0 miles this month, and also 8.6 pounds for the year. I was down an additional 2.2 pounds that I regained with a bad diet week last week, but I can't really complain about it considering I still made good progress overall. Hopefully the passing of the Easter season will see less temptations by easily available chocolate.

April is going to bring 2 events to me. First is the Muddy Trails 10K this coming weekend, where I expect to set a 10K PR, pending the actual trail conditions. Second will be the Lone Star 70.3 in Galveston on the last Sunday of the month, where I also expect to set a PR. Time will tell as to whether or not I can set those PRs.

March Training

It's been a busy last couple of weeks at work, which had slowed down my training recently--or more correctly, has kept me from increasing my training as much as I have wanted. I've finally gotten past the busiest weeks of my month and now will have a few weeks of relative calm. Whether it is good, bad or neither, my schedule goes into utter chaos the week and a half before the coming 70.3.

This should finally give me the chance to bring my 70.3 training up to its peak before tapering down for my April 25 date with the Lone Star Half Ironman (now called Ironman 70.3 Texas). Compared my current training to my training leading up to my last 70.3 this past October, I am ahead on my running, a bit behind on my bike training and about even on my swimming. In reality I had racked up more total training time in the months before the October event, but I also have a greater athletic base for this event as I ran 4 events in the December - February time period.

For all my efforts to train for this race, I only got around to registering for it last night. I should be grateful that it had not yet sold out, although I was watching the race director's website for any signs of an impending sellout.

Barriers

I had an awesome run this Sunday morning. My regular running partners were all no-shows to my running club, so I tried to tag along with the next slowest runners. I ended up sticking with them for the 9 mile run in 1:26:14, which seems like an inconceivable run for me (since I consider 11 minute miles to be fast)--and is probably my best run since my Marine Corps days, certainly my best long run since then. A couple times I tried to drop back, but they wouldn't let me quit and I am so glad I pushed on while they held back for me at the end when I was running on empty. There were so many awesome things for me with this run: I ran straight through except for stopping for traffic and water, I averaged the long run well below 10 minute miles, I ran 2 consecutive miles (6 & 7) below 9 minute miles and I really felt that this run was done at the closest to my maximum effort that I have been able to run in a long time.

In addition, I'm having to retire some clothes for being too big to wear--clothes that might have even once been a bit tight--and I have also been able to recover some clothes from my closet that haven't fit me for more than a few years.

While I've had a very stressful week at work, these events at home have been good for me.