Wow where do I start? The past seven days have been nothing short of a roller coaster ride off the side of Mount Everest. Just three days ago I thought that I had a stress fracture in my foot and my triathlon season was on hold for at least 6 weeks. I thought there was no possible chance that I'd be racing on April 4th, and that at most I'd be doing an aqua-bike race (just the swim and run of the half IM).
Now it's time to get focused again and get back into race mode. I'm a little concerned right now that my running fitness is going to suffer in the race. Since my injury (almost 5 weeks ago) I've ran less than 100 miles. When I ran at the track on Tuesday, I could feel my calf muscles getting sore and I only had ran 5 miles. They're actually still a little right now go to think of it...
I also haven't raced in what will be close to five months. Not even a 5K. So one of two thing will happen April 4th. I'll either shoot out of a cannon or I'll fizzle and fade. Besides the run, I feel like I've put in my time. I've consistently averaged between 15-20 hours per week of training since January and up until this taper I've only taken three days off from training and two of them were because I was traveling and stuck in airports most of the day.
Obviously there is a lot of uncertainty right now. My goal is to qualify for either Clearwater, Kona or both. I'll be happy with Clearwater and obviously estatic if I get a Kona spot.
Looking back at the Oceanside results in years past (since inception), here are the times of the folks that walked away with slots.
Kona - 4:23, 4:15, 4:26, 4:23, 4:36, 4:21, 4:11
Clearwater - 4:48 or faster, 4:46 or faster, 6:14 or faster
I have no doubt that I can race faster than 4:46 / 4:48, but low 4:20's? My strategy is to knock out a swim around 28 minutes, T1 should take 2-3 minutes, I need to bike a sub 2:30, 1-2 minutes for T2 and then pull out a sub 1:30 run. If you do the math using my predictions, that should give me around a 4:30. If I can go harder on the bike and still run good I should be right there in the hunt.
It's hard to imagine that minutes start to count in a 4+ hour race? If you lose focus for just five minutes, consider your chances OVER!
Po'alua...Tuesday.
47 minutes ago
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1 comments:
Chad - you'll be GREAT! You've consistently put in the time, done the work, have trained SO WELL (and smart) - there's nothing more at this point that you can do to better your performance. Don't stress too much about the numbers - I find myself doing the same things, though...similar calculations (meaning I calculate numbers, but I'm NOT as fast as that!) - the beauty of racing, though - is that you KNOW that you've got to focus...You'll do great! I just know it!
Enjoy the taper and try to relax. Ha ha - easier said than done!
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