Tri Training Diary: 8/19 - 8/26 (Week 1)

Coming off of vacation and then last week's race, I'm not gonna lie--I've been struggling to stay focused.  We did a small tri last weekend and then we went to a beer festival, and that was great, but after that, I was ready to just kick back with a beer and let life come to me.  I don't know that that's a problem, per se, but it doesn't fuel the kind of training that keeps a guy's edge in the midst of a long season.

But this is why you put yourself on a team or in a club.  Because even when you don't have your best stuff, even when you can't find your best bits of motivation, you at least still have to show up.  And when you show up, good things can still happen even when you don't have the best intentions.



Swim
I swam twice last week,  I'm not sure that either is really worth writing about, but I went 2100 yards both times.  First time out, my buddy Ben and I met for swim practice via Tri Club's regularly scheduled Wednesday practice.  I did 5 x 100 freestyle @ 1:30 to warm up and then another 10 x 100 on a moving interval--5 x 100 @ 1:30 and then 5 x 100 @ 1:25.  And then I pulled five hundred yards, warmed down, and got out.

I felt even lazier on Saturday.

• 5 x 100 @ 1:30 warm up
• 8 x 50 kick @ 1:05
• 100 easy
• 5 x 200 pull @ 2:55
• 100 warm down.  This was catch-up stroke, breathing every third.

Swimming Total: 2 x swim workouts (2100 yds, 2100 yds); 42 pts.


Bike
Rode my regular commute all five days last week.  Wasn't hard, exactly, but it did become a grind after a while.  Still, it beats the Hell out of taking the subways.

Cycling Total: 5 x commute ride (55 miles); 55 pts.


Run
To the extent that I had a goal this week, it was to run three times and feel good doing it.  So I ran Tuesday, and then Sally and I ran with the Tri Club Saturday morning, and then we did the Two Roads Shore 2 Pour 3-miler on Sunday.  I felt pretty good warming up for the race, and I was excited about running it, but then we found out that the run was over the beach in Stratford, meaning that nearly all of it was run on loose sand.  Ouch!

I wound up running just under 23:00 for the just-under-three-mile run, which isn't too bad, but to be honest, the after-party was a lot more fun than that run turned out to be.

Running Total: 2 x run; 1 x off-road race (12.3 miles total); 49.2 pts.


Looking Forward
Eh.  More like looking for motivation.

Frankly, I'll be happy when the season ends.  I plan to focus the off-season on running, and that's not less physical work per se, but it is less complicated than training all three disciplines at once.