IMAZ - 9 weeks

Totals for the week: Swim 11,300 yards (a), Bike 159 miles (a), Run 22 miles.
(a) Furthest weekly totals ever!

Altogether, a good week of training, with a great close on Sunday!

Swim: Started out sluggish. Tues swim was ok for distance, but I seemed to have lost some zip. Worked harder on Thurs swim and finished strong with 2 mile swim in 1:18 on Sat am, about a 2:10/100 pace. Feeling pretty good about my swim again. Just need to keep working on form/technique.

Bike: Trying to push harder on my weeknight rides on my trainer. Been training in the 16's for a while. So I pushed it up to the 17's. It's doable. Don't know how this will translate to speed outside, but we will soon find out. I moved the miles from what I was supposed to do Thurs night to Sat. Not the smartest thing I have ever done, as was pointed out to me. I was supposed to bike 60m, but went 91m instead. This was after a 2m swim. I rode through Madison County (more hills) for the first 44m, then went north on the Trace (fewer hills) for the other half. I was ready to quit at 60m, but had to finish. Anyway, I finally got home at 91m, but it was ugly (15.3 mph). Have to start somewhere though.

Run: Ran easy on Wed and Fri night. Ran real well Sunday afternoon after my bike ride.

Sunday: This turned out to be one of those special days, the ones I LIVE for and keep me going. Since I swam 2m and biked 91m on Sat, I really didn't expect much at all. I met Jim and Rick for a "quick" 25m ride through Pocohontas (rolling hills). When we started, my legs were like jelly, numb and limp. But after a few minutes, I could start feeling them again and began to pick up speed. I was finally able to keep up with a couple of faster guys for a change. Either one of them could have dropped me like a hot brick if they wanted, but I was able to keep up pretty well most of the time, except for a couple of hills. Thanks for letting me ride guys! And thanks for the encouraging words!

After the bike ride, I went home for a 10m run as part of my brick workout. I normally run about a 10:00/mile pace without the hard 25m bike ride or the long Sat workout prior. So I was thinking maybe a 10:30/m pace would be good. I started out slow to let my legs loosen up. At 1m, I was at 10:05. Not bad, I thought. Then I began to feel myself picking up speed. Not good! I'll go out too fast and crash on the way in! Then I thought, this is why we train. I can't go faster until I begin to train faster. So I "let the dogs run" as they say. My cumulative average pace began to fall. Under 10:00/m. Under 9:55/m. Under 9:45/m. Wait! This is crazy! I can't hold this pace for 10m! Well, I decided to hold it as long as I could and off I went. I was feeling so good that I didn't stop at my usual water hole at 5m. I didn't want to lose my groove/rythym, so I kept going. Was feeling so good that I skipped my second water hole too. So I ended up running the full 10m at a 9:39/m pace without a single stop. This, after a hard 25m bike and a looooonnnnngg 91m bike on Sat.

This was by far, one of my best days ever! My best day was probably the Disney Tri back in Sept '06, but this was a close second! Thank you Lord! I can't explain this to be anything other than God's blessing on me this day, because I'm simply not able to go this far or this fast.

Hope I can perform this well at IMAZ! If I do, it will be a great experience!