Tri Training

In the fear of the MS150, it has kind of been lost in my mind that in a fit of insanity, I signed up for a triathlon at the beginning of May.

Up until I went for that first swim, I was most worried about the swim leg, just due to general rustiness.  But I swam again yesterday, and really, the swim is going to be no problem at all.  I swam 500 straight, twice, the first time in 11 minutes and the second time in 10 minutes.  That is basically race pace for me when I'm fully trained.  I must reiterate how absolutely stunning it is to find myself in good swim shape after such a long lay off, but there it is, I'm going to try not to look the gift horse in the mouth.

So that leaves me with 2 concerns.  The first is the bike.  I am not at all worried about the distance.  Not. At. All.  However, I need to be a bit faster.  Now I think I can be.  What I remember of the course is quite flat, and I am hoping that if I use my philosophy that won me my 5K PR all those years ago - if I use up 75 miles of biking energy in 15 miles, surely I'll be faster than when I'm riding to go far.  But I will not be clipping in this year, for the first time in a tri, so that is also a factor, since I know clipping makes me faster.  What I would really love is to find a short course somewhere where I could actually try to ride a short fast ride and gauge where I am.  Perhaps if the R2R ride gets cancelled tomorrow, I can make that happen on Sunday.

The second concern is the run.   Once again I'm not worried about the distance.  After all these years, it is amazing to say, 5K doesn't phase me.  It is hard to be scared any longer of a distance when I know the worst that happens is I walk it.  But I don't want to walk it, and I'm not well trained on the run right now.  This morning I think I averaged 14 min/mi?  Running and walking.  Sooo... I have what, 6 weeks?  And we know that a lot of that, in terms of weekends, will remain tied up in MS150 training.  However I will have a tune up 5K on April 16, BUT I need to not blow my legs for MS150 since it is only 2 days before, so I'll be running that conservatively.  What if I did two runs per week for the next few weeks, one in which I don't go 5K but I try to go faster, and the other in which I do go 5K and I try to minimize walking?  Part of the problem is I'm not getting my ass out of bed fast enough in the mornings.  I need probably 40 minutes to be comfortable with 5K... I'll work on that.  I'm not trying to go crazy here - but if I could get a 30ish minute 5K time for the tri, that would make me really happy.

So, ok, the tentative plan for the next 3 weeks (before conference and MS get thrown into the mix):
M: Run 5K
T: Swim
W: Run for speed
R: Swim
F: Run easy
S: Bike FAR
S: Off or Yoga

I can always do a morning bike on the trainer on swim days, too, since I'm swimming in the afternoon, but I don't want to lock that in - I still am wanting to be mentally flexible and am trying to be careful not to ask too much of myself.