Limits !?!?!

I feel really good about training and being ready for my first Olympic distance race. The last 10 days have had some really great rides, runs and swims. Last Friday I went from the house to St. Edward's State Park and back through Perkins Way for about a 35 mile trip. The sun was up and it was actually hot on the day, weight loss on the day was 2.8 pounds. Remember to keep the fluids going on these hotter days!

Saturday was a AM swim for about .5 mile and then a 16 mile hilly bike ride up around Blue Ridge, legs felt pretty good even with the hard ride from the day before. On Sunday a had 12 miles to do and wanted to take it very slow. I ran steady at 1:30 less per mile slower than usual, it was actually a great feeling of just taking a run in the park.
I ave. about 8:15 per mile which is slower at that length than I’m use to, but with two really rough days before and not resting before like I would of last year, I felt really good about it.

On Tuesday I met with the group at Green Lake and had the best open water swim yet. I went out with a group of three and we did about .75 miles on a big loop course. I had a good 15 minutes of really good form and pace and feeling like I was doing little work to get a really good pay off.

Wednesday was track workout- hot and dusty, but great results. Averaged 6:05 for 4 out of 5 miles and my fourth mile was 5:57! Sweet!!! I was doing 1 miles at 5K training pace with .25 mile rest pace. This was only my 2nd track workout ever, I think I’m sold on it : )

Thursday I’d like to refer to as the day I got my ass handed to me. I went out with two other guys from the group and did a 30 mile loop course. I’m use to doing about 18-20 mph alone and about 20-22 mph with Eileen on some good stretches, but Thursday we started right out the gate at 24 mph and only stopped when we hit the hills over at West Seattle by Lincoln Park. We hit the first hill and off they went up,up,up. I was holding my own doing about 12 mph up the hills, but nothing like what I was watching in front of me, at least for as long as I could see them.

At the end of the day I didn’t feel too bad and I wasn’t shelled or dying on the bike at anytime, I was just playing way over my head, which I could handle for a 30 mile hit. The other two guys race every weekend and do stage races of 4-5 days. Peter was saying he just got back from Oregon from doing 6 days of 100-125 miles a day and some days had 4-5 thousand foot elevation gain.

What it did was show that I need to stop putting limits on what I think I can do.

Tuesdays swim was much farther than I thought I could do in open water, but I finish strong and had plenty of energy out of the water.

Wednesday showed that my running is better than I thought and getting stronger even in the last miles. I still think I run in the 7:10’s, but as per my Garmin it’s 6:15’s.
Thursdays lesson was I can push on the bike and still be alright. I need to stop putting limits on what I think I can do or handle. Can’t be happy with being complacent, complacency breeds boredom what’s the point of that?

Needless to say I scratched Fridays planned swim : ) and I had Saturday off to rest up for the Seafair half marathon that AK and I are running.

More about that later.........