Friday, July 17, 2009

Fresh Legs? Lessons learned?

I rolled out of bed on Thursday morning for the group ride. It was still a little dark when I left the house at 5:30AM. Already the days are getting shorter. Pretty soon the group ride will not get started until 6:00AM. My legs felt great. They were completely refreshed – and they should be – I have been off of them for 3 days.

There were just a few of us for the group ride. I started to pick the pace up early on and knew that my legs were still tired – this was disappointing. I would not be able to hang with a really fast group ride. I did, however, attack Keith and Lance a few times. Keith is in top form right now and Lance and I just had to let him go – we stayed back and had a nice medium effort ride. Keith made the comment that he had just over 100 miles on the bike last week – all I could think was that that I had that many on Sunday. We are training for different distances so I cannot argue with Keith’s training – the guy is just getting faster.

Since I was planning on a trifecta day – bike / swim / run – I rode the bike to the house and drove to work. I got in a good swim session in at lunch even though I left for the gym late – I had been planning on 12 x 250 on 4:10. In the past I have always done these intervals on 4:15 – just trying to mix it up a little bit. The swim went great but do to starting just a little late I had to cut the last interval. Even though I missed the last set I was able to easily keep up with the times that I set. The first 8 sets were all within a second or two of each other then they started to creep up. All in all I felt it was a good 2750 yard effort.

In the evening I was planning on doing some speed work out at the track. Robin was out for vacation but Lance had agreed to take the helm. Robin had left him the workout – 10 x 400’s. This would be a tough workout in the evening heat. At about 4PM I started to have some kind of strange allergy attack and the sneezing would continue until about 6 o’clock. I have suffered from some allergies since I moved to Mississippi but nothing like this – I mean, the sneezing and runny nose literally left me exhausted. It was a tough workout. I was still planning on the speed session and then, thankfully, the skies opened up and the rain started to pour. This was a true WIN / WIN – we really need the rain and I skipped the speed session.

I have been on the fence about the Heart O’Dixie race next weekend. I looked the registration page up last weekend prior to the Sunfish and the dang race had sold out. Last year I entered it the week of the race. It is a great race – a little bit of a pain because it is a point to point to point – you end up 34 miles from the start of the swim but still a great race.

Also, I am a little unsure of how a maximum effort race will fit into my ironman training plan. The race would be 5 weeks prior to IMKY and would be my last high intensity all out effort. However, I saw how my body reacted to the race last week – I got worn out. However, I actually do not think that the all out effort of the Sunfish is what got me – it was the 100+ mile bike ride and the 5 mile brick the following day that put me over the edge. Well, they have re-opened registration - so, you experienced ironmen – Let me know what you think. Should I do the race?

3 comments:

Kristin said...

It's a tough call. As a training race it would probably be great, but as an all out effort, it may affect your performance during your peak build for IMKY. I am so looking forward to those 4 huge weeks that I decided to not race at all during it. I am just focusing on the training and making the most of it. But it's a very personal choice and totally depends on your ability to recover and keep going.

Raul said...

Registration for the Heart O’Dixie Tri is open again (until Sunday). Think about it!

Missy said...

Do it ONLY if you can NOT race it. If you're like me, don't do it. I have a really hard time 'racing' as 'practice' for another event. HOWEVER, I tried it last year and just gave it a 'good effort' but not balls out in a half im (in prep for ironman) and got a PR. Sometimes, it's the mental game that gets in the way, I think. If you can do it without blowing yourself up, do it for fun and for practice - if not, stay away and stick to your race plan.