Decisions.....Decisions.....

First off I would like to thank everyone that posted to my race report. Theme I need to implement "yesterday" would be POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE. Yes Bolder you are correct, I did PR on that race compared to last year, and in my age group AND overall, I did improve.

Last night was an off night. I looked at everyone's blogs, and read alot of people that headed up to Ironman Canada to race, volunteer, and more importantly get numbers for next year's race. Meagan has the ITU world championships this weekend in Switzerland, and I will be getting up just before 2am Eastern Time to watch her race for Team Canada. What, you ask why I am not cheering for team USA??? Well I do not know anyone from team USA, and I read every post that Meagan puts up on her blog since I have been blogging. Might as well root for someone!

I also had all day (through work and home) to think on my race, and what to do for the rest of the year. I think, from people I know, that is about 50% "your year is done", and about 50% "finish with one more triathlon." I think I have decided to race the Emerald Pointe Triathlon on October 8th this year. It is a Sprint Distance Tri, and right now it looks as if there are less than 200 people that have signed up (as of 8-15-06). There have only been 8 men in my age group that have signed up. I thought, "what the heck, if no one else signs up but me, at least I can be 9th place in my age group (last place!)!"

With respect to training for this event, I am beginning tonight with a ride (Sandy Springs), and I am going to attempt to blow it out of the water, since I have been on a taper for the last few weeks. I am going to change my strategy for this small training period, and do three things.

One: Mix it up a bit. I got into a routine (routine part in general is good) but I ended up doing the same thing every week, just varied my distances as well as my intensities. I am going to add in some speed workouts for running/biking, as well as some hills.

Two: Increase my distances. I think one key thing I am missing is that I am training too close to race distances. If I can increase my mileage to 150% or more of race distance then the race should theoritically be easier, since I will have trained for longer distances than the race itself.

Three: Scout and complete a couple of test runs on the actual course. Lake Lanier is not too far away from me, and I have some people who have boats/lake houses up in that area. It should not be too much trouble to get something going up there a few times before the actual event.

I've got six weeks (minus a couple of days). I improved by just less than two minutes from last year. I really want to try and improve more than two minutes, but heck, lets keep things simple. Let us see if I can beat 1 hour 20 minutes!!! I think I can shave off two minutes in the next six weeks.

Any ideas or suggestions on training tips would be great!!!! Anyone who knows about that Fartlek training, please send me some info or a link somewhere, or email me some workouts if you have done any.

Here is Sunday's workout. Actually it was pretty easy for me. I rode with Jackie, and decided this is was a recovery ride for me, so I would just stick with her. The last two miles I just went ahead and finished. I still have her aerobars on, so I used them for about 1/2-2/3's of the ride. I am going to hate giving those back, but I will have to wait until I can afford some.

BIKE
25.12 miles in 1 hour 41 minutes ?? seconds
~14.8 mph
consumed 1 GU and went through 2 bottles of water ~40 ozs

Signing off...

Murtha...