IMAZ - 2 weeks

Totals for week: Swim 5100 yds, Bike 91m, Run 2m.

Began to rachet down the volume leading up to my race on April 13.

Took Mon, Tues, and Wed off again to recover from the previous week and weekend. I was feeling good again by Wed and could have done the Wed night workout, but skipped it instead.

Thurs, biked 30.4m in the wind tunnel, otherwise known as Highland Colony Parkway. Real Estate developers have nearly clear cut everything making a nice path for southwest winds to blow northeast, exactly the way this road is built. I had a nice workout, as motivated by my older teen. So my adrenaline helped me overcome the headwinds as I headed south. Normally, I can avg. about 17 mph or so on this stretch. So to avg. 16.1 mph today was pretty good for me. Afterward, I did a short 2m transistion run through the old hilly neighborhood. Ran a slow 10:24/m pace. I hurt my foot last Sunday on an 18m run, so I didn't want to risk reinjuring it. It came out fine though.

Fri, swam 4200 yards straight in 1:30:51, about a 2:10/100 pace. I have now swum this distance 4x and 2x in the current month. My time was about the same, but I was much stronger throughout. I swam real easy through about 2100-2500 yards and still felt good at 3000. At 3600, I inserted some intervals just to see if I could do it. It went fine and I finished strong. This was a real boost to my confidence for the swim part of the race.

Sat, I was supposed to ride 100m, but only went 60m. I rode alone on the North Trace. Did a lot of things right. Slept well Fri night. Fueled right before and during the ride. I increased my calories before the ride from 600 cal. to 1100 cal. This may have been a little high. Maybe I should have left off the Power Bar Triple Threat, about 230 calories. Upped my calories from 300 per hour to 400 per hour while on the bike. Maybe a little high, but I felt better than last time. Anyway, I purposed to ride slow today. Target pace was 15 mph, same as race pace. It was an easy ride for most of the way. In fact, north of River Bend, it got so easy that I literally propped up my chin on my right hand, as I did when riding my trainer during the winter. But when I reached the turnaround point, I realized why my ride had been fairly easy. There was a headwind coming back for the next 30m. I was at 15.2 mph at the turnaround point and at 14.9 mph when I got back to the Craft Center, where a cold Coke awaited me. It was time to turnaround and head back out for 40m more, but after thinking about it, I decided to stop and go home. I could have completed the ride or run a far way, but just felt like it was too close to race time to push so hard. Maybe this was the wrong thing to do. I don't know. But it's what I did anyway. Rested the balance of Sat.

Sun, I met a few guys at Hobie Cove to swim in the Rez. I just bought a new Orca wet suit and needed to try it out. The water was cool, but not too bad. The wet suit was great! Good thing I got the next size larger though. I don't think I could breathe in a smaller size. Although the water temp was doable, the chop was rough!!! There were a few boats out there really stirring things up. I had to stop a couple of times to stand to catch my breath. Of course, I drank some of that nasty Rez water too! Clay took off and left the other 3 of us. Matt and Matt were ahead of me, but not by too much. I just poked along doing my b/s. The return trip was much easier than heading out. Partially because the boats were gone and we were swimming with the current a little bit. My time for the half mile swim was good, about 18:45 or a 2:05/100 pace. I wasn't even trying to swim fast and this included standing up a couple of times going out. After one half mile loop, the other guys decided to call it quits, so I was done. It went well. I gained a newfound respect for the water and will DEFINITELY do some practice swims at Lake Tempe next week. After reviewing some IM videos, Lake Tempe looks pretty calm compared to the Rez today.

I'll be ok in the swim, but won't take it for granted. A 90 minute swim is still a long time in the cold water. So I must respect the water and be patient. My mantra throughout IMAZ is "Race my race and don't eat the paste!" The "don't eat the past" part comes from a blog article on Begginer Triathlete. Excellent read about NOT doing what the other guy is doing. I got caught up in keeping up with other bikers at Longhorn HIM and bonked badly on the run. So if I can manage a 1:30 swim, I will have accomplished my swim goal. I don't want to swim any faster, just swim 2.4m in 1:30 EASY. As for the bike, I plan to go slow, slow, and slow. I started out hoping to avg. 16 mph. But now that has dropped to 15 or even 14 mph on the bike. I should be able to do that. It's a 3 loop course. I should be ok on the first two loops (75m). But that 3rd loop will be a tough one. If it is as windy as it was last year, then it could be a long, long miserable day. As for the run, if I don't blow up on the bike, I think I will be ok. I now know to slow down on the run and pace myself. For the first 1-3 miles, I plan to go as slow as I can and not call it a walk, just to loosen up and get some miles down to shorten the run. At 4m I may pick it up a little. I hope to run a 5:00 marathon. Coupled with a 1:30 swim, even an 8:00 bike at 14 mph gives me a 14:30, which I would take in a heartbeat at this point! This included the T's and any stops along the way.

So there you have it! My race plan/strategy, which I'm sure will change as soon as I hear the gun go off. But hopefully, I can 1) finish, 2) finish without injury, and 3) finish strong. The operative word here is FINISH! Then I can critique it to death, take off a couple of weeks, and start getting ready for IMAZ Nov so I can improve my time.