IM - 7 weeks

Totals for the week: Swim 6700 yards, bike 137m, and run 32m. Longest distance ever on the run! No injuries, but very sore quads.

Overall, a real good week of training. Went fairly easy Tues-Thurs with various workouts. The real challenge started Friday. Friday afternoon, I was intimidated by the whole weekend ahead of me, but managed to get it all done! Except the strength workouts. One day I'll get those in too. I tried not to think about the whole weekend and just focused on one workout at a time. Seemed to work. Will do same during race. Sort of like eating an elephant one bite at a time.

Fri: swam 4200 yards straight. This was my second time to swim this distance, but I knocked off about 2 minutes from last time. Swam it in about 1:30:00. I was feeling pretty good throughout the swim. Kept telling myself to slow down and pace so I would not fade at the end. Finished on a strong note. Then ran 5m after on the treadmill. No doubt about it, swimming breast stroke really taxes my legs. It was not a good run. Ran slow pace but did it anyway.

Sat: Split my bike into two separate rides. Rode 40m outside on North Trace with Becky, Jeff, Chris, and John. I pulled most of the way to River Bend and back. Jeff did some runs on his own. He's pretty fast! Way to go Jeff! By the time we got back to Craft Center, my toes were numb, so I decided to finish the day on my trainer at home. After 10m on my trainer, I was about to fall asleep so I drank a coke, which really seemed to help. Finished 72m on the trainer for 112m on the day at 16.3 mph avg. Don't know how to translate speed on a trainer versus speed outside, but it is what it is. Went to a missions meeting Sat night with the wife. I was so hungry I could have eaten a shoe! Good thing we got there late so others wouldn't see how much I ate. I couldn't eat enough! Nearly fell asleep during the talk.

Sun: Ran 17m. Felt pretty beat up afterward. I was tired all day. Took one nap in the am and another after lunch before the run. Felt ok through about 12m, then began to struggle. I was about to quit around 15-1/2m when I saw Denise and Carmen. They encouraged me to keep going so I made it the full 17m. Yea! Thanks ladies! Felt pretty beat up after and lousy Sun nite. Feeling better today, although my quads are still plenty sore.

In each event, whether swim, bike, or run, I hit these distance "walls" and feel lousy afterward. For example, my run "wall" used to be 6m, then 8m, then 10m, now it's 12m. I can run comfortably up to 12m, then start to struggle badly. Just have to keep running to push that wall out further. Same thing on the swim. My swim wall use to be 2000 yards, then 2500, then 3000, now it's 4200. On the bike, it was 15m, then 20m, now it's about 60m-80m. So not surprisingly, the more I swim, bike, and run, the better I get at each. Maybe it will all come together some day.

Seven weeks left to IMAZ! So I have about 4 more weeks of heavy stuff, followed by 3 weeks of taper, or so. Already looking forward to the taper. At this point, I feel pretty good about my swim and bike. As for the run, I'll just do the best I can to finish, learn from it, and get better for IMAZ in Nov.

Cheers...