Mid-September Update

I've been gone a few weeks from posting.....busy with work and life and stuff like that....

For the most part my September training schedule has been plugging along nicely, actually it has been going along better than just "nicely". It has been going very well with my longest weeks and workouts since my Ironman race in May. Each of the last 6 weeks are in the top 6 weeks of workout time since May (10:25:11, 11:10:30, 11:28:08, 8:44:07, 11:38:23, 11:29:23). I knew I was in a peaking phase of training, but I had not realized to what extent I was peaking--in this case even my last recovery week made the list. I finally got around to purchasing a bike trainer and brought it and my bike along and set up my bike on the trainer in the hotel room. Perhaps most surprising to me is that I maintained this while traveling for work last week. This streak is about to come to an end as I have a pre-race recovery week coming up for this next week.

Next Sunday I have the Houston Olympic Distance Triathlon. The Olympic Distance is a 1500 meter (0.93 miles) swim, 40K (24.85 miles) bike and 10K (6.2 miles) run. My main goal for this race is to go at my maximum effort and see how I perform. My PR at this distance came last May with a time of 3:06:14. I would certainly like to beat this time, and hopefully come in under 3 hours as well; however the course design has some quirks that may hinder those goals (like a half-mile+ run from the swim to the transition area). In any case, I am going to lay it all on the line effort-wise and see what happens.

For now, let me leave you with the video from last month's Bridgeland Triathlon where I am shown at 8:38 starting to stand up in a tub of ice water--which felt really good on that very warm morning.